Slavery or Slave Trade

Until the 13th Amendment the words slave and slavery did not appear in the Constitution. The expression migration or importation of such persons could only refer to people coming of their own will or against their will, a euphemism to mean slave without saying slave. The only conclusion we can arrive at is that some of the participants of the Constitutional Convention were intent on preserving a practice so abhorrent that they couldn’t bring themselves to call it by its name.