How did the Founding Fathers agree not to interfere with the slave trade for at least 20 years?

Answer 1

Emily, Slavery was already a touchy issue, even then. Antislavery interests would have liked to cut off the slave trade but the slave interests, both the southern states which depended on slave labor and those northern shippers who carried the slaves, wanted to continue the trade. So the framers of the constitution just said that nothing would be done about it for they pushed it safely in to the future so that somebody else would have to deal with it but they would not have to. Michael Montagne

Answer 2

The issue of abolishing slavery was put off for twenty years by Article 1, Section 9 Clause 1 which stated that the migration or importation of such persons as any of the states think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to the year 1808. "Migration and Importation" was a just a polite way of saying slavery. Apparently, even the southern states did not want to call it what it was. Further, Article 5, which permitted Amendments, prohibited any amendment that would affect that clause. So, the still contentious issue of slavery had to be deferred for twenty years or, just as with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution would not have been adopted.