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At the time of the U.S. Constitution, most of the country had slavery.

As a result of this gradualist approach, New York did not fully free its last ex-slaves until 1827, Rhode Island had seven slaves still listed in the 1840 census. Pennsylvania's last ex-slaves were freed in 1847, Connecticut's in 1848, and New Hampshire and New Jersey in 1865.

BTW, states with the most slaves wanted them to count as a whole person (not 3/5's), just as non-voting women and children did for purposes of representation. The northerners (with fewer slaves at the time) wanted slaves to count for ZERO. They settled on 3/5's.

Lots of horse-trading here, but it would be more accurate to characterize it as an agrarian versus trade dispute rather than slave versus non-slave.