DiogenesLamp: "A silly point.
Article IV, section 2 is clearly referring to slaves.
Also the authorization of Congress to ban the slave trade in 1808 uses euphemisms, but it is absolutely referring to slaves."
Naw, my point is not at all silly, and the fact that you refuse to recognize its importance tells us something about your own thinking.
The important point here is that our Founders went to great lengths to not just avoid words like "slave", they also tried to obscure slave references under language a casual reader might well not even understand.
Why?
Especially considering that 1861 secessionists had no problems with inserting words like "slave" when that's what they meant, why didn't our Founders?
The non-trivial, non-silly reasons are as obvious as they are important -- it's because our Founders well understood that slavery was both wrong and disgraceful, and so could not be called by its real name, but instead had to be referred to indirectly and euphemistically.
To our Founders, "slavery" was a "bad word", similar to a curse-word, or pornographic, and as such must not be used in their politest of documents.
So, to our Founders, 1861 Fire Eating Secessionists' use of words like "slave" in their Montgomery constitution, would be the equivalent of full-frontal nudity exposed.
Now, try to unsee that! 😂