In 1783 Maryland passed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves, and in 1786 North Carolina drastically increased the duty on the importation of slaves, thereby severely reducing the flow. The Federal Government finally took action to terminate the slave trade in 1807, but a vigorous, illegal trade continued until the Civil War. The first sectional conflict over slavery had taken place at the Constitutional Convention. Those Northerners who had hoped to see slavery abolished by this new constitution were quick to realize that such a document would never be approved by the South. Most of the antislavery forces concluded that it was necessary to put the Union above abolition. While the Constitution did not specifically mention slavery, it did legally recognize the institution in three places. First, there was a heated debate over the means of calculating representation to the House. Southern spokesmen wanted as many delegates as possible and preferred that slaves be counted. Northerners, wanting to restrict Southern representation, insisted that slaves not be counted. Some of them pointed out that it was an insult to whites to be put on an equal footing with slaves. The compromise which was framed in Article I, Section 2, was that a slave should be counted as three-fifths of a man. Second, the antislavery elements tried to make their stand at the convention by attacking the slave trade. However, while many Southern states were opposed to the trade, the issue became entangled in power politics. South Carolina, which had few slaves, believed that the termination of the slave trade would force up the price of slaves and place her at a severe disadvantage in comparison with Virginia which already had a large slave supply. It argued that Virginia would be artificially enriched to the disadvantage of the other Southern states. The states of the North and middle South were again forced to compromise, and, in Article II, Section 9, they agreed that the trade would be permitted to continue for another twenty years. The third capitulation occurred in Article IV, Section 2, which as the Fugitive Slave Provision. It stated that a slave who ran away and reached a free state, did not thereby obtain his freedom. Instead, that state was required, at the master's request, to seize and return him.