Constitution required the return of escaped slaves, similarly to that in the US Constitution. It differed by specifying who shall return the slaves ("the executive authority" of the state) and adding a requirement of financial compensation equal to the "value of the slave and all costs and expenses" in the case of "abduction or rescue" of the fugitive slave. Unlike the US Constitution, the Confederate Provisional Constitution dispensed with the euphemistic phraseology of "other persons," "such persons," and "Person held to Service or Labour in one State" and forthrightly referred to them as "slaves" and "negroes." Slavery would be additionally addressed in the Permanent Constitution. In addition to outlawing the slave trade and requiring the return of fugitive slaves, the Permanent Constitution omitted the requirement of financial compensation for slaves abducted or rescued or the specification that the states "executive authority" was responsible for the return, prevented Congress from passing any law "denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves;" guaranteed the right of "transit and sojourn... with their slaves and other property;" required any Confederate territory to allow "the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States"; and restored the Three-Fifths Clause for allocating representatives and direct taxes. Interpretations In his inaugural address, President Jefferson Davis said: "We have changed the constituent parts but not the system of government. The Constitution framed by our fathers is that of these Confederate States." It differed "only from that of our fathers insofar as it is explanatory of their well-known intent...." Some scholars agree with Davis that the Provisional Constitution sought to clarify many of the ambiguities of the US Constitution. The language of the former leads most historians to view the Provisional Constitution as emphasizing federalism over a consolidated, centralized federal government. For instance, in its preamble, "We the people" was replaced with "We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States,...." Words such as "delegated" and "expressly granted" were also used to de-emphasize the power of the federal government and to underscore that the Confederacy was a league of states rather than a single homogeneity: the sovereign power resided within a framework that was "bottom-up," not "top-down." Signers The signers and the states they represented were: Howell Cobb, President of the Congress South Carolina: R. Barnwell Rhett, R. W. Barnwell, James Chesnut, Jr., C. G. Memminger, Wm. Porcher Miles, Laurence M. Keitt, William W.