Why was "the silence" important and what did it say about the early republic?

In Chapter Three, Ellis discusses the long-standing silence that the government observed over the slavery question. Ellis utilizes the lenses of both foresight and hindsight to examine the failure of Congress to suitably address this issue. Ultimately, he presents Congress as unable to act in any notable way. Congress was being tested at both the private and public levels, and it utterly failed the populace by refusing to either broker a compromise or acknowledge the extent of that compromise's impossibility.