Northern States. They add equally to the wealth, and, considering money as the sinew of war, to the strength of the nation. It will also be politic with regard to the Northern States, as taxation is to keep pace with representation.

"Gen. PINCKNEY moved to insert six years instead of two, as the period, computing from the first meeting of the legislature, within which the first census should be taken."

General Pinckney's motion was adopted. That of Mr. Chas. Pinckney was rejected. On the question on the whole proposition, as proportioning representation to direct taxation, and both to the white and three-fifths of the black inhabitants, and requiring a periodical census, six States voted in the affirmative, two, only, in the negative.

It is to be remarked of this debate, that the idea of proportioning representation to wealth was in the ascendant. This will account for the change of position on the part of Mr. Charles Pinckney, one of the proposers of the three-fifths ratio. It is manifest, that when you take population as the measure of wealth, that every description of population would have to be included-as well the black as the white. This explains the readiness with which the delegates from South Carolina accepted that proposition-inasmuch as that would have created a Southern preponderance in the government. But a sectional preponderance, created by whatever means, was not the object of search of a majority of the States-particularly of the State of Virginia. It appears to have been the conviction that an inequality, in favor of or against either of the parties, would doom the Union to a short existence. That a sectional domination, although it rested on superior wealth, would not reconcile either the North or the South to the grievous yoke.

"FRIDAY, July 13th.

"On motion of Mr. Randolph, the vote of Monday last, authorizing the Legislature to adjust, from time to time, the representation upon the principles of wealth and numbers of

inhabitants, was reconsidered by common consent, in order to strike out wealth and adjust the resolution to that requiring periodical revisions, according to the number of whites and three-fifths of the blacks.

"Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS opposed the alteration, as leaving still an incoherence. If negroes were to be viewed as inhabitants, and the revision was to proceed on the principle of numbers of inhabitants, they ought to be added in their entire number, and not in the proportion of three-fifths. If as property, the word wealth was right; and striking it out would produce the very inconsistency which it was meant to get rid of. The train of business and the late turn which it had taken, had led him, he said, into deep meditation on it, and he would candidly state the result. A distinction had been set up, and urged, between the Northern and Southern States. He had, hitherto, considered this doctrine as heretical. He still thought the distinction groundless. He sees, however, that it is persisted in; and the Southern gentlemen will not be satisfied unless they see the way open to their gaining a majority in the public councils. The consequence of such a transfer of power from the maritime to the interior and landed interest, will, he foresees, be such an oppression to commerce that he shall be obliged to vote for the vicious principle of equality in the second branch, in order to provide some defence for the Northern States against it. But to come more to the point, either this distinction is fictitious or real; if fictitious, let it be dismissed, and let us proceed with due confidence. If it be real, instead of attempting to blend incompatible things, let us at once take a friendly leave of each other. There can be no end of demands for security, if every particular interest is entitled to it. The Eastern States may claim it for their fishery, and for other objects, as the Southern States claim it for their peculiar objects. In this struggle between the two ends of the Union, what part ought the Middle States, in point of policy, to take? To join their Eastern brethren, according to his ideas. If the Southern States get the power in their hands, and be joined,

as they will be, with the interior country, they will inevitably bring on a war with Spain for the Mississippi. This language is already held. The interior country, having no property or interest exposed on the sea, will be little affected by such a war. He wished to know what security the Northern and Middle States will have against this danger. It has been said that North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, only, will in a little time have a majority of the people of America, they must in that case include the great interior country, and every thing was to be apprehended from their getting the power into their hands.

"Mr. BUTLER. The security the Southern States want is, that their negroes may not be taken from them, which some gentlemen within or without doors have a very great mind to do. It was not supposed that North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia would have more people than all the other States, but many more relatively to the other States, than they now have. The people and strength of America are evidently bearing southwardly and south-westwardly."

The proposition of Mr. Randolph passed, Delaware only voting against it, and Delaware was divided. Thus, after a sectional collision that equalled in violence any that we have witnessed in our day, the compromise, as originally proposed, with the single addition of a periodical census, was adopted into the Constitution. It is not too much to call that compromise, in virtue of which power was ratably distributed between the North and South, the ground-work of the whole system.

But the quarrel between the sections was not yet ended. It broke out again when representation in the Senate came to be adjusted. The delegates from the smaller States made a firm stand for their cherished principle of equality of representation in that chamber of the Legislature. Luther Martin here rose in the ascendant, but he was vigorously opposed by Mr. Madison, who struggled to apply the sectional compromise throughout the government. His speech was an able one. In it he stated five objections to the principle of State equality,

the fifth being " The perpetuity it would give to the Northern against the Southern scale, was a serious consideration. It seemed now to be pretty well understood that the real difference of interest lay, not between the large and small, but between the Northern and Southern States. The institution of slavery, and its consequences, formed the line of discrimination. There were five States on the Southern, eight on the Northern side of this line. Should a proportional representation take place, it was true, the Northern would still outnumber the other; but not in the same degree, at this time; and every day would tend towards an equilibrium." It is believed, if to the evidences contained in the debates heretofore submitted, this speech of Mr. Madison be added, that no doubt can remain on any reasonable mind as to the object of the fractional representation.

In his endeavor to extend the equilibrium to the Senate, Mr. Madison failed. But it must have been apparent to his mind, that enough had been gained already to provide for the safety of the South. The great sectional struggle was over, the distribution of federal population between the sections had been settled. That struggle had resulted to the satisfaction of the South. They, who were so wise in all things else, must have foreseen that finally power in the Senate would be according to population, and for that reason, doubtless, the Southern leaders were content to allow a temporary Northern preponderance in that branch of the Legislature. Although the smaller States talked about a withdrawal from the Convention if their demands were not complied with, it was still apparent that, disconnected as they were territorially, that no such result would follow in the event upon which they threatened to act. It is an interesting part of the history of the Constitution, to enquire by what influences the Senatorial equality was in the end produced. It was produced by the jealousy of the Northern section. It will be remembered, that in the outset the larger States of the North co-operated with the slave section against the equality claimed throughout

the government by the lesser States. But this alliance did not last long. It gave rise to sectional jealousies. After the fractional representation had been agreed upon, it appears to have been apprehended by some that it would result in creating a Southern preponderance in the government. As had been intimated by Mr. Gouverneur Morris, the large States of the North wheeled into line with the small States, and carried the principle of Senatorial equality, "to provide some defence for the Northern States against" the evils which were apprehended from the government being put under Southern control. This is revealed not only by the debates above cited, but also by a note appended by Mr. Madison.

CHAPTER III.

There is nothing more unlike than analogy, and nothing more apt to mislead.-MANSFIELD.

They commit the whole to the mercy of untried speculations; they abandon the dearest interests of the public to those loose theories, to which none of them would choose to trust the slightest of his private concerns.-BURKE.

When the ratio of three-fifths was proposed by Wilson and Pinckney as a mode of dividing political power between the North and South in even proportions, it was stated to have been selected because that ratio had been proposed by Congress as a measure of taxation. It is a necessary inference that it was believed that it would be productive of an equal distribution of the burdens of government between those sections. But we are not left to surmise, for Mr. Gorham explicitly stated that it had been devised by Congress because it would result in giving that "proportion" of taxes.

As soon as the North and South, in the Convention of 1776, undertook to construct a federal government, the question of slavery presented itself at the threshold-but it presented