population might serve as an index of wealth. A state with 500,000 inhabitants would be in most cases richer than one with 400,000. In those days, when cities were few and small, this was approximately true. In our day it is not at all true. A state with large commercial and manufacturing cities is sure to be much richer than a state in which the population is chiefly rural. The population of Massachusetts is somewhat smaller than that of Indiana; but her aggregate wealth is more than double that of Indiana. Disparities like this, which do not trouble us to-day, would have troubled the Federal Convention. We no longer think it desirable to give political representation to wealth, or to anything but persons. We have become thoroughly democratic, but our greatgrandfathers had not. To them it seemed quite essential that wealth should be represented as well as persons; but they got over the main difficulty easily, because under the economic conditions of that time population could serve roughly as an index to wealth, and it was much easier to count noses than to assess the value of farms and stock.

But now there was in all the southern states, and in most of the northern, a peculiar species. of collective existence, which might be described either as wealth or as population. As human beings the slaves might be described as pop

ulation; but in the eye of the law they were chattels. In the northern states slavery was Were slaves rapidly disappearing, and the property

to be reck

oned as per

sons or as

chattels ?

in negroes was so small as to be hardly worth considering; while south of Mason and Dixon's line this peculiar kind of property was the chief wealth of the states. But clearly, in apportioning representation, in sharing political power in the federal assembly, the same rule should have been applied impartially to all the states. At this point, Pierce Butler and Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina insisted that slaves were part of the population, and as such must be counted in ascertaining the basis of representation. A fierce and complicated dispute ensued. The South Carolina proposal suggested a uniform rule, but it was one that would scarcely alter the political weight of the north, while it would vastly increase the weight of the south; and it would increase it most in just the quarter where slavery was most deeply rooted. The power of South Carolina, as a member of the Union, would be doubled by such a measure. Hence the northern delegates maintained that slaves, as chattels, ought no more to be reckoned as part of the population than houses or ships. "Has a man in Virginia," exclaimed Paterson, "a number of votes in proportion to the number of his slaves? And if negroes are not re

presented in the states to which they belong, why should they be represented in the general government? . . . If a meeting of the people were to take place in a slave state, would the slaves vote? They would not. Why then should they be represented in a federal government?" "I can "I can never agree," said Gouverneur Morris, "to give such encouragement to the slave-trade as would be given by allowing the southern states a representation for their negroes. . . . I would sooner submit myself to a tax for paying for all the negroes in the United States than saddle posterity with such a constitution."

The attitude taken by Virginia was that of peacemaker. On the one hand, such men as Washington, Madison, and Mason, who were earnestly hoping to see their own state soon freed from the curse of slavery, could not fail to perceive that if Virginia were to gain an increase of political weight from the existence of that institution, the difficulty of getting the state legislature to abolish it would be enhanced. But, on the other hand, they saw that South Carolina was inexorable, and that her refusal to adopt the Constitution for this reason would certainly carry Georgia with her, and probably North Carolina also. Even had South Carolina alone been involved, it was not simply a question of forming a Union which should.

either include her or leave her out in the cold. The case was much more complicated than that. It was really doubtful if, without the cordial assistance of South Carolina, a Union could be formed at all. A Federal Constitution had not only to be framed, but it had to be presented to the thirteen states for adoption. It was by no means clear that enough states would ratify it to enable the experiment of the new government to go into operation. New York and Rhode Island were known to be bitterly opposed to it; Massachusetts could not be counted on as sure; to add South Carolina to this list would be to endanger everything. The event justified this caution. We shall hereafter see that it was absolutely necessary to satisfy South Carolina, and that but for her ratification, coming just at the moment when it did, the work of the Federal Convention would probably have been done in vain. It was a clear perception of the wonderful complication of interests involved in the final appeal to the people that induced the Virginia statesmen to take the lead in a compromise. Four years before, in 1783, when Congress was endeavouring to apportion the quotas of revenue to be required of the several states, a similar dispute had arisen. If taxation were to be distributed according to population, it made a great difference whether slaves were to be counted as population or not. or not. If slaves

were to be counted, the southern states would have to pay more than their equitable share into the federal treasury; if slaves were not to be counted, it was argued at the north that they would be paying less than their equitable share. Consequently at that time the north. had been inclined to maintain that the slaves were population, while the south had preferred to regard them as chattels. Thus we see that in politics, as well as in algebra, it makes all the difference in the world whether you start with plus or with minus. On that occasion Madison had offered a successful compromise, in which a slave figured as three fifths The three of a freeman; and Rutledge of South fifths.comCarolina, who was now present in the convention, had supported the measure. Madison now proposed the same method of getting over the difficulty about representation, and his compromise was adopted. It was agreed that in counting population, whether for direct taxation or for representation in the lower house of Congress, five slaves should be reckoned as three individuals.

promise; a genuine

English

solution, if

ever there

was one

All this was thoroughly illogical, of course; it left the question whether slaves are population or chattels for theorizers to wrangle over, and for future events to decide. It was easy for James Wilson to show that there was neither