as to adapt the condition of society to the new interest of representation and influence in the general government. This plan was, therefore, out of the question.

It was nearly as impracticable, also, to confine the basis of representation to the white inhabitants of the States. Some of the States Some of the States- such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and Pennsylvania, in which slavery was already, or was ultimately to become, extinct, and Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia, where slavery was likely to remain — had large numbers of free blacks. These inhabitants, who were regarded as citizens in some of the States, but not in others, were in all a part of their populations, contributing to swell the aggregate of the numbers and wealth of the State, and thus to raise it in the scale of relative rank. Their personal consequence, or social rank, was a thing too remote for special inquiry. A State that contained five or ten thousand of these inhabitants might well say, that, although of a distinct race, they formed an aggregate portion of its free population, too large to be omitted without opening the door to inquiries into the condition and importance of other classes of its free inhabitants. This was the situation of all the Northern States except New Hampshire, as well as of all the Middle and Southern States; and it was especially true of Virginia, which had nearly twice as many free colored persons as any other State in the Union.

It was equally impracticable to form a national

2

government in which the basis of representation should be confined to the free inhabitants of the States. The five States of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, including their slaves, were found by the first census, taken three years after the formation of the Constitution, to contain a fraction less than one half of the whole population of the Union. In three of those States the slaves were a little less than half, and in two of them they were more than half, as numerous as the whites. There was no good reason, therefore, except the theoretical one that a slave can have no actual voice in government, and consequently does not need to be represented, why a class of States containing nearly half of the whole population of the confederacy should consent to exclude such large masses of their populations from the basis of representation, and thereby give to the free inhabitants of each of the other eight States a relatively larger share of legislative power than would fall to the free inhabitants of the States thus situated. The objection arising from the political and social condition of the slaves would have had great weight, and indeed ought to have been decisive of the question, if the object had been to efface the boundaries of the States, and to form a purely consolidated republic. But this purpose, if ever entertained at all,

1 They contained 1,793,407 inhabitants; the other eight States had 1,845,595 when the federal census of 1790 was taken.

2 See the census of 1790, post,

p. 55.

could not be followed by the framers of the Constitution. They found it indispensable to leave the States still in possession of their distinct political organizations, and of all the sovereignty not necessary to be conferred on the central power, which they were endeavoring to create by bringing the free people of these several communities into some national relations with each other. It became necessary, therefore, to regard the peculiar social condition of each of the States, and to construct a system of representation that would place the free inhabitants of each distinct State upon as near a footing of political equality with the free inhabitants of the other States as might, under such circumstances, be practicable. This could only be done by treating the slaves as an integral part of the population of the States in which they were found, and by assuming the population of the States as the true basis of their relative representation.

It was upon this idea of treating the slaves as inhabitants, and not as chattels, or property, that the original decision was made in the committee of the whole, by which it was at first determined to include them.' Having decided that there ought to be an equitable ratio of representation, the commit

1 The population of the States was adopted in the committee of the whole, instead of their quotas of contribution, which, in one or another form, was the alternative proposition. The slaves were included, in a proportion accounted

for in the text, as a part of the aggregate population; and it was not until a subsequent stage of the proceedings that this result was defended on the ground of their forming part of the aggregate wealth of the State.

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tee went on to declare that the basis of representation ought to include the whole number of white and other free citizens and inhabitants, of every age, sex, and condition, including those bound to servitude for a term of years; and they then added to the population thus described three fifths of all other persons not comprehended in that description, except Indians not paying taxes. The proportion of

three fifths was borrowed from a rule which had obtained the sanction of nine States in Congress, in the year 1783, when it was proposed to change the basis of contribution by the States to the expenses of the Union from property to population. At that time, the slaveholding States had consented that three fifths of their slaves should be counted in the census which was to fix the amount of their contributions; and they now asked that, in the apportionment of representatives, these persons might still be regarded as inhabitants of the State, in the same ratio. The rule was adopted in the committee, with the dissent of only two States, New Jersey and Delaware; but on the original question of substituting an equitable ratio of representation for the equality of suffrage that prevailed under the Confederation, New York united with New Jersey and Delaware in the opposition, and the vote of Maryland was divided.

The next step was to settle the rule of suffrage in the Senate; and although it was earnestly contended

1 Ante, Vol. I. Book II. ch. III. p. 213, note 2, where the origin

of the proportion of three fifths is explained.

that the smaller States would never agree to any other principle than an equality of votes in that body,' it was determined in the committee, by a vote of six States against five, that the ratio of representation should be the same as in the first branch.2

Thus it appears that originally a majority of the States were in favor of a numerical representation in both branches. The three States of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, the leading States in population, and with them North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, found it at present for their interest to adopt this basis for both houses of the national legislature. It was a consequence of the principle of numerical representation, that the slaves should be included; and it does not appear that at this time any delegate from a Northern State interposed any objection, except Mr. Gerry of Massachusetts, who regarded the slaves as property," and said that the cattle and horses of the North might as well be included. But the State which he represented was at this time pressing for the rights of population, and for a system in which population should have its due influence; and her vote, as well as that of Pennsylvania, was accordingly given for the principle which involved an admission of the slaves into the basis of representation, and for the proportion which the slave States were willing to take.

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Carolina, Georgia, ay, 6; Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, no, 5. Elliot, V. 182.