tance, and agreed that five slaves should count only as three free negroes. Therefore, instead of 105 representatives in Congress, we have only 91."*

If, indeed, the Constitution is to be regarded in the light of a compact between two nations, it is impossible to say that it was just and right that the South should have a full representation of her slaves, without first ascertaining what effect that would have upon the distribution of the powers of government between the parties. If the effect of a full representation of slaves would place the government under the dominion of the South, the slave power, who can say that there is any principle of natural justice that would have required the North to agree to any such stipulation? If their total or partial exclusion would have produced the contrary effect, and placed the South under the control of the free-soil power, as little could be said in defence of such an arrangement. Each party was entitled to a safe representation in the government, which could result alone from introducing the principle of equality in the division of power; for in nature, as it is in the court of chancery, equality is equity. The idea that the partial exclusion of slaves from the representative basis was due to their moral and legal inferiority is wholly unfounded, as will hereafter be proved, although that doctrine is inculcated by the respectable authority of the Federalist. The Southern delegates in the Federal Convention will likewise, in the progress of this narrative, be vindicated from the insinuated charge of having submitted to Northern exorbitance; but the integrity of their motives will be vindicated at the expense of their political sagacity.

The sectional line between the North and South was almost as deeply drawn in 1787, as it is at the present time. This will be clearly exhibited by an inspection of that part of the debates of the Convention now about to pass under review. It contradicts the notion entertained by some, that this sectional

* The Union, Past and Future, p. 1, 2.

antagonism is of recent growth and consequently that the Constitution of the United States was not made with reference to it. The States to the northward of Virginia and Maryland were either already free States or were preparing to become so, and it was apparent to every one that they would soon consummate their intention. The Northern delegates in the Convention of 1787, all acted in the free-soil interest, and the delegates from the South were unanimous in the defence of the interests of slavery. To reconcile that difference constituted the chief labor of the Convention. The year following, in the South Carolina Convention of ratification, Gen. Pinckney said:

"But striking as this difference is, it is not to be compared to the the difference that there is between the inhabitants of the Northern and Southern States; when I say Southern, I mean Maryland, and the States southward of her. There we may truly observe that nature has drawn as strong marks of distinction in the habits and manners of the people, as she has in her climates and productions. The Southern citizen beholds. with a kind of surprise the simple manners of the East, and is too often induced to entertain undeserved opinions of the purity of the Quaker, while they, in their turn, seem concerned at what they term the extravagance and dissipation of their Southern friends, and reprobate, as an unpardonable moral and political evil, the dominion they hold over a part of the human race." Elliot's Debates, vol. iv, p. 310.

This feeling, which existed to so great a degree among the people in the two sections, was ever showing itself in Congress whenever the interests or power of either was involved. The Northern members objected to the admission of Kentucky into the Union, the Southern States objected to the admission of Vermont. That fraternal love which many have supposed to have existed at that period between the North and South, is purely imaginary; instead, a strong and deep-rooted antagonism characterized them both. Already had any affiliation between a Northern member of Congress and the Southern members been

put under the ban of the North. General Sullivan thus writes to Washington: "The choice of minister of war was postponed to the first of October. This was a manœuvre of Samuel Adams and others from the North, fearing that, as I was in nomination, the choice would fall on me, who having apostatized from the true New England faith, by sometimes voting with the Southern States, am not eligible.”

CHAPTER II.

FEDERAL CONVENTION.

Man, as the minister and interpreter of Nature, does and understands as much as his observations on the order of nature, either with regard to things or the mind, permit him, and neither knows nor is capable of more.

The subtlety of nature is far beyond that of sense or of the understanding: so that the specious meditations, speculations and theories of mankind, are but a kind of insanity, only there is no one to stand by and observe it.-NovUM ORGANON.

The wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff, and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit.-ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.

When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you invariably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views.-DR. FRANKLIN.

On Friday, the 25th May, 1787, the Convention, professedly to reform, but as it proved to reconstruct, the Constitution, began its sessions at Philadelphia, and adjourned to the 17th September following, having been engaged in their arduous task something over three months. It was composed, for the most part, of the men under whose courageous counsels the country had passed through the travail of the Revolution; they had all taken part in public affairs, either on the theatre of State or Federal politics, and had brought with them much

of that knowledge which is acquired only in the school of experience.

The question of Representation chiefly engaged the attention, excited the animosities, and consumed the time of that great synod. Other parts of the Constitution were more readily agreed upon. Nor is this surprising; for the experience of the country had been instructive. It had satisfied every mind that the government of the confederacy was in some particulars defective; and had indicated those in which it needed reform. The consultation in consequence began with a number of conclusions which needed not the aid of argument. Had the Convention confined itself to reforms of this nature, the work would have been rapidly dispatched; but they undertook to re-cast the Constitution and to alter its frame, and this attempt produced new questions of the first moment to the country, and violent agitations which threatened on more than one occasion to dissolve the body.*

So soon as it was determined by the Convention to create a government of great powers, it is not wonderful that the adjustment of the question of representation should have been found to be attended with such difficulty and delay. Upon it depended the question of empire-what should be the relation which the two great sections, the North and South, were to occupy to the central power.

There are those who look back upon the Convention with a romantic eye, and regard the able men of whom it was composed as beings of a superior order, devising, under the enlightened influence of reason and justice, political institutions for themselves and their posterity. But this is only the idolatry of admiration. If we draw near, and through the medium by

* Luther Martin, in his address to the Maryland Legislature, says, with respect to the animosities engendered by the slavery discussion in the Convention: "I believe near a fortnight, perhaps more, was spent in the discussion of this business, during which we were on the verge of dissolution, scarce held together by a hair, though the public papers were announcing our extreme unanimity."

which it has reached us, attend to the grave debate, it will be discovered that they were men struggling, sometimes fiercely and sometimes unfairly, for particular objects and particular opinions which they wished the government to subserve and embody. The marvel is, not that jealousies and irritations. should have arisen, but that they could have been composed. The business of the Convention was opened by Edmund Randolph, one of the delegates from Virginia, "a child of the Revolution," as on a subsequent occasion he styled himself. After giving an outline of the system which he wished to be adopted, he submitted a plan of government, which was taken as a basis on which to begin work. Mr. Charles Pinckney, a delegate from South Carolina, also submitted a plan of government, which is remarkable for the near resemblance which it bears to the Constitution, not only in phraseology, but in substance. These plans no otherwise concern us here except on account of the different bases of representation which they contained. That of Mr. Randolph provided: "That the right of suffrage in the National Legislature ought to be proportioned to the quotas of contribution, or the number of free inhabitants, as the one or the other rule may seem best in different cases." But Mr. Pinckney proposed to proportion representation in Congress according to the number of inhabitants taken in the gross. These two propositions respectively contain the extreme pretensions of the two sections. It will be discovered, in the course of this narration, what alterations. each was in the end subjected to, and what expedient was resorted to, to bring these rival and jealous parties together. Of the first proposition it may be remarked, that it was at best but an ill-digested and double-headed project, and contained conclusive proof that its projector had not very maturely, certainly not very profoundly, considered the weighty question. It rested on alternatives which were based on opposite principles. If the first were adopted, and wealth or contribution made the measure of power, the government, in all its depart