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Show 22 AH'l'ICLES OF CONFEDERA'l'ION. JEFFERSON'S NOTES OF DEBATE ON CONFEDERATION. On Friday, July 12, 1777, the committee appointed to draw the Articles of Confederation reported them, and on the 22d, the house resolved themselves into a commitLee to take them into consideration. On the 30th and 31st of that month and lst of the ensuing, those articles were debated which 'determined the proportion or quota of money which each State should furnish to the common treasury, and tho manner of voting in Congress. The first of these articles was expressed, in the original draft, in these words : "AR·r. XI. All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurreu for tho common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States assembled, shall be defrayed out of a commou treasury, which shall be supplicrl by the several colonies in proportion to the number of inha 11itants of every age, sex, and quality, except Indians not pn) ing taxes, in each colony-a true account of which, distinguishing the white inhabitants, shall be triennially taken, an l transmitted to the Assembly of the U nitcd Slates.'' Mr. Chase moved that the quotas should ue fixed, not by the number of inhabitants of every condition, but by that of the "white inhabitants." lie admitted that taxation should be always in proportion to property ; that this was, in theory, the true rule ; but that, from a. variety of difficulties, it was a rule which could never be adopted in practice. The value of the property in every State could never be estimated justly and equally. Some other measures for the wealth of the State must therefore be devised, some standard referred to, which would be more simple. lie considered the number of inhabitants as a tolcrauly good criterion of property, and that thi~ might always be obtained. lie therefore thought it the best mode which we could adopt, with 011e exception only ; he observed that negroes aro property, aud as such, cannot be distingui shed from the lands ARTICLES OF CONF EDEHATION. 23 or personalties held in 1 hose States where there are few slaves; that the surplus of profit which a N orthcrn farmer is able to lay by, he in vests in cattle, hor. cs, &c., whereas a Southern farm er lays out the same surplus in slaves. 'l.'herc is no more reason, therefore, for taxing the Southern States on the farmer's head, and on his slave's head, than the Northern ones on their farmer 's beads and the heads of thci t• cattle· that the method proposed wonld therefore tax the Southern' States according to their n urn bcrs and their wealth conjnnctly, while the N orthcrn wonld be taxed on numbers only; that negroes, in fact, should not be considered as members of the State more than cattle, and that they have no more interest in it. Mr. John Adams observed, tllat the numbers of people are taken, by this Article, ns an index of the wealth of the State, and not as subjects of taxation ; that, as to this matter, it was of no consequence by what name you cal Jed your people, whether by that of j1··eemen or slaves,· that io some countries, the laboring poor ore called f1·eemen, in others they a.re called slaves, but that the difference as to the State wa imaginary only. What matters it whether a landlord I employing ten laborers on his farm, give them annually as much money as will buy them the necessaries of life, or gi-ve them those necessaries at short hand ? Tho ten laborers add as much wealth to the State, increase its exports as much, in the one case as the other. Certainly five hundred freemen produce no more profits, no greater surplus for the payment of taxes, than five hundred slaves. Therefore, the State in which are the laborers called freemen should be taxed no more than that in which arc those cul1cd slaves. Suppose, by an extraordinary operation of nature or of Jaw, one-half the laborers of a State could, in the course of one night, be transformed into slaves, would the State be made the poorer, or the less ablo to pay taxes? That the condition of the laboring poor in most countries-that of the |