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Show 230 DbSJ>OTISi\1 rights as inhabitants of each particular state it belonged to the state governments to settle: the Federal constitution had only to declare _what sho?l_d be their additional and supplementary nghts as Citizens and inhabitants of the confederacy. It was from this view of the work before them !hat the convention omitted to prefix to the Federal. C?nstitution any general Hill of R1ghts-an ?miSSion much complained of by those who opl?osed 1ts adoption. Slavery in the st.ates, ~nder thts VlCW_ of the subject, was a matter w1th whJCh the conventi?n \~as not called upon directly to i_ntcrferc, anc! wlu~h, Illdeed could not be directly mterfered With without expo~ing the proposed constitution to certain reJ_ection. It did, however, come before the convcntwn incidentally; and the qu?stion :vhicl~ w~ now l_mv_c to consider is, Whether, 10 deahng with It thus lllCJ· dentally, the Federal constitution has acknowledged the legal existence of slavery in any such way as to bind the confederacy. . . . The first article in the Federal constitutiOn rehed upon by those w~o maintai~ the affirma~ive on this point is that whwh determmes the ratio of r~presentation in the House of Representatives. lhat article, indeed, is frequently spoken of as though It were the areat compromise ; the fundamental conccs· sion upo~ ,vhich the constitution was based. B~1t this was not by any means the case. The great dif· Jiculty that occurred at the outset was, to reconcd~ the pretensions of the larger and the s.n~aller stat~s. The smaller states insis_ted upon that pohtiCal ~quality which they already possessed under the articles o~ confederation ; the larger states mamtamed that repre sentation in the national legislature ought to be baser on "wealth and numbers." A resolution to that e · feet as to both branches of the legislature, having been car;ied by the larger states, the smaller states threatened to quit the convention; and this result was only prevented by a concession-recommended by a c~m· mittee of one from each state, to whom the sub;ect IN AMERICA. 231 was referred, and which was finally adopted by the convention-yielding to the small states an equal rep· rcscntation in one branch of the national legislature, namely, in the Senate, in which each state, large or small, was to have two delegates. This was the great compromise : the particular ratio of representation to be adopted in the other branch was quite a subord inate matter. Yet, though subordinate, it was interesting and important. One party, headed by Gouverneur 1\iorris, wished to leave the ratio of representation in the lower house entirely to the discretion of Congress, with the avowed object of enabling the existing states to retain a political ascendency over such new states as might be admitted into the Union. But this was objected to as unjust, and it became necessary to fix upon some precise rule of distribution. 'l'here was a general agreement that this distribution should be regulated by" wealth and numbers;" numbers might easily be ascertained by a census; but how was wealth to be measured? This was a point upon which, under the existing confederation, dilliculties had already occurred. In framing the articles of confederation it had been pro· posed-on the ground that population, on the whole, was the best practicable test of wealth, and ability to pay taxes-to distribute the charges of the war, and other common expenses, among the states in proportion to their population. But the southern states had strongly objected to that arrangement, alleging that the labor of their slaves was far less productive than the labor of the same number of northern freemen; and the value of buildings and culli· vatcd lands, to be ascertained by an appraisement made by the authorities of each state, was finally adopted as the basis of taxation and pecuniary liability. But such an appraisement was found liable to great difficulties, expensc8, delays, and objections; very few states had made it; and Congress, since the peace, by a concession to the slavc~holdcrs, and an |