Could it be reasonably expected, that the Southern States would concur in a system, which considered their slaves in some degree as men, when burdens were to be imposed, but refused to consider them in the same light, when advantages were to be conferred?

Might not some surprise also be expressed, that those who reproach the Southern States with the barbarous policy of considering as property a part of their human brethren, should themselves contend, that the government to which all the States are to be parties, ought to consider this unfortunate race more completely in the unnatural light of property, than the very laws of which they complain?

It may be replied, perhaps, that slaves are not included in the estimate of representatives in any of the States possessing them.  They neither vote themselves, nor increase the votes of their masters.  Upon what principle, then, ought they to be taken into the Federal estimate of representation?  In rejecting them altogether, the Constitution would, in this respect, have followed the very laws which have been appealed to the proper guide.

This objection is repelled by a single observation.  It is a fundamental principle of the proposed Constitution, that as the aggregate number of representatives allotted to the several States is to be determined by a Federal rule, founded on the aggregate number of inhabitants; so, the right of choosing this allotted number in each State, is to be exercised by such part of the inhabitants, as the State itself may designate.  The qualifications on which the right of suffrage depends, are not perhaps the same in any two States.  In some of the States the difference is very material.  In every State, a certain proportion of inhabitants are deprived of this right by the Constitution of the State, who will be included in the census by which the Federal Constitution apportions the representatives.  In this point of view, the Southern States might retort the complaint, by insisting, that the principle laid down by the convention required that no regard should be had to the policy of particular States towards their own inhabitants; and consequently, that the slaves, as inhabitants, should have been admitted into the census according to their full number, in like manner with other inhabitants, who, by the policy of other States, are not admitted to all the rights of citizens.  A rigorous adherence, however, to this principle is waived by those who would be gainers by it.  All that they ask, is that equal moderation be shown on the other side.  Let the case of the slaves be considered, as it is in truth, a peculiar one.  Let the compromising expedient of the Constitution be mutually adopted, which regards them as inhabitants, but as debased by servitude below the equal level of free inhabitants, which regards the slave as divested of two-fifths of the man.

DEBATES IN FIRST CONGRESS.