as abject as that of slaves.  It is the number of laborers which produces the surplus for taxation; and numbers, therefore, indiscriminately, are the fair index of wealth.  That it is the use of the word “property” here, and its application to some of the people of the State, which produces the fallacy.  How does the Southern farmer procure slaves?  Either by importation or by purchase from his neighbor.  If he imports a slave, he adds one to the number of laborers in his country, and proportionably to its profits and abilities to pay taxes; if he buys from his neighbor, it is only a transfer of a laborer from one firm to another, which does not change the annual produce of the State, and therefore should not change its tax; that if a Northern farmer works ten laborers on his farm, he can, it is true, invest the surplus of ten men’s labor in cattle; but so may the Southern farmer working ten slaves.  That a State of one hundred thousand freemen can maintain no more cattle than one of one hundred thousand slaves; therefore they have no more of that kind of property.  That a slave may, indeed, from the custom of speech, be more properly called the wealth of his master, than the free laborer might be called the wealth of his employer:  but as to the State, both were equally its wealth, and should therefore equally add to the quota of its tax.

Mr. Harrison (of Virginia) proposed, as a compromise, that two slaves should be counted as one freeman.  He affirmed that slaves did not do as much work as freemen, and doubted if two affected more than one.  That this was proved by the price of labor, the hire of a laborer in the Southern colonies being from L9 to L12, while in the Northern it was generally L24.

Mr. Wilson (of Pennsylvania) said, that if this amendment should take place, the Southern colonies would have all the benefit of slaves, whilst the Northern ones would bear the burthen.  That slaves increase the profits of a State, which the Southern States mean to take to themselves; that they also increase the burthen of defence, which would of course fall so much the heavier on the Northern; that slaves occupy the places of freemen and eat their food.  Dismiss your slaves, and freemen will take their places.  It is our duty to lay every discouragement on the importation of slaves; but this amendment would give thee jus trium liberorum to him who would import slaves.  That other kinds of property were pretty equally distributed through all the colonies:  there were as many cattle, horses, and sheep, in the North as the South, and South as the North; but not so as to slaves:  that experience has shown that those colonies have been always able to pay most, which have the most inhabitants, whether they be black or white; and the practice of the Southern colonies has always been to make every farmer pay poll taxes upon all his laborers, whether they be black or white.  He acknowledged indeed that freemen worked the most; but they consume the most also.  They do not produce