be virtually represented, and its owners obtain a like power in legislation, and in the choice of the President?  Property is not confined in slaves, but exists in houses, stores, ships, capital in trade, and manufactures.  To secure to the owners of property in slaves greater political power than is allowed to the owners of other and equivalent property, seems to be contrary to our theory of the equality of personal rights, inasmuch as the citizens of some States thereby become entitled to other and greater political power than the citizens of other States.  The present House of Representatives consist of one hundred and eighty-one members, which are apportioned among the States in a ratio of one representative for every thirty-five thousand federal members, which are ascertained by adding to the whole number of free persons, three-fifths of the slaves.  According to the last census, the whole number of slaves within the United was 1,191,364, which entitles the States possessing the same to twenty representatives, and twenty presidential electors more than they would be entitled to, were the slaves excluded.  By the last census, Virginia contained 582,104 free persons, and 392,518 slaves.  In any of the States where slavery is excluded, 582,104 free persons would be entitled to elect only sixteen representatives, while in Virginia, 582,104 free persons, by the addition of three-fifths of her slaves, become entitled to elect, and do in fact elect, twenty-three representatives, being seven additional ones on account of her slaves.  Thus, while 35,000 free persons are requisite to elect one representative in a State where slavery is prohibited, 25,559 free persons in Virginia may and do elect a representative:  so that five free persons in Virginia have as much power in the choice of Representatives to Congress, and in the appointment of presidential electors, as seven free persons in any of the States in which slavery does not exist.

This inequality in the apportionment of representatives was not misunderstood at the adoption of the Constitution, but no one anticipated the fact that the whole of the revenue of the United States would be derived from indirect taxes (which cannot be supposed to spread themselves over the several States according to the rule for the apportionment of direct taxes), but it was believed that a part of the contribution to the common treasury would be apportioned among the States by the rule for the apportionment of representatives.  The States in which slavery is prohibited, ultimately, though with reluctance, acquiesced in the disproportionate number of representatives and electors that was secured to the slaveholding States.  The concession was, at the time, believed to be a great one, and has proved to have been the greatest which was made to secure the adoption of the Constitution.

Great, however, as this concession was, it was definite, and its full extent was comprehended.  It was a settlement between the original thirteen States.  The considerations arising out of their actual condition, their past connection, and the obligation which all felt to promote a reformation in the Federal Government, were peculiar to the time and to the parties, and are not applicable to the new States, which Congress may now be willing to admit into the Union.