Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/123

 CHAPTER IV.

slave representation was admitted into the Constitution of the United States, a wedge was introduced, which has ever since effectually sundered the sympathies and interests of different portions of the country. By this step, the slave States acquired an undue advantage, which they have maintained with anxious jealousy, and in which the free States have never perfectly acquiesced. The latter would probably never have made the concession, so contrary to their principles, and the express provisions of their State constitutions, if powerful motives had not been offered by the South. These consisted, first, in taking upon themselves a proportion of direct taxes, increased in the same ratio as their representation was increased by the concession to their slaves.

Second.—In conceding to the small States an entire equality in the Senate. This was not indeed proposed as an item of the adjustment, but it operated as such; for the small States, with the exception of Georgia, (which in fact expected to become one of the largest,) lay in the North, and were either free, or likely soon to become so.

During most of the contest, Massachusetts, then one of the large States, voted with Virginia and Pennsylvania for unequal representation in the Senate; but on the final question she was divided, and gave no vote. There