Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/316

290 first branch, the states should be represented according to their number of free inhabitants, and, in the second, which had, for one of its primary objects, the guardianship of property, according to the whole number, including slaves.

Mr. BUTLER urged warmly the justice and necessity of regarding wealth in the apportionment of representation.

Mr. KING had always expected that, as the Southern States are the richest, they would not league themselves with the Northern, unless some respect were paid to their superior wealth. If the latter expect those preferential distinctions in commerce, and other advantages which they will derive from the connection, they must not expect to receive them without allowing some advantages in return. Eleven out of thirteen of the states had agreed to consider slaves in the apportionment of taxation, and taxation and representation ought to go together.

On the question for committing the first paragraph of the report to a member from each state,—

Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, ay, 9; New York, South Carolina, no, 2.

The committee appointed were Messrs. King, Sherman, Yates, Brearly, Gouverneur Morris, Read, Carroll, Madison, Williamson, Rutledge, Houston. Adjourned. 

, July 10.

In Convention.—Mr. KING reported, from the committee yesterday appointed, "that the states, at the first meeting of the general legislature, should be represented by sixty-five members," in the following proportions, to wit:

New Hampshire, by 3; Massachusetts, 8; Rhode Island, 1; Connecticut, 5; New York, 6; New Jersey, 4; Pennsylvania, 8; Delaware, 1; Maryland, 6; Virginia, 10; North Carolina, 5; South Carolina, 5; Georgia, 3.

Mr. RUTLEDGE moved that New Hampshire be reduced from three to two members. Her numbers did not entitle her to three, and it was a poor state.

Gen. PINCKNEY seconds the motion.

Mr. KING. New Hampshire has probably more than 120,000 inhabitants, and has an extensive country, of tolerable fertility. Its inhabitants may therefore be expected to increase fast. He remarked that the four Eastern States, having 800,000 souls, have one third fewer representatives than the four Southern States, having not more than 700,000 souls, rating the blacks as five for three. The eastern people will advert to these circumstances, and be dissatisfied. He believed them to be very desirous of uniting with their southern brethren, but did not think it prudent to rely so far on that disposition as to subject them to any gross inequality. He was fully convinced that the question concerning a difference of interests did not lie where it had hitherto been discussed, between the great and small states; but between the southern and eastern. For this reason he had been ready to yield something, in the proportion of 