Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/329

1787.] any share of representation for their blacks. He was sure that North Carolina would never confederate on any terms that did not rate them at least as three fifths. If the Eastern States meant, therefore to exclude them altogether, the business was at an end.

Dr. JOHNSON thought that wealth and population were the true, equitable rules of representation; but he conceived that these two principles resolved themselves into one, population being the best measure of wealth. He concluded, therefore, that the number of people ought to be established as the rule, and that all descriptions, including blacks equally with the whites, ought to fall within the computation. As various opinions had been expressed on the subject, he would move that a committee might be appointed to take them into consideration, and report them.

Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. It had been said that it is high time to speak out. As one member, he would candidly do so. He came here to form a compact for the good of America. He was ready to do so with all the states. He hoped and believed that all would enter into such a compact. If they would not, he was ready to join with any states that would. But as the compact was to be voluntary, it is in vain for the Eastern States to insist on what the Southern States will never agree to. It is equally vain for the latter to require what the other states can never admit, and he verily believed the people of Pennsylvania will never agree to a representation of negroes. What can be desired by these states more than has been already proposed—that the legislature shall, from time to time, regulate representation according to population and wealth?

Gen. PINCKNEY desired that the rule of wealth should be ascertained, and not left to the pleasure of the legislature; and that property in slaves should not be exposed to danger, under a government instituted for the protection of property.

The first clause in the report of the first grand committee was postponed.

Mr. ELLSWORTH, in order to carry into effect the principle established, moved to add to the last clause adopted by the House the words following: "and that the rule of contribution by direct taxation, for the support of the government of the United States, shall be the number of white inhabitants and three fifths of every other description, in the several slates, until some other rule, that shall more accurately ascertain the wealth of the several states, can be devised and adopted by the legislature."

Mr. BUTLER seconded the motion, in order that it might be committed.

Mr. RANDOLPH was not satisfied with the motion. The danger will be revived, that the ingenuity of the legislature may evade or pervert the rule, so as to perpetuate the power where it shall be lodged in the first instance. He proposed, in lieu of Mr. Ellsworth's motion, "that, in order to ascertain the alterations in representation that may be required, from time to time, by changes in the relative