Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/119

 CH. IX.] have not an influence over other states, arising from the superior advantages of fortune, as individuals in the same state possess over their needy fellow citizens from the like cause. The richest state in the Union can hardly indulge the hope of influencing the choice of a single representative in any other state; nor will the representatives of the largest and richest states possess any other advantages in the national legislature, than what results from superior numbers alone.

§ 640. It is obvious, that these latter reasons have no just application to the subject. They are not only over-strained, and founded in an ingenious attempt to gloss over the real objections; but they have this inherent vice, that, if well founded, they apply with equal force to the representation of all property in all the states; and if not entitled to respect on this account, they contain a most gross and indefensible inequality in favour of a single species of property (slaves) existing in a few states only. It might have been contended, with full as much propriety, that rice, or cotton, or tobacco, or potatoes, should have been exclusively taken into account in apportioning the representation.

§ 641. The truth is, that the arrangement adopted by the constitution was a matter of compromise and concession, confessedly unequal in its operation, but a necessary sacrifice to that spirit of conciliation, which was indispensable to the union of states having a great diversity of interests, and physical condition, and political institutions. It was agreed, that slaves should be