ernment. Fearing that the power and consequence of their own states would be diminished by the introduction of numbers as a basis of representation, they adhered to the system of representation by states, and insisted that nothing was needed to cure the evils that pressed upon the country but to enlarge the jurisdiction of the Congress under that system. They were naturally, therefore, the first to suggest and the last to surrender the objection, that the Convention had received no authority, either from the states or from the Congress, to do anything more than revise the Articles of Confederation, and recommend such further powers as might be engrafted upon the present system of the Union.

That the construction of their powers by the latter class of the members of the Convention comported with the mere terms of the acts of the states, and with the general expectation, I have more than once intimated; but we shall see, as the experiment of framing the new system proceeded, that the views of the other class were equally correct; that the addition of further powers to the existing system of the Union would have left it as weak and inefficient as it had been before; and that what were universally regarded as the "exigencies of the Union"-which was but another name for the wants of the states-could only be provided for by the creation of a different basis for the government.

Another fact which we are to remember is the presence, in five of the states represented in the Convention, of large numbers of a distinct race, held in the condition of slaves. Whatever mode of constituting a national system might be adopted, if it was to be a representative government, the existence of these persons must be recognized and provided for in some way. Whatever ratio of representation might be established-whether the states were to be represented according to the numbers of their inhabitants, or according to their wealth-this part of the population of the slaveholding states presented one of the great difficulties to be encountered. A change of their condition was not now, and never had been, one of the powers which those states proposed to confide to the Union. In no previous form of the Confederacy had any state proposed to surrender its own control over the condition of persons within its limits, or its power to determine what persons should share in the political rights of that community; and no state that now took part in the new effort to amend the

present system of the Union proposed to surrender this control over its own inhabitants, or sought to acquire any control over the condition of persons within any of the other states.

The deliberations of the Convention were therefore begun with the necessary concession of the fact that slavery existed in some. of the states, and that the existence and continuance of that condition of large masses of its population was a matter exclusively belonging to the authority of each state in which they were found. Not only was this concession implied in the terms upon which the states had met for the revision of the national system, but the further concession of the right to have the slave populations included in the ratio of representation became equally unavoidable. They must be regarded either as persons or as chattels. If they were persons, and the basis of the new government was to be a representation of the inhabitants of the states according to their numbers the only mode of representation consistent with republican government their precise condition, their possession or want of political rights, could not affect the propriety of including them in some form in the census, unless the basis of the government should be composed exclusively of those inhabitants of the states who were acknowledged by the laws of the states as free. The large numbers of the slaves in some of the states would have made a government so constructed entirely unequal in its operation, and would have placed those states, if they had been willing to enter it as they never could have been-in a position of inferiority which their wealth and importance would have rendered unjustifiable. On the other hand, if the wealth of the states was to be the measure of their representation in the new government, the slaves must be included in that wealth, or they must be treated simply as persons. The slaves might or might not be persons, in the view of the law, where they were found; but they were certainly in one sense property under that law, and as such they were a very important part of the wealth of the state. The Confederation had already been obliged to regard them, in considering a rule by which the states should contribute to the national expenses. They had found it to be just that a state should be required to include its slaves among its population, in a certain ratio, when it was called upon to sustain the national burdens in proportion to its numbers; and they had recommended the adop

tion of this fundamental rule as an amendment of the federal Articles. Either in one capacity, therefore, or in the other, or in both either as persons or as property, or as both-the Union had already found it to be necessary to consider the slaves. In framing the new Union it was equally necessary, as soon as the equality of representation by states should give place to a proportional and unequal representation, to regard these inhabitants in one or the other capacity, or in both capacities, or to leave the states in which they were found, and in which their position was a matter of grave importance, out of the Union.

This difficulty should be rightly appreciated and fairly stated by the historian who attempts to describe its adjustment, and it should be carefully regarded by the reader. What reflections may arise upon the facts that we have to consider-what should be the judgment of an enlightened benevolence upon the whole matter of slavery, as it was dealt with or affected by the Constitution of the United States-may find an appropriate place in some future discussion.

Here, however, the reader must approach the threshold of the subject with the expectation of finding it surrounded by many and complex relations. History should undoubtedly concern itself with the interests of man. But it is bound, as it makes up the record of events which involve the destinies and welfare of different races, to look at the aggregate of human happiness. It is not to rest, for its final conclusions, in seeming or in real inconsistencies; in real or apparent conflicts between opposite principles; or in the mere letter of those adjustments by which such conflicts have been avoided, or reconciled, or acknowledged. It is to arrive at results. It is to draw the wide deduction which will show whether human nature has lost or gained by the conditions and forms of national existence which it undertakes to describe. As the question should always be, in such inquiries, whether any different and better result was attainable under all the circumstances of the case-a question to which a calm and

1 See the resolve of Congress, passed April 18, 1783, proposing to amend the Articles of Confederation. This resolve was the origin of the proportion of three fifths, in counting the slaves. See post, Chapter XVIII. p. 343; ante, p. 144, note 2.

dispassionate examination will generally find an answer

the

amount of positive good that has been gained for all, or of positive evil that has been averted from all, is the true justification of political institutions.

The Convention, when fully organized, embraced a representation from all the states, with the single exception of Rhode Island.

Connecticut, which had steadily opposed the measure of a Convention,' came into it at a late period, and did not send a delegation until a fortnight after the time appointed for its session.' It had always been the inclination of that state to retain in her own hands the regulation of commerce; she had taxed imports from some of her neighbors, and this advantage, as it was considered, had made her reluctant to enlarge the powers of the Union. Her delegation appeared on the 28th of May.

That of New Hampshire was not appointed until the latter part of June,' and did not appear until the 23d of July.*

Rhode Island, small in territory and in numbers, but favorably situated for the pursuits of commerce, had strenuously resisted every effort to enlarge the powers of the Union. Ever since the Declaration of Independence, the people of that state had clung to the opportunity, afforded by their situation, of taxing the contiguous states, through their consumption of commodities brought into its numerous and convenient ports. For this object they had refused their assent to the revenue system of 1783; and as the failure of that system had prevented an exhibition of some of the benefits to be derived from uniform fiscal regulations, the local government of Rhode Island adhered, in 1786–7, to what they had always regarded as the true interest of their state. They did, it is true, appoint delegates to the commercial convention at Annapolis, but the persons appointed did not attend; and when the resolve which sanctioned the Convention of 1787 was adopted in Congress, Rhode Island was not represented in that body.

When the recommendation of the Congress came before the legislature of the state, there appears to have been a strong party in favor of making an appointment of delegates to the Convention. The mercantile part of the population had come to enter

'Madison, Elliot, V. 96.

? Ibid.,

124.

Elliot, I. 126.

• Ibid., 351.

tain more liberal and far-seeing notions of their true interests; and the views of some of the more intelligent of the farmers and mechanics had been much modified. But by far the larger portion of the people-wedded to a system of paper money, which furnished almost their sole currency, and vaguely apprehending that a new government for the Union would destroy it, seeking the abolition of debts, public and private, and jealous of all influence from without were in a condition to be ruled by their demagogues, rather than to be enlightened and aided by their statesmen. In May the legislature rejected a proposition to appoint delegates to the Federal Convention; and in June, although the upper house, or governor and council, embraced the measure, it was again negatived in the House of Assembly by a large majority. The minority then formed an organization, which never lost sight of the national relations of the state, and which finally succeeded in bringing her into the Union under the new Constitution, in 1790.

Immediately after the first rejection of the proposal to unite with the other states in reforming the Confederation, a body of commercial persons in Providence addressed a letter to the Convention, expressing the opinion that full power for the regulation of the commerce of the United States, both foreign and domestic, ought to be vested in the national council, and that effectual arrangements should also be made for giving operation to the existing powers of Congress in their requisitions for national purposes. Their object in this communication was to prevent an impression among the other states, unfavorable to the commercial interests of Rhode Island, from growing out of the circumstance of their being unrepresented in the Convention. Expressing the hope that the result of its deliberations would be to "strengthen the Union, promote the commerce, increase the power, and establish the credit of the United States," they pledged their influence and best exertions to secure the adoption of that result by the state of Rhode Island. The signers of this letter formed the nucleus of that party which afterwards fulfilled the pledge thus given to the Convention.

The absence of Rhode Island did not occasion a serious embarrassment. The resolve of Congress recommending the Convention did not expressly require the presence of all the states; and