e student of the situation
will always have good cause to believe that a more sturdy and definite
anti-slavery stand at this point might have changed history for the
better.

34. ~The Special Committee and the "Bargain."~ Since the debate had, in
the first place, arisen from a proposition to tax the importation of
slaves, the yielding of this point by the South was the first move
toward compromise. To all but the doctrinaires, who shrank from taxing
men as property, the argument that the failure to tax slaves was
equivalent to a bounty, was conclusive. With this point settled,
Randolph voiced the general sentiment, when he declared that he "was for
committing, in order that some middle ground might, if possible, be
found." Finally, Gouverneur Morris discovered the "middle ground," in
his suggestion that the whole subject be committed, "including the
clauses relating to taxes on exports and to a navigation act. These
things," said he, "may form a bargain among the Northern and Southern
States." This was quickly assented to; and sections four and five, on
slave-trade and capitation tax, were committed by a vote of 7 to 3,[11]
and section six, on navigation acts, by a vote of 9 to 2.[12] All three
clauses were referred to the following committee: Langdon of New
Hampshire, King of Massachusetts, Johnson of Connecticut, Livingston of
New Jersey, Clymer of Pennsylvania, Dickinson of Delaware, Martin of
Maryland, Madison of Virginia, Williamson of North Carolina, General
Pinckney of South Carolina, and Baldwin of Georgia.

The fullest account of the proceedings of this committee is given in
Luther Martin's letter to his constituents, and is confirmed in its main
particulars by similar reports of other delegates. Martin writes: "A
committee of _one_ member from each state was chosen by ballot, to take
this part of the system under their consideration, and to endeavor to
agree upon some report which should reconcile those states [i.e., South
Carolina and Georgia]. To this committee also was referred the following
proposition, which had been reported by the committee of detail, viz.:
'No navigation act shall be passed without the assent of two thirds of
the members present in each house'--a proposition which the staple and
commercial states were solicitous to retain, lest their commerce should
be placed too much under the power of the Eastern States, but which
these last States were as anxious to reject. This committee--of whi