ed that the
States were divided into different interests, not by their difference
of size, but by other circumstances; the most material of which
resulted partly from climate, but principally from the effects of
their having or not having slaves. These two causes concurred in
forming the great division of interests in the United States. It did
not lie between the large and small States. IT LAY BETWEEN THE
NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN; and if any defensive power were necessary, it
ought to be mutually given to these two interests. He was so strongly
impressed with this important truth, that he had been casting about in
his mind for some expedient that would answer the purpose. The one
which had occurred was, that, instead of proportioning the votes of
the States in both branches, to the irrespective numbers of
inhabitants, computing the slaves in the ratio of five to three, they
should be represented in one branch according to the number of free
inhabitants only; and in the other according to the whole number,
counting slaves as free. By this arrangement the Southern scale would
have the advantage in one House, and the Northern in the other. He had
been restrained from proposing this expedient by two considerations;
one was his unwillingness to urge any diversity of interests on an
occasion where it is but too apt to arise of itself; the other was the
inequality of powers that must be vested in the two branches, and
which would destroy the equilibrium of interests.--_pp_. 1006-7

MONDAY, July 2, 1787.

Mr. PINCKNEY. There is a real distinction between the Northern and
Southern interests. North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, in
their rice and indigo, had a peculiar interest which might be
sacrificed.--_p_. 1016.

FRIDAY, July 6, 1787.

Mr. PINCKNEY--thought the blacks ought to stand on an equality with
the whites; but would agree to the ratio settled by Congress.--_p._
1039.

MONDAY, July 9, 1787.

Mr. PATTERSON considered the proposed estimate for the future
according to the combined rules of numbers and wealth, as too vague.
For this reason New Jersey was against it. He could regard negro
slaves in no light but as property. They are no free agents, have no
personal liberty, no faculty of acquiring property, but on the
contrary are themselves property, and like other property entirely at
the will of the master. Has a man in Virginia a number of votes in
proportion to the number of his slaves? And if negro