e; and on another, as calculated to prevent
voluntary and beneficial emigrations from Europe to America. I mention
these misconstructions, not with a view to give them an answer, for
they deserve none; but as specimens of the manner and spirit, in which
some have thought fit to conduct their opposition to the proposed
government.

FEDERALIST, No. 54.

BY JAMES MADISON.

All this is admitted, it will perhaps be said: but does it follow from
an admission of numbers for the measure of representation, or of
slaves combined with free citizens as a ratio of taxation, that slaves
ought to be included in the numerical rule of representation?

Slaves are considered as property, not as persons. They ought
therefore, to be comprehended in estimates of taxation, which are
founded on property, and to be excluded from representation, which is
regulated by a census of persons. This is the objection as I
understand it; stated in its full force. I shall be equally candid in
stating the reasoning which may be offered on the opposite side. We
subscribe to the doctrine, might one of our Southern brethren observe,
that representation relates more immediately to persons, and taxation
more immediately to property; and we join in the application of this
distinction to the case of our slaves.

But we must deny the fact, that slaves are considered merely as
property, and in no respect whatever as persons. The true state of the
case is, that they partake of both these qualities, being considered
by our laws, in some respects as persons, and in other respects as
property.

In being compelled to labor, not for himself; but for a master; in
being vendible by one master to another master; and in being subject
at all times to be restrained in his liberty and chastised in his body
by the capricious will of another; the slave may appear to be degraded
from the human rank, and classed with those irrational animals which
fall under the legal denomination of property. In being protected, on
the other hand, in his life, and in his limbs, against the violence of
all others, even the master of his labor and his liberty; and in being
punishable himself for all violence committed against others; the
slave is no less evidently regarded by the law as a member of the
society, not as a part of the irrational creation; as a moral person,
not as a mere article of property. The Federal Constitution,
therefore, decides with great propriety on the case of ou