g a majority in the public councils....
Either this distinction [between the North and the South] is fictitious
or real; if fictitious, let it be dismissed, and let us proceed with due
confidence. If it be real, instead of attempting to blend incompatible
things, let us at once take a friendly leave of each other."

But could they take "a friendly leave of each other"? Should a union be
secured on the terms the South offered? or should it be declined, as
Morris proposed, if it could not be a union of equality? The next day
Madison again set forth the real issue, quietly but unmistakably. "It
seemed now," he said, "to be pretty well understood that the real
difference of interests lay, not between the large and small, but
between the Northern and Southern States. The institution of slavery and
its consequences formed the line of discrimination." There is sometimes
great power, as he well knew, in firm reiteration. So long as slavery
lasted, the lesson he then inculcated was never forgotten.
Thenceforward, as then, "the line of discrimination," in Southern
politics, lay with "slavery and its consequences." One side would abate
nothing of its demands; there could be no "friendly leave" unless the
determination, on the other side, to overcome the desire for union and
take the consequences was equally firm.

When the question again came up, however, Morris had not lost heart. His
talk was the talk of a modern abolitionist:--

"He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a
nefarious institution. It was the curse of Heaven on the States
where it prevailed. Compare the free regions of the Middle States,
where a rich and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and
happiness of the people, with the misery and poverty which
overspread the barren wastes of Virginia, Maryland, and the other
States having slaves. Travel through the whole continent, and you
behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and
disappearance of slavery.... Proceed southwardly, and every step
you take through the great regions of slavery presents a desert
increasing with the increasing proportion of these wretched beings.
Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the
representation? Are they men? Then make them citizens, and let them
vote. Are they property? Why then is no other property included?
The houses in this city [Philadelph