committee to take them into consideration. On the
30th and 31st of that month, and 1st of the ensuing, those articles were
debated which determined the proportion, or quota, of money which each
state should furnish to the common treasury, and the manner of voting
in Congress. The first of these articles was expressed in the original
draught in these words. 'Art. XI. All charges of war and all other
expenses that shall be incurred for the common defence, or general
welfare, and allowed by the United States assembled, shall be defrayed
out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several
colonies in proportion to the number of inhabitants of every age, sex,
and quality, except Indians not paying taxes, in each colony, a true
account-of which, distinguishing the white inhabitants, shall be
triennially taken and transmitted to the Assembly of the United States.'

Mr. Chase moved that the quotas should be fixed, not by the number of
inhabitants of every condition, but by that of the 'white inhabitants.'
He admitted that taxation should be always in proportion to property;
that this was, in theory, the true rule; but that, from a variety of
difficulties, it was a rule which could never be adopted in practice.
The value of the property in every state, could never be estimated
justly and equally. Some other measures for the wealth of the state must
therefore be devised, some standard referred to, which would be more
simple. He considered the number of inhabitants as a tolerably good
criterion of property, and that this might always be obtained. He
therefore thought it the best mode which we could adopt, with one
exception only: he observed that negroes are property, and as such,
cannot be distinguished from the lands or personalities held in those
states where there are few slaves; that the surplus of profit which a
Northern farmer is able to lay by, he invests in cattle, horses, &c.
whereas a Southern farmer lays out the same surplus in slaves. There is
no more reason therefore for taxing the Southern states on the farmer's
head, and on his slave's head, than the Northern ones on their farmers'
heads and the heads of their cattle: that the method proposed would,
therefore, tax the Southern states according to their numbers and their
wealth conjunctly, while the Northern would be taxed on numbers only;
that negroes, in fact, should not be considered as members of the state,
more than cattle, and that they have no mor