Dismiss your slaves,
and freemen will take their places. It is our duty to lay every
discouragement on the importation of slaves; but this amendment would
give thee _jus trium liberorum_ to him who would import slaves. That
other kinds of property were pretty equally distributed through all
the colonies: there were as many cattle, horses, and sheep, in the
North as the South, and South as the North; but not so as to slaves:
that experience has shown that those colonies have been always able to
pay most, which have the most inhabitants, whether they be black or
white; and the practice of the Southern colonies has always been to
make every farmer pay poll taxes upon all his laborers, whether they
be black or white. He acknowledged indeed that freemen worked the
most; but they consume the most also. They do not produce a greater
surplus for taxation. The slave is neither fed nor clothed so
expensively as a freeman. Again, white women are exempted from labor
generally, which negro women are not. In this then the Southern States
have an advantage as the article now stands. It has sometimes been
said that slavery was necessary, because the commodities they raise
would be too dear for market if cultivated by freemen; but now it is
said that the labor of the slave is the dearest.

Mr. Payne (of Massachusetts) urged the original resolution of Congress,
to proportion the quotas of the States to the number of souls.

Mr. Witherspoon (of New-Jersey) was of opinion, that the value of
lands and houses was the best estimate of the wealth of a nation, and
that it was practicable to obtain such a valuation. This is the true
barometer of wealth. The one now proposed is imperfect in itself, and
unequal between the States. It has been objected that negroes eat the
food of freemen, and therefore should be taxed. Horses also eat the
food of freemen; therefore they also should be taxed. It has been said
too, that in carrying slaves into the estimate of the taxes the State
is to pay, we do no more than those States themselves do, who always
take slaves into the estimate of the taxes the individual is to pay.
But the cases are not parallel. In the Southern Colonies, slaves
pervade the whole colony; but they do not pervade the whole continent.
That as to the original resolution of Congress, it was temporary only,
and related to the moneys heretofore emitted: whereas we are now
entering into a new compact, and therefore stand on original ground.