_wealth_ and numbers of
inhabitants, was reconsidered by common consent, in order to strike
out _wealth_ and adjust the resolution to that requiring periodical
revisions according to the number of whites and three-fifths of the
blacks.

Mr. Gouverneur Morris (of Pennsylvania) opposed the alteration, as
leaving still an incoherence. If negroes were to be viewed as
inhabitants, and the revision was to proceed on the principle of
numbers of inhabitants, they ought to be added in their entire number,
and not in the proportion of three-fifths. If as property, the word
wealth was right; and striking it out would produce the very
inconsistency which it was meant to get rid of. The train of
business, and the late turn which it had taken, had led him, he said,
into deep meditation on it, and he would candidly state the result. A
distinction has been set up, and urged, between the Northern and
Southern States. He had hitherto considered this doctrine as
heretical. He still thought the distinction groundless. He sees,
however, that it is persisted in; and the Southern gentlemen will not
be satisfied unless they see the way open to their gaining a majority
in the public councils. The consequence of such a transfer of power
from the maritime to the interior and landed interest, will, he
foresees, be such an oppression to commerce, that he shall be obliged
to vote for the vicious principle of equality in the second branch, in
order to provide some defence for the Northern States against it. But
to come more to the point, either this distinction 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. There can be no end of demands for security, if every
particular interest is to be entitled to it. The Eastern States may
claim it for their fishery, and for other objects, as the Southern
States claim it for their peculiar objects. In this struggle between
the two ends of the Union, what part ought the Middle States, in point
of policy, to take? To join their Eastern brethren, according to his
ideas. If the Southern States get the power into their hands, and be
joined, as they will be, with the interior country, they will
inevitably bring on a war with Spain for the Mississippi. This
language is already held. The interior country, leaving no property
nor interest exposed to