States possessing them. They
neither vote themselves, nor increase the votes of their masters. Upon
what principle, then, ought they to be taken into the Federal estimate
of representation? In rejecting them altogether, the constitution
would, in this respect, have followed the very laws which have been
appealed to as the proper guide.

This objection is repelled by a single observation. It is a
fundamental principle of the proposed constitution, that as the
aggregate number of representatives allotted to the several States is
to be determined by a Federal rule, founded on the aggregate number of
inhabitants; so, the right of choosing this allotted number in each
State, is to be exercised by such part of the inhabitants, as the
State itself may designate. The qualifications of which the right of
suffrage depends, are not perhaps the same in any two States. In some
of the States the difference is very material. In every State, a
certain proportion of inhabitants are deprived of this right by the
constitution of the State, who will be included in the census by which
the Federal constitution apportions the representatives. In this point
of view, the Southern States might retort the complaint, by insisting,
that the principle laid down by the convention required that no regard
should be had to the policy of particular States towards their own
inhabitants; and consequently, that the slaves, as inhabitants, should
have been admitted into the census according to their full number, in
like manner with other inhabitants, who, by the policy of other
States, are not admitted to all the rights of citizens. A rigorous
adherence, however, to this principle is waived by those who would be
gainers by it. All that they ask, is that equal moderation be shown on
the other side. Let the case of the slaves be considered, as it is in
truth, a peculiar one. Let the compromising expedient of the
constitution be annually adopted, which regards them as inhabitants,
but as debased by servitude below the equal level of free inhabitants,
which regards the _slave_ as divested of two-fifths of the _man_.

DEBATES IN FIRST CONGRESS,

MAY 13, 1789.

Mr. Parker (of Va.) moved to insert a clause in the bill, imposing a
duty on the importation of slaves of ten dollars each person. He was
sorry that the constitution prevented Congress from prohibiting the
importation altogether; he thought it a defect in that instrument that
it allowed of such actio