efence, 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 duality,
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 (of Maryland) moved, that the quotas should be paid, 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 measure 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 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 that 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 more interest in it.

Mr. John Adams (of Massachusetts) observed, that the numbers of people
were taken by this article as an index of the wealth of the State and
not as subjects of taxation. That as to this matter it was of no
consequence by what name you called your people, whether by that of
freemen or of slaves. That in some countries the laboring poor were
called freemen, in others they were called slaves: but that the
difference as to the state