ut refused to consider them in the same
light, when advantages were to be conferred?

Might not some surprise also be expressed, that those who reproach the
Southern States with the barbarous policy of considering as property a
part of their human brethren, should themselves contend, that the
government to which all the States are to be parties, ought to
consider this unfortunate race more completely in the unnatural light
of property, than the very laws of which they complain?

It may be replied, perhaps, that slaves are not included in the
estimate of representatives in any of the 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 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 on 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 th