ments, would pass under the dominion of the South; but if the other, the North would have the preponderance. But the crude suggestion so far abandoned just principles as to leave it to Congress to decide between the two-thus throwing upon. Congress the responsible duty of the Convention, and conferring upon it, in that particular, an almost unlimited range of power. Alexander Hamilton, a deputy from New York, proposed to simplify Mr. Randolph's proposition, and proportion representatives to the number of free inhabitants alone; but sectional opposition being about to burst forth, the subject was laid over, it being evident that the most delicate and irritable part of the Constitution had been rudely touched.

It is naturally a subject of surprise, that the darling project of the North should have originated with a gentleman representing the largest and most influential member of the Southern community. It was calculated to excite surprise. and spread consternation in the ranks of his friends. So important a defection, in the outset, was fraught with ill-omen to the success of the Convention; it can only be explained in the way above indicated, and that the distinguished gentleman was one of that small band who had been entangled in the mazes of the anti-slavery philosophy, then first lifting up its head. But at a later stage in the business, after the question had been discussed in its political applications, and had come to be viewed solely as a question of sectional power, Mr. Randolph promptly abandoned his own offspring, and assumed his proper place in the Southern ranks. That sudden revulsion in the position of a leading character upon a subject of such engrossing importance, is extremely significant, and affords conclusive evidence of the attitude and complexion of parties. Such was the importance attached to negro slavery, as a political element, and so strong the bias of parties in respect to it, that Southern men, who were most averse from it, buried their prejudices, and rallied to its support. This prompt and thorough recantation places Mr. Randolph in the

most favorable light. Notwithstanding that he had all the severity of character which belonged to a leader in those bustling times, yet he was not of that bigoted and inflexible turn which would induce him to cling to a dangerous error, after that error had been exposed. Indeed, he appears to have been of a more flexible temper;-and when the alarm of sections was rung, he retraced his steps, and with Madison, Pinckney, and the clear-headed and ever-faithful George Mason, was among the most unflinching advocates of the South, and inflexible opponents of Northern ambition.

But the truce was of short duration. The business was at a stand. No progress could be made until a distribution of power had first been effected. Neither the South nor the North, neither the large States nor the small States, could say with what authorities they were willing to entrust the government, until it was first determined what measure of influence each was to wield. This, of itself, shows the supreme importance attached to that question. But the time had not been thrown away. In private an adjustment had been agreed upon. This is evident from the direction from which the adjustment came. On the 11th of June, when the Constitution of the first branch of the Legislature was again taken up, Mr. Wilson, from Pennsylvania, a leader of great talents, seconded by Mr. Chas. Pinckney, from South Carolina, justly entitled from his abilities and activity to be esteemed a leader from the South, submitted a proposition that slaves should be admitted into the representative basis in the proportion of five slaves to three freemen. From this, it is clear that a compromise had been effected, and that each party had receded from its extreme pretensions. The vote on that compromise reveals most strikingly the healing influences that had been at work. The States of New Jersey and Delaware alone voted against it. Their motive evidently was to keep the whole question open, so as to prevent any combination being made between the large States and the slave States; a combination which was, nevertheless, afterwards effected, and to defeat which, in

part, the small States were finally compelled to assume the most decided attitude. From this single instance, it may be collected how great a part of the business was really transacted in private, no memorandum of which has been preserved. It will explain, too, how it happened that many questions of the deepest import were settled by the Convention with but little. debate, and in some instances, without debate at all.

I wish here to state, that when Mr. Wilson introduced his proposition, that he added, by way of explanation and recommendation, that it embraced the same ratio which, on a former occasion, had been proposed in an act of Congress as a measure of taxation, and which had commanded the concurrence of eleven out of thirteen States. The reason of this, and the connexion between the two propositions, will hereafter be examined, or rather the same proposition examined in its two-fold. application. It will be found to throw a strong light on the purpose and meaning of that ratio as applied to representation.

In the committee of the whole house, the principle of representation agreed upon for the first branch of Congress, was applied likewise to the second branch; and that conclusion was reported to the Convention.

On Wednesday, the 27th June, "Mr. Rutledge moved to postpone the sixth resolution defining the powers of Congress, in order to take up the seventh and eighth, which involved the most fundamental points, the rules of suffrage in the two branches. Agreed to nem. con.' The seventh and eighth resolutions of the report, were in the words following:

"7. Resolved, That the right of suffrage in the first branch of the National Legislature, ought not to be according to the rule established in the Articles of Confederation, but according to some equitable ratio of representation, namely, in proportion to the whole number of white and other free citizens and inhabitants, of every sex, age and condition, including those bound to servitude for a term of years, and three-fifths of all other persons not comprehended in the foregoing description, except Indians not paying taxes in each State.

'8. Resolved, That the right of suffrage in the second branch of the National Legislature, ought to be according to the rule established for the first."

It will be remarked, that the whole question, which was ultimately divided into two branches, was, by these resolutions, presented in one point of view. The debate which ensued was extremely interesting, and shows, even in the condensed and imperfect account of it which has reached us, the difficulties which the Convention encountered. The proposed settlement was first assailed by the small States; and one of the expedients proposed by that interest for the settlement of the dispute exhibits, in striking colors, the deep-seated apprehension, unfounded as it was then pronounced, and has since turned out to be, of an absorption of the lesser by the greater States. It was proposed by the delegates from New Jersey and Deleware to confound all State lines and throw them into one mass, or into hotchpot, as the lawyers of the Convention called it, and then re-partition the territory into equal parts among the States. But the old difficulty would still have existed. Some of those equal allotments would have been greatly superior to others in wealth and population, which would have caused, to borrow a passage from Burke respecting a similar plan in the French Constitution of 1789, "such infinite variations between square and square, as to render mensuration a ridiculous standard of power in the Commonwealth, and equality in geometry the most unequal of all measures in the distribution of men.” New Jersey and Delaware demanded such a consolidation and re-distribution of territory, or an equality of representation for the States in every department of government. But the more moderate were content with an equal vote in the Senatorial department, which they insisted upon as a negative "to save them from being destroyed." Self-protection was their avowed object. It was in this connection, and in reply to Mr. Edgeworth of Connecticut, that Mr. Madison delivered a speech, from which the following extract is made. It bears directly on the object of this publication, and states, in the

most explicit language, the purpose and meaning of the fractional representation awarded to the South in both the legislative departments by the 7th and 8th resolutions then under discussion. It is to the ratio which they contained that Mr. Madison alludes:

"He admitted that every peculiar interest, whether in any class of citizens, or any description of States, ought to be secured as far as possible. Wherever there is danger of attack, there ought to be given a constitutional power of defence. But he contended that the States were divided into different interests, not by their difference of size, but by other circumstances; the most material of which resulted partly from climate, but principally from the effects of their having, or not having slaves. These two causes concurred in forming the great division of interests in the United States. It did not lie between the large and small States. It lay between the Northern and Southern; and if any defensive power were necessary, it ought to be mutually given to these two interests. He was so strongly impressed with this important truth, that he had been casting about in his mind for some expedient that would answer the purpose. The one which had occurred, was, that instead of proportioning the votes of the States in both branches, to their respective number of inhabitants, computing the slaves in the ratio of five to three, they should be represented in one branch according to the number of free inhabitants only; and in the other according to the whole number, counting the slaves as free. By this arrangement, the Southern scale would have the advantage in one house, and the Northern in the other. He had been restrained from proposing this expedient by two considerations; one was his unwillingness to urge any diversity of interests on an occasion where it is but too apt to arise of itself; the other was the inequality of powers that must be vested in the two branches, and which would destroy the equilibrium of interests."

This speech, so admirable for its correct appreciation of the true principles of representative government, opens the discus