test of representation. The federal basis could have no application in Louisiana, where no union was to be formed and no compromises to be made. It had no necessary connection with the representation in the Legislature of an independent State, with common interests, the same institutions, and a homogeneous population throughout its limits. As applied to Louisiana, it was indeed an unequal basis, because it would necessarily lead to an antirepublican consequence-the minority governing the majority. This view was held by those who advocated that basis. They claimed that they had the balance of power in the country, and were going to retain it. It was unreasonable to give one portion of citizens a greater weight in the legislative branch than another, although the two portions might be equal in numbers. To give a parish having three hundred electors one Representative in the Legislature, and another parish having only three hundred electors, two, because its electors owned five hundred slaves, was a violation of justice. If one elector owned two slaves, especially if they were so old or so young as to be valueless, although another elector owned houses and lands, stores, shops, and factories, the slave-owner would have the larger representation. No white man would consent that two slaves should have more weight in the political government of Louisiana than he himself. To admit the federal basis would as necessarily make Abolitionists out of the inhabitants of parishes in which there were few slaves, and out of non-slave-holders, as it made Abolition

The Federal Basis and Agricultural Interests

ists of the people of the Northern States. The knowledge could not be kept from the slaves-and it would increase at every election-that two of them had more weight in the government than a free white man. This would soon destroy the institution of slavery, to the infinite injury of the agriculture, the wealth, and the happiness of the State. Every slave should know what he really was in Louisiana-property. Every freeman should know that he had a voice in the government, that the slave had none. This knowledge would raise a Chinese wall between Abolitionism and slavery, and forever make this invaluable institution secure. The evil consequences of the federal basis already felt by the slave-holding States would be greatly extended by admitting free persons of color to a participation in the government, instead of entirely excluding them.

A leading object in adopting the federal basis was to give the agricultural portion of the country an influence to which, by weight of numbers, it was not entitled. This result would promote antagonisms and prevent that harmony and equal union of the agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the State so necessary to its prosperity. The sole purpose of changing the basis of representation in the constitution of 1812 was to deprive the cities of New Orleans and La Fayette of the representation in the Assembly to which the number of their electors justly entitled them. The rule, followed in the old constitution, was to make taxation the basis of representation.

The State treasurer's report showed that the cities in the State contributed more than one-half of its taxes. The greater part of the taxable resources of the State were derived from the commerce concentrating at New Orleans. The landed property of New Orleans and La Fayette comprised in valuation nearly one-half that of the whole State. The country parishes possessed one hundred and sixty thousand slaves, of the value of fifty millions of dollars. If representation was to be based on wealth, these two cities would have more Representatives than the country parishes, because the value of the manufactures, the machinery, the ships and steamboats, the warehouses, the rich and costly furniture accumulated in public and private houses, the stocks and money in bank, in these cities far exceeded in the aggregate the value of all the slaves of the remaining portion of the State. There was, then, no reason for departing from the principle of representative government, except the arbitrary one of resisting the growing influence of the cities of the commonwealth. This spirit, prejudicial to the city, was based on a supposed diversity between the interests of town and country. Jefferson's ideas on the influence of cities on the body politic did not persuade all the members. Many of them believed that great commercial cities exercise a most beneficent influence on the States to which they belong, that commerce harmonizes and civilizes, and that any policy which arrests the growth of cities is injurious to the State.

To Curb the Power of Big Cities

Benjamin, objecting to the federal basis, now argued that if slaves were to be included, then, with equal propriety, should be included oxen and horses, which were equally productive-an argument advanced by the opponents of slavery in the federal convention of 1787. The discussion of the subject in the Virginia convention of 1830 was again cited as a precedent, "as more able debates on the subject of representation than had occurred elsewhere, and as leading to the rejection of the federal basis; representation in Virginia, at least, having been based on the divisions of the State east and west of the mountains, and upon taxation and numbers."

It was now urged that the principle of restraining the influence of large cities was well known in all the States, and that equally well understood was the principle of giving to each separate political community within the State a voice in the general administration of public affairs. Not population alone, but locality and incorporated interests, for the most part, entered into the basis of representation in other States. Several constitutions provided that, with the increase of population, there should be an increase in local representation. The Legislature of Louisiana should be forbidden. to create any new parishes less in area than twenty to twenty-five square miles, and not containing a requisite population; then the equity of representation would be secured. In Massachusetts and New Hampshire the unit of representation was a certain number of electors. In Vermont it was the

incorporate town. Rhode Island, apprehending danger from the concentration of power in cities, provided that no town should have more than onesixth of the representation-a principle which has been followed in later State constitutions.* It was necessary to guard against the undue influence of cities. Maryland limited the influence of Baltimore, and in its constitution of 1838 also provided that should any of the counties of the State fall short of the number of people fixed upon as the basis, they should retain the representation which had been accredited to them. This constitution entered into details, in order to secure the State against domination by municipalities. South Carolina was arbitrary in its apportionment. Charleston, although possessing one-third of the population of the State, could not have more than one-ninth of the membership of both Houses. In North Carolina the basis according to the federal principles was adopted for the Lower House, though each county was to have one member whether or not it had the full ratio. So Georgia provided that one Senator should be elected from each county without respect to population. The basis was on federal principles, the ratio being fixed at fifteen hundred persons; but no county could have more than four nor less than one Representative.

Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois based representa

*As in Pennsylvania in 1873, respecting Philadelphia, and in New York in 1894, respecting the city of New York.