ism. It was a peculiarly fitting basis for representation in a slave-holding State.

Had not the country the political ascendency and the means of protecting itself? Was not the sentiment regarding slavery unanimous in the State, as had been shown in the treatment by the Senate of the address of the State of Massachusetts on the very matter of slave representation? Had not the Senate of Louisiana-and without referring this address to a committee-instantly passed resolutions expressing its indignation at such interference? Had not the resolutions of the Senate been taken down to the House of Representatives, and, after an animated but brief debate, been engrossed, returned to the Senate, and adopted unanimously? If the principle of federal representation was bad, then the Abolitionists must be in the right. The proof of its goodness was its preservation of the Union, for no one pretended that if the basis were abrogated the Union would hold together twenty-four hours. It was conceded to be a basis on a natural principle. Some said that the same reasons for its adoption did not exist in the State as in the United States. The effect in both cases was the same, for it would be an equilibrium between the States on the one hand and between parishes on the other. It would reconcile disparities in population-an excess of white population balancing an excess of slave. It had been said that this basis involved an unjust preference for one kind of property. But it was not easy to subject all kinds of prop

Slaves Both Property and Population

erty to equal taxation, and some kinds of property could not be made subject to taxation. Slaves were visible property; they were attached to the soil. It was impossible to apportion representation equally upon all kinds of property, and it was equally impossible to distribute representation, giving to each political community its just proportion. The real difficulty between the Abolitionists and the people of Louisiana was slave labor as opposed to white labor. This difference was at the foundation of all their pretended philanthropy towards the slave, and it was therefore essential that the people of Louisiana demonstrate that the principle against which Abolitionists waged war was consecrated in Louisiana as a perpetuity. Although in a sense slaves were property, they were in themselves, in another sense, a portion of the population of the State, and both as persons and as property should enter into the basis of representation. But this idea was not gently received.

Was there nothing derogatory, inquired a member, in the idea of placing a slave upon an equality with a white man in representation? It would give rise to jealous feelings. The proprietors of slaves would have much more influence at the ballot box than the honest citizen who was too poor to own a slave. True, both would deposit one vote, but the vote of the slave-owner would be doubled, trebled, or quadrupled in proportion to the number of his slaves. The white man, the father of five minor children, would have but a single voice at the polls, while the owner of a

decrepit and worn-out negro and four negro children would be entitled not only to his own vote, but also to three additional votes on account of those slaves. The principle was unjust. It operated exclusively in favor of the rich. Were there not poor people in the country who did their own work? Was it not repugnant to the true principles of democracy that the farmer having no slaves, working his own farm, should have less weight in the government of the State than the adjoining rich proprietor who had a hundred negroes? If the purpose in advocating the federal basis was ultimately to restrain the political influence of the city, was it not better to prescribe the exact representation of the city according to a less questionable principle than that of the federal basis? Even in Virginia the federal basis had not been advocated except as a means for maintaining the equilibrium between the two great geographical divisions of the State.

On the 27th an effort was made to apportion representation according to the federal basis, and also to limit the representation in any city or parish to one-fifth of the whole number of Representatives. This proposition at once led to the disclosure of the anomaly upon which it rested. If a city or parish contained more than one-fifth of the entire population of the State, how could it justly be deprived of its proportion of representation? No other State in the Union combined two so hostile propositions.

The African slave and the free person of color

Humanizing Influence of Spanish Colonization

were not without advocates even in this convention. At all times in America the slave had been protected. The Spanish government prescribed the same criminal jurisprudence for the white and for the negro population. Had not the slave a right to purchase his own freedom? Had he not a right to acquire and hold property? Even the master had no right to inherit his slave's property? In some parishes slaves had the right to assemble on Sunday, a right originally granted them by Isabella the Catholic, which the State of Louisiana had respected until it adopted the black code. Under the name of law slaves had been deprived of nearly all their ancient privileges, and yet some sought to apportion representation according to slaves. The constitution of 1812 deprived free persons of color of all right to representation. When that constitution was made, the basis of representation was the free white population. Under the Spanish government free blacks had enjoyed all the privileges of white persons. This condition had led to an amalgamation between the white and the colored races until the black race had come within four degrees of the white. Were there not families in the State whose color depended on the law as a means of recognizing that they were of the white race? Because of the amalgamation of races in Louisiana, it was impossible to apportion representation on any basis in which color must be a discriminating element.

Equally unjust was it to apportion representation so that a city having four-fifths of the population

and paying three-fourths of the taxes of the State should have but one-fifth of the representation.

But there were those who objected to the federal basis because slaves could be conceived in no sense as being persons. Though in a moral sense they were persons, according to the condition of affairs in the State, because they formed an exclusive portion of its population, they could not be conceived to be political persons. In no democracy which could be construed as a precedent had the slave ever been allowed to participate in the government. The necessity for compromise, which had dictated the three-fifths clause of the Constitution of the United States, did not exist in Louisiana. Nor was Virginia a precedent. The great question in that commonwealth in 1830 was the basis of representation, and the convention made it a mixed basis of qualified voters and taxation. Was not the whole purpose of those who advocated the federal basis to aim a blow at New Orleans? Was it not to strip her of her just political influence in the State? The problem in Louisiana was to give to the representation of equal numbers equal weight upon subjects where a diversity of interests existed. The federal basis, it was said, had been repudiated by the American commonwealths, for it had not been adopted by them in their domestic representation, except in North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia, where it was adopted by the Legislature.

Eustis, a member from New Orleans, declared that the political condition of the State was too