by the executive;* but the committee was ordered by a great majority; and the house showed its own inclination by selecting Franklin, Gerry, Ellsworth, Yates, Paterson, even Bedford and Martin, Mason, Davie, Rutledge, and Baldwin. To give them time for their task, and to all the opportunity of celebrating the anniversary of independence, the convention adjourned for three days. † * Gilpin, 1019, 1020; Elliot, 271, 272. Gilpin, 1023, 1024; Elliot, 273. CHAPTER IV. THE ADJUSTMENT OF REPRESENTATION. FROM THE THIRD TO THE TWENTY-THIRD OF JULY 1787. On the morning of the third of July the grand committee accepted as a basis for a compromise* the proposal of Franklin, that in the first branch of the first congress there should be one member for every forty thousand inhabitants, counting all the free and three fifths of the rest; that in the second branch each state should have an equal vote; and that, in return for this concession to the small states, the first branch should be invested with the sole power of originating taxes and appropriations. The settlement of the rule of representation for new states was considered, but was left to the convention. "The committee have exceeded their powers," + cried Wilson, when Gerry, on the fifth, delivered the report to the convention. Madison encouraged the large states to oppose it steadfastly. Butler denounced the plan as unjust.# Gouverneur Morris, delighting to startle by his cynicism, condemned alike its form and substance, adding: "State attachments and state importance have been the bane of the country. We cannot annihilate the serpents, but we may perhaps take out their teeth. Suppose the larger states agree, the smaller states must come in. Jersey would follow the opinions of New York and Pennsylvania. If persuasion does not unite the small states with the others, the sword will. The strongest party * Yates in Elliot, i., 478. #Gilpin, 1028; Elliot, 275. Gilpin, 1028; Elliot, 276. ▲ Gilpin, 1030; Elliot, 277. The larger will make the weaker traitors, and hang them. states are the most powerful; they must decide." * enforced the necessity of compromise, and saw none more convenient or reasonable than that proposed by the committee. † "We are neither the same nation, nor different nations," said Gerry; "we therefore ought not to pursue the one or the other of these ideas too closely. Without a compromise a secession will take place, and the result no man can foresee." "There must be some accommodation on this point," said Mason, "or we shall make little further progress in the work. It cannot be more inconvenient to any gentleman to remain absent from his private affairs than it is for me; but I will bury my bones in this city rather than expose my country to the consequences of a dissolution of the convention without anything being done." + A throng of questions on representation thrust themselves into the foreground. Gouverneur Morris objected to the rule of numbers alone in the distribution of representatives. "Not liberty," said he; "property is the main object of society. The savage state is more favorable to liberty than the civilized, and was only renounced for the sake of property. A range of new states will soon be formed in the West. The rule of representation ought to be so fixed as to secure to the Atlantic states a prevalence in the national councils." Rutledge repeated: "Property is certainly the principal object of society. If numbers should be the rule of representation, the Atlantic states will soon be subjected to the western." "If new states," said Mason and Randolph, "make a part of the union, they ought to be subject to no unfavorable discriminations." # On the morning of the sixth, Gouverneur Morris moved to refer the ratio of representation in the popular branch to a committee of five. Wilson, who still strove to defeat the compromise between the federal and the national states, seconded the motion. In the distribution of representatives, Gorham thought the number of inhabitants the true guide. "Property,” said King, "is the primary object of society, and, *Paterson MSS. + Gilpin, 1032; Elliot, 278. Gilpin, 1032, 1033; Elliot, 278. #Gilpin, 1034, 1035; Elliot, 278, 279. in fixing a ratio, ought not to be excluded from the estimate."* "Property," said Butler, "is the only just measure of representation."+ To Charles Pinckney the number of inhabitants appeared the true and only practicable rule,‡ and he acquiesced in counting but three fifths of the slaves. The motion of Morris was carried by New England, Pennsylvania, and the four southernmost slaveholding states. Gouverneur Morris, Gorham, Randolph, Rutledge, and King, were chosen the committee. On the seventh the clause allowing each state an equal vote in the senate was retained as part of the report by six states against three, New York being present and voting with the majority, Massachusetts and Georgia being divided. The number and distribution of the members of the first branch of the legislature in the first congress, the rule for every future congress, the balance of legislative power between the South and the North; between the carrying states which asked for a retaliatory navigation act and the planting states which desired free freight and free trade; between the original states and new ones; the apportionment of representation according to numbers or wealth, or a combination of the two; the counting of all, or three fifths, or none, of the slaves; the equal suffrage in the senate-became the subjects of motions and counter-motions, postponements and recalls. To unravel the tangled skein it is necessary to trace each subject for itself to its preliminary settlement. On the ninth Gouverneur Morris presented the report of the committee of five. It changed the distribution of representation in the first congress to the advantage of the South; for the future, no one opposing except Randolph, it authorized, but purposely refrained from enjoining, the legislature, from time to time, to regulate the number of representatives of each state by its wealth and the number of its inhabitants. # "The report," said Sherman, "corresponds neither with any rule of numbers, nor any requisition by congress;"¦ and on his motion its first paragraph was referred to a committee of one member from each state.A Gouverneur Morris sec * Gilpin, 1037; Elliot, 280. Gilpin, 1038; Elliot, 281. Gilpin, 1039; Elliot, 281. #Gilpin, 1051, 1052; Elliot, 287, 288. A Elliot, i., 197. Paterson could onded and Randolph approved the motion.* regard negro slaves in no light but as property; to grant their masters an increase of representation for them he condemned as an indirect encouragement of the slave trade.† Madison revived his suggestion of a representation of free inhabitants in the popular branch; of the whole number, including slaves, in the senate; which, as the special guardian of property, would rightly be the protector of property in slaves. “The southern states are the richest," said King, who yet should have known that they were not so, or perhaps was thinking only of the exports of the country; "they will not league themselves with the northern unless some respect is paid to their superior wealth. The North must not expect to receive from the connection preferential distinctions in commerce without allowing some advantage in return." # The committee of one from each state on the very next morning, the tenth of July, produced their well-considered report. The committee of five had fixed the number of representatives at fifty-six; or thirty from the North, twenty-six from the South; and Maryland and Virginia had each given up one member to South Carolina, raising her number to five.] In the confederacy each state might send to congress as many as seven delegates, so that the whole number in congress might be ninety-one. This number was adopted for the new constitution as there were to be two branches of the legisla ture, two members for each state were assigned to the branch representing the states, the remaining sixty-five were assigned to the popular branch. Thirty-five were parcelled out to the North, to the South thirty. Of the new members for the South, two were allotted to Maryland, one to Virginia, and one to Georgia. In this way Connecticut, North Carolina, and South Carolina, having each five votes in the popular branch, retained in the house exactly one thirteenth of all the votes in that body, and so would hold in each branch exactly the same relative power as in the confederacy. The first census established the justice of this relative distribution between * Gilpin, 1054; Elliot, 288, 289. Gilpin, 1055; Elliot, 289. Gilpin, 1055; Elliot, 289, 290. #Gilpin, 1056; Elliot, 290. Gilpin, 1062, 1063; Elliot, 293; Elliot, i., 197, 198. |