Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

injury shall be done them, will their threats be less urgent or effectual when force shall back their demands. Even in the intervening period, there will be no point of time at which they will not be able to say, do us justice or we will separate. He urged the necessity of placing confidence to a certain degree in every government, and did not conceive that the proposed confidence, as to a periodical re-adjustment of the representation, exceeded that degree.

Mr. PINCKNEY moved to amend Mr. RANDOLPH'S motion, so as to make "blacks equal to the whites in the ratio of representation." This he urged was nothing more than justice. The blacks are the laborers, the peasants, of the Southern States. They are as productive of pecuniary resources as those of the Northern States. They add equally to the wealth, and, considering money as the sinew of war, to the strength, of the nation. It will also be politic with regard to the Northern States, as taxation is to keep pace with representation.

General PINCKNEY moves to insert six years instead of two, as the period, computing from the first meeting of the Legislature, within which the first census should be taken. On this question for inserting six years, instead of " two," in the proposition of Mr. WILSON, it passed in the affirmative,-Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, South Carolina, aye-5; Massachusetts, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, no-4; Delaware, divided.

On the question for filling the blank for the periodical census with twenty years, it passed in the negative, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, aye-3; Massachusetts, Delaware, Maryland, Vir

ginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, no -7.

On the question for ten years, it passed in the affirmative, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, aye-8; Connecticut, New Jersey, no -2.

On Mr. PINCKNEY'S motion, for rating blacks as equal to whites, instead of as three-fifths,-South Carolina, Georgia, aye-2; Massachusetts, Connecticut (Doctor JOHNSON, aye), New Jersey, Pennsylvania (three against two), Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, no-8.

Mr. RANDOLPH's proposition, as varied by Mr. WILSON, being read for taking the question on the whole,

Mr. GERRY urged that the principle of it could not be carried into execution, as the States were not to be taxed as States. With regard to taxes on imposts, he conceived they would be more productive where there were no slaves, than where there were; the consumption being greater.

Mr. ELLSWORTH. In case of a poll-tax there would be no difficulty. But there would probably be none. The sum allotted to a State may be levied without difficulty, according to the plan used by the State in raising its own supplies.

On the question on the whole proposition, as proportioning representation to direct taxation, and both to the white and three-fifths of the black inhabitants, and requiring a census within six years, and within every ten years afterwards,-Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina,

Georgia, aye-6; New Jersey, Delaware, no-2; Massachusetts, South Carolina, divided.

Adjourned.

FRIDAY, JULY 13TH.

In Convention,-It being moved to postpone the clause in the Report of the Committee of Eleven as to the originating of money bills in the first branch, in order to take up the following, "that in the second branch each State shall have an equal voice,"

Mr. GERRY moved to add, as an amendment to the last clause agreed to by the house," that from the first meeting of the Legislature of the United States till a census shall be taken, all moneys to be raised for supplying the public Treasury by direct taxation shall be assessed on the inhabitants of the several States according to the number of their Representatives respectively in the first branch." He said this would be as just before as after the census, according to the general principle that taxation and representation ought to go together.

Mr. WILLIAMSON feared that New Hampshire will have reason to complain. Three members were allotted to her as a liberal allowance, for this reason among others, that she might not suppose any advantage to have been taken of her absence. As she was still absent, and had no opportunity of deciding whether she would choose to retain the number on the condition of her being taxed in proportion

to it, he thought the number ought to be reduced from three to two, before the question was taken on Mr. GERRY's motion.

Mr. READ could not approve of the proposition. He had observed, he said, in the Committee a backwardness in some of the members from the large States, to take their full proportion of Representatives. He did not then see the motive. He now suspects it was to avoid their due share of taxation. He had no objection to a just and accurate adjustment of representation and taxation to each other.

Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS and Mr. MADISON answered, that the charge itself involved an acquittal; since, notwithstanding the augmentation of the number of members allotted to Massachusetts and Virginia, the motion for proportioning the burdens thereto was made by a member from the former State, and was approved by Mr. MADISON, from the latter, who was on the Committee. Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS said, that he thought Pennsylvania had her due share in eight members; and he could not in candour ask for more. Mr. MADISON said, that having always conceived that the difference of interest in the United States lay not between the large and small, but the Northern and Southern States, and finding that the number of members allotted to the Northern States was greatly superior, he should have preferred an addition of two members to the Southern States, to wit, one to North and one to South Carolina, rather than of one member to Virginia. He liked the present motion, because it tended to moderate the views both of the opponents and advocates for rating very high the negroes.

Mr. ELLSWORTH hoped the proposition would be withdrawn. It entered too much into detail. The general principle was already sufficiently settled. As fractions cannot be regarded in apportioning the number of Representatives, the rule will be unjust, until an actual census shall be made. After that, taxation may be precisely proportioned, according to the principle established, to the number of inhabi

tants.

Mr. WILSON hoped the motion would not be withdrawn. If it should, it will be made from another quarter. The rule will be as reasonable and just before, as after, a census. As to fractional numbers, the census will not destroy, but ascertain them. And they will have the same effect after, as before, the census; for, as he understands the rule, it is to be adjusted not to the number of inhabitants, but of Representatives.

Mr. SHERMAN opposed the motion. He thought the Legislature ought to be left at liberty; in which case they would probably conform to the principles observed by Congress.

Mr. MASON did not know that Virginia would be a loser by the proposed regulation, but had some scruple as to the justice of it. He doubted much whether the conjectural rule which was to precede the census would be as just as it would be rendered by an actual census.

Mr. ELLSWORTH and Mr. SHERMAN moved to postpone the motion of Mr. GERRY.

On the question, it passed in the negative,-Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, aye-4; VOL. I.-69

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »