and left the decision of every question to the majority of those who might be present; Dickinson knew only "the United States assembled;" counted every one of them which might chance to be unrepresented as a vote in the negative; required that not even a trivial matter should be determined except by the concurrence of seven colonies; and that measures of primary importance should await the assent of nine, that is of two thirds of the whole. If eight states only were present, no question relating to defence, 1776. July. peace, war, finances, army, or navy, could be transacted even by a unanimous vote; nor could a matter of smaller moment be settled by a majority of six to two. By common consent, congress was the channel through which amendments to the constitution were to be proposed: Franklin accepted all amendments that should be approved by a majority of the state assemblies; Dickinson permitted no change but by the consent of the legislature of every state. No executive apparatus distinct from the general congress could be detected in the system. Judicial power over questions arising between the states was provided for; and courts might be established to exercise primary jurisdiction over crimes committed on the high seas, with appellate jurisdiction over captures; but there was not even a rudimentary organ from which a court for executing the ordinances of the confederacy could be developed; and, as a consequence, there existed no real legislative authority. The congress could transact specific business, but not enact general laws; could publish a journal, but not a book of statutes. Even this anarchical scheme, which was but the reflection of the long-cherished repugnance to central power, a reminiscence of the war-cries of former times, not a creation for the coming age, alarmed Edward Rutledge, who served with industry on the committee with Dickinson. He saw danger in the very thought of an indissoluble league of friendship between the states for their general welfare; saying privately, but deliberately: "If the plan now proposed should be adopted, nothing less than ruin to some colonies. will be the consequence. The idea of destroying all pro vincial distinctions, and making every thing of the most minute kind bend to what they call the good of the whole, is in other terms to say that these colonies must be subject to the government of the eastern provinces. The force of their arms I hold exceeding cheap, but I confess I dread their overruling influence in council; I dread their low cunning, and those levelling principles which men without character and without fortune in general possess, which are so captivating to the lower class of mankind, and which will occasion such a fluctuation of property as to introduce the greatest disorder. I am resolved to vest the congress with no more power than what is absolutely necessary, and to keep the staff in our own hands; for I am confident, if surrendered into the hands of others, a most pernicious use will be made of it." While the projected confederation was thus cavilled at with morbid distrust, its details offered questions of difficult solution. Dickinson, assuming population to be the index of wealth, proposed to obtain supplies by requisitions upon each state in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, excepting none but Indians not paying taxes. Chase moved to count only the "white inhabitants;" for "negroes were property, and no more members of the state than cattle." "Call the laboring poor freemen or slaves," said John Adams, "they increase the wealth and exports of the state as much in the one case as in the other, and should therefore add equally to the quota of its tax." Harrison, of Virginia, proposed as a compromise that two slaves should be counted as one freeman. "To exempt slaves from taxation," said Wilson, "will be the greatest encouragement to slave-keeping and the importation of slaves, on which it is our duty to lay every discouragement. Slaves increase profits, which the southern states take to themselves; they also increase the burden of defence, which must fall so much the more heavily on the northern. Slaves prevent freemen from cultivating a country. Dismiss your slaves, and freemen will take their places." "Freemen," said young Lynch, of South Carolina, "have neither the ability nor the inclination to do the work that 1776. July. the negroes do. Our slaves are our property; if that is debated, there is an end of confederation. Being our property, why should they be taxed more than sheep?" "There is a difference," said Franklin; "sheep will never make insurrections." Witherspoon thought the value of lands and houses was the true barometer of the wealth of a people, and the criterion for taxation. Edward Rutledge objected to the rule of numbers because it included slaves, and because it exempted the wealth to be acquired by the eastern states as carriers for the southern. Hooper, of North Carolina, cited his own state as a striking exception to the rule that the riches of a country are in proportion to its numbers; and, commenting on the unprofitableness of slave labor, he expressed the wish to see slavery pass away. The amendment of Chase was rejected by a purely geographical vote of all the states north of Mason and Dixon's line against all those south of it, except that Georgia was divided. The confederation could not of itself levy taxes, and no rule for apportioning requisitions promised harmony. A second article which divided the states related to the distribution of power in the general congress. Delaware, 1776. July. from the first, bound her delegates to insist that, “in declaring questions, each colony shall have one vote;" and that was the rule adopted by Dickinson. Chase saw the extreme danger of a hopeless conflict, and proposed as a compromise that in votes relating to money the voice of each state should be proportioned to the number of its inhabitants. Franklin insisted that they should be so proportioned in all cases; that it was unreasonable to set out with an unequal representation; that a confederation on the iniquitous principle of allowing to the smaller states an equal vote without their bearing equal burdens could not last long. "All agree," replied Witherspoon, "that there must and shall be a confederation for this war; in the enlightened state of men's minds, I hope for a lasting one. Our greatest danger is of disunion among ourselves. Nothing will come before congress but what respects colonies and not individuals. Every colony is a distinct person; and, if an equal vote be refused, the smaller states will be vassals to the larger." "We must confederate," said Clark, of New Jersey, "or apply for pardons." "We should settle some plan of representation," said Wilson. John Adams agreed with Franklin: "We represent the people; and in some states they are many, in others they are few; the vote should be proportioned to numbers. The question is not whether the states are now independent individuals, making a bargain together, but what we ought to be when the bargain is made. The confederacy is to make us one individual only; to form us, like separate parcels of metal, into one common mass. We shall no longer retain our separate individuality, but become a single individual as to all questions submitted to the confederacy; therefore all those reasons which prove the justice and expediency of a proportional representation in other assemblies hold good here. An equal vote will endanger the larger states; while they, from their difference of products, of interest, and of manners, can never combine for the oppression of the smaller." Rush spoke on the same side: "We represent the people; we are a nation; to vote by states will keep up colonial distinctions; and we shall be loath to admit new colonies into the confederation. The voting by the number of free inhabitants will have the excellent effect of inducing the colonies to discourage slavery. If we vote by numbers, liberty will always be safe; the larger colonies are so providentially divided in situation as to render every fear of their combining visionary. The more a man aims at serving America, the more he serves his colony: I am not July. pleading the cause of Pennsylvania; I consider myself a citizen of America." Hopkins, of Rhode Island, pleaded for the smaller colonies: "The German body votes by states; so does the Helvetic; so does the Belgic. Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Maryland contain more than half the people; it cannot be expected that nine colonies will give way to four. The safety of the whole depends on the distinction of the colonies." "The vote," said Sherman, of Connecticut, "should be taken two ways: call the colonies, and call the individuals, and have a majority of both." This idea he probably derived from Jefferson, who 1776. enforced in private, as the means to save the union, that 1776. July. "any proposition might be negatived by the representatives of a majority of the people, or of a majority of the colonies." Here is the thought out of which the great compromise of our constitution was evolved. Aside from the permanent question of taxation and representation, what most stood in the way of an early act of union was the conflict of claims to the ungranted lands, which during the connection with Great Britain had belonged to the king. Reason and equity seemed to dictate that they should inure to the common benefit of all the states which joined to wrest them from the crown. The complete transfer of ownership from the dethroned authority to the general congress would, however, have been at variance with the fixed and undisputed idea that each state should have the exclusive control of its internal policy. It was therefore not questioned that each member of the confederacy had acquired the sole right to the public domain within its acknowledged limits; but it was proposed to vindicate to the United States the great territory northwest of the Ohio, by investing congress "with the exclusive power of limiting the bounds of those colonies which were said to extend to the South Sea, and ascertaining the bounds of any other that appeared to be indeterminate." Maryland, which had originally been formed out of Virginia, retained a grudge against the Old Dominion for its exorbitant appetite for western territory; and Chase argued strongly for the grant of power to limit the states. "Gentlemen shall not pare away Virginia," said Harrison, taking fire at the interference with its boundaries as defined by the second charter of James I. Stone, of Maryland, came to the rescue of his colleague: "The small colonies will have no safety in the right to happiness, if the great colonies are not limited. All the colonies defend the lands against the king of Great Britain, and at the expense of all. Does Virginia wish to establish quit-rents? Shall she sell the lands for her own emolument? I do not mean that the United States shall sell them, to get money by them; we shall grant them in small quantities, without quit-rent, or tribute, or |