TUESDAY, July 24, 1787.

Mr. Gouverneur Morris hoped the Committee would strike out the whole of the clause proportioning direct taxation to representation.  He had only meant it as a bridge[3] to assist us over a certain gulf; having passed the gulf, the bridge may be removed.  He thought the principle laid down with so much strictness liable to strong objections. p. 1197.

[Footnote 3:  The object was to lessen the eagerness, on one side, for, and the opposition, on the other, to the share of representation claimed by the Southern States on account of the negroes.]

WEDNESDAY, August 8, 1787.

Mr. King wished to know what influence the vote just passed was meant to have on the succeeding part of the Report, concerning the admission of slaves into the rule of representation.  He could not reconcile his mind to the Article, if it was to prevent objections to the latter part.  The admission of slaves was a most grating circumstance to his mind, and he believed would be so to a great part of the people of America.  He had not made a strenuous opposition to it heretofore, because he had hope that this concession would have produced a readiness, which had not been manifested, to strengthen the General Government, and to mark a full confidence in it.  The Report under consideration had, by the tenor of it, put an end to all those hopes.  In two great points the hands of the Legislature were absolutely tied.  The importation of slaves could not be prohibited.  Exports could not be taxed.  Is this reasonable?  What are the great objects of the general system?  First, defence against foreign invasion; secondly, against internal sedition.  Shall all the States, then, be bound to defend each, and shall each be at liberty to introduce a weakness which will render defence more difficult?  Shall one part of the United States be bound to defend another part, and that other part be at liberty, not only to increase its own danger, but to withhold the compensation for the burden?  If slaves are to be imported, shall not the exports produced by their labor supply a revenue the better to enable the General Government to defend their masters?  There was so much inequality and unreasonableness in all this, that the people of the Northern States could never be reconciled to it.  No candid man could undertake to justify it to them.  He had hoped that some accommodation would have taken place on this subject; that at least a time would have been limited for the importation of slaves.  He never could agree to let them be imported without limitation, and then be represented in the National Legislature.  Indeed, he could so little persuade himself of the rectitude of such a practice, that he was not sure he could assent to it under any circumstances.  At all events, either slaves should not be represented, or exports should be taxable.

Mr. Sherman regarded the slave trade as iniquitous; but the point of representation having been settled after much difficulty and deliberation, he did not think himself bound to make opposition; especially as the present Article, as amended, did not preclude any arrangement whatever on that point, in another place of the report.