FEDERALIST, No. 54.

BY JAMES MADISON.

All this is admitted, it will perhaps be said:  but does it follow from an admission of numbers for the measure of representation, or of slaves combined with free citizens as a ratio of taxation, that slaves ought to be included in the numerical rule of representation?

Slaves are considered as property, not as persons.  They ought therefore, to be comprehended in estimates of taxation, which are founded on property, and to be excluded from representation, which is regulated by a census of persons.  This is the objection as I understand it, stated in its full force.  I shall be equally candid in stating the reasoning which may be offered on the opposite side.  We subscribe to the doctrine, might one of our Southern brethern observe, that representation relates more immediately to persons, and taxation more immediately to property; and we join in the application of this distinction to the case of our slaves.

But we must deny the fact, that slaves are considered merely as property, and in no respect whatever as persons.  The true state of the case is, that they partake of both these qualities, being considered by our laws, in some respects as persons, and in other respects as property.

In being compelled to labor, not for himself, but for a master; in being vendible by one master to another master; and in being subject at all times to be restrained in his liberty:  and chastised in his body by the capricious will of another; the slave may appear to be degraded from the human rank, and classed with those irrational animals which fall under the legal denomination of property.  In being protected, on the other hand, in his life, and in his limbs, against the violence of all others, even the master of his labor and his liberty; and in being punishable himself for all violence committed against others; the slave is no less evidently regarded by the law as a member of the society, not as a part of the irrational creation; as a moral person, not as a mere article of property.  The Federal constitution, therefore, decides with great propriety on the case of our slaves, when it views them in the mixed character of persons and property.  This is in fact their true character.  It is the character bestowed on them by the laws under which they live, and it will not be denied, that these are the proper criterion; because it is only under the pretext, that the laws have transformed the negroes into subjects of property, that a place is disputed them in the computation of numbers; and it is admitted, that if the laws were to restore the rights which have been taken away, the negroes could no longer be refused an equal share of representation with the other inhabitants.

This question may be placed in another light.  It is agreed on all sides, that numbers are the best scale of wealth and taxation, as they are the only proper scale of representation.  Would the convention have been impartial or consistent, if they had rejected the slaves from the list of inhabitants, when the shares of representation were to be calculated; and inserted them on the lists when the tariff of contributions was to be adjusted?