freeman will pay more tax than the whole consumption of the miserable slave, which consists of nothing more than his physical subsistence and the rag that covers his nakedness.  On the other side, the Southern States are not to be restrained from importing fresh supplies of wretched Africans, at once to increase the danger of attack and the difficulty of defence:  nay, they are to be encouraged to it by an assurance of having their votes in the National Government increased in proportion:  and are, it the same time, to have their exports and their slaves exempt from all contributions for the public service.  Let it not be said that direct taxation is to be proportioned to representation.  It is idle to suppose that the General Government can stretch its hand directly into the pockets of the people scattered over so vast a country.  They can only do it through the medium of exports, imports, and excises.  For what, then, are all the sacrifices to be made?  He would sooner submit himself to a tax for paying for all the negroes in the United States than saddle posterity with such a Constitution."[629]

Mr. Rufus King of Massachusetts in the same debate said,—­

“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 hoped 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. Roger Sherman of Connecticut,—­