The Question of the Suffrage.The battle over the suffrage was sharp but brief.Gouverneur Morris proposed that only land owners should be permitted to vote.Madison replied that the state legislatures,which had made so much trouble with radical laws,were elected by freeholders.After the debate,the delegates,unable to agree on any property limitations on the suffrage,decided that the House of Representatives should be elected by voters having the "qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature."Thus they accepted the suffrage provisions of the states.
The Balance between the Planting and the Commercial States.After the debates had gone on for a few weeks,Madison came to the conclusion that the real division in the convention was not between the large and the small states but between the planting section founded on slave labor and the commercial North.Thus he anticipated by nearly threequarters of a century "the irrepressible conflict."The planting states had neither the free white population nor the wealth of the North.There were,counting Delaware,six of them as against seven commercial states.Dependent for their prosperity mainly upon the sale of tobacco,rice,and other staples abroad,they feared that Congress might impose restraints upon their enterprise.Being weaker in numbers,they were afraid that the majority might lay an unfair burden of taxes upon them.
Representation and Taxation.The Southern members of the convention were therefore very anxious to secure for their section the largest possible representation in Congress,and at the same time to restrain the taxingpower of that body.Two devices were thought adapted to these ends.One was to count the slaves as people when apportioning representatives among the states according to their respective populations;the other was to provide that direct taxes should be apportioned among the states,in proportion not to their wealth but to the number of their free white inhabitants.For obvious reasons the Northern delegates objected to these proposals.Once more a compromise proved to be the solution.It was agreed that not all the slaves but threefifths of them should be counted for both purposesrepresentation and direct taxation.
Commerce and the Slave Trade.Southern interests were also involved in the project to confer upon Congress the power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce.To the manufacturing and trading states this was essential.It would prevent interstate tariffs and trade jealousies;it would enable Congress to protect American manufactures and to break down,by appropriate retaliations,foreign discriminations against American commerce.To the South the proposal was menacing because tariffs might interfere with the free exchange of the produce of plantations in European markets,and navigation acts might confine the carrying trade to American,that is Northern,ships.The importation of slaves,moreover,it was feared might be heavily taxed or immediately prohibited altogether.
The result of this and related controversies was a debate on the merits of slavery.Gouverneur Morris delivered his mind and heart on that subject,denouncing slavery as a nefarious institution and the curse of heaven on the states in which it prevailed.Mason of Virginia,a slaveholder himself,was hardly less outspoken,saying:"Slavery discourages arts and manufactures.The poor despise labor when performed by slaves.They prevent the migration of whites who really strengthen and enrich a country."
The system,however,had its defenders.Representatives from South Carolina argued that their entire economic life rested on slave labor and that the high death rate in the rice swamps made continuous importation necessary.Ellsworth of Connecticut took the ground that the convention should not meddle with slavery."The morality or wisdom of slavery,"he said,"are considerations belonging to the states.What enriches a part enriches the whole."To the future he turned an untroubled face:"As population increases,poor laborers will be so plenty as to render slaves useless.Slavery in time will not be a speck in our country."Virginia and North Carolina,already overstocked with slaves,favored prohibiting the traffic in them;but South Carolina was adamant.She must have fresh supplies of slaves or she would not federate.
So it was agreed that,while Congress might regulate foreign trade by majority vote,the importation of slaves should not be forbidden before the lapse of twenty years,and that any import tax should not exceed $10a head.
At the same time,in connection with the regulation of foreign trade,it was stipulated that a twothirds vote in the Senate should be necessary in the ratification of treaties.A further concession to the South was made in the provision for the return of runaway slavesa provision also useful in the North,where indentured servants were about as troublesome as slaves in escaping from their masters.
The Form of the Government.As to the details of the frame of government and the grand principles involved,the opinion of the convention ebbed and flowed,decisions being taken in the heat of debate,only to be revoked and taken again.