I will not pause to inquire whether the rule apportioning representatives according to numbers,which,after much,contest,was finally adopted by the convention,be the correct one or not.Supposing that it is so,the rule which apportions taxation in the same way,follows as a matter of course.The difficulties under which the convention seem to have labored,in regard to this subject,may well excite our surprise,at the present day.If the North really supposed that they conceded anything to the South,by allowing representation to three-fifths of their slaves,they were certainly but poorly compensated for the concession,by that provision of the Constitution which apportions taxation according to representation.This principle was universally acknowledged throughout the United States,and is,in fact,only,a modification of the great principle upon which the revolution itself was based.That taxation should be apportioned to representation,results from the federative character of the government;and the fact that this rule was adopted,sustains the views which have been presented upon this point.It would have been indeed strange if some one State,having only half the representatives of its neighbor State,might yet have been subjected to twice the amount of taxation;Delaware,for instance,with her one representative,to twice the taxes of Pennsylvania,with her twenty-eight.A different rule from that which prevails might subject the weaker States to intolerable oppression.A combination among a few of the strongest States might,by a little management,throw the whole burthen of taxation upon the others,by selecting only such subjects of taxation as they themselves did not possess,or which they possessed only to a comparatively small extent.
It never would have answered to entrust the power of taxation to Congress,without some check against these and similar abuses,and no check could have been devised more effective or more appropriate than the provision now under consideration.All the States were interested in it,and the South much more deeply than the North.The slaves of the South afford the readiest of all possible subjects for this sort of practice,and it would be going too far to say that they would not,at some day or other,be selected for it,if this provision of the Constitution did not stand in the way.
The southern States would certainly never have adopted the Constitution without some such guarantee as this against those oppressions to which their peculiar institutions exposed them;and the weaker States,whether north or south,would never have adopted it,because it might lead to their utter annihilation in the confederacy.This provision of the Constitution,therefore,can scarcely be considered as an equivalent for anything conceded by some of the States to others.It resulted necessarily from the very nature of their union;it is an appropriate and necessary feature in every confederacy between sovereign States.We ought,then,to regard that provision of the Constitution which allows representation to only three-fifths of the slaves,as a concession made by the South;and one for which they received no equivalent,except in the harmony it served to produce.
Reverting to the rule that representation shall be apportioned to population,and supposing that all parties acquiesce in the propriety of it,upon what principle is the rule itself founded?We have already seen that the whole country had adopted the principle that taxation,should be apportioned to representation,and,of course,in fixing the principle of representation,the question of taxation was necessarily involved.There is no perfectly just rule of taxation but property;every man should contribute to the support of the government,according to his ability,that is,according to the value of that property to which government extends its protection.
But this rule never can be applied in practice;because it is impossible to discover what is the amount of the property,either of individuals or nations.In regard to States,population is the best measure of this value which can be found,and is,in most cases,a sufficiently accurate one.
Although the wealth of a State cannot be ascertained,its people can be easily counted,and hence the number of its people gives the best rule for its representation,and consequently for its taxation.
The population of a State is received as the best measure of the value of its property,because it is in general true,that the greater the number of people,the greater is the amount of productive industry.But of what consequence is it,by what sort of people this amount of production is afforded?It was required that each State of our Union should contribute its due proportion to the common treasury;a proposition ascertained by the number of its people.Of what consequence is it whether this contribution be made by the labor of slaves,or by that of freemen?All that the States had a right to require of one another was,that each should contribute its allotted proportion;but no State had a right to enquire from what particular sources that contribution arose.Each State having a perfect right to frame its own municipal regulations for itself,the other States had no right to subject her to any disabilities or disadvantages on account of them.If Massachusetts had a right to object to the representation of the slaves of Virginia,Virginia had the same right to object to the representation of the apprentices,the domestic servants,or even the mechanics of Massachusetts.
