1787] Navigation laws. 283 to the compromise in regard to the importation of slaves), and of the interest the weak States of the South had in being united with the strong States of the East. He accordingly thought that the power of regulating commerce should not be fettered. To require more than a majority vote had, according to Sherman, always proved embarrassing; the country had had experience of this under the Confederation, in cases requiring the vote of nine States in Congress. A navy, Gouverneur Morris argued, was essential to the security of the States, particularly of the southern ; and it could be had only by navi- gation laws encouraging American bottoms and seamen. Shipping too was a precarious kind of property and stood in special need of favour. Williamson, answering Sherman, did not believe that any useful measure had been lost in Congress for want of the votes, when necessary, of nine States ; and he thought that the interests of the South required that navigation laws should not pass by a mere majority vote. The weakness of the South, to which reference had been made, did not trouble him ; the climate was unhealthy and would forbid foreign interference. Mason argued that the South should not be bound hand and foot to the Eastern States, as it might be if navigation Acts were to be passed by a majority vote. Madison went into a full review of the subject. The disadvantage to the southern States from a navigation Act lay chiefly in a temporary rise of freight; but that would be compensated by an increase of shipping and by a removal of the troublesome retaliations by one State upon another. The power too of foreign countries to obstruct by corrupt influence American retaliation upon them, would be less if legislation could be passed by a majority. And he thought that any abuse of the power acquired by the North would be rendered improbable by the provision of two branches of Congress, by the independence of the Senate, by the negative to be given to the executive, by the interests of Connecticut and New Jersey, which, like the southern States, were agricultural, by those of the interior, which were agricultural even in the most largely commercial of the States, and by the admission of western States, which would be wholly agricultural. And the South would derive material benefit from increase of maritime power; the southern States, especially Virginia, were exposed to danger. A motion to postpone this part of the report was hereupon lost, though favoured by four States, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. The report was then agreed to without dissent, and the clause requiring a two-thirds vote to pass a navigation Act struck out of the draft. The whole subject of the powers of the legislature was now with little difficulty put into final form in the Constitution in Article I, sections 8 and 9. OH. VJII.
