whether north or south, would never have adopted it, because it might lead to [ *111 ]*their utter annihilation in the confederacy. This provision of the constitution, therefore, can scarcely be considered as an equivalent for any thing 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 which 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 proportion ascertained
