CHAPTER II.

It is one of the inconsistencies of human nature, that the British parliament should claim that authority over, and impress those burdens on the colonists, against which, when applied to themselves, they had murmured, protested, and rebelled. There cannot be a more striking parallel, than between the English revolution of 1688, and the North American revolution of 1776. In both cases, previous discussion had fairly put the disputed question in issue; each party to the dispute had fully weighed and settled its principles, its claims, and its duties; the people of England and the people of America were in both cases on the defensive; not aiming at establishing new rights, or setting up new pretensions against old established despotism, but defending against encroachment on liberties which they had always enjoyed, and seeking new guarantees to secure them.— Broken charters, insulted legislatures, and violated judiciaries, arbitrary acts defended by arbitrary principles, and injustice supported by violence, drove the English nation in 1688, and the English colonies in 1776, to declare that the respective sovereigns had abdicated the government.

The American revolution was complete in 1776, but it still remained to defend it by arms.

On Friday, July 12, 1776, the committee appointed to draw the articles of confederation between the thirteen states, reported them to Congress; and on the 22d, the house resolved themselves into a committee to take them into consideration. The institution of new government by a people reeking from tyranny and oppression, is a sight, which, whilst it engages the solicitous attention of the patriot and philanthropist, is no less calculated to alarm their fears. Smarting from their wrongs, and still fresh in their indignation, it is to be apprehended that every curb of restraint will be removed, and that liberty may degenerate into violence or licentiousness. The French revolution reads a most terrifick lesson on this subject. It was not so with those heroick men who had just placed their hands to the Declaration of Independence; and the articles of confederation, if they do not guard against every evil, or provide for every future contingency, were yet the result of virtue and wisdom, and calculated for the promotion of rational freedom. The notes of Mr. Jefferson contain the earlier debates on some of these articles; and as circumstances connected with the infant government of the country, and as displaying the powers of the most prominent men in it, to these notes we shall again have reference.*

On the 30th and 31st of that month, (July,) and 1st of the ensuing, those articles were debated which de

The course of deliberation was conducted with profound secrecy, and no other record now remains of that wisdom and intelligence, of that capacious and accurate view of political science and ethical philosophy, which a discussion of the prin ciples of government must have drawn forth from the accom plished civilians who were members of that Congress.

termined the proportion, or quota, of money which each state should furnish to the common treasury, and the manner of voting in Congress. The first of these articles was expressed in the original draught in these words: "Art. XI. All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defence, or general welfare, and allowed by the United States. assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several colonies in proportion to the number of inhabitants of every age, sex, and quality, except Indians not paying taxes in each colony, a true account of which, distinguishing the white inhabitants, shall be triennially taken and transmitted to the Assembly of the United States."

Mr. Chase moved that the quotas should be fixed, not by the number of inhabitants of every condition, but by that of the white inhabitants. He admitted that taxation should be always in proportion to property; that this was, in theory, the true rule; but that, from a variety of difficulties, it was a rule which could never be adopted in practice. The value of the property in every state, could never be estimated justly and equally. Some other measures for the wealth of the state must therefore be devised, some standard referred to, which would be more simple. He considered the number of inhabitants as a tolerably good criterion of property, and that this might always be obtained. He therefore thought it the best mode which we could adopt, with one exception only: he observed that negroes are property, and, as such, cannot be distinguished from the lands or personalities held in those states where there are few slaves; that the surplus of profit which a north

ern farmer is able to lay by, he invests in cattle, horses, &c.; whereas a southern farmer lays out the same surplus in slaves. There is no more reason, therefore, for taxing the southern states on the farmer's head, and on his slave's head, than the northern states on their farmers' heads and the heads of their cattle; that the method proposed would, therefore, tax the southern states according to their numbers and their wealth conjunctly, while the northern would be taxed on numbers only; that negroes, in fact, should not be considered as members of the state more than cattle, and that they have no more interest in it.

Mr. John Adams observed, that the numbers of people were taken by this article as an index of the wealth of the state, and not as subjects of taxation; that, as to this matter, it was of no consequence by what name you called your people, whether by that of freemen or of slaves; that in some countries the labouring poor were called freemen, in others they were called slaves; but that the difference as to the state was imaginary only. What matters it whether a landlord employing ten labourers on his farm, gives them annually as much money as will buy them the necessaries of life, or gives them those necessaries at shorthand. The ten labourers add as much wealth annually to the state, increase its exports as much, in the one case as the other. Certainly five hundred freemen produce no more profits, no greater surplus for the payment of taxes, than five hundred slaves. Therefore, the state in which are the labourers called freemen, should be taxed no more than that in which are those called slaves. Suppose, by an extraordinary operation of nature or of

law, one half the labourers of a state could, in the course of one night, be transformed into slaves: would the state be made the poorer, or the less able to pay taxes?— That the condition of the labouring poor in most countries, that of the fishermen, particularly of the northern states, is as abject as that of slaves. It is the number of labourers which produces the surplus for taxation, and numbers, therefore, indiscriminately, are the fair index of wealth; that it is the use of the word property here, and its application to some of the people of the state, which produces the fallacy. How does the southern farmer procure slaves? Either by importation or by purchase from his neighbour. If he imports a slave, he adds one to the number of labourers in his country, and proportionably to its profits and abilities to pay taxes; if he buys from his neighbour, it is only a transfer of a labourer from one farm to another, which does not change the annual produce of the state, and therefore, should not change its tax; that if a northern farmer works ten labourers on his farm, he can, it is true, invest the surplus of ten men's labour in cattle; but so may the southern farmer, working ten slaves; that a state of one hundred thousand freemen can maintain no more cattle than one of one hundred thousand slaves: therefore, they have no more of that kind of property; that a slave may, indeed, from the custom of speech, be more properly called the wealth of his master, than the free labourer might be called the wealth of his employer; but as to the state, both were equally its wealth, and should, therefore, equally add to the quota of its tax.

Mr. Harrison proposed, as a compromise, that two