New Hampshire did not vote to participate in the Convention and select its delegates until June 27, more than a month after the Convention held its first session. None of its four delegates have arrived. With Rhode Island’s refusal to join and yesterday’s departure of New York’s Robert Yates and John Lansing, only ten States are left to continue the work.
Today began with resuming consideration of Edmund Randolph’s motion requiring the new national legislature to “take a periodical census for the purpose of redressing inequalities in representation, considering both the population and wealth of the States.” Roger Sherman spoke first, simply stating he is “against shackling the legislature too much. We ought to choose wise and good men and then confide in them.” George Mason disagreed. If we are finding “great difficulty in fixing a proper rule of representation,” he said, “the more unwilling ought we to be to throw the task from ourselves on to the general legislature.” He does not oppose the “conjectural ratio of representation [presented to them by the committee] to prevail at the outset,” but considers it essential to have “a revision from time to time according to some permanent and precise standard” for a fair representation in the first branch.
“According to the present population of America,” Mason observed, “the northern part of it had a right to preponderate,” but populations will shift. At some point, the southern States may contain three-fourths of the population while power is retained by States with one-fourth the population.” What about States yet to be admitted? Mason has consistently held they should be treated as equals.
Randolph agreed to some extent with Mason, noting “the ratio fixed [by the committee] for the first meeting was a conjecture, that it placed the power in the hands of that part of America which would not always be entitled to it,” that is, the eastern States. Moreover, “this power would not be voluntarily renounced,” hence the need for the Convention to provide some “constitutional provisions” for a fixed rule.
At this point, Pierce Butler and Gen. Pinckney weighed in, moving that the words “three fifths” be struck, referring back to the original proposal which called for including three-fifths of the slaves when counting population. Nathaniel Gorman (Massachusetts) noted that “this ratio had been fixed by Congress as a rule of taxation.” Based on arguments on that former occasion, he remains convinced “that 3/5 is pretty near the just proportion.” Butler insisted that “the labor of a slave in S. Carolina is as productive and valuable as that of a freeman in Massachusetts” and “equal representation ought to be allowed for them.” Mason took a decidedly different position, even though the motion would benefit his own State of Virginia. It is “certain that the slaves are valuable…and ought not to be excluded from representation,” but he cannot regard them as equal to freemen and cannot vote for them as such.” The motion to consider blacks as equal to whites for apportionment of representation” failed 3 – 7, Delaware, South Carolina and Georgia voting “yes.”
Earlier, Hugh Williamson had proposed to substitute a motion for Randolph’s, to which Randolph had agreed. It proposed that the census include consideration of both “population and wealth” and the count be taken of “free white inhabitants and 3/5 of those of other descriptions.” Gouverneur Morris made a striking statement. “If slaves were to be considered as inhabitants, not as wealth,” then Mr. Williamson’s “resolution would not be pursued. If as wealth, then why is no other wealth but slaves included?” His point was that population “is not a proper standard of wealth.” But he also “could never agree to give encouragement to the slave trade by allowing them a representation for their Negroes.”
John Rutledge agrees that wealth should be included in the calculation for apportioning representatives. No, said Sherman, population “alone is the best rule for measuring representation.” James Wilson asserted using wealth for this purpose is “impractical.” How can it be measured? Gorham supported setting a “fixed standard” for determining apportionment. After all, if “the Convention who are comparatively so little biased by local views are so much perplexed, how can it be expected that the legislature hereafter under the full bias of those views, will be able to settle a standard?”
Morris differed. “If we can’t agree on a rule that will be just at this time, how can we expect to find one that will be just in all times to come? Surely, those who come after us will judge better of things present, than we can of things future.” At this point, the debate became less about free States versus slave States and more about eastern versus western States. Nevertheless, the vote regarding taking a census of “free” inhabitants passed 6 – 4.
Once again, attention turned to the three-fifths issue. James Wilson could “not well see on what principle” the three-fifths could be explained. “Are slaves to be admitted as citizens?” he asked. “Then why are they not admitted on an equality with white citizens? Are they admitted as property? Then why is not other property admitted into the computation?”
Today’s debate meandered, delegates frequently covering more than one topic in each speech rather than addressing one issue at a time. By the end of the day, the Convention voted on even more propositions, “including counting 3/5 of the blacks ( 4 – 6); requiring the new legislature to conduct a “census the first year after” its first meeting (7 – 3); requiring a census to be conducted every fifteen years (nem.com); conducting the census “at least” every fifteen years (5 – 5); and changing simple phraseology in one section of the resolution (nem.com). When debate, bickering, and voting on amendments to Williamson’s motion finally ended at the end of a long, hot and humid day, it appears that the day had been wasted – Williamson’s much debated and amended motion failed 0 – 10!
Writing to Henry Knox this evening, Rufus King confessed if he had gone to New York with Hamilton, he “should have escaped much vexation.” To his friend Nathan Dane he confided, “The period of the Convention is as uncertain as when they first assembled.”