NOTE ON THE POPULATION OF THE SLAVEHOLDING AND NON-SLAVEHOLDING STATES.

Although, at the time of the formation of the Constitution, slavery had been expressly abolished in two of the States only (Massachusetts and New Hampshire), the framers of that instrument practically treated all but the five Southern States as if the institution had been already abolished within their limits, and counted all the colored persons therein, whether bond or free, as part of the free population; assuming that the eight Northern and Middle States would be free States, and that the five Southern States would continue to be slave States. This appears from the whole tenor of the debates, in which the line is constantly drawn, as between slaveholding and non-slaveholding States, so as to throw eight States upon the Northern and five upon the Southern side. I have found also, in a newspaper of that period (New York Daily Advertiser, February 5, 1788), the following

"Estimate of the Population of the States made and used in the Federal Convention, according to the most Accurate Accounts they could obtain."

New Hampshire, 102,000
Massachusetts, 360,000
Rhode Island, 58,000
Connecticut, 202,000
New York, 238,000
New Jersey, 138,000
Pennsylvania, 360,000
Delaware, 37,000
——1,495,000
Maryland,including three fifths of80,000negroes,218,000
Virginia,"280,000"420,000
North Carolina,"60,000"200,000
South Carolina,"80,000"150,000
Georgia,"20,000"90,000
——1,078,000

The authenticity of this table is established by referring to a speech made by General Pinckney in the legislature of South Carolina, in which he introduced and quoted it at length. (Elliot's Debates, IV. 283.)

From this it appears that the estimated population of the eight Northern and Middle States, adopted in the Convention, was 1,495,000; that of the five Southern States (including three fifths of an estimated number of negroes) was 1,078,000. Comparing this estimate with the results of the first census, it will be seen that the total population of the eight Northern and Middle States exceeds the federal population of the five Southern States, in the census of 1790, in about the same ratio as the former exceeds the latter in the estimate employed by the Convention. Thus in 1790 the total population of the eight Northern and Middle States, including all slaves, was 1,845,595; the federal population of the five Southern States, including three fifths of the slaves, was 1,540,048;—excess 305,547. In the estimate of 1787, the population allotted to the eight Northern and Middle States was 1,495,000; that allotted to the five Southern States, counting only three fifths of the estimated number of slaves, was 1,078,000;—excess in favor of the eight States, 417,000. This calculation shows, therefore, that, in estimating the population of the different States for the purpose of adjusting the first representation in Congress, the Convention applied the rule of three fifths of the slaves to the five Southern States only, and that as to the other eight States no discrimination was made between the different classes of their inhabitants. Other methods of comparing the estimate of 1787 with the census of 1790 will lead to the same conclusion.

New Hampshire, 102,000
Massachusetts, 360,000
Rhode Island, 58,000
Connecticut, 202,000
New York, 238,000
New Jersey, 138,000
Pennsylvania, 360,000
Delaware, 37,000
——1,495,000
Maryland,including three fifths of80,000negroes,218,000
Virginia,"280,000"420,000
North Carolina,"60,000"200,000
South Carolina,"80,000"150,000
Georgia,"20,000"90,000
——1,078,000

CHAPTER VIII.

Powers of Legislation.—Constitution and Choice of the Executive.—Constitution of the Judiciary.—Admission of New States.—Completion of the Engagements of Congress.—Guaranty of Republican Constitutions.—Oath to Support the Constitution.—Ratification.—Number of Senators.—Qualifications for Office.—Seat of Government.

Of the remaining subjects comprehended in the report of the committee of the whole, it will only be necessary here to make a brief statement of the action of the Convention, before we arrive at the stage at which the principles agreed upon were sent to a committee of detail to be cast into the forms of a Constitution.

Recurring to the sixth resolution in the report of the committee of the whole, an addition was made to its provisions, by inserting a power to legislate in all cases for the general interests of the Union; and for the clause giving the legislature power to negative certain laws of the States, the principle was substituted of making the legislative acts and treaties of the United States the supreme law of the land, and binding upon the judiciaries of the several States.