Gouverneur Morris desired that the proviso of seven years should not affect any person then a citizen. On this candid motion New Jersey joined the four more liberal states; but Rutledge, Charles Pinckney, Mason, and Baldwin spoke with inveterate tenacity for the disfranchisement against Gorham, Madison, Morris, and Wilson; and the motion was lost by five states to six.* For a senator, citizenship for nine years was required; Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Maryland alone finding the number of years excessive.t Three days later, power was vested in the legislature of the United States to establish a uniform rule of naturalization throughout the United States. + The committee of detail had evaded the question of a property qualification for the members of the federal legislature and other branches of the government by referring it to legislative discretion. Charles Pinckney, who wished to require for the president a fortune of not less than a hundred thousand dollars, for a judge half as much, and a like proportion for the members of the national legislature, ventured no more than to move generally that a property qualification should be required of them all. Franklin made answer: "I dislike everything that tends to debase the spirit of the common people. If honesty is often the companion of wealth, and if poverty is exposed to peculiar temptation, the possession of property increases the desire for more. Some of the greatest rogues I was ever acquainted with were the richest rogues. Remember, the scripture requires in rulers that they should be men hating covetousness. If this constitution should betray a great partiality to the rich, it will not only hurt us in the esteem of the most liberal and enlightened men in Europe, but discourage the common people from removing to this country." The motion was rejected by a general "no." The question was for a while left open, but the constitution finally escaped without imposing a property qualification on any person in the public employ. Various efforts were made by Gorham, Mercer, King, and *Gilpin, 1801-1305; Elliot, 412-414. # Gilpin, 1283, 1284; Elliot, 402, 408. Gouverneur Morris to follow the precedent of the British parliament, and constitute a less number than a majority in each house sufficient for a quorum, lest the secession of a few members should fatally interrupt the course of public business. But, by the exertions of Wilson and Ellsworth, Randolph and Madison, power was all but unanimously given to each branch to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner and under such penalties as each house might provide. Moreover, each house received the power, unknown to the confederacy, to expel a member with the concurrence of two thirds of those voting.* What should distinguish the "electors" of the United States from their citizens? the constituency of the house of representatives of the United States from the people? The report of the committee ran thus: "The qualifications of the electors shall be the same, from time to time, as those of the electors in the several states of the most numerous branch of their own legislatures."+ Gouverneur Morris desired to restrain the right of suffrage to freeholders; and he thought it not proper that the qualifications of the national legislature should depend on the will of the states. "The states," said Ellsworth, "are the best judges of the circumstances and temper of their own people." "Eight or nine states," remarked Mason, "have extended the right of suffrage beyond the freeholders. What will the people there say if any should be disfranchised?" # "Abridgments of the right of suffrage,' declared Butler, "tend to revolution." "The freeholders of the country," replied Dickinson, "are the best guardians of liberty; and the restriction of the right to them is a necessary defence against the dangerous influence of those multitudes without property and without principle, with which our country, like all others, will in time abound. As to the unpopularity of the innovation, it is chimerical. The great mass of our citizens is composed at this time of freeholders, and will be pleased with it.” "Ought not every man who pays a tax," asked Ellsworth, "to vote for the representative who is to levy and dispose of his money?" "The time," said Gouverneur * Gilpin, 1291; Elliot, 407. I * Morris, "is not distant when this country will abound with mechanics and manufacturers, who will receive their bread from their employers. Will such men be the secure and faithful guardians of liberty-the impregnable barrier against aristocracy? The ignorant and the dependent can be as little trusted with the public interest as children. Nine tenths of the people are at present freeholders, and these will certainly be pleased with the restriction." "The true idea," said Mason, "is that every man having evidence of attachment to the society, and permanent common interest with it, ought to share in all its rights and privileges." "In several of the states," said Madison, "a freehold is now the qualification. Viewing the subject in its merits alone, the freeholders of the country would be the safest depositories of republican liberty. In future times, a great majority of the people will not only be without property in land, but property of any sort. These will either combine under the influence of their common situation, in which case the rights of property and the public liberty will not be secure in their hands, or, what is more probable, they will become the tools of opulence and ambition; in which case there will be equal danger on another side." + Franklin reasoned against the restriction from the nobleness of character that the possession of the electoral franchise inspires. "The idea of restraining the right of suffrage to the freeholders," said Rutledge, "would create division among the people, and make enemies of all those who should be excluded." # The movement of Morris toward a freehold qualification gained no vote but that of Delaware; and the section as reported was unanimously approved. Each state was therefore left to fix for itself within its own limits its conditions of suffrage; but where, as in New York and Maryland, a discrimination was made in different elections, the convention applied the most liberal rule adopted in the state to the elections of members of congress, accepting in advance any extensions of the suffrage that in any of the states might grow out of the development of republican institutions. Had the convention established a freehold or other * Gilpin, 1252; Elliot, 386, 387. Gilpin, 1254; Elliot, 388. qualification of its own, it must have taken upon itself the introduction of this restriction into every one of the states of the union. On the question of representation the only embarrassment that remained grew out of that part of the report of the committee of detail which sanctioned the perpetual continuance of the slave-trade. Everywhere, always, by everybody, in statutes alike of Virginia and South Carolina, in speeches, in letters, slavery in those days was spoken of as an evil. Everywhere in the land, the free negro always, the slave from the instant of his emancipation, belonged to the class of citizens, though in Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia, and in Delaware, for all except those who before 1787 had already acquired the elective franchise,* color barred the way to the ballot-box. The convention did nothing to diminish the rights of black men ; and, to the incapacities under which they labored in any of the states, it was careful to add no new one. Madison, in the following February, recommending the constitution for ratification, writes: "It is admitted that, if the laws were to restore the rights which have been taken away, the negroes could no longer be refused an equal share of representation with the other inhabitants." The convention had agreed to the enumeration of two fifths of the slaves in the representative population; but a new complication was introduced by the sanction which the committee of detail had lent to the perpetuity of the slave-trade. King had hoped for some compromise on the subject of the slave-trade and slavery. "I never can agree," said he, in the debate of the eighth, "to let slaves be imported without limitation of time, and be represented in the national legislature." + Gouverneur Morris then moved that there should be no representation but of "free inhabitants." "I never will concur in upholding domestic slavery. It is a nefarious institution. It is the curse of heaven on the states where it prevails. Compare the free regions of the middle states, where a rich and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of * I so interpret the Delaware statute of 1787. Federalist, No. liv. Gilpin, 1262; Elliot, 392. the people, with the misery and poverty which overspread the barren wastes of Virginia, Maryland, and the other states having slaves. Travel through the whole continent, and you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery. The moment you leave the eastern states and enter New York, the effects of the institution become visible. Passing through the Jerseys and entering Pennsylvania, every criterion of superior improvement witnesses the change; proceed southwardly, and every step you take through the great regions of slaves presents a desert increasing with the increasing proportion of these wretched beings. Upon what principle shall slaves be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them citizens, and let them vote. Are they property? Why, then, is no other property included? The houses in this city are worth more than all the wretched slaves who cover the rice-swamps of South Carolina. The admission of slaves into the representation, when fairly explained, comes to this: that the inhabitant of Georgia and South Carolina who goes to the coast of Africa, and in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity tears away his fellow-creatures from their dearest connections and damns them to the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes in a government instituted for protection of the rights of mankind than the citizen of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so nefarious a practice. I will add, that domestic slavery is the most prominent feature in the aristocratic countenance of the proposed constitution. The vassalage of the poor has ever been the favorite offspring of aristocracy. And what is the proposed compensation to the northern states for a sacrifice of every principle of right, of every impulse of humanity? They are to bind themselves to march their militia for the defence of the southern states against those very slaves of whom they complain. They must supply vessels and seamen, in case of foreign attack. The legislature will have indefinite power to tax them by excises and duties on imports, both of which will fall heavier on them than on the southern inhabitants. On the other side, the southern states are not to be restrained from importing fresh supplies of wretched Africans, at once to increase the danger of attack and |