This contrast between the policy and principles of Virginia and of the New England colonies will be concluded with two evidences. The one is presented in the history of the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Jefferson, the author, states that he had inserted in the enumeration of grievances against the King of Great Britain, a paragraph strongly reprobating his arbitrary support of the slave trade, against the remonstrances of some of the colonies. When the Congress discussed the paper, this paragraph was struck out, "in complaisance," he declares, "to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under these censures; for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."[37] Thus New England assisted to expunge from that immortal paper a testimony against the slave trade, which Virginia endeavoured to place there. [Footnote 37: Jefferson's Correspondence, vol i., p. 15.] The other evidence is presented by a case much more practical. In the Convention of 1787, which framed the Constitution of the United States, two questions concerning African slaves caused dissension. Upon the supreme right of the States over the whole subject of slavery within their own dominions, upon the recognition of slaves as property protected by the federal laws, wherever slavery existed, and upon the fugitive slave law, not a voice was raised in opposition. But the Convention presumed (what subsequent history did not confirm,) that the main expenses of the federal government would be met by direct taxation; and some principle was to be adopted, for determining how slaves should rank with freemen, in assessing capitation taxes, and apportioning representation. The other question of difficulty was the suppression of the African slave trade, which, upon the return of peace, had been actively revived by New England, with the connivance of Carolina and Georgia. The Southern States, who expected to have nearly the whole tax on slaves to pay, desired to rate them very low; some members proposed that five slaves should count as equal to only one white freeman; others, that three slaves should count for one. The New England colonies generally desired to make a negro count as a white man, both for representation and taxation! After much difference, the majority of the Convention agreed to a middle conclusion proposed by Mr. Madison, that five negroes should count for three persons.[38] But the other question was not so easily arranged. The Committee of eleven appointed to draw up a first draught of a constitution had proposed that in Art. vii., § 4, of their draught, Congress should be prohibited from laying any import duty on African slaves brought into the country. The effect of this, so far as the