compromise, and it was decided that in apportioning the Representatives there should be added to the whole number of free persons three-fifths of all other persons. This was equivalent to saying that five slaves in the South should be counted the same as three white persons in the North. In regard to the slave trade there was a sentiment in all the States except Georgia and South Carolina against it, because five slaves counted as three whites, and because almost all of the eminent men North and South were at this time opposed to Slavery itself as not only a moral wrong, but as something which would injure the development of the country. The Southern planters insisted upon a continuation of the slave trade, but at the same time they were fearful that the North might tax their exports. The second great Compromise was affected, and it was agreed that the importation of such persons as any of the States might think proper to admit should not be prohibited by Congress prior to 1808, but a tax on each person so admitted might be imposed, not exceeding $10, and that no tax or duty should be laid on articles exported from any State. A Fugitive Slave Clause very similar to that contained in the Ordinance of 1787 was also added. By these Compromises, especially the one giving representation for slaves, the South was given that tremendous political power which she wielded so long to threaten and coerce the North to her bidding. The Slave Power was politically enthroned, not to be finally dislodged until the election of Mr. Lincoln. At this early period, however, it was firmly and honestly believed that in a very short time slavery would disappear in all of the Colonies, as it was already dying out rapidly in the North, and it was fully believed that after 1808, when the slave trade should be prohibited, slavery would become extinct. It must be remembered that at this time cotton was not a staple of the South, and there was nothing seriously present or threatened, in the social or economical development of the South, which made slavery absolutely necessary. Nobody foresaw how greatly cotton was to add to the wealth and standing of the South, and nobody foresaw the great injury which the Constitution was to do the North. When Washington was inaugurated, April 30, 1789, the United States reached from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and from the Lake of the Woods, the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence and St. Croix Rivers southward to Florida, which then extended to the Mississippi and was owned by Spain.