phraseology of the motion, and the objections of Messrs. Wilson and Sherman, it was perfectly understood that the obligation of delivery was imposed on the States, and that no power was intended to be conferred on Congress to legislate on the subject. Messrs. Wilson and Sherman's objections arose from no moral repugnance to slave-catching, but from the inconvenience they apprehended the _State_ authorities would be subjected to; and Mr. Wilson perhaps spoke from experience, as his own State had at that very time a law for catching and returning fugitive slaves from other States. The idea, therefore, that this agreement was a _compromise_ between the North and South is wholly imaginary, and you, Sir, must have mistaken some recent fulminations from the Southern chivalry for the "deliberate declarations" which you suppose were made in the Convention. Believe me, Sir, no members of the Convention ever declared they would not enter into the Union, unless it was agreed to surrender fugitive slaves, for the obvious reason, that the Northern slaveholders required no threats from their Southern brethren to consent to a compact convenient to both. It is very true, Sir, that there were compromises, and that there were "deliberate declarations," but they had no reference to the surrender of runaway slaves. I have pointed out your historical mistake, not because it has the remotest bearing on your justification, but because you seem to think that it has. The first great compromise was between, not the North and the South, but the small and the large States. The one claimed, and the other refused, an equality of suffrage in the national legislature. It was at last agreed, that the suffrage should be equal in one house, and according to population in the other. This was the first compromise. Then came the question, What should constitute the representative population? The Southern States had more slaves than the Northern, and the former insisted that slaves should be included in the representative population. This would have given the Southern States an unfair preponderance in Congress. Moreover, a portion of the Southern States were engaged in the African slave-trade, and, of course, every slave landed on their shores would increase their political power in Congress. To reconcile the North to slave representation, it was offered that _direct taxation_ should be proportioned to representation. But the North was reluctant, and, as usual, was bullied into a compromise. Mr. Davie, of North Carolina, made a "deliberate declaration":--"He was sure that North Carolina would never confederate on any terms that did not rate them (the slaves) at least as three fifths. If the Eastern States meant, therefore, to exclude them (the slaves) altogether, the business was at an end." (_Madison Papers_, p. 1081.) This threat, and others like it, settled the matter. The compromise, of three fifths of the slaves to be included in the representative population, was accepted