While all parties agreed to act in opposition to the _principles_ of justice, they all concurred to pay homage to them by hypocrisy of _language_! Men are willing to try all means to _appear_ honest, except the simple experiment of _being_ so. It is true, there were individuals who distrusted this compromise at the time, if they did not wholly disapprove of it. It is said that Washington, as he was walking thoughtfully near the Schuylkill, was met by a member of the Convention, to whom, in the course of conversation, he acknowledged that he was meditating whether it would not be better to separate, without proposing a constitution to the people; for he was in great doubt whether the frame of government, which was now nearly completed, would be better for them, than to trust to the course of events, and await future emergencies. This anecdote was derived from an authentic source, and I have no doubt of its truth: neither is there any doubt that Washington had in his mind this great compromise, the pivot on which the system of government was to turn. If avarice was induced to shake hands with injustice, from the expectation of increased direct taxation upon the South, she gained little by the bargain. With the exception of two brief periods, during the French war, and the last war with England, the revenue of the United States has been raised by _duties on imports_. The heavy debts and expenditures of the several States, which they had been accustomed to provide for by direct taxes, and which they probably expected to see provided for by the same means in time to come, have been all paid by duties on imports. The greatest proportion of these duties are, of course, paid by the free States; for here, the poorest laborer daily consumes several articles of foreign production, of which from one-eighth to one-half the price is a tax paid to government. The clothing of the slave population increases the revenue very little, and their food almost none at all. Wherever free labor and slave labor exist under the same government, there must be a perpetual clashing of interests. The legislation required for one, is, in its spirit and maxims, diametrically opposed to that required for the other. Hence Mr. Madison predicted, in the convention which formed our Federal Constitution, that the contests would be between the great geographical sections; that such had been the division, even during the war and the confederacy. In the same convention, Charles Pinckney, a man of great sagacity, spoke of the equal representation of large and small States as a matter of slight consequence; no difficulties, he said, would ever arise on that point; the question would always be between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding interests.