It is idle also to allege against this definition the toleration of Slavery. This was sad enough; but the Fathers who tolerated Slavery regarded it as absolutely exceptional. According to the definition of a slave, he has no will of his own, and can give no “consent” to government. Therefore he was not considered as belonging to the “body politic.” But not being represented, he was not taxed, except as property. Indeed, a careful examination of his relations to the government shows how completely in his case the rights of “the people” are left untouched. He was not regarded as one of “the people,” and therefore was not under the safeguard of the rights of “the people.” But all this was changed when he became a freeman. He was then one of “the people,” whose property could not be taken by taxation without representation, and whose consent was essential to government. The difference was not between whites and blacks, but between slaves and freemen. All freemen, without distinction of color, were citizens. Listen, if you please, to the “Federalist,” in an article attributed to each of the three eminent authors of that collection, and which the Senator from Maryland [Mr. JOHNSON] assumed was by Madison, but which is claimed for Hamilton, in the last edition of the “Federalist,” by his son. I quote a second time the important words:-- “It is only under the pretext that the laws have transformed the negroes into subjects of property, that a place is denied to them in the computation of numbers; AND 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.”[261] Such is the exposition of the actual Constitution by Hamilton. According to him, “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.” But this very hour has sounded. The laws have restored the rights which had been taken away, and it is now your duty to see that the people who have regained their rights are no longer refused an equal share of representation. The opinion of Hamilton on this vital question is still further attested by his saying that the liberty for which our fathers fought was the right of “each individual” to “a share in the government”;[262] that “the electors are to be _the great body of the people_ of the United States”;[263] and still further, by the proposition in his Plan of a Constitution:-- “Representatives shall be chosen, except in the first instance, by _the free male citizens and inhabitants_ of the several States comprehended in the Union, all of whom, of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, _shall be entitled to an equal vote_.”[264]