These further difficulties will appear, as we follow out the various steps taken for the purpose of applying the maxim which connects taxation with representation. The rule now under consideration, as the means of guiding the legislature in future distributions of the right of representation, was that they were to regulate it upon a ratio compounded of the wealth and numbers of inhabitants of the States. Gouverneur Morris now proposed to add to this, as a proviso, the correlative proposition, "that direct taxation shall be in proportion to representation." This was adopted; and it made the proposed rule of numbers and wealth combined applicable both to taxation and representation. But in truth it was as difficult to apply the combined rule of wealth and numbers to the subject of taxation, as between the States, as it was to apply it to the right of representation. This was not the first time in the history of the Union that these two subjects had been considered, and had been found to be surrounded with embarrassments. In 1776, when the Articles of Confederation were framed, it became necessary to determine the proportion in which the quotas of contribution to the general treasury should be assessed upon the States. Two obvious rules presented themselves as alternatives; either to apportion the quotas upon an estimate of the wealth of the States, or to assume that numbers of inhabitants of every condition presented a fair index of the pecuniary ability of a State to sustain public burdens. Here again, however, under either of these plans, the question would arise as to the kind of property to be regarded in the basis of the assessment. Should the slaves be treated as part of the property of a slaveholding State, either by a direct computation, or by counting them as part of the population, which was to be considered as the measure of its wealth? Mr. John Adams forcibly maintained that they ought not to be regarded as subjects of federal taxation, any more than the free laborers of the Northern States; but that numbers of inhabitants ought to be taken, indiscriminately, as the true index of the wealth of each State; and that thus the slave would stand upon the same footing with the free laborer, both being regarded as the producers of wealth, and therefore that both should add to the quota of tax or contribution to be levied upon the State.[102] Mr. Chase,[103] on the other hand, contended that practically this rule would tax the Northern States on numbers only, while it would tax the Southern States on numbers and wealth conjointly, since the slaves were property as well as persons.