Thus the knot of these complicated difficulties could only be cut by the sword of compromise. In whatever direction a theoretical rule was applied,--whatever view was taken of the slave, as a person or as an article of property; as a productive laborer equally or less valuable to the State when compared with the freeman,--whatever principles were maintained upon the question whether numbers constitute a proper measure of the wealth of a community, and one that will work out the same result in communities where slavery exists, as well as where it is absent,--absolute truth, or what the whole country would receive as such, was unattainable. But an adjustment of the problem, founded on mutual conciliation and a desire to be just, was not impossible. The two objects to be accomplished were to avoid the offence that might be given to the Northern States by making the slaves in direct terms an ingredient in the rule of representation, and, on the other hand, to concede to the Southern States the right to have their representation enhanced by the same enumeration of their slaves that might be adopted for the purpose of apportioning direct taxation. These objects were effected by an arrangement proposed by Wilson. It consisted, first, in affirming the maxim that representation ought to be proportioned to direct taxation; and then, by directing a periodical census of the free inhabitants, and three fifths of all other persons, to be taken by the authority of the United States, and that the direct taxation should be apportioned among the States according to this census of persons. The principle was thus established, that, for the purpose of direct taxation, the number of inhabitants in each State should be assumed as the measure of its relative wealth; and that its right of representation should be regulated by the same measure; and as the slaves were to be admitted into the rule for taxation in the proportion of three fifths of their number only,--apparently upon the supposition that the labor of a slave is less valuable to the State than the labor of a freeman,--so they were in the same proportion only to enhance the representation. This expedient was adopted by the votes of a large majority of the States;[107] but since it had been moved as an amendment to the proposition previously accepted, which affirmed that the representation ought to be regulated by the combined rule of numbers and wealth, it appeared, when brought into that connection, to rest the representation of the slaveholding States in respect to the slaves, in part at least, upon the idea of property. To avoid all discrepancy in the application of the rule to the two subjects of representation and taxation, Governor Randolph proposed to strike the word "wealth" from the resolution; and this, having been done by a vote nearly unanimous,[108] left the enumeration of the slaves for both purposes an enumeration of persons, in less than their whole