In the first place, then, we are to remember the previous concessions already made by the Northern States, and the advantages resulting from them. These concessions were the representation of the slaves and the exemption of exports from taxation. If the slaves had not been included in the system of representation, the Northern States could have had no political motive for acquiring the power to put an end to the slave-trade. If the exports of their staple productions had not been withdrawn from the revenue power, the Southern States could have had no very strong or special motive to draw them into the new Union; but with such an exemption, they could derive benefits from the Constitution as great as those likely to be enjoyed by their Northern confederates. Both parties, therefore, entered the final committee of compromise with a strong desire to complete the Union and to establish the new government. The Northern States wished for a full commercial power, including the slave-trade and navigation laws, to be dependent on the voices of a majority in Congress. The Southern States struggled to retain the right to import slaves, and to limit the enactment of navigation laws to a vote of two thirds. Both parties could be gratified only by conceding some portion of their respective demands. If the Northern States could accept a future, instead of an immediate, prohibition of the slave-trade, they could gain ultimately a full commercial power over all subjects, to be exercised by a national majority. If the Southern States could confide in a national majority, so far as to clothe them with full ultimate power to regulate commerce, they could obtain the continuance of the slave-trade for a limited period. Such was in reality the adjustment made and recommended by the committee. They proposed that the migration or importation of such persons as the several States then existing might think proper to admit, should not be prohibited by the national legislature before the year 1800, but that a tax or duty might be imposed on such persons, at a rate not exceeding the average of the duties laid on imports; that the clause relating to a capitation tax should remain; and that the provision requiring a navigation act to be passed by a vote of two thirds, should be stricken out.[225] No change was made in this arrangement, when it came before the Convention, except to substitute the year 1808 as the period at which the restriction on the commercial power was to terminate, and to provide for a specific tax on the importation of slaves, not exceeding ten dollars on each person.[226] The remaining features of this settlement, relating to a capitation tax and a navigation act, were sanctioned by a large majority of the States.[227]