"With respect to that part of the second section of the first article, it was urged that no principle could justify taking slaves into computation in apportioning the number of representatives a State should have in the government;--that _it involved the absurdity of increasing the power of a State in making laws for freemen, in proportion as that State violated the rights of freedom_;--that it might be proper to take slaves into consideration, when taxes were to be apportioned, because it had a tendency to discourage slavery; but to take them into account in giving representation tended to encourage the slave-trade, and to make it the interest of the States to continue that infamous traffic." In the North Carolina Convention, Wm. R. Davie, a member of the Convention who framed the Constitution, said:-- "The Eastern States had great jealousies on this subject. They insisted that their cows and horses were equally entitled to representation; that the one was property as well as the other. It became our duty, on the other hand, to acquire as much weight as possible in the legislation of the Union; and, as the Northern States were more populous in whites, this only could be done by insisting that a certain proportion of our _slaves_ should make a part of the computed population." In the South Carolina Convention, General Chas. C. Pinckney, another of the framers of the Constitution, said:-- "We were at a loss for some time for a rule to ascertain the proportionate wealth of the States. At last we thought that the productive labor of the inhabitants was the best rule for ascertaining their wealth. In conformity to this rule, joined to a spirit of concession, we determined that representatives should be apportioned among the several States, by adding to the whole number of free persons, three-fifths of the _slaves_." PERMISSION OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE. (Const. Art. 1, sec. 9.) In the Massachusetts Convention, Mr. Dawes, speaking in relation to Art. 1, sec. 2, said that-- "Gentlemen would do well to connect the passage in dispute with another article in the Constitution, that permits Congress, in the year 1808, wholly to prohibit the importation of _slaves_, and in the meantime to impose a duty of ten dollars a head on such blacks as should be imported before that period." Many persons spoke in the Convention on this section; and, among others, Judge Dana rejoiced that a door was opened by it for the annihilation of the slave-trade. In the Pennsylvania Convention, Mr. Wilson said:--