"He [Madison] admitted that every peculiar interest, whether in any class of citizens, or any description of States, ought to be secured as far as possible. Wherever there is danger of attack, there ought to be given a constitutional power of defence. But he contended that the States were divided into different interests, not by their difference of size, but by other circumstances; the most material of which resulted partly from climate, but principally from the effects of their having or not having slaves. These causes concurred in forming the great division of interests in the United States. It did not lie between the large and small States. It lay between the northern and southern; and if any defensive power were necessary, it ought to be mutually given to these two interests. He was so strongly impressed with this important truth, that he had been casting about in his mind for some expedient that would answer the purpose. The one which had occurred was that, instead of proportioning the votes of the States in both branches to their respective number of inhabitants, computing the slaves in the ratio of 5 to 3, they should be represented in one branch according to the number of free inhabitants only; and in the other according to their whole number, counting the slaves as free. By this arrangement the southern scale would have the advantage in one house and the northern in the other." Madison meant to say that the great danger of disunion was that--we emphasize his statement by repeating and italicizing the essential part--"_the States were divided into different interests ... principally from the effects of their having or not having slaves. These causes concurred in forming the great division of interests in the United States_." How truly he expresses the economical antagonism of the southern and northern States, although he hints nothing of the nationalizing tendency of the former which was bound in time to show itself as one of "the effects of their having slaves." It seems to me that Mr. Adams overeulogizes the political instinct and prophecy evinced by Madison at this tune. I cannot see that the latter does anything more than merely recognize the fact then plain to all. Note as proof this other passage quoted by Mr. Adams from Madison in the convention, in which the material words are given by me in italics: "_It seems now well understood_ that the real difference of interests lies, not between the large and small, but between the northern and southern States."