But now there was in all the southern states, and in most of the northern, a peculiar species of collective existence, which might be described either as wealth or as population. As human beings the slaves might be described as population, but in the eye of the law they were chattels. In the northern states slavery was rapidly disappearing, and the property in negroes was so small as to be hardly worth considering; while south of Mason and Dixon's line this peculiar kind of property was the chief wealth of the states. But clearly, in apportioning representation, in sharing political power in the federal assembly, the same rule should have been applied impartially to all the states. At this point, Pierce Butler and Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina insisted that slaves were part of the population, and as such must be counted in ascertaining the basis of representation. A fierce and complicated dispute ensued. The South Carolina proposal suggested a uniform rule, but it was one that would scarcely alter the political weight of the north, while it would vastly increase the weight of the south; and it would increase it most in just the quarter where slavery was most deeply rooted. The power of South Carolina, as a member of the Union, would be doubled by such a measure. Hence the northern delegates maintained that slaves, as chattels, ought no more to be reckoned as part of the population than houses or ships. "Has a man in Virginia," exclaimed Paterson, "a number of votes in proportion to the number of his slaves? And if negroes are not represented in the states to which they belong, why should they be represented in the general government?... If a meeting of the people were to take place in a slave state, would the slaves vote? They would not. Why then should they be represented in a federal government?" "I can never agree," said Gouverneur Morris, "to give such encouragement to the slave-trade as would be given by allowing the southern states a representation for their negroes.... I would sooner submit myself to a tax for paying for all the negroes in the United States than saddle posterity with such a constitution." [Sidenote: The three fifths compromise; a genuine English solution, if ever there was one.]