Again. If we were permitted to go to the state constitutions, or to the state statute books, to find who were the persons intended by the constitution of the United States; and if, as the slave argument assumes, it was left to the states respectively to prescribe who should, and who should not, be "free" within the meaning of the constitution of the United States, it would follow that the terms "free" and "all other persons," might be applied in as many different ways, and to as many different classes of persons, as there were different states in the union. Not only so, but the application might also be varied at pleasure in the same state. One inevitable consequence of this state of things would be, that there could be neither a permanent, nor a uniform basis of representation throughout the country. Another possible, and even probable consequence would be, such inextricable confusion, as to the persons described by the same terms in the different states, that Congress could not apportion the national representation at all, in the manner required by the constitution. The questions of law, arising out of the different uses of the word "free," by the different states, might be made so endless and inexplicable, that the state governments might entirely defeat all the power of the general government to make an apportionment. If the slave construction be put upon this clause, still another difficulty, in the way of making an apportionment, would follow, viz., that congress could have no _legal_ knowledge of the persons composing each of the two different classes, on which its representation must be based; for there is no legal record--known to the laws of the United States, or even to the laws of the states--of those who are slaves, or those who are not. The information obtained by the census takers, (who have no legal records to go to,) must, in the nature of things, be of the most loose and uncertain character, on such points as these. Any accurate or _legal_ knowledge on the subject is, therefore, obviously impossible. But if the other construction be adopted, this difficulty is avoided--for congress then have the control of the whole matter, and may adopt such means as may be necessary for ascertaining accurately the persons who belong to each of these different classes. And by their naturalization laws they actually do provide for a _legal_ record of all who are made "free" by naturalization.