The solution of this problem immediately raised another. What was meant by "population," which had been substituted for wealth as a basis of apportioning delegates in the popular branch? Did it include slaves? The Continental Congress had long been accustomed in assessing the expenses of the war to add to the quotas of the States a sum equal to three-fifths of the number of slaves in each, on the ground that the labour of five slaves was equivalent to that of three free men. This proportion was now taken both for determining representatives in Congress and for assessing direct taxes. The States which continued to hold slaves would consequently have the benefits of three-fifths of their slaves represented by additional congressmen; but they must bear three-fifths additional of a direct tax, whenever one might be levied by the National Government. The questionable value of slave labour had already divided the Southern States into two economic classes. Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, because of the exhausting effects of tobacco upon the soil, had attempted to restrict its cultivation by forbidding more slaves to be brought in. The two Carolinas and Georgia, requiring fresh slave labour for their rice and indigo fields, would not consent to any diminution of the supply. A compromise was at last effected in the convention which permitted the importation of new slaves into the United States for the coming twenty years. This was done by the votes of the New England States, where the slave-trading vessels were generally built, added to those from the three Southern States. Against these were New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia. For some reason, the Maryland delegates voted with the majority to keep the trade open. This compromise was strongly opposed by Gouverneur Morris, a Northern man, who confessed that he would sooner submit himself to a tax for buying all the negroes in the United States than saddle posterity with such a slavery constitution, and by Madison, a Southerner, who declared that these twenty years would bring as much mischief as an unlimited trade could produce. In accord with the practice of the old Congress, the delegates decided to eliminate the word "slave" from the Constitution, lest it might cause offence and beget opposition toward the new government they were about to propose. Milder terms, like "such persons" or "persons legally held to service or labour," were substituted.