s of the states.

=The Balance between the Planting and the Commercial States.=--After the
debates had gone on for a few weeks, Madison came to the conclusion that
the real division in the convention was not between the large and the
small states but between the planting section founded on slave labor and
the commercial North. Thus he anticipated by nearly three-quarters of a
century "the irrepressible conflict." The planting states had neither
the free white population nor the wealth of the North. There were,
counting Delaware, six of them as against seven commercial states.
Dependent for their prosperity mainly upon the sale of tobacco, rice,
and other staples abroad, they feared that Congress might impose
restraints upon their enterprise. Being weaker in numbers, they were
afraid that the majority might lay an unfair burden of taxes upon them.

_Representation and Taxation._--The Southern members of the convention
were therefore very anxious to secure for their section the largest
possible representation in Congress, and at the same time to restrain
the taxing power of that body. Two devices were thought adapted to these
ends. One was to count the slaves as people when apportioning
representatives among the states according to their respective
populations; the other was to provide that direct taxes should be
apportioned among the states, in proportion not to their wealth but to
the number of their free white inhabitants. For obvious reasons the
Northern delegates objected to these proposals. Once more a compromise
proved to be the solution. It was agreed that not all the slaves but
three-fifths of them should be counted for both purposes--representation
and direct taxation.

_Commerce and the Slave Trade._--Southern interests were also involved
in the project to confer upon Congress the power to regulate interstate
and foreign commerce. To the manufacturing and trading states this was
essential. It would prevent interstate tariffs and trade jealousies; it
would enable Congress to protect American manufactures and to break
down, by appropriate retaliations, foreign discriminations against
American commerce. To the South the proposal was menacing because
tariffs might interfere with the free exchange of the produce of
plantations in European markets, and navigation acts might confine the
carrying trade to American, that is Northern, ships. The importation of
slaves, moreover, it was feared might be heavily taxed or i