of the
States in both branches to their respective numbers of inhabitants,
computing the slaves in the ratio of five to three, they should he
represented in one branch according to the number of free inhabitants
only; and in the other, according to the whole number, counting the
slaves us free. By this arrangement the Southern scale would have the
advantage in one House, and the Northern in the other. He had been
restrained from proposing this expedient by two considerations; one
was his unwillingness to urge any diversity of interests on an
occasion where it is but too apt to arise of itself; the other was,
the inequality of powers that must be vested in the two branches, and
which would destroy the equilibrium of interests. _pp._ 1006-7.

Monday, July 9, 1787.

Mr. Patterson considered the proposed estimate for the future
according to the combined rules of numbers and wealth, as too vague.
For this reason New Jersey was against it. He could regard negro
slaves in no light but as property. They are no free agents, have no
personal liberty, no faculty of acquiring property, but on the
contrary are themselves property, and like other property, entirely at
the will of the master. Has a man in Virginia 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. What is the true principle of
representation? It is an experiment by which an assembly of certain
individuals, chosen, by the people, is substituted in place of the
inconvenient meeting of the people themselves. If such a meeting of
the people was actually to take place, would the slaves vote? They
would not. Why then should they be represented? He was also against
such an indirect encouragement of the slave trade; observing that
Congress, in their act relating to the change of the eighth article of
Confederation, had been assigned to use the term "slaves," and had
substituted a description.

Mr. Madison reminded Mr. Patterson that his doctrine of
representation, which was in its principle the genuine one, must for
ever silence the pretensions of the small States to an equality of
votes with the large ones. They ought to vote in the same proportion
in which their citizens would do if the people of all the States were
collectively met. He suggested, as a proper ground of compromise, that
in the first branch the States should be repres