government
floundered deeper and deeper into inextricable difficulties; the
thirteen ships of state drifted farther and farther apart, with a fair
promise of a general wreck.

But the bill contained another compromise which was not temporary, and
once made could not be easily unmade. Agreed to now, it became a
condition of the adoption of the federal Constitution four years later;
and there, as nobody now is so blind as not to see, it was the source of
infinite mischief for nearly a century, till a third reconstruction of
the Union was brought about by the war of 1861-65. The Articles of
Confederation required that "all charges of war and all other expenses
that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare" should
be borne by the States in proportion to the value of their lands. It was
proposed to amend this provision of the Constitution, and for lands
substitute population, exclusive of Indians not taxed, as the basis for
taxation. But here arose at once a new and perplexing question. There
were, chiefly in one portion of the country, about 750,000 "persons held
to service or labor,"--the euphuism for negro slaves which, evolved from
some tender and sentimental conscience, came into use at this period.
Should these, recognized only as property by state law, be counted as
750,000 persons by the laws of the United States?[5] Or should they, in
the enumeration of population, be reckoned, in accordance with the civil
law, as _pro nullis_, _pro mortuis_, _pro quadrupedibus_, and therefore
not to be counted at all? Or should they, as those who owned them
insisted, be counted, if included in the basis of taxation, as fractions
of persons only?

The South contended that black slaves were not equal to white men as
producers of wealth, and that, by counting them as such, taxation would
be unequal and unjust. But whether counted as units or as fractions of
units, the slaveholders insisted that representation should be according
to that enumeration. The Northern reply was that, if representation was
to be according to population, the slaves being included, then the slave
States would have a representation of property, for which there would be
no equivalent in States where there were no slaves; but if slaves were
enumerated as a basis of representation, then that enumeration should
also be taken to fix the rate of taxation.

Here, at any rate, was a basis for an interesting deadlock. One simple
way out of it woul