the hope that slavery would in time
yield "to the enlargement of the human mind, and its advancement in
science," but he confessed also that "where the disease is most deeply
seated, there it will be slowest in eradication. In the Northern
States it was merely superficial and easily corrected; in the
Southern, it is incorporated with the whole system, and requires time,
patience and perseverance in the curative process. That it may finally
be effected and its progress hastened, will be my last and fondest
prayer."[161]

Little light is gained as to the position occupied by the slave in the
social mind from the discussions and debates of the constitutional
convention of 1787, although slavery is tacitly recognized in the
clauses on representation and taxation, the extension of the
slave-trade, and the regulation of fugitive slaves. In connection with
the basis of representation and taxation the question arose whether
the slave was a person or a chattel, but it was debated not with the
view of bringing out what the consensus of opinion of the nation at
large was but rather with a view to the political exigencies of the
situation. The individual States had never been inclined nor did they
now propose to surrender to the Union the right to determine the
status of persons within their limits so that the debates were begun
with the general concession of the fact that slavery existed in some
of the States, that it would in all probability continue to exist, and
that the future of the institution was primarily a problem that
belonged to the individual States where it was found.

The problem facing the members of the convention was, therefore, to
provide a system of representation that would ensure political
equality to all sections and at the same time safeguard the peculiar
conditions and social and economic institutions of each State. To base
representation entirely upon the number of the free population would
give an undue preponderance to the free States, while to base it upon
all, both slave and free, would give an undue advantage to the five
slave States. Hence the rather queer compromise that representation
"shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons,
including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding
Indians not taxed, _three fifths of all other persons_"--"all other
persons" being a euphemism for "slaves," a term which does not occur
in the document. By this measure the slave