like half the population of the Southern
States, the immediate political importance of the issue will at once be
recognized. If they were omitted the weight of the South in the
Federation would be halved. In the opposite alternative it would be
doubled. By the compromise eventually adopted it was agreed that the
whole white population should be counted and three-fifths of the slaves.

The second problem was this: if Slavery was to be legal in one State and
illegal in another, what was to be the status of a slave escaping from a
Slave State into a free? Was such an act to be tantamount to an
emancipation? If such were to be the case, it was obvious that slave
property, especially in the border States, would become an extremely
insecure investment. The average Southerner of that period was no
enthusiast for Slavery. He was not unwilling to listen to plans of
gradual and compensated emancipation. But he could not be expected to
contemplate losing in a night property for which he had perhaps paid
hundreds of dollars, without even the hope of recovery. On this point it
was found absolutely necessary to give way to the Southerners, though
Franklin, for one, disliked this concession more than any other. It was
determined that "persons held to service or labour" escaping into
another State should be returned to those "to whom such service or
labour may be due."

The last and on the whole the least defensible of the concessions made
in this matter concerned the African Slave Trade. That odious traffic
was condemned by almost all Americans--even by those who were accustomed
to domestic slavery, and could see little evil in it. Jefferson, in the
original draft of the Declaration of Independence, had placed amongst
the accusations against the English King the charge that he had forced
the slave trade on reluctant colonies. The charge was true so far at
any rate as Virginia was concerned, for both that State and its
neighbour, Maryland, had passed laws against the traffic and had seen
them vetoed by the Crown. But the extreme South, where the cotton trade
was booming, wanted more Negro labour; South Carolina objected, and
found an expected ally in Massachusetts. Boston had profited more by the
Slave Trade than any other American city. She could hardly condemn King
George without condemning herself. And, though her interest in the
traffic had diminished, it had not wholly ceased. The paragraph in
question was struck out of the Decla