lature came under consideration, it was easy to be perceived that the eastern and southern states had distinct interests, which it was difficult to reconcile; and that the larger states were disposed to form a constitution, in which the smaller states would be mere appendages and satellites to the larger ones. On the first of these subjects, much animated and somewhat angry debate had taken place, when the ratio of representation in the lower house of Congress was before us—the southern states claiming for themselves the whole number of their black population, while the eastern states were for confining the elective franchise to freemen only, without respect to color.
As the different parties adhered pertinaciously to their different positions, it was feared that this would prove an insurmountable obstacle;—but as the members were already generally satisfied that no constitution could be formed, which would meet the views and subserve the interests of each individual state, it was evident that it must be a matter of compromise and mutual concession. Under these impressions, and with these views, it was agreed at length that each state should be entitled to one delegate in the House of Representatives for every 30,000 of its inhabitants—in which number should be included three fifths of the whole number of their slaves.
When the details of the House of Representatives were disposed of, a more knotty point presented itself in the organization of the Senate. The larger states contended that the same ratio, as to states, should be common to both branches of the legislature; or, in other words, that each state should be entitled to a representation in the Senate, (whatever might be the number fixed on,) in proportion to its population, as in the House of Representatives. The smaller states, on the other hand, contended that the House of Representatives might be considered as the guardian of the liberties of the people, and therefore ought to bear a just proportion to their numbers; but that the Senate represented the sovereignty of the States, and that as each state, whether great or small, was equally an independent and sovereign state, it ought, in this branch of the legislature, to have equal weight and authority; without this, they said, there could be no security for their equal rights—and they would, by such a distribution of power, be merged and lost in the larger states.
This reasoning, however plain and powerful, had but little influence on the minds of delegates from the larger states—and as they formed a large majority of the Convention, the question, after passing through the forms of debate, was decided that ‘each state should be represented in the Senate in proportion to its population.’
