if he buys from his neighbor, it is only a transfer of a laborer from
one farm to another, which does not change the annual produce of the
state, and therefore should not change its tax: that if a Northern
farmer works ten laborers on his farm, he can, it is true, invest the
surplus of ten men's labor in cattle; but so may the Southern farmer,
working ten slaves; that a state of one hundred thousand freemen can
maintain no more cattle, than one of one hundred thousand slaves.
Therefore, they have no more of that kind of property; that a slave may,
indeed, from the custom of speech, be more properly called the wealth
of his master, than the free laborer might be called the wealth of his
employer: but as to the state, both were equally its wealth, and should
therefore equally add to the quota of its tax.

Mr. Harrison proposed, as a compromise, that two slaves should be
counted as one freeman. He affirmed that slaves did not do as much work
as freemen, and doubted if two effected more than one; that this was
proved by the price of labor; the hire of a laborer in the Southern
colonies being from £8 to £12, while in the Northern it was generally
£24.

Mr. Wilson said, that if this amendment should take place, the Southern
colonies would have all the benefit of slaves, whilst the Northern ones
would bear the burthen: that slaves increase the profits of a state,
which the Southern states mean to take to themselves; that they also
increase the burthen of defence, which would of course fall so much the
heavier on the Northern: that slaves occupy the places of freemen and
eat their food. Dismiss your slaves, and freemen will take their places.
It is our duty to lay every discouragement on the importation of slaves;
but this amendment would give the _jus trium liberorum_ to him who
would import slaves: that other kinds of property were pretty equally