distributed through all the colonies: there were as many cattle, horses,
and sheep, in the North as the South, and South as the North; but not so
as to slaves: that experience has shown that those colonies have, been
always able to pay most, which have the most inhabitants, whether they
be black or white: and the practice of the Southern colonies has always
been to make every farmer pay poll taxes upon all his laborers, whether
they be black or white. He acknowledges indeed, that freemen work the
most; but they consume the most also. They do not produce a greater
surplus for taxation. The slave is neither fed nor clothed so
expensively as a freeman. Again, white women are exempted from labor
generally, but negro women are not. In this then the Southern states
have an advantage as the article now stands. It has sometimes been said
that slavery is necessary, because the commodities they raise would be
too dear for market if cultivated by freemen: but now it is said that
the labor of the slave is the dearest.

Mr. Payne urged the original resolution of Congress, to proportion the
quotas of the states to the number of souls.

Dr. Witherspoon was of opinion, that the value of lands and houses was
the best estimate of the wealth of a nation, and that it was practicable
to obtain such a valuation. This is the true barometer of wealth. The
one now proposed is imperfect in itself, and unequal between the states.
It has been objected that negroes eat the food of freemen, and therefore
should be taxed; horses also eat the food of freemen; therefore they
also should be taxed. It has been said too, that in carrying slaves into
the estimate of the taxes the state is to pay, we do no more than those
states themselves do, who always take slaves into the estimate of the
taxes the individual is to pay. But the cases are not parallel. In
the Southern colonies slaves pervade the whole colony; but they do