North-South Issues and the Connecticut Delegation

The Connecticut delegates, for whatever reason, sided with the Deep South, particularly on the issue of slave importation.  When the subject was being debated, delegates from most of the states spoke up for prohibiting the importation of slaves, the South Carolina delegates had one set of allies, the delegates from Connecticut.  Indeed, it is difficult to draw the line between statesmanship (willingness to make tough compromises) and spinelessness, but the Connecticut delegation gives the impression of crossing that line altogether.

Roger Sherman:  Roger Sherman particularly crossed the line between statesmanship and spinelessness as on the issue of slave importation.  Although considered the slave trade "iniquitous," he said that he did not believe the public good required it to be prohibited, and it was better to let the Deep South import slaves than depart.  At the same time, “He acknowledged that if the power or prohibiting the importation should be given to the general government that it would be exercised.  He thought it would be its duty to exercise the power.”  This is an extraordinary argument; we must forbid the government from doing the right thing, or it would actually have to do it!  Like Madison, Sherman opposed allowing a tax on imported slaves as implying they were property and preferred mealy-mouthed euphemisms to actually using the word “slave.”

Sherman was equally spineless on slave representation.  He defended the three-fifths compromise by saying that representation was based on taxation and that slaves were included in the estimate of taxation and only incidentally in representation – this although he had been present when Morris and Wilson proposed that ploy as nothing but clever window dressing.  He did rather tepidly protest the requirement to return runaway slaves, saying he saw no more propriety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave or a servant than a horse, but neither Sherman nor anyone else was prepared to treat fugitive slaves as a major issue. 

He also took the southern viewpoint in opposing a federal tax on exports, saying that since different states had different exports, a federal export tax was apt to be discriminatory.  The authority to tax exports should be left to states, and the federal government could use its authority to regulate interstate commerce to prevent states with major ports from oppressing their neighbors.  On the other hand, he seemed to like prohibiting anyone, federal or state, from taxing exports.  Sherman did take the northern viewpoint on the most important issue to New England; commercial regulation, arguing that there were enough different interests to prevent the majority from abusing its power, and that requiring a two-thirds vote would obstruct laws too much.

            Oliver Ellsworth:  Unlike Sherman, Oliver Ellsworth’s defense of slave trade was no so much spineless as frankly amoral.  “The morality or wisdom of slavery are considerations belonging to the states themselves.  What enriches a part enriches the whole, and the States are the best judges of their particular interest.”  He defended the importation of slaves on states rights grounds, “let every state import what it pleases.”   Yet giving Congress authority to regulate foreign trade necessarily meant not allowing each state to import what it pleased.  Why may an exception to the one import that was morally indefensible?  To George Mason’s argument that slavery was corrupting, Ellsworth replied,  "As he had never owned a slave could not judge the effects of slavery on character:  He said however that if it was to be considered we ought to go farther and free those already in the Country."  This is not an abolitionist argument; quite the contrary, Ellsworth is warning Mason that it is unwise for a Virginia planter to take too strong a moral stand against slavery, or he will end up condemning himself.  He then went on to point out that Virginians’ opposition to slavery is not entirely altruistic; their slaves were multiplying so fast it was cheaper to raise than import them, whereas in the rice swamps of the Deep South slave die off and imports are necessary.  Slavery will die out as more poor laborers immigrate; the process was already underway in New England.  “As to the danger of insurrections from foreign influence, that will become a motive to kind treatment of the slaves.”

Ellsworth apparently believed that representation should be by wealth, but supported three-fifths compromise “until some other rule shall more accurately ascertain the wealth of the several States.”   He opposed federal export taxes for much the same reasons as Sherman; because most exports were from the South (tobacco, rice, indigo), a federal export tax would be discriminatory and lead to conflict between the states.  An export tax would also discourage industry and production, as opposed to an import tax, which discouraged luxury and consumption.  And, like Sherman, Ellsworth believed that federal regulation of interstate commerce would prevent states with major ports from exploiting their neighbors or, alternately, that if port states taxed their neighbors too much, their neighbors would start exporting directly.  He was apparently even willing to concede the most important issue to the north, a two-thirds vote on commercial regulations, to avoid splitting the union.

William Samuel Johnson:  However, the most proslavery of the Connecticut delegates was William Samuel Johnson.  Johnson only addressed one north-south issue; the issue of slave representation:  

Dr. Johnson, thought that wealth and population were the true equitable rule of representation; but he conceived that these two principles resolved themselves into one; population being the best measure of wealth. He concluded therefore that ye number of people ought to be established as the rule, and that all descriptions including blacks [i.e., slaves] equally with the whites, ought to fall within the computation.

When the vote on including all slaves in representation was taken, only South Carolina and Georgia voted for it; the other Southern states, even Virginia where slaves were 40% of the population, thought including all slaves in representation was going to far. Outside those two states, only William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut and two unnamed Pennsylvanians supported counting all slaves in representation.