Seemingly Strange Contradictions in the Delegates' Views

One thing at least that Anti-Federalists abd neo-Anti-Federalists agree on is that the Constitution was both overcentralized and undemocratic. Anti-Federalists assumed that any increase in centralization was inherently oppressive.   Neo-Anti-Federalists are not quite so direct, but seem to tend to agree.  I will therefore admit that I began evaluating the delegates’ positions with an ax to grind; my intention was to establish the hypothesis, “There was no significant correlation between a delegate’s position on centralization and his position on democracy.” 

But things were not so simple.  It was not just that there was no significant correlation between a delegate’s position on centralization and his position on democracy.  Delegates often seemed quite inconsistent in their views on democracy as well. Where, for instance, does one place Elbridge Gerry who considered direct elections even to the House of Representatives as the people are “daily misled into the most baneful measures,” yet continually invoked public opinion and ultimately refused to sign the Constitution as an intolerable threat to liberty.  What of Alexander Hamilton, who actually admitted that he opposed republican government, yet expressed such fine democratic sentiments as these:

 [A]s States are a collection of individual men which ought we to respect most, the rights of the people composing them, or of the artificial beings resulting from the composition.  Nothing could be more absurd than to sacrifice the former to the latter.  It has been sd that if the smaller States renounce their equality , the renounce at the same time their liberty. . . . The State of Delaware having only 40,000 souls will lose power if she has 1/10 only the votes allowed to Pa having 400,000: but will the people of Del: be less free, if each citizen has an equal vote with each citizen of Pa. [emphasis in original].

Why did George Mason, one of the most democratic delegate present twice propose property restrictions on office holders and liken popular election of the President to “refer[ring] a trial of colours to a blind man,” while Gouverneur Morris, easily the least democratic of the delegates, opposed Mason’s property restrictions and favored popular election of  the President?

If all this confuses you, consider yourself in good company.  Many professional historians share the confusion.  Consider Roger Sherman (Connecticut) and George Mason, along with the rest of the Virginia delegation.  Sherman wanted the House of Representatives to be elected by the state legislatures because, “The people . . . immediately should have as little to do as may be about the Government.  They want information and are constantly liable to be misled.”  Mason favored popular election because, “It was to be the grand depository of the democratic principle of the Gov’t. . . . It ought to know & sympathize with every part of the community.”  Yet Sherman favored one-year terms for the House and short terms for the Senate on the grounds that, “Gov’t is instituted for those who live under it.  It ought therefore to be so constituted as not to be dangerous to their liberties.  The more permanency it has the worse if it be a bad Gov’t.  Frequent elections are necessary to preserve the good behavior of rulers.”  Mason, on the other hand, favored a long term for the Senate, presumably agreeing with his fellow Virginian Edmund Randolph, “The object of this 2^nd branch is to controul the democratic branch of the Nat’l Legislature.”

Historian Catherine Drinker Bowen, author of Miracle at Philadelphia sees a simple lesson here; Mason trusted the common people and Sherman did not.  To our old friend David Hackett Fischer, author of Albion's Seed,  the lesson is equally clear; the Virginians were trying to create an oligarchy of country gentlemen shielded from the public by long terms while Sherman, a New England democrat, opposed them.  Historian Edmund Morgan dismisses Sherman’s views as too contradictory to even attempt to explain. 

But these seeming contradictions can be explained, I believe, if one sees the controversy as not only over the degree of democracy in the new Constitution (although that was certainly an issue at the Convention) as on the definition of democracy to be used.  More in my next post.

Economics: The neo-Anti-Federalist's Strongest Case

The neo-Anti-Federalist viewpoint is at least partly correct. It is right that Massachusetts farmers were being crushed by taxes and debts, and right that the Framers of the Constitution had no sympathy for Shays’ Rebellion or the legitimate grievances that caused it. But, as we shall see later in this paper, people saw democracy in different terms in 1787 than they do today and the parts of the Constitution today’s neo-Anti-Federalists criticize as undemocratic are entirely different from the ones the original Anti-Federalist criticized. They also miss the only truly aristocratic portion of the Constitution, which none of the Framers seriously challenged.  Article I, Section 10, Clause 1: “No state shall . . . emit Bills of Credit, make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in payment of Debts [or] pass any . . . Law impairing Obligation of Contracts.”

 It is understandable that they should miss the significance of this passage because most people these days do not know what it means. A bill of credit is an IOU by the government promising to pay the holder at some date in the future. As these IOU’s are often used by the holders to buy and sell, they become “paper money.” During the Revolution, both the United States government and the states financed the war largely by writing IOU’s and more IOU’s and IOU’s paid with IOU’s, all of which led to serious inflation. (Soldiers expressed their contempt for the IOU’s issued by the Continental Congress in the phrase “Ain’t worth a Continental.”) At the end of the war, Congress stopped issuing IOU’s and attempted to return the country to a system of gold and silver coins. Severe inflation gave way to an equally devastating deflation. On top of that, Britain, previously America’s leading trade partner, stopped importing American products and closed ports throughout the British Empire to American ships. The United States was unable to retaliate because the Continental Congress had no power over foreign trade. If one state tried to retaliate against British imports, they would simply switch importing through another states. Except for France, our eternally patient ally, other countries were unwilling to enter into trade agreements with a country that had no power to enforce them. U.S. exports and shipping income languished, while imports continued to drain gold and silver from the country, further aggravating the deflation. However, states were able to effectively retaliate against trade restrictions in at least one instance – they frequently retaliated against each other (which was forbidden by the Articles of Confederation) and were busy at work strangling domestic trade. 

Deflation is particularly oppressive to debtors because their cash incomes fall, even as their debts remain unchanged. Even if the debtor’s property is seized and sold, it is likely to sell at a deflated price that does not cover the full debt. Adding to the crushing weight of private debt were crushing taxes to pay for public debt. Each state had war debt of its own to pay off, and since the federal government had no independent power of taxation, its own debts had to be paid by quotas to the states. States with major ports could raise the amounts relatively painlessly by taxing their foreign trade, which meant taxing their neighbors’ trade without representation. States without major ports, and Massachusetts, which was dominated by merchants who resisted taxes on trade, were forced either to default on their payments or to tax their citizens at rates that were unbearable under the existing deflationary conditions. All this led to pressure for the states to issue paper money (bills of credit) again and re-ignite inflation, or to allow payment of taxes or debts in some other form than gold and silver, or to pass debt relief legislation. It was these measures that Article I, Section 10, Paragraph 1 was intended to measure, and all members of the Convention agreed in deploring paper money and debt relief.

 This is important and needs to be said; it does indicate a lack of sympathy for the financial hardships ordinary people were experiencing and a tendency to side with creditors. What Convention members considered an attempt to defraud creditors was merely an attempt to avoid financial ruin.

 On the other hand, inflationary and debt relief measures threatened to wreck systems of credit and ruin prospects of a commercial revival, and in the end it was really a commercial revival that was needed. The original purpose of the Convention was not to permit federal intervention in future rebellions, but to give the central government authority to tax and regulate foreign trade. Regulation of foreign trade would force concessions for foreign countries and allow American exports and shipping to revive. Taxation of foreign trade would allow the federal governments to pay its debts (and, many people hoped, state debts as well) relatively painlessly. Allowing the central government to regulate trade among the states would allow it to stop them from strangling each other’s trade.

 In short, many of the economic problems that led to pressure for inflationary and debt relief measures were, in fact, caused by the weakness of the central government. And the adoption of the Constitution did actually lead to the anticipated economic revival and relieve pressure on debtors. This, too, is important and needs to be said. It means that the Constitution and its Framers were not as unsympathetic to debtors as Article I, Section 10, Paragraph 1 may suggest on the surface.

"Neo-Federalist' and "Neo-Anti-Federalist" Perspectives on the Constitution and Democracy

At the time the Constitution was adopted, there was intense controversy between the Federalists who favored ratification and the Anti-Federalists who opposed.  Anti-Federalists attacked the Constitution as overcentralized, undemocratic and an attempt to impose an aristocracy.  That perspective has not entirely disappeared to this day.

These days there may roughly be said to be two perspectives on the adoption of the Constitution, that I would call Federalist (or perhaps neo-Federalist) and neo-Anti-Federalist; neo, because the arguments today’s neo-Anti-Federalists use to damn the original Constitution as undemocratic are not the same ones the original Anti-Federalists used.

Thes neo-Federalist viewpoint goes somewhat as follows:  The government under the Articles of Confederation was hopelessly weak and did not give the central government the power necessary to fully function.  Recognizing the need for a stronger government, a Convention was called that drew up a new Constitution.  Despite the need for a stronger government, the Framers who drew up the Constitution recognized that an unrestrained government was dangerous.  Therefore, they took appropriate precautions to restrain the government, adopting the separation of powers (legislative, executive and judicial) and a system of checks and balances to prevent an abuse of power.  The full details of the system of checks and balances are often shown in a diagram or flow chart to indicate how each branch of government can restrain the abuses of any other.

The neo-Anti-Federalist viewpoint takes a dimmer view of the process.  It begins with Shays’ Rebellion, a popular uprising by Massachusetts farmers, relentlessly squeezed by oppressive taxes and debts, facing eviction, loss of all their property (including tools and furniture) and potentially indefinite imprisonment for debt. When repeated appeals to the Massachusetts government for relief went unheard, the desperate farmers rebelled and were crushed by the Massachusetts government.  (The federal government had no authority to intervene).  It was this incident that alarmed the ruling classes and convinced them of the need for stronger central government that could suppress such rebellions in the future.  The Convention was therefore a meeting of conservative members of the ruling classes seeking to shore up their power against a growing threat of true democracy.  Their basic distrust of the common people is evidenced in three undemocratic provisions in the original form of the Constitution:

            (1)        The President is not elected by the people directly but by the Electoral College, whose members were originally elected by state legislatures instead of the people directly and were expected to use their own judgment instead of being pledged to particular candidates. 

            (2)        Under the original version of the Constitution, Senators were not elected by the people directly, but by the state legislatures (changed to the people with the Seventeenth Amendment).

            (3)        Although the House of Representatives was the only branch of the federal government elected by the people directly, they were not elected on the basis of universal suffrage, but existing state restrictions on who could vote were retained.

When I was in school, we were taught essentially a combination of these two views.  The government under the Articles of Confederation, it is acknowledged, was hopelessly weak.  After describing that weakness in some detail, my school books then switched to Shays’ Rebellion and said that the primary motive in calling the Convention was to give the federal government authority to intervene and suppress future such rebellions.  The books described the delegates both as fearing too strong a central government and therefore instituting checks and balances (carefully diagramed) and as fearing the people and therefore instituting the aristocratic features of the Electoral College, election of Senators by state legislatures, and state restrictions on the vote.  In the debate on ratification, Federalists tend to be portrayed as aristocrats and Anti-Federalists as democrats.  The adoption of the Constitution is portrayed as our national fall from grace.  But the story of our redemption follows, as the Anti-Federalists were able to pressure the Federalists into adopting a Bill of Rights (something not included in the Constitution as originally adopted) and so we were saved from an aristocracy.

Ultimately, the attempt to combine these two viewpoints makes no sense.  If the Constitution was truly aristocratic because of the Electoral College, state election of Senators and state restrictions on the vote, the Bill of Rights should not make it democratic because it does not alter any of these features.  At best, it simply transforms our Constitution from an absolute aristocracy to a limited aristocracy.

My goal in the succeeding blog posts is to set aside the neo- view points and try to understand the Constitution as it might have looked in the 18th Century.  But to do so I must begin by conceding at least one point to the neo-Anti-Federalist.  That will be addressed in my next post.

The Constitution and Democracy: Truth and Half-Truth

And now for probably the most controversial topic of all: The Constitution and the issue of democracy.  I will begin by addressing a common misconception about the Founding Fathers (or, more accurately, the founding generation) held by admirers and detractors alike -- that they saw democracy as a thing to be dreaded and favored a republic instead.  This view is held by their detractors, as evidence that they were elitist, and by admirers, who think our championship of democracy today is a mistake (and who like a snappy comeback when someone  links democracy with views they dislike).

This view is not so much false as oversimplified and half-true.  It assumes that in the 18th Century the terms "republic" and "democracy" had generally accepted meanings that everyone agreed on, and that confusion in terms is a recent phenomenon.  But such abstract concepts were as ill-defined in the 18th Century as they are today. The best known distinction is probably from Madison in Federalist 14, in which he comments that the forms are often confounded (i.e., many of his contemporaries did not make a clear distinction between them), but that the difference was "in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents."  He further makes clear that representation was not unknown in the democracies of ancient times.  And he emphatically states that the distinction between a democracy and and republic is not the presence of representation, but the absence of direct popular participation:

[I]t is clear that the principle of representation was neither unknown to the ancients nor wholly overlooked in their political constitutions. The true distinction between these and the American governments, lies IN THE TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE PEOPLE, IN THEIR COLLECTIVE CAPACITY, from any share in the LATTER, and not in the TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE from the administration of the FORMER.

Yet at the same time, he considered both democracy and republic to be forms of "popular government."  And he favored "popular government," regarding any "aristocratic or monarchial innovations" as incompatible with a republic.

So, is that the distinction between a republic and a democracy, as understood in the 18th Century? Not exactly.  That is the difference as Madison understood them.  Not everyone agreed.  John Adams, for instance, (alas, cannot find link) defined a republic as any form of government with a separation of powers into executive, legislative and judicial.  Thus he believed that an aristocracy or even limited monarchy (including contemporary England) could be a "republic."  He defined democracy as concentration of all power into a single legislative body, a system he regarded as dangerously unstable.  (Latter day parliamentary governments have proven him wrong).

And, as Madison complained in Federalist 14, plenty of people at the time used the terms interchangeably.  Consider John Lansing, who, like Madison, kept notes at the Convention (though less detailed, and he was absent much of the time).  Madison quotes Hamilton as saying, "As to the Executive, it seemed to be admitted that no good one could be established on Republican principles." Lansing, by contrast, quotes him as saying, "It is admitted that you cannot have a good executive upon a democratic plan."  Which did he actually say?  Since no one back then could pull out a cell phone and record his exact words, we will never know.  But it is significant that the terms were closely enough linked that Madison could use one and Lansing the other.

Finally, as noted before, the strongest ideological influence on the Framers was Baron de Montesquieu, who first set forth the theory that the foundation of liberty is the separation of executive, legislative, and judicial powers.  Montesquieu divided government into three types, a monarchy, in which a single ruler governs by law; a despotism in which a single ruler governs arbitrarily; and a republic, in which some or all of the citizens rule.  He further sub-divided republics into direct and representative (i.e., the citizens govern directly versus through elected representatives) and democratic and aristocratic (i.e., by the citizens at large, or by a narrow group).  Montesquieu regarded freedom as compatible with monarchy or aristocracy, but not with despotism.  Many of the Founders agreed that liberty was compatible with aristocracy.  But none (not even Hamilton) wanted an aristocracy here.  By Montesquieu's taxonomy, there was an overwhelming consensus in favor of a democratic, representative republic.  To favor anything else was to place oneself outside of all respectable discourse.

Unfortunately, "democratic, representative republic," although the most accurate description of what the Founders wanted, is too long and awkward to use most of the time.  "Democratic republic," though not as bad as "people's republic," has been misused by Communists often enough to give it unfortunate associations that, of course, would be completely anachronistic in 1787.  "Popular government" is a fair approximation, but even that is clunky compared to democracy.  So I will go ahead and use democracy as a synonym for "popular government" or "democratic, representative republic," and damn the purists.

South Carolina: Premier Defender of Slavery

The most stubborn defenders of slavery were, of course, the South Carolina delegation.  They were occasionally joined by a colleague from Georgia, but South Carolina took the lead.  The issue the South Carolinians were most insistent on was slave importation, followed by slave representation.  They were willing to make concessions on commercial regulations to gain northern votes on slavery.  South Carolina appears to have been the only Southern state willing to give ground on this issue, presumably because slavery was more important to them.

John Rutledge:  John Rutledge served on the Committee of Detail that drew up the first draft of the Constitution and was presumably responsible for the three provisions that favored the South.  He made no attempt to morally defend the importation of slaves, “Religion & humanity had nothing to do with this question.  Interest alone is the governing principle with nations.”  Quite simply, he said, the Deep South would not join the Union unless their importation of slaves was secured.  To sweeten the deal, he offered to excuse other states from protecting the South from slave insurrections, and pointed out the increasing slave would increase southern produce that northern ships could transport.  But the Deep South would never be “such fools as to give up so important an interest.” He was also willing to make concessions on a navigation act.  The power would not necessarily be abused, and in any event, and at worst it would only bear a little hard on the South.  A navigation act would be necessary to secure the West India trade.  He also called for a provision against any constitutional amendment that would disrupt the compromise protecting slave trade until 1808.

Pierce Butler:  It was Pierce Butler who proposed requiring fugitive slaves to be extradited between states on the same terms as criminals.  He also moved to include all slaves in representation:

[He] insisted that the labour of a slave in S. Carola was as productive & valuable as that of a freeman in Masst, that as wealth was the great meand of defence and utility to the Nation they were equally valuable to it with freemen; that the consequently representation ought to be allowed for them in a Government which was instituted principally for the protection of property, and was itself to be supported by property.

He also opposed export taxes.  He also joined his other South Carolina colleagues in supporting the sectional compromise between New England and South Carolina; he said the interests of the “Eastern” and Southern states were as different as Russia and Turkey, but he would agree to allow navigation acts by a simple majority in the interest of conciliation.  Butler was very clear about South Carolina’s interests, “The security the Southn States want is that their negroes may not be taken from them, which some gentlemen within or without doors, have a very good mind to do.”

   Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (General Pinckney):  Charles Cotesworth Pinckney favored including all slaves in representation and was willing to include all slaves in taxation to win the privilege.  He also opposed taxing exports and saw the two as linked:

S. Carolina has in one year exported to the amount of  600,000 pounds Sterling all of which was the fruit of the labor of her blacks.  Will she be represented in proportion to this amount?  She will not.  Neither ought she to be subject to a tax on it.

General Pinckney was especially clear in pointing out that Virginia’s motives in opposing slave trade were not altogether altruistic, “As to Virginia she will gain by stopping the importations.  Her slaves will rise in value & she has more than she wants.”  The Deep South could not do without slaves, and would not agree to the Constitution without protection of slave importation, even if the entire delegation agreed to it.  Like Butler, he argued that slaves would increase exports and shipping.  He would agree to let slaves be taxed like other imports, but a prohibition on slave imports would exclude South Carolina from the Union.  The original proposed compromise would have protected slave trade until 1800; General Pinckney moved to extend it to 1808 and Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts, in accordance with the sectional compromise, seconded the motion.  In turn, he upheld South Carolina’s half of the bargain.  Although he said it was in the interest of the Southern states to have no regulations on commerce, considering New England’s “liberal conduct” toward South Carolina and the interest of the “weak” southern states to be united with the “strong Eastern States,” he would agree to allowing commercial regulations by a simple majority. 

            Like the others, General Pinckney was very protective of South Carolina’s interest in slaves.  He was even uneasy about the Constitutional provision that “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States,” wanting some provision in favor of property in slaves.

Charles Pinckney (Mr. Pinckney):  Charles Pinckney offered the only speech approaching a moral defense of slavery in the Constitutional Convention:

If slavery be wrong, it is justified by the example of all the world.  He cited the case of Greece Rome & other antient States; the sanction given by France England, Holland & other modern States.  In all ages one half mankind have been slaves.  

Yet at the same time he said that left to herself, South Carolina would probably end slave importations, and that he himself would support such a law, and also, quite contradictorily, that South Carolina would never agree to the Constitution unless it protected the importation of slaves.

As stated before, it was Charles Pinckney, together with Wilson, who originally proposed the three-fifths compromise.  Yet once the formula was adopted, he later moved to include all slaves in representation, and for much the same reason as General Pinckney and Butler:

The blacks are the labourers, the peasants of the Southern States: they are as productive of pecuniary resources as those of the Northern States.  They add equally to the wealth, and considering money as the sinew of war, to the strength of the nation. 

Unlike the other South Carolina delegates, Charles Pinckney did not consider himself bound by a sectional compromise on commercial regulations.  Instead, he proposed to require a two-thirds majority on all commercial regulations, internal or external.  He feared oppressive regulations of a simple majority, saying the power of regulating commerce was a “pure concession” by the South, which did not need the protection of the northern states.  In this he was overruled.  At the end of the Convention Charles Pinckney urged the others to sign the Constitution despite their objections, saying he had objections of his own, including the authority of Congress to regulate trade by a simple majority.

And now, on to the most interesting and complex topic debated at the Constitutional Convention -- how democratic should the new government be, and by what definition?

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*No such provision was included. However, nearly a hundred years later, the Confederate Constitution would do just that, guarantying the citizens of the Confederacy the right to take their slaves to any state or territory without compromising their ownership.

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.

Other Compromisers

James Wilson (Pennsylvania):  It was James Wilson, together with Charles Pinckney who originally proposed the three-fifths compromise.  He also made the ingenious proposal that instead of saying that taxation shall be proportional to representation, representation shall be proportional to taxation in order to give the illusion that slaves were a object of taxation and only indirectly of representation.  But his comments at other times indicate that he did not like his own proposal.  “Are they [slaves] admitted as Citizens?  then why are the not admitted on an equality with White Citizens? are the admitted as property?  then why is not other property admitted into the computation?” When the final draft of the Constitution said “representation and direct taxation” would be on the three-fifths basis, he moved to strike out “direct taxes,” although he knew very well why they were linked.  Yet he stood by the three-fifths compromise and accepted it as necessary.   Wilson did not firmly commit himself on the issue of slave representation.  However, when Deep South delegates said both that South Carolina and Georgia would refuse to confederate is slave trade was not protected and that they would soon end slave trade on their own, Wilson pointed out the contradiction.  He was also one of two delegates who rather tepidly protested the fugitive slave clause, saying that he did not like to oblige the state executive to return slaves at public expense.

On commercial issues, Wilson was thoroughly northern.  He favored a federal authority to tax exports and apparently believed that to deny it to the federal government would automatically give the states that authority, and port states would use it to exploit their neighbors.  He opposed requiring a two-thirds vote to pass a navigation act, saying it was better to have the minority “bound hand and foot” (Mason’s words) by the majority than the majority to be bound by the minority.  If every interest was to be protected, they would have to require unanimity in passing laws.  

Nathaniel Gorham (Massachusetts):  Nathaniel Gorham was thoroughly open to a compromise on slavery.  He supported the three-fifths compromise, saying that while New Englanders might resist counting slave in representation, when the issue was taxation, they wanted all slaves counted.  He supported the compromise between New England and the Deep South, seconding a motion to extend the protection of slave trade from 1800 to 1808 and approving of taxing imported slaves.  He was uncompromising on the issue of commercial regulations, however, even willing to hazard the Union over commercial regulations, saying, “[T]he Eastern States had no motive to Union but a commercial one.  They were able to protect themselves.  They were not afraid of external danger, and did not need the aid of the Southn States.” It was the South that faced the greatest danger in case of disunion, something he was clearly willing to consider. 

Hugh Williamson (North Carolina):  Hugh Williamson was an overall moderate.  He favored the three-fifths compromise in both taxation and representation, pointing out when the issue was representation, the North opposed counting slaves at all, but when the issue had been taxation, they took the opposite position.  He considered the three-fifths compromise reasonable.  The importation of slaves, he said, was permitted in North Carolina, but discouraged by a tax on all slaves imported.  He considered it better to protect slave trade than to see South Carolina and Georgia leave the Union.  He was unwilling to agree to any federal export tax, preferring even to pay Virginia’s taxes on exported tobacco, although when the motion was made to prohibit export taxes to either federal or state governments, he seconded it.   He also supported requiring a two-thirds vote on commercial regulations, saying that if northern states pushed commercial regulations too far, the south would build its own ships, but that southerners felt strongly about the subject.  Neither did he believe the South needed northern protection, their disease-ridden climate was protection enough.

Edmund Randolph (Virginia):  Edmund Randolph supported the three-fifths compromise, saying that he lamented that such a species of property existed, but since it did exist, owners would require security.  He was not as was not as resolute in opposing slave importation as George Mason, saying that he would rather risk the Constitution than give absolute protection to slave importation (i.e., Congress could never stop importation), but neither did he want to risk losing South Carolina and Georgia; he was willing to seek a compromise.  His most strongly southern position was on navigation acts.  Already wavering on whether to support the Constitution, he said that allowing a navigation act by a simple majority would complete the “deformity” of the system and, indeed, when he refused to sign the Constitution, he listed the lack of a restrain on navigation acts as one of his reasons for refusing to sign.  (Unlike George Mason, he did not list the protection of slave trade as a reason for refusing to sign).

All of this should make a certain pattern clear.  To the Northern states, ensuring that the South could not veto a navigation act was the single most important sectional issue.  They were quite willing to yield on slavery and on export taxes, issues that merely affected their moral sense, if they could have their way on navigation acts, an issue that affected their interests.