and our country has produced few men who could speak more wisely. "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 are equally its wealth, and should therefore equally add to the quota of its tax." Yes; and, consequently, they should equally add to the quota of its representation.

Our author supposes that it is a great advantage to the slaveholding States that, while three-fifths of the slaves are entitled to representation, two-fifths are exempted from taxation. Why confine it to three-fifths? Suppose that none of them were entitled to representation, the only consequence would be, that the State would have fewer representatives, and, for that reason, would have a less amount of taxes to pay. In this case, all the slaves would be exempted from taxation; and, according to our author, the slave-holding States would have great reason to be content with so distinguishing an advantage. And, for the same reason, every other State would have cause to rejoice at the diminution of the number of its people, for although its representation would thereby be decreased, its taxes would be decreased in the same proportion. This is the true mode of testing the author's position. It will be found that every State values the right of representation at a price infinitely beyond the amount of direct taxes to which that right may subject it; and, of course, the Southern States have little reason to be thankful that two-fifths of their slaves are exempted from taxation, since they lose, in consequence of it, the right of representation to the same extent. The author, however, seems to have forgotten this connexion between representation and taxation; he looks only at the sources whence the Union may draw wealth from the South, without enquiring into the principles upon which her representation may be enlarged. He thinks that direct taxes ought to be apportioned, according to the real value of property within the State;" in which case "the whole of the slaves would have been taxable as property." I have already remarked that this is, indeed, the true rule; but it is wholly impracticable. It would be alike impossible to fix a satisfactory standard of valuation, and to discover the taxable subjects. No approximation to the truth

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could be hoped for, without a host of officers, whose compensations would consume a large proportion of the tax, while, from the very nature of their duties, they would be forced into minute examinations, inconsistent with the freedom of our institutions, harassing and vexatious in their details, and leading inevitably to popular resistance and tumult. And this process must be gone through at every new tax; for the relative wealth of the States would be continually changing. Hence, population has been selected as the proper measure of the wealth of the States. But, upon our author's principle, the South would be, indeed, little better off than the lamb in the embrace of the wolf. The slaves are easily found; they can neither be buried under ground, nor hid in the secret drawers of a bureau. They are peculiar, too, to a particular region; and other regions, having none of them, would yet have a voice in fixing their value as subjects of taxation. That they would bear something more than their due share of this burthen, is just as certain as that man, under all circumstances, will act according to his nature. In the mean time, not being considered as people, they would have no right to be heard in their own defence, through their representatives in the federal councils. On the other hand, the non-slave-holding States would be represented in proportion to the whole numbers of their people, and would be taxed only according to that part of their wealth which they might choose to disclose, or which they could not conceal. And in the estimate of this wealth, their people would not be counted as taxable subjects, although they hold to their respective States precisely the same relation, as laborers and contributors to the common treasury, as is held by the slaves of the South to their respective States. The rule, then, which considers slaves only as property to be taxed, and not as people to be represented, is little else than a rule imposing on the Southern States almost the entire burthens of the government, and allowing to them only the shadow of influence in the measures of that govern

ment.

The truth is, the slave-holding States have always contributed more than their just proportion to the wealth and strength of the country, and not less than their just proportion to [*116] its intelligence and public virtue. This is the only

perfectly just measure of political influence; but it is a measure which cannot be applied in practice. We receive population as the best practicable substitute for it; and as all people, whatever be their private and peculiar conditions and relations, are presumed to contribute their share to the stock of general wealth, intelligence and virtue, they are all entitled to their respective shares of influence in the measures of government. The slave-holding States, therefore, had a right to demand that all their slaves should be represented; they yielded too much in agreeing that only three-fifths of them should possess that right. I cannot doubt that this would have been conceded by the convention, had the principle, that representatives and direct taxes should be apportioned according to the same ratio, been then adopted into the Constitution. It would have been perceived that, while the representation of the Southern States would thus have been increased, their share of the public taxes would have been increased in the same proportion; and thus they would have stood, in all respects, upon the same footing with the other States. The Northern States would have said to them, "Count your people; it is of no consequence to us what is their condition at home; they are laborers, and therefore they contribute the same amount of taxable subjects, whether black or white, bond or free. We therefore recognize them as people, and give them representation as such. All that we require is, that when we come to lay direct taxes, they shall be regarded as people still, and you shall contribute for them precisely as we contribute for our people." This is the plain justice of the case; and this alone would be consistent with the great principles which ought to regulate the subject. It is a result which is no longer attainable, and the South will, as they ought to do, acquiesce in the arrangement as it now stands. But they have reason to complain that grave authors, in elaborate works designed to form the opinions of rising generations, should so treat the subject as to create an impression that the Southern States are enjoying advantages under our Constitution, to which they are not fairly entitled, and which they owe only to the liberality of the other States; for the South feels that these supposed advantages are, in fact, sacrifices, which she has made only to a

spirit of conciliation and harmony, and which neither justice nor sound principle would ever have exacted of her.

The most defective part of the Federal Constitution, beyond all question, is that which relates to the executive department. It is impossible to read that instrument, without being forcibly struck with *the loose and unguarded [*117] terms in which the powers and duties of the President are pointed out. So far as the legislature is concerned, the limitations of the Constitution are, perhaps, as precise and strict as they could safely have been made; but in regard to the executive, the convention appear to have studiously selected such loose and general expressions, as would enable the President, by implication and construction, either to neglect his duties, or to enlarge his powers. We have heard it gravely asserted in congress, that whatever power is neither legislative nor judiciary, is, of course, executive, and, as such, belongs to the President, under the Constitution! How far a majority of that body would have sustained a doctrine so monstrous, and so utterly at war with the whole genius of our government, it is impossible to say; but this, at least, we know, that it met with no rebuke from those who supported the particular act of executive power, in defence of which it was urged. Be this as it may, it is a reproach to the Constitution, that the executive trust is so ill-defined, as to leave any plausible pretence, even to the insane zeal of party devotion, for attributing to the President of the United States the powers of a despot; powers which are wholly unknown in any limited monarchy in the world.

It is remarkable that the Constitution is wholly silent in regard to the power of removal from office. The appointing power is in the President and senate; the President nominating, and the senate confirming; but the power to remove from office seems never to have been contemplated by the convention at all, for they have given no directions whatever upon the subject. The consequence has been precisely such as might have been. expected, a severe contest for the possession of that power, and the ultimate usurpation of it, by that department of the government to which it ought never to be entrusted. In the absence of all precise directions upon the subject, it would seem that the power to remove ought to attend the power to appoint; for

those whose duty it is to fill the offices of the country with competent incumbents, cannot possibly execute that trust fully and well, unless they have power to correct their own errors and mistakes, by removing the unworthy, and substituting better men in their - places. This, I have no doubt, is the true construction of our Constitution. It was for a long time strenuously contended for by a large party in the country, and was finally yielded, rather to the confidence which the country reposed in the virtues of Washington, than to any conviction that it was properly an executive power, belonging only to the President. It is true of Washington alone of all the truly *great of the earth, that [*118] he never inflicted an injury upon his country, except only such as proceeded from the excess of his own virtues. His known patriotism, wisdom and purity, inspired us with a confidence and a feeling of security against the abuses of power, which has led to the establishment of many precedents, dangerous to public liberty in the hands of any other man. Of these, the instance before us is not the least important. The power to remove from office is, in effect, the power to appoint to office. What does it avail that the senate must be consulted in appointing to office, if the President may, the very next moment, annul the act by removing the person appointed! The senate has no right to select; they can do nothing more than confirm or reject the person nominated by the President. The President may nominate his own devoted creatures; if the senate should disapprove any one of them, he has only to nominate another, and another, and another; for there is no danger that the list will be exhausted, until the senate will be persuaded or worried into compliance. And when the appointment is made, the incumbent knows that he is a mere tenant at will, and necessarily becomes the mere tool and slave of the man at whose sole pleasure he eats his daily bread. Surely, it is a great and alarming defect in our Constitution, that so vast and dangerous a power as this should be held by one man. Nothing more is required to place the liberties of the country at the feet of the President, than to authorize him to fill, and to vacate and to fill again, at his sole will and pleasure, all the offices of the country.

The necessary consequence of enabling the President to remove from office at his mere pleasure is, that the officer soon