states against the little ones but the North against the South, he proposed that the representation in one house be based on the number of free inhabitants in each state plus three-fifths of the number of slaves. The second house would be based solely on the number of free inhabitants. He also worked to free the nation of the slave trade problem. Of the twenty year limit compromise he initially said,Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be more dishonorable to the National character than to say nothing about it in the Constitution.8However, he was realistic and clearly saw that the South would never ratify the document if the trade was immediately outlawed; so he agreed to the twenty year compromise. When the discussions turned to whether the Congress would be able to place a tariff on the importation of slaves,Mr. Madison thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men. The reason of duties did not hold, as slaves are not like merchandize, consumed, &c.9In the years of ratification that followed Madison repeatedly defended these points. In The Federalist Papers, Madison says in defence of the twenty year compromise, "Is the importation of slaves permitted by the new Constitution for twenty years. By the old it is permitted forever."10 In Federalist #42, he saysIt ought to be considered as a great point gained in favor of humanity, that a period of twenty years may terminate forever, within these States, a traffic which has long and so loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern policy; that within that period it will receive considerable discouragement from the Federal government and be totally abolished, by a concurrence of the few States which continue the unnatural traffic in the prohibitory example which has been given by so great a majority of the Union. Happy would it be for the unfortunate Africans if an eq...
