For his own part, Mr. P. said, he wished he lived where there was no slavery; and if he could find a climate he liked as well, he would change his situation on that account.
Mr. BRENT said, it was a very extraordinary thing that gentlemen who represented States where there were no slaves, should oppose a tax on that species of property, and that the Southern States where slavery existed, should be advocating that tax.
By the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, there appeared a deficiency of revenue, and in order to supply that deficiency, they had determined to have recourse to direct taxation; and, after the amount which each State ought to furnish, had been ascertained, he thought it should have been left to the different States to have raised the money from such funds as they judged best, provided they had been secure. This, he thought, would only have been liberal and proper. It had, however, been determined otherwise; but, from a knowledge that, by introducing land and slaves together, as objects of taxation, the tax would be more equally levied in the Southern States, if that plan had been adopted. And, surely, he said, it could have given no satisfaction to any other State, that, by laying a tax on land only, it should have operated in a very oppressive manner in some parts of the Southern States, and scarcely have been felt at all in other parts of those States; and yet, this would appear to be the opinion of the gentleman from New Hampshire; for, he said, if this law passed, a person possessing landed property in New Hampshire, of the value of £1,000, would pay more than a landholder to that amount in the Southern States. And was this, he asked, a subject of regret? If the State of Virginia paid the amount required of her in a manner which bore most equally upon the whole of her citizens, ought that to displease the citizens of other States? He thought not. He was of opinion, that it would be a desirable thing that the tax should be found to fall equally on the citizens of every State.
Another objection, produced by the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. GOODRICH) was that a tax on this species of property would not be so secure as a tax on land. If that gentleman had been acquainted with the situation of the Southern States, he would have known that slaves formed the most certain fund of those States; for, whilst their wide and extensive waste lands would not command any price, slaves were always ready sale. Hence it arose, that the States were not able to raise a tax on land, whilst a tax on slaves had never failed to be productive.