42                The Maryland Constitution of 1851.             [420

The first part of the report that federal numbers should
be used in finding the basis of representation was not
approved by the majority of the convention. Federal
numbers had been recognized in Maryland for the first
time, in an amendment of the constitution in 1836. It was
the result of a compromise based upon federal numbers
and territory. According to this one senator was elected
from each county and Baltimore City, while representatives
followed the federal ratio of population.

If federal numbers had been taken as a basis for repre-
sentation, it would have deprived southern Maryland of
a large part of her population in representation. In Bal-
timore City there were less than three thousand slaves,
while her free-negro class numbered nearly twenty-five
thousand.

As free negroes were to be counted as whites, though
having no political rights, federal numbers would have re-
duced the southern counties' representation unduly. In
Prince George's and Charles counties the slave popula-
tion exceeded the number of whites and free negroes com-
bined. In addition Baltimore City had a large alien popu-
lation, which, on the basis of federal numbers, would be
made equal to citizens in the counties, where the popula-
tion almost exclusively consisted either of native-born, or
of naturalized citizens.

Federal numbers in apportioning representation in the
Congress of the United States was the result of a com-
promise between the slave and the non-slave states. It
provided that taxation and representation should be appor-
tioned equally. The slave-holding states received as a
compensation for the non-enumeration of a portion of their
slaves in the apportionment of representation, an exemp-
tion to the same extent from taxation.

In Maryland there was no such compensation or equiva-
lent exemption proposed, or contemplated. The effect of
adopting federal numbers as a basis for representation
would have been to throw the loss occasioned by slavery,