Pinckney Compares Slaves to Peasants
Commentary
From Madison's Notes: Mr. Pinkney moved to amend Mr. Randolph’s motion so as to make “blacks equal to the whites in the ratio of representation”. This he urged was nothing more than justice. 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. It will also be politic with regard to the Northern States as taxation is to keep pace with Representation." This comparison is worthy of note with regard to the relationship between race and class in the slave societies of the colonial South.
Report of the Special Committee [Working Version] - Randolph/Elsworth Census Proposal: Pinckney Removes Three-Fifths was proposed
on 12 July 1787
Pinckney Compares Slaves to Peasants
Research Assistants' Commentary (1787 Constitutional Convention)
Cite as: Grace Mallon, ‘Pinckney Compares Slaves to Peasants’ in Research Assistants' Commentary (1787 Constitutional Convention), Quill Project at Pembroke College (Oxford, 2016), item 22.