New England’s Federalists were concerned about the loss of representation and power. In 1788, during the Constitutional Convention, Northerners made a concession to the South. They gave Southern states the ability to count five slaves as three free white men, for representation in the House of Representatives. New England wanted three-fifths clause revoked.
“…slave representation is the cause of all the difficulties we labor under.[1]”
Josiah Quincy
The movement to remove the offending three-fifths clause began in 1802. It gained momentum in 1804. Again in 1809 and 1812, Federalists clamored for an amendment to repeal the offending three-fifths clause.[2]
New England saw itself as bound to the Atlantic Ocean. Jefferson and his party envisaged a nation of farmers and slaveholders expanding into the interior.[3] For some Federalists, the possibility of dissolution of the union was not if, but when. Caleb Strong, a prominent Massachusetts Federalist wrote:
“…the territory of the U.S. is so extensive as to forbid us to indulge the expectation that we shall remain many years united.”
Caleb Strong[4]
Next: What Federalist pamphleteer John Lowell, Jr. proposed
Look for it Monday, December 30
[1] Josiah Quincy, Synopsis of Debates in the Massachusetts Legislature (Boston? 1814) quoted in James M Banner, Jr. To the Hartford Convention: The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts 1789-1815 (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1970) 102.
[2] Banner, To the Hartford Convention, 102-3.
[3] Banner, To the Hartford Convention, 110.
[4] Banner, To the Hartford Convention, 112.
