Such a compromise was, of course, illogical, leaving the question whether negroes were chattels or human beings with even a theoretical civil character undecided.

But many of the members, who saw the illogic quite plainly, voted for it, being dazzled if not seduced by the thought that it was a compromise which would stave off an irreconcilable conflict at least for the present; so Washington, who wished the abolition of slavery, voted for the compromise along with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the South Carolinian who regarded slavery as higher than any of the Ten Commandments.
[Footnote 1: Fiske, _Critical Period_, 250.] The second compromise referred to the slave trade, which was particularly defended by South Carolina and Georgia.

The raising of rice and indigo in those States caused an increasing death-rate among the slaves.

The slave trade, which brought many kidnapped slaves from Africa to those States was needed to replenish the number of slaves who died.

Virginia had not yet become an important breeding-place of slaves who were sold to planters farther south.