Correct. The answer is b. These two men disagreed strongly over the question of whether or not an individual state was culpable for slavery, even if that state did not permit it. Mason suggested that “As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities.” Thus he argued that the whole country was responsible for and would suffer consequences for the continuation of slavery in some states. Heath, on the other hand, said, “if we ratify the Constitution, shall we do anything by our act to hold the blacks in slavery or shall we become the partakers of other men’s sins? I think neither of them: each state is sovereign and independent. . . . We are not in this case partakers of other men’s sins.”
Incorrect. The answer is b. These two men disagreed strongly over the question of whether or not an individual state was culpable for slavery, even if that state did not permit it. Mason suggested that “As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities.” Thus he argued that the whole country was responsible for and would suffer consequences for the continuation of slavery in some states. Heath, on the other hand, said, “if we ratify the Constitution, shall we do anything by our act to hold the blacks in slavery or shall we become the partakers of other men’s sins? I think neither of them: each state is sovereign and independent. . . . We are not in this case partakers of other men’s sins.”