as to a large degree a new
experiment, that it would be subjected to all kinds of criticism, but
that it must be judged by its entirety and not by its parts; and that
therefore it must be presented entire. At the outset some of the
members, foreseeing opposition, were for suggesting palliatives and
for sugar-coating. Some of the measures they feared might excite
hostility. To these suggestions Washington made a brief but very noble
remonstrance which seemed deeply to impress his hearers. And no one
could question that it gave the keynote on which he hoped to maintain
the business of the Convention. "It is too probable that no plan we
propose will be adopted," Washington said very gravely. "Perhaps
another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the
people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward
defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest
can repair; the event is in the hand of God."[1] Among the obstacles
which seemed very serious--and many believed they would wreck the
Convention--was the question of slavery. By this time all the northern
part of the country favored its abolition. Even Virginia was on that
side. For practical planters like George Washington knew that it was
the most costly and least productive form of labor. They opposed it on
economic rather than moral grounds. Farther South, however, especially
in South Carolina where the negroes seemed to be the only kind
of laborers for the rice-fields, and in those regions where they
harvested the cotton, the whites insisted that slavery should be
maintained. The contest seemed likely to be very fierce between the
disputants, and then, with true Anglo-Saxon instinct, they sought
for a compromise. The South had regarded slaves as chattels. The
compromise brought forward by Madison consisted in agreeing that five
slaves should count in population as three. By this curious device a
negro was equivalent to three fifths of a white man. 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 Coteswor