how can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a
standard to which the wise and the honest can repair; the event is in
the hand of God."

The details of what this convention did would be dull reading; but
some day we shall want to study in our school work the noble
Constitution which these men framed.

The gist of the whole matter is that our Federal Constitution is
based upon three great compromises.

The first compromise was between the small and the large states. In
the upper house, or Senate, equal representation was conceded to all
the states, but in the lower house of Congress, representation was
arranged according to the population.

{149} Thus, as you know, little Rhode Island and Delaware have each
two senators, while the great commonwealths of New York and Ohio have
no more. In the House of Representatives, on the other hand, New York
has forty-three representatives, and Ohio has twenty-two, while Rhode
Island has three, and Delaware only one.

The second compromise was between the free and the slave states.

Were the slaves to be counted as persons or as goods?

South Carolina and Georgia maintained that they were persons; the
Northern states said they were merely property.

Now indeed there was a clashing over local interest; but it was
decided that in counting the population, whether for taxation, or for
representation in the lower house, a slave should be considered as
three fifths of an individual. And so it stood until the outbreak of
the Civil War.

It was a bitter pill for far-sighted men like Washington, Madison,
and others, who did not believe in slavery. Without this compromise,
however, they believed that nine slave states would never adopt the
Constitution, and doubtless they were right.

The slave question was the real bone of contention that resulted in
the third compromise. The majority of the delegates, especially those
from Virginia, were not in favor of slavery.

{150} "This infernal traffic that brings the judgment of Heaven on a
country!" said George Mason of Virginia.

At first, it was proposed to abolish foreign slave trade. South
Carolina and Georgia sturdily protested.

"Are we wanted in the Union?" they said.

They declared that it was not a question of morality or of religion,
but purely a matter of business.

Rhode Island had refused to send delegates; and those from New York
had gone home in anger. The discussions were bitter, and the
situation became dange