portant points. One of the most exciting of these
questions which elicited zealous debates, was a proposition for the
general government to assume the debts of the respective states. The
debts of the several commonwealths were vastly unequal, and the
proposition was therefore distasteful to several. For example, those of
Massachusetts and South Carolina amounted to more than ten and a half
millions of dollars, while those of all the other states did not exceed,
in the aggregate, fifteen millions.

But the most serious subject for difference was that of representation
in the senatorial branch of the national legislature, the smaller states
claiming, and the larger ones opposing, the exercise of the rule of
equality. For a long time an equal division of votes on that point had
been reiterated, and most of the members began to feel assured that no
compromise could be effected. But the matter was finally adjusted by
mutual concessions, and a plan for the construction of the senate upon
the basis of an equal number of representatives from each of the states,
large and small, was adopted.

Frequently during the session of the convention, Washington had serious
apprehensions concerning the result. He perceived with much anxiety a
disposition to withhold power from the national legislature, which, in
his opinion, was the chief cause of the inadequacy of the confederation
to fulfil its mission. "Happy indeed will it be," he wrote to David
Stuart on the first of July, "if the convention shall be able to
recommend such a firm and permanent government for this Union, that all
who live under it may be secure in their lives, liberty, and property;
and thrice happy would it be if such a recommendation should obtain.
Everybody wishes, everybody expects something from the convention; but
what will be the final result of its deliberations the book of fate must
disclose. Persuaded I am, that the primary cause of all our disorders
lies in the different state governments, and in the tenacity of that
power which pervades the whole of their systems. Whilst independent
sovereignty is so ardently contended for, whilst the local views of each
state, and separate interests by which they are too much governed, will
not yield to a more enlarged scale of politics, incompatibility in the
laws of different states, and disrespect to those of the general
government, must render the situation of this great country weak,
inefficient, and disgraceful. It