date the operation of the rule in Mississippi was
similar; and in general it was just the most backward and barbarous
parts of the Union that were thus favoured at the expense of the most
civilized parts. Admitting all this, however, it remains undeniable that
the Constitution saved us from anarchy; and there can be little doubt
that slavery and every other remnant of barbarism in American society
would have thriven far more lustily under a state of chronic anarchy
than was possible under the Constitution. Four years of concentrated
warfare, animated by an intense and lofty moral purpose, could not hurt
the character or mar the fortunes of the people, like a century of
aimless and miscellaneous squabbling over a host of petty local
interests. The War of Secession was a terrible ordeal to pass through;
but when one tries to picture what might have happened in this fair land
without the work of the Federal Convention, the imagination stands
aghast.

[Sidenote: Compromise between New England and South Carolina as to the
foreign slave-trade.]

The second great compromise between northern and southern interests
related to the abolition of the foreign slave-trade and the power of the
federal government over commerce. All the states except South Carolina
and Georgia wished to stop the importation of slaves; but the physical
conditions of rice and indigo culture exhausted the negroes so fast
that these two states felt that their industries would be dried up at
the very source if the importation of fresh negroes were to be stopped.
Cotesworth Pinckney accordingly declared that South Carolina would
consider a vote to abolish the slave-trade as simply a polite way of
telling her that she was not wanted in the Union. On the other hand, the
three New England states present in the convention had made up their
minds that it would not do to allow the several states any longer to
regulate commerce each according to its own whim. It was of vital
importance that this power should be taken from the states and lodged in
Congress; otherwise, the Union would soon be rent in pieces by
commercial disputes. The policy of New York had thoroughly impressed
this lesson upon all the neighbouring states. But none of the southern
states were in favour of granting this power unreservedly to Congress.
If a navigation act could be passed by a simple majority in Congress, it
was feared that the New Englanders would get all the carrying trade into
their