resulted in an expansion of the
fifteen proposals of the Virginia plan to twenty-three.

Having thus determined the general principles that should guide them in
their labours, the convention, on July 26 appointed a Committee on
Detail to embody these propositions in the formal draft of a
Constitution and adjourned until August 6 to await its report. That
report, when finally completed, covered seven folio pages, and was found
to consist of a Preamble and twenty-three Articles, embodying
forty-three sections. The draft did not slavishly follow the Virginia
propositions, for the committee embodied some valuable suggestions which
had occurred to them in their deliberations. Nevertheless, it
substantially put the Virginia plan into a workable plan which proved to
be the Constitution of the United States in embryo.

When the committee on detail had made its report on August 6, the
convention proceeded for over a month to debate it with the most minute
care. Every day for five weeks, for five hours each day, the members
studied and debated with meticulous care every sentence of the proposed
Constitution. Time does not suffice even for the barest statement of the
many interesting questions which were thus discussed, but they nearly
ran the whole gamut of constitutional government. Many fanciful ideas
were suggested but with unvarying good sense they were rejected. Some of
the results were, under the circumstances, curious. For example,
although it was a convention of comparatively young men, and although
the convention could have taken into account the many successful young
men in public life in Europe--as, for example, William Pitt--they put a
disqualification upon age by providing that a Representative must be
twenty-five years of age, a Senator thirty years of age, and a President
thirty-five years of age. When it was suggested that young men could
learn by admission to public life, the sententious reply was made that,
while they could, they ought not to have their education at the public
expense.

The debates proceeded, however, in better temper, and almost the only
question that again gave rise to passionate argument was that of
slavery. The extreme Southern States declared that they would never
accept the new plan "except the right to import slaves be untouched."
This question was finally compromised by agreeing that the importation
of slaves should end after the year 1808. It however left the slave
population then e