n saying so
repeatedly that the real difficulty in the way was, not the difference
between the large and the small States, but the difference between the
slaveholding and the non-slaveholding States. If there could be no
conciliation on that point there could be no Union.

Some hoped, perhaps, rather than believed, that slavery was likely to
disappear ere long at the South as it was disappearing at the North. It
is an impeachment of their intelligence, however, to suppose that they
relied much upon any such hope. The simple truth is that slavery was
then, as it continued to be for three quarters of a century longer, the
paramount interest of the South. To withstand or disregard it was not
merely difficult, but was to brave immediate possible dangers and
sufferings, which are never voluntarily encountered except in obedience
to the highest sense of duty; or to meet a necessity, from which there
was no manly way of escape. The sense of absolute duty was wanting; the
necessity, it was hoped, might be avoided by concessions. It can only be
said for those who made them that they did not see what fruitful seeds
of future trouble they were sowing in the Constitution.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 10: Those who were zealous for state rights, and opposed to a
central government, called the system they wished to reestablish a
Federal System,--a confederacy of States. It was too convenient and
probably too popular a term to be lost, and the other party adopted it
when the new Constitution was formed. _The Federalist_ was the name
chosen for the volume in which were collected the papers, written first
under the signature of "A Citizen of New York," but afterward changed to
"Publius," in support of the new Constitution, by Hamilton, Madison, and
Jay. In one of the earlier papers Mr. Hamilton refers to the Articles of
Confederation, which were to be superseded, as the Federal Constitution;
but in the later papers Madison is careful to refer to the proposed form
of government as the Federal Constitution, and Federal soon came to be
the distinguishing name of the party which first came into power under
the new Constitution. Whatever may be said of Madison's other title, his
right to that of father of the Federal party can hardly be disputed.]

CHAPTER VIII

"THE COMPROMISES"

The question with the North was, how far could it yield; with the South,
how far could it encroach. It turned mainly on representation,--on "the
unimportan