the total number from the original thirteen. Such an arrangement,
which would surely have been enough to create that antagonism between
east and west which it sought to forestall and avoid, was supported by
Massachusetts and Connecticut, with Delaware and Maryland; but it was
defeated by the combination of New Jersey with the four states south of
Maryland. The ground was thus cleared for a very different kind of
sectional antagonism,--that which, as Madison truly said, would prove
the most deep-seated and enduring of all,--the antagonism between north
and south. The first great struggle between the pro-slavery and
anti-slavery parties began in the Federal Convention, and it resulted in
the first two of the long series of compromises by which the
irrepressible conflict was postponed until the north had waxed strong
enough to confront the dreaded spectre of secession, and, summoning all
its energies in one stupendous effort, exorcise it forever. From this
moment down to 1865 we shall continually be made to realize how the
American people had entered into the shadow of the coming Civil War
before they had fairly emerged from that of the Revolution; and as we
pass from scene to scene of the solemn story, we shall learn how to be
forever grateful for the sudden and final clearing of the air wrought by
that frightful storm which men not yet old can still so well remember.

The first compromise related to the distribution of representatives
between north and south. Was representation in the lower house of
Congress to be proportioned to wealth, or to population; and if the
latter, were all the inhabitants, or only all the free inhabitants, to
be counted? It was soon agreed that wealth was difficult to reckon and
population easy to count; and to an extent sufficient for all ordinary
purposes, population might serve as an index of wealth. A state with
500,000 inhabitants would be in most cases richer than one with 400,000.
In those days, when cities were few and small, this was approximately
true. In our day it is not at all true. A state with large commercial
and manufacturing cities is sure to be much richer than a state in which
the population is chiefly rural. The population of Massachusetts is
somewhat smaller than that of Indiana; but her aggregate wealth is more
than double that of Indiana. Disparities like this, which do not trouble
us to-day, would have troubled the Federal Convention. We no longer
think it desirable to g