uld contend for a participation in the government,
fully proportioned to their superior wealth and importance; and that the
latter would not be less tenacious of the equality at present enjoyed by
them. We may well suppose that neither side would entirely yield to the
other, and consequently that the struggle could be terminated only by
compromise. It is extremely probable, also, that after the ratio
of representation had been adjusted, this very compromise must have
produced a fresh struggle between the same parties, to give such a turn
to the organization of the government, and to the distribution of its
powers, as would increase the importance of the branches, in forming
which they had respectively obtained the greatest share of influence.
There are features in the Constitution which warrant each of these
suppositions; and as far as either of them is well founded, it shows
that the convention must have been compelled to sacrifice theoretical
propriety to the force of extraneous considerations.

Nor could it have been the large and small States only, which would
marshal themselves in opposition to each other on various points. Other
combinations, resulting from a difference of local position and policy,
must have created additional difficulties. As every State may be divided
into different districts, and its citizens into different classes,
which give birth to contending interests and local jealousies, so the
different parts of the United States are distinguished from each other
by a variety of circumstances, which produce a like effect on a larger
scale. And although this variety of interests, for reasons sufficiently
explained in a former paper, may have a salutary influence on the
administration of the government when formed, yet every one must be
sensible of the contrary influence, which must have been experienced in
the task of forming it.

Would it be wonderful if, under the pressure of all these difficulties,
the convention should have been forced into some deviations from that
artificial structure and regular symmetry which an abstract view of the
subject might lead an ingenious theorist to bestow on a Constitution
planned in his closet or in his imagination? The real wonder is that
so many difficulties should have been surmounted, and surmounted with a
unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is
impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without
partaking of