1. CHAPTER
2
The Compromise of 1787
and the Federalist Ascendancy
N
n-t
:
The American Revolution, like all great revolutions, fractured old social relations
and stimulated new forms of political talk. Through the 1770s, rival elements
from the top to the blttlm ofthe patriot coalition debated fiercely the kind of
political order they hoped to build-and especially how democratic that order
ought to be. Would there be a social revolution to match the political changes?
Would the behaviors that had long governed race and gender relations yield to
a new order?
These debates continued after the British defeat at Yorktown amid bitter
turmoil in the states capped by Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts in 1786-1787.
Leading moderate and conservative nationalists, shocked by what they saw as the
democratic leveling tendencies of the state governments, began to call for a thorough
revamping of the national union. Meeting in secret session in Philadelphia in
1787, delegates from twelve of the states hammered out a new federal constitution,
greatly enlarging the national glvernment's plwers. But these efforts proceeded
with dfficulty. The Philadelphia convention reached agreement only after pro-
longed haggling over basic issues-and even then some delegates refused to sign the
new constitution. Thereafter, it took frantic organizing efforts and additional con-
cessions-including promises of amendments-to beat back eloquent objections by
Anti-Federalists like Merqt Otis Warren, who called the new charter "dangerously
adapted to the purposes of an immediate aristocrqtic tyranny."
Interpreting these events strongly colors any understanding ofthe early
republic, for their significance would reverberate over the decades to come and
touch the lives of all Americans. What lay behind the movement for a new na-
tional constitution? Was the Constitution, as many Anti-Federalists believed, an
undemocratic, even aristocratic document? Or did its adoption ultimately prlve a
victory for more moderate, even demoratic forces? And what difference did the
Novus Ordo Seclorrm (new order for the ages) make to prevailing ideologies
of race and gender, considering the customs, Iaws, and iconography of the early
republic were s0 closely linked to idealized notions of womanhood, domestic order,
and white supremacy?
27

2. 28 Xajor Prohlems in the Early Republrc, 1787-1848
#DOCUMENTS
In Document l, a famous speech to the Philadelphia convention, the conservative
nationalist Alexander Hamilton proposes his own outline for the new federal consti-
tution. Compare Hamilton's remarks to the Constitution itself-and to Document 2,
from James Madison's celebrated Federalist Number 10, a defense of the new plan
written to rebut critics and sway a wary citizenry. Mercy Otis Warren-born to a lead-
ing Massachusetts patriot family, and one of the most conspicuous women authors of
the Revolutionary generation-was one of the critics. The next selection, from her
Observations on the New Constitution, chiefly addressed the citizens of her home
state during the ratification struggle and raises questions about the legitimacy and the
potential impact of the convention's work. Writing to Madison from Paris in 1788,
Minister to France Thomas Jefferson supported many features of the new Constitution
but lamented its lack of a bill of rights. Document 3 includes Jefferson's complaint as
well as Madison's remarks in the Virginia state ratification convention, explaining his
misgivings about a bill ofrights but also acceding to their addition by the process of
amendments afier the states completed ratitying the new federal plan.
While the Framers were still at work in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress
approved an ordinance, inspired by Jefferson years earlier. that outlined how federally
controlled territories that lay northwest of the Ohicl River would be governed. Docu-
ment 5, a selection from the Northwest Ordinance, includes the stipulations on slavery
that would become major sources of dispute over the following decades. Slavery was
also an issue at the federal constitutional convention and the subsequent state ratification
conventions. In time, these debates would lead to what some have called the "compromise
of 1787," whereby South Carolina and Georgia agreed to join the Union in exchange for
certain concessions over slavery, including the so-called three-fifths clause and constitu-
tional guarantees about returning fugitive slaves to their masters. Document 6, on slavery,
democracy, and the Constitution, begins with an excerpt from a speech by the celebrated
patriot orator Patrick Henry, who opposed the Constitution on the grounds that by ex-
panding federal power it would threaten slavery. Next come remarks by the New Yorker
Melancton Smith, who initially opposed the Constitution because he believed it gave too
much power to the slaveholders as well as to "the few and the great" generally. The dele-
gates in Philadelphia and at the state conventions totally ignored one group of Ameri-
cans: women, slave and free, of all classes and colors. Document 7 illustrates two sides
of predominant American thought about women at the dawn of the new republican era.
l.Alexander Hamilton Addresses
the Constitutional Convention, 1787
Monday, June l8th, 1787
Mr. Hamilton-. . . What is federal? An association of several independent states
into one. How or in what manner this association is formed, is not so clearly
distinguishable. . . .
I hold it, that different societies have all different views and interests to pursue,
and always prefer local to general concerns. . . . Men always love power, and states
From Max Farrand, ed.,The Records ofthe Federal Convention of 1787 (1931; New Haven: Yale Uni-
versity Press, I 966), vol. I , pp. 282-30 1 .

3. The Compromise of 1787 and the Federalkt Ascendanry 29
will prefer their particular concerns to the general welfare; and as the states become
I'arge and important, will they not be less attentive to the general government? What
in process of time will Virginia be? She contains now half a million of inhabitants-
in twenty-five years she will double the number. Feeling her own weight and impor-
tance, must she not become indifferent to the concerns of the union? And where, in
such a situation, will be found national attachment to the general government? . . .
To avoid the evils deducible from these observations, we must establish a general
and national government, completely sovereign, and annihilate the state distinctions
and state operations; and unless we do this, no good purpose can be answered. . . .
Examine the present confederation, and it is evident they can raise no troops
nor equip vessels before war is actually declared. They cannot therefore take any
pfeparatory measure before an enemy is at your door, How unwise and inadequate
their powers! . . .
I believe the British government forms that best model the world ever produced,
and such has been its progress in the minds of the many, that this truth gradually
gains ground. This government has for its object public strength arld individual se-
curity. It is said with us to be unattainable. If it was once formed it would maintain
itself. All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are
the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has
been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been
quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing;
they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct,
permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second,
and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever main-
tain good government. Can a democratic assembly, who annually revolve in the mass
of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? Nothing but a perma-
nent body can check the imprudence of democracy. Their turbulent and uncontrolling
disposition requires checks. . . . I am therefore for a general government, yet would
wish to go the full length of republican principles'
Let one body ofthe legislature be constituted during good behavior or life.
Let one executive be appointed who dares execute his powers'
It may be asked is this a republican system? It is strictly so, as long as they
remain elective.
And let me observe. that an executive is less dangerous to the liberties of the
people when in office during lif'e, than for seven years'
It may be said this constitutes an elective monarchy? Pray what is a monarchy?
May not the governors of the respective states be considered in that light? But by
making the executive subject to impeachment, the term monarchy cannot apply. . . .
Let electors be appointed in each ofthe states to elect the executive . . . to consist of
two branches-and I would give them the unlimited power of pas sing all larvs with-
out exception. The assembly to be elected for three years by the people in districts-
the senate to be elected by electors to be chosen for that purpose by the people, and
to remain in office during life. The executive to have the power of negativing all
laws-to make war or peace, with the advice of the senate-to make treaties with
their advice, but to have the sole direction of all military operations, and to send
ambassadors and appoint all military officers, and to pardon al1 offenders, tleason
excepted, unless by advice of the senate. On his death or removal, the president of the

4. l0 Major Problems in the Early Republic, 1787-1848
Senate to officiate, with the same powers, until another is elected. Supreme judicial
officers to be appointed by the executive and the senate. The legislature to appoini
courts in each state, so as to make the state governments unnecessary to it.
All state laws to be absolutely void which contravene the general laws. An offi-
cer to be appointed in each state to have a negative on all state laws. All the militia
and the appointment of officers to be under the national government. . . .
2. James Madison Defends
the New Federal Constitution, 1788
Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none
deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control
the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never t'inds himself so
much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propen-
sity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan
which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper
cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public coun-
cils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments
have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics
from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. . . .
Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens,
equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty,
that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the
conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to
the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an
interested and overbearing majority. . . .
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a ma-
jority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common
impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the
permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing
its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.
There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by de-
stroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every
citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than
the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it in-
stantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to
political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of
air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
The second expedient is as impracticable as the hrst would be unwise. As long
as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different
FromThe Federalist Number l0,http:llwww.foundingfathers.info/f'ederalistpapers/fedindex.htm (August
6. 2006).

5. The Compromise of 1787 and the Federulist Asundanry )l
opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and
his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each
other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The
diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not
less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these
faculties is the first object of government. . . .
The latent causes of faction are sown in the nature of man; and we see them
everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different cir-
cumstances of civil society. . . . So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into
mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivo-
lous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions
and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of
factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold
and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.
Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination.
A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest,
with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them
into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of
these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation,
and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations
of the government.
No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would
certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal'
nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the
same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many
judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but con-
cerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes of
legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine? - . .
It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing
interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen
will not always be at the helm. . . .
The inference to which we are brought is, that the CAUSES offaction cannot be
removed, and that relief is only to be sought in means of controlling its pppEcrs.
If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican
principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote.
. . . When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on
the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the pub-
lic good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private
rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit
and the form ofpopular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries
aredirected....
By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the
existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be pre-
vented, or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered,
by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes
ofoppression... .

6. )2 MajorProblenuintheEarll,'Republir, 1787-1846
From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by
which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble
and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of
faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a major-
ity of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government
itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or
an obnoxious individual. . . .
A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representa-
tion takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are
seeking... .
The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first,
the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected
by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country,
over which the latter may be extended.
The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the pub-
lic views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose
wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and
love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary orpartial considera-
tions. . . . The question resulting is, whether small or extensit'e republics are more
favorable to the election ofproper guardians ofthe public weal; and it is clearly de-
cided in favor ofthe latter. . . .
[]t is to be remarked that, however small the republic may be, the represen-
tatives must be raised to a certain number, in order to guard against the cabals of
a few; and that, however large it may be, they must be limited to a certain num-
ber, in order to guard against the confusion of a multitude. Hence, the number of
representatives in the two cases not being in proportion to that of the two con-
stituents, and being proportionally greater in the small republic, it follows that, if
the proportion of ht characters be not less in the large than in the small republic,
the former will present a greater option, and consequently a greater probability of
a fit choice. . . .
[A]s each representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the
large than in the small republic, it will be more difficult fbr unworthy candidates to
practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carriedl and the
suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in men rvho pos-
sess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters. , . .
The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and inter-
ests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently
will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals
composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed,
the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the
sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less
probable that a majority of the whole will have a comlnon motive to invade the
rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more diffi-
cult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with
eachother....
A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of
property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade

7. The Compromise of 1787 and the Federalist Asctndanqt 33
the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same propor-
tion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an
entire State.
In the extent and proper structure ofthe Union, therefore, we behold a repubii-
can remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government.
3. Mercv Otis Warren Attacks
the Constitution, 1788
After the severe conflicts this country has suffered, it is presumed, that they are dis-
posed to make every reasonable sacrifice before the altar of peace. But when we con-
template the nature of men, and consider them on an equal footing, subject to the
same feelings, stimulated by the same passions, and recollecting the struggles they
have recently made, fbr the security oftheir civil rights; it cannot be expected that
the inhabitants of . . . Massachusetts, can be easily lulled into a fatal security, by the
declamatory effusions of gentlemen, who, contrary to the experience of all ages,
would persuade them there is no danger to be apprehended from vesting discre-
tionary powers in the hands of man, which he may, or may not abuse. . . .
The banners of freedom were erected in the wilds of America by our ancestors
. . . and there was reason to hope they would continue for ages to illumine a quarter
ofthe globe, by nature kindly separated from the proud monarchies ofEurope, and
the infernal darkness ofAsiatic slavery.
And it is to be feared, we shall soon see this country rushing into the extremes
of confusion and violence, in consequence of the proceedings of a set of gentlemen
who, disregarding the purposes of their appointment, have assumed powers unau-
thorized by any commission, have unnecessarily rejected the confederation of the
United States, and annihilated the sovereignty and independence of the individual
governments. The causes which have inspired a few men, assembled for very differ-
ent purposes, with such a degree of temerity as to break with a single stroke the union
of America, and disseminate the seeds of discord through the land, may be easily
investigated, when we survey the partizans of monarchy in the State Conventions,
urging the adoption of a mode of government that militates with the former profes-
sions and exertions of this country, and with all ideas of republicanism, and the equal
rights of men. . . .
Though several State Conventions have assented to, and ratified, yet the voice
of the people appears at present strong against the adoption of the Constitution. . . .
It is true this country lately armed in opposition to regal despotism-impover-
ished by the expences of a long war, and unable immediately to fulfil their public
or private engagements, have appeared in some instances with a boldness of spirit
that seemed to set at deflance all authority, government, or order, on the one hand,
while on the other, there has been not only a secret wish, but an open avowal of the
necessity of drawing the reins of government much too taught, not only for repub-
licanism, but for a wise and limited monarchy. But the character of this people is
From A Columbian Patriot, Observations on the New Constitution (Boston and New York: n.p., 1788),
pp. 14-16, 18,21-22.

8. )+ IIaior Problems in rhe Early Republit. 1;87-184,9
not averse to a degree of subordination: the truth of this appears from the early
restoration of tranquility, after a dangerous insurrection in one of the states; this
also evinces the little necessity of a complete revolution of government throughout
the Union. But it is a republican principle, that the majority should rule; and if a
spirit of moderation could be cultivated on both sides, till the voice of the people
at large could be fairly heard, it should be held sacred: And if, on such a scrutiny,
the proposed constitution should appear repugnant to their character and wishes
. . . [w]ho would then have the effroritery to say, it not ought to be thrown out with
indignation, however some respectable names have appeared to support it. But if
after all, on a dispassionate and fair discussion, the people generally give their voice
for a voluntary dereliction of their privileges, let every individual, who chooses the
active scenes oflife, strive to support the peace and unanimity ofhis country, though
every other blessing may expire; and while the statesman is plodding fbr power,
and the courtier practicing the arts of dissimulation without check; while the rapa-
cious are growing rich by oppression, and fortune throwing her gifts into the lap of
fools, let the sublimer characters, the philosophic lovers of freedom, who have wept
over her exit, retire to the calm shades of contemplation; there they may look down
with pity on the inconsistency of human nature, the revolutions of states, the rise of
kingdoms, and the fall of empires.
4. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison Confront
the Need for a Bill of Rights, L787, 1788
Thomas Jffirson to James Madison, December 20, 1787
I like much the general idea of framing a government which should go on of itself
peaceably, without needing continual recurrence to the state legislatures. I like the
organization of the government into Legislative, Judiciary and Executive. I like
the power given the Legislature to levy taxes; and fbr that reason solely approve of
the greater house being chosen by the people directly. . . . I am captivated by the
compromise of the opposite claims of the great and little states, of the latter to
equal, and the former to proportional influence. I am much pleased too with the
substitution of the method of voting by persons, instead of that of voting by states:
and I like the negative given to the Executive with a third of either house, though
I should have liked it better had the Judiciary been associated for that purpose, or
invested with a similar and separate power. There are other good things of less
moment. I will now add what I do not like. First the omission of a bill of rights pro-
viding clearly and without the aid of sophisms for fieedom of religion, freedom of
the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the
eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all
matters of fact triable by the laws of the land and not by the law of Nations. To say,
as Mr. Wilson does that a bill of rights was not necessary because all is reserved
in the case of the general government which is not given, while in the particular
Boyd. Julian P.; The Papers ofThomas Jefferson, VoL ]2: 7 August 1787 to 3l March 1788. A 1955
Princeton University Press, 1983 renewed PUP Reprinted by permission ofPrinceton University Press.

9. The Compromise of 1787 and the Federalist Ascendanry 35
enes all is given which is not reserved might do for the Audience to whom it was
addressed, but is surely gratis dictum, opposed by strong inferences from the body
of the instrument, as well as from the omission of the clause of our present confed-
eration which had declared that in express terms. It was a hard conclusion to say
because there has been no uniformity among the states as to the cases triable by
jury, because some have been so incautious as to abandon this mode of trial, there-
fore the more prudent states shall be reduced to the same level of calamity. It would
have been much more just and wise to have concluded the other way that as most of
the states had judiciously preserved this palladium, those who had wandered should
be brought back to it, and to have established general right instead ofgeneral wrong.
Let me add that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every gov-
ernment on earth, general or particular, and what nojust government should refuse,
or rest on inference.
James Madison, Speech to Virqinia
Ratifying Convention. I 7i8
Uune 241Mr. MADISON conceived that what defects might be in the Constitution
might be removed by the amendatory mode in itself. As to a solemn declaration of
our essential rights, he thought it unnecessary and dangerous-unnecessary, because
it was evident that the general government had no power but what was given it, and
that the delegation alone warranted the exercise of power; dangerous, because an
enumeration which is not complete is not safe. Such an enumeration could not be
made. within any compass of time. as would be equal to a generai negation. such as
his honorable friend (Mr. Wythe) had proposed. He declared that such amendments
as seemed, in his judgment, to be without danger, he would readily admit, and that
he would be the last to oppose any such amendment as would give satisfaction to
any gentleman, unless it were dangerous.
Mr. MADISON. . . . If we propose the conditional amendments, I entreat gentle-
men to consider the distance to which they throw the ultimate settlement, and the
extreme risk of perpetual disunion. They cannot but see how easy it will be to ob-
tain subsequent amendments. They can be proposed when the legislatures of two
thirds of the states shall make application for that purpose; and the legislatures of
three fourths of the states, or conventions in the same, can fix the amendrirents so
proposed. If there be an equal zed. in every state, can there be a doubt that they will
concur in reasonable amendments? If, on the other hand, we cail on the states to re-
scind what they have done, and confess that they have done wrong, and to consider
the subject again, it will produce such unnecessary delays, and is pregnant with
such infinite dangers, that I cannot conter,nplate it without horror. There are uncer-
tainty and confusion on the one hand, and order, tranquillity, and certainty, on the
other. Let us not hesitate to elect the latter alternative. Let us join with cordiality in
those alterations we think proper. There is no friend to the Constitution but who
will concur in that mode. . . .
From Jonathan Elliot, ed., The Debates of the State Conventions on the Adoption ofThe Federal Consti
tution (182'l;Washington, DC: Jonathan Elliot, 1836), vol. 3, pp. 626-21 , 629-30.

10. 36 Major Problems in the Early Republic, 1787-1848
5. Congress Designs the Northwest Ordinance, 7787
Be it ordained by the United States in Congress assembled, That the said territory,
for the purposes of temporary government, be one district, subject, however, to be
divided into two districts, as future circumstances may, in the opinion of Congress,
make it expedient. . . .
And, for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty,
which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions are
erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions,
and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in the said territory; to
provide also for the establishment of States, and permanent government therein, and
for their admission to a share in the federal councils on an equal footing with the
original States, at as early periods as may be consistent with the general interest:
It is hereby ordained and declared by the authority aforesaid, That the following
articles shall be considered as articles of compact between the original States and
the people and States in the said territory and forever remain unalterable, unless by
common consent, to wit:
Article I.
No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be mo-
lested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments, in the said territory.
Article II.
The inhabitants of the said territory shall always be entitled to the benefits of the
writ of habeas corpus, and of the trial by jury; of a proportionate representation of
the people in the legislature; and ofjudicial proceedings according to the course
of the common law. . . .
Article III.
Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the
happiness ofmankind, schools and the means ofeducation shall forever be encour-
aged. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their
lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and, in
their property, rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless
in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and hu-
manity, shall from time to time be made for preventing wrongs being done to them,
and for preserving peace and friendship with them. . . .
Article VI.
There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, other-
wise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly
From 'An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River
Ohio, July 13,1187: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/nworder.htm (August 6' 2006).

11. The Compromise of 1787 and the Federalist Ascendancy 37
convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom
labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive
may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or
service as aforesaid. . . .
6. Patrick Henry and Melancton Smith Offer
Clashing Ideas About the Constitution,
Slavery, and Democracy, 1788
Patrick Henry, Speech to Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 1788
Mr. HENRY. . . . With respect to that part of the proposal which says that every power
not granted remains with the people, it must be previous to adoption, or it will in-
volve this country in inevitable destruction. To talk of it as a thing subsequent, not
as one of your unalienable rights, is leaving it to the casual opinion of the Congress
who shall take up the consideration of that matter. They will nof reason with you
about the effect of this Constitution. They will not take opinion of this committee
concerning its operation. They will construe it as they please. Ifyou place it subse-
quently, let me ask the consequences. Among ten thousand implied powers which
they may assume, they may, if we be engaged in war, liberate every one of your
slaves if they please. And this must and will be done by men, a majority of whom
have not a common interest with you. They will, therefore, have no feeling of your
interests. It has been repeatedly said here, that the great object ofa national govern-
ment was national defence. That power which is said to be intended for security and
safety may be rendered detestable and oppressive. If they give power to the general
government to provide for the general defence, the means must be commensurate to
the end. All the means in the possession of the people must be given to the govern-
ment which is intrusted with the public defence. In this state there are two hundred
and thirty-six thousand blacks, and there are many in several other states. But there
are few or none in the Northern States; and yet, if the Northern States shall be of
opinion that our slaves are numberless, they may call forth every national resource.
May Congress not say, that evetT black man mttst fight? Did we not see a little of this
last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general; but acts of
Assembly passed that every slave who would go to the army should be free. Another
thing will contribute to bring this event about. Slavery is detested, We feel its fatal
effects-we deplore it with all the pity of humanity. Let ali these considerations, at
some fiture period, press with full force on the minds of Congress. Let that urbanity,
which I trust will distinguish America, and the necessity of national defence,-
let all these things operate on their minds; they will search that paper, and see if
they have power of manumission. And have they not, sir? Have they not power
to provide for the general defence and welfare? May they not think that these call
for the abolition of slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they
not be warranted by that power? This is no ambiguous implication or logical de-
duction. The paper speaks to the point: they have the power in clear, unequivocal
From Jonathan Elliot, ed., The Debates ofthe State Conventions on the Adoption ofThe Federal Consti-
tution(18211' Washington, DC: Jonathan Elliot, 1836), vol. 3, pp.589-91.

12. 38 Maior Problems in the Early Republic, 1787-184E
terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it. As much as I deplore slavery, I see.
that prudence forbids its abolition. I deny that the general government ought to set
them free, because a decided majority of the states have not the ties of sympathy
and fellow-feeling for those whose interest would be affected by their emancipa-
tion. The majority of Congress is to the north, and the slaves are to the south.
In this situation, I see a great deal of the property of the people ofVirginia in
jeopardy, and their peace and tranquillity gone. I repeat it again, that it would rejoice
my very soul that every one of my fellow-beings was emancipated. As we ought
with gratitude to admire that decree of Heaven which has numbered us among the
free, we ought to lament and deplore the necessity of holding our fellow-men in
bondage. But is it practicable, by any human means, to liberate them without pro-
ducing the most dreadful and ruinous consequences? We ought to possess them in
the manner we inherited them from our ancestors, as their manumission is incom-
patible with the felicity of our country. But we ought to soften, as much as possible,
the rigor oftheir unhappy fate. I know that, in a variety ofparticular instances, the
legislatures, listening to complaints, have admitted their emancipation. Let me not
dwell on this subject. I will only add that this, as well as every other property of
the people of Virginia, is in jeopardy, and put in the hands of those who have no
similarity of situation with us. This is a local matter, and I can see no propriety in
subjecting it to Congress.
Melancton Smith, Speech to New York
Ratification Convention, 1 7 88
[T]he rule of apportionment of the representatives is to be according to the whole
number of the white inhabitants, with three fifths of all others; that is, in plain Eng-
lish, each state is to send representatives in proportion to the number of freemen,
and three fifths of the slaves it contains. He could not see any rule by which slaves
were to be included in the ratio of representation. The principle of a representation
being that every tiee agent should be concerned in governing himself, it was ab-
surd in giving that power to a man who could not exercise it. Slaves have no will of
their own. The very operation of it was to give certain privileges to those people
who were so wicked as to keep slaves. He knew it would be admitted that this rule
of apportionment was founded on unjust principles, but that it was the result of
accommodation; which, he supposed, we should be under the necessity of admit-
ting, if we meant to be in union with the Southern States, though utterly repugnant
to his feelings. . . .
I am convinced that this government is so constituted that the representatives
will generally be composed of the first class in the community, which I shall distin-
guish by the name of the naturctl aristocracy of the country. I do not mean to give
offence by using this term. I am sensible this idea is treated by many gentlemen as
chimerical. I shall be asked what is meant by the natural aristocracl,, and told that
no such distinction of classes of men exists among us. It is true, it is our singular
From Jonathan Elliot, ed., The Debates of the State Conventions on the Adoprion ofThe Federal Consti-
rufion(1827:Washington, DC: Jonathan Elliot. 1836), vol. 2, pp. 226-27,245-4'7-

13. The Compromise of )787 and the Federalist Ascendancy 39
felicity that we have no legal or hereditary distinctions of this kind; but still there
are real differences. Every society naturally divides itself into classes. The Author
of nature has bestowed on some greater capacities than others; birth, education,
talents, and wealth, create distinctions among men as visible, and of as much in-
fluence, as titles, stars, and garters. In every society, men of this class will com-
mand a superior degree of respect; and if the government is so constituted as to
admit but few to exercise the powers of it, it will, according to the natural course of
things, be in their hands. Men in the middling class, who are qualified as represen-
tatives, will not be so anxious to be chosen as those of the first. When the number is
so small, the office will be highly elevated and distinguished; the style in which the
members live will probably be high; circumstances of this kind will render the place
of a representative not a desirable one to sensible, substantial men, who have been
used to walk in the plain and frugal paths of life.
Besides, the influence of the great will generally enable them to succeed in elec-
tions. It will be difficult to combine a district of country containing thirty or forty
thousand inhabitants,-frame your election laws as you please,-in any other char-
acter, unless it be in one of conspicuous military, popular, civil, or legal talents.
The great easily form associations; the poor and middling class form them with dif-
ficulty. If the elections be by plurality,-as probably will be the case in this state,-
it is almost certain none but the great will be chosen, for they easily unite their
interests: the common people will divide, and their divisions will be promoted by the
others. There will be scarcely a chance of their uniting in any other but some great
man, unless in some popular demagogue, who will probably be destitute of principle.
A substantial yeoman, of sense and discernment, will hardly ever be chosen. From
these remarks, it appears that the govefnment will fall into the hands of the few and
the great. This will be a government of oppression. I do not mean to declaim against
the great, and charge them indiscriminately with want of principle and honesty.
The same passions and prejudices govern all men. The circumstances in which men
are placed in a great measure give a cast to the human character. Those in middling
circumstances have less temptation; they are inclined by habit, and the company
with whom they associate, to set bounds to their passions and appetites. If this is not
sufficient, the want of means to gratify them will be a restraint: they are obliged to
employ their time in their respective callings; hence the substantial yeomanry of
the country are more temperate, of better morals, and less ambition, than the great.
The latter do not feel for the poor and middling class; the reasons are obvious-they
are not obliged to use the same pains and labor to pfocure property as the other'
They feel not the inconveniences arising from the payment of small sums' The great
consider themselves above the common people, entitled to more respect, do not
associate with them; they fancy themselves to have a right of preeminence in every
thing. In short, they possess the same feelings, and are under the influence of the
same motives, as an hereditary nobility. I know the idea that such a distinction exists
in this country is ridiculed by some; but I am not the less apprehensive of danger
from their influence on this account. Such distinctions exist all the world over, have
been taken notice of by all writers on free government, and are founded
in the nature
of things. It has been the principal care of free governments to guard against the en-
croachments of the great. . . .

14. 40 l,lajor Prohlerns t'n the Early Republic, 1787-184E
7. Wvo Artists Portray Different Ideals
of Women in the New Republic
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16. 42 X[a.jor Problems in the Early Republic, ] 787-1848
sEJ-r.4y.t
The following essays offer clashing perspectives on the framing and ratification of the
Constitution and on the larger political world in which these events occurred. Tradition-
ally, historians have focused on the divisions among the delegates in Philadelphia over the
competing interests of small states and large states, and especially over the design of the
proposed Congress and questions of representations. Gordon S. Wood of Brown Univer-
sity, a preeminent scholar of the early republic, takes a fresh look at these divisions and
at the compromises that emerged. Paul Finkelman, a professor at Albany Law School,
ofTers a much harsher assessment of the Constitution as an essentially proslavery docu-
ment. In the third essay, the historian Jan Lewis of Rutgers University considers the
ideals and prejudices surrounding American women at the time of the founding. We
are left to ask about the role ofidealism and interest in the framing ofthe new national
government. Was James Madison's vision of an extended republic of differing interests
a realistic basis for national unity? What hopes and expectations about the conduct of
politics and government underlay Madison's ideas? Did the compromises made over
slavery amount to a "covenant with death"? If so, how can we explain why both slave-
holders and antislavery men could be found on both sides of the controversy over the
Constitution'/ Finally, horv did American women flt into the new republican order?
Conflict, Compromise, and the Framing
of the Constitution
GORDON S. WOOD
July 16, 1787, was one of the most decisive days in the history of the United States.
On that day, by the slimmest of margins-five states to four, with one state divided-
the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia voted to accept equal
state representation in the Senate. In other words, every state in the Union, no matter
how small or large its population, would be represented by two senators. This deci-
sion had made it possible today for Wyoming, with fewer than half a million people,
to have the same representation in the Senate as California, with more than thirty
million people.
The Great Compromise, as it came to be called, broke a deadlock that had
threatened to destroy the convention. If the compromise had failed, declared many
delegates (and many subsequent historians), the Philadelphia Convention would also
have failed. And with its failure, the fledging repubiic of the United States might
very well have fallen apart.
The problem was that the Articles of Confederation, adopted by the Continental
Congress in November 1711 and ratified in March 1781, had proved inadequate to
the task of binding together the thirteen states. In fact, by 1787, the Cont'ederation
scarcely existed. Its shortcomings for the most part followed from its severely lim-
ited scope and powers. The national government consisted of a single body, the
Confederation Congress, in which each state had a single vote. The legislature's
"July 16, 1787: The Day the Constin"rtion Was Saved" by Gordon S. Wood. Reprinted from Dcys of Desriny,
General Editors James M. McPherson & Alan Brinkleyl Editor, David Rubel, By permission of DK Pub-
lishing. Copyright O 2001 Dorling Kindersley Ltd. All rights reserved. www.dk.com.

17. 'the
Compromise of )787 and the Federalist Ascendancy 43
{nandate (there was no executive orjudiciary) dealt principally with foreign affairs
(including war and treaty making), domestic matters that crossed state lines (such as
fixing standard weights and measures and establishing a post office), and resolving
disputes among states. More important, the Congress had no power to raise funds
directly and no mechanism to enforce its laws. Even if the Philadelphia Convention
had collapsed, it's unlikely that the Confederation could have gathered the states
together again. For example, while waiting anxiously for news from Philadelphia,
most members of the Confederation Congress stopped attending meetings in New
York. The fate of the United States thus rested on what the Constitutional Conven-
tion could achieve.
The manner in which the states would be representecl in the new national gov-
emment bedeviled the convention from the start. Indeed, as James Madison recalled,
this issue alone threatened the success ofthe convention more "than all the rest put
together." That the role of the states in the new federal government should have been
the most serious issue was not surprising. The thirteen states guarded their sover-
eignty jealously, as demonstrated by the clause in the Articles of Confederation that
permitted a single state to veto amendments supported by all the others. Andtn 1776,
the Declaration of Independence had been literally a declaration of the "thirteen
trnited States of America," which claimed that as "Free and Independent States,they
have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contact alliances, establish commerce,
and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do."
Whatever feelings of American nationalism existed, they paled before people's
loyalties to their separate states. Although the United States was new, most of its
constituent states had existed as separate colonies for a century or more and had
developed symbols and traditions that were emotionally binding. In 1776, when
people talked about their "country" or even their "nation," they usually meant Vir-
ginia or Massachusetts or Pennsylvania. The development of a national constitution
was not a project that attracted the revolutionaries'creative energies, nearly all of
which went into their separate state constitutions. Framing governments for indi-
vidual states, and not for the nation, said Thomas Jefferson in 1776, was "the whole
object" of the American Revolution. No one at that time, John Adams recalled, even
conceived "of consolidating this vast Continent under one national Government."
The Confederation Congress was certainly not a national government in the
usual sense of the term. The Articles of Confederation r.vere variously described as a
"firm league of friendship," a "Treaty of Confederation," and a "council of nations."
It was thus a coming together of thirteen sovereign states in an alliance not alto-
gether different from the present-day European Union. . . .
By the mid-1780s, however, many political leaders had concluded that not only
was the Conf'ederation too weak to carry out its responsibilities, but also, more alarm-
ing, the very state governments in which Americans had placed so many of their
hopes had become the principal source ofthe vices besetting the nation. Since inde-
pendence, many of the democratically elected state legislatures had passed all sorts
of haphazard and unjust laws victimizing the private rights of minorities, especially
creditor minorities. Because this legislation was backed by popular majorities in the
states, it called into question the fundamental principle of republican government-
that majorities should rule-and put the entire revolutionary experiment in doubt. . . .

18. 44 IrIrior Problems in rhe Enrl.t Republic. ];8;-1818
For many American political leaders, this democratic despotism in the srates
was the most important source of the crisis of the 1780s that led to the calling of
the Philadelphia Convention. . . .
The Convention was called for May 14, but spring rains. muddy roads, and other
obstacles delayed the start until May 25, when a quorum was finally present. In all,
fifty-hve delegates representing twelve states attended. Rhode Island, acutely jealous
of its local autonomy, wanted nothing to do with efforts to revise the Articles of Con-
f'ederation and sent no one. Although many of the delegates were young men-their
average age was forty-two-most were also experienced, well-educated members of
the political elite. Thirty-nine had served in the Continental or the Confederation
Congress at one time or another, eight had participated in state constitutional con-
ventions, seven had been governors, thirty-four were lawyers, and one-third were
veterans of the Continental Army (that great dissolvent of state ioyalties, as George
Washington had described it). Although Washington attended the convention and was
immediately elected its president, many other Revolutionary War luminaries were
absent. Samuel Adams was ill; Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were abroad
serving as U.S. ministers to France and England, respectively; and Richard Henry
Lee and Patrick Henry. although chosen as delegates by the Virginia legislature, re-
fused to attend, Henry saying that he "smeit a Rat."
On May 29,the convention frnally got down to serious business. Taking the lead,
the Virginia delegation presented the first working proposal. Although introduced
by Gov. Edmund Randolph, the head of the state delegation, the Virginia Plan was
largely the work of thirty-six-year-old James Madison. . . .
[The] scope of [Madison's] Virginia Plan was breathtaking. Many Americans
expected the convention simply to amend the Articles of Cont'ederation by giving
the Congress a few additional powers. Instead, Madison proposed a substantial re-
arrangement that would allow the new government to exercise direct authority over
individual citizens, unmediated by the states. Like most of the states. it would have
an executive branch, a bicameral legislature, and an independentjudiciary.
The most radical aspect of the Virginia PIan was its disregard for state sover-
eignty in the makeup of the bicameral legislature. Under the Articles of Confedera-
tion, each state had an equal vote in the single-house Congress. Under the Virginia
Plan. however, representation in both houses would be proportional-based on popu-
lation, on contribution of taxes. or on both. The primary difference between the two
houses would be that the members of the first house would be chosen by the people
of the several states, and these representatives would then choose the members of
the second house. Finally, the two hottses would jointly select the national executive
and the national judiciary. Many of the delegates also presumed that this second
house would have sole authority to make treaties and appoint ambassadors. Terms
of ofTice were not specified.
In presenting the plan, Randolph argued that, because the vices of the 1780s
were mostly due to "the turbulence and follies of democracy." the new federal gov-
ernment had to be protected against not only the pitfalls of the Articles but also those
encountered by the individual states. It had to be, according to Randolph, "a strong
consolidated union. in which the idea of the states should be nearly annihilated."
The Articles of Confederation had declared, "Each state retains its sovereignty,
freedom ancl inclependence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by

19. The Compromise of 1787 and the Federalist Ascendancy
tis confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."
The Virginia Plan, however, granted the new national legislatures the authority not
only to legislate "in all cases to which the states are incompetent" but also "to nega-
tive all laws passed by the several States contravening, in the opinion of the National
Legislature, the articles of Union." This authority to veto state legislation was a
measure of how disgusted Madison and other convention delegates had become
with the foolish and unjust legislation being passed by the states. Madison believed
the proposed veto power "absolutely necessary, and . . . the least possible encroach-
ment on the State jurisdictions."
By a vote of six states to one-with Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware,
Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina voting aye, Connecticut voting no,
and New York divided-the convention agreed at the outset to make the Virginia
Plan the basis for its deliberations. Yet it was not long before the delegates from
smaller states-notably New Jersey, lately with a quorum, and Delaware-grasped
the plan's nationalist and consolidating implications. Virginia's proposal seemed to
swallow the states; it ignored their individual existence and turned them into mere
administration units. Because most of the delegates at Philadelphia were so eagef
to create a strong central government, they initially ignored these implications of
the Virginia Plan. But a number of them soon came to believe that it went too far in
eclipsing the states.
This issue was formally raised on Saturday, June 9, by William Paterson of New
Jersey. A former state attorney general, Paterson was especially bothered by the
proposal that seats in both houses of the new legislature be granted according to
eacl states's population or wealth. Proportional representation' Paterson argued,
would place majority power in the hands of the most populous states-particularly
Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, which as a group contained nearly half
the U.S. population. New Jersey, he warned, would never agree to confederate on
such terms, to which Pennsylvania James Wilson retorted hotly that the people of
his state would never confederate on a one-state, one-vote basis. "Shall New Jersey
have the same right or influence in the councils ofthe nation as Pennsylvania?" the
Scottish-born colleague of Madison exclaimed. "I say no. It is unjust"'
Although convention delegates, such as Paterson and Wilson, often understood
their conflict as one between small states and large ones, this is somewhat mislead-
ing. Madison and Wilson, it's true, were delegates from the large and populous states
ofVirginia and Pennsylvania, but their opposition to equal representation in the new
national legislature was not based simply on a parochial concern for the interests of
their respective commonwealths. Madison and Wilson wefe mofe cosmopolitan and
far-sighted than that. For them, the real issue was whether any semblance of the old
Confederation would foul the new Constitution. As nationalists, they believed that
all the ills of the 1780s flowed inevitably frorn the vicious behavior of the states, and
they were worried that equal representation in the new national legislature would
effectively perpetuate the state sovereignty that had vitiated the Confederation. They
knew that the small states would object, but they believed that these states would
eventually have to submit because they couldn't imagine Delaware or New Jersey
going it alone in defiance of the other states.
-
Two days later, on June 1 1, the convention reaffirmed the principle of propor-
tional representation for both houses. Horvever, the vote regarding the second house,

20. 46 Alttior Problems in the Early Republi(, 1787*1848
what would become the Senate, was close: six states (Massachusetts, Pennsylvanip,
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia) to five (Connecticut, New
York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland). The narrowness of this vote encouraged
the small-state caucus. On June 15, Paterson proposed nine resolutions-essentially
nine amendments to the Articles of Confederation-that became the New Jersey
Plan. Although Paterson's resolutions granted to Congress the powers of taxation and
commercial regulation that many had demanded for it, the New Jersey Plan neverthe-
less continued the basic structure ofthe old Confederation, with each state equally
represented in a single-house legislature. ln this proposal, New Jersey was supported
by Connecticut, Delaware, and New York. Paterson and his allies were not opposed
to a stronger national government; but, as Delaware's John Dickinson warned Madi-
son, they thought the Virginia Plan was "pushing things too far," and the small states
would never agree to a complete elimination of state sovereignty.
With two such different proposals before it, the convention had to make a deci-
sion. On June 19, it voted for the Virginia Plan against the New Jersey Plan, seven
states (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Georgia) to three (New York, New Jersey, and Delaware), with Mary-
land divided. Although this vote suggested that the new national government would
be something otherthan a league ofindependent states, the struggle over the precise
role of those states in the new framework was far from over. Most of the small-state
delegates were good nationalists who did not really want to return to the Conf'edera-
tion; at the same time, they were not willing to have their states' representation in the
new government entirely eliminated. Thus. the issue of representation occupied the
convention with heated debate over the next month. Throughout that time, as Luther
Martin of Maryland later recalled, the delegates "were on the verge of dissolution,
scarce held together by the strength of a hair."
Among the delegates most strenuously advocating proportional representation, in
addition to Madison and Wilson, were Alexander Hamilton of New York and Rufus
King of Massachusetts (later a senator and presidential candidate from New York).
These men claimed that the large states were too divided by manners, religion, and
economics to combine against the rights and interests of the small states. Besides.
they argued, history had shown that conf'ederations were usually undone by en-
croachments made by individual parts upon the whole. If the new government were
to be strong, the states would have to be kept out of it.
Yet delegates from the small states, especially those from Connecticut, remained
committed to equal representation. They countered that the interests of the srnall
states would be overwhelmed by those of their larger neighbors. Indeed, without
equal representation in the national government, they warned, states as political
entities would eventually disappear, especially given the national government's
proposed negative regarding state laws. The small states. Oliver Ellsworth of Con-
necticut concluded, "would risk every consequence rather than part with so dear a
right" as their equal voice in the national legislature. If the small states were willing
to break up the convention on this issue, Wilson replied, so be it. Representation
on the basis of population, not on "the imaginary beings called Slrlre.s," was too
equitable and too just to be compromised. "We talk of states, till we forget what
they are composed of"-narrow-minded and illiberal politicians.

21. The Compromise of 1787 and the Federalist Ascendanry t+/
, Several proposals for equal representation were offered and beaten back, but
with the small-state delegates refusing to budge and support for proportional repre-
sentation apparently eroding, more and more delegates began seeking a solution in
the suggestion first made by Roger Sherman of Connecticut on June I l-that one
house proportionally represent the people and the other equally represent the states.
On July 2, when this proposal resulted in a tie vote and a committee was selected to
forge a compromise, Madison and Wilson knew their cause was in trouble. If the
second house should contain an equal number of members from each state, it would
be only a matter of time, they believed, before the states would overawe and domi-
nate the national government.
Gouvemeur Moris of Pennsylvania joined Madison and Wilson in vehemently
opposing the committee's July 5 proposal that the states should have equal repre-
sentation in one house ofthe legislature. These nationalists threatened, they cajoled,
and they even predicted ominously that a majority of the American people would re-
fuse to accept such an unjust solution. Sooner or later, they insisted, the small states
would have to go along with whatever the majority of Americans wanted. "State at-
tachments and state importance have been the bane of this country," Morris declared.
"We cannot annihilate; but we may perhaps take out the teeth of the serpent."
In a last-ditch effort to get the delegates to think about the issue in other than
small-state-versus-large-state terms, Madison suggested that the real division in the
nation was that between free and slave states. But the more the delegates argued
about sectional interests that needed defending, the more sensible the proposal for
state equality in the second house seemed. In the end, Madison's arguments notwith-
standing, state loyalties and state interests were simply too strong for the proponents
of proportional representalion to overcome.
The decisive vote came on July 16, with Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Mary-
land, and North Carolina in favor of the states' equal representation in the Senate;
Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia opposed; Massachusetts di-
vided; and New York not voting because its two Anti-Federalist delegates had gone
home and its delegation lacked a quorum. Madison and the other nationalists were
dismayed by the vote, seeing equal representation in the second house not as a rea-
sonable compromise but as a momentous defeat. The Virginia delegation imme-
diately asked for an adjournment, and the next morning Madison and his unhappy
allies caucused to consider what might be done. Some delegates favored calling a
separate convention without the small states present, but most, noted Madison, were
reluctantly "inclined to yield," even iftheir acquiescence resulted in an "imperfect &
exceptionable" constitution. Meanwhile, the small-state delegates, having won their
point, became more than willing to abandon all other remnants of the old Confedera-
tion and consider forming a strong central government. "The whole comes down to
this," Charles C. Pinckney of South Carolina had gibed back during a June debate
over the New Jersey Plan. "Give N. Jersey an equal vote, and she will dismiss her
scruples, and concur in the National system."
Of course, the embodiment of state sovereignty in one house of the legislature
did prompt reconsideration of the powers granted that branch of government, and the
convention spent a good deal of the next two months adjusting the original Virginia
Plan to accommodate these new circumstances. The grant to Congress to legislate

22. 48 Major Problems in the Early Republic, 1787-1848
"in all cases to which the states are incompetent" was replaced by an enumeration qf
powers, and much to Madison's chagrin the negative over state laws was replaced
by specific prohibitions on state lawmaking. (These became Article I, Section 10, of
the fi nal Constitution.)
Other changes also followed from Madison's heightened mistrust of the l-uture
Senate. Selection of the executive, for example, was withdrawn from the legislature
and vested in an alternative congress, the electoral college, in which each state had
the same number of electors as it had representatives and senators combined. Indeed,
the reduced confidence that Madison and other nationalists now had in the Senate
made them much more willing to enhance the power of the presidency. Because the
original proposal to have the Senate by itselfmake treaties and appointjudges and
diplomats now seemed too dangerous, those authorities were transferred to the presi-
dent, with the Senate retaining only the role of advising and consenting.
When the Philadelphia Convention finally reported the Constitution on September
I7 , 1181 , it was a document very different from the Virginia Plan of May 29 . Many
delegates, including Madison, were initially unhappy with the result. In fact, in the
immediate aftermath of losing the battle over proportional representation, Madison,
the so-called Father of the Constitution, judged that the Constitution was destined
to fail. Without the power to negative state laws, he complained to Jefferson in
September 1787 , the new national government "will neither effectualiy answer its
national object nor prevent the local mischiefs which everywhere excite disgusts
against the state governments." Even Washington was reported to have said that the
Constitution would not last twenty years.
Despite this initial pessimism, Madison soon changed his mind and began work-
ing for ratification of the Constitution. With Hamilton and John Jay, he contributed to
The Federalisr, the series ofeighty-five essays published in NewYork in 1787-1788
in defense of the Constitution. He also played key roles in persuading Virginia to
ratify the Constitution, adding the Bill of Rights in 1790, and overseeing the final
document's implementation as a congressional leader during the 1790s. A11 these
successes were made possible. he iater understood, by the compromises contained in
the Constitution, the most important of which had taken place on J:;Jy 16. 1787.
A Triumph for Slavery
PAUL FINKELA/IAN
William Lloyd Garrison, the great nineteenth-century abolitionist, thought the
Constitution was the result of a terrible bargain between freedom and slavery. The
American states were, in Garrison's words, united by a "covenant with death" and
"an agreement with Hell." . . .
A careful reading of the Constitution reveals that the Garrisonians were conect:
the national compact did favor slavery. . . . Both the text of the Constitution and the
From "Making a Covenant with Death: Slavery and the Constitutional Convention," in Finkelman,
Slavery and the Founders: Race and Libeny^ in the Age of Jffirson (1996; Armonk, NY: M. E' Sharpe'
2001), pp. 3-35. Replinted by permission of the author.

23. The Compromise of 1787 and the Federalist Ascendanry /10
debates surrounding it help us understand that the "more perfect Union" created by
this document was in fact fundamentallv imoerfect.
Slavery in the Constitutional Structure
The word "slavery" appears in only one place in the Constitution-in the Thirteenth
Amendment, where the institution is abolished. Throughout the main body of the
Constitution, slaves are referred to as "other persons," "such persons," or in the
singular as a "person held to Service or Labour." Why is this the case?
Throughout the debates, the delegates talked about "blacks," "Negroes," and
"slaves." But the final document avoided these terms. The change in language was
clearly designed to make the Constitution more palatable to the North. In a debate
over representation, William Paterson of New Jersey pointed out that under the
Articles of Confederation Congress "had been ashamed to use the term 'slaves' &
had substituted a description." This shame over the word "slave" came up at the Con-
vention during the debate over the African slave trade. The delegates from the Caro-
linas and Georgia vigorously demanded that the African trade remain open under
the new Constitution. Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, furious at this immoral
compromise, suggested that the proposed clause read: the "Importation of slaves into
N. Carolina, S- Carolina & Georgia" shall not be prohibited. Connecticut's Roger
Sherman, who voted with the Deep South to allow the trade, objected, not only to
the singling out of specific states, but also to the term "slave." He declared he "liked
a description better than the terms proposed, which had been declined by the old
Congs & were not pleasing to some people." George Clymer of Pennsylvania "con-
curred" with Sherman. In the North Carolina ratifying convention, James Iredell, who
had been a delegate in Philadelphia, explained that "the word slave is not mentioned"
because "the northern delegates, owing to their particular scruples on the subject of
slavery, did not choose the word slave to be mentioned." Thus, southerners avoided
the term because they did not want unnecessarily to antagonize their colleagues
from the North. As long as they were assured of protection for their institution, the
southerners at the Convention were willing to do without the word "slave."
Despite the circumlocution, slavery was sanctioned throughout the Constitution.
Five provisions dealt directly with slavery:
Article I, Section 2, Paragraph -1. The three-fifths clause provided for counting
three-fifths of all slaves for purposes of representation in congress. This clause
also provided that, if any "direct tax" was ievied on the states, it could be imposed
only proportionately, according to population, and that only three-fifths of all slaves
would be counted in assessing what each state's contribution wouid be.
Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 1. Popularly known as the "slave trade clause,"
this provision prohibited Congress from banning the "Migration or Importation of
such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit" before
the year 1808. Awkwardly phrased and designed to confuse readers, this clause pre-
vented Congress from ending the Afncan slave trade before I 808, but did not require
Congress to ban the trade after that date. The clause was a significant exception to
the general power granted to Congress to regulate all commerce.
Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 4. This clause declared that any "capitation" or
other "direct tax" had to take into account the three-fifths clause. It ensured that. if

24. 50 illajor Problems in the Early Republic, 1787-1848
a head tax were ever levied. slaves would be taxed at three-fifths the rate of whites.
The "direct tax" portion of this clause was redundant, because that was provided for
in the three-fifths clause.
Article V Section 2, Paragraph 3. The fugitive slave clause prohibited the states
fiom emancipating fugitive slaves and required that runaways be returned to their
owners "on demand."
Article V This article prohibited any amendment of the slave importation or
capitation clauses before 1808.
Taken together, these five provisions gave the South a strong claim to "special
treatment" for its peculiar institution. The three-fifihs clause also gave the South extra
political muscle-in the House of Representatives and in the electoral college-to
support that claim.
Numerous other clauses of the Constitution supplemented the five clauses that
directly protected slavery. Some provisions that indirectly guarded slavery, such as
the prohibition on taxing exports, were included primarily to protect the interests of
slaveholders. Others, such as the guarantee offederal support to "suppress Insurrec-
tions" and the creation of the electoral college, were written with slavery in mind,
although delegates also supported them for reasons having nothing to do with slavery.
The most prominent indirect protections of slavery were the following:
Article I, Section 8, Paragraph.15. The domestic insurrections clause empow-
ered Congress to call "forth the Militia" to "suppress Insurrections," including slave
rebellions.
Article I, Section9, Paragraph 5. This clause prohibited federal taxes on exports
and thus prevented an indirect tax on slavery by taxing the staple products of slave
labor, such as tobacco, rice, and eventually cotton.
Article I, Section 10, Paragraph 2.This clause prohibited the states from taxing
exports or imports, thus preventing an indirect tax on the products of slave labor by
a nonslaveholding state.
Article II, Section I, Paragraph 2. This clause provided for the indirect election
ofthe president through an electoral college based on congressional representations.
This provision incorporated the three-fifths clause into the electoral college and gave
whites in slave states a disproportionate influence in the election of the president.
Article IV Section, Paragraph 1. This clause allowed for the admission of new
states. The delegates to the Convention anticipated the admission of new slave states
to the Union.
Article IV Section 4. The domestic violence provision guaranteed that the
United States government would protect states from "domestic Violence," including
slave rebellions.
Article V By requiring a three-fourths majority of the states to ratily any amend-
ment to the Constitution, this Arlicle ensured that the slaveholding states would have
a perpetual veto over any constitutional changes.
Finally, some clauses did not inherently favor slavery, and were not necessar-
ily considered to affect slavery when they were debated, but ultimately protected the

25. The Compromise of 17B7 and the Federalist Ascendancy 5 l
institution when interpreted by the courts or implemented by Congress after the adop-
tion of the Constitution. It would be wrong to argue that these illustrate the proslavery
nature of the Constitutional Convention. However, these clauses do illustrate the way
the Constitution set a proslavery tone, which enabled Congress and the courts to in-
terpret seemingly neutral clauses in favor of slavery. Such clauses also directly chal-
lenge William W. Freehling's argument that the Framers were inherently antislavery
and that "the impact of the Founding Fathers on slavery . . . must be seen in the long
run not in terms of what changed in the late eighteenth century but in terms of how
the Revolutionary experience changed the whole American antebellum history." If
we look at the "long run" impact of the Constitution on 'American antebellum his-
tory," we find that the following clauses were used to protect slavery, not to harm it.
Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 4. The naturalization clause allowed Congress
to prohibit the naturalization of nonwhites, even though it is likely that some of the
new states, especially those that granted suffrage to blacks, would have also aliowed
foreign-born blacks to become citizens.
Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 17.The federal district clause allowed Congress
to regulate institutions, including slavery, in what became the national capital. Under
this clause, Congress allowed slavery in Washington, D.C. During the Convention,
southerners expressed fear that the national capital would be in the North.
Article III, Section 2, Paragraph /. The diversity jurisdiction clause limited the
right to sue in federal courts to "Citizens of different States," rather than inhabitants.
This clause allowedjudges to deny slaves and free blacks access to federal courts.
Article IV Section 1. The full faith and credit clause required each state to grant
legal recognition to the laws andjudicial proceedings ofother states, thus obligating
free states to recognize laws creating and protecting slavery.
Article IV Section 2, Paragraph 1. The privileges and immunities clause required
that states grant equal privileges and immunities to "citizens" of other states; how-
ever, in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), the Supreme Court affirmed a long-standing
position ofthe southern states that free blacks were not "citizens" under the Consti-
tution and thus the slave states were free to deny privileges and immunities to them.
Article IV, Section 3, Paragraph 2. Thls clause allowed Congress the power to
regulate the territories. In 1820, Congress used this clause to limit slavery in the
territories, blutin Dred Scott v. Sandford the Supreme Court ruled that the clause au-
thorized Congress to protect slavery in the territories, but not to ban the institution.
Besides specific clauses of the Constitution, the structure of the entire docu-
ment ensured against emancipation by the new federal government. Because the
Constitution cfeated a government of limited powers, Congress lacked the power
to interfere in the domestic institutions of the states. Thus, during the ratification
debates only the most fearful southern antifederalists opposed the Constitution on
the grounds that it threatened slavery. Most southerners' even those who opposed the
Constitution for other reasons, agreed with General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
of south carolina, who crowed to his state's house of representatives:
We have a security that the general government can nevel emancipate them [slaves],
for
no such authority is granted and it is admitted, on all hands, that the general government

26. 52 Ilajor Probkms in the Enrly Republir, 1787-1848
has no powers but what are expressly granted by the Constitution, and that ail rights not
expressed were reserved by the severai states.
The Constitution was not "essentially open-ended with respect to slavery." as
the late Don Fehrenbacher argued. Nor is it true, as Earl Maltz has argued, that "the
Constitution took no position on the basic institution of slavery." On the contrary,
the Constitution provided enormous protections for the peculiar institution of the
South at very little cost to that region. At the Virginia ratifying convention, Edmund
Randolph denied that the Constitution posed any threat at all to slavery. He chal-
lenged opponents of the Constitution to show, "Where is the part that has a ten-
dency to the abolition o/ slavery?" He answered his own question by asserting,
"Were it right here to mention what passed in fthe Philadelphia] Convention. . . . I
might tell yoD that the Southern States, even South Carolina herself, conceived this
property to be secure" and that "there was not a member of the Virginia delegation
who had the snnllest suspicion of the abolition of slavery." South Carolinians, who
had already ratified the Constitution, would have agreed with Randolph. In sum-
ming up the entire Constitution, General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who had
been one of the ablest defenders of slavery at the Convention, proudly told the
South Carolina House of Representatives: "In short, considering all circumstances,
we have made the best terms for the security of this species of property it was in
our power to make. We rvould have made better if we could; but on the whole, I do
not think them bad." . . .
The word "slavery" was never mentioned in the Constitution, yet its presence
was felt everywhere. The new wording of the fugitive slave clause was characteris-
tic. Fugitive slaves were called "persons owing service or Labour," and the word
"legally" was omitted so as not to offend northern sensibilities. Northern delegates
could return home asserting that the Constitution did not recognize the legality of
slavery. In the most technical linguistic sense, they were perhaps right. Southern-
ers, on the other hand, could tell their neighbors, as General Charles Cotesworth
Pinckney told his, "We have obtained a right to recover our slaves in whatever part
of America they may take refuge, which is a right we had not before."
Indeed, the slave states had obtained significant concessions at the Conven-
tion. Through the three-fifths clause they gained extra representation in Congress.
Through the electoral college their votes for president were far more potent than
the votes of northerners. The prohibition on export taxes favored the products of
slave labor. The slave trade clause guaranteed their right to import new slaves for
at least twenty years. The domestic violence clause gnaranteed them federal aid if
they should need it to suppress a slave rebellion. The limited nature of federal
power and the cumbersome amendment process guaranteed that, as long as they
remained in the Union, their system of labor and race relations would remain free
from national interference. On every issue at the Convention, slave owners had
won major concessions from the rest of the nation, and with the exception of the
commerce clause they had given up very little to win these concessions. The north-
ern delegates had been eager for a stronger Union with a national court system
and a unified commercial system. Although some had expressed concern over the
justice or safety of slavery, in the end they were able to justify their compromises
and ignore their qualms.

27. The Compromise of 1787 and the Federalist Ascendanq, 53
The Republican Wife
JAN LEWIS
To the extent that the success ofthe republican endeavor rested upon the character of
citizens, republicanism demanded virtue of women, not because it numbered them
as citizens but because it recognized how intimately women, in consensual unions,
were connected to men. A virtuous man required a virtuous mate. Moreover, republi-
canism called upon every means at its disposal to assure male virtue. That obsession
with virtue, deriving its force from the fusion of Protestant and republican notions of
character, persisted long after the Revolution had been won and the Constitution rati-
fied. Well into the nineteenth century, Americans linked the fate of their nation to the
virtues ofits people. Even if, as several historians have suggested, certain thinkers,
before the end of the eighteenth century, had embraced liberalism and its premise
of the self-interested individual, popular writers and, presumably, their audience had
not. One writer put it emphatically: "Private vices are not plblic benefits." . . . [T]hat
conceptualization of society-which continued to see the family as the microcosm
of the wider world and to insist that "public good must grow out of private virtue"-
held out a significant role for women.
'A woman of virtue and prudence is a public good-a public benefactor." She
has the power to make "public decency . . . a fashion-and public virtue the only
example." And how is woman to accomplish that great end? By her influence over
the manners of men. Indeed, "nothing short of a general reformation of manners
would take place, were the ladies to use their power in discouraging our licentious
manner." Such a role might seen trivial did Americans not consider "the general
reformation of manners" one of the young nation's most important goals, and did
they not think women fully capable of contributing to it. Women might begin by re-
forming themselves, for "there is not a more certain test of national depravity, than
that which presents itself in the degeneracy of female manners."
Male manners, however, were of more concern, and in changing them women
were to play their most important role. So argued men, such as the essayist who
held that women who were the beneficiaries of a "virtuous and refined education"
might contribute "no less to public good than to private happiness. A gentleman,
who at present must degrade himself into a fop or a coxcomb in order to please the
ladies, would soon find that their favor could not be gained but by exerting every
manly talent in public and private life." That same view could be expressed by a
woman-for example, Miss C. Hutchings, who assured her fellow boarding-school
graduates of the influence of "female manners on society in general": "were all
women rational, unaffected and virtuous, coxcombs, flatterers and libertines would
no longer exist." Such arguments rested on several important new assumptions.
First, although the concern with "manners" betokened an upper-class emphasis upon
gentility, the insistence that women are-or can be-a moral force transforms
manners into mores, into the moral foundation of the society. Thus "it is . . . to the
virtues of the fair . . . that society must be indebted for its moral, as well as its natural
Frorn "The Republican Wife: Virtue and Seduction in the Early Republic" by Jan Lewis from Williant
and Mar.v Quarterly,3rd ser.,44 (198'7),699-703, 706-10. Reprinted by permission of the author.

28. Major Problerns in the Early Republic, 17,97-1846
preservation." Second, women play their moral role not by denying their sexuaiity,
by becoming "passionless," but by using it to tempt men to be good.
This conceptualization of f'emale inl-luence seems to have intrigued men and
women in the decades just after the Revolution. Magazines printed and reprinted
numbers of articles with similar titles and sentiments: "Female Influence," "Scheme
for Increasing the Power of the Fair Sex," "The Influence of the Female Sex on the
Enjoyments of Social Life," "The Power of Beauty, and the Influence the Fair Sex
might have in Reforming the Manners of the World." These, with a host of similar ar-
ticles, argued that the potential for beneficial female influence was almost unlimited.
The height of a woman's intluence was reached during the period of "love and
courtship," which, "it is universally allowed, invest a lady with more authority than in
any other situation that falls to the lot of human beings." A young man who addressed
his classmates at Columbia College's commencement elaborated: "She can mold
the taste, the manners, and the conduct of her admirers, according to her pleasure."
Moreover, "she can, even to a great degree, change their tempers and dispositions,
and superinduce habits entirely new." Thus it was not in childhood that a man was
most malleable; rather, it was when, grown to rlaturity, he sought the favors of a
young lady that he was rrlost susceptible to influence. "By the judicious manage-
ment of this noble passion flove], a passion with which the truly accomplished of
the fair sex never fail of inspiring men, what almost miraculous reformations may
be brought about'1"
Once she had seduced him into virtue, the married woman's task was to preserve
her husband in the exalted state to which her influence had raised him. "It rests with
her, not only to confirm those virtuous habits which he has already acquired, but also
to excite his perseverance in the paths of rectitude." The boldness of this formulation
is stunning. What earlier Americans perceived as Eve's most dangerous characteris-
tic, her seductiveness, is here transformed into her capacity for virtue. Wonan was to
lead man into rectitude, to lure him to the exercise of manly virtue. What miraculous
reformations became possible when the attraction between the sexes, which for mil-
lennia had been considered the canse of the fall of mankind, could be transformed
into the bedrock of the nation ! Women indeed had great power-nothing less than
the ability, as one magazine implored, "to make our young men. not in empty words,
but in deed and in truth, republicans." . . .
The Edenic vision of marriage served to bridge the antipatriarchalism of the
eighteenth century and the donesticity of the nineteenth. If the patriarchal model
of familial relationships was suited to a hierarchically organized society, and if, as
Nancy F. Cott has suggested, domesticity went hand in hand with mid-nineteenth-
century democratic liberalism, the Edenic vision fit just as nicely with the canons
of republicanism. Like republicanism itseli Edenic republican mariage presented
itself as egalitarian. Republican characterizations of marriage echoed with the words
equctl, nuttual, and reciprocal, and marriage was described as a liiendship between
equals. An essay 'Addressed to the Ladies." for example, urged "every young mar-
ried woman to seek the friend of her heart in the husband of her afTection. There,
and there only, is that true equality, both of rank and fortune, and cemented by mu-
tual interests, and mutual . . . pledges to be found. . . . There and there only will she
be sure to meet with reciprocal confidence, unfei-ened attachment and tender solici-
tude to soothe every care." Indeed, no word better summarizes republican notions

29. The Compromise of l7B7 and the Federalist Ascendancy 55
of)"marriage than friendship. "Marriage is, or should be, the most perfect state of
friendship. Mutual interest produces mutual assistance." Another writer defined the
good marriage in almost the same words as "the highest instance of human friend-
ship." In fact, "love" was nothing more than "friendship raised to its highest pitch."
Marriage, quite simply, was friendship exalted. Its pleasures der.ived from
"mutual return of conjugal love.. . . When two minds are . . . engaged by the ties of
reciprocal sincerity, each alternately receives and communicates a transport that is
inconceivable to all, but those that are in this situation." Marriage was intended,
another writer concluded, "to be the basis and the cement of those numberless ten-
der sympathies, mutual endearments and interchanges of love between the mutual
parties themselves, which make up not the morality only, but even the chief happi-
ness of conjugal life." Marriage was moral because it fused "virtuous love and
friendship; the one supplying it with a constant rapture, the other regulating it by
the rules of reason." True marriage was quite unlike "those unnatural and dispro-
portionate matches that are daily made upon worldly views, where interest or lust
are the only motives." True marriage was proportionate: put another way. it was
symmetrical. Indeed, the mutuality and reciprocity that republicans so prized were
inconceivable in an asymmetrical union-the "slavery" of so-called barbaric cul-
tures, in which women were thoroughly subordinated to men.
That republican marriage was symmetrical does not mean that it was fully
egalitarian; rather, men and women were opposite sides of the same coin or, as a
popular table had it, two halves of a being that had once been sundered. Neither
could be whole until it found its other half. Nor could the halves be fully moral
when separate, for Eve's love and Adam's reason were equally necessary to the pre-
lapsarian vision. As heirs to the Enlightenment, American republicans sought the
happy medium between-or, more precisely, a fusion of-passion and intellect,
head and heart. Eighteenth-century moral philosophy, as it was popularized in
American magazines, taught both that passion must be regulated by reason and that
"no real felicity can exist independent of susceptibility and affection, and the heart
of him who is cold to the soothing voice of friendship, dead to the melting strains
of love, and senseless to the plaintive pleadings of distress, is a mansion only cal-
culated for demoniac spirits, or a cheerless dwelling fbr disgust and spleen." Adam
and Eve, reason and love, are each indispensabie, and the symmetrical marriage
brings them together.
For this reason-that in checking passion and socializing reason the conjugal
union made mankind truly virtuous-marriage was the model for society. The single
life, according to John Witherspoon, writing as "Epaminondas" in the Pennsylvania
Magcrz.ine on the eve of the Revolution, "narrows the mind and closes the heart."
He asserted unequivocally the "absolute necessity of marriage for the service of the
state." The pure love of marriage lbrmed the basis for "social virtue," for "while
other passions concentrate man on himself, love makes him live in another, subdues
selfishness, and reveals to him the pleasure ofministering to the object ofhis love.
. . . The lover becomes a husband, a parent, a citizen." The "marriage institution,"
then, "is the first to produce moral order." For that reason, "marriage has ever been
considered by every wise state the sinew of its strength and the foundations of its
true greatness." Marriage formed the basis of all other relationships, both in the
family, because it ied to parenthood, and in the society, because it schooled men in