A History of the American People

was powerless to protect itself, or any of the states, from large-scale domestic violence, and that
this absence of a central power was itself a limitation on state sovereignty, as the humiliating
climb-down of the Massachusetts legislature demonstrated. The pressure, then, was on to get a
federal constitution written-and adopted.
Hence the Convention set to with a will. An analysis of the voting shows that the mechanics of
compromise operated throughout-in 560 roll-calls, no state was always on the losing side, and
each at times was part of the winning coalition. Broadly speaking, the Virginia Plan was adopted,
and in this sense Madison can be called the author of the United States Constitution. A rather
weaker version, from New Jersey, was rejected. On the other hand, the federalists, led by
Hamilton, could make no real progress with their proposal for a strong central government on
European lines. Amid many compromises, there were three of particular importance. In early
July, the so-called Connecticut Compromise was adopted on the legislature. This gave the House
of Representatives, directly elected by popular votes in the localities, the control of money Bills,
and a senate, particularly charged with foreign policy and other matters, to represent the states,
with two senators for each state, chosen by the individual legislatures.
In August the Convention turned its attention to the knotty problem of slavery, which
produced the second major compromise. The debating was complex, not to say convoluted, since
the biggest slave-holder attending, George Mason, attacked the institution and especially the
slave-trade. Article 1, section 9, grants Congress the power to regulate or ban the slave-trade as
of January 11, 1808. On slavery itself the Northerners were prepared to compromise because
they knew they had no alternative. Indeed, as one historian of slavery has put it, It would have been impossible to establish a national government in the 18th century [in America] without recognising slavery in some way.’ The convention did this in three respects. First, it omitted any condemnation of slavery. Second, it adopted Madison's three-fifths rule, which gave the slave states the added power of counting the slaves as voters, on the basis that each slave counted as three-fifths of a freeman, while of course refusing them the vote as such-a masterly piece of humbug in itself. Third, the wordsslave' and slavery' were deliberately avoided in the text. As Madison himself said (on August 25), it would be wrongto admit in the Constitution the idea
that there could be property in men.'
The third compromise, in early September, was perhaps the most important of all in the long
run, dealing as it did with the election of the president. Although federalists like Hamilton lost
the general battle about the nature of the state, which remained decentralized rather than
concentrated, they won a significant victory over the presidency. Hamilton won this by tactical
skill, compromising on the election procedure-if no candidate got a majority of the popular vote,
the House elected one from among the top three, voting by states, not as individuals. Each state
was further given the right to decide how to choose its electoral college. This appeared to be a
gesture to the states, balancing the fact that the president was directly elected by the people. But
it left open the possibility of popular participation. Thus in practice the president was elected
independently of the legislature. Moreover he was given a veto (offset by a two-thirds overriding
rule) over Congressional legislation, and very wide executive powers (offset to a limited degree
by the requirement that the Senate should advise and consent'). Almost by accident, then, America got a very strong presidency-or, rather, an office which any particular president could make strong if he chose. He was much stronger than most kings of the day, rivaled or exceeded only by theGreat Autocrat,' the Tsar of Russia (and in practice stronger
than most tsars). He was, and is, the only official elected by the nation as a whole and this fact
gave him the moral legitimacy to exercise the huge powers buried in the constitutional thickets.