herself.[229] On the part of the small States, the effort was for power disproportioned to size. On the part of the large States there was a protest against the injustice and inequality of these pretensions, especially in a government national in its character. The question was settled by the great compromise of the Constitution, according to which representation in the House of Representatives was proportioned to population, while each State was entitled to an equal suffrage in the Senate. To this extent the small States prevailed, and the Senate ever since has testified to the equality of States; or rather, according to the language of the “Federalist” on this very point, it has been “a palladium to the residuary sovereignty of the States.”[230] Thus, by the pertinacity of the small States, was this concession extorted from the Convention, in defiance of every argument of justice and equity, and contrary to the judgment of the best minds; and now it is exalted into a universal rule of Constitutional Law, before which justice and equity must hide their faces. This protracted and recurring conflict in the Convention is compendiously set forth by our great authority, Judge Story, when he says:-- “It constituted one of the great struggles between the large and the small States, which was constantly renewed in the Convention, and impeded it in every step of its progress in the formation of the Constitution. The struggle applied to the organization of each branch of the Legislature. The small States insisted upon an equality of vote and representation in each branch, and the large States upon a vote in proportion to their relative importance and population.… The small States at length yielded the point as to an equality of representation in the House, and acceded to a representation proportionate to the Federal numbers. But they insisted upon an equality in the Senate. To this the large States were unwilling to assent, and for a time the States were on this point equally divided.”[231] This summary is in substantial harmony with my own abstract of the debates. I present it because I would not seem in any way to overstate the case. And here let me add most explicitly, that I lend no voice to any complaint against the small States; nor do I suggest any change in the original balances of our system. I insist only that the victory achieved in the Constitution by the small States shall not be made the apology for a pretension inconsistent with Human Rights. And now, for the sake of a great cause, the truth must be told.