Providence had ordained otherwise. He had carried the difficult, strange and desultory War of the Revolution to a successful end; he had, by wise counsel and firmness, averted the dangers of a civil war which seemed imminent, so far as he could judge from the temper of those about his headquarters at Newburgh. Once more he was to enter the arena of embittered strife, but in a conflict political and not military. Three of the five great actions in which he was personally present during the Revolution were fought on Jersey soil; his next leadership was displayed in a contest waged in Philadelphia, but largely by Jerseymen or Princetonians. Princeton’s place in American history can not be understood without consideration of the Constitutional Convention, where the passions of localism, separatism and sectional prejudice broke forth afresh. The assembly contained many wise and far-seeing men. Of its fifty-five members, thirty-two were men of academic training. There were one each from London, Oxford, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and five had been connected with the checkered fortunes of William and Mary. The University of Pennsylvania sent one, Columbia two, Harvard three, Yale four and Princeton nine. The most serious dissension, as is well known, was concerning the relative importance of large and small States in legislation. The Virginia, or large-States plan, was for two houses, basing representation in both on population. It was essentially the work of James Madison, a pupil of Witherspoon. The Jersey, or small-State, plan was for one house, wherein each State should have equal representation. It was the cherished idea of Paterson, another Princetonian. Over these two schemes the battle waged fiercely until it seemed that even Washington, the presiding officer, could not command peace or force a compromise, and that the convention was on the verge of dissolution. Connecticut had ever been accustomed to two houses—one representing the people, one the towns. It was the compromise suggested on this analogy by Sherman and Ellsworth, and urged by them, with the assistance of Davie from Georgia, which finally prevailed. Ellsworth and Davie were both Princetonians. Madison joined hands with Washington in the successful struggle for the acceptance of the new Constitution in Virginia—both Ellsworth and Paterson, their end attained, became the most ardent Federalists.