numbers; placing them in the rule for taxation, not as property and subjects of taxation, but as constituting part of an assumed measure of the wealth of a State, just as the free inhabitants constituted another part of the same measure, and placing them in the same ratio and in the same capacity in the rule for representation.[109] The basis of the House of Representatives having been thus agreed to, the remaining part of the report, which involved the basis of the Senate, was then taken up for consideration. Wilson, King, Madison, and Randolph still opposed the equality of votes in the Senate, upon the ground that the government was to act upon the people and not upon the States, and therefore the people, not the States, should be represented in every branch of it. But the whole plan of representation embraced in the amended report, including the equality of votes in the Senate, was adopted, by a bare majority, however, of the States present.[110] When this result was announced, Governor Randolph complained of its embarrassing effect on that part of the plan of a constitution which concerned the powers to be vested in the general government; all of which, he said, were predicated upon the idea of a proportionate representation of the States in both branches of the legislature. He desired an opportunity to modify the plan, by providing for certain cases to which the equality of votes should be confined; and in order to enable both parties to consult informally upon some expedient that would bring about a unanimity, he proposed an adjournment. On the following morning, we are told by Mr. Madison, the members opposed to an equality of votes in the Senate became convinced of the impolicy of risking an agreement of the States upon any plan of government by an inflexible opposition to this feature of the scheme proposed, and it was tacitly allowed to stand.[111] Great praise is due to the moderation of those who made this concession to the fears and jealousies of the smaller States. That it was felt by them to be a great concession, no one can doubt, who considers that the chief cause which had brought about this convention of the States was the inefficiency of the "federal" principle on which the former Union had been established. Looking back to all that had happened since the Confederation was formed,--to the repeated failures of the States to comply with the constitutional demands of the Congress, and to the entire impracticability of a system that had no true legislative basis, and could therefore exert no true legislative power,--we ought not to be surprised that the retention of the principle of an equal State representation in any part of the new government should have been resisted so strenuously and so long.