=How the Convention Solved its Difficulties.=—In a body made up of men who held such widely-differing opinions it was inevitable that bitter controversies should arise. And that is what happened. Delegates from the smaller states disagreed with the delegates from the larger states on the question whether, under the new constitution, the voting power of the states should be equal, as it had been under the Articles of Confederation. Delegates from the North clashed with delegates from the South on the question of giving the new government power to regulate trade; for the South did not want export taxes placed upon tobacco, cotton, and the other plantation staples. The divergence of opinion was often very wide, and on one occasion the convention almost broke off its proceedings because there seemed to be no hope that any agreement could be reached. But patience and public spirit finally prevailed on all points and by means of one compromise after another the convention managed to finish its work without splitting its ranks wide open.[107] [Sidenote: The constitution drafted.] When all the main features had been agreed upon they were put together into a constitution which thirty-nine of the delegates were willing to sign. Of the others, some were absent; some refused to put their names to it. Even among those who signed it there were many who did so without the least enthusiasm. The provisions of the new constitution were not what any individual delegate wanted, but merely what a majority could be induced to agree upon. What influenced the delegates most of all was the fact that everyone knew the existing situation to be bad; the new constitution, whatever its defects, was sure to be an improvement. The immediate thing was to get the states headed towards the center and not towards the circumference of a circle. This being accomplished, the leaders of the convention believed the future might be trusted to take care of itself. It was in this broad and patriotic spirit that thirty-nine men appended their names to what the English statesman, Gladstone, once called “the greatest achievement ever struck off in a given time by the hand and brain of man”,—the constitution of the United States. [Sidenote: Ratification by the states.]