The first compromise related to the distribution of representatives between north and south. Was representation in the lower house of Congress to be proportioned to wealth, or to population; and if the latter, were all the inhabitants, or only all the free inhabitants, to be counted? It was soon agreed that wealth was difficult to reckon and population easy to count; and to an extent sufficient for all ordinary purposes, population might serve as an index of wealth. A state with 500,000 inhabitants would be in most cases richer than one with 400,000. In those days, when cities were few and small, this was approximately true. In our day it is not at all true. A state with large commercial and manufacturing cities is sure to be much richer than a state in which the population is chiefly rural. The population of Massachusetts is somewhat smaller than that of Indiana; but her aggregate wealth is more than double that of Indiana. Disparities like this, which do not trouble us to-day, would have troubled the Federal Convention. We no longer think it desirable to give political representation to wealth, or to anything but persons. We have become thoroughly democratic, but our great-grandfathers had not. To them it seemed quite essential that wealth should be represented as well as persons; but they got over the main difficulty easily, because under the economic conditions of that time population could serve roughly as an index to wealth, and it was much easier to count noses than to assess the value of farms and stock. [Sidenote: Were slaves to be reckoned as persons or as chattels?]