"Thus, by an understanding, or, as Gouverneur Morris called it, 'a bargain,' between the commercial representatives of the Northern States and the delegates of South Carolina and Georgia, and in spite of the opposition of Maryland and Virginia, the unrestricted power of Congress to pass navigation laws was conceded to the Northern merchants; and to the Carolina rice-planters, as an equivalent, twenty years' continuance of the African slave trade. This was the third 'Great Compromise' of the Constitution. The other two were the concessions to the smaller States of an equal representation in the Senate, and, to the slaveholders, the counting of three-fifths of the slaves in determining the ratio of representation. If this third compromise differed from the other two by involving not only a political but a moral sacrifice, there was this partial compensation about it, that it was not permanent, like the others, but expired at the end of twenty years by its own limitation." Of the important subjects remaining to be disposed of, that of the executive department was, perhaps, the most difficult. The modified plan of Edmund Randolph left the executive to be elected by the Legislature for a single term of seven years. The election was subsequently given to a college of electors, to be chosen in the States in such manner as the legislatures of the States should direct. The term of service was reduced from seven years to four years, and the restriction of the office to a single term was removed. Numerous other amendments and additions were made in going through with the draft. This amended draft was referred, for final revision, to a committee consisting of Messrs. Hamilton, Johnson, G. Morris, Madison, and King. Several amendments were made even after this revision; one of which was the substitution of a two-thirds for the three-fourths majority required to pass bills against the veto of the President. Another was a proposition of Mr. Gorham, to reduce the minimum ratio of representation from forty thousand, as it stood, to thirty thousand, intended to conciliate certain members who thought the House too small. This was offered the day on which the Constitution was signed. General Washington having briefly addressed the convention in favor of the proposed amendment, it was carried almost unanimously. The whole number of delegates who attended the convention was fifty-five, of whom thirty-nine signed the Constitution. Of the remaining sixteen, some had left the convention before its close; others refused to give it their sanction. Several of the absentees were known to be in favor of the Constitution.