This compromise which Mr. Adams calls “vicious, cowardly and unfair” is known to constitutional history as _the Connecticut Compromise_. The men who championed it most ably were Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth. Were these men actuated by a desire to perpetuate slavery? All the books which I have read upon the subject state that equal representation in the Senate was a compromise which _the smaller states wrung from the larger states, as the price of the union_, not the price of the “perpetuation of slavery.” New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware were afraid to give up their independent, sovereign existence as states and to go into a union where the large states, like Pennsylvania and Virginia, would have so much greater power than themselves, if that power should be based on population. When New Jersey refused to consider any plan of union which did not safeguard the interests of the small states, she was not thinking of perpetuating slavery. When Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth made such a determined fight to preserve, in part, the equality which then prevailed among the states, they were not thinking of perpetuating slavery. _Their motive was to protect Connecticut, the small state, against Virginia and other large states._ When Benjamin Franklin finally proposed that the Convention adopt the Connecticut idea, that aged philosopher and friend of human liberty was not acting in the interest of the slave-owners. When Washington gave his consent, he was not guilty of cowardice and unfairness for the purpose of protecting slavery. These men knew perfectly well that they were exceeding their authority in making a _new_ Constitution. They were sent there _to amend_ the Articles of Confederation; and when New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware took the resolute position which was voiced by Patterson, Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, Washington and Franklin both had sense enough to know that it would be utter folly to go before the people, seeking a ratification of _a new Constitution_, unless the difference between big states and little states had been first adjusted in the Constitutional Convention. Indeed, Rhode Island, another small state, was so jealous of her rights that she refused to send delegates to the Convention. My authorities are Bancroft’s “History of the United States,” “The Constitutional History” of Landon, McMaster’s “With the Fathers,” Hildreth’s “History of the United States,” Schouler’s “History of the United States.” The latter historian says expressly that the compromise under discussion “_was secured through the determination of the smaller states not to yield entirely the rule of representation which the larger states were bent on invading_,” and, he adds, “_this compromise admirably preserves the composite character of our system_.”