In spite of the opposition of the smaller States, the convention finally voted that the rule of suffrage in the first branch of the legislature ought not to be according to that established by the Articles of Confederation. Debate then turned on the manner of constituting the upper chamber. On July 2, a vote was taken on the proposal of the Connecticut delegation that each State should have an equal vote in the upper house. The result was a tie, five States against five, with the vote of one State divided. The deadlock seemed complete. Hoping that a compromise might even yet be effected, General Pinckney proposed a committee of one from each State to consider the whole matter. Opposition was made, but the convention indorsed the proposal and chose the members of the committee by ballot. The selection was obviously favorable to the small-State party, for the committee abandoned the idea of proportional representation in the second chamber. On July 5, it recommended that in the first branch of the legislature there should be one representative for every forty thousand inhabitants in each State, counting three fifths of the slaves, and that in the second chamber the States should have an equal vote. The first proposition underwent further changes at the hands of a special committee, but the principle of representation was accepted. On July 16, the first proposition as amended and the second proposition without change were adopted by a vote of five States to four, with the vote of one State divided. Very properly historians have termed this the great compromise of the Constitution, for without it the further work of the convention would have been impossible. In agreeing that three fifths of the slaves should be counted in apportioning representation, the convention made no innovation, but simply took over the federal ratio which Congress had recommended in 1783 as the basis for future apportionment of requisitions among the States. On this point there was no great difference of opinion in the convention. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that with this obstacle to union removed, the Constitution speedily took form. On the contrary, every proposal bristled with controversial points. The Northern commercial States demanded insistently that Congress should be given power to regulate commerce. It was, indeed, the desire of the commercial classes in all the States that Congress should be given power to pass retaliatory acts against Great Britain, but the planters of the Carolinas and Georgia feared--not without reason--that the power to regulate commerce might be used to interfere with the importation of slaves. Here, too, the spirit of compromise prevailed. The power was granted, but the importation of such persons as the States thought proper to admit was not to be prohibited before the year 1808.