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1787] Equality adopted. Adjustment of numbers. 263 on the words of the special report, "that in the second branch each State shall have an equal vote," and this part was adopted ; six States voting for it and three against, to wit, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. Massachusetts and Georgia were divided. One week later, on July 14, the subject was, on the motion of Wilson, reconsidered. He said that had their constituents voted as they had themselves, the vote would have stood as two-thirds to one-third against equality. The state of the case would yet become known ; it would appear that this fundamental point had been carried by one-third against two-thirds. An adjustment was now moved by Charles Pinckney, making the Senate consist of thirty -six members ; the two smallest States, Rhode Island and Delaware, having one member each, the largest, Virginia, having five, and Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, four members each. Wilson, Madison, and King, from the three large States, favoured the motion, but without abating their belief in proportional suffrage. Gerry opposed the motion; there was no hope, he said, that it would succeed; adjustment must go further in favour of the smaller States. King preferred doing nothing to yielding to equality. The objection to proportional voting in the Senate, drawn from " the terms of the existing compact" in the Confederation, was inapplicable; the rule in the Confederation for apportioning the public burden was fixed ; in the pro- posed government it could not be fixed, because indirect taxation was to be adopted. The objection from danger to the smaller States had little weight with him ; the general government could never wish to intrude upon the States ; there could be no temptation. Madison too was still firmly opposed to equal suffrage in the Senate. If the smaller States really wished for a strong government, one that could enforce obedience upon the larger States as well as upon them- selves, they were mistaking the means. He reminded them of the conse- quences of establishing the Confederation upon wrong principles. All the chief parties to it joined at once in fettering the government. It had been said that the government was to be partly federal, partly national. It did not follow that in one branch of the government equal suffrage, based on the equality of the States, should prevail, while in the other proportional suffrage based upon general population, should govern. The true ground for compromise, if there was any, was this : in all cases in which the government is to act upon the people, let the people be represented and the votes be proportional; in all cases in which the government is to act upon the States as such, let the States be repre- sented and the votes be equal. But there was no ground for compro- mise. He called for a single instance in which the general government was not to operate upon the people individually. The large States would find some way to have an influence in the government proportionate to their importance; if they could not have proportional representation, their co-operation must be voluntary. Even in the Confederation en. vui.