Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

The Constitution formed by this Convention, although singularly deficient-and so far from being esteemed by American demagogueism as “almost of Divine authority,” actually one of the loosest political instruments in the world-contained one admirable and novel principle, which grew out of the combination of circumstances in the debate. One party in the Convention plausibly contended that its power was limited to a mere revision and amendment of the existing Articles of Confederation, and that it was authorized to add nothing to the Federal principle. Another party favoured the annihilation of the State governments. A third party stood between these extremes, and recommended a “national” government in the sense of a supreme power with respect to certain objects common between the States and committed to it. But when on this third plan the question of representation arose, it was found that the large States insisted upon a preponderating influence in both houses of the National Legislature, while the small States insisted on an equality of representation in each house; and out of this conflict came the mixed representation