Note 85 — Chapter VI

The question was put upon Ellsworth's motion to allow the States an equal representation in the Senate. The vote stood, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, ay. 5; Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, no, 5; Georgia divided. The person who divided the vote of Georgia, and thus prevented a decision which must have resulted in a disruption of the Convention, was Abraham Baldwin. We have no account of the motives with which he cast this vote, except an obscure suggestion by Luther Martin, which is not intelligible. (Elliot, I. 356.) Baldwin was a very wise and a very able man. He was not in favor of Ellsworth's proposition, but he probably saw the consequences of forcing the minority States to the alternatives of receiving what they regarded as an unjust and unsafe system, or of quitting the Union. By dividing the vote of his State he prevented this issue, although he also made it probable that the Convention must be dissolved without the adoption of any plan whatever.