ON THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 159 
of equality of suffrage in the Senate was put to vote, 
the compromise went to the verge of defeat. The 
result was a tie. Had the vote of Georgia been given 
in the negative, it would have defeated the compromise ; 
but this catastrophe was prevented by the youthful 
Abraham Baldwin, a native of Guilford and lately a 
tutor in Yale College, who had recently emigrated to 
Georgia. Baldwin was not convinced of the desirable- 
ness of the compromise, but he felt that its defeat was 
likely to bring about that worst of calamities, the 
breaking up of the convention. He prevented such a 
calamity by voting for the compromise contrary to his 
colleague, whereby the vote of Georgia was divided 
and lost. 
Thus it was that at one of the most critical moments 
of our country’s existence the sons of Connecticut 
played a decisive part and made it possible for the 
framework of our national government to be com- 
pleted. When we consider this noble climax and the 
memorable beginnings which led up to it, when we 
also reflect the mighty part which federalism is un- 
questionably destined to play in the future, we shall 
be convinced that there is no state in our Union 
whose history will better repay careful study than 
Connecticut. Surely few incidents are better worth 
turning over and over and surveying from all possi- 
ble points of view than the framing of a little con- 
federation of river towns at Hartford in January, 1639. 
