So it was agreed that, while Congress might regulate foreign trade by majority vote, the importation of slaves should not be forbidden before the lapse of twenty years, and that any import tax should not exceed $10 a head.  At the same time, in connection with the regulation of foreign trade, it was stipulated that a two-thirds vote in the Senate should be necessary in the ratification of treaties.  A further concession to the South was made in the provision for the return of runaway slaves—­a provision also useful in the North, where indentured servants were about as troublesome as slaves in escaping from their masters.

=The Form of the Government.=—­As to the details of the frame of government and the grand principles involved, the opinion of the convention ebbed and flowed, decisions being taken in the heat of debate, only to be revoked and taken again.

The Executive.—­There was general agreement that there should be an executive branch; for reliance upon Congress to enforce its own laws and treaties had been a broken reed.  On the character and functions of the executive, however, there were many views.  The New Jersey plan called for a council selected by the Congress; the Virginia plan provided that the executive branch should be chosen by the Congress but did not state whether it should be composed of one or several persons.  On this matter the convention voted first one way and then another; finally it agreed on a single executive chosen indirectly by electors selected as the state legislatures might decide, serving for four years, subject to impeachment, and endowed with regal powers in the command of the army and the navy and in the enforcement of the laws.

The Legislative Branch—­Congress.—­After the convention had made the great compromise between the large and small commonwealths by giving representation to states in the Senate and to population in the House, the question of methods of election had to be decided.  As to the House of Representatives it was readily agreed that the members should be elected by direct popular vote.  There was also easy agreement on the proposition that a strong Senate was needed to check the “turbulence” of the lower house.  Four devices were finally selected to accomplish this purpose.  In the first place, the Senators were not to be chosen directly by the voters but by the legislatures of the states, thus removing their election one degree from the populace.  In the second place, their term was fixed at six years instead of two, as in the case of the House.  In the third place, provision was made for continuity by having only one-third of the members go out at a time while two-thirds remained in service.  Finally, it was provided that Senators must be at least thirty years old while Representatives need be only twenty-five.