The Convention resumed its sessions on Monday, the 6th of August, and for five weeks the report of the committee of detail was the subject of discussion. For five hours each day, and sometimes for six hours, the delegates kept persistently at their task. It was midsummer, and we read in the diary of one of the members that in all that period only five days were "cool." Item by item, line by line, the printed draft of the Constitution was considered. It is not possible, nor is it necessary, to follow that work minutely; much of it was purely formal, and yet any one who has had experience with committee reports knows how much importance attaches to matters of phrasing. Just as the Virginia Plan was made more acceptable to the majority by changes in wording that seem to us insignificant, so modifications in phrasing slowly won support for the draft of the Constitution.

The adoption of the great compromise, as we have seen, changed the whole spirit of the Convention. There was now an expectation on the part of the members that something definite was going to be accomplished, and all were concerned in making the result as good and as acceptable as possible. In other words, the spirit of compromise pervaded every action, and it is essential to remember this in considering what was accomplished.