But the afflictions Israel was to experience as a result of a broken covenant were at a national level, not at the individual level. The concept of national punishments was expressed by George Mason, a delegate to the constitutional convention that produced the Constitution of the United States of America. During the convention, the topic of slavery was bitterly debated. On August 22, 1787, in an impassioned speech, Mason gave this chilling warning that reflects the concept of national punishments: “As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities”