From America's Beginnings: The Dramatic Events That Shaped a Nation's Character
by Tony Williams
© 2010 by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
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Constitutional Convention
T
he delegates who attended the Constitutional Convention were
highly-educated and public-spirited statesmen. They were experienced
in the Revolutionary War and national and state politics: eight had signed
the Declaration of Independence, fifteen had helped draft state constitutions, twenty-one had fought in the Revolutionary War, and threequarters had been members of the Continental Congress. The majority
were lawyers but there were also merchants and planters. They were, in
the words of John Adams, men of ‘‘ability, weight, and experience’’
(even though John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Patrick
Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and Richard Henry Lee were not present).
One indispensable delegate was the revered hero of the American
Revolution, George Washington, who was an ardent nationalist and
deeply concerned about the fate of the fledgling country. Although he
was committed to strengthening the national government, Washington
struggled over whether to attend the Philadelphia Convention. He had
publicly retired and was alarmed that he might be perceived as a Caesar
attempting to seize the reins of power. Perhaps he also feared what would
happen to his reputation if the government should fail while he stood
idle, or conversely, if it succeeded without his participation. In the end,
he chose to attend, and although he spoke little, his very presence gave
legitimacy to the endeavor.
Another important figure was Princeton graduate and Virginia congressman James Madison. The brilliant Madison again turned to history
to help him prepare for the Convention. He composed an essay, ‘‘Vices
of the Political System,’’ enumerating the problems of the Articles of
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Confederation and proposing remedies. When he and Washington
arrived in Philadelphia in early May 1787, they had several days to meet
with the rest of the Virginia delegation, as well as the Pennsylvania delegation, to draft a plan that would dominate the discussion of the framework of government for the duration of the summer.
On Friday, May 25, the delegates assembled in the Pennsylvania
statehouse. Unsurprisingly, they unanimously voted for Washington to
preside over the convention. A rules committee was appointed and
chaired by the inestimable legal mind from Virginia, George Wythe. The
following Monday, the delegates agreed that their discussions would be
held according to rules of civility and decorum. They also decided that
each state delegation would have only one vote. And they agreed that
they would conduct their business in secret, thus allowing for greater
candor and free and open debate.
On Tuesday, May 29, Virginian Edmund Randolph rose and introduced the fifteen resolutions that comprised the Virginia Plan. It would
create a bicameral Congress based upon proportional representation in
two houses, an independent executive, and a national judiciary. Significantly, the plan would give the national government a veto over state
laws. Finally, it proposed to send the final work of the convention to
popular ratifying conventions in the states rather than the legislatures.
The intent of the Virginia Plan was evident—to strengthen the
power of the national government. The next day, Charles Pinckney of
South Carolina demanded to know whether Randolph ‘‘meant to abolish the state governments altogether.’’ Because of the experience under
the weak government of the Articles of Confederation, James Madison
thought that a stronger government would best ‘‘provide for the safety,
liberty, and happiness’’ of the people. George Read of Delaware threatened to walk out of the convention (the first of many delegates to do so)
because his small state instructed him not to accept any plan that did not
give equal weight to the states in the national legislature. Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina raised the fundamental objection that the convention was exceeding its mandate by considering what
amounted essentially to a new government. His motion was defeated, the
Articles were scrapped, and the debate on the shape of the new national
Congress began. It would last for several months.
The convention deadlocked between the large and small states over
the issue of representation. The nationalists in the large-state delegations
From America's Beginnings: The Dramatic Events That Shaped a Nation's Character
by Tony Williams
© 2010 by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
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wanted both houses of the Congress to be based on population, whereas
the smaller states wanted equal representation and one vote per state. A
further split developed when the South wanted to count their slaves as
full human beings while the northern states did not want to count them
at all. On June 15, William Paterson of New Jersey offered a plan to
counter the Virginia Plan by maintaining state sovereignty and the federal
nature of government. The New Jersey Plan preserved the unicameralism, equal representation, and weak executive of the Articles. What Paterson offered was to enlarge the powers of the national Congress over
revenue and trade regulations, as well as to make the acts of Congress
and treaties the supreme law of the land.
The delegates also made little headway in attempting to create the
national executive. Rival ideas about a single or plural executive, a short
or long term of office, election by the people, special electors, state legislatures, or the Congress, were all raised with no resolution for weeks on
end. All expected Washington to be the first executive, but they could
not expect his successors to be as trustworthy with the exercise of power.
They struggled to achieve the balance between the tyrannical British
king and the ineffectual executives under the Articles. Edmund Randolph feared that a single executive would be the ‘‘fetus of monarchy,’’
and fellow Virginian George Mason concurred, asking, ‘‘Do gentlemen
mean to pave the way to hereditary monarchy?’’ Pennsylvania’s James
Wilson answered that, ‘‘Unity in the executive . . . would be the best
safeguard against tyranny.’’
The floor of the statehouse was not the only arena where the delegates conversed and politicked. They held informal deliberations at dinners in homes and in taverns. Perhaps many were persuaded on large
points and fine ones in this manner, though in early July there was still
deadlock. On June 28, Benjamin Franklin called for prayer to restore
harmony: ‘‘Groping as it was in the dark to find political truth, and scarce
able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that
we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of
lights to illuminate our understandings?’’ Other delegates expressed their
despair. Roger Sherman of Connecticut reported that the convention
was at a ‘‘full stop.’’ Washington lamented having chosen to participate
and complained to Alexander Hamilton, who returned to his home in
New York, that the councils ‘‘are now, if possible, in a worse train than
ever . . . I almost despair of seeing a favorable issue to the proceedings of
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by Tony Williams
© 2010 by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
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the convention.’’ A Fourth of July recess helped soothe tensions and a
special committee of eleven was appointed to break the impasse.
On Monday, July 16, the committee’s proposals were accepted and
became known as the Great Compromise. The House of Representatives
would be based upon proportional representation and would originate
bills of appropriation. Slaves would count as three-fifths of a person for
purposes of calculating representation. The Senate would have an equal
vote for all of the states.
On Thursday, July 26, the convention adjourned for several days to
allow a Committee of Detail to reconcile and organize all of the resolutions that had been accepted up to that point. On August 6, the committee offered a report that the convention then painstakingly went through
line by line for the next month. Meanwhile, the Committee of the
Whole and other committees resolved the outstanding contentious
points. They created a single president who was to serve for four-year
terms. The states would select members of an electoral college (in the
same proportion as the Congress) who would elect the president. In
addition, a national judiciary was conceived and its jurisdiction established. On September 8, Congress appointed a Committee of Style to
draft a constitution, which was largely the work of Gouverneur Morris
of Pennsylvania.
Starting September 12, Congress debated the wording of the Constitution for three days. The end of the convention was in sight and the
delegates were eager to return home. However, substantive issues were
still raised. George Mason argued strenuously for a bill of rights to protect
liberties from encroachment and offered to draft it himself in a couple of
hours’ time. Other opponents argued that the state constitutions already
had protections and the convention unanimously rejected Mason’s proposal. Mason, Randolph, and Elbridge Gerry then registered their opposition to the document. They wanted the document to go to the state
ratifying conventions for revision and then sent back to a second constitutional convention. Other delegates thought this was the best document
that could be achieved, even if it was imperfect. Mason resisted calls to
sign, averring that he would ‘‘sooner chop off his right hand than put it
to the Constitution as it now stands.’’
On September 17, Franklin stated, ‘‘I can not help expressing a wish
that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to
it, would with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility,
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by Tony Williams
© 2010 by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
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and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.’’
Thirty-nine delegates present from twelve states signed the Constitution.
Besides the three opponents who did not sign, the remaining delegates
had gone home and were not present. Franklin then pointed to the president’s chair which had half a sun on it and mused optimistically: ‘‘I have
. . . often in the course of the session . . . looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now
at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting
sun.’’ The delegates then repaired to the City Tavern, where they dined
with each other and as Washington confided to his diary, ‘‘took a cordial
leave of each other.’’
The framers of the Constitution had written a document that
embodied the principles of separation of powers, checks and balances,
federalism, a limited government with enumerated powers, a written
constitution as fundamental law, and popular sovereignty. They had created a novus ordo seclorum—a ‘‘new order for the ages’’—but first the people’s representatives in popular ratifying conventions would have to
approve it.
From America's Beginnings: The Dramatic Events That Shaped a Nation's Character
by Tony Williams
© 2010 by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
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