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madison the father of the constitution clearly wanted a strong central government with authority to regulate commerce, and subordinate state law to federal law: "Let it be tried then he wrote, whether any middle ground can be taken which will
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madison the father of the constitution clearly wanted a strong central
government with authority to regulate commerce, and subordinate state
law to federal law: "Let it be tried then he wrote, whether any middle
ground can be taken which will at once support a due supremacy of the
national authority, while maintaining state power only when
subordinately useful
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_history.html
www.archives.gov
June 13, 2013
A More Perfect Union: The Creation of the U.S. Constitution
May 25, 1787, Freshly spread dirt covered the cobblestone street in
front of the Pennsylvania State House, protecting the men inside from
the sound of passing carriages and carts. Guards stood at the
entrances to ensure that the curious were kept at a distance. Robert
Morris of Pennsylvania, the "financier" of the Revolution, opened the
proceedings with a nomination--Gen. George Washington for the
presidency of the Constitutional Convention. The vote was unanimous.
With characteristic ceremonial modesty, the general expressed his
embarrassment at his lack of qualifications to preside over such an
august body and apologized for any errors into which he might fall in
the course of its deliberations.
To many of those assembled, especially to the small, boyish-looking,
36-year-old delegate from Virginia, James Madison, the general's mere
presence boded well for the convention, for the illustrious Washington
gave to the gathering an air of importance and legitimacy But his
decision to attend the convention had been an agonizing one. The
Father of the Country had almost remained at home.
Suffering from rheumatism, despondent over the loss of a brother,
absorbed in the management of Mount Vernon, and doubting that the
convention would accomplish very much or that many men of stature
would attend, Washington delayed accepting the invitation to attend
for several months. Torn between the hazards of lending his reputation
to a gathering perhaps doomed to failure and the chance that the
public would view his reluctance to attend with a critical eye, the
general finally agreed to make the trip. James Madison was pleased.
General George Washington was unanimously elected presidentof the
Philadelphia convention.
The Articles of Confederation
The determined Madison had for several years insatiably studied
history and political theory searching for a solution to the political
and economic dilemmas he saw plaguing America. The Virginian's labors
convinced him of the futility and weakness of confederacies of
independent states. America's own government under the Articles of
Confederation, Madison was convinced, had to be replaced. In force
since 1781, established as a "league of friendship" and a constitution
for the 13 sovereign and independent states after the Revolution, the
articles seemed to Madison woefully inadequate. With the states
retaining considerable power, the central government, he believed, had
insufficient power to regulate commerce. It could not tax and was
generally impotent in setting commercial policy It could not
effectively support a war effort. It had little power to settle
quarrels between states. Saddled with this weak government, the states
were on the brink of economic disaster. The evidence was overwhelming.
Congress was attempting to function with a depleted treasury; paper
money was flooding the country, creating extraordinary inflation--a
pound of tea in some areas could be purchased for a tidy $100; and the
depressed condition of business was taking its toll on many small
farmers. Some of them were being thrown in jail for debt, and numerous
farms were being confiscated and sold for taxes.
In 1786 some of the farmers had fought back. Led by Daniel Shays, a
former captain in the Continental army, a group of armed men, sporting
evergreen twigs in their hats, prevented the circuit court from
sitting at Northampton, MA, and threatened to seize muskets stored in
the arsenal at Springfield. Although the insurrection was put down by
state troops, the incident confirmed the fears of many wealthy men
that anarchy was just around the corner. Embellished day after day in
the press, the uprising made upper-class Americans shudder as they
imagined hordes of vicious outlaws descending upon innocent citizens.
From his idyllic Mount Vernon setting, Washington wrote to Madison:
"Wisdom and good examples are necessary at this time to rescue the
political machine from the impending storm."
Madison thought he had the answer. He wanted a strong central
government to provide order and stability. "Let it be tried then," he
wrote, "whether any middle ground can be taken which will at once
support a due supremacy of the national authority," while maintaining
state power only when "subordinately useful." The resolute Virginian
looked to the Constitutional Convention to forge a new government in
this mold.
The convention had its specific origins in a proposal offered by
Madison and John Tyler in the Virginia assembly that the Continental
Congress be given power to regulate commerce throughout the
Confederation. Through their efforts in the assembly a plan was
devised inviting the several states to attend a convention at
Annapolis, MD, in September 1786 to discuss commercial problems.
Madison and a young lawyer from New York named Alexander Hamilton
issued a report on the meeting in Annapolis, calling upon Congress to
summon delegates of all of the states to meet for the purpose of
revising the Articles of Confederation. Although the report was widely
viewed as a usurpation of congressional authority, the Congress did
issue a formal call to the states for a convention. To Madison it
represented the supreme chance to reverse the country's trend. And as
the delegations gathered in Philadelphia, its importance was not lost
to others. The squire of Gunston Hall, George Mason, wrote to his son,
"The Eyes of the United States are turned upon this Assembly and their
Expectations raised to a very anxious Degree. May God Grant that we
may be able to gratify them, by establishing a wise and just
Government."
The Delegates
Seventy-four delegates were appointed to the convention, of which 55
actually attended sessions. Rhode Island was the only state that
refused to send delegates. Dominated by men wedded to paper currency,
low taxes, and popular government, Rhode Island's leaders refused to
participate in what they saw as a conspiracy to overthrow the
established government. Other Americans also had their suspicions.
Patrick Henry, of the flowing red Glasgow cloak and the magnetic
oratory, refused to attend, declaring he "smelt a rat." He suspected,
correctly, that Madison had in mind the creation of a powerful central
government and the subversion of the authority of the state
legislatures. Henry along with many other political leaders, believed
that the state governments offered the chief protection for personal
liberties. He was determined not to lend a hand to any proceeding that
seemed to pose a threat to that protection.
With Henry absent, with such towering figures as Jefferson and Adams
abroad on foreign missions, and with John Jay in New York at the
Foreign Office, the convention was without some of the country's major
political leaders. It was, nevertheless, an impressive assemblage. In
addition to Madison and Washington, there were Benjamin Franklin of
Pennsylvania--crippled by gout, the 81-year-old Franklin was a man of
many dimensions printer, storekeeper, publisher, scientist, public
official, philosopher, diplomat, and ladies' man; James Wilson of
Pennsylvania--a distinguished lawyer with a penchant for ill-advised
land-jobbing schemes, which would force him late in life to flee from
state to state avoiding prosecution for debt, the Scotsman brought a
profound mind steeped in constitutional theory and law; Alexander
Hamilton of New York--a brilliant, ambitious former aide-de-camp and
secretary to Washington during the Revolution who had, after his
marriage into the Schuyler family of New York, become a powerful
political figure; George Mason of Virginia--the author of the Virginia
Bill of Rights whom Jefferson later called "the Cato of his country
without the avarice of the Roman"; John Dickinson of Delaware--the
quiet, reserved author of the "Farmers' Letters" and chairman of the
congressional committee that framed the articles; and Gouverneur
Morris of Pennsylvania-- well versed in French literature and
language, with a flair and bravado to match his keen intellect, who
had helped draft the New York State Constitution and had worked with
Robert Morris in the Finance Office.
There were others who played major roles - Oliver Ellsworth of
Connecticut; Edmund Randolph of Virginia; William Paterson of New
Jersey; John Rutledge of South Carolina; Elbridge Gerry of
Massachusetts; Roger Sherman of Connecticut; Luther Martin of
Maryland; and the Pinckneys, Charles and Charles Cotesworth, of South
Carolina. Franklin was the oldest member and Jonathan Dayton, the 27-
year-old delegate from New Jersey was the youngest. The average age
was 42. Most of the delegates had studied law, had served in colonial
or state legislatures, or had been in the Congress. Well versed in
philosophical theories of government advanced by such philosophers as
James Harrington, John Locke, and Montesquieu, profiting from
experience gained in state politics, the delegates composed an
exceptional body, one that left a remarkably learned record of debate.
Fortunately we have a relatively complete record of the proceedings,
thanks to the indefatigable James Madison. Day after day, the
Virginian sat in front of the presiding officer, compiling notes of
the debates, not missing a single day or a single major speech. He
later remarked that his self-confinement in the hall, which was often
oppressively hot in the Philadelphia summer, almost killed him.
The sessions of the convention were held in secret--no reporters or
visitors were permitted. Although many of the naturally loquacious
members were prodded in the pubs and on the streets, most remained
surprisingly discreet. To those suspicious of the convention, the
curtain of secrecy only served to confirm their anxieties. Luther
Martin of Maryland later charged that the conspiracy in Philadelphia
needed a quiet breeding ground. Thomas Jefferson wrote John Adams from
Paris, "I am sorry they began their deliberations by so abominable a
precedent as that of tying up the tongues of their members."
The Virginia Plan
On Tuesday morning, May 29, Edmund Randolph, the tall, 34-year- old
governor of Virginia, opened the debate with a long speech decrying
the evils that had befallen the country under the Articles of
Confederation and stressing the need for creating a strong national
government. Randolph then outlined a broad plan that he and his
Virginia compatriots had, through long sessions at the Indian Queen
tavern, put together in the days preceding the convention. James
Madison had such a plan on his mind for years. The proposed government
had three branches--legislative, executive, and judicial--each branch
structured to check the other. Highly centralized, the government
would have veto power over laws enacted by state legislatures. The
plan, Randolph confessed, "meant a strong consolidated union in which
the idea of states should be nearly annihilated." This was, indeed,
the rat so offensive to Patrick Henry.
The introduction of the so-called Virginia Plan at the beginning of
the convention was a tactical coup. The Virginians had forced the
debate into their own frame of reference and in their own terms.
For 10 days the members of the convention discussed the sweeping and,
to many delegates, startling Virginia resolutions. The critical issue,
described succinctly by Gouverneur Morris on May 30, was the
distinction between a federation and a national government, the
"former being a mere compact resting on the good faith of the parties;
the latter having a compleat and compulsive operation." Morris favored
the latter, a "supreme power" capable of exercising necessary
authority not merely a shadow government, fragmented and hopelessly
ineffective.
The New Jersey Plan
This nationalist position revolted many delegates who cringed at the
vision of a central government swallowing state sovereignty. On June
13 delegates from smaller states rallied around proposals offered by
New Jersey delegate William Paterson. Railing against efforts to throw
the states into "hotchpot," Paterson proposed a "union of the States
merely federal." The "New Jersey resolutions" called only for a
revision of the articles to enable the Congress more easily to raise
revenues and regulate commerce. It also provided that acts of Congress
and ratified treaties be "the supreme law of the States."
For 3 days the convention debated Paterson's plan, finally voting for
rejection. With the defeat of the New Jersey resolutions, the
convention was moving toward creation of a new government, much to the
dismay of many small-state delegates. The nationalists, led by
Madison, appeared to have the proceedings in their grip. In addition,
they were able to persuade the members that any new constitution
should be ratified through conventions of the people and not by the
Congress and the state legislatures- -another tactical coup. Madison
and his allies believed that the constitution they had in mind would
likely be scuttled in the legislatures, where many state political
leaders stood to lose power. The nationalists wanted to bring the
issue before "the people," where ratification was more likely.
Hamilton's Plan
On June 18 Alexander Hamilton presented his own ideal plan of
government. Erudite and polished, the speech, nevertheless, failed to
win a following. It went too far. Calling the British government "the
best in the world," Hamilton proposed a model strikingly similar an
executive to serve during good behavior or life with veto power over
all laws; a senate with members serving during good behavior; the
legislature to have power to pass "all laws whatsoever." Hamilton
later wrote to Washington that the people were now willing to accept
"something not very remote from that which they have lately quitted."
What the people had "lately quitted," of course, was monarchy. Some
members of the convention fully expected the country to turn in this
direction. Hugh Williamson of North Carolina, a wealthy physician,
declared that it was "pretty certain . . . that we should at some time
or other have a king." Newspaper accounts appeared in the summer of
1787 alleging that a plot was under way to invite the second son of
George III, Frederick, Duke of York, the secular bishop of Osnaburgh
in Prussia, to become "king of the United States."
Alexander Hamilton on June 18 called the British government "the best
in the world" and proposed a model strikingly similar. The erudite New
Yorker, however, later became one of the most ardent spokesmen for the
new Constitution.
Strongly militating against any serious attempt to establish monarchy
was the enmity so prevalent in the revolutionary period toward royalty
and the privileged classes. Some state constitutions had even
prohibited titles of nobility. In the same year as the Philadelphia
convention, Royall Tyler, a revolutionary war veteran, in his play The
Contract, gave his own jaundiced view of the upper classes:
Exult each patriot heart! this night is shewn A piece, which we may
fairly call our own; Where the proud titles of "My Lord!" "Your
Grace!" To humble Mr. and plain Sir give place.
Most delegates were well aware that there were too many Royall Tylers
in the country, with too many memories of British rule and too many
ties to a recent bloody war, to accept a king. As the debate moved
into the specifics of the new government, Alexander Hamilton and
others of his persuasion would have to accept something less.
By the end of June, debate between the large and small states over the
issue of representation in the first chamber of the legislature was
becoming increasingly acrimonious. Delegates from Virginia and other
large states demanded that voting in Congress be according to
population; representatives of smaller states insisted upon the
equality they had enjoyed under the articles. With the oratory
degenerating into threats and accusations, Benjamin Franklin appealed
for daily prayers. Dressed in his customary gray homespun, the aged
philosopher pleaded that "the Father of lights . . . illuminate our
understandings." Franklin's appeal for prayers was never fulfilled;
the convention, as Hugh Williamson noted, had no funds to pay a
preacher.
On June 29 the delegates from the small states lost the first battle.
The convention approved a resolution establishing population as the
basis for representation in the House of Representatives, thus
favoring the larger states. On a subsequent small-state proposal that
the states have equal representation in the Senate, the vote resulted
in a tie. With large-state delegates unwilling to compromise on this
issue, one member thought that the convention "was on the verge of
dissolution, scarce held together by the strength of an hair."
By July 10 George Washington was so frustrated over the deadlock that
he bemoaned "having had any agency" in the proceedings and called the
opponents of a strong central government "narrow minded
politicians . . . under the influence of local views." Luther Martin
of Maryland, perhaps one whom Washington saw as "narrow minded,"
thought otherwise. A tiger in debate, not content merely to parry an
opponent's argument but determined to bludgeon it into eternal rest,
Martin had become perhaps the small states' most effective, if
irascible, orator. The Marylander leaped eagerly into the battle on
the representation issue declaring, "The States have a right to an
equality of representation. This is secured to us by our present
articles of confederation; we are in possession of this privilege."
The Great Compromise
Also crowding into this complicated and divisive discussion over
representation was the North-South division over the method by which
slaves were to be counted for purposes of taxation and representation.
On July 12 Oliver Ellsworth proposed that representation for the lower
house be based on the number of free persons and three-fifths of "all
other persons," a euphemism for slaves. In the following week the
members finally compromised, agreeing that direct taxation be
according to representation and that the representation of the lower
house be based on the white inhabitants and three-fifths of the "other
people." With this compromise and with the growing realization that
such compromise was necessary to avoid a complete breakdown of the
convention, the members then approved Senate equality. Roger Sherman
had remarked that it was the wish of the delegates "that some general
government should be established." With the crisis over representation
now settled, it began to look again as if this wish might be
fulfilled.
For the next few days the air in the City of Brotherly Love, although
insufferably muggy and swarming with blue-bottle flies, had the clean
scent of conciliation. In this period of welcome calm, the members
decided to appoint a Committee of Detail to draw up a draft
constitution. The convention would now at last have something on
paper. As Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts, John Rutledge, Edmund
Randolph, James Wilson, and Oliver Ellsworth went to work, the other
delegates voted themselves a much needed 10-day vacation.
During the adjournment, Gouverneur Morris and George Washington rode
out along a creek that ran through land that had been part of the
Valley Forge encampment 10 years earlier. While Morris cast for trout,
Washington pensively looked over the now lush ground where his
freezing troops had suffered, at a time when it had seemed as if the
American Revolution had reached its end. The country had come a long
way.
The First Draft
On Monday August 6, 1787, the convention accepted the first draft of
the Constitution. Here was the article-by-article model from which the
final document would result some 5 weeks later. As the members began
to consider the various sections, the willingness to compromise of the
previous days quickly evaporated. The most serious controversy erupted
over the question of regulation of commerce. The southern states,
exporters of raw materials, rice, indigo, and tobacco, were fearful
that a New England-dominated Congress might, through export taxes,
severely damage the South's economic life. C. C. Pinckney declared
that if Congress had the power to regulate trade, the southern states
would be "nothing more than overseers for the Northern States."
On August 21 the debate over the issue of commerce became very closely
linked to another explosive issue--slavery. When Martin of Maryland
proposed a tax on slave importation, the convention was thrust into a
strident discussion of the institution of slavery and its moral and
economic relationship to the new government. Rutledge of South
Carolina, asserting that slavery had nothing at all to do with
morality, declared, "Interest alone is the governing principle with
nations." Sherman of Connecticut was for dropping the tender issue
altogether before it jeopardized the convention. Mason of Virginia
expressed concern over unlimited importation of slaves but later
indicated that he also favored federal protection of slave property
already held. This nagging issue of possible federal intervention in
slave traffic, which Sherman and others feared could irrevocably split
northern and southern delegates, was settled by, in Mason's words, "a
bargain." Mason later wrote that delegates from South Carolina and
Georgia, who most feared federal meddling in the slave trade, made a
deal with delegates from the New England states. In exchange for the
New Englanders' support for continuing slave importation for 20 years,
the southerners accepted a clause that required only a simple majority
vote on navigation laws, a crippling blow to southern economic
interests.
The bargain was also a crippling blow to those working to abolish
slavery. Congregationalist minister and abolitionist Samuel Hopkins of
Connecticut charged that the convention had sold out: "How does it
appear . . . that these States, who have been fighting for liberty and
consider themselves as the highest and most noble example of zeal for
it, cannot agree in any political Constitution, unless it indulge and
authorize them to enslave their fellow men . . . Ah! these unclean
spirits, like frogs, they, like the Furies of the poets are spreading
discord, and exciting men to contention and war." Hopkins considered
the Constitution a document fit for the flames.
On August 31 a weary George Mason, who had 3 months earlier written so
expectantly to his son about the "great Business now before us,"
bitterly exclaimed that he "would sooner chop off his right hand than
put it to the Constitution as it now stands." Mason despaired that the
convention was rushing to saddle the country with an ill-advised,
potentially ruinous central authority He was concerned that a "bill of
rights," ensuring individual liberties, had not been made part of the
Constitution. Mason called for a new convention to reconsider the
whole question of the formation of a new government. Although Mason's
motion was overwhelmingly voted down, opponents of the Constitution
did not abandon the idea of a new convention. It was futilely
suggested again and again for over 2 years.
One of the last major unresolved problems was the method of electing
the executive. A number of proposals, including direct election by the
people, by state legislatures, by state governors, and by the national
legislature, were considered. The result was the electoral college, a
master stroke of compromise, quaint and curious but politically
expedient. The large states got proportional strength in the number of
delegates, the state legislatures got the right of selecting
delegates, and the House the right to choose the president in the
event no candidate received a majority of electoral votes. Mason later
predicted that the House would probably choose the president 19 times
out of 20.
In the early days of September, with the exhausted delegates anxious
to return home, compromise came easily. On September 8 the convention
was ready to turn the Constitution over to a Committee of Style and
Arrangement. Gouverneur Morris was the chief architect. Years later he
wrote to Timothy Pickering: "That Instrument was written by the
Fingers which wrote this letter." The Constitution was presented to
the convention on September 12, and the delegates methodically began
to consider each section. Although close votes followed on several
articles, it was clear that the grueling work of the convention in the
historic summer of 1787 was reaching its end.
Before the final vote on the Constitution on September 15, Edmund
Randolph proposed that amendments be made by the state conventions and
then turned over to another general convention for consideration. He
was joined by George Mason and Elbridge Gerry. The three lonely allies
were soundly rebuffed. Late in the afternoon the roll of the states
was called on the Constitution, and from every delegation the word was
"Aye."
On September 17 the members met for the last time, and the venerable
Franklin had written a speech that was delivered by his colleague
James Wilson. Appealing for unity behind the Constitution, Franklin
declared, "I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with
confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the
builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation,
only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's
throats." With Mason, Gerry, and Randolph withstanding appeals to
attach their signatures, the other delegates in the hall formally
signed the Constitution, and the convention adjourned at 4 o'clock in
the afternoon.
Weary from weeks of intense pressure but generally satisfied with
their work, the delegates shared a farewell dinner at City Tavern. Two
blocks away on Market Street, printers John Dunlap and David Claypoole
worked into the night on the final imprint of the six-page
Constitution, copies of which would leave Philadelphia on the morning
stage. The debate over the nation's form of government was now set for
the larger arena.
As the members of the convention returned home in the following days,
Alexander Hamilton privately assessed the chances of the Constitution
for ratification. In its favor were the support of Washington,
commercial interests, men of property, creditors, and the belief among
many Americans that the Articles of Confederation were inadequate.
Against it were the opposition of a few influential men in the
convention and state politicians fearful of losing power, the general
revulsion against taxation, the suspicion that a centralized
government would be insensitive to local interests, and the fear among
debtors that a new government would "restrain the means of cheating
Creditors."
The Federalists and the Anti-Federalists
Because of its size, wealth, and influence and because it was the
first state to call a ratifying convention, Pennsylvania was the focus
of national attention. The positions of the Federalists, those who
supported the Constitution, and the anti-Federalists, those who
opposed it, were printed and reprinted by scores of newspapers across
the country. And passions in the state were most warm. When the
Federalist-dominated Pennsylvania assembly lacked a quorum on
September 29 to call a state ratifying convention, a Philadelphia mob,
in order to provide the necessary numbers, dragged two anti-Federalist
members from their lodgings through the streets to the State House
where the bedraggled representatives were forced to stay while the
assembly voted. It was a curious example of participatory democracy.
On October 5 anti-Federalist Samuel Bryan published the first of his
"Centinel" essays in Philadelphia's Independent Gazetteer. Republished
in newspapers in various states, the essays assailed the sweeping
power of the central government, the usurpation of state sovereignty,
and the absence of a bill of rights guaranteeing individual liberties
such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. "The United States
are to be melted down," Bryan declared, into a despotic empire
dominated by "well-born" aristocrats. Bryan was echoing the fear of
many anti-Federalists that the new government would become one
controlled by the wealthy established families and the culturally
refined. The common working people, Bryan believed, were in danger of
being subjugated to the will of an all-powerful authority remote and
inaccessible to the people. It was this kind of authority, he
believed, that Americans had fought a war against only a few years
earlier.
The next day James Wilson, delivering a stirring defense of the
Constitution to a large crowd gathered in the yard of the State House,
praised the new government as the best "which has ever been offered to
the world." The Scotsman's view prevailed. Led by Wilson, Federalists
dominated in the Pennsylvania convention, carrying the vote on
December 12 by a healthy 46 to 23.
The vote for ratification in Pennsylvania did not end the rancor and
bitterness. Franklin declared that scurrilous articles in the press
were giving the impression that Pennsylvania was "peopled by a set of
the most unprincipled, wicked, rascally and quarrelsome scoundrels
upon the face of the globe." And in Carlisle, on December 26, anti-
Federalist rioters broke up a Federalist celebration and hung Wilson
and the Federalist chief justice of Pennsylvania, Thomas McKean, in
effigy; put the torch to a copy of the Constitution; and busted a few
Federalist heads.
In New York the Constitution was under siege in the press by a series
of essays signed "Cato." Mounting a counterattack, Alexander Hamilton
and John Jay enlisted help from Madison and, in late 1787, they
published the first of a series of essays now known as the Federalist
Papers. The 85 essays, most of which were penned by Hamilton himself,
probed the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and the need
for an energetic national government. Thomas Jefferson later called
the Federalist Papers the "best commentary on the principles of
government ever written."
Against this kind of Federalist leadership and determination, the
opposition in most states was disorganized and generally inert. The
leading spokesmen were largely state-centered men with regional and
local interests and loyalties. Madison wrote of the Massachusetts anti-
Federalists, "There was not a single character capable of uniting
their wills or directing their measures. . . . They had no plan
whatever." The anti-Federalists attacked wildly on several fronts: the
lack of a bill of rights, discrimination against southern states in
navigation legislation, direct taxation, the loss of state
sovereignty. Many charged that the Constitution represented the work
of aristocratic politicians bent on protecting their own class
interests. At the Massachusetts convention one delegate declared,
"These lawyers, and men of learning and moneyed men, that . . . make
us poor illiterate people swallow down the pill . . . they will
swallow up all us little folks like the great Leviathan; yes, just as
the whale swallowed up Jonah!" Some newspaper articles, presumably
written by anti-Federalists, resorted to fanciful predictions of the
horrors that might emerge under the new Constitution pagans and deists
could control the government; the use of Inquisition-like torture
could be instituted as punishment for federal crimes; even the pope
could be elected president.
One anti-Federalist argument gave opponents some genuine difficulty--
the claim that the territory of the 13 states was too extensive for a
representative government. In a republic embracing a large area, anti-
Federalists argued, government would be impersonal, unrepresentative,
dominated by men of wealth, and oppressive of the poor and working
classes. Had not the illustrious Montesquieu himself ridiculed the
notion that an extensive territory composed of varying climates and
people, could be a single republican state? James Madison, always
ready with the Federalist volley, turned the argument completely
around and insisted that the vastness of the country would itself be a
strong argument in favor of a republic. Claiming that a large republic
would counterbalance various political interest groups vying for
power, Madison wrote, "The smaller the society the fewer probably will
be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the
distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be
found of the same party and the more easily will they concert and
execute their plans of oppression." Extend the size of the republic,
Madison argued, and the country would be less vulnerable to separate
factions within it.
Ratification
By January 9, 1788, five states of the nine necessary for ratification
had approved the Constitution--Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Georgia, and Connecticut. But the eventual outcome remained uncertain
in pivotal states such as Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia. On
February 6, withFederalists agreeing to recommend a list of amendments
amounting to a bill of rights, Massachusetts ratified by a vote of 187
to 168. The revolutionary leader, John Hancock, elected to preside
over the Massachusetts ratifying convention but unable to make up his
mind on the Constitution, took to his bed with a convenient case of
gout. Later seduced by the Federalists with visions of the vice
presidency and possibly the presidency, Hancock, whom Madison noted as
"an idolater of popularity," suddenly experienced a miraculous cure
and delivered a critical block of votes. Although Massachusetts was
now safely in the Federalist column, the recommendation of a bill of
rights was a significant victory for the anti-Federalists. Six of the
remaining states later appended similar recommendations.
When the New Hampshire convention was adjourned by Federalists who
sensed imminent defeat and when Rhode Island on March 24 turned down
the Constitution in a popular referendum by an overwhelming vote of 10
to 1, Federalist leaders were apprehensive. Looking ahead to the
Maryland convention, Madison wrote to Washington, "The difference
between even a postponement and adoption in Maryland may . . .
possibly give a fatal advantage to that which opposes the
constitution." Madison had little reason to worry. The final vote on
April 28 63 for, 11 against. In Baltimore, a huge parade celebrating
the Federalist victory rolled. through the downtown streets,
highlighted by a 15-foot float called "Ship Federalist." The
symbolically seaworthy craft was later launched in the waters off
Baltimore and sailed down the Potomac to Mount Vernon.
On July 2, 1788, the Confederation Congress, meeting in New York,
received word that a reconvened New Hampshire ratifying convention had
approved the Constitution. With South Carolina's acceptance of the
Constitution in May, New Hampshire thus became the ninth state to
ratify. The Congress appointed a committee "for putting the said
Constitution into operation."
In the next 2 months, thanks largely to the efforts of Madison and
Hamilton in their own states, Virginia and New York both ratified
while adding their own amendments. The margin for the Federalists in
both states, however, was extremely close. Hamilton figured that the
majority of the people in New York actually opposed the Constitution,
and it is probable that a majority of people in the entire country
opposed it. Only the promise of amendments had ensured a Federalist
victory.
The Bill of Rights
The call for a bill of rights had been the anti-Federalists' most
powerful weapon. Attacking the proposed Constitution for its vagueness
and lack of specific protection against tyranny, Patrick Henry asked
the Virginia convention, "What can avail your specious, imaginary
balances, your rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous ideal checks
and contrivances." The anti-Federalists, demanding a more concise,
unequivocal Constitution, one that laid out for all to see the right
of the people and limitations of the power of government, claimed that
the brevity of the document only revealed its inferior nature. Richard
Henry Lee despaired at the lack of provisions to protect "those
essential rights of mankind without which liberty cannot exist."
Trading the old government for the new without such a bill of rights,
Lee argued, would be trading Scylla for Charybdis.
A bill of rights had been barely mentioned in the Philadelphia
convention, most delegates holding that the fundamental rights of
individuals had been secured in the state constitutions. James Wilson
maintained that a bill of rights was superfluous because all power not
expressly delegated to thenew government was reserved to the people.
It was clear, however, that in this argument the anti-Federalists held
the upper hand. Even Thomas Jefferson, generally in favor of the new
government, wrote to Madison that a bill of rights was "what the
people are entitled to against every government on earth."
By the fall of 1788 Madison had been convinced that not only was a
bill of rights necessary to ensure acceptance of the Constitution but
that it would have positive effects. He wrote, on October 17, that
such "fundamental maxims of free Government" would be "a good ground
for an appeal to the sense of community" against potential oppression
and would "counteract the impulses of interest and passion."
Madison's support of the bill of rights was of critical significance.
One of the new representatives from Virginia to the First Federal
Congress, as established by the new Constitution, he worked tirelessly
to persuade the House to enact amendments. Defusing the anti-
Federalists' objections to the Constitution, Madison was able to
shepherd through 17 amendments in the early months of the Congress, a
list that was later trimmed to 12 in the Senate. On October 2, 1789,
President Washington sent to each of the states a copy of the 12
amendments adopted by the Congress in September. By December 15, 1791,
three-fourths of the states had ratified the 10 amendments now so
familiar to Americans as the "Bill of Rights."
Benjamin Franklin told a French correspondent in 1788 that the
formation of the new government had been like a game of dice, with
many players of diverse prejudices and interests unable to make any
uncontested moves. Madison wrote to Jefferson that the welding of
these clashing interests was "a task more difficult than can be well
conceived by those who were not concerned in the execution of it."
When the delegates left Philadelphia after the convention, few, if
any, were convinced that the Constitution they had approved outlined
the ideal form of government for the country. But late in his life
James Madison scrawled out another letter, one never addressed. In it
he declared that no government can be perfect, and "that which is the
least imperfect is therefore the best government."
The Document Enshrined
The fate of the United States Constitution after its signing on
September 17, 1787, can be contrasted sharply to the travels and
physical abuse of America's other great parchment, the Declaration of
Independence. As the Continental Congress, during the years of the
revolutionary war, scurried from town to town, the rolled-up
Declaration was carried along. After the formation of the new
government under the Constitution, the one-page Declaration, eminently
suited for display purposes, graced the walls of various government
buildings in Washington, exposing it to prolonged damaging sunlight.
It was also subjected to the work of early calligraphers responding to
a demand for reproductions of the revered document. As any visitor to
the National Archives can readily observe, the early treatment of the
now barely legible Declaration took a disastrous toll. The
Constitution, in excellent physical condition after more than 200
years, has enjoyed a more serene existence. By 1796 the Constitution
was in the custody of the Department of State along with the
Declaration and traveled with the federal government from New York to
Philadelphia to Washington. Both documents were secretly moved to
Leesburg, VA, before the imminent attack by the British on Washington
in 1814. Following the war, the Constitution remained in the State
Department while the Declaration continued its travels--to the Patent
Office Building from 1841 to 1876, to Independence Hall in
Philadelphia during the Centennial celebration, and back to Washington
in 1877. On September 29, 1921, President Warren Harding issued an
Executive order transferring the Constitution and the Declaration to
the Library of Congress for preservation and exhibition. The next day
Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam, acting on authority of Secretary
of State Charles Evans Hughes, carried the Constitution and the
Declaration in a Model-T Ford truck to the library and placed them in
his office safe until an appropriate exhibit area could be
constructed. The documents were officially put on display at a
ceremony in the library on February 28, 1924. On February 20, 1933, at
the laying of the cornerstone of the future National Archives
Building, President Herbert Hoover remarked, "There will be aggregated
here the most sacred documents of our history--the originals of the
Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution of the United
States." The two documents however, were not immediately transferred
to the Archives. During World War II both were moved from the library
to Fort Knox for protection and returned to the library in 1944. It
was not until successful negotiations were completed between Librarian
of Congress Luther Evans and Archivist of the United States Wayne
Grover that the transfer to the National Archives was finally
accomplished by special direction of the Joint Congressional Committee
on the Library.
On December 13, 1952, the Constitution and the Declaration were placed
in helium-filled cases, enclosed in wooden crates, laid on mattresses
in an armored Marine Corps personnel carrier, and escorted by
ceremonial troops, two tanks, and four servicemen carrying submachine
guns down Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues to the National
Archives. Two days later, President Harry Truman declared at a formal
ceremony in the Archives Exhibition Hall.
"We are engaged here today in a symbolic act. We are enshrining these
documents for future ages. This magnificent hall has been constructed
to exhibit them, and the vault beneath, that we have built to protect
them, is as safe from destruction as anything that the wit of modern
man can devise. All this is an honorable effort, based upon reverence
for the great past, and our generation can take just pride in it."
government with authority to regulate commerce, and subordinate state
law to federal law: "Let it be tried then he wrote, whether any middle
ground can be taken which will at once support a due supremacy of the
national authority, while maintaining state power only when
subordinately useful
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_history.html
www.archives.gov
June 13, 2013
A More Perfect Union: The Creation of the U.S. Constitution
May 25, 1787, Freshly spread dirt covered the cobblestone street in
front of the Pennsylvania State House, protecting the men inside from
the sound of passing carriages and carts. Guards stood at the
entrances to ensure that the curious were kept at a distance. Robert
Morris of Pennsylvania, the "financier" of the Revolution, opened the
proceedings with a nomination--Gen. George Washington for the
presidency of the Constitutional Convention. The vote was unanimous.
With characteristic ceremonial modesty, the general expressed his
embarrassment at his lack of qualifications to preside over such an
august body and apologized for any errors into which he might fall in
the course of its deliberations.
To many of those assembled, especially to the small, boyish-looking,
36-year-old delegate from Virginia, James Madison, the general's mere
presence boded well for the convention, for the illustrious Washington
gave to the gathering an air of importance and legitimacy But his
decision to attend the convention had been an agonizing one. The
Father of the Country had almost remained at home.
Suffering from rheumatism, despondent over the loss of a brother,
absorbed in the management of Mount Vernon, and doubting that the
convention would accomplish very much or that many men of stature
would attend, Washington delayed accepting the invitation to attend
for several months. Torn between the hazards of lending his reputation
to a gathering perhaps doomed to failure and the chance that the
public would view his reluctance to attend with a critical eye, the
general finally agreed to make the trip. James Madison was pleased.
General George Washington was unanimously elected presidentof the
Philadelphia convention.
The Articles of Confederation
The determined Madison had for several years insatiably studied
history and political theory searching for a solution to the political
and economic dilemmas he saw plaguing America. The Virginian's labors
convinced him of the futility and weakness of confederacies of
independent states. America's own government under the Articles of
Confederation, Madison was convinced, had to be replaced. In force
since 1781, established as a "league of friendship" and a constitution
for the 13 sovereign and independent states after the Revolution, the
articles seemed to Madison woefully inadequate. With the states
retaining considerable power, the central government, he believed, had
insufficient power to regulate commerce. It could not tax and was
generally impotent in setting commercial policy It could not
effectively support a war effort. It had little power to settle
quarrels between states. Saddled with this weak government, the states
were on the brink of economic disaster. The evidence was overwhelming.
Congress was attempting to function with a depleted treasury; paper
money was flooding the country, creating extraordinary inflation--a
pound of tea in some areas could be purchased for a tidy $100; and the
depressed condition of business was taking its toll on many small
farmers. Some of them were being thrown in jail for debt, and numerous
farms were being confiscated and sold for taxes.
In 1786 some of the farmers had fought back. Led by Daniel Shays, a
former captain in the Continental army, a group of armed men, sporting
evergreen twigs in their hats, prevented the circuit court from
sitting at Northampton, MA, and threatened to seize muskets stored in
the arsenal at Springfield. Although the insurrection was put down by
state troops, the incident confirmed the fears of many wealthy men
that anarchy was just around the corner. Embellished day after day in
the press, the uprising made upper-class Americans shudder as they
imagined hordes of vicious outlaws descending upon innocent citizens.
From his idyllic Mount Vernon setting, Washington wrote to Madison:
"Wisdom and good examples are necessary at this time to rescue the
political machine from the impending storm."
Madison thought he had the answer. He wanted a strong central
government to provide order and stability. "Let it be tried then," he
wrote, "whether any middle ground can be taken which will at once
support a due supremacy of the national authority," while maintaining
state power only when "subordinately useful." The resolute Virginian
looked to the Constitutional Convention to forge a new government in
this mold.
The convention had its specific origins in a proposal offered by
Madison and John Tyler in the Virginia assembly that the Continental
Congress be given power to regulate commerce throughout the
Confederation. Through their efforts in the assembly a plan was
devised inviting the several states to attend a convention at
Annapolis, MD, in September 1786 to discuss commercial problems.
Madison and a young lawyer from New York named Alexander Hamilton
issued a report on the meeting in Annapolis, calling upon Congress to
summon delegates of all of the states to meet for the purpose of
revising the Articles of Confederation. Although the report was widely
viewed as a usurpation of congressional authority, the Congress did
issue a formal call to the states for a convention. To Madison it
represented the supreme chance to reverse the country's trend. And as
the delegations gathered in Philadelphia, its importance was not lost
to others. The squire of Gunston Hall, George Mason, wrote to his son,
"The Eyes of the United States are turned upon this Assembly and their
Expectations raised to a very anxious Degree. May God Grant that we
may be able to gratify them, by establishing a wise and just
Government."
The Delegates
Seventy-four delegates were appointed to the convention, of which 55
actually attended sessions. Rhode Island was the only state that
refused to send delegates. Dominated by men wedded to paper currency,
low taxes, and popular government, Rhode Island's leaders refused to
participate in what they saw as a conspiracy to overthrow the
established government. Other Americans also had their suspicions.
Patrick Henry, of the flowing red Glasgow cloak and the magnetic
oratory, refused to attend, declaring he "smelt a rat." He suspected,
correctly, that Madison had in mind the creation of a powerful central
government and the subversion of the authority of the state
legislatures. Henry along with many other political leaders, believed
that the state governments offered the chief protection for personal
liberties. He was determined not to lend a hand to any proceeding that
seemed to pose a threat to that protection.
With Henry absent, with such towering figures as Jefferson and Adams
abroad on foreign missions, and with John Jay in New York at the
Foreign Office, the convention was without some of the country's major
political leaders. It was, nevertheless, an impressive assemblage. In
addition to Madison and Washington, there were Benjamin Franklin of
Pennsylvania--crippled by gout, the 81-year-old Franklin was a man of
many dimensions printer, storekeeper, publisher, scientist, public
official, philosopher, diplomat, and ladies' man; James Wilson of
Pennsylvania--a distinguished lawyer with a penchant for ill-advised
land-jobbing schemes, which would force him late in life to flee from
state to state avoiding prosecution for debt, the Scotsman brought a
profound mind steeped in constitutional theory and law; Alexander
Hamilton of New York--a brilliant, ambitious former aide-de-camp and
secretary to Washington during the Revolution who had, after his
marriage into the Schuyler family of New York, become a powerful
political figure; George Mason of Virginia--the author of the Virginia
Bill of Rights whom Jefferson later called "the Cato of his country
without the avarice of the Roman"; John Dickinson of Delaware--the
quiet, reserved author of the "Farmers' Letters" and chairman of the
congressional committee that framed the articles; and Gouverneur
Morris of Pennsylvania-- well versed in French literature and
language, with a flair and bravado to match his keen intellect, who
had helped draft the New York State Constitution and had worked with
Robert Morris in the Finance Office.
There were others who played major roles - Oliver Ellsworth of
Connecticut; Edmund Randolph of Virginia; William Paterson of New
Jersey; John Rutledge of South Carolina; Elbridge Gerry of
Massachusetts; Roger Sherman of Connecticut; Luther Martin of
Maryland; and the Pinckneys, Charles and Charles Cotesworth, of South
Carolina. Franklin was the oldest member and Jonathan Dayton, the 27-
year-old delegate from New Jersey was the youngest. The average age
was 42. Most of the delegates had studied law, had served in colonial
or state legislatures, or had been in the Congress. Well versed in
philosophical theories of government advanced by such philosophers as
James Harrington, John Locke, and Montesquieu, profiting from
experience gained in state politics, the delegates composed an
exceptional body, one that left a remarkably learned record of debate.
Fortunately we have a relatively complete record of the proceedings,
thanks to the indefatigable James Madison. Day after day, the
Virginian sat in front of the presiding officer, compiling notes of
the debates, not missing a single day or a single major speech. He
later remarked that his self-confinement in the hall, which was often
oppressively hot in the Philadelphia summer, almost killed him.
The sessions of the convention were held in secret--no reporters or
visitors were permitted. Although many of the naturally loquacious
members were prodded in the pubs and on the streets, most remained
surprisingly discreet. To those suspicious of the convention, the
curtain of secrecy only served to confirm their anxieties. Luther
Martin of Maryland later charged that the conspiracy in Philadelphia
needed a quiet breeding ground. Thomas Jefferson wrote John Adams from
Paris, "I am sorry they began their deliberations by so abominable a
precedent as that of tying up the tongues of their members."
The Virginia Plan
On Tuesday morning, May 29, Edmund Randolph, the tall, 34-year- old
governor of Virginia, opened the debate with a long speech decrying
the evils that had befallen the country under the Articles of
Confederation and stressing the need for creating a strong national
government. Randolph then outlined a broad plan that he and his
Virginia compatriots had, through long sessions at the Indian Queen
tavern, put together in the days preceding the convention. James
Madison had such a plan on his mind for years. The proposed government
had three branches--legislative, executive, and judicial--each branch
structured to check the other. Highly centralized, the government
would have veto power over laws enacted by state legislatures. The
plan, Randolph confessed, "meant a strong consolidated union in which
the idea of states should be nearly annihilated." This was, indeed,
the rat so offensive to Patrick Henry.
The introduction of the so-called Virginia Plan at the beginning of
the convention was a tactical coup. The Virginians had forced the
debate into their own frame of reference and in their own terms.
For 10 days the members of the convention discussed the sweeping and,
to many delegates, startling Virginia resolutions. The critical issue,
described succinctly by Gouverneur Morris on May 30, was the
distinction between a federation and a national government, the
"former being a mere compact resting on the good faith of the parties;
the latter having a compleat and compulsive operation." Morris favored
the latter, a "supreme power" capable of exercising necessary
authority not merely a shadow government, fragmented and hopelessly
ineffective.
The New Jersey Plan
This nationalist position revolted many delegates who cringed at the
vision of a central government swallowing state sovereignty. On June
13 delegates from smaller states rallied around proposals offered by
New Jersey delegate William Paterson. Railing against efforts to throw
the states into "hotchpot," Paterson proposed a "union of the States
merely federal." The "New Jersey resolutions" called only for a
revision of the articles to enable the Congress more easily to raise
revenues and regulate commerce. It also provided that acts of Congress
and ratified treaties be "the supreme law of the States."
For 3 days the convention debated Paterson's plan, finally voting for
rejection. With the defeat of the New Jersey resolutions, the
convention was moving toward creation of a new government, much to the
dismay of many small-state delegates. The nationalists, led by
Madison, appeared to have the proceedings in their grip. In addition,
they were able to persuade the members that any new constitution
should be ratified through conventions of the people and not by the
Congress and the state legislatures- -another tactical coup. Madison
and his allies believed that the constitution they had in mind would
likely be scuttled in the legislatures, where many state political
leaders stood to lose power. The nationalists wanted to bring the
issue before "the people," where ratification was more likely.
Hamilton's Plan
On June 18 Alexander Hamilton presented his own ideal plan of
government. Erudite and polished, the speech, nevertheless, failed to
win a following. It went too far. Calling the British government "the
best in the world," Hamilton proposed a model strikingly similar an
executive to serve during good behavior or life with veto power over
all laws; a senate with members serving during good behavior; the
legislature to have power to pass "all laws whatsoever." Hamilton
later wrote to Washington that the people were now willing to accept
"something not very remote from that which they have lately quitted."
What the people had "lately quitted," of course, was monarchy. Some
members of the convention fully expected the country to turn in this
direction. Hugh Williamson of North Carolina, a wealthy physician,
declared that it was "pretty certain . . . that we should at some time
or other have a king." Newspaper accounts appeared in the summer of
1787 alleging that a plot was under way to invite the second son of
George III, Frederick, Duke of York, the secular bishop of Osnaburgh
in Prussia, to become "king of the United States."
Alexander Hamilton on June 18 called the British government "the best
in the world" and proposed a model strikingly similar. The erudite New
Yorker, however, later became one of the most ardent spokesmen for the
new Constitution.
Strongly militating against any serious attempt to establish monarchy
was the enmity so prevalent in the revolutionary period toward royalty
and the privileged classes. Some state constitutions had even
prohibited titles of nobility. In the same year as the Philadelphia
convention, Royall Tyler, a revolutionary war veteran, in his play The
Contract, gave his own jaundiced view of the upper classes:
Exult each patriot heart! this night is shewn A piece, which we may
fairly call our own; Where the proud titles of "My Lord!" "Your
Grace!" To humble Mr. and plain Sir give place.
Most delegates were well aware that there were too many Royall Tylers
in the country, with too many memories of British rule and too many
ties to a recent bloody war, to accept a king. As the debate moved
into the specifics of the new government, Alexander Hamilton and
others of his persuasion would have to accept something less.
By the end of June, debate between the large and small states over the
issue of representation in the first chamber of the legislature was
becoming increasingly acrimonious. Delegates from Virginia and other
large states demanded that voting in Congress be according to
population; representatives of smaller states insisted upon the
equality they had enjoyed under the articles. With the oratory
degenerating into threats and accusations, Benjamin Franklin appealed
for daily prayers. Dressed in his customary gray homespun, the aged
philosopher pleaded that "the Father of lights . . . illuminate our
understandings." Franklin's appeal for prayers was never fulfilled;
the convention, as Hugh Williamson noted, had no funds to pay a
preacher.
On June 29 the delegates from the small states lost the first battle.
The convention approved a resolution establishing population as the
basis for representation in the House of Representatives, thus
favoring the larger states. On a subsequent small-state proposal that
the states have equal representation in the Senate, the vote resulted
in a tie. With large-state delegates unwilling to compromise on this
issue, one member thought that the convention "was on the verge of
dissolution, scarce held together by the strength of an hair."
By July 10 George Washington was so frustrated over the deadlock that
he bemoaned "having had any agency" in the proceedings and called the
opponents of a strong central government "narrow minded
politicians . . . under the influence of local views." Luther Martin
of Maryland, perhaps one whom Washington saw as "narrow minded,"
thought otherwise. A tiger in debate, not content merely to parry an
opponent's argument but determined to bludgeon it into eternal rest,
Martin had become perhaps the small states' most effective, if
irascible, orator. The Marylander leaped eagerly into the battle on
the representation issue declaring, "The States have a right to an
equality of representation. This is secured to us by our present
articles of confederation; we are in possession of this privilege."
The Great Compromise
Also crowding into this complicated and divisive discussion over
representation was the North-South division over the method by which
slaves were to be counted for purposes of taxation and representation.
On July 12 Oliver Ellsworth proposed that representation for the lower
house be based on the number of free persons and three-fifths of "all
other persons," a euphemism for slaves. In the following week the
members finally compromised, agreeing that direct taxation be
according to representation and that the representation of the lower
house be based on the white inhabitants and three-fifths of the "other
people." With this compromise and with the growing realization that
such compromise was necessary to avoid a complete breakdown of the
convention, the members then approved Senate equality. Roger Sherman
had remarked that it was the wish of the delegates "that some general
government should be established." With the crisis over representation
now settled, it began to look again as if this wish might be
fulfilled.
For the next few days the air in the City of Brotherly Love, although
insufferably muggy and swarming with blue-bottle flies, had the clean
scent of conciliation. In this period of welcome calm, the members
decided to appoint a Committee of Detail to draw up a draft
constitution. The convention would now at last have something on
paper. As Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts, John Rutledge, Edmund
Randolph, James Wilson, and Oliver Ellsworth went to work, the other
delegates voted themselves a much needed 10-day vacation.
During the adjournment, Gouverneur Morris and George Washington rode
out along a creek that ran through land that had been part of the
Valley Forge encampment 10 years earlier. While Morris cast for trout,
Washington pensively looked over the now lush ground where his
freezing troops had suffered, at a time when it had seemed as if the
American Revolution had reached its end. The country had come a long
way.
The First Draft
On Monday August 6, 1787, the convention accepted the first draft of
the Constitution. Here was the article-by-article model from which the
final document would result some 5 weeks later. As the members began
to consider the various sections, the willingness to compromise of the
previous days quickly evaporated. The most serious controversy erupted
over the question of regulation of commerce. The southern states,
exporters of raw materials, rice, indigo, and tobacco, were fearful
that a New England-dominated Congress might, through export taxes,
severely damage the South's economic life. C. C. Pinckney declared
that if Congress had the power to regulate trade, the southern states
would be "nothing more than overseers for the Northern States."
On August 21 the debate over the issue of commerce became very closely
linked to another explosive issue--slavery. When Martin of Maryland
proposed a tax on slave importation, the convention was thrust into a
strident discussion of the institution of slavery and its moral and
economic relationship to the new government. Rutledge of South
Carolina, asserting that slavery had nothing at all to do with
morality, declared, "Interest alone is the governing principle with
nations." Sherman of Connecticut was for dropping the tender issue
altogether before it jeopardized the convention. Mason of Virginia
expressed concern over unlimited importation of slaves but later
indicated that he also favored federal protection of slave property
already held. This nagging issue of possible federal intervention in
slave traffic, which Sherman and others feared could irrevocably split
northern and southern delegates, was settled by, in Mason's words, "a
bargain." Mason later wrote that delegates from South Carolina and
Georgia, who most feared federal meddling in the slave trade, made a
deal with delegates from the New England states. In exchange for the
New Englanders' support for continuing slave importation for 20 years,
the southerners accepted a clause that required only a simple majority
vote on navigation laws, a crippling blow to southern economic
interests.
The bargain was also a crippling blow to those working to abolish
slavery. Congregationalist minister and abolitionist Samuel Hopkins of
Connecticut charged that the convention had sold out: "How does it
appear . . . that these States, who have been fighting for liberty and
consider themselves as the highest and most noble example of zeal for
it, cannot agree in any political Constitution, unless it indulge and
authorize them to enslave their fellow men . . . Ah! these unclean
spirits, like frogs, they, like the Furies of the poets are spreading
discord, and exciting men to contention and war." Hopkins considered
the Constitution a document fit for the flames.
On August 31 a weary George Mason, who had 3 months earlier written so
expectantly to his son about the "great Business now before us,"
bitterly exclaimed that he "would sooner chop off his right hand than
put it to the Constitution as it now stands." Mason despaired that the
convention was rushing to saddle the country with an ill-advised,
potentially ruinous central authority He was concerned that a "bill of
rights," ensuring individual liberties, had not been made part of the
Constitution. Mason called for a new convention to reconsider the
whole question of the formation of a new government. Although Mason's
motion was overwhelmingly voted down, opponents of the Constitution
did not abandon the idea of a new convention. It was futilely
suggested again and again for over 2 years.
One of the last major unresolved problems was the method of electing
the executive. A number of proposals, including direct election by the
people, by state legislatures, by state governors, and by the national
legislature, were considered. The result was the electoral college, a
master stroke of compromise, quaint and curious but politically
expedient. The large states got proportional strength in the number of
delegates, the state legislatures got the right of selecting
delegates, and the House the right to choose the president in the
event no candidate received a majority of electoral votes. Mason later
predicted that the House would probably choose the president 19 times
out of 20.
In the early days of September, with the exhausted delegates anxious
to return home, compromise came easily. On September 8 the convention
was ready to turn the Constitution over to a Committee of Style and
Arrangement. Gouverneur Morris was the chief architect. Years later he
wrote to Timothy Pickering: "That Instrument was written by the
Fingers which wrote this letter." The Constitution was presented to
the convention on September 12, and the delegates methodically began
to consider each section. Although close votes followed on several
articles, it was clear that the grueling work of the convention in the
historic summer of 1787 was reaching its end.
Before the final vote on the Constitution on September 15, Edmund
Randolph proposed that amendments be made by the state conventions and
then turned over to another general convention for consideration. He
was joined by George Mason and Elbridge Gerry. The three lonely allies
were soundly rebuffed. Late in the afternoon the roll of the states
was called on the Constitution, and from every delegation the word was
"Aye."
On September 17 the members met for the last time, and the venerable
Franklin had written a speech that was delivered by his colleague
James Wilson. Appealing for unity behind the Constitution, Franklin
declared, "I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with
confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the
builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation,
only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's
throats." With Mason, Gerry, and Randolph withstanding appeals to
attach their signatures, the other delegates in the hall formally
signed the Constitution, and the convention adjourned at 4 o'clock in
the afternoon.
Weary from weeks of intense pressure but generally satisfied with
their work, the delegates shared a farewell dinner at City Tavern. Two
blocks away on Market Street, printers John Dunlap and David Claypoole
worked into the night on the final imprint of the six-page
Constitution, copies of which would leave Philadelphia on the morning
stage. The debate over the nation's form of government was now set for
the larger arena.
As the members of the convention returned home in the following days,
Alexander Hamilton privately assessed the chances of the Constitution
for ratification. In its favor were the support of Washington,
commercial interests, men of property, creditors, and the belief among
many Americans that the Articles of Confederation were inadequate.
Against it were the opposition of a few influential men in the
convention and state politicians fearful of losing power, the general
revulsion against taxation, the suspicion that a centralized
government would be insensitive to local interests, and the fear among
debtors that a new government would "restrain the means of cheating
Creditors."
The Federalists and the Anti-Federalists
Because of its size, wealth, and influence and because it was the
first state to call a ratifying convention, Pennsylvania was the focus
of national attention. The positions of the Federalists, those who
supported the Constitution, and the anti-Federalists, those who
opposed it, were printed and reprinted by scores of newspapers across
the country. And passions in the state were most warm. When the
Federalist-dominated Pennsylvania assembly lacked a quorum on
September 29 to call a state ratifying convention, a Philadelphia mob,
in order to provide the necessary numbers, dragged two anti-Federalist
members from their lodgings through the streets to the State House
where the bedraggled representatives were forced to stay while the
assembly voted. It was a curious example of participatory democracy.
On October 5 anti-Federalist Samuel Bryan published the first of his
"Centinel" essays in Philadelphia's Independent Gazetteer. Republished
in newspapers in various states, the essays assailed the sweeping
power of the central government, the usurpation of state sovereignty,
and the absence of a bill of rights guaranteeing individual liberties
such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. "The United States
are to be melted down," Bryan declared, into a despotic empire
dominated by "well-born" aristocrats. Bryan was echoing the fear of
many anti-Federalists that the new government would become one
controlled by the wealthy established families and the culturally
refined. The common working people, Bryan believed, were in danger of
being subjugated to the will of an all-powerful authority remote and
inaccessible to the people. It was this kind of authority, he
believed, that Americans had fought a war against only a few years
earlier.
The next day James Wilson, delivering a stirring defense of the
Constitution to a large crowd gathered in the yard of the State House,
praised the new government as the best "which has ever been offered to
the world." The Scotsman's view prevailed. Led by Wilson, Federalists
dominated in the Pennsylvania convention, carrying the vote on
December 12 by a healthy 46 to 23.
The vote for ratification in Pennsylvania did not end the rancor and
bitterness. Franklin declared that scurrilous articles in the press
were giving the impression that Pennsylvania was "peopled by a set of
the most unprincipled, wicked, rascally and quarrelsome scoundrels
upon the face of the globe." And in Carlisle, on December 26, anti-
Federalist rioters broke up a Federalist celebration and hung Wilson
and the Federalist chief justice of Pennsylvania, Thomas McKean, in
effigy; put the torch to a copy of the Constitution; and busted a few
Federalist heads.
In New York the Constitution was under siege in the press by a series
of essays signed "Cato." Mounting a counterattack, Alexander Hamilton
and John Jay enlisted help from Madison and, in late 1787, they
published the first of a series of essays now known as the Federalist
Papers. The 85 essays, most of which were penned by Hamilton himself,
probed the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and the need
for an energetic national government. Thomas Jefferson later called
the Federalist Papers the "best commentary on the principles of
government ever written."
Against this kind of Federalist leadership and determination, the
opposition in most states was disorganized and generally inert. The
leading spokesmen were largely state-centered men with regional and
local interests and loyalties. Madison wrote of the Massachusetts anti-
Federalists, "There was not a single character capable of uniting
their wills or directing their measures. . . . They had no plan
whatever." The anti-Federalists attacked wildly on several fronts: the
lack of a bill of rights, discrimination against southern states in
navigation legislation, direct taxation, the loss of state
sovereignty. Many charged that the Constitution represented the work
of aristocratic politicians bent on protecting their own class
interests. At the Massachusetts convention one delegate declared,
"These lawyers, and men of learning and moneyed men, that . . . make
us poor illiterate people swallow down the pill . . . they will
swallow up all us little folks like the great Leviathan; yes, just as
the whale swallowed up Jonah!" Some newspaper articles, presumably
written by anti-Federalists, resorted to fanciful predictions of the
horrors that might emerge under the new Constitution pagans and deists
could control the government; the use of Inquisition-like torture
could be instituted as punishment for federal crimes; even the pope
could be elected president.
One anti-Federalist argument gave opponents some genuine difficulty--
the claim that the territory of the 13 states was too extensive for a
representative government. In a republic embracing a large area, anti-
Federalists argued, government would be impersonal, unrepresentative,
dominated by men of wealth, and oppressive of the poor and working
classes. Had not the illustrious Montesquieu himself ridiculed the
notion that an extensive territory composed of varying climates and
people, could be a single republican state? James Madison, always
ready with the Federalist volley, turned the argument completely
around and insisted that the vastness of the country would itself be a
strong argument in favor of a republic. Claiming that a large republic
would counterbalance various political interest groups vying for
power, Madison wrote, "The smaller the society the fewer probably will
be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the
distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be
found of the same party and the more easily will they concert and
execute their plans of oppression." Extend the size of the republic,
Madison argued, and the country would be less vulnerable to separate
factions within it.
Ratification
By January 9, 1788, five states of the nine necessary for ratification
had approved the Constitution--Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Georgia, and Connecticut. But the eventual outcome remained uncertain
in pivotal states such as Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia. On
February 6, withFederalists agreeing to recommend a list of amendments
amounting to a bill of rights, Massachusetts ratified by a vote of 187
to 168. The revolutionary leader, John Hancock, elected to preside
over the Massachusetts ratifying convention but unable to make up his
mind on the Constitution, took to his bed with a convenient case of
gout. Later seduced by the Federalists with visions of the vice
presidency and possibly the presidency, Hancock, whom Madison noted as
"an idolater of popularity," suddenly experienced a miraculous cure
and delivered a critical block of votes. Although Massachusetts was
now safely in the Federalist column, the recommendation of a bill of
rights was a significant victory for the anti-Federalists. Six of the
remaining states later appended similar recommendations.
When the New Hampshire convention was adjourned by Federalists who
sensed imminent defeat and when Rhode Island on March 24 turned down
the Constitution in a popular referendum by an overwhelming vote of 10
to 1, Federalist leaders were apprehensive. Looking ahead to the
Maryland convention, Madison wrote to Washington, "The difference
between even a postponement and adoption in Maryland may . . .
possibly give a fatal advantage to that which opposes the
constitution." Madison had little reason to worry. The final vote on
April 28 63 for, 11 against. In Baltimore, a huge parade celebrating
the Federalist victory rolled. through the downtown streets,
highlighted by a 15-foot float called "Ship Federalist." The
symbolically seaworthy craft was later launched in the waters off
Baltimore and sailed down the Potomac to Mount Vernon.
On July 2, 1788, the Confederation Congress, meeting in New York,
received word that a reconvened New Hampshire ratifying convention had
approved the Constitution. With South Carolina's acceptance of the
Constitution in May, New Hampshire thus became the ninth state to
ratify. The Congress appointed a committee "for putting the said
Constitution into operation."
In the next 2 months, thanks largely to the efforts of Madison and
Hamilton in their own states, Virginia and New York both ratified
while adding their own amendments. The margin for the Federalists in
both states, however, was extremely close. Hamilton figured that the
majority of the people in New York actually opposed the Constitution,
and it is probable that a majority of people in the entire country
opposed it. Only the promise of amendments had ensured a Federalist
victory.
The Bill of Rights
The call for a bill of rights had been the anti-Federalists' most
powerful weapon. Attacking the proposed Constitution for its vagueness
and lack of specific protection against tyranny, Patrick Henry asked
the Virginia convention, "What can avail your specious, imaginary
balances, your rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous ideal checks
and contrivances." The anti-Federalists, demanding a more concise,
unequivocal Constitution, one that laid out for all to see the right
of the people and limitations of the power of government, claimed that
the brevity of the document only revealed its inferior nature. Richard
Henry Lee despaired at the lack of provisions to protect "those
essential rights of mankind without which liberty cannot exist."
Trading the old government for the new without such a bill of rights,
Lee argued, would be trading Scylla for Charybdis.
A bill of rights had been barely mentioned in the Philadelphia
convention, most delegates holding that the fundamental rights of
individuals had been secured in the state constitutions. James Wilson
maintained that a bill of rights was superfluous because all power not
expressly delegated to thenew government was reserved to the people.
It was clear, however, that in this argument the anti-Federalists held
the upper hand. Even Thomas Jefferson, generally in favor of the new
government, wrote to Madison that a bill of rights was "what the
people are entitled to against every government on earth."
By the fall of 1788 Madison had been convinced that not only was a
bill of rights necessary to ensure acceptance of the Constitution but
that it would have positive effects. He wrote, on October 17, that
such "fundamental maxims of free Government" would be "a good ground
for an appeal to the sense of community" against potential oppression
and would "counteract the impulses of interest and passion."
Madison's support of the bill of rights was of critical significance.
One of the new representatives from Virginia to the First Federal
Congress, as established by the new Constitution, he worked tirelessly
to persuade the House to enact amendments. Defusing the anti-
Federalists' objections to the Constitution, Madison was able to
shepherd through 17 amendments in the early months of the Congress, a
list that was later trimmed to 12 in the Senate. On October 2, 1789,
President Washington sent to each of the states a copy of the 12
amendments adopted by the Congress in September. By December 15, 1791,
three-fourths of the states had ratified the 10 amendments now so
familiar to Americans as the "Bill of Rights."
Benjamin Franklin told a French correspondent in 1788 that the
formation of the new government had been like a game of dice, with
many players of diverse prejudices and interests unable to make any
uncontested moves. Madison wrote to Jefferson that the welding of
these clashing interests was "a task more difficult than can be well
conceived by those who were not concerned in the execution of it."
When the delegates left Philadelphia after the convention, few, if
any, were convinced that the Constitution they had approved outlined
the ideal form of government for the country. But late in his life
James Madison scrawled out another letter, one never addressed. In it
he declared that no government can be perfect, and "that which is the
least imperfect is therefore the best government."
The Document Enshrined
The fate of the United States Constitution after its signing on
September 17, 1787, can be contrasted sharply to the travels and
physical abuse of America's other great parchment, the Declaration of
Independence. As the Continental Congress, during the years of the
revolutionary war, scurried from town to town, the rolled-up
Declaration was carried along. After the formation of the new
government under the Constitution, the one-page Declaration, eminently
suited for display purposes, graced the walls of various government
buildings in Washington, exposing it to prolonged damaging sunlight.
It was also subjected to the work of early calligraphers responding to
a demand for reproductions of the revered document. As any visitor to
the National Archives can readily observe, the early treatment of the
now barely legible Declaration took a disastrous toll. The
Constitution, in excellent physical condition after more than 200
years, has enjoyed a more serene existence. By 1796 the Constitution
was in the custody of the Department of State along with the
Declaration and traveled with the federal government from New York to
Philadelphia to Washington. Both documents were secretly moved to
Leesburg, VA, before the imminent attack by the British on Washington
in 1814. Following the war, the Constitution remained in the State
Department while the Declaration continued its travels--to the Patent
Office Building from 1841 to 1876, to Independence Hall in
Philadelphia during the Centennial celebration, and back to Washington
in 1877. On September 29, 1921, President Warren Harding issued an
Executive order transferring the Constitution and the Declaration to
the Library of Congress for preservation and exhibition. The next day
Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam, acting on authority of Secretary
of State Charles Evans Hughes, carried the Constitution and the
Declaration in a Model-T Ford truck to the library and placed them in
his office safe until an appropriate exhibit area could be
constructed. The documents were officially put on display at a
ceremony in the library on February 28, 1924. On February 20, 1933, at
the laying of the cornerstone of the future National Archives
Building, President Herbert Hoover remarked, "There will be aggregated
here the most sacred documents of our history--the originals of the
Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution of the United
States." The two documents however, were not immediately transferred
to the Archives. During World War II both were moved from the library
to Fort Knox for protection and returned to the library in 1944. It
was not until successful negotiations were completed between Librarian
of Congress Luther Evans and Archivist of the United States Wayne
Grover that the transfer to the National Archives was finally
accomplished by special direction of the Joint Congressional Committee
on the Library.
On December 13, 1952, the Constitution and the Declaration were placed
in helium-filled cases, enclosed in wooden crates, laid on mattresses
in an armored Marine Corps personnel carrier, and escorted by
ceremonial troops, two tanks, and four servicemen carrying submachine
guns down Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues to the National
Archives. Two days later, President Harry Truman declared at a formal
ceremony in the Archives Exhibition Hall.
"We are engaged here today in a symbolic act. We are enshrining these
documents for future ages. This magnificent hall has been constructed
to exhibit them, and the vault beneath, that we have built to protect
them, is as safe from destruction as anything that the wit of modern
man can devise. All this is an honorable effort, based upon reverence
for the great past, and our generation can take just pride in it."
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