The Constitutional Convention
/Between May and September of 1787, representatives from 12 of the 13 states met in Philadelphia – in the same room where the Declaration of Independence had been signed 11 years earlier – and wrote the Constitution. This was the Constitutional Convention.
Many of the most illustrious men of the time — those we think of as “founding fathers” — were there: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Some of the other delegates were capable, though less prominent, men. Elbridge Gerry, George Mason, John Rutledge, Robert Morris, Roger Sherman and several others were successful men of affairs. There was a definite third tier of ordinary men like Richard Bassett of Delaware and William Few of Georgia, who wandered in and out of the room, never spoke and exerted no influence on the outcome.
Some prominent men were missing. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were in Europe (France and England, respectively) on diplomatic missions. Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams refused to attend because they opposed a strong national government.
It would be wrong to say “all the great men” of the founding era were engaged in writing the Constitution. Some great men were absent; some of those present were not particularly great. There were 55 participants, though they were never all present at the same time. New Hampshire’s delegation arrived late. New York’s left early. Only 39 delegates remained at the end to sign the final version.
In later years, some delegates rose to great heights of success. Others fell to terrible depths. Two (Washington and Madison) became presidents and one (Gerry) vice president. Five (Rutledge, James Wilson, William Paterson, John Blair and Oliver Ellsworth) served on the US Supreme Court. Sixteen served in the US Senate and 13 in the House of Representatives.
History records the delegates’ personalities and mannerisms thanks to Georgia delegate William Pierce, who amused himself by jotting down his impressions of the others. Of Jacob Broom of Delaware, he said, “Mr. Broom is a plain good Man, with some abilities, but nothing to render him conspicuous. He is silent in public, but chearful and conversable in private.”
Concerning Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Pierce wrote, “Sherman exhibits the oddest shaped character I ever remember to have met with. He is awkward, un-meaning, and unaccountably strange in his manner. . . [E]verything that is connected with him [is] grotesque and laughable.”
No one would wish to be remembered through history as “grotesque and laughable.” But Pierce’s profile gives Sherman a notoriety he wouldn’t have otherwise. His later life was quiet and uneventful, which is not true for other delegates. Several died ignobly. Alexander Hamilton and Richard Speight were shot. Rutledge and Wilson went mad. William Blount and Jonathan Dayton were accused of treason. George Wythe and John Lansing disappeared. Gouverneur Morris’s death was as curious and colorful as you’d expect this peg-legged Lothario’s to be. You’ll have to look that up on your own.
James Madison was the star of the convention. He was the first to arrive in Philadelphia. He co-authored the rough agenda of recommendations (called the “Virginia Plan”) that started the discussion. Madison appointed himself the scribe of the convention and placed a desk for himself at the front of the room near chairman George Washington. Most of what we know about the day-to-day proceedings of the convention come from Madison’s private notes.
Most days, the delegates gathered at 10am and worked five hours before quitting for the day. Delegates who didn’t live in Philadelphia (all of them but Franklin and Wilson) stayed in boarding houses or taverns. Washington, the war hero, got special treatment as a house guest of Wilson.
It would be nice to think the delegates spent their off-hours praying, or reading Aristotle or Montesquieu, or seeking inspiration among the citizenry. But the record tells us they spent much of their off hours in taverns drinking expense-account liquor.
The delegates seem to have drunk prodigiously. It says so in all the books I’ve read. And the booze helped. Sometimes delegates argued thorny issues all day and adjourned in a huff, then easily resolved the question on the next morning. It seems likely that attitudes were adjusted during well-lubricated discussions around the dinner table or at the tavern.
The record of the convention mentions some embarrassing indiscretions. Gunning Bedford and Alexander Hamilton made speeches that shocked the room and were discretely ignored by the other delegates. Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania committed a gross social faux pas by slapping the great George Washington on the back like he was a common acquaintance.
Is the Constitution a Miracle?
There are many good books about the constitutional convention. They range from the very accessible (“The Summer of 1787” by David O. Stewart or “Genius of the People” by Charles L. Mee) to the more rigorous and scholarly, such as “Creation of the American Republic” by Gordon S. Wood. (The same Gordon Wood that Matt Damon name-checks in the famous Harvard bar scene in Good Will Hunting.)
Another well-respected book is “Miracle at Philadelphia” by Catherine Drinker Bowen. The miracle Bowen alludes to wasn’t a perfect government, or a dazzling innovation in human affairs. (The republican form of government was already established in 1787. The founders copied forms and practices from the Dutch.)
The miracle in the title was that a satisfactory outcome was reached through bitter discussion and hard compromise. Or, perhaps, that the founders held fast to their commitment to republican government at all.
Plenty of people expected – and even wanted – an American monarchy. Even inside the debate hall, one delegate wrote home mid-way through the process that “vigorous minds advocate a monarchy.” (This delegate, gratefully, was one of the least influential.) Another letter writer informed a European friend that “the young ardent spirits cry out for monarchy.”
America had freed itself from the oppressive monarchy of England’s King George III only seven years earlier. But independence was hard work, and seven years was time enough to reconsider. The devout among the Americans recalled that God had given the Israelites a king when they asked for one: “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations.” (1 Samuel 8:19-20)
George III had been a bad king, no doubt. But many Americans thought the new country could (and should) find a new and better king of its own.
That didn’t happen. The founders stuck to their first principle. That was the miracle.
It's important to note than the delegates were not authorized to write a new constitution. They were only expected to improve the existing government charter – the Articles of Confederation. The delegates from Delaware especially worried they were exceeding their mandate.
Madison later gave a justification for the complete rewrite of the old document. In Federalist #40, he explains that the convention had a mandate to make “necessary changes” to the Articles. Madison reasons that power to make necessary changes implies power to change any part and also power to change every part, including the name of the document. So, he said, they made the “necessary changes” to the Articles by throwing them out entirely and replacing them with the new Constitution.
The delegates agreed the new government should be a republic. They didn’t agree on much more than that. Many topics were discussed, but the three stickiest were:
Apportioning political representation among large and small states
The powers of the president, and how he should be chosen
Slavery
There was a lot of deliberation – a lot of back and forth arguing. Issues were discussed for days on end, then put on the shelf to be brought up again later. Some issues were settled only when intransigent delegations were out of the room. At one critical juncture, the convention adjourned for two weeks, leaving a so-called Committee of Detail under John Rutledge to carry on. Rutledge and his five-man committee took full advantage of the opportunity to alter the document. According to historian David Stewart:
They added provisions that the Convention never discussed. They changed critical agreements that the delegates had already approved. They re-conceived the power of the national government, redefined the powers of the states, and adopted fresh concessions on that most explosive issue, slavery. It is not too much to say that Rutledge and his committee hijacked the Constitution.
The Committee of Detail was not open-handed or democratic. But the changes they made were not bad, either. They clarified the relationship between the national and state governments. They inserted the significant phrase, “necessary and proper” to describe the extent of congressional authority. They introduced the preamble starting with, “We the People . . .”
David Brearley
As the summer dragged on, more and more of the work was accomplished in committees. This allowed less illustrious men to contribute. New Jersey delegate David Brearley chaired the Committee of Postponed Parts. His task was to finally settle issues that had been too thorny for the full convention. And he seems to have done a good job. Among other changes, Brearley’s committee set the president’s term at four years instead of seven.
Some issues could not be settled even by committees. Near the end, hostility and rancor emerged among members who didn’t like the shape of the document. Some just sat. A few left Philadelphia. Three announced they would work to defeat the Constitution and would convene a new convention to start over. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts had been enthusiastic throughout the summer, but he couldn’t support the final version because it neglected individual rights. George Mason thought the same, and said so. Edmund Randolph had presented the early Virginia Plan that was the starting point for the debate, but he objected to the final version.
At last a Committee of Style was assigned to finalize the language and organization. Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania did most of this work, and historians credit him with making the final document more clear and concise than the jumble of raw resolutions he started with. It was Morris who crafted the preamble.
The final version contained seven articles, touching on the role of Congress; the president; the courts; the relationship of the states to each other; amendments; the Constitution itself; and the process of ratification. Article VII contains fixes for several mistakes in the text. Rather than writing out a clean and correct copy, the convention’s scribe just listed misspellings and other corrections in Article VII. These errata are seen here but not here.
Historians tell us the delegates were eager to leave. Some of them missed their families. Some had run out of expense-account money. Some had farms and businesses they wanted to get back to. And some were just weary of sitting all day on a wooden chair in a stuffy room listening to men they didn’t like repeat opinions they disagreed with. Whatever republican zeal and divine inspiration that existed in May was well depleted by September. So on September 17, 1787, thirty-nine men representing eleven states signed a document they knew was imperfect. Alexander Hamilton signed it too, though he was the only New York delegate on hand and he wasn’t authorized to represent his state by himself. Rhode Island had never been present all summer and wasn’t there at the end, either. Thirteen other men were absent. Gerry, Mason and Randolph refused to sign.
The Constitution did not have any effect when the delegates signed it. At that moment it was just their recommendation. Before it could become the law of the land, it had to be ratified by the states. That process took nearly two years.
