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Constitutional Convention
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US History Companion:
Philadelphia Convention
The Philadelphia Convention of 1787 (also known as the Federal Convention or the Constitutional Convention) was a landmark in American and world history. Both its handiwork, the Constitution of the United States, and its example of a people's representatives using reason and experience to decide how to govern themselves had profound influence on subsequent experiments in government.
The convention met in the State House (now called Independence Hall) in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Fifty-five delegates from twelve of the thirteen states (Rhode Island did not send delegates) took part in its deliberations.
The convention was the result of a campaign to reform the first charter of government of the United States, the Articles of Confederation. Throughout the 1780s, politicians who thought in national terms worried that the Confederation faced problems its government was too weak to solve. Former allies, such as France and Spain, and its former adversary, Great Britain, restricted trade with the new nation and hampered America's development of its western territories. The Confederation Congress lacked the power to resolve boundary disputes between the states, to prevent states from imposing tariffs and other restrictions on interstate commerce, or to compel the states to meet requisitions issued to finance the Confederation. The Confederation even lacked an independent source of revenue, and plans in 1781 and 1783 to grant Congress authority to levy a 5 percent tax on imports had failed. Because all thirteen states had to ratify amendments, one state's refusal could block any attempt to amend the Articles.
Advocates of reform exchanged correspondence to muster support for a convention to revise the Articles, laying the foundation for interstate conferences and conventions seeking similar goals. In 1785, delegates from Maryland and Virginia, meeting in the Mount Vernon Conference, set a precedent for interstate conferences on reform. In 1786, hoping to extend this success, some proposed that the states meet in a convention on commercial matters at Annapolis, Maryland. Twelve delegates from five states gathered there in September; their report, written by Alexander Hamilton of New York, urging a general convention spurred the calling of the Federal Convention.
On February 21, 1787, the Confederation Congress adopted a resolution authorizing the convention but limited its mandate to revision of the Articles. Several states already had named their delegates and, citing the Annapolis Convention's report, authorized them to take any measures "to render the constitution of government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." The convention thus began with an inconsistent mandate.
The convention consisted of states' governors, chief justices, attorneys general, and many delegates to the Confederation Congress, as well as several distinguished Americans who had agreed to come out of retirement to participate one last time in American politics. Although they followed a wide range of callings--lawyers, physicians, soldiers, clergymen, merchants, and farmers--most of the delegates were well-to-do members of their states' elite; one historian called them the well-bred, well-fed, well-wed, and well-read. They fell into several groups:
1. National political figures: Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and George Washington of Virginia composed this group. Their willingness to place their prestige at risk by attending the convention testified to its legitimacy and to the severity of the problems facing the United States.
2. Senior statesmen of American politics: John Dickinson of Delaware, William Livingston of New Jersey, George Mason of Virginia, John Rutledge of South Carolina, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut were among these men. Veterans of colonial politics, they had helped lead the struggle against Great Britain. They brought with them an ability to compromise and a sensitivity to the clashing interests of the several states.
3. Advocates of state and local interests: These included John Lansing, Jr., of New York, Luther Martin of Maryland, William Paterson of New Jersey, Charles C. Pinckney of South Carolina, and Robert Yates, Jr., of New York. Because they spoke for particular interests, they made it necessary at least to consider localist views and interests in framing the new charter of government.
4. Architects of national government: Alexander Hamilton of New York, James Madison of Virginia, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, and James Wilson of Pennsylvania formed this group. Each of these men hoped to make his ideas the basis of the convention's deliberations.
5. Quiet men: Among these were John Blair of Virginia, Jacob Broome of Delaware, Jared Ingersoll of Pennsylvania, and James McHenry of Maryland. They provided the votes needed to build consensus and to establish grounds for compromise.
Some leading figures were not present: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were the American ministers to London and Paris, John Jay was the Confederation's secretary for foreign affairs in New York City, and Patrick Henry was too interested in Virginia politics.
The convention elected Washington as its president and appointed a committee to prepare rules. Two of these were vital to the convention's success. First, as was customary among legislatures in the Anglo-American world, the convention met in secret, which would permit full and free discussion. Second, the delegates were free to change their minds and reopen any matters for further debate.
The delegates rotated between sessions in full convention and meetings of the Committee of the Whole House, the latter a useful parliamentary procedure permitting informal debate, freedom in stating views, and flexibility in reaching and reconsidering decisions. Select committees worked out compromises, prepared drafts, or formulated a range of solutions to a given problem. The delegates attacked questions piecemeal, debating and deciding on individual aspects. Often a decision on one issue would require them to reconsider other decisions they had reached. They traced a tortuous, crisscrossing route, at times pausing in dismay as they realized that a vote they had just taken had undone the accomplishments of hours or even days of grueling debate.
The convention discarded the Articles and framed an entirely new constitution. They based their work on a set of resolutions known as the Virginia Plan, largely the work of James Madison. These resolutions proposed the creation of a supreme national government with separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
The convention's principal task was the design of the national legislature. The delegates agreed on the powers they wished to lodge in the new Congress, but disagreed about how the states and the American people would be represented in it. Under the Virginia Plan, population or some other proportional measure would determine representation in both houses of Congress. To protect the principle of state equality, small-state delegates rallied behind William Paterson's New Jersey Plan, which would have preserved each state's equal vote in a one-house Congress with augmented powers. Although the delegates rejected the New Jersey Plan on June 19, it took them nearly a month of further argument before they adopted on July 16 what has been called the Great Compromise, under which the House of Representatives would be apportioned based on population and each state would have two votes in the Senate.
Other difficulties facing them included the method of electing the chief executive, or president--solved by the invention of the electoral college; the counting of slaves in the ratio for apportioning representation and taxation among the states--resolved with the "three-fifths" ratio, under which three-fifths of the slave population would be added to the free population; and the dispute over the need for a bill of rights, a proposal rejected by the convention in its last week. But the delegates devoted little attention to the powers of the president and almost none to the structure of the judiciary or the executive branch, leaving these matters to the new Congress.
The document approved on September 17, the Constitution of the United States, was a terse outline of government--seven articles of four thousand words. In framing it, the delegates drew on their accumulated experience and memories of colonial, state, and national politics, their familiarity with English constitutional history and classical civilization, and the political ideas of the Age of Enlightenment. Thirty-nine delegates signed the Constitution; the convention sent it to the Confederation Congress for submission to the states, which were to refer it in turn to ratifying conventions chosen by the people.
James Madison took detailed notes of the convention's debates to educate future generations about the difficulties and challenges of constitution making. Together with convention documents, the notes kept by Madison, John Lansing, Jr., Robert Yates, James McHenry, and other delegates form the basis for the modern understanding of the convention's work. Although these documents had little influence on the workings of the Constitution in its first decades, modern constitutional lawyers use them in preparing arguments about the "original intent" of the Framers.
Bibliography:
Richard B. Bernstein with Kym S. Rice, Are We to Be a Nation? The Making of the Constitution (1987); Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (1911; rev. ed., 4 vols., 1937; supplement, ed., James H. Hutson, 1987); Clinton L. Rossiter, 1787: The Grand Convention (1966).
Author:
Richard B. Bernstein
See also Articles of Confederation; Bill of Rights; Constitution; Electoral College; Ratification of the Constitution.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
Constitutional Convention,
in U.S. history, the 1787 meeting in which the Constitution of the United States was drawn up.
The Road to the Convention
The government adopted by the Thirteen Colonies in America (see Confederation, Articles of, and Continental Congress) soon showed serious faults. Congress, powerless to enforce its legislation, was unable to obtain adequate financial support. Although its achievements were not so inconsiderable as has been commonly thought, Congress was, on the whole, impotent, and federal authority was too weak to be of consequence. The central government also was unable to require fulfillment of any obligations it entered into with foreign nations.
Severe economic troubles produced radical economic and political movements, such as Shays's Rebellion. The monetary schemes of the states brought floods of paper money, which some of the states, notably Rhode Island, attempted to force creditors to accept. The threat to economic stability alarmed the wealthy conservative class; the merchants, who found the state tariffs not to their liking, were also harassed by the impossibility of making stable agreements with the English merchants. They were anxious to have a stronger federal government to guarantee order and property rights. The men who had money invested in Western territories also favored a stronger federal government controlling the territories. Therefore, agitation for the adoption of a stronger union grew steadily in force.
Its advocates were zealous. James Madison and George Washington in Virginia, Alexander Hamilton in New York, and James Wilson (1742–98) and Benjamin Franklin in Pennsylvania all favored some new scheme. The pamphlet of Pelatiah Webster was important, although it has been, perhaps, overemphasized by enthusiasts; feeling for union was general.
It was chiefly through the efforts of Madison that Virginia and Maryland agreed to a conference concerning navigation on the Potomac. The conference met in 1785 at Alexandria and at Mt. Vernon, but it was discovered that no agreements could be reached without the concurrence of Pennsylvania and Delaware. The upshot was the calling of a general convention of the states to discuss commercial problems.
This met at Annapolis in Sept., 1786, but delegates from only five states—Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware—arrived. The delegates therefore announced the calling of a general convention to revise the Articles of Confederation, to meet at Philadelphia in May, 1787. Notice was sent to Congress, but the new convention was launched as an extralegal body; cautious Congressional endorsement came only after five states had already selected their delegates.
The Constitution Emerges
The convention at Philadelphia drew up one of the most influential documents of Western world history, the Constitution of the United States. All the states except Rhode Island sent representatives. The delegates mainly came from the wealthier and more conservative ranks of society and included, besides Washington and the other proponents already mentioned, such leaders as Edmund Randolph, Gouverneur Morris, Robert Morris, William Paterson, Charles Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Abraham Baldwin, Luther Martin, and Roger Sherman.
Washington was elected to preside, and the convention immediately set about drawing up a new scheme of government. However, it found itself faced with a rift: the smaller states wanted to retain their power, and the larger states wanted to have power determined by population. It was agreed that the new Congress should be made an effective body, but as to its composition there was great difference of opinion.
The fundamental question was the apportionment of power in the new government. Edmund Randolph offered a plan known variously as the Randolph, the Virginia, or the Large-State Plan; it provided for a bicameral legislature, with the lower house elected according to population and the upper house elected by the lower. William Paterson offered the New Jersey, or the Small-State, Plan; it provided for equal representation of states in Congress. Neither the large states nor the small states would yield, and for a time it seemed that the convention would founder. Oliver Ellsworth and Roger Sherman put forward a compromise measure that gradually won approval; this provided for a lower house to be elected according to population (the House of Representatives) and an upper house to be chosen by the states (the Senate). This initial compromise defused the threat of a walkout by the small states, and the convention settled down to complete its task.
It was agreed that Congress should have the power to levy direct but not indirect taxes. The matter of counting slaves in the population for figuring representation was settled by a compromise agreement that established that three fifths of the slaves should be counted in apportioning representation; slaves were to be treated as property in assessing taxes. Controversy over abolishing the importation of slaves ended with agreement that the importation should not be forbidden before 1808. There were, naturally, many other points of argument, and some of the delegates were so disgusted that they went home and later led the fight in their states against the ratification of the Constitution.
James Madison was responsible for much of the substance of the Constitution, but the style was the work of Gouverneur Morris. The convention was in session until Sept. 17, 1787, and the document was then sent to the states for ratification. Delaware ratified it first, on Dec. 7 of that year. There were serious struggles in most of the states (see Federalist, The; Federalist party), especially since the convention had obviously gone beyond its mandate merely to amend the Articles of Confederation.
North Carolina and Rhode Island rejected the Constitution, but the majority clause brought the Constitution into force without them by the end of June, 1788, and they were later forced to accept it. The thesis, associated with the name of Charles Austin Beard, that the Constitution was framed solely to further the economic interest of special groups, notably creditors, land speculators, and holders of public securities, has not been generally accepted by historians.
Bibliography
See C. A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (1913, repr. 1960); M. Farrand, The Framing of the Constitution (1913, repr. 1962) and Fathers of the Constitution (1921); C. Van Doren, The Great Rehearsal (1948); M. Jensen, The New Nation (1950, repr. 1962); F. McDonald, We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution (1958, repr. 1962) and The Formation of the American Republic (1967).
History Dictionary:
Constitutional Convention
The gathering that drafted the Constitution of the United States in 1787; all states were invited to send delegates. The convention, meeting in Philadelphia, designed a government with separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches. It established Congress as a lawmaking body with two houses: each state is given two representatives in the Senate, whereas representation in the House of Representatives is based on population.
Wikipedia:
Philadelphia Convention
Historical context
Before the Constitution was drafted, those who came to be known as Federalists and Anti-Federalists both agreed about the government's failure to deal with commerce. Virginia and Maryland had made an effective agreement about navigating the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries and wanted Delaware and Pennsylvania to join. Such an agreement, however, was illegal without the consent of the Confederation.
Deliberations
The constitutional convention was held in the Pennsylvania State House during the hot summer of 1787. The windows were kept shut and guards posted so that others could not hear the discussions. Rhode Island refused to send delegates to the convention.
Virginia plan
The Virginia Plan were the unofficial agenda for the Convention. The Virginia delegation arrived before the other delegations to Philadelphia and began meeting daily to discuss plans for the new government. All but the first resolution was written by James Madison, and was first reported to the Convention by Edmund Randolph.
It included:
- A bicameral legislature (Senate and House of Representatives)
- Both houses' membership determined proportionately
- The lower house was elected by the people of the several states
- The upper house was elected by the lower house out of nominations from state legislatures
- The legislature was very powerful
- An executive was planned, but would exist to ensure the will of the legislature was carried out, and so was chosen by the legislature
- Formation of a judiciary, with life-terms of service
- A Council of Revision consisted of the executive and some of the national judiciary and would have the power to veto and revise national legislation, subject to override
- The national legislature would be able to veto state laws
- Mason disagreed greatly with the majority form of government as can be shown.
Dickinson's plan
John Dickinson also formed a plan. He never formally presented it in its entirety, but his notes reveal his general ideas. Because he owned substantial property in a large state and in a small state, he anticipated the debates over representation. Dickinson proposed a resolution that based representation upon financial contribution. Historians speculate that Dickinson was going to present the rest of his plan if his first resolution was generally accepted. He did not want to follow Hamilton's five hour-long oration, and he fell ill, complaining of a "severe headache," shortly after he planned to present it. Delegates objected to the first resolution on the basis that some states without ports would have no source of revenue and therefore would be taken over in the government by wealthier states. New Jersey was a "cask tapped at both ends" according to Madison, and North Carolina was a "patient bleeding at both arms." His plan was not adopted, but Dickinson supported the final Constitution.
Connecticut Compromise
The Connecticut Compromise, forged by the well liked and respected Roger Sherman was proposed earlier on June 11. Sherman proposed: "That the proportion of suffrage in the 1st. branch should be according to the respective numbers of free inhabitants; and that in the second branch or Senate, each State should have one vote and no more." This was hugely disregarded as too radical at first. Later when neither side would give into the other, they made a compromise, known as "The Great Compromise" following Sherman's plan of having the United States House of Representatives be based on population and in the Senate each state would get an equal amount of Senators.
Slavery
Many questions remained unresolved. Among the most important were thorny issues surrounding slavery. Slaves accounted for about one-fifth of the population in the American colonies. Most of them lived in the Southern colonies, where slaves made up 40 percent of the population. Whether slavery was to be permitted and continued under the new Constitution was a matter of conflict between the North and South, with several Southern states refusing to join the Union if slavery were disallowed. So there was no serious discussion of abolishing slavery.
The most contentious slavery-related problem was the question of whether slaves would be counted as part of the population in determining representation in Congress or considered property not entitled to representation. Delegates from states with large population of slaves argued that slaves should be considered persons in determining representation but as property if the new government were to levy taxes on the states on the basis of population. Delegates from states where slavery had disappeared or almost disappeared argued that slaves should be included in taxation but not in determining representation.
Finally the Three-Fifths Compromise was proposed by delegate James Wilson and eventually adopted by the convention.
Following the Three-Fifths Compromise, another controversy erupted: What should be done about the slave trade, the importing of new slaves into the United States? Ten states had already outlawed it. Many delegates heatedly denounced it. But the three states, Georgia and the two Carolinas, that allowed it threatened to leave the convention if the trade were banned. In effect they postponed the decision on the slave trade because of its contentious nature. The delegates to the Convention did not want its ratification to fail because of the conflict over slavery. Therefore, a special committee worked out another compromise: Congress would have the power to ban the slave trade, but not until at least 20 years had passed (so from January 1, 1808).
Drafting and signing
In late July, the convention appointed a committee to draft a document based on the agreements that had been reached. After another month of discussion and refinement, a second committee, the Committee of Style and Arrangement, headed by Gouverneur Morris, and including Hamilton, William Samuel Johnson, Rufus King, and Madison, produced the final version, which was submitted for signing on September 17. Morris is credited now, as then, as the chief draftsman of the final document, including the stirring preamble.
Not all the delegates were pleased with the results; some left before the ceremony, and three of those remaining refused to sign: Edmund Randolph and George Mason of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts. George Mason demanded a Bill of Rights if he was to support the Constitution. The Bill of Rights was finally added and is considered the final compromise of the Convention. Of the 39 who did sign, probably no one was completely satisfied, but such is the nature of compromise. Their views were ably summed up by Benjamin Franklin, who said, "There are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. ... I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. ... It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies..."
Delegates who attended
The 55 delegates who drafted the Constitution included most of the outstanding leaders, or Founding Fathers, of the new nation. Thomas Jefferson, who was in France during the convention, said, “It is really an assembly of demi-gods.” They represented a wide range of interests, backgrounds, and stations in life, although the vast majority of them were wealthy landowners, and all were white males. There were thirty-two lawyers, eleven merchants, four politicians, two military men, two doctors, two teacher/educators, one inventor, and one farmer. Most delegates to the Convention were Christian -- including Congregationalists, Dutch Reformed, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Quakers, and Roman Catholics -- while a handful were Deists. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams did not attend; they were abroad in Europe, but they wrote home to encourage the delegates. Patrick Henry was also absent, he refused to go for he "smelt a rat in Philadelphia, tending toward the monarchy."
- Connecticut
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- New Hampshire
- New York
- North Carolina
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- No Appointment
- South Carolina
- Virginia
(*) Did not sign the final draft of the U.S. Constitution
See also
- Founding Fathers of the United States
- Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787
- History of the United States
- Constitution Day (United States)
- Timeline of the United States Constitution
- National Constitution Center
External links
- The Constitutional Convention of 1787EDSITEment Lessons
- USConstitution.net - The Constitutional Convention
- The Original Source Documents from The Constitutional Convention
- Founders' Blog - Republishing Madison's notes on the convention 220 years later
- TeachingAmericanHistory.org - The Constitutional Convention
- Transcription from the Report from the Grand Compromise Committee
- National Constitution Center
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Did you mean: Constitutional Convention (organization, United States – in government, history), Philadelphia Civic Center
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 | Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| US History Companion. The Reader's Companion to American History, Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors, published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more |
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| History Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Philadelphia Convention". Read more |
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