Creation of the United States Constitution
Copyright © 2005-6, Henry J. Sage
The Constitution: “The Republican Experiment”
THE ROAD TO PHILADELPHIA
We Americans take the United States Constitution for granted. Unless we have studied the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention and the ratification process, we tend to think that the Constitution was readily and immediately accepted by the American people and state governments, and that the document that went into effect in 1789 was welcomed with a sense of relief and unquestioning loyalty to the national government. While understandable, that notion is far from the truth.
In the first place, many Americans, having just fought a long and bitter war to end tyranny in America, were hesitant to take any steps that might create a new brand of tyranny. The idea of republican government was frightening to some: “I would rather have one tyrant three thousand miles away than three thousand tyrants one mile away,” as one loyalist had put it. The Articles of Confederation were weak, and that was just fine with many Americans.
On the other hand, many Americans, who might have been more farsighted, realized that for the economic progress of the country, its national defense, and to create a spirit of cooperation among the different states, a stronger national government was required. George Washington was one of those whose business interests caused him to believe that cooperation among the states was necessary for economic advancement. One of his ideas was to build a canal through the mountains to the Western territories to make transportation of goods easier. (That idea eventually became the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, remnants of which still exist.) but since the waterways involve traversed more than one state it would be necessary for those states to cooperate in order for the project to go forward.
So Washington held a meeting at Mount Vernon to discuss the matter, and that meeting led to the call for an assembly of representatives of the states to meet at Annapolis in the fall of 1786. Along with Washington the Annapolis meeting was attended by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, who also felt that a stronger national government was necessary. Only about half of the states sent representatives, so nothing definitive was accomplished in Annapolis. But they did agree that the Articles of Confederation needed to be amended, and so they petitioned Congress to call a meeting for that purpose. Congress obliged, and a meeting was called to convene in Philadelphia in May, 1787, for the purpose of amending the Articles. That meeting became the Constitutional Convention.
THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION [See Catherine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia]
The task of amending the Articles of Confederation would have been extremely difficult. For one thing, unanimous consent of all the states was required for any amendment, and that would have been nearly impossible to achieve. So under the leadership of James Madison, who is rightfully called the “father of the Constitution,” the delegates decided to scrap the Articles and start fresh; that task, while not perhaps as difficult as amending the Articles, was nevertheless still extremely challenging.
To begin with, the writing of the Constitution was an arduous process that took from early May until September 17, 1787. It was a long hot summer, and the delegates to the convention came and went, bickered and argued, came close to despairing that they would ever finish the job, but finally arrived at a document which most of them could sign, and which they could forward to the Confederation Congress for further transmittal to the states. The fact that George Washington was president of the Constitutional Convention may in itself have prevented that august gathering from breaking up before the job was done.
The Constitution of the United States was not the first Constitution written in North America. All of the colonies had had written charters, and because they like the idea of having their rights, privileges and government structure put in writing, they wrote State constitutions to replace their charters after independence was declared. Many of the men in Philadelphia who wrote the Constitution of United States had experience in writing their state constitutions or in serving in governments under those constitutions. Thus when they came to Philadelphia they had a broad background of political experience that made their job, difficult as it was, somewhat easier. They also had the benefit of much reading and study, for America was a very literate society in 1787. Newspapers, bookstores and journals abounded, and importation of books from Great Britain and France went on at a constant pace. Most educated Americans also had a background in Blackstone’s “Commentaries on the Law,” Montesquieu’s “The Spirit of the Laws,” and other political documents and histories, going back as far as the Roman republic and the Greek city states.
The Founding Fathers
This “assembly of demigods,” as Jefferson called them (though he was not present, being at the time America's Ambassador to France), managed to put together a document that has been essentially unaltered for over 200 years. Although the 27 amendments to the Constitution have made significant changes, they have not in any respect altered the basic structure or functioning of the government. We know the first 10 amendments as the Bill of Rights. Later amendments ended slavery, created national citizenship, modified electoral procedures and made other relatively minor changes in government related functions. But the basic structure of the government—the president, the Congress, and the courts—has not been altered since 1787. The United States Constitution has not only served this nation well, it has also been the model for other democratic governments throughout the world.
Madison and the Constitution
RATIFICATION: Federalists (pro-Constitution) and Anti-Federalists (opposed to Constitution)
Ratification was a near thing: In Massachusetts, Virginia and New York less than a 5% change in votes out of over 1500 cast would have defeated ratification: unlikely it would have passed a popular vote.
When the Constitution was submitted without comment to the states by the Confederation Congress for their approval or disapproval, a second struggle started, the struggle over ratification. Although several of the smaller states ratified quickly and nearly unanimously in most cases, in three of the most important states, Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts, ratification came perilously close to failure. Ratification passed by a margin of 10 out of over 150 votes in the Virginia convention, by 19 out of over 350 in Massachusetts, and by a vote of 30 to 27 in New York. Ratification in New York was aided greatly by the publication of the famous Federalist papers, written by James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton. These papers were published not only in New York but in other states and may have been the difference between ratification and rejection. They remain one of the most lucid examinations of the nature of republican government in existence.
In Virginia former Governor Patrick Henry railed for seven hours against adoption of the Constitution, claiming that a misstep at that juncture could cost his fellow Virginians their liberties forever. Sam Adams of Massachusetts had trouble with the idea of “We the people,” saying, “When I enter the edifice, I stumble over the threshold.” Both Henry and Adams felt that ultimate sovereignty should reside in the states, not with the people. The problem for them and their fellow “Anti-Federalists” was that the new national government was indeed just that—a national government. The Articles of Confederation had created a federation, a loose structure of relatively independent states. That loose independent structure was taken away by the Constitution and replaced by a strong central government, with a strong executive authority in the person of the president, and the powers allotted to the federal government would have been unthinkable if administered by the king of England.
References:
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History 121 Part 2 | Founding Conventions Project | The U.S. Constitution
Updated August 22, 2005