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.
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."
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."
