May 25, 1787 … the Constitutional Convention (although that would only be its name later … at the time it was called the “Federal Convention”) got underway. Most of the delegates had arrived, by that time, from their far-flung states, and May 25th was the first day that they convened in Independence Hall.
At the time, nobody (except perhaps James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington) was thinking about creating a constitution, or even considering “consolidating”. The thought of “consolidation” was horrifying to most, and the thought of an “energetic national government” was even worse. No. No energetic government. The colonies had had quite enough of being bossed around and wanted to be left alone. However, the original Articles of Confederation were seen by most as inadequate for the present circumstances, so the Convention was called to revise the Articles of Confederation. But Washington, Madison, Hamilton – and a couple of other far-seeing gentlemen – saw the need for an even greater revolution, an even more daring task.
One thing to add into this pot, one important piece of context is Shays Rebellion. The Convention began in May, 1787, and Shays Rebellion had raged from the fall of 1786 into the early spring of 1787. So it was still fresh in the memories of all present. Shays Rebellion had left Washington deeply angered, and shaken. He knew that civilization was a fragile construct, easily destroyed. That was the spectre before Washington’s eyes, in terms of Shays Rebellion, and any other future uprising. He was convinced that the Articles of Confederation would not be sufficient to cope. There needed to be a federal government.
Man, it’s so hard to get just how controversial and outrageous those words were seen in the context of the time. But Washington was not alone. Hamilton, Madison … also were in favor of strengthening the central government. The violence of Shays Rebellion was the spark which caused the first rift between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail Adams – good friends up until then. Abigail, in London at the time, was enraged at the Rebellion and she wanted it to be crushed, mercilessly. How dare these people threaten all they had fought for? How DARE they? She wrote a passionate letter to Jefferson about it, expressing her rage, and his response to her contained the now-famous line: “I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.” She quickly withdrew from his friendship, fearful that his view of government would lead the newly free colonies into complete and utter anarchy.
Anyway – the memory of Shays Rebellion was fresh, and vivid to the men who gathered in the Pennsylvania State House, on May 25th, 1787. Most of them knew they were part of a grand experiment, but many of them didn’t know just how much grander and bolder it was about to get. Die-hard patriots, men who had signed the Declaration of Independence, balked at the new idea of this “Constitution”, and a consolidated government – with one man at the head of it. One man?? Hadn’t they all seen what one man could do?
Regardless: today is the day that the Convention began.
I’ll let the marvelous Catherine Drinker-Bowen set the scene (this is from Miracle At Philadelphia
MAY 25TH, 1787
On the twenty-fifth of May, when a quorum was obtained, Washington was unanimously elected president of the Convention and escorted to the chair. From his desk on the raised dais he made a little speech of acceptance, depreciating his ability to give satisfaction in a scene so novel. “When seated,” wrote a member, “he declared that as he never had been in such a situation he felt himself embarrassed, that he hoped his errors, as they would be unintended, would be excused. He lamented his want of qualifications.”…
In the front row near the desk, James Madison sat bowed over his tablet, writing steadily. His eyes were blue, his face ruddy; he did not have the scholar’s pallor. His figure was well-knit and muscular and he carried his clothes with style. Though he usually wore black, he has also been described as handsomely dressed in blue and buff, with ruffles at breast and wrist. Already he was growing bald and brushed his hair down to hide it; he wore a queue and powder. He walked with the quick bouncing step that sometimes characterizes men of remarkable energy.
As a reporter Madison was indefatigable, his notes comprehensive, set down without comment or aside. One marvels that he was able at the same time to take so large a part in the debates. It is true that in old age Madison made some emendations in the record to accord with various disparate notes which later came to light; he has been severely criticized for it. Other members took notes at the Convention: Hamilton, Yates and Lansing of New York, McHenry of Maryland, Paterson of New Jersey, Rufus King of Massachusetts, William Pierce of Georgia, George Mason of Virginia. But most of these memoranda were brief, incomplete; had it not been for Madison we should possess very scanty records of the Convention. His labors, he said later, nearly killed him. “I chose a seat,” he afterward wrote, “in front of the presiding member, with the other members on my right and left hand. In this favorable position for hearing all that passed, I noted in terms legible and in abbreviations and marks intelligble to myself what was read from the Chair or spoken by the members; and losing not a moment unnecessarily between the adjournment and reassembling of the Convention I was enabled to write out my daily notes during the session or within a few finishing days after its close in the extent and form preserved in my own hand on my files … I was not absent a single day, nor more than a casual fraction of an hour in any day, so that I could not have lost a single speech, unless a very short one.”
It was, actually, a tour de force, not to be published — and scarcely seen — until thirty years after the Convention. “Do you know,” wrote Jefferson to John Adams from Monticello in 1815, “that there exists in manuscript the ablest work of this kind ever yet executed, of the debates of the constitutional convention of Philadelphia …? The whole of everything said and done there was taken down by Mr. Madison, with a labor and exactness beyond comprehension.” …
“The State of Georgia, by the grace of God, free, Sovereign and Independent” … On Friday morning, May twenty-fifth, as soon as Washington had finished his little speech of acceptance from the chair, Major Jackson rose to read aloud the credentials — so carefully worked over at home — of the nine states present. It was noticeable that the smallest states spoke out with the loudest voice. Georgia, referred to as “small and trifling” because of her sparse population, announced herself to the Convention with a proud resounding orchestration which left little doubt of her position … “Sovereign and Independent.”
Certain members of the Convention were already heartily sick of the word sovereign. The monster, sovereignty, Washington had called it. The General knew well from what sanction Georgia derived the word. “Each state,” the Articles of Confederation had said, “retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence.” Without such a clause the Confederacy never would have been achieved …
Before the Declaration of Independence, no colony had pretensions to independent sovereignty, nor were the states mentioned by name in the body of that document. Yet from the moment peace had been signed, states flaunted their sovereignty as an excuse to do as they pleased. “Thirteen sovereignties,” Washington had written, “pulling against each other, and all tugging at the foederal head, will soon bring ruin on the whole.”
A General of the Army is not expected to possess so direct and merciless a political eye. Already on May 25, 1787, it looked as if the Federal Convention were to have its fill of sovereignty. The reading aloud of these state credentials was a matter for strict attention; here were signs portent of which way the states were leaning. Madison and Hamilton thought they already knew. Madison had canvassed exhaustively; both men were personally acquainted with many delegates, some of whom had themselves drafted these documents and no doubt would stand by what they had written. Delaware, for instance, whose credentials forbade her deputies to change Article V of the Confederation, giving to each state one vote in Congress and one vote only. Proportional representation was no part of Delaware’s scheme. Should the old rule be altered to voting by population, the small states would be blanketed out. Delaware had come prepared to oppose it.
Small states against large, the planting interests of the South against the mercantile money of the North, the regulation of the Western Territory — these were immediate problems. Not every delegate brought to Philadelphia a comprehension of how thirteen independent states could share a government of tripartite powers: legislative, judicial, executive. James Wilson of Philadelphia understood it and so did Wythe of Virginia. Wilson and Wythe were scholars like Madison. Not only had they acted a part in government bu tthey had thought, red, pondered on the subject; they knew the theory behind the practice. “I am both a citizen of Pennsylvania and of the United States,” Wilson told the Convention.
Time would pass before members realized how far the plans of such men as Madison and Hamilton reached, and what the Constitution promised to be. It would be misleading to name thus early the Constitution’s “enemies”, or to set down this name or that as “against” the Constitution. Five delegates in the end would refuse to sign — Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, Yates and Lansing of New York, George Mason and Edmund Randolph of Virginia — all men of decided views and each with a different reason for his action. More vociferous than any of these would be Luther Martin of Maryland, who, though out of town on private business at the moment of signing, later declared that had he been present he would have given the document his “solemn negative,” even had he “stood single and alone”.
Martin did not arrive at the Convention until nearly a month after it met; for the moment, members were spared his boisterous and interminable harangues. On this first Saturday of a quorum the Convention faced a twofold problem: the theoretic question of what kind of government best suited America — a democracy, a limited monarchy, a republic? — and the practical problem of creating such a government with all its untried component parts. It was good to review, by way of the state credentials, the aims of the Convention as declared by twelve legislatures. Major Jackson’s voice droned on:
“To take into consideration the state of the union … as to trade and other important objects … to render the Foederal Government entirely adeuqate to the actual situation …” When Jackson ceased there was time only to name a committee to prepare standing rules and orders, and to appoint a doorkeeper and messenger. The meeting adjourned for the weekend.
And so endeth May 25th, 1787.
