Constitutional Convention

Constitutional Convention was the assembly of delegates from twelve states that met in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787, to revise the Articles of Confederation and ultimately to draft the United States Constitution. Meeting in the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall)—the same room where the Declaration of Independence had been adopted eleven years earlier—the fifty-five delegates included many of the most prominent political figures of the era: George Washington, who presided over the convention; Benjamin Franklin, its oldest delegate at 81; James Madison, who would become known as the "Father of the Constitution"; and Alexander Hamilton, whose advocacy for a strong national government would shape the final document. The Constitution they produced replaced the weak confederation of states with a federal system featuring separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches, creating the framework of government that continues to this day. The Constitutional Convention represents one of the most consequential political assemblies in human history.

Background and Causes

By the mid-1780s, the inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation had become apparent to many American leaders. The national government lacked the power to tax, depending on requisitions from the states that were frequently ignored. It could not regulate interstate or foreign commerce, leading to trade disputes among states and disadvantageous terms with foreign nations. It had no executive branch to enforce its decisions and no national judiciary to resolve disputes. Each state had one vote in Congress regardless of population, and amendments required unanimous consent of all thirteen states—a nearly impossible threshold. The government that had won independence seemed incapable of governing in peacetime.

Specific crises illustrated these structural weaknesses. Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts (1786-1787), an armed uprising of debt-ridden farmers, demonstrated the national government's inability to assist states facing internal disorder. Interstate disputes over navigation rights on the Potomac River and commercial regulations threatened to fragment the union. Foreign nations, observing American disunity, treated the United States with contempt—Britain refused to evacuate western forts as required by the peace treaty, while Spain closed the Mississippi River to American navigation. The prospect of the American experiment failing prompted nationalists to push for a convention to strengthen the government.

Delegates and Organization

The Annapolis Convention of 1786, called to address interstate commerce issues, produced a report recommending a broader convention to revise the Articles of Confederation. Congress endorsed this recommendation in February 1787, calling for a convention to meet in Philadelphia in May "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation." Twelve states appointed delegates; Rhode Island, suspicious of any plan to strengthen the national government, refused to participate. The seventy-four appointed delegates included governors, congressmen, judges, and veterans of the Revolutionary War; fifty-five actually attended at various points, though the daily attendance averaged only about thirty.

The delegates elected George Washington as president of the convention, a choice that lent credibility to the proceedings and ensured that Washington's prestige would be associated with any resulting document. The convention adopted rules of secrecy, closing its proceedings to the public and forbidding delegates from discussing debates outside the chamber. This secrecy—windows remained shuttered despite the Philadelphia summer heat—allowed delegates to speak freely, change their minds, and compromise without fear of public reaction. The decision proved controversial but essential; the frank debates and shifting positions that produced the Constitution would have been impossible under public scrutiny.

Major Debates and Compromises

The convention quickly exceeded its mandate to revise the Articles, instead undertaking to write an entirely new constitution. Edmund Randolph of Virginia introduced the Virginia Plan, drafted primarily by James Madison, which proposed a strong national government with a bicameral legislature apportioned by population. This plan favored large states and provoked opposition from smaller states, who countered with the New Jersey Plan preserving the existing structure of equal state representation. The deadlock threatened to dissolve the convention until the Great Compromise (or Connecticut Compromise) established a bicameral legislature with proportional representation in the House of Representatives and equal state representation in the Senate.

The question of slavery generated some of the convention's most difficult debates. Southern states sought to count enslaved persons for purposes of representation while not counting them for direct taxation; the Three-Fifths Compromise counted enslaved persons as three-fifths of a person for both purposes. The convention also agreed to prohibit congressional interference with the slave trade until 1808 and to require the return of fugitives from labor—provisions that would haunt the nation until the Civil War. These compromises reflected the political reality that Southern states would not join a union that threatened slavery, but they embedded a fundamental contradiction in a Constitution premised on liberty and equality.

Structure of Government

The Constitution created a government of enumerated powers distributed among three branches. The legislative branch, Congress, received authority to tax, regulate commerce, raise armies, declare war, and make laws "necessary and proper" for executing its powers. The executive branch, headed by a president elected through the Electoral College, would enforce laws, command the military, conduct foreign policy, and appoint judges and other officials with Senate consent. The judicial branch, consisting of a Supreme Court and lower courts established by Congress, would interpret laws and resolve disputes arising under the Constitution. The separation of powers, combined with checks and balances allowing each branch to limit the others, aimed to prevent tyranny while enabling effective government.

The relationship between national and state governments required careful calibration. The Constitution declared itself "the supreme Law of the Land" and prohibited states from coining money, making treaties, or impairing contracts. Yet states retained substantial authority over matters not delegated to the federal government, and the Tenth Amendment would later make this reservation explicit. The federal structure represented a novel solution to the problem of governing a large republic—Montesquieu and other theorists had argued that republics could survive only in small territories, but the Constitution's framers believed that an extended republic with diverse interests could actually protect liberty by preventing any single faction from dominating.

Franklin's Closing Remarks

The Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, by thirty-nine of the forty-two delegates present. Benjamin Franklin, too weak to deliver speeches himself, had a colleague read his remarks urging unanimous support despite reservations any delegate might harbor. Franklin observed that during the long debates he had often looked at the carving of a sun on the back of Washington's chair, wondering whether it was rising or setting: "But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun." This image of the rising sun became one of the most famous anecdotes of American history, symbolizing the hope invested in the new government.

Three delegates present—Edmund Randolph, George Mason of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts—refused to sign, objecting to various provisions including the absence of a bill of rights. Their objections foreshadowed the ratification debates to come. The Constitution required approval by conventions in nine of the thirteen states to take effect, a process that would prove contentious and consequential. The Federalist Papers, written by Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay, defended the Constitution against its critics, while Anti-Federalists raised concerns about centralized power and individual rights. The promise to add a bill of rights helped secure ratification in key states, and the first ten amendments were adopted in 1791.

Legacy

The Constitutional Convention created a government that has endured for over two centuries, surviving civil war, depression, and global conflict while adapting to circumstances its framers could not have imagined. The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times, interpreted by courts in thousands of cases, and debated continuously since its adoption. Independence Hall, where the convention met, became a symbol of American democracy, visited by millions who seek to connect with the origins of constitutional government. The room where delegates debated and compromised during the summer of 1787 has been restored to its period appearance and remains one of the most significant historic sites in the United States.

See Also

• Independence Hall
• Declaration of Independence
• Benjamin Franklin
• Philadelphia as National Capital
• Congress Hall