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The first amendment, the constitutional convention of 1787: a revolution in government.

by Richard R. Beeman

The United States Constitution has become the primary text of America’s civil religion. As a nation lacking a common religion, “We the People” have come to worship our Constitution as the scripture that holds us together. In virtually all of the public opinion polls conducted on the subject, Americans not only express their reverence for the Constitution, but also their strong opinions about its meaning. Indeed, many Americans—whether Tea Party members, left-wing critics of growing inequality in America, Democrats or Republicans in Congress, and (with particular impact) justices of the United States Supreme Court—feel so passionately about our founding documents that they claim that they and they alone are the true defenders of the ideas expressed in them; and that their opponents are not only mistaken and misguided, but in some cases, downright “un-American.” But in fact, whatever their passion or reverence for America’s Constitution, most Americans lack even a minimal historical understanding of it. (In one recent survey, for example, 71 percent of Americans believed that the phrase “all men are created equal” appeared in the Constitution, not in the Declaration of the Independence. Even more amazing, in another poll, a third of American expressed the belief that the Declaration of Independence was written after the Civil War!)

This brief, introductory essay on the “Interactive Constitution” will focus on the efforts of the fifty-five men who gathered in Philadelphia in the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House (much later to be known as Independence Hall) in the summer of 1787 to draft the four parchment pages of the original Constitution. But it is impossible to begin even a brief essay on the Constitution and the Founding Fathers of 1787 without saying a few words about the document, drafted eleven years earlier, without which Americans could not be engaged in defining the character of their new nation: the Declaration of Independence.     

The Beginning of an “American Identity.”

America’s Declaration of Independence, drafted by the young but rapidly-rising revolutionary leader Thomas Jefferson, and adopted by the revolutionary Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, marks the first attempt by the “united States” of America not only to justify their decision to separate themselves from the Empire of Great Britain, but also to define some of the “unalienable rights” on which their revolutionary action was based. Included in the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence is perhaps the most important statement of American ideals ever articulated:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People  to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.  

Those ideas of the equality of mankind; that governments are based on the consent of the governed; that it is the fundamental obligation of a government to serve the needs of the people it governs; and, indeed, that it is the right of the people to abolish a government that does not serve those ends, has formed the basis of American government and society from that time forward.

As a part of their decision for independence, the “united States” moved forward to create the first written constitutions in the world’s history. Most of those state constitutions, in addition to crafting specific outlines of the way in which their new state governments should function, included “declarations of rights.” These declarations articulated in specific fashion the nature of the “unalienable rights” referred to in the Declaration of Independence—rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right of trial by jury, the right to bear arms in the context of a “citizens militia,” and many, many others. These state constitutions were bold revolutionary experiments, and in many cases, because they were the first time state political leaders sought to write down the way their governments should function, they were far from perfect. But they were an important step forward in the notion that the purpose of governments was to serve the public interest while at the same time protecting individual liberty.  

Shortly thereafter, the thirteen soon-to-be independent states created an “Articles of Confederation.” Although some regard it as America’s first “federal” constitution, in fact, it gave so few powers to the central American government that it was more like a treaty among the thirteen independent states than a constitution for a new nation.  It amounted to little more than a “league of friendship,” in which “each state retain[ed] its sovereignty, freedom, and independence.” Although it gave to the central government substantial responsibilities—including the “common defence, the security of their liberties and their mutual and general welfare”—it denied to the government most of the powers necessary to carry out those responsibilities—including the power to tax and to regulate commerce among the independent states. Moreover, the Articles of Confederation failed to provide for a chief executive capable of giving energy and focus to the new central government.

By the fall of 1786, the combination of a financial crisis suffered by the newly-created confederation government and disorder threatened by dissatisfied farmers in western Massachusetts, led a group of “nationalist” politicians, meeting in Annapolis on September 22, 1786, to propose that the Continental Congress in New York call a “general convention” in Philadelphia. Congress delaying until February 21, 1787, reluctantly agreed to that convention, but limited any change to the mere “revising” of the existing Articles of Confederation. The fifty-five delegates who met in Philadelphia between May 25 and September 17, 1787, would not only reject the Articles of Confederation altogether, but they would produce the first written constitution for any nation in the history of the world.

Those gathered in the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House during the summer of 1787 faced a formidable task. The thirteen “united States” seemed at that moment remarkably disunited. Yet somehow, in the space of slightly less than four months, they managed to pull off an extraordinary accomplishment. The Constitution they drafted has been successful for most of U.S. history in striking the difficult balance between the maintenance of public order and security, on the one hand, and the nurturing and protection of personal liberty, on the other.  And it has brought remarkable stability to one of the most tumultuous forms of political activity: popular democracy. The challenge that all nations in the world have faced not only in drafting a constitution, but also creating a form of government that both provides stability to its nation and sufficient civic responsibility and liberty to its people, is enormous. Indeed, among the more than 150 constitutions presently operating in the world today, few have been as successful in creating that delicate balance between governmental power and personal liberty among the citizens ruled by their government. 

The Launching of a New American Constitution

The remarkable achievement of the fifty-five men gathered in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787 was by no means inevitable.  Looking back on their work that summer, we can identify a few factors that enabled them to achieve their success. Certainly among the most important was the quality of leadership among those most committed to strengthening the American government. The ringleader was the thirty-seven-year-old James Madison. Standing only a few inches over five-feet tall, scrawny, suffering from a combination of poor physical health and hypochondria, and painfully awkward in any public forum, Madison nevertheless possessed a combination of intellect, energy, and political savvy that would mobilize the effort to create an entirely new form of continental union.

Madison was joined in his effort by a group of delegates from Virginia and Pennsylvania who, in a series of meetings before the Convention formally began its business on May 25, combined to concoct a plan not merely to “amend” the Articles of Confederation, but to set the proceedings of the Convention on a far more ambitious course. The first gathering of these reform-minded delegates took place on the evening of May 16, in the home of Benjamin Franklin (where dinner was served in his impressive new dining room along with a “cask of Porter,” which, Franklin reported, received “the most cordial and universal approbation” of all those assembled). The Pennsylvania and Virginia delegates then met frequently during the days leading up to May 25. The presence of Ben Franklin and General George Washington gave the group both dignity and prestige, but it was James Madison, James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania who provided much of the intellectual leadership and who shared a commitment to creating a truly “national” government based on the consent of the people, not the individual states. Together these men would forge a radical new plan, the Virginia Plan, which would shape the course of events during that summer of 1787.  

By seizing the initiative, this small group of nationalist-minded politicians was able to set the terms of debate during the initial stages of the Convention—gearing the discussion toward not whether , but how —a vastly strengthened continental government would be constructed. On May 28, 1787, the state delegations unanimously agreed to a proposal that would prove invaluable in allowing men like Madison, Wilson, and Morris to move their plan forward. Importantly, to prevent the “licentious publication of their proceedings,” the delegates agreed to observe a strict rule of secrecy, with “nothing spoken in the house to be printed or otherwise published or communicated.” In our twenty-first century world, this manner of proceeding on a matter of such monumental importance would be instantly rejected as unacceptably pretentious and undemocratic. But the rule of secrecy gave to delegates the freedom to disagree, sometimes vehemently, on important issues, and to do so without the posturing and pandering to public opinion that so often marks political debate today. And it also gave delegates the freedom to change their minds; on many occasion, after an evening of convivial entertainment with one another, the delegates would return the following morning or even the following week or month, and find ways to reach agreement on issues that had previously divided them.  The rule of secrecy helped make the Constitutional Convention a civil and deliberative body, rather than a partisan one. It helped make compromise an attribute of statesmanship rather than a sign of weakness.

As the details of the Virginia Plan came under discussion, it became clear that it was not a mere revision of the Articles of Confederation, but rather a bold plan for an entirely new kind of government—a government with a vastly more powerful “national” legislature and, unlike the Articles of Confederation,  with a powerful chief executive. It also became immediately clear that, however bold and innovative the plan may have been, there were many delegates in the room who had grave misgivings about some aspects of it. For nearly four months, the delegates attempted to work through, and resolve, their disagreements. The most divisive of those issues—those involving the apportionment of representation in the national legislature, the powers and mode of election of the chief executive, and the place of the institution of slavery in the new continental body politic—would change in fundamental  ways the shape of the document that would eventually emerge on September 17, 1787.

The Founding Fathers and Federalism

The delegates haggled over how to apportion representation in the legislature off and on for more than six weeks between May 30 and July 16. Those from large, populous states such as Virginia and Pennsylvania—supporters of the Virginia Plan—argued that representation in both houses of the proposed new congress should be based on population, while those from smaller states such as New Jersey and Delaware—supporters of the New Jersey Plan—argued for equal representation for each state. The compromise that eventually emerged, one championed most energetically by the delegates from Connecticut, was obvious: representation in the House of Representatives would be apportioned according to population, with each state receiving equal representation in the Senate.  In the final vote on the so-called Connecticut Compromise on July 16, five states supported the proposal; four opposed, including Virginia and Pennsylvania; and one state—Massachusetts—was divided. James Madison and many of his nationalist colleagues were disconsolate, convinced that the compromise would destroy the very character of the national government they hoped to create. But in the end, recognizing the folly of allowing their desire for their “perfect” plan to become the enemy of the good, they acceded to the Connecticut Compromise. And, interestingly, during the subsequent popular vote on ratification of the Constitution in the thirteen states, Madison would use his “defeat” in the controversy over representation to fashion an entirely new definition of federalism. In The Federalist No. 39 he defended the proposed new Constitution against its critics by praising the different modes of representation in the House and Senate—with the House representing the people of the nation at large and the Senate representing the residual sovereignty of the states—as one of the features that made the new government “part national” and “part federal.” No one at that time knew how that new definition of federalism would work in practice, and it would remain a source of contention for the rest of the nation’s history, including today. In this, as in so many areas, the so-called original meaning of the Constitution was not at all self-evident— even to the Framers of the Constitution themselves.

Creating an American President

The debate among the delegates over the nature of the American presidency was more high- toned and more protracted than that over representation in the Congress. At one extreme, nationalists like James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris argued forcefully for a strong, independent executive capable of giving “energy, dispatch, and responsibility” to the government. They urged their fellow delegates to give the president an absolute veto over congressional legislation. At the other end of the spectrum, Roger Sherman, a plainly dressed, plainspoken delegate from Connecticut who would prove to be one of the most influential members of the Convention, spoke for many delegates when he declared that the “Executive magistracy” was “nothing more than an institution for carrying the will of the Legislature into effect.” This led Sherman to the conclusion that the president should be removable from office “at pleasure” any time a majority in the legislature disagreed with him on an important issue. In the end, it was compromise that once again won the day—the delegates agreed to give the President a limited veto power, but one which could be over-ridden by a vote of two-thirds of both houses of Congress.

Most of the delegates initially thought that the executive should be elected by the national legislature; still others thought the executive should be elected by the state legislatures or even by the governors of the states. James Wilson was virtually the only delegate who proposed direct election of the president by the people. He believed that it was only through some form of popular election that the executive branch could be given both energy and independence. But realizing that his idea of popular election of the president was gaining no favor, Wilson proposed a compromise by which the President would be elected by a group of “electors” chosen either by the state legislatures or by the people of their individual states. The delegates didn’t like that proposal any more than they liked his proposal for direct popular election, voting it down overwhelmingly at that point. They voted against some version of the proposal on numerous occasions between early June and early September of 1787, only agreeing to the version contained in our modern Constitution (modified slightly by the Twelfth Amendment) grudgingly and out of a sense of desperation, as the least problematic of the alternatives before them.

It has often been observed that the Framers’ difficulty in deciding how to elect the president was the result of their misgivings about democracy—their fear that the people of the nation could not be trusted to make a wise choice for their chief executive. In fact, it was not so much that America’s Founding Fathers distrusted the inherent intelligence of the people but, rather, that they had a realistic concern about the provincialism of the people of the thirteen “independent” states. America’s vast landscape, the poor state of its communications, and the diversity of its cultural character and economic interests would make it extremely difficult for any single candidate for chief executive to gain a majority of the popular vote. There was one obvious exception to this—General George Washington, sitting in the front of the Assembly Room as President of the Convention—but aside from America’s hero, how could a voter in Georgia know the merits of a candidate in New York, or vice versa? The other obvious solution—election by members of a national Congress whose perspective was likely to be continental rather than provincial—was ultimately rejected because of the problems it created with respect to the doctrine of separation of powers: the president, it was feared, would be overly beholden to, and therefore dependent upon, the Congress for his election. The creation of an electoral college was a middle ground, and while many delegates feared that locally-selected presidential electors would be subject to the same sort of provincial thinking as ordinary citizens, they reluctantly came to the conclusion that it was the best they could do while still preserving an adequate separation of power between the executive and legislative branches. It was a highly imperfect solution to a real problem, but, in the context of the times—perhaps until today—there may well have been no better alternative.

The Founding Fathers and Slavery

The delegates’ commitment to principles of equality as articulated in the Declaration of Independence was, even in the case of free white adult males, a limited one. For example, most of the delegates supported the imposition of property qualifications for voters in their individual states. But nowhere are those limitations more obvious than during the debates relating to the subject of slavery. In 1787, slavery in America was in a state of decline, but it remained a significant part of the social and economic fabric in five of the states represented in the Convention. In their quest for “compromise,” the delegates exacerbated the existing contradiction in their nation regarding the core values of liberty and equality on which America had declared its independence. Indeed, they enshrined the institution of slavery within their new Constitution.

Although neither the word “slave” nor “slavery” is mentioned anywhere in the body of the Constitution, contention over slavery pervaded the Convention’s debates. It was impossible to discuss questions relating to the apportionment of representation without confronting the fact that the slave population of the South—whether conceived of as residents or property—would affect the calculations for representation. The delegates argued about the proper formula for how to “count” slaves through much of the summer. The final resolution of that issue—the Three-Fifths Compromise, a formula by which slaves would be counted as three-fifths of a person in apportioning both representation and taxation—was a purely mechanical and amoral calculation designed to produce harmony among conflicting interests within the Convention. As many disgruntled delegates pointed out, it had little basis either in logic or morality, but in the end, the need for a consensus on the issue, however fragile that compromise might be, outweighed all other considerations.

The debate over the future of the international slave trade was in many respects even more depressing than that which culminated in the Three-Fifths Compromise. Only the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia were determined to continue what most other delegates believed to be an iniquitous trade, yet their insistence that the trade continue for at least another twenty years carried the day. However troubled delegates from the other states may have been, their concern for harmony within the Convention was much stronger than their concern for the fate of those Africans whose lives and labor would be sacrificed by the continuation of the slave trade. Between 1788 and 1808 the number of African slaves imported into the United States exceeded 200,000, only about 50,000 fewer than the total number of slaves imported to America in the preceding 170 years!

Finally, the delegates adopted without dissent a provision requiring that any “Person held to Service or Labour in one State . . . [and] escaping into another, . . . shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.” By means of that tortured language, and without mentioning either the word “slaves” or “slavery,” the delegates made a fugitive-slave clause an integral part of our federal compact. It was the one act of the Convention that not only signaled the delegates’ grudging acceptance of slavery but also made the states that had moved either to abolish or gradually eliminate slavery in the aftermath of the Revolution actively complicit in their support of that institution.

The Absence of a Bill of Rights

On September 12, just five days before the Convention was to adjourn, George Mason, the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, proposed that the nearly-completed draft of the Constitution be “prefaced with a Bill of Rights.” It would, he said, “give great quiet to the people.” But the delegates did not embrace Mason’s proposal; indeed, when the matter was put to a vote, not a single state delegation supported Mason’s proposal. That decision would prove to be one of the most serious mistakes made by the men who drafted the Constitution. When Thomas Jefferson—then serving as ambassador to France—received a copy of the completed Constitution from James Madison, he was unable to contain his unhappiness at the absence of a bill of rights. “The omission of a bill of rights, providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms, for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters,” was, Jefferson wrote in dismay to his friend, a grievous error.

When the final draft of the Constitution was submitted to the people of the states for their approval, the absence of a bill of rights quickly emerged as one of the most serious objections to the proposed plan of union.  If many of the supporters of the Constitution subsequently had not promised that they would quickly work to add a bill of rights to the Constitution once the new government commenced operation, it is likely that the document would have failed to gain the approval of the nine states necessary for its ratification. Fortunately, the First Federal Congress of the new government of the United States fulfilled that promise, and in one of its first actions added that bill of rights, making the “more perfect union” devised by the Framers still more perfect. Ironically, the person who took the lead in drafting a bill of rights in the first Congress was James Madison, who had opposed adding a bill of rights not only during the Convention, but also during the debate over ratification in his state of Virginia.  

Nor was that the only occasion when the American people, acting through their representatives both in Congress and in their states, sought to further perfect the American union. “We the People” have added another seventeen amendments to the Constitution after the addition of the original bill of rights. The United States Constitution, which initially consisted of some 4,500 words on four parchments pages, is now a document with nearly 8,000 words, some of which advance the notion of equality not only for former slaves through the Reconstruction Amendments enacted after the Civil War, but also for women through the Nineteenth Amendment of 1920. 

“Approaching So Near to Perfection”

As the Convention prepared to adjourn, the delegates were hardly of one mind about many of the specifics of the Constitution they had created. But whatever their differences, nearly all of the them, true to their revolutionary heritage, had tried to create a government of limited powers which nevertheless had the requisite “energy” to do all the things promised in the Constitution’s preamble: “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty.” This was a tall order, especially when they were pledging at the same time to create a government that divided power between the states and the nation in such a way as to allay people’s fears of an overbearing central power. As the delegates made their decisions about whether to sign the Constitution on September 17, 1787, there was little certainty among them about how this balancing act would work in practice, but they had at least made a start in creating a framework within which issues of state and national power could be negotiated.

On that final day of the Constitutional Convention, it was left to the Convention’s oldest delegate, eighty-one-year-old Benjamin Franklin, to sum up the nearly four months of debate, disagreement, and occasional outbursts of ill temper that had marked the proceedings of that summer. Franklin observed that whenever “you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?” The wonder of it all, Franklin asserted, was that the delegates had managed to create a system of government “approaching so near to perfection as it does.”

Franklin acknowledged that there were “several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve,” but, he added, “the older I grow the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment and pay more respect to the judgment of others.” Franklin concluded by asking each of his fellow delegates to “doubt a little of his own infallibility” and step forward to sign the Constitution. In that spirit of humility, thirty-nine of the forty-two delegates present on that last day would take that important step forward and, in the process, move America one step forward in achieving a “more perfect Union.” If there is any one lesson that American citizens, and their political representatives, might most profitably learn from the Framers of the Constitution, it is that injunction from the sagacious Dr. Franklin: our own body politic would function more effectively, and with a greater degree of civility, if all of us could occasionally put aside our own sense of “infallibility” and engage in the political process with the same spirit of compromise that guided the Founding Fathers of 1787. 

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What are constitutional conventions?

Constitutional conventions are rules of good political behaviour. They are typically rules of self-restraint, not exercising powers to the full. They usually develop from established constitutional practice, but sometimes are deliberately created; and to count as a convention, they must be generally accepted to be binding. In the UK’s constitutional arrangement, one well-known convention is that the Prime Minister is expected to resign where it is clear that he or she does not command the confidence of the House of Commons and an alternative government does. 

The fact that such rules are non-legal—and so legally unenforceable—does not mean that they lack enforcers, or sanctions; though these will be political, not legal in nature. Nor does this mean they are unimportant, compared to legal rules: on the contrary, conventions play a key role in the British constitution, and in other constitutions as well. They ensure that the constitution operates in accordance with prevailing constitutional values; existing conventions may evolve, and new ones emerge, in line with changing practice and changing attitudes. In this way, significant constitutional change can occur, over time, without any fundamental change in the law. 

Constitutional conventions are at work across all branches of government—legislative, judicial, and executive.  Each embodies a principle of responsible government, or self-restraint: not exercising legal powers to the full; not abusing public power; and respecting the constitutional role and functions of the other branches of government.  Here are examples of some of the main constitutional conventions: 

• The Queen appoints as Prime Minister that person who is most likely to be able to command the confidence of Parliament 
• The Westminster Parliament will not normally legislate on devolved matters save with the consent of the devolved legislature (the Sewel convention) 
• The House of Lords will  normally give a Second Reading  to any government bill (the Salisbury convention) 
• The House of Lords will not  normally veto secondary legislation  
• Ministers are bound by collective responsibility to support government policy, even if privately they disagree 
• Judges will not criticise government policy, and Ministers will not criticise judges for their individual decisions.  

These are just a few of the main conventions.  The  Cabinet Manual  sets out the main constitutional conventions, and the  Ministerial Code  the standards of conduct expected of ministers.  Sharpe  lists 40 parliamentary conventions; the  Guide to Judicial Conduct  contains detailed rules to ensure that judges do not undermine public confidence in the judiciary.  Conventions have increasingly been codified in official guidance of this kind; a few conventions have even been codified in statute.  For example, the Lord Chancellor is now under a  statutory duty  to uphold judicial independence; the Sewel convention was enshrined in the  Scotland Act 2016 .  But in the  Miller  case the Supreme Court held the Sewel convention was still not legally enforceable. 

Political conventions are inherently flexible, and do not always have close or singular definitions. Three of those listed above contain the word ‘normally’. Sharpe’s list of 40 parliamentary conventions mentions six which are now questioned.  As one example, since the 2003 invasion of Iraq there  appeared to be a convention  that the government would not commit troops overseas without a prior debate and vote in Parliament. That was  called into question  when in April 2018 Prime Minister Theresa May authorised airstrikes on Syria. So some conventions are firmer and clearer than others; all conventions can evolve; and when conventions are stress tested at times of political or constitutional crisis, they can evolve quite rapidly.

Related explainers:

• What is a constitution?
• What is the UK Constitution?

Further reading:

• ‘The United Kingdom’ by Robert Hazell in Brian Galligan and Scott Brenton (eds),  Constitutional Conventions in Westminster Systems , Cambridge University Press 2015
• Constitutional Conventions  by Geoffrey Marshall, Oxford University Press 1987 
• 'Parliamentary Conventions'  by Jacqy Sharpe, The Constitution Society 2020
• 'What is the Salisbury Convention and have the Lords broken it over Brexit?'  by David Beamish, The Constitution Unit Blog 2018
• 'The Sewel Convention and Brexit'  by Nicola McEwen, The Constitution Unit Blog 2020

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Public Law for Everyone

by Professor Mark Elliott

1,000 words: Constitutional conventions

When the United Kingdom Parliament wishes to make law by enacting a piece of legislation, three things must normally happen. First, the ‘bill’ (as legislation is known until it is enacted) must be approved by a majority of MPs in the House of Commons. Second, unless a special procedure under the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 is followed, it must be approved by a majority of members of the House of Lords. And, third, it must receive ‘Royal Assent’. As the UK Parliament’s website explains , ‘This is when the Queen formally agrees to make the bill into an Act of Parliament (law).’ But this implies, somewhat surprisingly, that if the Queen does not formally agree to make a bill into an Act of Parliament, it will not become a law — suggesting that the Queen is legally capable of  refusing to approve it.

Law and convention

All of that is true. But it is also highly misleading, because it presents only one part — the legal part — of the constitutional picture. What it leaves out is an equally — perhaps even more — important part of the picture, concerning what are called ‘constitutional conventions’. In one sense, constitutional conventions can be thought of as traditions, but they are much more than that: they tell us what, in fact, usually happens, what should happen, and what is likely to happen.

Take, for instance, the granting of Royal Assent. Although, as a matter of law , the monarch can veto (reject) a bill, royal assent has not in fact been refused since 1708. Constitutional convention helps us to understand this discrepancy between what is possible in legal terms and what actually happens in practice:

• First, constitutional convention describesmore than three hundred years of history: it tells us that no monarch has sought to exploit their legal power to veto legislation in over three centuries. In this sense, convention tells us what has happened.
• Second, convention also has something to say about what should happen. It isn’t merely a historical accident that monarchs happen not to have blocked legislation for over three hundred years. Rather, monarchs have not done so because of an understanding that they should not do so. Viewed from a modern perspective, the reason for this sense of what should — and should not — happen is plain, for it would be fundamentally undemocratic if a hereditary monarch attempted to block a law that had been adopted by the legislature.
• Third, convention tells us what is likely to happen. The sense of constitutional morality that has caused successive kings and queens over hundreds of years to assent to legislation is very likely to continue to exert a powerful influence, causing the monarch to continue to observe this practice by assenting to legislation that has been passed by the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

The upshot, then, is that while monarchs can , as a matter of law , block legislation, the position is very different once matters are viewed through the lens of constitutional convention. Looked at it from that perspective, monarchs have not , should not and will not veto legislation, thanks to the weight of historical precedent and the sense of moral obligation that arises not only from that precedent but also from the powerful constitutional reason — namely, democracy — that tells against monarchical veto of laws approved by Parliament.

Why not leave it all to law?

Of course, all of this invites a fairly obvious question. If constitutional reality is so very different — at least in this instance — from the position described by constitutional law, why not just change the law so that it matches up with reality? Why say, in one breath, that the Queen has the power to veto legislation and then, in the next breath, that she never does this, mustn’t do it and won’t do it? And, stepping back from this specific question, a broader one arises: why rely on constitutional conventions at all — why not make sure that there is constitutional law in place to deal with important constitutional matters? Nor, it’s important to bear in mind, are constitutional conventions limited to this context. They apply to a host of other matters too: it is, for instance, convention, not law, that says that Government Ministers are responsible to Parliament and collectively responsible for Government policy; that the House of Lords should not oppose legislation that implements Government manifesto commitments; and that governs how decisions are made about the formation of new Government following a general election. Why leave such matters to convention?

In trying to arrive at answers to those questions, four overlapping factors are worth considering:

• First, to some extent, it is inevitable that law will end up being supplemented by informal practices or non-legal rules that develop over time. It is impossible (and probably unwise) to legislate for every eventuality, and even in countries with written constitutions, practice, tradition and convention still have their parts to play.
• Second, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ . Given that no monarch has sought to frustrate Parliament by vetoing legislation in over three centuries, it might be thought that there is little point in legislating to take the power away. (On a related note, we might observe, in passing, that there must be very few, if any, laws that are obeyed without exception over such an extraordinarily long period of time!)
• Third, conventions enable a form of constitutional ‘ doublethink ’ — that is, they allow us (in a way) to reconcile two constitutional ideas or values, each of which might be appealing and neither of which we might want to deny. For example, the Royal Assent convention allows us (to an extent, at least) to say both that the monarch has meaningful powers (thus reassuring monarchists that the monarch is not legally irrelevant) and that the UK is a democracy (because in practice an hereditary monarch cannot veto legislation adopted by Parliament). In this way, views of the constitution that are in tension with one another can be reconciled — or at least allowed to peacefully co-exist. 
• Fourth, and finally, conventions reflect what we might call the art of the constitutionally possible . Sometimes, convention is the best that can be offered if we wish to avoid disturbing a legal arrangement that is considered sacrosanct. Again, the Royal Assent convention provides an example. So too does the ‘Sewel convention’ , which says that the UK Parliament will not normally legislate on devolved matters (ie things that the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Senedd, or Welsh Parliament, can legislate on) without the consent of the devolved legislature in question. Here, convention once again attempts to reconcile two apparently irreconcilable constitutional ideas: that, on the one hand, the UK Parliament is sovereign, and can therefore make whatever laws it wishes (even if, in doing so, it rides roughshod over the devolved legislatures) and, on the other hand, that if devolution is to work, and if the devolved institutions are to be accorded proper respect, the UK Parliament cannot simply interfere whenever those institutions do things that it doesn’t agree with.

Is the UK constitution too reliant on conventions?

While some reliance on practice, tradition and convention is, as already noted, inevitable, there is an important question about whether the UK constitution is too reliant in this regard. As the examples given above demonstrate, convention in the UK does not merely fill in the gaps where legal rules are incomplete in some minor respect. Rather, they reflect and give effect to fundamental constitutional principles and arrangements. This means, in turn, that the UK is heavily reliant upon those who are governed by conventions respecting them, bearing in mind that conventions, because they are not laws, cannot (at least in any straightforward way) be enforced in the way that legal rules can be. If politicians and others who are involved in the operation of the constitution are willing to ‘do the right thing’ by respecting conventions and the principles that conventions embody, little difficulty arises. But it is important to recognise that the system assumes our willingness to place a high degree of trust in such people — and it cannot, and should not, be taken for granted that that trust will always be repaid. Another way of putting this is to say that how relaxed we are about leaving important constitutional matters to convention is closely linked to how much trust we think it is sensible to place in politicians and others to behave properly — a matter on which readers will no doubt have their own views.

This post was first published on the Constitutional Law Matters website and is republished here with permission. Other posts in my 1,000 words series can be found via this page .

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U.S. Constitutional Convention Essay

The United States of America created its constitution in the year 1787 during the Philadelphia convention. The constitution was ratified in 1789 by eleven states. The Americans declared independence on 4 th July 1776 which enabled them to raise an army under the command of George Washington.

The Philadelphia convention of 1787 was the one under which the Southern and Northern States reached a compromise concerning the status of the black slaves. This was done to enable effective distribution of taxes, as well as the apportionment of the members of the United States.

The New Jersey and Virginia states presented their plans in view of the constitution convention. The Virginia plan stated that every state should had representation in the government, member who would be the representatives of the population. This plan could give Virginia more representation in the congress since it was the most populated state. The New Jersey plan, on the other hand, proposed that states should be represented by two representatives from each state.

However, this called for great compromise to solve this conflict. The nationalists were soon called the federalists. New Jersey proposed for a purely federal state with equal representation for every state. The controversies that emerged were regarding the bill of rights and slavery.

Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson showed their ideological differences in regard to the nature of the government favored. As far as Hamilton was concerned, his following was majorly composed of urbanites with interests in seaports while Jefferson’s following advocated for the rights of the rural population and the interest of the southern people. There was an internal competition within the independent America with some factions struggling to have a federalist state, while others were looking for a national state.

Hamilton who was a staunch supporter of the central government view argued that it was only through a central government that the citizens could get the economic empowerment. He further asserted that Americans needed credit for commercial activities for the purpose of developing their government.

Thomas Jefferson on the other hand supported a decentralized agrarian republic. He recognized the central government, but argued that it should not be so powerful in other respects. Jefferson thoughts were more inclined towards freedom while Hamilton thought in terms of order.

The United States required both views of these two great philosophers in order to develop economically. When Jefferson was appointed the secretary of state, a new interpretation of the constitution began. Jefferson supported the introduction and improvement of the state rights, while Hamilton was mainly concerned with the national rights of people.

It is important to note that the word slave does not appear in the constitution. However, the constitution provided ample protection for it. The famous three-fifths clause gave the south extra representation in the house. The federal government was given the power to suppress the insurrections of slaves.

Despite this, constitution weakened the institution of slavery. The controversy in regard to the Atlantic slave trade was later on resolved by comprise. A 20 year ban on any restrictions on the Atlantic slave trade was lifted. These measures ensured that the issue of slave trade was put to rest and the acceptance of the slaves as American citizens was set into the path of positive recognition.

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Bibliography

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• New Constitution of USA in 1787
• Constitutional Convention of 1787 and Federalism
• George Mason’s Contribution to the Constitutional Convention of 1787
• American Constitutional Debates in 1787
• The US Constitutional Convention of 1787
• Christopher’s and James Lincoln Collier’s Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787
• Confederation Articles and 1787 Constitution
• Connecticut Compromise of 1787
• U.S. Constitution, 17 September 1787
• Compare and contrast the Virginia and New Jersey plans presented at the Constitutional Convention
• America in the Sixties (1960-1968)
• The Assassination of President Kennedy in 1963
• How Georgia's Political, Social, and Religious History has Played A Role on its Current Citizens
• Cultural Conflicts That Existed in the US in 1975
• The Bunker Hill Monument

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Course: US history   >   Unit 3

• The Articles of Confederation
• What was the Articles of Confederation?
• Shays's Rebellion

The Constitutional Convention

• The US Constitution
• The Federalist Papers
• The Bill of Rights
• Social consequences of revolutionary ideals
• The presidency of George Washington
• Why was George Washington the first president?
• The presidency of John Adams
• Regional attitudes about slavery, 1754-1800
• Continuity and change in American society, 1754-1800
• Creating a nation
• Between May and September 1787, delegates from 12 states convened in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation , which had proven insufficient to cope with the challenges facing the young nation.
• The convention was the site of spirited debate over the size, scope, and structure of the federal government, and its result was the United States Constitution .
• The notorious Three-Fifths Compromise apportioned representation to the southern slaveholding states in a scheme that counted five enslaved men and women as three.

Creating a new government

Drafting the constitution, ratifying the constitution, what do you think.

• See David O. Stewart, The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008).
• For more on Madison, see Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015).
• See Richard Beeman, Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution (New York: Random House, 2010).
• For more, see Gary B. Nash, The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).
• For more, see Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011).

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The Constitutional Convention

During the “critical

Guiding Questions

• To what extent did the Constitutional Convention correct the problems with the Articles of Confederation?
• Who were the delegates to the Constitutional Convention?
• How did the similarities and differences of the Framers affect the drafting of the Constitution?
• Did the Framers make the right compromises at the Constitutional Convention?
• Why is the Executive branch an essential part of government?
• How did the Founders view slavery?
• To what extent did the Framers agree that the Constitution should be ratified? Why?
• Evaluate the similarities and differences of the Framers.
• Speculate how the similarities and differences of the Framers affected the drafting of the Constitution.
• Analyze the compromises made at the Constitutional Convention.
• Compare the Executive power of the Articles of Confederation and the US Constitution.
• Evaluate Madison’s definition of federalism.
• Summarize the arguments for and against slavery.
• Analyze George Mason’s objections to the Constitution.
• Predict how Mason might evaluate the Constitution if he could do so today.

Expand Materials Materials

Teacher Resources:

• Handout B: Bundle of Compromises Answer Key
• The Constitution and Executive Power Activity Handouts D-E Answer Keys
• Handout F: James Madison and Federalism Answer Key
• Slavery and the Founders Activity Handouts H-K Answer Keys

Student Handouts:

• The Constitutional Convention Essay
• Handout A: Meeting the Framers—A Pre-Convention Social

Handout B: Bundle of Compromises

Handout c: the u.s. constitution of 1787, handout d: executive comparison.

• Handout E: Committee of Detail – Executive Power

Handout F: James Madison and Federalism – Excerpts from Federalist No. 39

Handout g: slavery and the founders.

• Handout H: Map — Emancipation in the Early Republic

Handout I: Founders’ Quotes on Slavery

• Handout J: Readers’ Theater – Convention Debate on Slave Trade

Handout K: Mason’s Objections to the Constitution

Expand key terms key terms.

• Constitution
• Articles of Confederation
• Rule of law
• Second Amendment
• Alexis de Tocqueville
• James Madison
• Electoral College
• Inalienable rights
• Alexander Hamilton
• George Washington
• Seventeenth Amendment
• Checks and balances
• Thomas Jefferson
• Benjamin Franklin

Expand Prework Prework

Have students read The Constitutional Convention Essay .

Expand Warmup Warmup

Have the students individually prepare a list of failures of the Articles of Confederation.

Have students share their list with a partner and add ideas to their own list.

Have students share with the whole group and continue to add ideas to their list.

Provide the students with a copy of the excerpt from Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation:

XIII.: Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.

Have the students read Article XIII and participate in a whole group discussion using the following questions:

• What are the most important changes that need to be made to the Articles of Confederation?
• How realistic was the process to amend the Articles?
• Without realistic amendment process, how can the government be fixed?

Inform the students that they will need their lists of problems with the Articles of Confederation after they have completed their activities on the Constitutional Convention.

Explain that during the “critical period” after the American Revolution, many of the Founders recognized the same problems with the Articles of Confederation that the students identified. Thus, a convention was called to “revise the Articles of Confederation.”

Expand Activities Activities

Activity 1: Meeting the Framers [60 minutes]

Provide students with Handout A: Meeting the Framers-a Pre-Convention Social

Assign each student a Framer and have them develop a business card to illustrate his life’s contributions up until the Constitutional Convention.

Have students conduct a simulated pre-convention social getting to know the delegates to the Convention.

Have students participate in a whole group discussion. Create a T-chart to discuss how the Framers were similar and different from each other. Then discuss how their similarities and differences may have affected the drafting of the Constitution.

Activity 2: Bundle of Compromises [40 minutes]

Provide student with Handout B: Bundle of Compromises

Have students research and summarize the compromises using http://teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/themes

• The Great Compromise
• Three-Fifths Compromise
• Commerce Compromise
• Slave Trade Compromise
• The election of the president.

Discuss the main compromises reached in the Constitutional Convention.

Divide the class into groups of 3-4 and have the students further the discussion with the following questions:

• What do the compromises reveal about the differences in the states?
• Is it more important to represent the states or the people?
• What are the consequences of compromising over slavery?
• Why did the Framers decide to give the national government power over commerce? Do you agree with their decision?
• Why do you think the Framers provided for an electoral college instead of election by popular vote? Do you agree with their decision?

Have the students participate in a whole group discussion reporting their ideas from the small group discussion.

Activity 3: The Constitution and Executive Power [40 minutes]

Provide students with Handout C: The U.S. Constitution of 1787 . This document is the version ratified in 1787. Also provide students with Handout D: Executive Comparison

Have students compare the U.S. Constitution to the Articles of Confederation with respect to the presidency and the executive power.

Provide students with Handout E: Committee of Detail – Executive Power .

Have students compare the August 6 draft of the constitution to the Constitution in its final form at the end of the convention, with respect to the executive branch to the Committee on Detail.

Activity 4: James Madison and Federalism [40 minutes]

Provide students with Handout F: James Madison and Federalism – Excerpts from Federalist No. 39

Have students analyze the “partly national, partly federal” nature of the Union.

Discuss Madison’s understanding of federalism as a large group.

Activity 5: Slavery and the Founders [60 minutes]

Provide students with Handout G: Slavery and the Founders , Handout H: Map — Emancipation in the Early Republic , and Handout I: Founders’ Quotes on Slavery .

Have students review the table, found in Handout G: Slavery and the Founders , with the names and states of some leading Framers and Founders who held slaves at some point in their lives.

Have students review the information in the table, on pages 2 and 3 of Document H: Map – Emancipation in the Early Republic , that shows the state-by-state limitations of slavery. Have student then complete the map to identify those states that:

• abolished slavery outright
• implemented gradual emancipation laws
• abolished slavery through the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Have students analyze and summarize the arguments for and against slavery using Handout I: Founders’ Quotes on Slavery .

Provide students with Handout J: Readers’ Theater – Convention Debate on Slave Trade

Have students adapt the script found in Handout J: Readers’ Theater – Convention Debate on Slave Trade , from third to first person.

Have students participate in a readers’ theater, using their adapted scripts, to help them understand the discussions about slavery and the slave trade during the Constitutional Convention.

Have students participate in a discussion on whether the Framers created a pro-slavery Constitution or created a constitution that put slavery on the path to extinction.

Activity 6: Objections to the Constitution [40 minutes]

Provide students with Handout K: Mason’s Objections to the Constitution

Have students analyze Virginian George Mason’s problems with the Constitution found in Handout K: Mason’s Objections to the Constitution .

Have students complete a graphic organizer to analyze the constitutional principles represented in Mason’s objections to the Constitution

Have students participate in a discussion predicting how Mason might evaluate the Constitution if he could do so today.

Expand Wrap Up Wrap Up

Have students review their list of weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation.

Have students participate in a think-pair share- whole group discussion: To what extent did the Constitution solve the problems of the Articles of Confederation?

• Think: students individually brainstorm an answer to the question.
• Pair share: students share their ideas with a partner

Whole group: students discuss with the whole class

Expand Extensions Extensions

Provide students with a copy Article V of the Constitution, the amendments to the Constitution, and a copy of the following excerpt from James Wilson’s State House Speech October 6, 1787

“I will confess indeed, that I am not a blind admirer of this plan of government, and that there are some parts of it, which if my wish had prevailed, would certainly have been altered. But, when I reflect how widely men differ in their opinions, and that every man (and the observation applies likewise to every state) has an equal pretension to assert his own, I am satisfied that anything nearer to perfection could not have been accomplished. If there are errors, it should be remembered, that the seeds of reformation are sown in the work itself, and the concurrence of two thirds of the congress may at any time introduce alterations and amendments. Regarding it then, in every point of view, with a candid and disinterested mind, I am bold to assert, that it is the best form of government which has ever been offered to the world.”

Have students read the State House excerpt and Article V and answer the question: Why was Article V included in the Constitution?

Divide students into groups of 3-4 and have them review the amendments to the Constitution. Students should consider the following questions and be prepared to discuss with the whole class.

• To what extent have amendments to the Constitution affected the structure of the government?
• To what extent have amendments to the Constitution affected the rights of the people?

Have the students participate in a whole group discussion based the following questions:

• Do you think the process outlined in Article V is too difficult? Explain.
• How has Article V affected the government?

Student Handouts

Handout a: meeting the framers – a pre-convention social, handout e: the committee of detail – executive power, handout h: map—emancipation in the early republic, handout j: readers’ theater convention debate on slave trade.

Next Lesson

The Ratification Debate

Related resources.

The Constitutional Convention (LLPH)

What compromises were made at the Constitutional Convention?

Vote With The Delegates

Constitutional Convention

Use this lesson with The Constitutional Convention Narrative and after students have done The Articles of Confederation, 1781 Primary Source activity.

Recording the Constitutional Convention | Dr. Nicholas Cole | BRI’s Constitutional Conversations

What is the Quill Project at Oxford College? Learn more from Dr. Nicholas Cole, Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, University of Oxford and lead on the project.

The American Founding

Introduction to the Constitutional Convention

The Call for a Grand Convention

On May 15, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in  Independence Hall , Philadelphia, issued “A Resolve” to the thirteen colonies: “Adopt such a government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the safety and happiness of their constituents in particular and America in general.” Between 1776 and 1780 each of the thirteen colonies adopted a republican form of government. What emerged was the most extensive documentation of the powers of government and the rights of the people that the world had ever witnessed.

These state constitutions displayed a remarkable uniformity. Seven attached a prefatory Declaration of Rights, and all contained the same civil and criminal rights. Four states decided not to “prefix” a Bill of Rights to their constitutions, but, instead, incorporated the very same natural and traditional rights found in the prefatory declarations. New York incorporated the entire  Declaration of Independence  into its constitution.

The primary purpose of these declarations and bills was to outline the objectives of government: to secure the right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. The government that was chosen to secure these rights was declared universally to be “a republican form of government.” All of the states, except Pennsylvania, embraced a two-chamber legislature, and all, except Massachusetts, installed a weak executive and denied the Governor the power to veto bills of the legislature. All accepted the notion that the legislative branch should be preeminent, but, at the very same time, endorsed the concept that the liberty of the people was in danger from the corruption of the representatives. And this despite the fact that the representatives were installed by the election of the people. Thus, each state constitution embraced the notion of short terms of office for elected representatives along with recall, rotation, and term limits.

The Second Continental Congress also created the first continental-wide system of governance. The  Articles of Confederation  created a nation of pre-existing states rather than a government over individuals. Thus, the very idea of a Bill of Rights was irrelevant because the Articles did not entail a government over individuals. The states were equally represented in the union regardless of size of population, only one branch was needed, normal political activity required the support of super majorities, the union was limited to the powers expressly enumerated, and amendment was required to endow the union with powers that weren’t specifically articulated. Amendments required the unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures. The Articles didn’t come into operation until the early 1780s because of territorial disputes between two states; all of the states were required to “sign on” before the Articles became operative on any one state.

These two directives produced two opposite and rival situations: an early operating, robust and healthy state and local politics and a late arriving, weak and divisive continental arrangement. Several statesmen, especially  George Washington , were concerned that the idea of an American mind that had emerged during the war with Britain was about to disappear and the Articles of Confederation were inadequate to foster the development of an American character. According to Washington, “we have errors to correct.” He argued that the states refused to comply with the articles of peace, the union was unable to regulate interstate commerce, and the states met, but oh so grudgingly, just the minimum interstate standards required by the Articles. Others, especially  James Madison , were concerned that the state legislatures—dominated by what he saw as oppressive, unjust, and overbearing majorities—were passing laws detrimental to the rights of individual conscience and the right to private property. And there was nothing that the union government could do about it because the Articles left matters of religion and commerce to the states. The solution, concluded Madison, was to create an extended republic, in which a variety of opinions, passions, and interests would check and balance each other, supported by a governmental framework that endorsed a separation of powers between the branches of the general government.

Between 1781 and 1785 attempts “to correct these errors” failed to secure the required unanimous consent of the state legislatures. Matters changed, however, in 1786. Following James Madison’s  suggestion of 21 January 1786, the Virginia Legislature invited all the States to discuss ways to reduce interstate conflicts in Annapolis, Maryland. The “commissioners” in attendance at Annapolis during September 1786, chatted about these particular concerns, but suggested that the conversation be both deepened and widened. They endorsed a motion that a “Grand Convention” of all the States meet in Philadelphia the next May 1787 to discuss how to improve the Articles of Confederation.One might well ask, “Who or what authorized the Virginia Legislature to call the Annapolis Convention and who or what authorized the Annapolis Convention to call for a ‘Grand Convention’?” The answer is to be found in the Declaration of Independence: The people have the right to choose the form of government under which they shall live and to install such government as they deem appropriate to secure their liberty, security, and happiness.

The Selection of the Delegates

Madison and Washington agreed that the principles of the Revolution of 1776 were in danger due to a weak continental arrangement and overbearing, unjust, and reckless state legislatures. But how could they take advantage of the opportunity provided by the Annapolis recommendation? How was such a bold proposal to be put into effect?

Madison persuaded the Virginia Legislature to implement the challenge of the Annapolis Convention and invite all the other states to also reconsider the status of the Articles. He also persuaded the Assembly to be the first to elect delegates to the Grand Convention to consider the business “of May next.”

The Virginia Assembly elected 55-year-old revolutionary hero George Washington to head the delegation. “Give me Liberty or give me Death” Patrick Henry declined because “he smelt a rat.” Doctor  James McClurg  was selected even though he had no political experience; James Madison insisted he be present. Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Nelson, colonial heroes and Signers of the Declaration, refused to attend. 34-year-old  Edmund Randolph , the Governor of Virginia, 55-year-old  John Blair , an esteemed Virginia judge, 55-year-old  George Wythe , the first law professor of the United States and Signer of the Declaration, 62-year-old  George Mason , author of the  Virginia Bill of Rights  were all chosen along with five foot tall, 120 pound, 36-year-old James Madison.

FIVE STATES FOLLOWED VIRGINIA’S LEAD.

• New Jersey selected  William Churchill Houston , Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court  David Brearly , 40-year-old Irish immigrant  William Paterson , Governor  William Livingston , known as “the Whipping Post” because of his great height, and 27-year-old  Jonathan Dayton  who after the Convention went exploring and died in what is now Dayton, Ohio.
• Pennsylvania selected eight delegates:  Thomas Mifflin  was elected as the leader of the delegation; he was speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly. Other members selected were  Robert Morris , financier of the Revolution,  George Clymer , signer of the  Declaration ,  Jared Ingersoll  a political reformer who later bestowed on  James Madison  the appellation, “Father of the Constitution,” Irish immigrant  Thomas Fitzsimons , founder of the Bank of America and one of two Catholics at the Convention, 45-year-old  James “The Caledonian” Wilson  from Scotland, 33-year-old peg leg and “rake”  Gouverneur Morris , who spoke more than anyone at the Convention, and 81-year-old  Benjamin “the American Socrates” Franklin  who was added to the delegation as a courtesy. All the delegates from Pennsylvania resided in Philadelphia.
• Former Governor  Alexander Martin  was chosen to lead the North Carolina delegation, but left before the  signing . 29-year-old  William Davie  also left the Convention early. In 1802 he was killed in a duel. 29-year-old  Richard Dobbs Spaight , preacher, essayist, and mathematician Doctor  Hugh Williamson , and land speculator  William Blount ——who later earned the dubious honor of being the first member expelled from the United States Senate——made up the core of the delegation that had a major impact on the course of the debates in July. Howard Christy gives this central signing honors in his  commemoration of the Constitution .
• 54-year-old  George Read  headed the Delaware delegation. Additional members included “corpulent and impetuous”  Gunning Bedford Junior , prudent and educated  John Dickinson , and two quiet thirty-five-year olds:  Jacob Broom  and  Richard Bassett .
• The head of the Georgia delegation was  William Few  who was joined by  Abraham Baldwin ,  William Houstoun , and 49-year-old  William Pierce , one of the poorest attendees in terms of income——thus he has no official portrait——who nevertheless left us rich sketches of the delegates.

So six of the states had taken Virginia’s initiative to form a Grand Convention without waiting for any formal endorsement by the existing government under the Articles of Confederation. Other states, however, were more cautious and wanted the existing Congress to address the legitimacy of such a gathering. On 28 February 1787, the Confederation Congress endorsed the meeting of the Grand Convention on “the second Monday in May next.” Exactly what the Congress authorized became a bone of contention. The recommendatory act of Congress reads thus: A Convention of delegates should meet “for the sole purpose of  revising the articles of Confederation  and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such  alterations and provisions therein  as shall, when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the federal Constitution  adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union. ” (Italics in the original of the version reprinted in  Federalist  40.) Did the Congress limit the Convention to the discussion of specific and particular matters or did the Congress empower the Convention to “run away” and propose whatever alterations the delegates considered were needed to preserve the principles of the Revolution?

New York was the first state to act after the Congressional endorsement. The Governor George Clinton faction of the New York legislature selected State Supreme Court judge  Robert Yates  and  John Lansing  to, in effect, outvote  Alexander Hamilton . The New York delegation was not particularly prominent at the Convention.  Yates  and  Lansing  left in early July, just prior to the passage of the Connecticut Compromise, and the 32-year-old  Hamilton , who lost his life at age 49 in a duel with Aaron Burr, was far more influential in securing the adoption of the  Constitution  in 1788 than in its framing in 1787.

FIVE STATES FOLLOWED NEW YORK’S LEAD.

• In early March, South Carolina, selected  John Rutledge ,  Charles Cotesworth Pinckney ,  Charles Pinckney , and  Pierce Butler  as their delegates; they were pro-national, pro-slavery, and very influential.
• Massachusetts, also in March, selected  Elbridge Gerry , who signed the Declaration, 32-year-old  Rufus King , “backwoods lawyer”  Caleb Strong , and  Nathaniel Gorham , who chaired the Committee of the Whole during the Convention.
• Four days before the Convention began, Connecticut elected three delegates:  William Samuel Johnson , who learned of his appointment to the Presidency of Columbia College on his way to Philadelphia,  Roger Sherman , who signed both the  Declaration  and the  Articles , and 42-year-old  Oliver Ellsworth  who had the reputation of talking to himself and being a chain chewer of snuff.
• Irish immigrant Doctor  James McHenry , after whom Fort McHenry is named, was a leader of the Maryland delegation. He was joined by 60-year-old bachelor,  Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer , 30-year-old  Daniel Carroll —one of two Catholics at the Convention—29-year-old  John F. Mercer , who blew into and out of town during the first week of August, and  Luther Martin , who apparently had a great capacity to consume immense amounts of alcohol, and sober up at a moment’s notice.
• New Hampshire was short of cash so  John Langdon  funded the expenses for himself and  Nicholas Gilman ; they arrived at the Convention on July 23, after the main debate over the Connecticut Compromise was completed and yet just in time for a one-week recess.

Rhode Island, the thirteenth state, declined to send delegates.

Thomas Jefferson characterized the 55 men who showed up in Philadelphia as “demi-gods,” who created a  Constitution  that would last into remote futurity. Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at the work of the American Founders: never before in the history of the world had the leaders of a country declared the existing government to be bankrupt, and the people, after debate, calmly elected delegates who proposed a solution, which, in turn, was debated up and down the country for nearly a year, and not a drop of blood was spilled.  Madison , in  Federalist  37, indicates the uniqueness of the Founding: never before had there been a democratic founding; all previous foundings had been the work of a single founder like Romulus. And Hamilton , in  Federalist  1, suggested that this was a unique event in the history of the world; finally government was going to be established by reflection and choice rather than force and fraud. And what is also unique is the fact that the framers were relatively young, well educated, and politically experienced. Like the  Declaration of Independence , the  Constitution  was written by delegates immersed in 1) the writings of Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, and Montesquieu, and 2) a world of political experience at both the state and continental level. Both basic documents were written in  Independence Hall , Philadelphia, and thirty signers of the  Declaration  in 1776 played a vital part in the creation and adoption of the  Constitution , 1787-1789.

How to Read the Convention

Very few of the delegates selected were present at the appointed time for the meeting of the Grand Convention in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787. All the Virginia delegates were present, however, and fully settled into their accommodations. Washington stayed at Robert Morris’s Town House, and  Madison  secured lodgings across the street at Mrs. House’s Boarding House. During this waiting period, the Virginia delegates caucused with each other in an attempt to set the tone for the deliberations of the Convention and paid courtesy calls on prominent members of Philadelphia society. Some entered a Catholic church for the first time.

On May 25, a quorum of seven states was secured. The first order of business was to elect a President, and  George Washington  was the obvious choice.  William Jackson , yet another immigrant at the Convention, was elected Secretary of the Convention and he recorded the propositions and amendments as well as the vote tabulation.

James Madison  took extensive  Notes  of the proceedings and although some scholars have questioned their authenticity and completeness, they remain the primary source for reproducing the conversations at the Convention. Other delegates kept specific notes on certain days, there are letters back home to friends and loved ones, there are urgent bills sent for immediate payment that augment, and there are personal diaries, some more complete than others. Nothing, however, can compete with, or ever replace,  Madison’s  Notes .

The delegates also agreed that the deliberations would be kept secret. The case in favor of secrecy was that the issues at hand were so important that honest discourse needed to be encouraged and delegates ought to feel free to speak their mind, and change their mind, as they saw fit. Thus, despite the hot summer weather in Philadelphia, and delegates who, on the whole, were rather overweight and hardly “dressed down” for the occasion, the windows were closed and heavy drapes drawn. The merits and demerits of the secrecy rule have been a subject of considerable debate throughout American history.

Act One of the Convention

In  Act One of the Convention ,  Governor Randolph  introduces the fifteen point Virginia Plan at the end of May to “revise the  Articles of Confederation .” The decisive features of this plan are 1) the complete structural exclusion of the states in terms of both election and representation; 2) the complete diminution of the powers of the states and the virtual freedom of Congress to act in those areas for which the states are incompetent; 3) the establishment of an extended national republic with institutional separation of powers and the introduction of the possibility that short terms of office and term limits—standard features of traditional republicanism—will be abandoned. Under the wholly federal  Articles of Confederation , only the states are represented and the central government was restrained to the exercise of expressly delegated powers. And under the state republican constitutions, the governor had very little authority, and the elected representatives were kept under close scrutiny.  Madison's  Virginia Plan introduces a new understanding of federalism and republicanism. This wholly national republican plan is debated, and amended, over the next two weeks, and the main features are adopted by the delegates in mid June over two alternatives: the wholly federal, or state based, New Jersey Plan, that argues that the Virginia Plan goes too far, and the Hamilton Plan that claims the Virginia Plan does not go far enough.  Hamilton , among other things, envisioned a President for life.

Act Two of the Convention

Act Two  portrays the Convention in crisis, in the sense that the delegates were at a stalemate. Far from the wholly national republican Virginia Plan being accepted, as we might very well anticipate when the curtain fell at the end of Act One, the delegates from Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, New York, and  Mr. Martin from Maryland , the defenders of the New Jersey Plan, the old style federalism of the  Articles , and the old fashioned republicanism of the state constitutions insisted on questioning the validity of the Virginia Plan. They argued that the Convention had exceeded the Congressional mandate because the  Articles  had in fact been scrapped rather than revised. Thus the Convention had violated the rule of law. Moreover, the Convention was about to propose a novelty—a large country under one republican form of government—that would never be accepted by the electorate. These delegates knew their Locke and Montesquieu and they relied on their own political experience which was remarkably extensive: republican government could only exist in areas of small extent where the people kept close watch over their representatives.

A breakthrough occurs at the end of June when  Oliver Ellsworth  of Connecticut suggests that we are neither wholly national nor wholly federal but a mixture of both. Several delegates echo this theme and the Convention decides to move beyond the exclusively national or federal paradigms. The Gerry Committee is created to explore the ramifications of this suggestion that the people be represented in the House and the states be represented in the Senate. This recommendation—the Connecticut Compromise—is accepted over  Madison's  objections in mid-July.

Act Three of the Convention

Act Three  focuses on the debates during August over the Committee of Detail Report, especially concerning the itemization of Congressional powers. With the Connecticut Compromise in place, the delegates turned from the question of structure to the question of national and state powers. Under the Virginia Plan, Congress was empowered to do anything the States were incompetent to do. By July, that was no longer acceptable to the delegates. A Committee was created to draft a Constitution—the Committee of Detail—that would address the division of powers between the central and state governments and also the separation of powers between Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court.

Another issue that emerged in Act Three is the  slavery question . What could Congress do and not do to regulate and/or abolish slavery? This is a vital question and deserves special coverage. It is instructive to compare the clause in the Committee of Detail Report of August 6 with the Signed Constitution of September 17. The former forbids Congress from ever regulating the slave trade and prohibits Congress from discouraging the trade by means of a tax or tariff. By contrast the final Constitution, limits the prohibition on Congress until 1808 and permits Congress to discourage the slave trade. In March, 1807, President Jefferson signed into law an Act of Congress prohibiting the slave trade effective January 1, 1808, and during the 1790s Congress took specific steps to discourage the importation of Africans for the purpose of being sold into slavery.

Act Four of the Convention

Act Four  covers the final three weeks of the Convention during the month of September. Despite all the progress that had been made on the structural role of the states and enumerating the powers of Congress, there was much work still to be done on the Presidency. The Brearley Committee came up with the idea of an Electoral College as a sensible compromise to the long and largely fruitless debates on how to elect the President. It had been clear for four months that until the mode of election was settled, no progress could be made on 1) length of term, 2) the issue of re-eligibility, and 3) the powers of the President. The Electoral College was modeled on the Connecticut Compromise: the President would be elected by a combination of people and states.

The Committee of Style wrote the final draft of the Constitution. It included a Preamble and an obligation of contracts clause, both written by  Gouverneur Morris , and an enumeration of the powers of Congress in  Article I, Section 8 . During the last week of the Convention the delegates added a few refinements, raised some serious concerns, and discussed what they agreed to over the four months of deliberations. Mason  expressed the wish that “the plan had been prefaced by a Bill of Rights.”  Elbridge Gerry  supported  Mason's  unsuccessful attempt to attach a Bill of Rights.  Randolph  joined  Mason  and  Gerry  and declared that he too wouldn’t sign the  Constitution . And the delegates wondered whether or not the power to create a national university was implied within the meaning of the necessary and proper clause.

On the last day of the Convention, September 17,  Benjamin Franklin  looked at the chair  occupied by  George Washington  and declared the sun enshrined on the chair to be a rising sun. Many delegates over the four months of deliberation often thought that it was a setting sun.

State:  Virginia

Age at Convention:  55

Date of Birth:  February 22, 1732

Date of Death:  December 14, 1799

Schooling:  Private Tutors, Honorary L.L.D. from Harvard 1776

Occupation:  Planter and Slave Holder, General of the Continental Army, Lending and Investments, Real Estate Land Speculations, Public Security Interests

Prior Political Experience:  Virginia House of Burgesses 1759-1774, Continental Congress 1774-1775, Commander in Chief of Continental Army 1775-1783

Committee Assignments:  President of the Convention

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. He spoke only once near the end of the deliberations, but the record suggests that he had a profound influence on the scope and direction of the discussions. William Pierce stated that “having conducted these States to independence and peace, he now appears to assist in framing a Government to make the People happy. Like Gustavus Vasa, he made be said to be the deliverer of his Country.”

New Government Participation:  He supported ratification of the Constitution by the State of Virginia. He was unanimously elected by the Electoral College as President of the United States (1788 – 1796). He used his Presidential powers to put down the Whisky Rebellion (1794).

Biography from the National Archives:  The eldest of six children from his father’s second marriage, George Washington was born into the landed gentry in 1732 at Wakefield Plantation, VA. Until reaching 16 years of age, he lived there and at other plantations along the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, including the one that later became known as Mount Vernon. His education was rudimentary, probably being obtained from tutors but possibly also from private schools, and he learned surveying. After he lost his father when he was 11 years old, his half-brother Lawrence, who had served in the Royal Navy, acted as his mentor. As a result, the youth acquired an interest in pursuing a naval career, but his mother discouraged him from doing so.

At the age of 16, in 1748, Washington joined a surveying party sent out to the Shenandoah Valley by Lord Fairfax, a land baron. For the next few years, Washington conducted surveys in Virginia and present West Virginia and gained a lifetime interest in the West. In 1751-52 he also accompanied Lawrence on a visit he made to Barbados, West Indies, for health reasons just before his death.

The next year, Washington began his military career when the royal governor appointed him to an adjutantship in the militia, as a major. That same year, as a gubernatorial emissary, accompanied by a guide, he traveled to Fort Le Boeuf, Pennsylvania, in the Ohio River Valley, and delivered to French authorities an ultimatum to cease fortification and settlement in English territory. During the trip, he tried to better British relations with various Indian tribes.

In 1754, winning the rank of lieutenant colonel and then colonel in the militia, Washington led a force that sought to challenge French control of the Ohio River Valley, but met defeat at Fort Necessity, Pennsylvania—an event that helped trigger the French and Indian War (1754-63). Late in 1754, irked by the dilution of his rank because of the pending arrival of British regulars, he resigned his commission. That same year, he leased Mount Vernon, which he was to inherit in 1761.

In 1755, Washington reentered military service with the courtesy title of colonel, as an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock, and barely escaped death when the French defeated the general’s forces in the Battle of the Monongahela, PA. As a reward for his bravery, Washington rewon his colonelcy and command of the Virginia militia forces, charged with defending the colony’s frontier. Because of the shortage of men and equipment, he found the assignment challenging. Late in 1758 or early in 1759, disillusioned over governmental neglect of the militia and irritated at not rising in rank, he resigned and headed back to Mount Vernon.

Washington then wed Martha Dandridge Custis, a wealthy widow and mother of two children. The marriage produced no offspring, but Washington reared those of his wife as his own. During the period 1759-74, he managed his plantations and sat in the Virginia House of Burgesses. He supported the initial protests against British policies; took an active part in the nonimportation movement in Virginia; and, in time, particularly because of his military experience, became a Whig leader.

By the 1770s, relations of the colony with the mother country had become strained. Measured in his behavior but strongly sympathetic to the Whig position and resentful of British restrictions and commercial exploitation, Washington represented Virginia at the First and Second Continental Congresses. In 1775, after the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord, Congress appointed him as commander in chief of the Continental Army. Overcoming severe obstacles, especially in supply, he eventually fashioned a well-trained and disciplined fighting force.

The strategy Washington evolved consisted of continual harassment of British forces while avoiding general actions. Although his troops yielded much ground and lost a number of battles, they persevered even during the dark winters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and Morristown, New Jersey. Finally, with the aid of the French fleet and army, he won a climactic victory at the Battle of Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781.

During the next 2 years, while still commanding the agitated Continental Army, which was underpaid and poorly supplied, Washington denounced proposals that the military take over the government, including one that planned to appoint him as king, but supported army petitions to the Continental Congress for proper compensation. Once the Treaty of Paris (1783) was signed, he resigned his commission and returned once again to Mount Vernon. His wartime financial sacrifices and long absence, as well as generous loans to friends, had severely impaired his extensive fortune, which consisted mainly of his plantations, slaves, and landholdings in the West. At this point, however, he was to have little time to repair his finances, for his retirement was brief.

Dissatisfied with national progress under the Articles of Confederation, Washington advocated a stronger central government. He hosted the Mount Vernon Conference (1785) at his estate after its initial meetings in Alexandria, though he apparently did not directly participate in the discussions. Despite his sympathy with the goals of the Annapolis Convention (1786), he did not attend. But, the following year, encouraged by many of his friends, he presided over the Constitutional Convention, whose success was immeasurably influenced by his presence and dignity. Following ratification of the new instrument of government in 1788, the electoral college unanimously chose him as the first President.

The next year, after a triumphal journey from Mount Vernon to New York City, Washington took the oath of office at Federal Hall. During his two precedent-setting terms, he governed with dignity as well as restraint. He also provided the stability and authority the emergent nation so sorely needed, gave substance to the Constitution, and reconciled competing factions and divergent policies within the government and his administration. Although not averse to exercising presidential power, he respected the role of Congress and did not infringe upon its prerogatives. He also tried to maintain harmony between his Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, whose differences typified evolving party divisions from which Washington kept aloof.

Yet, usually leaning upon Hamilton for advice, Washington supported his plan for the assumption of state debts, concurred in the constitutionality of the bill establishing the Bank of the United States, and favored enactment of tariffs by Congress to provide federal revenue and protect domestic manufacturers.

Washington took various other steps to strengthen governmental authority, including suppression of the Whisky Rebellion (1794). To unify the country, he toured the Northeast in 1789 and the South in 1791. During his tenure, the government moved from New York to Philadelphia in 1790, he superintended planning for relocation to the District of Columbia, and he laid the cornerstone of the Capitol (1793).

In foreign affairs, despite opposition from the Senate, Washington exerted dominance. He fostered United States interests on the North American continent by treaties with Britain and Spain. Yet, until the nation was stronger, he insisted on the maintenance of neutrality. For example, when the French Revolution created war between France and Britain, he ignored the remonstrances of pro-French Jefferson and pro-English Hamilton.

Although many people encouraged Washington to seek a third term, he was weary of politics and refused to do so. In his “Farewell Address” (1796), he urged his countrymen to forswear party spirit and sectional differences and to avoid entanglement in the wars and domestic policies of other nations.

Washington enjoyed only a few years of retirement at Mount Vernon. Even then, demonstrating his continued willingness to make sacrifices for his country in 1798 when the nation was on the verge of war with France he agreed to command the army, though his services were not ultimately required. He died at the age of 67 in 1799. In his will, he emancipated his slaves.

Age at Convention:  36

Date of Birth:  March 16, 1751

Date of Death:  June 28, 1836

Schooling:  College of New Jersey (Princeton) 1771

Occupation:  Politician

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of Virginia 1776, 1783-1786, Upper House of Virginia 1778, Virginia State Constitutional Convention 1776, Confederation Congress 1781- 1783, 1786-1788, Virginia House of Delegates 1784-1786, Annapolis Convention Signer 1786

Committee Assignments:  Third Committee of Representation, Committee of Slave Trade, Committee of Leftovers, Committee of Style

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. He is best known for writing the Virginia Plan and defending the attempt to build a stronger central government. He kept copious notes of the proceedings of the Convention which were made available to the general public upon his death in 1836. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Madison is a character who has long been in public life; and what is very remarkable every Person seems to acknowledge his greatness. He blends together the profound politician, with the Scholar. … The affairs of the United States, he perhaps, has the most correct knowledge of, of any Man in the Union.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the ratification convention of Virginia and supported the ratification of the Constitution. He also coauthored the Federalist Papers. Served as Virginia’s U.S. Representative (1789-1797) where he drafted and debated the First Twelve Amendments to the Constitution; ten of which became the Bill of Rights; author of the Virginia Resolutions which argued that the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were unconstitutional. Served as Secretary of State (1801-1809) Elected President of the United States of America (1809-1817).

Biography from the National Archives:  The oldest of 10 children and a scion of the planter aristocracy, Madison was born in 1751 at Port Conway, King George County, VA, while his mother was visiting her parents. In a few weeks she journeyed back with her newborn son to Montpelier estate, in Orange County, which became his lifelong home. He received his early education from his mother, from tutors, and at a private school. An excellent scholar though frail and sickly in his youth, in 1771 he graduated from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), where he demonstrated special interest in government and the law. But, considering the ministry for a career, he stayed on for a year of postgraduate study in theology.

Back at Montpelier, still undecided on a profession, Madison soon embraced the patriot cause, and state and local politics absorbed much of his time. In 1775 he served on the Orange County committee of safety; the next year at the Virginia convention, which, besides advocating various Revolutionary steps, framed the Virginia constitution; in 1776-77 in the House of Delegates; and in 1778-80 in the Council of State. His ill health precluded any military service.

In 1780 Madison was chosen to represent Virginia in the Continental Congress (1780-83 and 1786-88). Although originally the youngest delegate, he played a major role in the deliberations of that body. Meantime, in the years 1784-86, he had again sat in the Virginia House of Delegates. He was a guiding force behind the Mount Vernon Conference (1785), attended the Annapolis Convention (1786), and was otherwise highly instrumental in the convening of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. He had also written extensively about deficiencies in the Articles of Confederation.

Madison was clearly the preeminent figure at the convention. Some of the delegates favored an authoritarian central government; others, retention of state sovereignty; and most occupied positions in the middle of the two extremes. Madison, who was rarely absent and whose Virginia Plan was in large part the basis of the Constitution, tirelessly advocated a strong government, though many of his proposals were rejected. Despite his poor speaking capabilities, he took the floor more than 150 times, third only after Gouverneur Morris and James Wilson. Madison was also a member of numerous committees, the most important of which were those on postponed matters and style. His journal of the convention is the best single record of the event. He also played a key part in guiding the Constitution through the Continental Congress.

Playing a lead in the ratification process in Virginia, too, Madison defended the document against such powerful opponents as Patrick Henry, George Mason, and Richard Henry Lee. In New York, where Madison was serving in the Continental Congress, he collaborated with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in a series of essays that in 1787-88 appeared in the newspapers and were soon published in book form as The Federalist (1788). This set of essays is a classic of political theory and a lucid exposition of the republican principles that dominated the framing of the Constitution.

In the U.S. House of Representatives (1789-97), Madison helped frame and ensure passage of the Bill of Rights. He also assisted in organizing the executive department and creating a system of federal taxation. As leaders of the opposition to Hamilton’s policies, he and Jefferson founded the Democratic-Republican Party.

In 1794 Madison married a vivacious widow who was 16 years his junior, Dolley Payne Todd, who had a son; they were to raise no children of their own. Madison spent the period 1797-1801 in semiretirement, but in 1798 he wrote the Virginia Resolutions, which attacked the Alien and Sedition Acts. While he served as Secretary of State (1801-9), his wife often served as President Jefferson’s hostess.

In 1809 Madison succeeded Jefferson. Like the first three Presidents, Madison was enmeshed in the ramifications of European wars. Diplomacy had failed to prevent the seizure of U.S. ships, goods, and men on the high seas, and a depression wracked the country. Madison continued to apply diplomatic techniques and economic sanctions, eventually effective to some degree against France. But continued British interference with shipping, as well as other grievances, led to the War of 1812.

The war, for which the young nation was ill prepared, ended in stalemate in December 1814 when the inconclusive Treaty of Ghent which nearly restored prewar conditions, was signed. But, thanks mainly to Andrew Jackson’s spectacular victory at the Battle of New Orleans (Chalmette) in January 1815, most Americans believed they had won. Twice tested, independence had survived, and an ebullient nationalism marked Madison’s last years in office, during which period the Democratic-Republicans held virtually uncontested sway.

In retirement after his second term, Madison managed Montpelier but continued to be active in public affairs. He devoted long hours to editing his journal of the Constitutional Convention, which the government was to publish 4 years after his death. He served as co-chairman of the Virginia constitutional convention of 1829-30 and as rector of the University of Virginia during the period 1826-36. Writing newspaper articles defending the administration of Monroe, he also acted as his foreign policy adviser.

Madison spoke out, too, against the emerging sectional controversy that threatened the existence of the Union. Although a slaveholder all his life, he was active during his later years in the American Colonization Society, whose mission was the resettlement of slaves in Africa.

Madison died at the age of 85 in 1836, survived by his wife and stepson.

Construction of the Pennsylvania State House, later known as Independence Hall, began in 1732 and was completed in 1753. The building has performed many functions, including being the warehouse for the “memorabilia” of the American Founding and the inspiration for the Christy painting in the first half of the twentieth century. The National Park Service, in 1950, decided to return the building to its original appearance in anticipation of the bicentennial of the signing of Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These two signings make Independence Hall the most sacred ground in the political history of the United States.

Americans are the beneficiaries of the concerted efforts, first by the state of Pennsylvania and second by the National Park Service, to restore and revitalize Independence Mall. This historic area is bounded by Race Street on the north, Chestnut Street on the south, Sixth Street on the west, and Fifth Street on the east.

A sort of “dueling architecture” has emerged in this “sacred” area of the American founding. On the south side is Independence Hall and accompanying buildings that have an authentic late Eighteenth Century feel to them. And then there is the new home of the Liberty Bell, the Visitors Center, and finally the National Constitutional Center located on the north side at Fifth Street and Race Street that have a more futuristic tone to them.

There are three Birch paintings of Independence Hall.

The first is called “State-House with a View of Chestnut Street.” This is probably painted from a spot near the current location of the Liberty Bell. Situated to the east of Independence Hall is City Hall which the United States Supreme Court occupied in the 1790s. According to Jacob Hilzheimer, a prominent Pennsylvania politician and Philadelphia resident, there was a tavern right across the street from Independence Hall. According to his diary entry on March 12: “After the House adjourned, about fourteen of us spent the evening at the Tavern opposite the State House.”

The second Birch painting of Independence Hall is on “the other side” of the building. The front side, which is on Chestnut Street between Fifth Street and Sixth Street, is the one usually displayed. But there is this other, and more picturesque, side to Independence Hall that extends between Fifth Street and Sixth Street all the way to Walnut Street. Sometimes this area is called the State House Yard. It was a spot where people would gather to hear speeches, like James Wilson’s famous Statehouse Speech that helped launch the debates over the ratification of the Constitution, or gather to chat about the events of the day. See for example, the clusters of people in the Birch painting including the group of Native Americans who are probably in the capital to discuss the practical implications of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution that bestows on Congress the power to regulate commerce with “the Indian tribes.” This is not the only time that Birch has portrayed Native Americans in Philadelphia.

The third Birch painting is called “State-House Garden, Philadelphia” and it also portrays the rear side of Independence Hall that is away from the hustle and bustle of Chestnut Street. The Birch painting shows a wall that encloses the luscious garden and grounds on the south side. There is, however, an arched entrance to the “naturalistic styled” garden from Walnut Street.

Independence Hall has had a varied history since the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the signing of the Constitution. But it never did revert to its original purpose as the location of the Pennsylvania government. The Pennsylvania government moved elsewhere in 1800.

Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) painted the “noted worthies” or “celebrated personages,” of the American Founding and created his own museum in Philadelphia. He lived and worked at his home on Third and Lombard Streets. Peale, however, moved his “Philadelphia Museum” to the Philosophical Hall area in the 1790s because his collection had become too large to be housed in its original location. But his collection kept growing and by 1802 numbered in excess of 250 paintings. Thus he decided to display his work in the more spacious upper floor of Independence Hall from the early 1800s until 1828 when his family moved it “across the street” upon his death. According to Doris Devine Fenelli, this project to create an independent Peale Museum collapsed and, in 1854, the collection was sold, item-by-item, at auction.

Several of these “museum portraits” were purchased by civic-minded Philadelphians and made available for viewing in Independence Hall in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. The official opening was on George Washington’s birthday in 1855. A lithograph in 1856 by Max Rosenthal, a Polish immigrant who arrived in Philadelphia in 1849, captures the notion of Independence Hall as the first ever National Portrait Gallery. Note the Peale museum portraits hanging on the walls, the William Rush statue of George Washington, and the Liberty Bell, on top of which a bald eagle is perched, all on display to the public.

According to Doris Fenelli, “before and during the Civil War, the Assembly Room of Independence Hall achieved a growing recognition as a shrine to liberty.” The body of Abraham Lincoln lay in state in the Assembly Room. According to John C. Milley, “thousands… queued for twenty-four hours dumbfounded, incensed, at a loss to explain how such a senseless thing could have happened.” Fellini reinforces this point: “In April 1865, more than eighty-five thousand people filed through Independence Hall to pay their last respects to President Abraham Lincoln, whose body lay in state in the Assembly Room for two days.” (See also Charlene Mires,  Independence Hall in American Memory , University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, for a thorough account of the changes that took place inside Independence Hall over two centuries. She refers to the work of Max Rothermal rather than Max Rosenthal.)

In 1872, in anticipation of the centennial celebrations, the city of Philadelphia decreed: “Independence Hall is hereby set apart forever, and appropriated exclusively to receive such furniture and equipments of the room as it originally contained in July 1776, together with the portraits of such men of the revolution as by their presence or action served to give the building its historic renown, and forever endear it to the hearts of patriots.” This decision led to yet another renovation of Independence Hall and, most importantly, “a restoration of the Hall to its original appearance.”

According to Finelli, the initial transformation of Independence Hall from shrine to museum is due in large part to the work of Albert Rosenthal, the son of Max Rosenthal, who with the support of the Independence Board painted several copies of the Founders and had them hung in Independence Hall. According to Finelli, the Rosenthal duplicates raised questions in the art community about the overall authenticity of the other paintings in the collection. During World War I, it was estimated that 118 of the 342 paintings in the Independence Hall collection were Rosenthal copies.

The sesquentennial of the Declaration, the Great Depression, and World War II, actually restored the notion of Independence Hall as shrine rather than a museum. Maybe it could be both shrine and museum. The Historic Sites Act of 1935 authorized the National Park Service to preserve property of “national historical… significance.” Congress named Independence Hall a national historic site in 1943. Independence National Historical Park was created in 1948. These Peale portraits of the founders were, in turn, moved to the Second Bank in 1974. Similarly, the motivation was, no doubt, the forthcoming bicentennial anniversaries in 1976 and 1987.

Age at Convention:  41

Date of Birth:  1746

Date of Death:  July 9, 1823

Schooling:  College of William and Mary 1762, Edinburgh (M.D.) 1770

Occupation:  Doctor, Public Security Interests, Professor of Medicine at College of William and Mary

Prior Political Experience:  None

Committee Assignments:  None

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, departed the Convention July 21, and never returned. He was a staunch ally of Madison during his attendance at the Convention. William Pierce stated that “Mr. McClurg is a learned physician. … He attempted once or twice to speak, but with no great success.”

New Government Participation:  Did not serve in the new government.

Biography from the National Archives:  James McClurg was born near Hampton, Virginia, in 1746. He attended the College of William and Mary and graduated in 1762. McClurg then studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and received his degree in 1770. He pursued postgraduate medical studies in Paris and London and published  Experiments upon the Human Bile and Reflections on the Biliary Secretions  (1772) in London. His work and writings were well-received and respected by the medical community, and his article was translated into several languages. In 1773, McClurg returned to Virginia and served as a surgeon in the state militia during the Revolution.

Before the end of the war, the College of William and Mary appointed McClurg its professor of anatomy and medicine. The same year, 1779, he married Elizabeth Seldon. James McClurg’s reputation continued to grow, and he was regarded as one of the most eminent physicians in Virginia. In 1820 and 1821, he was president of the state medical society.

In addition to his medical practice, McClurg pursued politics. In 1782, James Madison advocated McClurg’s appointment as secretary of foreign affairs for the United States but was unsuccessful. When Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry declined to serve as representatives to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, McClurg was asked to join Virginia’s delegation. In Philadelphia, McClurg advocated a life tenure for the President and argued for the ability of the federal government to override state laws. Even as some at the convention expressed apprehension of the powers allotted to the presidency, McClurg championed greater independence of the executive from the legislative branch. He left the convention in early August, however, and did not sign the Constitution.

James McClurg’s political service did not end with the convention. During George Washington’s administration McClurg served on Virginia’s executive council. He died in Richmond, Virginia, on July 9, 1823.

Age at Convention:  34

Date of Birth:  August 10, 1753

Date of Death:  September 2, 1813

Schooling:  Attended College of William and Mary

Occupation:  Governor of Virginia, Planter and Slave Holder, Lending and Investments, Real Estate and Land Speculation

Prior Political Experience:  Virginia House of Delegates Clerk 1778-1779, Continental Congress 1779-1780, Confederation Congress 1781 – 1782 State Constitutional Convention of Virginia 1776, Governor of Virginia 1786-1789, Attorney General of Virginia 1776-1786, Annapolis Convention Signer 1786

Committee Assignments:  Second Committee of Representation, Committee of Detail, Committee of State Commitments

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. He did not sign the Constitution. He is best known for introducing and defending the Virginia Plan and then declining to sign the Constitution of September 17, 1787. His explanation was that the “Republican propositions” of the Virginia Plan had “much to his regret been widely, and in his opinion, irreconcilably departed from.” He recommended that a Second General Convention be called. William Pierce stated that Mr. Randolph is “a young Gentleman in whom unite all the accomplishments of the Scholar, and the Statesman. He came forward with the postulata, or first principles, on which the Convention acted, he supported them with a force of eloquence and reasoning that did him great honor. He has a most harmonious voice, a fine person and striking manners.” [Editor’s Note: Mr. Pierce left the Convention on July 2 and never returned. Accordingly, he failed to capture Mr. Randolph’s change of mind as a result of the conversations regarding the original Virginia Plan.]

New Government Participation:  Attended the ratification convention of Virginia and supported the ratification of the Constitution, due to the persuasion of James Madison. President Washington nominated and the Senate confirmed him as the Attorney General of the United States (1789-1794). U.S. Secretary of State (1794-1795).

Biography from the National Archives:  On August 10, 1753, Edmund Randolph was born in Tazewell Hall, Williamsburg, Virginia. His parents were Ariana Jenings and John Randolph. Edmund attended the College of William and Mary and continued his education by studying the law under his father’s tutelage.

When the Revolution broke out, father and son followed different paths. John Randolph, a Loyalist, followed the royal governor, Lord Dunmore, to England, in 1775. Edmund then lived with his uncle Peyton Randolph, a prominent figure in Virginia politics. During the war Edmund served as an aide-de-camp to General Washington and also attended the convention that adopted Virginia’s first state constitution in 1776. He was the convention’s youngest member at age 23. Randolph married Elizabeth Nicholas in 1776.

Randolph continued to advance in the political world. He became mayor of Williamsburg and Virginia’s attorney-general. In 1779 he was elected to the Continental Congress, and in November 1786 Randolph became Governor of Virginia. In 1786 he was a delegate to the Annapolis Convention.

Four days after the opening of the federal convention in Philadelphia, on May 29, 1787, Edmund Randolph presented the Virginia Plan for creating a new government. This plan proposed a strong central government composed of three branches, legislative, executive, and judicial, and enabled the legislative to veto state laws and use force against states that failed to fulfill their duties. After many debates and revisions, including striking the section permitting force against a state, the Virginia Plan became in large part the basis of the Constitution.

Though Randolph introduced the highly centralized Virginia Plan, he fluctuated between the Federalist and Antifederalist points of view. He sat on the Committee of Detail that prepared a draft of the Constitution, but by the time the document was adopted, Randolph declined to sign. He felt it was not sufficiently republican, and he was especially wary of creating a one-man executive. He preferred a three-man council since he regarded “a unity in the Executive” to be the “foetus of monarchy.” In a Letter… on the Federal Constitution, dated October 10, 1787, Randolph explained at length his objections to the Constitution. The old Articles of Confederation were inadequate, he agreed, but the proposed new plan of union contained too many flaws. Randolph was a strong advocate of the process of amendment. He feared that if the Constitution were submitted for ratification without leaving the states the opportunity to amend it, the document might be rejected and thus close off any hope of another plan of union. However, he hoped that amendments would be permitted and second convention called to incorporate the changes.

By the time of the Virginia convention for ratification, Randolph supported the Constitution and worked to win his state’s approval of it. He stated his reason for his switch: “The accession of eight states reduced our deliberations to the single question of Union or no Union.”

Under President Washington, Edmund Randolph became Attorney General of the United States. After Thomas Jefferson resigned as Secretary of State, Randolph assumed that post for the years 1794-95. During the Jefferson-Hamilton conflict he tried to remain unaligned. After retiring from politics in 1795, Randolph resumed his law practice and was regarded as a leading figure in the legal community. During his retirement he wrote a history of Virginia. When Aaron Burr went on trial for treason in 1807, Edmund Randolph acted as his senior counsel. In 1813, at age 60 and suffering from paralysis, Randolph died while visiting Nathaniel Burwell at Carter Hall. His body is buried in the graveyard of the nearby chapel.

Date of Birth:  1732

Date of Death:  September 12, 1800

Schooling:  College of William and Mary, Graduated Law Middle Temple

Occupation:  Judge, Lawyer, Public Security Interests

Prior Political Experience:  Virginia House of Burgesses (Representative of William and Mary) 1766-1770, Clerk of Colony’s Council 1770-1775, State Upper House of Virginia 1776-1777, Virginia State Constitutional Convention 1776, Virginia General Court Judge 1778, Virginia High Court of Chancery 1780, Virginia Privy Council 1776-1778

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. He was a staunch ally of James Madison at the Convention. William Pierce stated that “he is one of the Judges of the Supreme Court in Virginia, and acknowledged to have a very extensive knowledge of the Laws.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the Virginia ratifying convention and supported the ratification of the Constitution. President Washington nominated Blair and the Senate confirmed him as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1789 – 1796).

Biography from the National Archives:  Scion of a prominent Virginia family, Blair was born at Williamsburg in 1732. He was the son of John Blair, a colonial official and nephew of James Blair, founder and first president of the College of William and Mary. Signer Blair graduated from that institution and studied law at London’s Middle Temple. Thereafter, he practiced at Williamsburg. In the years 1766-70 he sat in the Virginia House of Burgesses as the representative of William and Mary. From 1770 to 1775 he held the position of clerk of the colony’s council.

An active patriot, Blair signed the Virginia Association of June 22, 1770, which pledged to abandon importation of British goods until the Townshend Duties were repealed. He also underwrote the Association of May 27, 1774, calling for a meeting of the colonies in a Continental Congress and supporting the Bostonians. He took part in the Virginia constitutional convention (1776), at which he sat on the committee that framed a declaration of rights as well as the plan for a new government. He next served on the Privy Council (1776-78). In the latter year, the legislature elected him as a judge of the General Court, and he soon took over the chief justiceship. In 1780 he won election to Virginia’s high chancery court, where his colleague was George Wythe.

Blair attended the Constitutional Convention religiously but never spoke or served on a committee. He usually sided with the position of the Virginia delegation. And, in the commonwealth ratifying convention, Blair helped win backing for the new framework of government.

In 1789 Washington named Blair as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, where he helped decide many important cases. Resigning that post in 1796, he spent his remaining years in Williamsburg. A widower, his wife (born Jean Balfour) having died in 1792, he lived quietly until he succumbed in 1800. He was 68 years old. His tomb is in the graveyard of Bruton Parish Church.

George Wythe (1726-1806) was born in Elizabeth County (Hampton) Virginia to a wealthy agricultural family. He died in Richmond probably poisoned with arsenic by his heir, George Sweeney. His grave is located in the yard of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond. He married in 1747, but his wife died in 1748. He remarried in 1755 and fathered one child who died in infancy. He inherited the family farm on the death of his brother in 1755.

Wythe’s father died when he was three, but his mother tutored him in the classics His mother died when he was still a teenager. George attended the college of William and Mary but, due to financial reasons, dropped out and studied at a law office in Spotsylvania. He was admitted to the bar in Spotsylvania County in 1746, at the age of 20.

He was appointed clerk to the Committee which formed the rules of conduct and elections in the House of Burgesses in 1747. In 1753 the Royal Governor of Virginia made him Attorney General. In 1755 Wythe was elected to represent Williamsburg in the House of Burgesses and served there until 1775. In 1764 Wythe drafted a remonstrance for the House in anticipation of Britain passing the Stamp Act.

In 1761 he was elected to the Board of Visitors at the College of William and Mary. Eight years later, he became America’s first Professor of Law a position he held until 1789. His students included Thomas Jefferson , Henry Clay, James Monroe, and John Marshall. He taught for twenty years and admitted to no greater love than that of forming young minds.

In 1775 Wythe was elected to the Second Continental Congress to replace George Washington who had become commander of the continental army. In June 1776 he returned to Virginia to help draft the new state Constitution and was thus absent on July 4 and August 2. He signed the Declaration in September in a space reserved for him at the top of the Virginia column.

He was elected Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1777 and in 1778 became one of the three Chancellors of the State of Virginia and served in that position for the rest of his life.

In 1787 he was chosen as one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention but left in early June due to his wife’s ill health. He served with Alexander Hamilton and Charles Pinckney on the committee that proposed the rules of procedure for the Convention. Fellow delegate William Pierce considered Wythe “one of the most learned legal characters of the present age and known for his “exemplary life.” He attended the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1788 where he supported ratification.

Wythe was revered as a man on great honor and integrity. In his will, Wythe left his large book collection to Thomas Jefferson which Jefferson later sold to create the  Library of Congress . Jefferson praised Wythe as “my ancient master, my earliest and best friend, and to him I am indebted for first impressions which have [been] the most salutary on the course of my life.” He also freed his slaves in his will and made provisions for their support until they could earn a living for themselves. In 1785, Jefferson assured English abolitionist Richard Price  that Wythe’s sentiments against slavery were unequivocal.

Age at Convention:  62

Date of Birth:  December 11,1725

Date of Death:  October 7, 1792

Schooling:  Personal tutors

Occupation:  Planter and Slave Holder, Lending and Investments, Real Estate Land Speculation, Public Security Investments, Land owner

Prior Political Experience:  Author of Virginia Bill of Rights, State Lower House of Virginia 1776-1780, 1786-1787, Virginia State Constitutional Convention 1776

Committee Assignments:  First Committee of Representation, Committee of Assumption of State Debts, Committee of Trade, Chairman Committee of Economy, Frugality, and Manufactures

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution, however he did not sign the Constitution. Initially Mason advocated a stronger central government but withdrew his support toward the end of the deliberations. He argued that the Constitution inadequately represented the interests of the people and the States and that the new government will “produce a monarchy, or a corrupt, tyrannical aristocracy.” William Pierce stated that “he is able and convincing in debate, steady and firm in his principles, and undoubtedly one of the best politicians in America.” He kept notes of the debates at the Convention.

New Government Participation:  He attended the ratification convention of Virginia where he opposed the ratification of the Constitution. Did not serve in the new Federal Government.

Biography from the National Archives:  In 1725 George Mason was born to George and Ann Thomson Mason. When the boy was 10 years old his father died, and young George’s upbringing was left in the care of his uncle, John Mercer. The future jurist’s education was profoundly shaped by the contents of his uncle’s 1500-volume library, one-third of which concerned the law.

Mason established himself as an important figure in his community. As owner of Gunston Hall he was one of the richest planters in Virginia. In 1750 he married Anne Eilbeck, and in 23 years of marriage they had five sons and four daughters. In 1752 he acquired an interest in the Ohio Company, an organization that speculated in western lands. When the crown revoked the company’s rights in 1773, Mason, the company’s treasurer, wrote his first major state paper, Extracts from the Virginia Charters, with Some Remarks upon Them.

During these years Mason also pursued his political interests. He was a justice of the Fairfax County court, and between 1754 and 1779 Mason was a trustee of the city of Alexandria. In 1759 he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. When the Stamp Act of 1765 aroused outrage in the colonies, George Mason wrote an open letter explaining the colonists’ position to a committee of London merchants to enlist their support.

In 1774 Mason again was in the forefront of political events when he assisted in drawing up the Fairfax Resolves, a document that outlined the colonists’ constitutional grounds for their objections to the Boston Port Act. Virginia’s Declaration of Rights, framed by Mason in 1776, was widely copied in other colonies, served as a model for Jefferson in the first part of the Declaration of Independence, and was the basis for the federal Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

The years between 1776 and 1780 were filled with great legislative activity. The establishment of a government independent of Great Britain required the abilities of persons such as George Mason. He supported the disestablishment of the church and was active in the organization of military affairs, especially in the West. The influence of his early work, Extracts from the Virginia Charters, is seen in the 1783 peace treaty with Great Britain, which fixed the Anglo-American boundary at the Great Lakes instead of the Ohio River. After independence, Mason drew up the plan for Virginia’s cession of its western lands to the United States.

By the early 1780s, however, Mason grew disgusted with the conduct of public affairs and retired. He married his second wife, Sarah Brent, in 1780. In 1785 he attended the Mount Vernon meeting that was a prelude to the Annapolis convention of 1786, but, though appointed, he did not go to Annapolis.

At Philadelphia in 1787 Mason was one of the five most frequent speakers at the Constitutional Convention. He exerted great influence, but during the last two weeks of the convention he decided not to sign the document.

Mason’s refusal prompts some surprise, especially since his name is so closely linked with constitutionalism. He explained his reasons at length, citing the absence of a declaration of rights as his primary concern. He then discussed the provisions of the Constitution point by point, beginning with the House of Representatives. The House he criticized as not truly representative of the nation, the Senate as too powerful. He also claimed that the power of the federal judiciary would destroy the state judiciaries, render justice unattainable, and enable the rich to oppress and ruin the poor. These fears led Mason to conclude that the new government was destined to either become a monarchy or fall into the hands of a corrupt, oppressive aristocracy.

Two of Mason’s greatest concerns were incorporated into the Constitution. The Bill of Rights answered his primary objection, and the 11th amendment addressed his call for strictures on the judiciary.

Throughout his career Mason was guided by his belief in the rule of reason and in the centrality of the natural rights of man. He approached problems coolly, rationally, and impersonally. In recognition of his accomplishments and dedication to the principles of the Age of Reason, Mason has been called the American manifestation of the Enlightenment. Mason died on October 7, 1792, and was buried on the grounds of Gunston Hall.

State:  New Jersey (Born in South Carolina)

Date of Death:  August 12, 1788

Schooling:  College of New Jersey (Princeton) 1768, M.A 1771

Occupation:  Educator

Prior Political Experience:  Continental Congress 1775-1776 New Jersey State Legislature 1777-1778, State Judiciary Clerk for New Jersey Supreme Court 1781-1788, Receiver of County Taxes 1782-1785, Confederation Congress 1784-1785

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, was only present May 31 and June 1, and was absent for the duration of the Convention due to illness.

New Government Participation:  Died before the new government was installed.

Biography from the National Archives:  William Houston was born about 1746 to Margaret and Archibald Houston. He attended the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) and graduated in 1768 and became master of the college grammar school and then its tutor. In 1771 he was appointed professor of mathematics and natural philosophy.

From 1775 to 1776 Houston was deputy secretary of the Continental Congress. He also saw active military service in 1776 and 1777 when, as captain of the foot militia of Somerset County, he engaged in action around Princeton. During the Revolution, Houston also served in the New Jersey Assembly (1777) and the New Jersey Council of Safety (1778). In 1779 he was once again elected to the Continental Congress, where he worked mainly in the areas of supply and finance. In addition to serving in Congress, Houston remained active in the affairs of the College of New Jersey and also found time to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1781 and won the appointment of clerk of the New Jersey Supreme Court in the same year. Houston resigned from the college in 1783 and concentrated on his Trenton law practice. He represented New Jersey in Congress once again in 1784 and 1785.

Houston represented New Jersey at both the Annapolis and Philadelphia conventions. Though illness forced him to leave after 1 week, he did serve on a committee to consider the distribution of seats in the lower house. Houston did not sign the Constitution, but he signed the report to the New Jersey legislature.

On August 12, 1788, William Houston succumbed to tuberculosis and died in Frankford, PA., leaving his wife Jane, two daughters, and two sons. His body was laid to rest in the Second Presbyterian Churchyard in Philadelphia.

State:  New Jersey

Age at Convention:  42

Date of Birth:  June 11, 1745

Date of Death:  August 16, 1790

Schooling:  Attended College of New Jersey (Princeton), Did not Graduate. Honorary MA, College of New Jersey, 1781.

Occupation:  Public Security and Interests, Lawyer, Chief Justice New Jersey Supreme Court

Prior Political Experience:  State Constitution of New Jersey 1776, Chief Justice of New Jersey 1779-1789

Committee Assignments:  Third Committee of Representation, Chairman of the Committee of Leftovers (Often referred to as the Brearly Committee)

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, and except for two days, June 28 and July 5, was present through the signing of the Constitution. As chair of the Committee of Leftovers he was instrumental in creation of the Electoral College. William Pierce stated that “as an Orator he has little to boast of, but as a Man he has every virtue to recommend him.”

New Government Participation:  He was the chief presiding officer at the New Jersey ratifying convention, where he supported the ratification of the Constitution. President Washington nominated and the Senate confirmed Brearly as a Federal District Judge in 1789, he served in this position until his death in 1790.

Biography from the National Archives:  Brearly (Brearley) was descended from a Yorkshire, England, family, one of whose members migrated to New Jersey around 1680. Signer Brearly was born in 1745 at Spring Grove near Trenton, was reared in the area, and attended but did not graduate from the nearby College of New Jersey (later Princeton). He chose law as a career and originally practiced at Allentown, NJ. About 1767 he married Elizabeth Mullen.

Brearly avidly backed the Revolutionary cause. The British arrested him for high treason, but a group of patriots freed him. In 1776 he took part in the convention that drew up the state constitution. During the War for Independence, he rose from a captain to a colonel in the militia.

In 1779 Brearly was elected as chief justice of the New Jersey supreme court, a position he held until 1789. He presided over the precedent-setting case of  Holmes v. Walton . His decision, rendered in 1780, represented an early expression of the principle of judicial review. The next year, the College of New Jersey bestowed an honorary M.A. degree on him.

Brearly was 42 years of age when he participated in the Constitutional Convention. Although he did not rank among the leaders, he attended the sessions regularly. A follower of Paterson, who introduced the New Jersey Plan, Brearly opposed proportional representation of the states and favored one vote for each of them in Congress. He also chaired the Committee on Postponed Matters.

Brearly’s subsequent career was short, for he had only 3 years to live. He presided at the New Jersey convention that ratified the Constitution in 1788, and served as a presidential elector in 1789. That same year, President Washington appointed him as a federal district judge, and he served in that capacity until his death.

When free from his judicial duties, Brearly devoted much energy to lodge and church affairs. He was one of the leading members of the Masonic Order in New Jersey, as well as state vice president of the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of former officers of the Revolutionary War. In addition, he served as a delegate to the Episcopal General Conference (1786) and helped write the church’s prayer book. In 1783, following the death of his first wife, he married Elizabeth Higbee.

Brearly died in Trenton at the age of 45 in 1790. He was buried there at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church.

State:  New Jersey (Born in Ireland, immigrated 1747)

Date of Birth:  December 24, 1745

Date of Death:  September 9, 1806

Schooling:  College of New Jersey (Princeton) 1763

Occupation:  Lawyer

Prior Political Experience:  Delegate to the Annapolis Convention 1786, Attorney General for New Jersey 1776-1783, State Upper House of New Jersey Legislature 1776-1777, Provincial Congress 1775-1776, New Jersey State Constitutional Convention 1776, Legislative Counsel 1776-1777, Counsel of Safety 1777, Elected to Continental Congress 1780 but did not accept.

Committee Assignments:  First Committee of Representation

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, departed August 6 but returned to sign the Constitution on September 17. He is best remembered for introducing the New Jersey Plan and arguing that the delegates had exceeded their authority. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Patterson is one of those kind of Men whose powers break in upon you, and create wonder and astonishment.”

New Government Participation:  Served in the U.S. Senate for the State of New Jersey (1789 – 1790), served as an Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court (1793 – 1806).

Biography from the National Archives:  William Paterson (Patterson) was born in County Antrim, Ireland, in 1745. When he was almost 2 years of age, his family emigrated to America, disembarking at New Castle, DE. While the father traveled about the country, apparently selling tinware, the family lived in New London, other places in Connecticut, and in Trenton, NJ. In 1750 he settled in Princeton, NJ. There, he became a merchant and manufacturer of tin goods. His prosperity enabled William to attend local private schools and the College of New Jersey (later Princeton). He took a B.A. in 1763 and an M.A. 3 years later.

Meantime, Paterson had studied law in the city of Princeton under Richard Stockton, who later was to sign the Declaration of Independence, and near the end of the decade began practicing at New Bromley, in Hunterdon County. Before long, he moved to South Branch, in Somerset County, and then in 1779 relocated near New Brunswick at Raritan estate.

When the War for Independence broke out, Paterson joined the vanguard of the New Jersey patriots. He served in the provincial congress (1775-76), the constitutional convention (1776), legislative council (1776-77), and council of safety (1777). During the last year, he also held a militia commission. From 1776 to 1783 he was attorney general of New Jersey, a task that occupied so much of his time that it prevented him from accepting election to the Continental Congress in 1780. Meantime, the year before, he had married Cornelia Bell, by whom he had three children before her death in 1783. Two years later, he took a new bride, Euphemia White, but it is not known whether or not they had children.

From 1783, when he moved into the city of New Brunswick, until 1787, Paterson devoted his energies to the law and stayed out of the public limelight. Then he was chosen to represent New Jersey at the Constitutional Convention, which he attended only until late July. Until then, he took notes of the proceedings. More importantly, he figured prominently because of his advocacy and coauthorship of the New Jersey, or Paterson, Plan, which asserted the rights of the small states against the large. He apparently returned to the convention only to sign the final document. After supporting its ratification in New Jersey, he began a career in the new government.

In 1789 Paterson was elected to the U.S. Senate (1789-90), where he played a pivotal role in drafting the Judiciary Act of 1789. His next position was governor of his state (1790-93). During this time, he began work on the volume later published as Laws of the State of New Jersey (1800) and began to revise the rules and practices of the chancery and common law courts.

During the years 1793-1806, Paterson served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Riding the grueling circuit to which federal judges were subjected in those days and sitting with the full Court, he presided over a number of major trials.

In September 1806, his health failing, the 60-year-old Paterson embarked on a journey to Ballston Spa, NY, for a cure but died en route at Albany in the home of his daughter, who had married Stephen Van Rensselaer. Paterson was at first laid to rest in the nearby Van Rensselaer manor house family vault, but later his body was apparently moved to the Albany Rural Cemetery, Menands, NY.

State:  New Jersey (Born in New York)

Age at Convention:  63

Date of Birth:  November 30, 1723

Date of Death:  July 25, 1790

Schooling:  Yale 1741, Yale Honorary LLD 1788

Occupation:  Public Security Interests, Lawyer, Governor of New Jersey

Prior Political Experience:  Chairman of the Committee of Assumption of State Debts, Chairman of the Committee of Slave Trade, Economy, Frugality and Manufactures Committee

Committee Assignments:  Chairman of the Committee of Assumption of State Debts, Chairman of the Committee of Slave Trade, Economy, Frugality and Manufactures Committee

Convention Contributions:  Arrived June 5, was absent from July 5 to July 24, and was present through the signing of the Constitution. James Madison stated that “he did not take an active part in the debates; but he was placed on important Committees, where it may be presumed that he had an agency and a due influence.” William Pierce stated that “Governor Livingston is confessedly a Man of the first rate talent, but he appears to me rather to indulge a sportiveness of wit, than a strength of wit.”

New Government Participation:  He approved of the Constitution and of the ratification of it by New Jersey. He did not hold a position in the new Government.

Biography from the  National Archives :  Livingston was born in 1723 at Albany, NY. His maternal grandmother reared him until he was 14, and he then spent a year with a missionary among the Mohawk Indians. He attended Yale and graduated in 1741.

Rejecting his family’s hope that he would enter the fur trade at Albany or mercantile pursuits in New York City, young Livingston chose to pursue a career in law at the latter place. Before he completed his legal studies, in 1745 he married Susanna French, daughter of a well-to-do New Jersey landowner. She was to bear 13 children.

Three years later, Livingston was admitted to the bar and quickly gained a reputation as the supporter of popular causes against the more conservative factions in the city. Associated with the Calvinists in religion, he opposed the dominant Anglican leaders in the colony and wielded a sharply satirical pen in verses and broadsides. Livingston attacked the Anglican attempt to charter and control King’s College (later Columbia College and University) and the dominant De Lancey party for its Anglican sympathies, and by 1758 rose to the leadership of his faction. For a decade, it controlled the colonial assembly and fought against parliamentary interference in the colony’s affairs. During this time, 1759-61, Livingston sat in the assembly.

In 1769 Livingston’s supporters, split by the growing debate as to how to respond to British taxation of the colonies, lost control of the assembly. Not long thereafter, Livingston, who had also grown tired of legal practice, moved to the Elizabethtown (present Elizabeth), NJ, area, where he had purchased land in 1760. There, in 1772-73, he built the estate, Liberty Hall, continued to write verse, and planned to live the life of a gentleman farmer.

The Revolutionary upsurge, however, brought Livingston out of retirement. He soon became a member of the Essex County, NJ, committee of correspondence; in 1774 a representative in the First Continental Congress; and in 1775-76 a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. In June 1776 he left Congress to command the New Jersey militia as a brigadier general and held this post until he was elected later in the year as the first governor of the state.

Livingston held the position throughout and beyond the war—in fact, for 14 consecutive years until his death in 1790. During his administration, the government was organized, the war won, and New Jersey launched on her path as a sovereign state. Although the pressure of affairs often prevented it, he enjoyed his estate whenever possible, conducted agricultural experiments, and became a member of the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture. He was also active in the antislavery movement.

In 1787 Livingston was selected as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, though his gubernatorial duties prevented him from attending every session. He did not arrive until June 5 and missed several weeks in July, but he performed vital committee work, particularly as chairman of the one that reached a compromise on the issue of slavery. He also supported the New Jersey Plan. In addition, he spurred New Jersey’s rapid ratification of the Constitution (1787). The next year, Yale awarded him an honorary doctor of laws degree.

Livingston died at Liberty Hall in his 67th year in 1790. He was originally buried at the local Presbyterian Churchyard, but a year later his remains were moved to a vault his son owned at Trinity Churchyard in Manhattan and in 1844 were again relocated, to Brooklyn’s Greenwood Cemetery.

Age at Convention:  26

Date of Birth:  October 16, 1760

Date of Death:  October 9, 1824

Schooling:  College of New Jersey (Princeton) 1776

Occupation:  Public Securities Interests, Real Estate, Land Speculation, Lawyer, Businessman

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of State Legislature New Jersey 1786-1787

Committee Assignments:  Committee of Trade

Convention Contributions:  Arrived June 21, and except for one week in late July, early August, was present through the signing of the Constitution. William Pierce stated that “there is an impetuosity in his temper that is injurious to him; but there is an honest rectitude about him that makes him a valuable Member of Society.”

New Government Participation:  Member U.S. House (1791-1799), Speaker U.S. House (1795-1799) for the State of New Jersey. Served in the U.S. Senate for the State of New Jersey (1799-1805).

Biography from the National Archives:  Dayton was born at Elizabethtown (present Elizabeth), NJ, in 1760. His father was a storekeeper who was also active in local and state politics. The youth obtained a good education, graduating from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) in 1776. He immediately entered the Continental Army and saw extensive action. Achieving the rank of captain by the age of 19 and serving under his father, Gen. Elias Dayton, and the Marquis de Lafayette, he was a prisoner of the British for a time and participated in the Battle of Yorktown, VA.

After the war, Dayton returned home, studied law, and established a practice. During the 1780s he divided his time between land speculation, legal practice, and politics. He sat in the assembly in 1786-87. In the latter year, he was chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention after the leaders of his political faction, his father and his patron, Abraham Clark, declined to attend. Dayton did not arrive at Philadelphia until June 21 but thereafter faithfully took part in the proceedings. He spoke with moderate frequency during the debates and, though objecting to some provisions of the Constitution, signed it.

After sitting in the Continental Congress in 1788, Dayton became a foremost Federalist legislator in the new government. Although elected as a representative, he did not serve in the First Congress in 1789, preferring instead to become a member of the New Jersey council and speaker of the state assembly. In 1791, however, he entered the U.S. House of Representatives (1791-99), becoming Speaker in the Fourth and Fifth Congresses. During this period, he backed Hamilton’s fiscal program, suppression of the Whisky Rebellion, Jay’s Treaty, and a host of other Federalist measures.

In personal matters Dayton purchased Boxwood Hall in 1795 as his home in Elizabethtown and resided there until his death. He was elevated to the U.S. Senate (1799-1805). He supported the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and, in conformance with his Federalist views, opposed the repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801.

In 1806 illness prevented Dayton from accompanying Aaron Burr’s abortive expedition to the Southwest, where the latter apparently intended to conquer Spanish lands and create an empire. Subsequently indicted for treason, Dayton was not prosecuted but could not salvage his national political career. He remained popular in New Jersey, however, continuing to hold local offices and sitting in the assembly (1814-15).

In 1824 the 63-year-old Dayton played host to Lafayette during his triumphal tour of the United States, and his death at Elizabeth later that year may have been hastened by the exertion and excitement. He was laid to rest at St. John’s Episcopal Church in his hometown. Because he owned 250,000 acres of Ohio land between the Big and Little Miami Rivers, the city of Dayton, was named after him–his major monument. He had married Susan Williamson, but the date of their wedding is unknown. They had two daughters.

State:  Pennsylvania

Age at Convention:  43

Date of Birth:  January 10, 1744

Date of Death:  January 20, 1800

Schooling:  University of Pennsylvania 1760

Occupation:  Retired, Politician, Public Security Interests, Mercantile Manufacturing and Shipping, Soldier

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of Pennsylvania 1785-1788, Speaker of the Lower House of Pennsylvania 1787, Pennsylvania Legislature 1772-1776, Continental Congress 1774-1776, Confederation Congress 1782-1784, President of Confederation Congress 1783-1784

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 28, and except for a two week period in early September, he was present through the signing of the Constitution. William Pierce stated that “General Mifflin is well known for the activity of his mind, and the brilliancy of his parts. He is … a very handsome man.”

New Government Participation:  He did not serve in the new government.

Biography from the National Archives:  A member of the fourth generation of a Pennsylvania Quaker family who had emigrated from England, Mifflin was born at Philadelphia in 1744, the son of a rich merchant and local politician. He studied at a Quaker school and then at the College of Philadelphia (later part of the University of Pennsylvania), from which he won a diploma at the age of 16 and whose interests he advanced for the rest of his life.

Mifflin then worked for 4 years in a Philadelphia countinghouse. In 1764 he visited Europe, and the next year entered the mercantile business in Philadelphia with his brother. In 1767 he wed Sarah Morris. Although he prospered in business, politics enticed him.

In the Pennsylvania legislature (1772-76), Mifflin championed the colonial position against the crown. In 1774 he attended the Continental Congress (1774-76). Meanwhile, he had helped to raise troops and in May 1775 won appointment as a major in the Continental Army, which caused him to be expelled from his Quaker faith. In the summer of 1775 he first became an aide-de-camp to Washington and then Quartermaster General of the Continental Army. Late in 1775 he became a colonel and in May 1776 a brigadier general. Preferring action to administration, after a time he began to perform his quartermaster duties perfunctorily. Nevertheless, he participated directly in the war effort. He took part in the Battles of Long Island, NY, Trenton, NJ, and Princeton, NJ. Furthermore, through his persuasive oratory, he apparently convinced many men not to leave the military service.

In 1777 Mifflin attained the rank of major general but, restive at criticism of his quartermaster activities, he resigned. About the same time, though he later became a friend of Washington, he became involved in the cabal that advanced Gen. Horatio Gates to replace him in command of the Continental Army. In 1777-78 Mifflin sat on the Congressional Board of War. In the latter year, he briefly reentered the military, but continuing attacks on his earlier conduct of the quartermastership soon led him to resign once more.

Mifflin returned immediately to politics. He sat in the state assembly (1778-79) and again in the Continental Congress (1782-84), from December 1783 to the following June as its president. In 1787 he was chosen to take part in the Constitutional Convention. He attended regularly, but made no speeches and did not play a substantial role.

Mifflin continued in the legislature (1785-88 and 1799-1800); succeeded Franklin as president of the Supreme Executive Council (1788-90); chaired the constitutional convention (1789-90); and held the governorship (1790-99), during which time he affiliated himself with the emerging Democratic-Republican Party.

Although wealthy most of his life, Mifflin was a lavish spender. Pressure from his creditors forced him to leave Philadelphia in 1799, and he died at Lancaster the next year, aged 56. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania paid his burial expenses at the local Trinity Lutheran Church.

Robert Morris (1734-1806) was born near Liverpool, Lancashire, England and came to the Chesapeake Bay area in 1744. He died in Philadelphia where he is buried at Christ Church Cemetery. He married in 1769 and fathered seven children.

He attended school in Philadelphia and apprenticed at Charles Willing’s shipping firm business at the age of 16. Over the next thirty-nine years the business flourished. Morris’ wealth was hit hard by the Stamp Act. Nevertheless, he supported the colonial movement against British rule. He became known as the “Financier of the Revolution.”

Elected to the First Continental Congress in 1775, he participated on many of the committees involved in raising capital and provisions for the Continental Army. Early in 1776, Morris loaned $10,000 of his own money to the government to support the troops who won the Battle of Trenton (Washington Crossing).

He was also selected to the Second Constitutional Congress. On July 1, 1776, he voted against independence choosing to still seek reconciliation with Britain. On July 2, he was deliberately absent thus permitting the Pennsylvania delegation to vote for independence.

1781 he devised a plan for a National Bank and submitted it to Congress. It was approved and became The Bank of North America. Morris was appointed the Secretary of Treasury of the United States.

Following the war, he served in the Pennsylvania Legislature. He also attended the 1786 Annapolis Convention. He was also a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, where he is recorded as only speaking once. George Washington resided at his town house on the corner of Market Street during the Constitutional Convention. Morris’s town house subsequentially became the residence of Presidents Washington and Adams n the 1790s.

He supported the ratification of the constitution in 1787. In 1789, Washington appointed Morris Secretary of the Treasury, but he declined and suggested Alexander Hamilton instead. Morris accepted his selection as a Senator from Pennsylvania to the First Congress, completed his six-year term, and then retired from public service.

In 1794, Morris began the construction of a new town house on Chestnut Street; the unfinished building became known as “Morris’s Folly” because he was unable to finance the project. Morris spent three years in Debtor’s Prison. He died in poverty.

Only Robert Morris, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

George Clymer (1739-1813) was born in Philadelphia, orphaned the next year, and then mentored to be a merchant and responsible citizen by his wealthy uncle. He died in Morrisville, Pennsylvania at age 74 and was buried in Trenton, New Jersey. In addition to being economically, and politically, active, Clymer supported the abolition of slavery and the development of the practical arts and sciences. In 1784, he remarried his first wife having died.

Clymer was an early supporter of the movement for independence; he opposed both the Tea Act and the Stamp Act in the early 1770s. He was one of nine delegates from the Second Continental Congress to sign the 1776 Declaration of Independence and then the 1787 Constitution. Another was Roger Sherman. Clymer was elected to the House of Representatives in 1789 where he supported Sherman in the successful effort to pass the Bill of Rights in 1791. He also helped President George Washington enforce whiskey excise taxes in Pennsylvania.

Despite Clymer’s extensive involvement in the story of the American founding, he is not on the list of influential, or even underrated founders. We attribute this to Clymer’s inclination to work behind the scenes on the various committees to which his colleagues elected him. He reminds us of the steady and vital work done by individuals who do not seek the limelight. Contemporary William Pierce of Georgia, who provided character sketches of multiple founders, portrayed him as “a respectable man, and much esteemed.”

State:  Pennsylvania (Born in Connecticut)

Age at Convention:  37

Date of Birth:  October 24, 1749

Date of Death:  October 31, 1822

Schooling:  Yale 1766, Graduated Middle Temple 1776

Occupation:  Lawyer, Lending and Investments, Educator

Prior Political Experience:  Continental Congress 1780-1781, Attorney General for Pennsylvania 1790-1799, 1811-1817

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 28 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Ingersoll speaks well, and comprehends his subject fully.”

New Government Participation:  Served as the U.S. District Attorney for Pennsylvania (1800 – 1801).

Biography from the National Archives:  The son of Jared Ingersoll, Sr., a British colonial official and later prominent Loyalist, Ingersoll was born at New Haven, CT, in 1749. He received an excellent education and graduated from Yale in 1766. He then oversaw the financial affairs of his father, who had relocated from New Haven to Philadelphia. Later, the youth joined him, took up the study of law, and won admittance to the Pennsylvania bar.

In the midst of the Revolutionary fervor, which neither father nor son shared, in 1773, on the advice of the elder Ingersoll, Jared, Jr., sailed to London and studied law at the Middle Temple. Completing his work in 1776, he made a 2-year tour of the Continent, during which time for some reason he shed his Loyalist sympathies.

Returning to Philadelphia and entering the legal profession, Ingersoll attended to the clients of one of the city’s leading lawyers and a family friend, Joseph Reed, who was then occupied with the affairs of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. In 1781 Ingersoll married Elizabeth Pettit (Petit). The year before, he had entered politics by winning election to the Continental Congress (1780-81).

Although Ingersoll missed no sessions at the Constitutional Convention, had long favored revision of the Articles of Confederation, and as a lawyer was used to debate, he seldom spoke during the proceedings.

Subsequently, Ingersoll held a variety of public positions: member of the Philadelphia common council (1789); attorney general of Pennsylvania (1790-99 and 1811-17); Philadelphia city solicitor (1798-1801); U.S. District Attorney for Pennsylvania (1800-01); and presiding judge of the Philadelphia District Court (1821-22). Meantime, in 1812, he had been the Federalist Vice-Presidential candidate, but failed to win election.

While pursuing his public activities, Ingersoll attained distinction in his legal practice. For many years, he handled the affairs of Stephen Girard, one of the nation’s leading businessmen. In 1791 Ingersoll began to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and took part in some memorable cases. Although in both Chisholm v. Georgia (1792) and Hylton v. United States (1796) he represented the losing side, his arguments helped to clarify difficult constitutional issues. He also represented fellow-signer William Blount, a senator, when he was threatened with impeachment in the late 1790s.

Ingersoll’s long career ended in 1822, when he died less than a week after his 73rd birthday. Survived by three children, he was buried in the cemetery of Philadelphia’s First Presbyterian Church.

State:  Pennsylvania (Born in Ireland, Immigrated in 1760)

Age at Convention:  46

Date of Birth:  1741

Date of Death:  August 26, 1811

Schooling:  Unknown

Occupation:  Mercantile, Manufacturing and Shipping, Lending and Investments, Public Security Interests, Real Estate and Land Speculation, Educator

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of Pennsylvania State Legislature 1786-1789, Confederation Congress 1782-1783

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Fitzsimons is a Merchant of considerable talents and speaks very well I am told, in the Legislature of Pennsylvania.”

New Government Participation:  Served three terms as one of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Representatives (1789 – 1795) Along with Robert Morris he was a founder of the Bank of North America.

Biography from the National Archives:  Fitzsimons (FitzSimons; Fitzsimmons) was born in Ireland in 1741. Coming to America about 1760, he pursued a mercantile career in Philadelphia. The next year, he married Catherine Meade, the daughter of a prominent local merchant, Robert Meade, and not long afterward went into business with one of his brothers-in-law. The firm of George Meade and Company soon became one of the leading commercial houses in the city and specialized in the West India trade.

When the Revolution erupted, Fitzsimons enthusiastically endorsed the Whig position. During the war, he commanded a company of militia (1776-77). He also sat on the Philadelphia committee of correspondence, council of safety, and navy board. His firm provided supplies and “fire” ships to the military forces and, toward the end of the war, donated $5,000 to the Continental Army.

In 1782-83 Fitzsimons entered politics as a delegate to the Continental Congress. In the latter year, he became a member of the Pennsylvania council of censors and served as a legislator (1786-89). His attendance at the Constitutional Convention was regular, but he did not make any outstanding contributions to the proceedings. He was, however, a strong nationalist.

After the convention, Fitzsimons continued to demonstrate his nationalistic proclivities as a three-term U.S. representative (1789-95). He allied himself closely with the program of Hamilton and the emerging Federalist Party. Once again demonstrating his commercial orientation, he advocated a protective tariff and retirement of the national debt.

Fitzsimons spent most of the remainder of his life in private business, though he retained an interest in public affairs. His views remained essentially Federalist. During the maritime difficulties in the late 1790s, he urged retaliation against British and French interference with American shipping. In the first decade of the 19th century, he vigorously opposed Jefferson’s embargo of 1807-9. In 1810, again clashing with the Jeffersonians, he championed the recharter of the First United States Bank.

But Fitzsimons’s prominence stemmed from his business leadership. In 1781 he had been one of the founders of the Bank of North America. He also helped organize and held a directorship in the Insurance Company of North America and several times acted as president of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. His financial affairs, like those somewhat earlier of his associate and fellow-signer Robert Morris, took a disastrous turn in 1805. He later regained some of his affluence, but his reputation suffered.

Despite these troubles, Fitzsimons never ceased his philanthropy. He was an outstanding supporter of Philadelphia’s St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church. He also strived to improve public education in the commonwealth and served as trustee of the University of Pennsylvania.

Fitzsimons died at Philadelphia in 1811 after seven decades of life. His tomb is there in the graveyard at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, which is in present Independence National Historical Park.

James Wilson (1742-1798) was born near St. Andrews, Scotland. He emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1766, died in Edenton, North Carolina, while on Circuit Court duty for the United States Supreme Court, and was reinterred in Christ Church, Philadelphia. In 1793, a widower with six children, he remarried and one child who died in infancy.

He attended St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, and was a Latin tutor at the College of Philadelphia where he later gave lectures in English Literature and received an honorary Master of Arts degree. Wilson studied law under John Dickinson, was admitted to the bar in 1767, and set up a very lucrative practice in Reading, PA. He bought a farm near Carlisle and became interested in land speculation.

In 1774, Wilson was a member of the Carlisle Committee of Correspondence, and wrote a widely read pamphlet “Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament.” He argued that Parliament lacked authority to pass laws for the colonies.

In 1775 and 1776, Wilson was elected to both the First and Second Continental Congress. The Pennsylvania delegation was divided on the issue of reconciliation or separation. Initially, respecting the wishes of his loyalist inclined constituents, Wilson supported a three-week delay to reflect on Richard Henry Lee’s June 7 independence resolution. On July 2, Wilson joined Franklin and Morton and voted for independence.

Wilson’s political career and personal life were controversial between 1776 and 1787. In 1776, Wilson strongly opposed the new Pennsylvania state constitution and, as result, was temporarily recalled from Congress. He also resumed his activities in speculation, and acquired considerable debt. During a food shortage in 1779, Wilson, his friends, and his property on Third and Walnut in Philadelphia–“Fort Wilson”–were attacked. He was rescued by a law enforcement troop. In 1781, Wilson served as a director of the original Bank of North America. He was elected to the Confederation Congress in 1782, where he worked closely with Robert Morris on financial matters.

In 1787, he was appointed to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia where he supported majority rule, read Franklin’s speeches, and was on the five-member Committee on Detail that wrote the first draft of the Constitution. He was a strong advocate for the adoption of the Constitution at the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention. His famous “State House Speech” set the tone for the Federalist-Antifederalist out of doors debate.

Following ratification of the Constitution, he was appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in 1789. In 1792, he spent time in a debtors prison while still serving on the Supreme Court. He died while riding circuit in North Carolina.

William Pierce, a delegate from Georgia at the 1787 Constitutional Convention who provided sketches of the delegates, wrote of him: “No man is more clear, copious, and comprehensive than Mr. Wilson, yet he is no great Orator.”

State:  Pennsylvania (Born in New York)

Age at Convention:  35

Date of Birth:  January 31, 1752

Date of Death:  November 6, 1816

Schooling:  Kings College (Columbia University) 1768

Occupation:  Lawyer, Mercantile, Manufacturing and Shipping, Educator

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of New York State Legislature 1777-1778, State Constitutional Convention of New York 1776, Continental and Confederation Congresses 1778-1789, Signed Articles of Confederation, Assistant Superintendent of Finance for U.S. 1781-1785

Committee Assignments:  Chairman of Second Committee of Representation, Third Committee of Representation, Committee of Leftovers, Committee of Style

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, and except for a three week period in late June, he was present through the signing of the Constitution. He spoke more frequently than any other delegate and supported the effort to build a strong central government. He is best remembered for writing the Preamble to the Constitution and for the “obligation of contracts clause” in Article I, Section 10 in the Constitution. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Gouverneur Morris is one of the Genius’s in whom every species of talents combine to render him conspicuous and flourishing in public debate. … No Man has more wit, nor can anyone engage the attention more than Mr. Morris.”

New Government Participation:  President Washington nominated and the Senate confirmed him as an emissary to England (1790 – 1791), replaced Thomas Jefferson as emissary to France in (1792 – 1794). Member U.S. Senate for New York, 1800-1803.

Biography from the  National Archives :  Of French and English descent, Morris was born at Morrisania estate, in Westchester (present Bronx) County, NY, in 1752. His family was wealthy and enjoyed a long record of public service. His elder half-brother, Lewis, signed the Declaration of Independence.

Gouverneur was educated by private tutors and at a Huguenot school in New Rochelle. In early life, he lost a leg in a carriage accident. He attended King’s College (later Columbia College and University) in New York City, graduating in 1768 at the age of 16. Three years later, after reading law in the city, he gained admission to the bar.

When the Revolution loomed on the horizon, Morris became interested in political affairs. Because of his conservatism, however, he at first feared the movement, which he believed would bring mob rule. Furthermore, some of his family and many of his friends were Loyalists. But, beginning in 1775, for some reason he sided with the Whigs. That same year, representing Westchester County, he took a seat in New York’s Revolutionary provincial congress (1775-77). In 1776, when he also served in the militia, along with John Jay and Robert R. Livingston he drafted the first constitution of the state. Subsequently he joined its council of safety (1777).

In 1777-78 Morris sat in the legislature and in 1778-79 in the Continental Congress, where he numbered among the youngest and most brilliant members. During this period, he signed the Articles of Confederation and drafted instructions for Benjamin Franklin, in Paris, as well as those that provided a partial basis for the treaty ending the War for Independence. Morris was also a close friend of Washington and one of his strongest congressional supporters.

Defeated in his bid for reelection to Congress in 1779 because of the opposition of Gov. George Clinton’s faction, Morris relocated to Philadelphia and resumed the practice of law. This temporarily removed him from the political scene, but in 1781 he resumed his public career when he became the principal assistant to Robert Morris, Superintendent of Finance for the United States, to whom he was unrelated. Gouverneur held this position for 4 years.

Morris emerged as one of the leading figures at the Constitutional Convention. His speeches, more frequent than those by anyone else, numbered 173. Although sometimes presented in a light vein, they were usually substantive. A strong advocate of nationalism and aristocratic rule, he served on many committees, including those on postponed matters and style, and stood in the thick of the decision-making process. Above all, it was apparently he who actually drafted the Constitution. Morris subsequently left public life for a time to devote his attention to business. Having purchased the family home from his half-brother, Lewis, he moved back to New York. Afterward, in 1789, Gouverneur joined in a business venture with Robert Morris, and traveled to France, where he witnessed the beginnings of the French Revolution.

Morris was to remain in Europe for about a decade. In 1790-91 he undertook a diplomatic mission to London to try to negotiate some of the outstanding problems between the United States and Great Britain. The mission failed, but in 1792 Washington appointed him as Minister to France, to replace Thomas Jefferson. Morris was recalled 2 years later but did not come home. Instead, he traveled extensively in Europe for more than 4 years, during which time he handled his complicated business affairs and contemplated the complex political situation.

Morris returned to the United States in 1799. The next year, he was elected to finish an unexpired term in the U.S. Senate. An ardent Federalist, he was defeated in his bid for reelection in 1802 and left office the following year.

Morris retired to a glittering life at Morrisania, where he had built a new residence. In 1809 he married Anne Cary (Carey) Randolph of Virginia, and they had one son. During his last years, he continued to speak out against the Democratic-Republicans and violently opposed the War of 1812. In the years 1810-13 he served as chairman of the Erie Canal Commission.

Morris died at Morrisania in 1816 at the age of 64 and was buried at St. Anne’s Episcopal Churchyard, in the Bronx, New York City.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the tenth son of soap maker, and died in Philadelphia, a man of considerable wealth and international admiration. He was buried in Christ Church Burial Ground. He fathered four children from two common law wives.

Franklin received little formal education but became an avid supporter of the arts and sciences. Later, he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Edinburgh and Oxford. At age 12, he worked for his half-brother James, printer of the New England Courant, where he published his first article, anonymously, in 1721. At age 16, he moved to Philadelphia, and then sought fame and fortune one year later in Europe. He returned to Philadelphia and re-entered the printing business. Franklin printed The Pennsylvania Gazette (1730-1748) and in 1741 began publishing the annual Poor Richard’s Almanac magazine, reportedly second only to the Bible in popularity and influence.

Franklin was Clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly (1736-1751), a member of the colonial Pennsylvania Assembly (1751-1764) and a postmaster of the American colonies (1753-1774). Between 1752 and 1775, Franklin also served as an “agent” for Pennsylvania and three other colonies to England, France, and several other European powers. Already popular in Europe, Franklin’s defense of the colonial opposition to the Stamp Act before the House of Commons helped him become a hero in America.

Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1775. He was elected to both the First and Second Continental Congress. He was a member of a three person diplomatic mission to Canada, along with Charles Carroll and Samuel Chase, to seek a union between Canada and the colonies. He also served on the five-member Committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. He is reputed to have said upon signing the Declaration: “Gentlemen, we must now all hang together, or we shall most assuredly all hang separately.” In 1787, he represented Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention. His “rising sun” speech on September 17, 1787 is a classical expression of Franklin’s optimism about the American experiment.

In addition to coining the phrases “a penny saved is a penny earned,” and “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,” Franklin created a list of 13 virtues to live by: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. He was also one of the earliest and strongest advocates for the abolition of slavery.

State:  North Carolina (Born in New Jersey)

Age at Convention:  47

Date of Birth:  1740

Date of Death:  November 2, 1807

Schooling:  College of New Jersey (Princeton) 1756, M.A. 1759

Occupation:  Politician, Lawyer, Planter, Educator

Prior Political Experience:  State second branch of North Carolina 1779-1782 & 1785, Speaker of the House 1780-1782, Acting Governor of North Carolina 1781-1782, Governor of North Carolina 1782-1785

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, departed August 25, and never returned to the Convention. William Pierce stated that “he is a Man of sense, and undoubtedly is a good politician, but he is not formed to shine in public debate, being no Speaker.”

New Government Participation:  Served as one of the first Senators for North Carolina (1793-1799).

Biography from the National Archives:  Though he represented North Carolina at the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Martin was born in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, in 1740. His parents, Hugh and Jane Martin, moved first to Virginia, then to Guilford County, North Carolina, when Alexander was very young. Martin attended the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), received his degree in 1756, and moved to Salisbury. There he started his career as a merchant but turned to public service as he became justice of the peace, deputy king’s attorney, and, in 1774 and 1775, judge of Salisbury district.

At the September 1770 session of the superior court at Hillsboro, 150 Regulators armed with sticks, switches, and cudgels crowded into the courtroom. They had come to present a petition to the judge demanding unprejudiced juries and a public accounting of taxes by sheriffs. Violence erupted, and several, including Alexander Martin, were beaten. In 1771, Martin signed an agreement with the Regulators to refund all fees taken illegally and to arbitrate all differences.

From 1773 to 1774 Martin served in the North Carolina House of Commons and in the second and third provincial congresses in 1775. In September 1775 he was appointed a lieutenant colonel in the 2nd North Carolina Continental Regiment. Martin saw military action in South Carolina and won promotion to a colonelcy. He joined Washington’s army in 1777, but after the Battle of Germantown he was arrested for cowardice. A court-martial tried and acquitted Martin, but he resigned his commission on November 22, 1777.

Martin’s misfortune in the army did not impede his political career. The year after his court-martial he entered the North Carolina Senate, where he served for 8 years (1778-82, 1785, and 1787-88). For every session except those of 1778-79, Martin served as speaker. From 1780 to 1781 he also sat on the Board of War and its successor, the Council Extraordinary. In 1781 Martin became acting governor of the state, and in 1782 through 1785 he was elected in his own right.

After his 1785 term in the North Carolina Senate, Martin represented his state in the Continental Congress, but he resigned in 1787. Of the five North Carolina delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Martin was the least strongly Federalist. He did not take an active part in the proceedings, and he left Philadelphia in late August 1787, before the Constitution was signed. Martin was considered a good politician but not suited to public debate. A colleague, Hugh Williamson, remarked that Martin needed time to recuperate after his great exertions as governor “to enable him again to exert his abilities to the advantage of the nation.”

Under the new national government, Martin again served as Governor of North Carolina, from 1789 until 1792. After 1790, he moved away from the Federalists to the Republicans. In 1792, Martin, elected by the Republican legislature, entered the U.S. Senate. His vote in favor of the Alien and Sedition Acts cost him reelection. Back in North Carolina, Martin returned to the state senate in 1804 and 1805 to represent Rockingham County. In 1805 he once again served as speaker. From 1790 until 1807, he was a trustee of the University of North Carolina. Martin never married, and he died on November 2, 1807 at the age of 67 at his plantation, “Danbury,” in Rockingham County and was buried on the estate.

State:  North Carolina (Born in England, immigrated 1763)

Age at Convention:  30

Date of Birth:  June 20, 1756

Date of Death:  November 29, 1820

Occupation:  Lawyer, Lending and Investments, Planter and Slave Holder, Solider, Educator

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of North Carolina 1784-1789

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, departed August 11, and never returned to the Convention. Davie supported Ellsworth’s proposition that “We were partly federal, partly national in our Union.” William Pierce stated that “he was silent in the Convention, but his opinion was always respected.”

New Government Participation:  Attended both of the ratification conventions of North Carolina, and supported the ratification of the Constitution. President John Adams appointed him as a peace commissioner to France in 1799.

Biography from the National Archives:  One of the eight delegates born outside of the thirteen colonies, Davie was born in Egremont, Cumberlandshire, England, on June 20, 1756. In 1763, Archibald Davie brought his son William to Waxhaw, South Carolina, where the boy’s maternal uncle, William Richardson, a Presbyterian clergyman, adopted him. Davie attended Queen’s Museum College in Charlotte, North Carolina, and graduated from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) in 1776.

Davie’s law studies in Salisbury, North Carolina, were interrupted by military service, but he won his license to practice before county courts in 1779 and in the superior courts in 1780. When the War for Independence broke out, he helped raise a troop of cavalry near Salisbury and eventually achieved the rank of colonel. While attached to Pulaski’s division, Davie was wounded leading a charge at Stono, near Charleston, on June 20, 1779. Early in 1780 he raised another troop and operated mainly in western North Carolina. In January 1781 Davie was appointed commissary-general for the Carolina campaign. In this capacity he oversaw the collection of arms and supplies to Gen. Nathanael Greene’s army and the state militia.

After the war, Davie embarked on his career as a lawyer, traveling the circuit in North Carolina. In 1782 he married Sarah Jones, the daughter of his former commander, Gen. Allen Jones, and settled in Halifax. His legal knowledge and ability won him great respect, and his presentation of arguments was admired. Between 1786 and 1798 Davie represented Halifax in the North Carolina legislature. There he was the principal agent behind that body’s actions to revise and codify state laws, send representatives to the Annapolis and Philadelphia conventions, cede Tennessee to the Union, and fix disputed state boundaries.

During the Constitutional Convention, Davie favored plans for a strong central government. He was a member of the committee that considered the question of representation in Congress and swung the North Carolina delegation’s vote in favor of the Great Compromise. He favored election of senators and presidential electors by the legislature and insisted on counting slaves in determining representation. Though he left the convention on August 13, before its adjournment, Davie fought hard for the Constitution’s ratification and took a prominent part in the North Carolina convention.

The political and military realms were not the only ones in which Davie left his mark. The University of North Carolina, of which he was the chief founder, stands as an enduring reminder of Davie’s interest in education. Davie selected the location, instructors, and a curriculum that included the literary and social sciences as well as mathematics and classics. In 1810 the trustees conferred upon him the title of “Father of the University” and in the next year granted him the degree of Doctor of Laws.

Davie became Governor of North Carolina in 1798. His career also turned back briefly to the military when President John Adams appointed him a brigadier general in the U.S. Army that same year. Davie later served as a peace commissioner to France in 1799.

Davie stood as a candidate for Congress in 1803 but met defeat. In 1805, after the death of his wife, Davie retired from politics to his plantation, “Tivoli,” in Chester County, South Carolina. In 1813 he declined an appointment as major-general from President Madison. Davie was 64 years old when he died on November 29, 1820, at “Tivoli,” and he was buried in the Old Waxhaw Presbyterian Churchyard in northern Lancaster County.

State:  North Carolina

Age at Convention:  29

Date of Birth:  March 25, 1758

Date of Death:  September 6, 1802

Schooling:  Scotland’s University Glasgow 1778

Occupation:  Politician, Public Security Interests, Planter and Slave Holder, Educator

Prior Political Experience:  North Carolina Lower House 1779, 1781-1783, 1785-1787, Speaker of Lower House 1785, Confederation Congress 1783-1785

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25 and, except for one week in Mid-July, he was present through the signing of the Constitution. Although he rarely spoke, he was an ardent supporter of the movement to build a stronger federal government. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Spaight is a worthy Man, of some abilities, and fortune.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the ratification convention of North Carolina, and supported the ratification of the Constitution. Served as a U. S. Representative for North Carolina (1798-1801).

Biography from the National Archives:  Spaight was born at New Bern, NC of distinguished English-Irish parentage in 1758. When he was orphaned at 8 years of age, his guardians sent him to Ireland, where he obtained an excellent education. He apparently graduated from Scotland’s Glasgow University before he returned to North Carolina in 1778.

At that time, the War for Independence was in full swing, and Spaight’s superior attainments soon gained him a commission. He became an aide to the state militia commander and in 1780 took part in the Battle of Camden, SC. The year before, he had been elected to the lower house of the legislature.

In 1781 Spaight left the military service to devote full time to his legislative duties. He represented New Bern and Craven County (1781-83 and 1785-87); in 1785 he became speaker. Between terms, he also served in the Continental Congress (1783-85).

In 1787, at the age of 29, Spaight joined the North Carolina delegation to the Philadelphia convention. He was not a leader but spoke on several occasions and numbered among those who attended every session. After the convention, he worked in his home state for acceptance of the Constitution.

Spaight met defeat in bids for the governorship in 1787 and the U.S. Senate 2 years later. From then until 1792, illness forced his retirement from public life, during which time he visited the West Indies, but he captured the governorship in the latter year (1792-95). In 1793 he served as presidential elector. Two years later, he wed Mary Leach, who bore three children.

In 1798 Spaight entered the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democratic-Republican and remained in office until 1801. During this time, he advocated repeal of the Alien and Sedition Acts and voted for Jefferson in the contested election of 1800. The next year, Spaight was voted into the lower house of the North Carolina legislature; the following year, to the upper.

Only 44 years old in 1802, Spaight was struck down in a duel at New Bern with a political rival, Federalist John Stanly. So ended the promising career of one of the state’s foremost leaders. He was buried in the family sepulcher at Clermont estate, near New Bern.

State:  North Carolina (Born in Pennsylvania)

Age at Convention:  51

Date of Birth:  December 5, 1735

Date of Death:  May 22, 1819

Schooling:  College of Philadelphia 1757, M.A. 1760, University of Utercht M.D. 1772

Occupation:  Lending and Investments, Real Estate and Land Speculation, Public Security Interests, Doctor, Merchant, Math Professor at College of Philadelphia, Author

Prior Political Experience:  State Upper House of North Carolina 1782-1785, Confederation Congress 1782-1785 & 1787-1789, Elected to Annapolis Convention 1786, Surgeon General of North Carolina 1779-1782

Committee Assignments:  Third Committee of Representation, Committee of Assumption of State Debt, Committee of Slave Trade, Committee of Trade, Committee of Leftovers

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, was present through the signing of the Constitution. His most important role at the Convention was his guidance of North Carolina to support the Connecticut Compromise. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Williamson is a Gentleman of education and talents.”

New Government Participation:  Supported the ratification of the Constitution and attended the Second Ratification Convention of North Carolina 1789. Served two terms as a U. S. Representative for North Carolina (1789 – 1793).

Biography from the National Archives:  The versatile Williamson was born of Scottish-Irish descent at West Nottingham, Pennsylvania, in 1735. He was the eldest son in a large family, whose head was a clothier. Hoping he would become a Presbyterian minister, his parents oriented his education toward that calling. After attending preparatory schools at New London Cross Roads, Delaware, and Newark, Delaware, he entered the first class of the College of Philadelphia (later part of the University of Pennsylvania) and took his degree in 1757.

The next 2 years, at Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, Williamson spent settling his father’s estate. Then training in Connecticut for the ministry, he soon became a licensed Presbyterian preacher but was never ordained. Around this time, he also took a position as professor of mathematics at his alma mater.

In 1764, Williamson abandoned these pursuits and studied medicine at Edinburgh, London, and Utrecht, eventually obtaining a degree from the University of Utrecht. Returning to Philadelphia, he began to practice but found it to be emotionally exhausting. His pursuit of scientific interests continued, and in 1768 he became a member of the American Philosophical Society. The next year, he served on a commission that observed the transits of Venus and Mercury. In 1771, he wrote An Essay on Comets, in which he advanced several original ideas. As a result, the University of Leyden awarded him an LL.D. degree.

In 1773, to raise money for an academy in Newark, DE., Williamson made a trip to the West Indies and then to Europe. Sailing from Boston, he saw the Tea Party and carried news of it to London. When the British Privy Council called on him to testify as to what he had seen, he warned the councilors that the colonies would rebel if the British did not change their policies. While in England, he struck up a close friendship with fellow-scientist Benjamin Franklin, and they cooperated in electrical experiments. Moreover, Williamson furnished to Franklin the letters of Massachusetts Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson to his lieutenant governor that created a sensation and tended to further alienate the mother country and colonies.

In 1775, a pamphlet Williamson had written while in England, called “The Plea of the Colonies,” was published. It solicited the support of the English Whigs for the American cause. When the United States proclaimed their independence the next year, Williamson was in the Netherlands. He soon sailed back to the United States, settling first in Charleston, South Carolina, and then in Edenton, North Carolina. There, he prospered in a mercantile business that traded with the French West Indies and once again took up the practice of medicine.

Williamson applied for a medical post with the patriot forces, but found all such positions filled. The governor of North Carolina, however, soon called on his specialized skills, and he became surgeon-general of state troops. After the Battle of Camden, South Carolina, he frequently crossed British lines to tend to the wounded. He also prevented sickness among the troops by paying close attention to food, clothing, shelter, and hygiene.

After the war, Williamson began his political career. In 1782, he was elected to the lower house of the state legislature and to the Continental Congress. Three years later, he left Congress and returned to his legislative seat. In 1786, he was chosen to represent his state at the Annapolis Convention but arrived too late to take part. The next year, he again served in Congress (1787-89) and was chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Attending faithfully and demonstrating keen debating skill, he served on five committees, notably on the Committee on Postponed Matters, and played a significant part in the proceedings, particularly the major compromise on representation.

After the convention, Williamson worked for ratification of the Constitution in North Carolina. In 1788, he was chosen to settle outstanding accounts between the state and the federal government. The next year, he was elected to the first U.S. House of Representatives, where he served two terms. In 1789 he married Maria Apthorpe, who bore at least two sons.

In 1793, Williamson moved to New York City to facilitate his literary and philanthropic pursuits. Over the years, he published many political, educational, economic, historical, and scientific works, but the last earned him the most praise. The University of Leyden awarded him an honorary degree. In addition, he was an original trustee of the University of North Carolina and later held trusteeships at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the University of the State of New York. He was also a founder of the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York and a prominent member of the New-York Historical Society.

In 1819, at the age of 83, Williamson died in New York City and was buried at Trinity Church.

Age at Convention:  38

Date of Birth:  March 26, 1749

Date of Death:  March 21, 1800

Occupation:  Politician, Public Security Interests, Planter, Merchant, Real Estate and Land Speculation, Educator

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of North Carolina 1783-1784, Speaker of Lower House 1784, Upper House of North Carolina 1782, 1788-1790, Confederation Congress 1782-1783, 1786-1788

Convention Contributions:  Arrived June 20, and except for taking his seat in the Confederation Congress from July 5-August 7, was present through the signing of the Constitution. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Blount is a character strongly marked for integrity and honor. …He is plain, honest, and sincere.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the ratification convention of North Carolina, and supported the ratification of the Constitution. President Washington appointed him the governor of the Territory South of the River Ohio (1790-1796). He presided over the Constitutional Convention of the State of Tennessee, and was elected as one of its first U.S. Senators (1796 – 1797).

Biography from the National Archives:  William Blount was the great-grandson of Thomas Blount, who came from England to Virginia soon after 1660 and settled on a North Carolina plantation. William, the eldest in a large family, was born in 1749 while his mother was visiting his grandfather’s Rosefield estate, on the site of present Windsor near Pamlico Sound. The youth apparently received a good education.

Shortly after the War for Independence began, in 1776, Blount enlisted as a paymaster in the North Carolina forces. Two years later, he wed Mary Grainier (Granger); of their six children who reached adulthood, one son also became prominent in Tennessee politics.

Blount spent most of the remainder of his life in public office. He sat in the lower house of the North Carolina legislature (1780-84), including service as speaker, as well as in the upper (1788-90). In addition, he took part in national politics, serving in the Continental Congress in 1782-83 and 1786-87.

Appointed as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention at the age of 38, Blount was absent for more than a month because he chose to attend the Continental Congress on behalf of his state. He said almost nothing in the debates and signed the Constitution reluctantly—only, he said, to make it “the unanimous act of the States in Convention.” Nonetheless, he favored his state’s ratification of the completed document.

Blount hoped to be elected to the first U.S. Senate. When he failed to achieve that end, in 1790 he pushed westward beyond the Appalachians, where he held speculative land interests and had represented North Carolina in dealings with the Indians. He settled in what became Tennessee, to which he devoted the rest of his life. He resided first at Rocky Mount, a cabin near present Johnson City and in 1792 built a mansion in Knoxville.

Two years earlier, Washington had appointed Blount as Governor for the Territory South of the River Ohio (which included Tennessee) and also as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Department, in which positions he increased his popularity with the frontiersmen. In 1796 he presided over the constitutional convention that transformed part of the territory into the State of Tennessee. He was elected as one of its first U.S. senators (1796-97).

During this period, Blount’s affairs took a sharp turn for the worse. In 1797 his speculations in western lands led him into serious financial difficulties. That same year, he also apparently concocted a plan involving use of Indians, frontiersmen, and British naval forces to conquer for Britain the Spanish provinces of Florida and Louisiana. A letter he wrote alluding to the plan fell into the hands of President Adams, who turned it over to the Senate on July 3, 1797. Five days later, that body voted 25 to 1 to expel Blount. The House impeached him, but the Senate dropped the charges in 1799 on the grounds that no further action could be taken beyond his dismissal.

The episode did not hamper Blount’s career in Tennessee. In 1798 he was elected to the senate and rose to the speakership. He died 2 years later at Knoxville in his early fifties. He is buried there in the cemetery of the First Presbyterian Church.

George Read (1733-1798) was born in Maryland from a line of Irish and Welsh immigrants who became landowners. However, he was raised in Delaware. He died in New Castle and is buried in Immanuel Episcopal Churchyard in Newcastle. In 1763 he married the widowed sister of fellow signer George Ross and they had five children.

Read was educated in Pennsylvania where he studied law and admitted to the Philadelphia Bar at age 20. In 1754 he returned to Delaware. In 1763, he married the widowed sister of George Ross, fellow signer of the Declaration of Independence from Pennsylvania and uncle of Betsy Ross. What is impressive is Read’s forty year involvement in local, state, and national politics during which time he embraced both the politics of reconciliation with Britain in 1776 and the politics of change from 1786.

Read was attorney general in the colonial government from 1763-1774, but opposed the Stamp Act despite his reputation as a moderate. He was elected to the first and second Continental Congress from 1774-1776 along with Thomas McKean. The third delegate, Caesar Rodney, attended at the conclusion of the discussions. Read initially voted against Richard Henry Lee’s Resolution for Independence on July2; he was the only eventual signer to do so. He preferred to continue pursuing possible reconciliation with Britain rather than agreeing to a complete break. McKean sent an urgent message to Rodney in Delaware to come to Philadelphia to break the tie in the Delaware vote on independence because of Read’s reluctance to make the final step to endorse independence. Rodney’s vote broke the tie. When Lee’s Resolution was adopted, however, Read accepted the vote of his two Delaware colleagues and signed the Declaration.

In 1776, Read was selected to the Constitutional Convention in Delaware, where he served on the committee to draft the new Delaware Constitution. In 1777, the British captured Delaware and Read became emergency governor replacing Thomas McKean. Read was twice elected State Senator under the new Delaware Constitution. Between 1782-1788, he devoted himself to political activities in Delaware.

He attended the Annapolis Convention in 1786 that called for a Grand Convention to meet in Philadelphia, May 1786 to reconsider the structure and powers of the general government under the Articles of Confederation. He then represented Delaware at the Constitutional Convention, where he signed the Constitution, attended the 1787 Delaware Ratifying Convention, served in the United States Senate (1789-1793), and then Chief Justice of Delaware.

Read actually signed the Constitution twice, signing once for himself and once for fellow Delaware delegate John Dickinson who was at home sick with a migraine. William Pierce, a delegate at the Constitutional Convention, penned sketches of fellow delegates: Read’s “legal abilities are said to be very great, but powers of Oratory are fatiguing and tiresome to the last degree.”

State:  Delaware (born in Philadelphia, PA)

Age at Convention:  40

Date of Birth:  1747

Date of Death:  March 30, 1812

Schooling:  College of New Jersey (Princeton) with honors 1771

Occupation:  Lawyer, Attorney General of Delaware

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House State Legislature of Delaware 1784-1785, Confederation Congress 1783-1785, Delegate to Annapolis Convention (did not attend), Attorney General for Delaware 1779-1789

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 28, absent for entire month of August and returned to sign the Constitution. Spoke very little at Convention, but when he did speak it was on behalf of the rights of small states. William Pierce stated that “he is warm and impetuous in his temper, and precipitate in his judgment… and very corpulant.”

New Government Participation:  Attended Delaware ratification convention, supported ratification of the Constitution. President Washington nominated, and Senate confirmed him to be a Federal District Judge for Delaware (1789 – 1812).

Biography from the National Archives:  Bedford was born in 1747 at Philadelphia and reared there. The fifth of seven children, he was descended from a distinguished family that originally settled in Jamestown, VA. He usually referred to himself as Gunning Bedford, Jr., to avoid confusion with his cousin and contemporary Delaware statesman and soldier, Col. Gunning Bedford.

In 1771 signer Bedford graduated with honors from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), where he was a classmate of James Madison. Apparently while still in school, Bedford wed Jane B. Parker, who bore at least one daughter. After reading law with Joseph Read in Philadelphia, Bedford won admittance to the bar and set up a practice. Subsequently, he moved to Dover and then to Wilmington. He apparently served in the Continental Army, possibly as an aide to General Washington.

Following the war, Bedford figured prominently in the politics of his state and nation. He sat in the legislature, on the state council, and in the Continental Congress (1783-85). In the latter year, he was chosen as a delegate to the Annapolis Convention but for some reason did not attend. From 1784 to 1789 he was attorney general of Delaware.

Bedford numbered among the more active members of the Constitutional Convention, and he missed few sessions. A large and forceful man, he spoke on several occasions and was a member of the committee that drafted the Great Compromise. An ardent small-state advocate, he attacked the pretensions of the large states over the small and warned that the latter might be forced to seek foreign alliances unless their interests were accommodated. He attended the Delaware ratifying convention.

For another 2 years, Bedford continued as Delaware’s attorney general. In 1789 Washington designated him as a federal district judge for his state, an office he was to occupy for the rest of his life. His only other ventures into national politics came in 1789 and 1793, as a Federalist presidential elector. In the main, however, he spent his later years in judicial pursuits, in aiding Wilmington Academy, in fostering abolitionism, and in enjoying his Lombardy Hall farm.

Bedford died at the age of 65 in 1812 and was buried in the First Presbyterian Churchyard in Wilmington. Later, when the cemetery was abandoned, his body was transferred to the Masonic Home, on the Lancaster Turnpike in Christiana Hundred, DE.

State:  Delaware (Born in Maryland)

Age at Convention:  54

Date of Birth:  November 8, 1732

Date of Death:  February 14, 1808

Affiliation:  Federalist

Schooling:  Middle Temple (London) 1757, Honorary LLD College of New Jersey (Princeton)

Occupation:  Lending and Investments, Lawyer, Retired

Prior Political Experience: Delaware State Upper House 1781, Served Second Continental Congress 1775-1776, Pennsylvania Legislator 1762 & 1764-1771, Voted against Declaration of Independence & did not sign but supported the Revolutionary War, Continental Congress 1779-1780, Drafted and signed Articles of Confederation, President of Delaware’s Supreme Executive Counsel 1781, President of Pennsylvania 1782-1785, Represented Delaware at Annapolis Convention 1786

Committee Assignments:  Committee of Assumption of State Debt, Committee of Slave Trade, Committee of Leftovers, Committee of Economy, Frugality and Manufactures

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 29, absent for three weeks in late June and early July, returned until September 14. George Read signed his name on September 17. He accused Madison of “going too far” in pushing for proportional representation. He is best known for his phrase “let experience be our guide. Reason may mislead us.” William Pierce stated that “Mr. Dickinson has been famed through all America, for his Farmer Letters; he is a Scholar, and said to be a Man of very extensive information. … I had often heard that he was a great Orator, but I found him an indifferent Speaker.”

New Government Participation:  Wrote public letters supporting the ratification of the Constitution. Held no public office under the new government.

Biography from the National Archives:  Dickinson, “Penman of the Revolution,” was born in 1732 at Crosiadore estate, near the village of Trappe in Talbot County, Maryland. He was the second son of Samuel Dickinson, the prosperous farmer, and his second wife, Mary (Cadwalader) Dickinson. In 1740, the family moved to Kent County near Dover, Delaware, where private tutors educated the youth. In 1750, he began to study law with John Moland in Philadelphia. In 1753, Dickinson went to England to continue his studies at London’s Middle Temple. Four years later, he returned to Philadelphia and became a prominent lawyer there. In 1770, he married Mary Norris, daughter of a wealthy merchant. The couple had at least one daughter.

By that time, Dickinson’s superior education and talents had propelled him into politics. In 1760, he had served in the assembly of the Three Lower Counties (Delaware), where he held the speakership. Combining his Pennsylvania and Delaware careers in 1762, he won a seat as a Philadelphia member in the Pennsylvania assembly and sat there again in 1764. He became the leader of the conservative side in the colony’s political battles. His defense of the proprietary governor against the faction led by Benjamin Franklin hurt his popularity but earned him respect for his integrity. Nevertheless, as an immediate consequence, he lost his legislative seat in 1764.

Meantime, the struggle between the colonies and the mother country had waxed strong and Dickinson had emerged in the forefront of Revolutionary thinkers. In the debates over the Stamp Act (1765), he played a key part. That year, he wrote  The Late Regulations Respecting the British Colonies… Considered , an influential pamphlet that urged Americans to seek repeal of the act by pressuring British merchants. Accordingly, the Pennsylvania legislature appointed him as a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress, whose resolutions he drafted.

In 1767-68, Dickinson wrote a series of newspaper articles in the  Pennsylvania Chronicle  that came to be known collectively as “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania.” They attacked British taxation policy and urged resistance to unjust laws, but also emphasized the possibility of a peaceful resolution. So popular were the “Letters” in the colonies that Dickinson received an honorary LL.D. from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) and public thanks from a meeting in Boston. In 1768, responding to the Townshend Duties, he championed rigorous colonial resistance in the form of nonimportation and nonexportation agreements.

In 1771, Dickinson returned to the Pennsylvania legislature and drafted a petition to the king that was unanimously approved. Because of his continued opposition to the use of force, however, he lost much of his popularity by 1774. He particularly resented the tactics of New England leaders in that year and refused to support aid requested by Boston in the wake of the Intolerable Acts, though he sympathized with the city’s plight. Reluctantly, Dickinson was drawn into the Revolutionary fray. In 1774 he chaired the Philadelphia committee of correspondence and briefly sat in the First Continental Congress as a representative from Pennsylvania.

Throughout 1775, Dickinson supported the Whig cause, but continued to work for peace. He drew up petitions asking the king for redress of grievances. At the same time, he chaired a Philadelphia committee of safety and defense and held a colonelcy in the first battalion recruited in Philadelphia to defend the city.

After Lexington and Concord, Dickinson continued to hope for a peaceful solution. In the Second Continental Congress (1775-76), still a representative of Pennsylvania, he drew up the “Declaration of the Causes of Taking Up Arms.” In the Pennsylvania assembly, he drafted an authorization to send delegates to Congress in 1776. It directed them to seek redress of grievances, but ordered them to oppose separation of the colonies from Britain.

By that time, Dickinson’s moderate position had left him in the minority. In Congress, he voted against the Declaration of Independence (1776) and refused to sign it. Nevertheless, he then became one of only two contemporary congressional members (with Thomas McKean) who entered the military. When he was not reelected he resigned his brigadier general’s commission and withdrew to his estate in Delaware. Later in 1776, though reelected to Congress by his new constituency, he declined to serve and also resigned from the Pennsylvania Assembly. He may have taken part in the Battle of Brandywine, Pennsylvania (September 11, 1777), as a private in a special Delaware force but otherwise saw no further military action.

Dickinson came out of retirement to take a seat in the Continental Congress (1779-80), where he signed the Articles of Confederation; earlier he had headed the committee that had drafted them. In 1781, he became president of Delaware’s Supreme Executive Council. Shortly thereafter, he moved back to Philadelphia. There, he became president of Pennsylvania (1782-85). In 1786, representing Delaware, he attended and chaired the Annapolis Convention.

The next year, Delaware sent Dickinson to the Constitutional Convention. He missed a number of sessions and left early because of illness, but he made worthwhile contributions, including service on the Committee on Postponed Matters. Although he resented the forcefulness of Madison and the other nationalists, he helped engineer the Great Compromise and wrote public letters supporting constitutional ratification. Because of his premature departure from the convention, he did not actually sign the Constitution but authorized his friend and fellow-delegate George Read to do so for him.

Dickinson lived for two decades more but held no public offices. Instead, he devoted himself to writing on politics and in 1801 published two volumes of his collected works. He died at Wilmington in 1808 at the age of 75 and was entombed in the Friends Burial Ground.

State:  Delaware

Date of Birth:  1752

Date of Death:  April 25, 1810

Schooling:  Local Schools

Occupation:  Businessman, Public Security Interests, Lending and Investments, Farmer, Mercantile, Manufacturing, and Shipping

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of Delaware State Legislature 1785-1787, Assistant Burgess of Wilmington, Justice of Peace for New Castle County, Delegate to Annapolis Convention (did not attend)

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, with the exception of a one week absence in early June to attend the Delaware Legislature, was present through the signing of the Constitution. Played a minor role in the Delaware delegation. William Pierce stated that “he is a plain good Man, with some abilities, but nothing to render him conspicuous.”

New Government Participation:  Supported ratification of the Constitution. Took no active part in new Federal Government.

Biography from the National Archives:  Broom was born in 1752 at Wilmington, Delaware, the eldest son of a blacksmith who prospered in farming. The youth was educated at home and probably at the local Old Academy. Although he followed his father into farming and also studied surveying, he was to make his career primarily in mercantile pursuits, including shipping and the import trade, and in real estate. In 1773, he married Rachel Pierce, who bore eight children.

Broom was not a distinguished patriot. His only recorded service was the preparation of maps for George Washington before the Battle of Brandywine, PA. In 1776, at 24 years of age, Broom became assistant burgess of Wilmington. Over the next several decades, he held that office six times and that of chief burgess four times, as well as those of borough assessor, president of the city “street regulators,” and justice of the peace for New Castle County.

Broom sat in the state legislature in the years 1784-86 and 1788, during which time he was chosen as a delegate to the Annapolis Convention, but he did not attend. At the Constitutional Convention, he never missed a session and spoke on several occasions, but his role was only a minor one.

After the convention, Broom returned to Wilmington, where in 1795 he erected a home near the Brandywine River on the outskirts of the city. He was its first postmaster (1790-92) and continued to hold various local offices and to participate in a variety of economic endeavors. For many years, he chaired the board of directors of Wilmington’s Delaware Bank. He also operated a cotton mill, as well as a machine shop that produced and repaired mill machinery. He was involved, too, in an unsuccessful scheme to mine bog iron ore. A further interest was internal improvements: toll roads, canals, and bridges.

Broom also found time for philanthropic and religious activities. He served on the board of trustees of the College of Wilmington and as a lay leader at Old Swedes Church. He died at the age of 58 in 1810 while in Philadelphia on business and was buried there at Christ Church Burial Ground.

State:  Delaware (born in Maryland)

Date of Birth:  May 2, 1745

Date of Death:  September 15, 1815

Schooling:  Read for Law at Philadelphia

Occupation:  Lawyer, Public Security Interests, Lending and Investments, Farmer

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of Delaware State Legislature 1785, Upper House of Delaware State Legislature 1776 & 1777-1780 & 1783-1785, Delaware State Constitution Convention 1776, Delegate to Annapolis Convention 1786

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, except for one week absence in early August, was present through the signing of the Constitution. No record of him ever speaking at the Convention. William Pierce stated that “he is a religious enthusiast, lately turned Methodist, and serves his Country because it is the will of the people that he should do so.”

New Government Participation:  Attended Delaware ratification convention, supported ratification of the Constitution. Served as Senator from Delaware (1789 – 1793), “Midnight” Judge appointee by President Adams.

Biography from the National Archives:  Bassett (Basset) was born in Cecil County, MD., in April 1745. After his tavern-keeper father deserted his mother, he was reared by a relative, Peter Lawson, from whom he later inherited Bohemia Manor (MD.) estate. He read for the law at Philadelphia and in 1770 received a license to practice in Dover, DE. He prospered as a lawyer and planter, and eventually came to own not only Bohemia Manor, but homes in Dover and Wilmington as well.

During the Revolution, Bassett captained a troop of Dover cavalry militia and served on the Delaware council of safety. Subsequently, he participated in Delaware’s constitutional convention and sat in both the upper and lower houses of the legislature. In 1786 he represented his state in the Annapolis Convention.

At the U.S. Constitutional Convention the next year, Bassett attended diligently but made no speeches, served on no committees, and cast no critical votes. Like several other delegates of estimable reputation and talent, he allowed others to make the major steps.

Bassett subsequently went on to a bright career in the state and federal governments. In the Delaware ratifying convention, he joined in the 30-0 vote for the Constitution. Subsequently, in the years 1789-93, he served in the U.S. Senate. In that capacity, he voted in favor of the power of the President to remove governmental officers and against Hamilton’s plan for the federal assumption of state debts.

From 1793 until 1799 Bassett held the chief justiceship of the court of common pleas. He espoused the Federalist cause in the 1790s, and served as a Presidential elector on behalf of John Adams in 1797. Two years later, Bassett was elected Governor of Delaware and continued in that post until 1801. That year, he became one of President Adams’ “midnight” appointments as a judge of the U.S. Circuit Court. Subsequently, the Jeffersonian Republicans abolished his judgeship, and he spent the rest of his life in retirement.

Twice married, to Ann Ennals and a woman named Bruff, Bassett fathered several children. He was a devout Methodist, held religious meetings at Bohemia Manor, and supported the church financially. He died in 1815 at the age of 70 and is interred at the Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery, Wilmington, DE.

State:  Georgia (Born in Baltimore, MD)

Age at Convention:  39

Date of Birth:  June 8, 1748

Date of Death:  July 16, 1828

Schooling:  Self-taught lawyer

Occupation:  Politician, Public Security Interests, Real Estate Speculation, Farmer, Lawyer

Prior Political Experience:  Georgia State Constitutional Convention 1776, Georgia Surveyor General 1776, Georgia State Executive Council 1777-1778, Georgia Indian Commissioner 1779, Georgia Lower House State Legislature 1777 & 1779 & 1783, Georgia Provincial Congress 1776, State Upper House Legislature 1777-1778, Continental Congress 1780-1781, Confederation Congress 1785-1788

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, served in Confederation Congress during July, returned through the signing of the Constitution. He did not play an active role at the Convention. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Few possesses a strong natural Genius, and from application has acquired some knowledge of legal matters.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the Georgia ratification convention, and supported ratification of the Constitution. Served as Senator (1789-1793) for Georgia. Received appointment for Federal District Judge of Georgia (1796-1799).

Biography from the National Archives:  Few was born in 1748. His father’s family had emigrated from England to Pennsylvania in the 1680s, but the father had subsequently moved to Maryland, where he married and settled on a farm near Baltimore. William was born there. He encountered much hardship and received minimal schooling. When he was 10 years of age, his father, seeking better opportunity, moved his family to North Carolina.

In 1771 Few, his father, and a brother associated themselves with the “Regulators,” a group of frontiersmen who opposed the royal governor. As a result, the brother was hanged, the Few family farm was destroyed, and the father was forced to move once again, this time to Georgia. William remained behind, helping to settle his father’s affairs, until 1776 when he joined his family near Wrightsboro, Ga. About this time, he won admittance to the bar, based on earlier informal study, and set up practice in Augusta.

When the War for Independence began, Few enthusiastically aligned himself with the Whig cause. Although largely self-educated, he soon proved his capacity for leadership and won a lieutenant-colonelcy in the dragoons. In addition, he entered politics. He was elected to the Georgia provincial congress of 1776 and during the war twice served in the assembly, in 1777 and 1779. During the same period, he also sat on the state executive council besides holding the positions of surveyor-general and Indian commissioner. He also served in the Continental Congress (1780-88), during which time he was reelected to the Georgia Assembly (1783).

Four years later, Few was appointed as one of six state delegates to the Constitutional Convention, two of whom never attended and two others of whom did not stay for the duration. Few himself missed large segments of the proceedings, being absent during all of July and part of August because of congressional service, and never made a speech. Nonetheless, he contributed nationalist votes at critical times. Furthermore, as a delegate to the last sessions of the Continental Congress, he helped steer the Constitution past its first obstacle, approval by Congress. And he attended the state ratifying convention.

Few became one of his state’s first U.S. senators (1789-93). When his term ended, he headed back home and served again in the assembly. In 1796 he received an appointment as a federal judge for the Georgia circuit. For reasons unknown, he resigned his judgeship in 1799 at the age of 52 and moved to New York City.

Few’s career continued to blossom. He served 4 years in the legislature (1802-5) and then as inspector of prisons (1802-10), alderman (1813-14), and U.S. commissioner of loans (1804). From 1804 to 1814 he held a directorship at the Manhattan Bank and later the presidency of City Bank. A devout Methodist, he also donated generously to philanthropic causes.

When Few died in 1828 at the age of 80 in Fishkill-on-the-Hudson (present Beacon), he was survived by his wife (born Catherine Nicholson) and three daughters. Originally buried in the yard of the local Reformed Dutch Church, his body was later reinterred at St. Paul’s Church, Augusta, GA.

State:  Georgia (Born in Connecticut)

Age at Convention:  32

Date of Birth:  November 22, 1754

Date of Death:  March 4, 1807

Schooling:  Yale 1772

Occupation:  Public Security Interests, Lawyer, Office Holder, Chaplin, Educator

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of Georgia State Legislature 1784-1785, Confederation Congress 1785-1786

Committee Assignments:  First Committee of Representation, Committee of Assumption of State Debts, Committee of Slave Trade, Committee of Leftovers

Convention Contributions:  Arrived June 11 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. He rarely spoke at the Convention but on July 2, voted for a proposition which created the Committee that drafted the Connecticut Compromise. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Baldwin is a Gentleman of superior abilities and joins in a public debate with great art and eloquence.”

New Government Participation:  Served as Representative (1789-90), Senator (1790-1807), where he presided as president pro tem, for Georgia. He was an ardent supporter of the Democratic-Republicans.

Biography from the National Archives:  Baldwin was born at Guilford, Conn., in 1754, the second son of a blacksmith who fathered 12 children by 2 wives. Besides Abraham, several of the family attained distinction. His sister Ruth married the poet and diplomat Joel Barlow, and his half-brother Henry attained the position of justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Their ambitious father went heavily into debt to educate his children.

After attending a local village school, Abraham matriculated at Yale, in nearby New Haven. He graduated in 1772. Three years later, he became a minister and tutor at the college. He held that position until 1779, when he served as a chaplain in the Continental Army. Two years later, he declined an offer from his alma mater of a professorship of divinity. Instead of resuming his ministerial or educational duties after the war, he turned to the study of law and in 1783 gained admittance to the bar at Fairfield, CT.

Within a year, Baldwin moved to Georgia, won legislative approval to practice his profession, and obtained a grant of land in Wilkes County. In 1785 he sat in the assembly and the Continental Congress. Two years later, his father died and Baldwin undertook to pay off his debts and educate, out of his own pocket, his half-brothers and half-sisters.

That same year, Baldwin attended the Constitutional Convention, from which he was absent for a few weeks. Although usually inconspicuous, he sat on the Committee on Postponed Matters and helped resolve the large-small state representation crisis. At first, he favored representation in the Senate based upon property holdings, but possibly because of his close relationship with the Connecticut delegation he later came to fear alienation of the small states and changed his mind to representation by state.

After the convention, Baldwin returned to the Continental Congress (1787-89). He was then elected to the U.S. Congress, where he served for 18 years (House of Representatives, 1789-99; Senate, 1799-1807). During these years, he became a bitter opponent of Hamiltonian policies and, unlike most other native New Englanders, an ally of Madison and Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans. In the Senate, he presided for a while as president pro tem.

By 1790 Baldwin had taken up residence in Augusta. Beginning in the preceding decade, he had begun efforts to advance the educational system in Georgia. Appointed with six others in 1784 to oversee the founding of a state college, he saw his dream come true in 1798 when Franklin College was founded. Modeled after Yale, it became the nucleus of the University of Georgia.

Baldwin, who never married, died after a short illness during his 53d year in 1807. Still serving in the Senate at the time, he was buried in Washington’s Rock Creek Cemetery.

State:  Georgia

Date of Birth:  1755

Date of Death:  March 17, 1813

Schooling:  Read law at Inner Temple (London) 1776

Occupation:  Politician, Lawyer, Planter

Prior Political Experience:  Confederation Congress 1783-1786, State Legislature of Georgia 1783-1787

Committee Assignments:  Third Committee of Representation

Convention Contributions:  Arrived June 1, departed the Convention on August 6 and did not return. Voted against the creation of the Committee which drafted the Connecticut Compromise. William Pierce stated that “Nature seems to have done more for his corporeal than mental powers. His Person is striking, but his mind very little improved with useful or eloquent knowledge.”

New Government Participation:  Took no active role in the new government.

Biography from the National Archives:  William Houstoun was the son of Sir Patrick Houstoun, a member of the council under the royal government of Georgia. He was born in 1755 in Savannah, GA. Houstoun received a liberal education, which included legal training at Inner Temple in London. The War for Independence cut short his training, and Houstoun returned home to Georgia. For many years members of Houstoun’s family had been high officials in the colony. With the onset of war, many remained loyal to the crown, but William, a zealous advocate of colonists’ rights, was among the first to counsel resistance to British aggression.

Houstoun represented Georgia in the Continental Congress from 1783 through 1786. He was chosen as one of Georgia’s agents to settle a boundary dispute with South Carolina in 1785 and was one of the original trustees of the University of Georgia at Athens.

When the Constitutional Convention convened in 1787, Houstoun presented his credentials as one of Georgia’s delegates. He stayed for only a short time, from June 1 until August 6, but he was present during the debate on the representation question. Houstoun split Georgia’s vote on equal representation in the Senate, voting “nay” against Abraham Baldwin’s “aye.”

Houstoun died in Savannah on March 17, 1813, and was interred in St. Paul’s Chapel, New York City.

State:  Georgia (Born in Virginia)

Date of Death:  December 10, 1789

Schooling:  Attended William and Mary

Occupation:  Soldier, Merchant

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of Georgia State Legislature 1786, Confederation Congress 1787

Convention Contributions:  Attended May 31 to June 30, with the exception of a one week absence in mid-June. Left on July 2 to represent Georgia in the Confederation Congress and never returned. He is best known for his character sketches of the delegates at the Convention, since Pierce left on July 2 these sketches are prior to the Connecticut Compromise and the subsequent conversation on the Committee of Detail report. William Pierce stated that “My own character I shall not attempt to draw, but leave those who may choose to speculate on it, to consider it in any light that their fancy or imagination my depict.”

New Government Participation:  Died in the first year of the new government.

Biography from the National Archives:  Very little is known about William Pierce’s early life. He was probably born in Georgia in 1740, but he grew up in Virginia. During the Revolutionary War Pierce acted as an aide-de-camp to Gen. Nathanael Greene and eventually attained the rank of brevet major. For his conduct at the battle of Eutaw Springs, Congress presented him with a ceremonial sword.

The year Pierce left the army, 1783, he married Charlotte Fenwick of South Carolina. They had two sons, one of whom died as a child. Pierce made his home in Savannah, where he engaged in business. He first organized an import-export company, Pierce, White, and Call, in 1783, but it dissolved less than a year later. He made a new start with his wife’s dowry and formed William Pierce & Company. In 1786 he was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives and was also elected to the Continental Congress.

At the Constitutional Convention Pierce did not play a large role, but he exerted some influence and participated in three debates. He argued for the election of one house of the federal legislature by the people and one house by the states; he favored a 3-year term instead of a 7-year term in the second house. Because he agreed that the Articles had been insufficient, he recommended strengthening the federal government at the expense of state privileges as long as state distinctions were not altogether destroyed. Pierce approved of the resulting Constitution, but he found it necessary to leave in the middle of the proceedings. A decline in the European rice market adversely affected his business. Soon after he returned to Savannah he went bankrupt, having “neither the skill of an experienced merchant nor any reserve capital.” Only 2 years later, on December 10, 1789, Pierce died in Savannah at age 49 leaving tremendous debts.

Pierce’s notes on the proceedings of the convention were published in the Savannah Georgian in 1828. In them he wrote incisive character sketches that are especially valuable for the information they provide about the lesser-known delegates.

State:  New York

Age at Convention:  49

Date of Birth:  January 27, 1738

Date of Death:  September 9, 1801

Schooling:  Read law with William Livingston

Occupation:  Politician, Judge

Prior Political Experience:  State Constitutional Convention for New York 1776-1777, New York Supreme Court Judge 1777-1798, New York Provincial Congress 1775-1776

Committee Assignments:  First Committee of Representation, Third Committee of Representation

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, departed July 10, and never returned to the Convention. He is best known for his resistance to the efforts to create a strong central government. He joined in a letter with John Lansing to Governor Clinton that gave reasons for leaving the Convention early. James Madison in 1831 noted that Judge Yates “though a highly respectable man, was a zealous partizedian and has committed gross errors in his desultory notes.” William Pierce stated that “some of his Enemies say he is anti-federal Man, but I discovered no such disposition in him.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the New York ratifying convention and opposed the ratification of the Constitution in 1788. Yates wrote against the Constitution in letters signed “Brutus.” He did not hold a position in the new Federal Government. The publication of his personal notes of the Convention caused considerable controversy within the political realm.

Biography from the National Archives:  The son of Joseph and Maria Yates, Robert Yates was born in Schenectady, NY, on January 27, 1738. He received a classical education in New York City and later studied law with William Livingston. Yates was admitted to the New York bar in 1760 and thereafter resided in Albany.

Between 1771 and 1775 Yates sat on the Albany board of aldermen. During the pre-Revolution years Yates counted himself among the Radical Whigs, whose vigilance against corruption and emphasis on the protection of liberty in England appealed to many in the colonies. Once the Revolution broke out, Yates served on the Albany committee of safety and represented his county in four provincial congresses and in the convention of 1775-77. At the convention he sat on various committees, including the one that drafted the first constitution for New York State.

On May 8, 1777, Yates was appointed to New York’s supreme court and presided as its chief justice from 1790 through 1798. While on the bench he attracted criticism for his fair treatment of Loyalists. Other duties included serving on commissions that were called to settle boundary disputes with Massachusetts and Vermont.

In the 1780s Robert Yates stood as a recognized leader of the Antifederalists. He opposed any concessions to the federal congress, such as the right to collect impost duties, that might diminish the sovereignty of the states. When he travelled to Philadelphia in May 1787 for the federal convention, he expected that the delegates would simply discuss revising the existing Articles. Yates was on the committee that debated the question of representation in the legislature, and it soon became apparent that the convention intended much more than modification of the current plan of union. On July 5, the day the committee presented its report, Yates and John Lansing (to whom Yates was related by marriage) left the proceedings. In a joint letter to Gov. George Clinton of New York, they spelled out the reasons for their early departure. They warned against the dangers of centralizing power and urged opposition to adopting the Constitution. Yates continued to attack the Constitution in a series of letters signed “Brutus” and “Sydney” and voted against ratification at the Poughkeepsie convention.

In 1789 Yates ran for governor of New York but lost the election. Three years after his retirement from the state supreme court, on September 9, 1801, he died, leaving his wife, Jannetje Van Ness Yates, and four of his six children. Though he had enjoyed a comfortable income at the start of his career, his capital had dwindled away until very little was left. In 1821 his notes from the Constitutional Convention were published under the title Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Convention Assembled… for the Purpose of Forming the Constitution of the United States.

Age at Convention:  33

Date of Birth:  January 30, 1754

Date of Death:  December 29, 1829

Schooling:  Read law with Robert Yates

Occupation:  Lawyer, Public Security Interests

Prior Political Experience:  New York Lower House Legislature 1780-1784 & Speaker 1786, Confederation Congress 1784-1785, Mayor of Albany 1786-1790

Convention Contributions:  Arrived June 2, departed July 10 and never returned. He explained his reasons for departing early to Governor Clinton; Lansing thought that the convention had exceeded its authority and that the proposed “consolidated government” would be dangerous to the liberties of the people. William Pierce stated that “his legal knowledge I am told is not extensive, nor his education a good one. He is however a Man of good sense, plain in his manners, and sincere in his friendships.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the New York ratifying convention and opposed the ratification of the Constitution in 1788. He did not serve in the new Federal Government, but was active in State and Local judicial positions.

Biography from the National Archives:  On January 30, 1754, John Lansing was born in Albany, NY, to Gerrit Jacob and Jannetje Lansing. At age 21 Lansing had completed his study of the law and was admitted to practice. In 1781 he married Cornelia Ray. They had 10 children, 5 of whom died in infancy. Lansing was quite wealthy; he owned a large estate at Lansingburg and had a lucrative law practice.

From 1776 to 1777 Lansing acted as military secretary to Gen. Philip Schuyler. From the military world Lansing turned to the political and served six terms in the New York Assembly–1780-84, 1786, and 1788. During the last two terms he was speaker of the assembly. In the 2-year gap between his first four terms in the assembly and the fifth, Lansing sat in the Confederation Congress. He rounded out his public service by serving as Albany’s mayor between 1786 and 1790.

Lansing went to Philadelphia as part of the New York delegation to the Constitutional Convention. As the convention progressed, Lansing became disillusioned because he believed it was exceeding its instructions. Lansing believed the delegates had gathered together simply to amend the Articles of Confederation and was dismayed at the movement to write an entirely new constitution. After 6 weeks, John Lansing and fellow New York delegate Robert Yates left the convention and explained their departure in a joint letter to New York Governor George Clinton. They stated that they opposed any system that would consolidate the United States into one government, and they had understood that the convention would not consider any such consolidation. Furthermore, warned Lansing and Yates, the kind of government recommended by the convention could not “afford that security to equal and permanent liberty which we wished to make an invariable object of our pursuit.” In 1788, as a member of the New York ratifying convention, Lansing again vigorously opposed the Constitution.

Under the new federal government Lansing pursued a long judicial career. In 1790 he began an 11-year term on the supreme court of New York; from 1798 until 1801 he served as its chief justice. Between 1801 and 1814 Lansing was chancellor of the state. Retirement from that post did not slow him down; in 1817 he accepted an appointment as a regent of the University of the State of New York.

Lansing’s death was the most mysterious of all the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. While on a visit to New York City in 1829, he left his hotel to post some letters. No trace of him was ever found, and it was supposed that he had been murdered.

State:  New York (Born in British West Indies, immigrated 1772)

Date of Birth:  January 11, 1757

Date of Death:  July 12, 1804

Schooling:  Attended Kings College (Columbia)

Occupation:  Lawyer, Public Security Interests, Real Estate, Land Speculation, Soldier

Prior Political Experience:  Confederation Congress 1782-1783, Represented New York at Annapolis Convention 1786, Lower State Legislature of New York 1787

Committee Assignments:  Committee of Rules, Committee of Style

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, departed June 30, and except for one day, August 13, he was absent until September 6. Upon his return he remained present through the signing of the Constitution. His most important contribution was the introduction and defense of the Hamilton plan on June 18, 1787, that argued neither the Virginia Plan nor the New Jersey Plan were adequate to the task at hand. William Pierce stated that “there is no skimming over the surface of a subject with him, he must sink to the bottom to see what foundation it rests on.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the New York ratifying convention and supported the ratification of the Constitution. President Washington nominated and the Senate confirmed Hamilton as the Secretary of the Treasury (1789 – 1796). He was the principle author of the Federalist Papers.

Biography from the National Archives:  Hamilton was born in 1757 on the island of Nevis, in the Leeward group, British West Indies. He was the illegitimate son of a common-law marriage between a poor itinerant Scottish merchant of aristocratic descent and an English-French Huguenot mother who was a planter’s daughter. In 1766, after the father had moved his family elsewhere in the Leewards to St. Croix in the Danish (now United States) Virgin Islands, he returned to St. Kitts while his wife and two sons remained on St. Croix.

The mother, who opened a small store to make ends meet, and a Presbyterian clergyman provided Hamilton with a basic education, and he learned to speak fluent French. About the time of his mother’s death in 1768, he became an apprentice clerk at Christiansted in a mercantile establishment, whose proprietor became one of his benefactors. Recognizing his ambition and superior intelligence, they raised a fund for his education.

In 1772, bearing letters of introduction, Hamilton traveled to New York City. Patrons he met there arranged for him to attend Barber’s Academy at Elizabethtown (present Elizabeth), NJ. During this time, he met and stayed for a while at the home of William Livingston, who would one day be a fellow signer of the Constitution. Late the next year, 1773, Hamilton entered King’s College (later Columbia College and University) in New York City, but the Revolution interrupted his studies.

Although not yet 20 years of age, in 1774-75 Hamilton wrote several widely read pro-Whig pamphlets. Right after the war broke out, he accepted an artillery captaincy and fought in the principal campaigns of 1776-77. In the latter year, winning the rank of lieutenant colonel, he joined the staff of General Washington as secretary and aide-de-camp and soon became his close confidant as well.

In 1780 Hamilton wed New Yorker Elizabeth Schuyler, whose family was rich and politically powerful; they were to have eight children. In 1781, after some disagreements with Washington, he took a command position under Lafayette in the Yorktown, VA, campaign (1781). He resigned his commission that November.

Hamilton then read law at Albany and quickly entered practice, but public service soon attracted him. He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1782-83. In the latter year, he established a law office in New York City. Because of his interest in strengthening the central government, he represented his state at the Annapolis Convention in 1786, where he urged the calling of the Constitutional Convention.

In 1787 Hamilton served in the legislature, which appointed him as a delegate to the convention. He played a surprisingly small part in the debates, apparently because he was frequently absent on legal business, his extreme nationalism put him at odds with most of the delegates, and he was frustrated by the conservative views of his two fellow delegates from New York. He did, however, sit on the Committee of Style, and he was the only one of the three delegates from his state who signed the finished document. Hamilton’s part in New York’s ratification the next year was substantial, though he felt the Constitution was deficient in many respects. Against determined opposition, he waged a strenuous and successful campaign, including collaboration with John Jay and James Madison in writing The Federalist. In 1787 Hamilton was again elected to the Continental Congress.

When the new government got under way in 1789, Hamilton won the position of Secretary of the Treasury. He began at once to place the nation’s disorganized finances on a sound footing. In a series of reports (1790-91), he presented a program not only to stabilize national finances but also to shape the future of the country as a powerful, industrial nation. He proposed establishment of a national bank, funding of the national debt, assumption of state war debts, and the encouragement of manufacturing.

Hamilton’s policies soon brought him into conflict with Jefferson and Madison. Their disputes with him over his pro-business economic program, sympathies for Great Britain, disdain for the common man, and opposition to the principles and excesses of the French revolution contributed to the formation of the first U.S. party system. It pitted Hamilton and the Federalists against Jefferson and Madison and the Democratic-Republicans.

During most of the Washington administration, Hamilton’s views usually prevailed with the President, especially after 1793 when Jefferson left the government. In 1795 family and financial needs forced Hamilton to resign from the Treasury Department and resume his law practice in New York City. Except for a stint as inspector-general of the Army (1798-1800) during the undeclared war with France, he never again held public office.

While gaining stature in the law, Hamilton continued to exert a powerful impact on New York and national politics. Always an opponent of fellow-Federalist John Adams, he sought to prevent his election to the presidency in 1796. When that failed, he continued to use his influence secretly within Adams’ cabinet. The bitterness between the two men became public knowledge in 1800 when Hamilton denounced Adams in a letter that was published through the efforts of the Democratic-Republicans.

In 1802 Hamilton and his family moved into The Grange, a country home he had built in a rural part of Manhattan not far north of New York City. But the expenses involved and investments in northern land speculations seriously strained his finances.

Meanwhile, when Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in Presidential electoral votes in 1800, Hamilton threw valuable support to Jefferson. In 1804, when Burr sought the governorship of New York, Hamilton again managed to defeat him. That same year, Burr, taking offense at remarks he believed to have originated with Hamilton, challenged him to a duel, which took place at present Weehawken, NJ, on July 11. Mortally wounded, Hamilton died the next day. He was in his late forties at death. He was buried in Trinity Churchyard in New York City.

State:  South Carolina

Age at Convention:  48

Date of Birth:  September 1739

Date of Death:  July 23, 1800

Schooling:  Middle Temple 1760

Occupation:  Planter, Slave Holder, Lawyer, Judge

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of South Carolina 1782, State Constitutional Convention of South Carolina 1776, South Carolina Chancery Court 1784-1791, Governor of South Carolina 1776-1782, First Continental Congress 1774, Confederation Congress 1782-1783

Committee Assignments:  First Committee of Representation, Second Committee of Representation, Third Committee of Representation, Chairman of Committee of Detail, Chairman of Committee of State Commitments

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. Rutledge was willing to support a stronger central government as long as slavery remained under the control of each State. William Pierce stated that “he is undoubtedly a man of abilities, and a Gentleman of distinction and fortune.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the South Carolina ratifying convention and supported the ratification of the Constitution. President Washington nominated and the Senate confirmed him as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1789-1791). President Washington again nominated him as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Senate did not confirm him.

Biography from the National Archives:  John Rutledge, elder brother of Edward Rutledge, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born into a large family at or near Charleston, South Carolina, in 1739. He received his early education from his father, an Irish immigrant and physician, and from an Anglican minister and a tutor. After studying law at London’s Middle Temple in 1760, he was admitted to English practice. But, almost at once, he sailed back to Charleston to begin a fruitful legal career and to amass a fortune in plantations and slaves. Three years later, he married Elizabeth Grimke, who eventually bore him 10 children, and moved into a townhouse, where he resided most of the remainder of his life.

In 1761, Rutledge became politically active. That year, on behalf of Christ Church Parish, he was elected to the provincial assembly and held his seat until the War for Independence. For 10 months in 1764, he temporarily held the post of provincial attorney general. When the troubles with Great Britain intensified about the time of the Stamp Act in 1765, Rutledge, who hoped to ensure continued self-government for the colonies, sought to avoid severance from the British and maintained a restrained stance. He did, however, chair a committee of the Stamp Act Congress that drew up a petition to the House of Lords.

In 1774, Rutledge was sent to the First Continental Congress, where he pursued a moderate course. After spending the next year in the Second Continental Congress, he returned to South Carolina and helped reorganize its government. In 1776 he served on the committee of safety and took part in the writing of the state constitution. That year, he also became president of the lower house of the legislature, a post he held until 1778. During this period, the new government met many stern tests.

In 1778, the conservative Rutledge, disapproving of democratic revisions in the state constitution, resigned his position. The next year, however, he was elected as governor. It was a difficult time. The British were invading South Carolina, and the military situation was desperate. Early in 1780, by which time the legislature had adjourned, Charleston was besieged. In May it fell, the American army was captured, and the British confiscated Rutledge’s property. He ultimately escaped to North Carolina and set about attempting to rally forces to recover South Carolina. In 1781, aided by Gen. Nathanael Greene and a new Continental Army force, he reestablished the government. In January 1782 he resigned the governorship and took a seat in the lower house of the legislature. He never recouped the financial losses he suffered during the war.

In 1782-83, Rutledge was a delegate to the Continental Congress. He next sat on the state chancery court (1784) and again in the lower house of the legislature (1784-90). One of the most influential delegates at the Constitutional Convention, where he maintained a moderate nationalist stance and chaired the Committee of Detail, he attended all the sessions, spoke often and effectively, and served on five committees. Like his fellow South Carolina delegates, he vigorously advocated southern interests.

The new government under the Constitution soon lured Rutledge. He was a Presidential elector in 1789 and Washington then appointed him as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, but for some reason he apparently served only a short time. In 1791 he became chief justice of the South Carolina supreme court. Four years later, Washington again appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court, this time as Chief Justice to replace John Jay. But Rutledge’s outspoken opposition to Jay’s Treaty (1794), and the intermittent mental illness he had suffered from since the death of his wife in 1792, caused the Federalist-dominated Senate to reject his appointment and end his public career. Meantime, however, he had presided over one term of the Court.

Rutledge died in 1800 at the age of 60 and was interred at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Charleston.

Date of Birth:  February 25, 1746

Date of Death:  August 16, 1825

Schooling:  Oxford 1764 and Middle Temple

Occupation:  Lawyer, Planter and Slave Holder, Lending and Investments, Public Security Interests, Solider, Educator

Prior Political Experience:  Provincial Assembly 1769, Lower House of South Carolina State Legislature 1776 & 1778 & 1782, Upper House 1789

Committee Assignments:  Committee of Assumption of State Debts, Committee of Slave Trade

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. William Pierce stated that “he has received the advantage of a liberal education, and possess a very extensive degree of legal knowledge.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the South Carolina ratifying convention and supported the ratification of the Constitution. Served as the Minister to France (1796 – 1798). Major General U.S. Army 1798-1800. Federalist Party Presidential candidate 1804 & 1808.

Biography from the National Archives:  The eldest son of a politically prominent planter and a remarkable mother who introduced and promoted indigo culture in South Carolina, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was born in 1746 at Charleston. Only 7 years later, he accompanied his father, who had been appointed colonial agent for South Carolina, to England. As a result, the youth enjoyed a European education.

Pinckney received tutoring in London, attended several preparatory schools, and went on to Christ Church College, Oxford, where he heard the lectures of the legal authority Sir William Blackstone and graduated in 1764. Pinckney next pursued legal training at London’s Middle Temple and was accepted for admission into the English bar in 1769. He then spent part of a year touring Europe and studying chemistry, military science, and botany under leading authorities.

Late in 1769, Pinckney sailed home and the next year entered practice in South Carolina. His political career began in 1769, when he was elected to the provincial assembly. In 1773 he acted as attorney general for several towns in the colony. By 1775 he had identified with the patriot cause and that year sat in the provincial congress. Then, the next year, he was elected to the local committee of safety and made chairman of a committee that drew up a plan for the interim government of South Carolina.

When hostilities broke out, Pinckney, who had been a royal militia officer since 1769, pursued a full-time military calling. When South Carolina organized its forces in 1775, he joined the First South Carolina Regiment as a captain. He soon rose to the rank of colonel and fought in the South in defense of Charleston and in the North at the Battles of Brandywine, PA, and Germantown, PA. He commanded a regiment in the campaign against the British in the Floridas in 1778 and at the siege of Savannah. When Charleston fell in 1780, he was taken prisoner and held until 1782. The following year, he was discharged as a brevet brigadier general.

After the war, Pinckney resumed his legal practice and the management of estates in the Charleston area but found time to continue his public service, which during the war had included tours in the lower house of the state legislature (1778 and 1782) and the senate (1779).

Pinckney was one of the leaders at the Constitutional Convention. Present at all the sessions, he strongly advocated a powerful national government. His proposal that senators should serve without pay was not adopted, but he exerted influence in such matters as the power of the Senate to ratify treaties and the compromise that was reached concerning abolition of the international slave trade. After the convention, he defended the Constitution in South Carolina.

Under the new government, Pinckney became a devoted Federalist. Between 1789 and 1795 he declined presidential offers to command the U.S. Army and to serve on the Supreme Court and as Secretary of War and Secretary of State. In 1796, however, he accepted the post of Minister to France, but the revolutionary regime there refused to receive him and he was forced to proceed to the Netherlands. The next year, though, he returned to France when he was appointed to a special mission to restore relations with that country. During the ensuing XYZ affair, refusing to pay a bribe suggested by a French agent to facilitate negotiations, he was said to have replied “No! No! Not a sixpence!”

When Pinckney arrived back in the United States in 1798, he found the country preparing for war with France. That year, he was appointed as a major general in command of American forces in the South and served in that capacity until 1800, when the threat of war ended. That year, he represented the Federalists as Vice-Presidential candidate, and in 1804 and 1808 as the Presidential nominee. But he met defeat on all three occasions.

For the rest of his life, Pinckney engaged in legal practice, served at times in the legislature, and engaged in philanthropic activities. He was a charter member of the board of trustees of South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina), first president of the Charleston Bible Society, and chief executive of the Charleston Library Society. He also gained prominence in the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of former officers of the War for Independence.

During the later period of his life, Pinckney enjoyed his Belmont estate and Charleston high society. He was twice married; first to Sarah Middleton in 1773 and after her death to Mary Stead in 1786. Survived by three daughters, he died in Charleston in 1825 at the age of 79. He was interred there in the cemetery at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church.

Date of Birth:  October 26, 1757

Date of Death:  October 29, 1824

Occupation:  Lawyer, Planter and Slave Holder, Lending and Investments, Public Security Interests

Prior Political Experience:  Continental Congress 1777-1778, Confederation Congress 1784-1787, State Legislature of South Carolina 1779-1780, 1786-1789, 1792-1796, Upper House 1779-1784

Committee Assignments:  Committee of Rules

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. He is best known for his proslavery position, as well as a strong proponent of a Bill of Rights. He was a warm supporter of Madison’s attempt to build a stronger central government. William Pierce stated that “he is intimately acquainted with every species of polite learning, and has a spirit of application and industry beyond most Men.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the South Carolina ratifying convention (serving as Chair of the Convention) and supported the ratification of the Constitution. Served as South Carolina’s U.S. Senator (1798 – 1801) President Jefferson nominated and the Senate confirmed him as ambassador to Spain (1801 – 1805) Elected as South Carolina’s U. S. Representative (1818 – 1821) and opposed the Missouri Compromise.

Biography from the National Archives:  Charles Pinckney, the second cousin of fellow-signer Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, was born at Charleston, SC, in 1757. His father, Col. Charles Pinckney, was a rich lawyer and planter, who on his death in 1782 was to bequeath Snee Farm, a country estate outside the city, to his son Charles. The latter apparently received all his education in the city of his birth, and he started to practice law there in 1779.

About that time, well after the War for Independence had begun, young Pinckney enlisted in the militia, though his father demonstrated ambivalence about the Revolution. He became a lieutenant, and served at the siege of Savannah (September-October 1779). When Charleston fell to the British the next year, the youth was captured and remained a prisoner until June 1781.

Pinckney had also begun a political career, serving in the Continental Congress (1777-78 and 1784-87) and in the state legislature (1779-80, 1786-89, and 1792-96). A nationalist, he worked hard in Congress to ensure that the United States would receive navigation rights to the Mississippi and to strengthen congressional power.

Pinckney’s role in the Constitutional Convention is controversial. Although one of the youngest delegates, he later claimed to have been the most influential one and contended he had submitted a draft that was the basis of the final Constitution. Most historians have rejected this assertion. They do, however, recognize that he ranked among the leaders. He attended full time, spoke often and effectively, and contributed immensely to the final draft and to the resolution of problems that arose during the debates. He also worked for ratification in South Carolina (1788). That same year, he married Mary Eleanor Laurens, daughter of a wealthy and politically powerful South Carolina merchant; she was to bear at least three children.

Subsequently, Pinckney’s career blossomed. From 1789 to 1792 he held the governorship of South Carolina, and in 1790 chaired the state constitutional convention. During this period, he became associated with the Federalist Party, in which he and his cousin Charles Cotesworth Pinckney were leaders. But, with the passage of time, the former’s views began to change. In 1795 he attacked the Federalist backed Jay’s Treaty and increasingly began to cast his lot with Carolina back-country Democratic-Republicans against his own eastern aristocracy. In 1796 he became governor once again, and in 1798 his Democratic-Republican supporters helped him win a seat in the U.S. Senate. There, he bitterly opposed his former party, and in the presidential election of 1800 served as Thomas Jefferson’s campaign manager in South Carolina.

The victorious Jefferson appointed Pinckney as Minister to Spain (1801-5), in which capacity he struggled valiantly but unsuccessfully to win cession of the Floridas to the United States and facilitated Spanish acquiescence in the transfer of Louisiana from France to the United States in 1803.

Upon completion of his diplomatic mission, his ideas moving ever closer to democracy, Pinckney headed back to Charleston and to leadership of the state Democratic-Republican Party. He sat in the legislature in 1805-6 and then was again elected as governor (1806-8). In this position, he favored legislative reapportionment, giving better representation to back-country districts, and advocated universal white manhood suffrage. He served again in the legislature from 1810 to 1814 and then temporarily withdrew from politics. In 1818 he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he fought against the Missouri Compromise.

In 1821, Pinckney’s health beginning to fail, he retired for the last time from politics. He died in 1824, just 3 days after his 67th birthday. He was laid to rest in Charleston at St. Philip’s Episcopal Churchyard.

State:  South Carolina (Born in Ireland, immigrated in 1771)

Date of Birth:  July 11, 1744

Date of Death:  February 15, 1822

Occupation:  Planter and Slave Holder, Lending and Investments, Public Security Interests, Soldier

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of South Carolina State Legislature 1778-1782, 1784-1789, Confederation Congress 1787-1788

Committee Assignments:  Committee of Trade, Committee of Leftovers

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Butler is a character much respected for the many excellent virtues which he possess but as a politician or an Orator, he has no pretensions to either.” Introduced and defended the fugitive slave clause.

New Government Participation:  Supported the ratification of the Constitution but did not attend the ratification convention in South Carolina. Served in the U. S. Senate (1789 – 1796 and 1803 – 1804)

Biography from the National Archives:  One of the most aristocratic delegates at the convention, Butler was born in 1744 in County Carlow, Ireland. His father was Sir Richard Butler, member of Parliament and a baronet.

Like so many younger sons of the British aristocracy who could not inherit their fathers’ estates because of primogeniture, Butler pursued a military career. He became a major in His Majesty’s 29th Regiment and during the colonial unrest was posted to Boston in 1768 to quell disturbances there. In 1771 he married Mary Middleton, daughter of a wealthy South Carolinian, and before long resigned his commission to take up a planter’s life in the Charleston area. The couple was to have at least one daughter.

When the Revolution broke out, Butler took up the Whig cause. He was elected to the assembly in 1778, and the next year he served as adjutant general in the South Carolina militia. While in the legislature through most of the 1780s, he took over leadership of the democratic upcountry faction in the state and refused to support his own planter group. The War for Independence cost him much of his property, and his finances were so precarious for a time that he was forced to travel to Amsterdam to seek a personal loan. In 1786 the assembly appointed him to a commission charged with settling a state boundary dispute.

The next year, Butler won election to both the Continental Congress (1787-88) and the Constitutional Convention. In the latter assembly, he was an outspoken nationalist who attended practically every session and was a key spokesman for the Madison-Wilson caucus. Butler also supported the interests of southern slaveholders. He served on the Committee on Postponed Matters.

On his return to South Carolina Butler defended the Constitution but did not participate in the ratifying convention. Service in the U.S. Senate (1789-96) followed. Although nominally a Federalist, he often crossed party lines. He supported Hamilton’s fiscal program but opposed Jay’s Treaty and Federalist judiciary and tariff measures.

Out of the Senate and back in South Carolina from 1797 to 1802, Butler was considered for but did not attain the governorship. He sat briefly in the Senate again in 1803-4 to fill out an unexpired term, and he once again demonstrated party independence. But, for the most part, his later career was spent as a wealthy planter. In his last years, he moved to Philadelphia, apparently to be near a daughter who had married a local physician. Butler died there in 1822 at the age of 77 and was buried in the yard of Christ Church.

Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814) was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts to a prosperous merchant family. He died in Washington, DC. while serving as Vice President of the United States. He was buried in Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Gerry is the only signer of the Declaration of Independence buried in DC. He fathered ten children. His wife lived until 1849, the last surviving widow of a signer.

He received a private education as a child and then studied at Harvard to be a merchant, graduating in 1764. Gerry then joined the lucrative family business and became a wealthy merchant in his own right.

Gerry’s political career was long, controversial, and effective, but mostly overlooked by historians.

In 1765, Parliament enacted the Stamp Act to raise revenue by taxing the colonies. Gerry was an opponent of these acts and allied himself with Samuel Adams and John Hancock. In 1772, Gerry was elected to the Massachusetts Bay legislature. In 1775, he was a member of a Committee of Safety, along with Adams and Hancock, in support of Boston.

In 1776, Gerry was selected to be a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. Gerry was a strong advocate for separating from England. He was absent for the formal signing on August 2, 1776 but signed later that year. He joins Oliver Wolcott, Lewis Morris, Thomas McKean, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, and Mathew Thornton as late signers. In 1776, John Adams stated, “If every man here was a Gerry, the liberties of America would be safe.” He also was a member of the Confederation Congress (1783-1785) where he signed the Articles of Confederation.

He was selected to represent Massachusetts at the 1787 Constitutional Convention where he was chair of the Connecticut Compromise Committee but, in the end, declined to sign the Constitution. He thought the Constitution should include a bill of rights and thus opposed the ratification of the Constitution. Nevertheless, Gerry served two terms in the House of Representatives (1789-1793) where he supported the passage of a bill of rights. When John Adams became President in 1796, he selected Gerry, along with John Marshall and Charles Pinckney, to be commissioners to France to settle maritime disputes. This episode became known as the XYZ Affair and Adams recalled him. He was elected Governor of Massachusetts (1810-1811) where he signed a Congressional redistricting bill that assisted the Democratic Republicans. The map looked like a salamander. Thus the term “Gerrymander” for which Gerry is mostly remembered.

State:  Massachusetts

Date of Birth:  March 24, 1755

Date of Death:  April 29, 1827

Schooling:  Harvard 1777

Occupation:  Public Security Interests, Lending and Investments, Mercantile, Manufacturing, and Shipping, Investor, Lawyer

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of Massachusetts State Legislature 1783-1785, Confederation Congress 1784-1787

Committee Assignments:  Second Committee of Representation, Chairman of the Third Committee of Representation, Committee of Assumption of State Debt, Committee of Slave Trade, Committee of Leftovers, Committee of Style

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 25, and except for four days in mid-August, was present for the duration and signed the Constitution. He served on the most committees and was a warm supporter of a strong central government. William Pierce stated that “Mr. King is a man much distinguished for his eloquence and his parliamentary talents. … He may with propriety be ranked among the Luminaries of the present Age.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the Massachusetts ratification convention, supported ratification of the Constitution. Was elected as a Senator for the State of New York (1789 – 1796), served as Minister to Great Britain (1796 – 1803 & 1825 – 1826), and reelected to the Senate (1813 – 1825). Federalist Party Candidate for Vice President 1804 & 1808, President 1816.

Biography from the National Archives:  King was born at Scarboro (Scarborough), MA (present Maine), in 1755. He was the eldest son of a prosperous farmer-merchant. At age 12, after receiving an elementary education at local schools, he matriculated at Dummer Academy in South Byfield, MA, and in 1777 graduated from Harvard. He served briefly as a general’s aide during the War for Independence. Choosing a legal career, he read for the law at Newburyport, MA, and entered practice there in 1780.

King’s knowledge, bearing, and oratorical gifts soon launched him on a political career. From 1783 to 1785 he was a member of the Massachusetts legislature, after which that body sent him to the Continental Congress (1784-86). There, he gained a reputation as a brilliant speaker and an early opponent of slavery. Toward the end of his tour, in 1786, he married Mary Alsop, daughter of a rich New York City merchant. He performed his final duties for Massachusetts by representing her at the Constitutional Convention and by serving in the commonwealth’s ratifying convention.

At age 32, King was not only one of the most youthful of the delegates at Philadelphia, but was also one of the most important. He numbered among the most capable orators. Furthermore, he attended every session. Although he came to the convention unconvinced that major changes should be made in the Articles of Confederation, his views underwent a startling transformation during the debates. With Madison, he became a leading figure in the nationalist caucus. He served with distinction on the Committee on Postponed Matters and the Committee of Style. He also took notes on the proceedings, which have been valuable to historians.

About 1788 King abandoned his law practice, moved from the Bay State to Gotham, and entered the New York political forum. He was elected to the legislature (1789-90), and in the former year was picked as one of the state’s first U.S. senators. As political divisions grew in the new government, King expressed ardent sympathies for the Federalists. In Congress, he supported Hamilton’s fiscal program and stood among the leading proponents of the unpopular Jay’s Treaty (1794).

Meantime, in 1791, King had become one of the directors of the First Bank of the United States. Reelected to the U.S. Senate in 1795, he served only a year before he was appointed as Minister to Great Britain (1796-1803).

King’s years in this post were difficult ones in Anglo-American relations. The wars of the French Revolution endangered U.S. commerce in the maritime clashes between the French and the British. The latter in particular violated American rights on the high seas, especially by the impressment of sailors. Although King was unable to bring about a change in this policy, he smoothed relations between the two nations.

In 1803 King sailed back to the United States and to a career in politics. In 1804 and 1808 fellow-signer Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and he were the Federalist candidates for President and Vice President, respectively, but were decisively defeated. Otherwise, King largely contented himself with agricultural pursuits at King Manor, a Long Island estate he had purchased in 1805. During the War of 1812, he was again elected to the U.S. Senate (1813-25) and ranked as a leading critic of the war. Only after the British attacked Washington in 1814 did he come to believe that the United States was fighting a defensive action and decided to lend his support to the war effort.

In 1816 the Federalists chose King as their candidate for the presidency, but James Monroe beat him handily. Still in the Senate, that same year King led the opposition to the establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Four years later, believing that the issue of slavery could not be compromised but must be settled once and for all by the immediate establishment of a system of compensated emancipation and colonization, he denounced the Missouri Compromise.

In 1825, suffering from ill health, King retired from the Senate. President John Quincy Adams, however, persuaded him to accept another assignment as Minister to Great Britain. He arrived in England that same year, but soon fell ill and was forced to return home the following year. Within a year, at the age of 72, in 1827, he died. Surviving him were several offspring, some of whom also gained distinction. He was laid to rest near King Manor in the cemetery of Grace Episcopal Church, Jamaica, Long Island, NY.

Date of Birth:  January 9, 1745

Date of Death:  November 7, 1819

Schooling:  Harvard 1764

Prior Political Experience:  State Lower House of Massachusetts 1776 & 1784, Upper House of Massachusetts 1780-1782, Massachusetts Constitutional Convention 1779, Attended State Constitutional Convention of Massachusetts 1779-1780

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 28, departed the Convention August 23 and never returned. Caleb Strong moderated the Massachusetts position with respect to a strong central Government. He supported the Connecticut Compromise. William Pierce stated that “he is a lawyer of some eminence … [but] … as a speaker he is feeble and without confidence.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the Massachusetts ratification convention and supported ratification of the Constitution. Served as one of the first Senators for Massachusetts (1789-1796).

Biography from the National Archives:  Strong was born to Caleb and Phebe Strong on January 9, 1745 in Northampton, Massachusetts. He received his college education at Harvard, from which he graduated with highest honors in 1764. Like so many of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Strong chose to study law and was admitted to the bar in 1772. He enjoyed a prosperous country practice.

From 1774 through the duration of the Revolution, Strong was a member of Northampton’s committee of safety. In 1776 he was elected to the Massachusetts General Court and also held the post of county attorney for Hampshire County for 24 years. He was offered a position on the state supreme court in 1783 but declined it.

At the Constitutional Convention, Strong counted himself among the delegates who favored a strong central government. He successfully moved that the House of Representatives should originate all money bills and sat on the drafting committee. Though he preferred a system that accorded the same rank and mode of election to both houses of Congress, he voted in favor of equal representation in the Senate and proportional in the House. Strong was called home on account of illness in his family and so missed the opportunity to sign the Constitution. However, during the Massachusetts ratifying convention, he took a leading role among the Federalists and campaigned strongly for ratification.

Massachusetts chose Strong as one of its first U.S. senators in 1789. During the 4 years he served in that house, he sat on numerous committees and participated in framing the Judiciary Act. Caleb Strong wholeheartedly supported the Washington administration. In 1793, he urged the government to send a mission to England and backed the resulting Jay’s Treaty when it met heated opposition.

Caleb Strong, the Federalist candidate, defeated Elbridge Gerry to become Governor of Massachusetts in 1800. Despite the growing strength of the Democratic party in the state, Strong won reelection annually until 1807. In 1812 he regained the governorship, once again over Gerry, and retained his post until he retired in 1816. During the War of 1812 Strong withstood pressure from the Secretary of War to order part of the Massachusetts militia into federal service. Strong opposed the war and approved the report of the Hartford Convention, a gathering of New England Federalists resentful of Jeffersonian policies.

Strong died on November 7, 1819, 2 years after the death of his wife, Sarah. He was buried in the Bridge Street Cemetery in Northampton. Four of his nine children survived him.

Date of Birth:  May 27, 1738

Date of Death:  June 11, 1796

Schooling:  Local schools

Occupation:  Merchant and Speculator, Public Security and Interests, Real Estate

Prior Political Experience:  Colonial Legislature 1771-1775, State Upper House of Massachusetts 1780, Provincial Congress 1774-1775, Commonwealth Board of War 1778-1781, Massachusetts Constitutional Convention 1779-1780, Lower House of Massachusetts 1781-1787 and Speaker 1781-1785, Judge of Middlesex County court of common please 1785-1796, Confederation Congress 1782-1783 & 1785-1787, President of Confederation Congress June 1786-January 1787

Committee Assignments:  Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, Committee of Detail, Second Committee of Representation, Committee of Trade, Committee of State Commitments

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 28, and except for one day, July 14, was present for the duration and signed the Constitution. He is remembered for his role as the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole. He was a warm supporter of a strong central government. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Gorham is … high in reputation, and much in the esteem of his countrymen, he is eloquent and easy in public debate, but has nothing fashionable or eloquent in his style.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the Massachusetts ratification convention, supported ratification of the Constitution. He did not serve in the new government.

Biography from the National Archives:  Gorham, an eldest child, was born in 1738 at Charlestown, Massachusetts, into an old Bay Colony family of modest means. His father operated a packet boat. The youth’s education was minimal. When he was about 15 years of age, he was apprenticed to a New London, Connecticut, merchant. He quit in 1759, returned to his hometown and established a business which quickly succeeded. In 1763 he wed Rebecca Call, who was to bear nine children.

Gorham began his political career as a public notary but soon won election to the colonial legislature (1771-75). During the Revolution, he unswervingly backed the Whigs. He was a delegate to the provincial congress (1774-75), member of the Massachusetts Board of War (1778-81), delegate to the constitutional convention (1779-80), and representative in both the upper (1780) and lower (1781-87) houses of the legislature, including speaker of the latter in 1781, 1782, and 1785. In the last year, though he apparently lacked formal legal training, he began a judicial career as judge of the Middlesex County court of common pleas (1785-96). During this same period, he sat on the Governor’s Council (1788-89).

During the war, British troops had ravaged much of Gorham’s property, though by privateering and speculation he managed to recoup most of his fortune. Despite these pressing business concerns and his state political and judicial activities, he also served the nation. He was a member of the Continental Congress (1782-83 and 1785-87), and held the office of president from June 1786 until January 1787.

The next year, at age 49, Gorham attended the Constitutional Convention. A moderate nationalist, he attended all the sessions and played an influential role. He spoke often, acted as chairman of the Committee of the Whole, and sat on the Committee of Detail. As a delegate to the Massachusetts ratifying convention, he stood behind the Constitution.

Some unhappy years followed. Gorham did not serve in the new government he had helped to create. In 1788 he and Oliver Phelps of Windsor, Connecticut, and possibly others, contracted to purchase from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 6 million acres of unimproved land in western New York. The price was $1 million in devalued Massachusetts scrip. Gorham and Phelps quickly succeeded in clearing Indian title to 2,600,000 acres in the eastern section of the grant and sold much of it to settlers. Problems soon arose, however. Massachusetts scrip rose dramatically in value, enormously swelling the purchase price of the vast tract. By 1790 the two men were unable to meet their payments. The result was a financial crisis that led to Gorham’s insolvency—and a fall from the heights of Boston society and political esteem.

Gorham died in 1796 at the age of 58 and is buried at the Phipps Street Cemetery in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

State:  Connecticut

Age at Convention:  59

Date of Birth:  October 7, 1727

Date of Death:  November 14, 1819

Schooling:  Yale 1744, M.A. Harvard 1747

Occupation:  Lawyer, Inventor, Public Security Interests, Lending and Investments

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of the Colonial Assembly 1761 & 1765, Upper House of the Colonial Assembly 1766 & 1771-1775, Refused to participate in First Continental Congress 1774, Confederation Congress 1785-1787

Committee Assignments:  Committee on Slave Trade, Committee on State Commitments, Chairman of the Committee of Style, Committee of Economy, Frugality and Manufactures

Convention Contributions:  Arrived June 2, except for a brief absence in late July was present until he signed the Constitution. Influential in securing the passage of the Connecticut Compromise. William Pierce stated that “Dr. Johnson is a character much celebrated for his legal knowledge; he is said to be one of the first classics in America, and certainly possess a very strong and enlighten understanding.”

New Government Participation:  Served as Senator from Connecticut (1789 – 1791) and assisted in the passage of the Judiciary Act. Resigned from Senate to devote his career as President of King’s College (Columbia).

Biography from the National Archives:  William Samuel Johnson was the son of Samuel Johnson, the first president of King’s College (later Columbia College and University). William was born at Stratford, CT, in 1727. His father, who was a well-known Anglican clergyman-philosopher, prepared him for college and he graduated from Yale in 1744. About 3 years later he won a master of arts degree from the same institution and an honorary master’s from Harvard.

Resisting his father’s wish that he become a minister, Johnson embraced law instead—largely by educating himself and without benefit of formal training. After admittance to the bar, he launched a practice in Stratford, representing clients from nearby New York State as well as Connecticut, and before long he established business connections with various mercantile houses in New York City. In 1749, adding to his already substantial wealth, he married Anne Beach, daughter of a local businessman. The couple was to have five daughters and six sons, but many of them died at an early age.

Johnson did not shirk the civic responsibilities of one of his station. In the 1750s he began his public career as a Connecticut militia officer. In 1761 and 1765 he served in the lower house of the colonial assembly. In 1766 and 1771 he was elected to the upper house. At the time of the Revolution, Johnson was disturbed by conflicting loyalties. Although he attended the Stamp Act Congress in 1765, moderately opposed the Townshend Duties of 1767, and believed that most British policies were unwise, he retained strong transatlantic ties and found it difficult to choose sides. Many of his friends resided in Britain; in 1765 and 1766 Oxford University conferred honorary master’s and doctor’s degrees upon him; he had a strong association with the Anglican Church; he acted as Connecticut’s agent in Britain during the years 1767-71; and he was friendly with men such as Jared Ingersoll, Sr., who were affiliated with the British administration.

Johnson finally decided to work for peace between Britain and the colonies and to oppose the extremist Whig faction. On that basis, he refused to participate in the First Continental Congress, to which he was elected in 1774, following service as a judge of the Connecticut colonial supreme court (1772-74). When hostilities broke out, he confined his activities to peacemaking efforts. In April 1775 Connecticut sent him and another emissary to speak to British Gen. Thomas Gage about ending the bloodshed. But the time was not ripe for negotiations and they failed. Johnson fell out of favor with radical patriot elements who gained the ascendancy in Connecticut government and they no longer called upon his service. Although he was arrested in 1779 on charges of communicating with the enemy, he cleared himself and was released.

Once the passions of war had ebbed, Johnson resumed his political career. In the Continental Congress (1785-87), he was one of the most influential and popular delegates. Playing a major role in the Constitutional Convention, he missed no sessions after arriving on June 2; espoused the Connecticut Compromise; and chaired the Committee of Style, which shaped the final document. He also worked for ratification in Connecticut.

Johnson took part in the new government, in the U.S. Senate where he contributed to passage of the Judiciary Act of 1789. In 1791, the year after the government moved from New York to Philadelphia, he resigned mainly because he preferred to devote all his energies to the presidency of Columbia College (1787-1800), in New York City. During these years, he established the school on a firm basis and recruited a fine faculty.

Johnson retired from the college in 1800, a few years after his wife died, and in the same year wed Mary Brewster Beach, a relative of his first bride. They resided at his birthplace, Stratford. He died there in 1819 at the age of 92 and was buried at Old Episcopal Cemetery.

Roger Sherman (1721-1793) was born at Newton, near Boston. He died in New Haven, and was buried in Grove Street Cemetery. He married Elizabeth Hartwell in 1749 and they had seven children. She died in 1760. He then married Rebecca Prescott with whom he had eight children.

When he was two, the family moved from Newton to the frontier town of Dorchester, now Stoughton. His education was very limited, although he did have access to his father’s library. Later as a teenager he attended a new grammar school, and learned the cobbler’s trade from his father. He also met Samuel Dunbar, Harvard trained parish Minister of Stoughton who helped Sherman with mathematics, the sciences, literature, and philosophy.

In 1743, Sherman joined an elder brother in New Milford, Connecticut where they opened the first store in town. He was appointed surveyor of New Haven County and became a leader in the community. New Milford did not have a newspaper, so Sherman wrote and published a very popular Almanac each year from 1750 to 1761. Although he never had a legal education, Sherman was admitted to the Bar of Litchfield in 1754 and, from 1755-1761, represented New Milford in the colonial legislature, and was also a justice of the peace and a county judge. And four years later, he became an associate justice of the Superior Court of Connecticut. In 1761, a very successful landowner and businessman, he moved to New Haven and became a benefactor of Yale.

He was appointed commissary to the Connecticut Troops at the start of the Revolutionary war and elected to the First and Second Continental Congress and to the Confederation Congress in 1781, and 1783-1784.

Sherman was an active and respected delegate who attempted to balance the urgency for intercontinental agreements while retaining the vibrant local institutions to which Americans were attached. He was on the five-member committee in 1776 with Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Robert Livingston to draft the Declaration of Independence. And he simultaneously fulfilled his state duties. Sherman was still a judge on the Connecticut and in 1783, he helped to codify the statutory laws of Connecticut. He served as mayor of New Haven (1784-1786). He also served on the committee forming the Articles of Confederation.

Sherman was selected by Connecticut to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 where he defended the rights of the smaller states and the partly national-partly federal Connecticut. Compromise. (Madison’s Notes of the Debates at the Convention credit him with delivering one hundred and thirty-eight speeches). As if that weren’t enough, Sherman wrote essays on behalf of the ratification of the Constitution as well voting in favor of ratification at the Connecticut Ratifying Convention. He was elected to the First Congress as both Representative(1789-1791) and Senator (1791-1793). He was very influential in securing the adoption of the Bill of Rights.

Many of the most notable figures of the revolution, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, admitted a deep admiration for Roger Sherman and his work.

Date of Birth:  April 29, 1745

Date of Death:  November 26, 1807

Schooling:  College of New Jersey (Princeton) 1766

Occupation:  Lawyer, Public Security Interests, Lending and Investments, Mercantilist

Prior Political Experience:  State Upper House in Connecticut from 1780-1785, Served on Connecticut Superior Court 1785-1807, Council of Safety 1779, Committee of Pay 1775, Continental Congress 1777-1780, Confederation Congress 1781-1783

Committee Assignments:  Elected First Representation Committee but was “indisposed,” Committee of Detail

Convention Contributions:  Arrived on May 28. Departed last week in August and never returned. On June 29, Ellsworth claimed “that we were partly national; partly federal,” and introduced the Resolution which became known as the Connecticut Compromise. William Pierce stated that “he is a Gentleman of a clear, deep, and copious understanding; eloquent and connected in public debate; and always attentive to his duty.”

New Government Participation:  Wrote letters influencing the adoption of the Constitution, played a major part in drafting the Judiciary Act in the First Congress as Connecticut’s First Senator (1789 – 1796), served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1796 – 1798). Washington nominated after the Senate refused to confirm the appointment of John Rutledge as Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court.

Biography from the National Archives:  Oliver Ellsworth was born on April 29, 1745, in Windsor, CT, to Capt. David and Jemima Ellsworth. He entered Yale in 1762 but transferred to the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) at the end of his second year. He continued to study theology and received his A.B. degree after 2 years. Soon afterward, however, Ellsworth turned to the law. After 4 years of study, he was admitted to the bar in 1771. The next year Ellsworth married Abigail Wolcott.

From a slow start Ellsworth built up a prosperous law practice. His reputation as an able and industrious jurist grew, and in 1777 Ellsworth became Connecticut’s state attorney for Hartford County. That same year he was chosen as one of Connecticut’s representatives in the Continental Congress. He served on various committees during six annual terms until 1783. Ellsworth was also active in his state’s efforts during the Revolution. As a member of the Committee of the Pay Table, Oliver Ellsworth was one of the five men who supervised Connecticut’s war expenditures. In 1779 he assumed greater duties as a member of the council of safety, which, with the governor, controlled all military measures for the state.

When the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in 1787 Ellsworth once again represented Connecticut and took an active part in the proceedings. During debate on the Great Compromise, Ellsworth proposed that the basis of representation in the legislative branch remain by state, as under the Articles of Confederation. He also left his mark through an amendment to change the word “national” to “United States” in a resolution. Thereafter, “United States” was the title used in the convention to designate the government.

Ellsworth also served on the Committee of Five that prepared the first draft of the Constitution. Ellsworth favored the three-fifths compromise on the enumeration of slaves but opposed the abolition of the foreign slave trade. Though he left the convention near the end of August and did not sign the final document, he urged its adoption upon his return to Connecticut and wrote the Letters of a Landholder to promote its ratification.

Ellsworth served as one of Connecticut’s first two senators in the new federal government between 1789 and 1796. In the Senate he chaired the committee that framed the bill organizing the federal judiciary and helped to work out the practical details necessary to run a new government. Ellsworth’s other achievements in Congress included framing the measure that admitted North Carolina to the Union, devising the non-intercourse act that forced Rhode Island to join, drawing up the bill to regulate the consular service, and serving on the committee that considered Alexander Hamilton’s plan for funding the national debt and for incorporating the Bank of the United States.

In the spring of 1796 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and also served as commissioner to France in 1799 and 1800. Upon his return to America in early 1801, Ellsworth retired from public life and lived in Windsor, CT. He died there on November 26, 1807, and was buried in the cemetery of the First Church of Windsor.

State:  Maryland (Born in Ireland, immigrated 1774)

Date of Birth:  November 16, 1753

Date of Death:  May 3, 1816

Schooling:  Classical education at Dublin, Newark Academy in Delaware 1772 (2 years under Doctor Benjamin Rush in Philadelphia)

Occupation:  Office Holder, Lending and Investments, Mercantile, Manufacturing, and Shipping, Physician/Surgeon

Prior Political Experience:  Served on the Staff of George Washington at Valley Forge 1776-1780, Maryland Senate 1781-1786, Confederation Congress 1783-1786

Committee Assignments:  Committee of Assumption of State Debt

Convention Contributions:  Arrived May 28, departed June 1, returned to the Convention August 6, remained through the signing of the Constitution. He kept a diary of the proceedings, and supported the effort to build a stronger Federal Government. William Pierce stated that “as a politician there is nothing remarkable in him, nor has he any of the graces of the Orator.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the Maryland ratification convention, supported ratification of the Constitution. Served as Secretary of War for Washington and Adams. Fort McHenry, located near Baltimore, MD, is named in his honor. The “Star-Spangled Banner” was written off the shores of Fort McHenry on September 13-14, 1814.

Biography from the National Archives:  McHenry was born at Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland, in 1753. He enjoyed a classical education at Dublin, and emigrated to Philadelphia in 1771. The following year, the rest of his family came to the colonies, and his brother and father established an import business at Baltimore. During that year, James continued schooling at Newark Academy in Delaware and then studied medicine for 2 years under the well-known Dr. Benjamin Rush in Philadelphia.

During the War for Independence, McHenry served as a military surgeon. Late in 1776, while he was on the staff of the 5th Pennsylvania Battalion, the British captured him at Fort Washington, NY. He was paroled early the next year and exchanged in March 1778. Returning immediately to duty, he was assigned to Valley Forge, PA, and in May became secretary to George Washington. About this time, McHenry apparently quit the practice of medicine to devote himself to politics and administration; he apparently never needed to return to it after the war because of his excellent financial circumstances.

McHenry stayed on Washington’s staff until 1780, when he joined that of the Marquis de Lafayette, and he remained in that assignment until he entered the Maryland Senate (1781-86). During part of this period, he served concurrently in the Continental Congress (1783-86). In 1784 he married Margaret Allison Caldwell.

McHenry missed many of the proceedings at the Philadelphia convention, in part because of the illness of his brother, and played an insubstantial part in the debates when he was present. He did, however, maintain a private journal that has been useful to posterity. He campaigned strenuously for the Constitution in Maryland and attended the state ratifying convention.

From 1789 to 1791, McHenry sat in the state assembly and in the years 1791-96 again in the senate. A staunch Federalist, he then accepted Washington’s offer of the post of Secretary of War and held it into the administration of John Adams. McHenry looked to Hamilton rather than to Adams for leadership. As time passed, the latter became increasingly dissatisfied with McHenry’s performance and distrustful of his political motives and in 1800 forced him to resign. Subsequently, the Democratic-Republicans accused him of maladministration, but a congressional committee vindicated him.

McHenry returned to his estate near Baltimore and to semiretirement. He remained a loyal Federalist and opposed the War of 1812. He also held the office of president of a Bible society. He died in 1816 at the age of 62, survived by two of his three children. His grave is in Baltimore’s Westminster Presbyterian Cemetery.

State:  Maryland

Age at Convention:  64

Date of Birth:  1723

Date of Death:  November 16, 1790

Occupation:  Landowner, Public Security Interests, Planter, Slave Holder, Office Holder

Prior Political Experience:  State Upper House of Maryland 1777-1780 and President of State Upper House 1777-1780, Continental Congress 1778-1781 Confederation Congress 1781-1782, Maryland State Revenue and Financial Manager 1782-1785

Convention Contributions:  Arrived June 2, was present through the signing of the Constitution. William Pierce stated that “he sits silent … and seems to be conscious that he is no politician.” During the heated June debate he provided a counter weight to Luther Martin, with the result that the Maryland delegation was often divided.

New Government Participation:  Died soon after the new government was formed.

Biography from the National Archives:  Jenifer was born in 1723 of Swedish and English descent at Coates Retirement (now Ellerslie) estate, near Port Tobacco in Charles County, Md. Little is known about his childhood or education, but as an adult he came into possession of a large estate near Annapolis, called Stepney, where he lived most of his life. He never married. The web of his far-reaching friendships included such illustrious personages as George Washington.

As a young man, Jenifer served as agent and receiver-general for the last two proprietors of Maryland. He also filled the post of justice of the peace in Charles County and later for the western circuit of Maryland. In 1760 he sat on a boundary commission that settled disputes between Pennsylvania and Delaware. Six years later, he became a member of the provincial court and from 1773 to 1776 sat on the Maryland royal governor’s council.

Despite his association with conservative proprietary politics, Jenifer supported the Revolutionary movement, albeit at first reluctantly. He served as president of the Maryland council of safety (1775-77), then as president of the first state senate (1777-80). He sat in the Continental Congress (1778-82) and held the position of state revenue and financial manager (1782-85).

A conservative nationalist, Jenifer favored a strong and permanent union of the states and a Congress with taxation power. In 1785 he represented Maryland at the Mount Vernon Conference. Although he was one of 29 delegates who attended nearly every session of the Constitutional Convention, he did not speak often but backed Madison and the nationalist element.

Jenifer lived only 3 more years and never again held public office. He died at the age of 66 or 67 at Annapolis in 1790. The exact location of his grave, possibly at Ellerslie estate, is unknown.

Age at Convention:  57

Date of Birth:  July 22, 1730

Date of Death:  May 7, 1796

Schooling:  College of Saint Omer (Netherlands) 1747

Occupation:  Public Security Interests, Lending and Investments, Land owner, Merchant, Planter

Prior Political Experience:  State Upper House of Maryland 1781-1789, President of Legislature 1783-1789, Executive Council of Maryland 1777-1781, Confederation Congress 1781-1784

Committee Assignments:  Third Committee of Representation, Committee of Trade, Committee of Leftovers

Convention Contributions:  Arrived July 9, was present through the signing of the Constitution. His attendance provided the crucial vote that allowed Maryland’s delegation to overcome the objections of fellow delegates, Luther Martin and John Mercer. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Carroll is a Man of large fortune, and influence in his State. He possesses plain good sense, and is full confidence of his Countrymen. This Gentlemen is about (left blank by Pierce) age.” [Editor’s Note: Mr. Pierce left the Convention on July 2 and never returned. Mr. Carroll did not arrive until July 9. Accordingly, it is difficult to tell when and how Mr. Pierce’s character sketch was written. Note the absence of Mr. Carroll’s age.]

New Government Participation:  Served as one of Maryland’s first U. S. Representatives (1789 – 1792). One of three U.S. Commisioners to plan Washington, D.C. (1791 – 1795).

Biography from the  National Archives :  Daniel Carroll was member of a prominent Maryland family of Irish descent. A collateral branch was led by Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signer of the Declaration of Independence. Daniel’s older brother was John Carroll, the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States.

Daniel was born in 1730 at Upper Marlboro, MD. Befitting the son of a wealthy Roman Catholic family, he studied for 6 years (1742-48) under the Jesuits at St. Omer’s in Flanders. Then, after a tour of Europe, he sailed home and soon married Eleanor Carroll, apparently a first cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Not much is known about the next two decades of his life except that he backed the War for Independence reluctantly and remained out of the public eye. No doubt he lived the life of a gentleman planter.

In 1781 Carroll entered the political arena. Elected to the Continental Congress that year, he carried to Philadelphia the news that Maryland was at last ready to accede to the Articles of Confederation, to which he soon penned his name. During the decade, he also began a tour in the Maryland senate that was to span his lifetime and helped George Washington promote the Patowmack Company, a scheme to canalize the Potomac River so as to provide a transportation link between the East and the trans-Appalachian West.

Carroll did not arrive at the Constitutional Convention until July 9, but thereafter he attended quite regularly. He spoke about 20 times during the debates and served on the Committee on Postponed Matters. Returning to Maryland after the convention, he campaigned for ratification of the Constitution but was not a delegate to the state convention.

In 1789 Carroll won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he voted for locating the Nation’s Capital on the banks of the Potomac and for Hamilton’s program for the federal assumption of state debts. In 1791 George Washington named his friend Carroll as one of three commissioners to survey and define the District of Columbia, where Carroll owned much land. Ill health caused him to resign this post 4 years later, and the next year at the age of 65 he died at his home near Rock Creek in Forest Glen, MD. He was buried there in St. John’s Catholic Cemetery.

State:  Maryland (Born in Virginia)

Age at Convention:  28

Date of Birth:  May 17, 1759

Date of Death:  August 30, 1821

Schooling:  College of William and Mary (1775), Read law under Thomas Jefferson

Occupation:  Lawyer, Planter, Public Security Interests, Slave Holder, Soldier

Prior Political Experience:  Lower House of Virginia State Legislature 1782 & 1785-1786, Virginia Delegate to Confederation Congress 1782-1784

Convention Contributions:  Attended August 6 until August 16 and never returned to the Convention. He opposed a strong central government. William Pierce made no observation about Mercer, since Pierce left on July 2 to attend the Confederation Congress.

New Government Participation:  Attended the Maryland ratification convention, he did not support the ratification of the Constitution. Served in the U.S. House of Representatives for Maryland from 1791 to 1794.

Biography from the National Archives:  John Francis Mercer, born on May 17, 1759, was the fifth of nine children born to John and Ann Mercer of Stafford County, Virginia. He attended the College of William and Mary, and in early 1776 he joined the 3rd Virginia Regiment. Mercer became Gen. Charles Lee’s aide-de-camp in 1778, but after General Lee’s court-martial in October 1779, Mercer resigned his commission. He spent the next year studying law at the College of William and Mary and then rejoined the army, where he served briefly under Lafayette.

In 1782, Mercer was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. That December, he became one of Virginia’s representatives to the Continental Congress. He later returned to the House of Delegates in 1785 and 1786.

Mercer married Sophia Sprigg in 1785 and soon after moved to Anne Arundel County, Maryland. He attended the Constitutional Convention as part of Maryland’s delegation when he was only 28 years old, the second youngest delegate in Philadelphia. Mercer was strongly opposed to centralization, and both spoke and voted against the Constitution. He and fellow Marylander Luther Martin left the proceedings before they ended.

After the convention, Mercer continued in public service. He allied himself with the Republicans and served in the Maryland House of Delegates in 1778-89, 1791-92, 1800-1801, and 1803-6. Between 1791 and 1794 he also sat in the U.S. House of Representatives for Maryland and was chosen governor of the state for two terms, 1801-3. During Thomas Jefferson’s term as President, Mercer broke with the Republicans and joined the Federalist camp.

Illness plagued him during his last years. In 1821, Mercer traveled to Philadelphia to seek medical attention, and he died there on August 30. His remains lay temporarily in a vault in St. Peter’s Church in Philadelphia and were reinterred on his estate, “Cedar Park” in Maryland.

State:  Maryland (Born in New Jersey)

Date of Birth:  February 20, 1748

Date of Death:  July 10, 1826

Schooling:  College of New Jersey (Princeton) with Honors (1766)

Occupation:  Planter, Slave Holder, Lawyer, Attorney General

Prior Political Experience:  Confederation Congress 1784-1785, Lower House of Maryland State Legislature 1787, Attorney General of Maryland 1778-1805, 1818-1822

Committee Assignments:  First Committee of Representation, Committee of Slave Trade

Convention Contributions:  Arrived June 9, departed for five days between August 6 and August 13, left the Convention on September 3. He is known for his warm opposition to the development of a strong central government, and his denunciation of any protection of the presence of slavery. William Pierce stated that “he was educated for the Bar … and he never speaks without tiring the patience of all who hear him.”

New Government Participation:  Attended the Maryland ratification convention, opposed the ratification of the Constitution. He held no post in the New Government, however he defended the State of Maryland in the famous Supreme Court case,  McCulloch v. Maryland , 1819.

Biography from the National Archives:  Like many of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Luther Martin attended the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), from which he graduated with honors in 1766. Though born in Brunswick, NJ., in 1748, Martin moved to Maryland after receiving his degree and taught there for 3 years. He then began to study the law and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1771.

Martin was an early advocate of American independence from Great Britain. In the fall of 1774 he served on the patriot committee of Somerset County, and in December he attended a convention of the Province of Maryland in Annapolis, which had been called to consider the recommendations of the Continental Congress. Maryland appointed Luther Martin its attorney general in early 1778. In this capacity, Martin vigorously prosecuted Loyalists, whose numbers were strong in many areas. Tensions had even led to insurrection and open warfare in some counties. While still attorney general, Martin joined the Baltimore Light Dragoons. In July 1781 his unit joined Lafayette’s forces near Fredericksburg, VA., but Martin was recalled by the governor to prosecute a treason trial.

Martin married Maria Cresap on Christmas Day 1783. Of their five children, three daughters lived to adulthood. His postwar law practice grew to become one of the largest and most successful in the country. In 1785 Martin was elected to the Continental Congress, but this appointment was purely honorary. His numerous public and private duties prevented him from traveling to Philadelphia.

At the Constitutional Convention Martin opposed the idea of a strong central government. When he arrived on June 9, 1787, he expressed suspicion of the secrecy rule imposed on the proceedings. He consistently sided with the small states and voted against the Virginia Plan. On June 27 Martin spoke for more than 3 hours in opposition to the Virginia Plan’s proposal for proportionate representation in both houses of the legislature. Martin served on the committee formed to seek a compromise on representation, where he supported the case for equal numbers of delegates in at least one house. Before the convention closed, he and another Maryland delegate, John Francis Mercer, walked out.

In an address to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1787 and in numerous newspaper articles, Martin attacked the proposed new form of government and continued to fight ratification of the Constitution through 1788. He lamented the ascension of the national government over the states and condemned what he saw as unequal representation in Congress. Martin opposed including slaves in determining representation and believed that the absence of a jury in the Supreme Court gravely endangered freedom. At the convention, Martin complained, the aggrandizement of particular states and individuals often had been pursued more avidly than the welfare of the country. The assumption of the term “federal” by those who favored a national government also irritated Martin. Around 1791, however, Martin turned to the Federalist party because of his animosity toward Thomas Jefferson.

The first years of the 1800s saw Martin as defense counsel in two controversial national cases. In the first Martin won an acquittal for his close friend, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, in his impeachment trial in 1805. Two years later Martin was one of Aaron Burr’s defense lawyers when Burr stood trial for treason in 1807.

After a record 28 consecutive years as state attorney general, Luther Martin resigned in December 1805. In 1813 Martin became chief judge of the court of oyer and terminer for the City and County of Baltimore. He was reappointed attorney general of Maryland in 1818, and in 1819 he argued Maryland’s position in the landmark Supreme Court case McCulloch v. Maryland. The plaintiff, represented by Daniel Webster, William Pinckney, and William Wirt, won the decision, which determined that states could not tax federal institutions.

Martin’s fortunes declined dramatically in his last years. Heavy drinking, illness, and poverty all took their toll. Paralysis, which had struck in 1819, forced him to retire as Maryland’s attorney general in 1822. In 1826, at the age of 78, Luther Martin died in Aaron Burr’s home in New York City and was buried in an unmarked grave in St. John’s churchyard.

State:  New Hampshire

Date of Birth:  June 26, 1741

Date of Death:  September 18, 1819

Schooling:  Local schools, Honorary LLD from Dartmouth 1805

Occupation:  Ship builder/owner, Public Security Interest, Leading and Investments, Merchant

Prior Political Experience:  Continental Congress 1775-1776, New Hampshire Legislature 1777-1781 & 1786-1787, New Hampshire Senate 1784, Confederation Congress 1787, Governor of New Hampshire in 1785

Committee Assignments:  Committee of Slave Trade, Committee of Trade, Committee of Assumption of State Debt

Convention Contributions:  Arrived July 23, present through the signing of the Constitution. Arrived too late to participate in the debate over representation of states. Helped draft the compromise on the slave trade. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Langdon possess a liberal mind, and a good plain understanding.” [Editor’s Note: Mr. Pierce left the Convention on July 2 and never returned. Mr. Langdon did not arrive until July 23. Accordingly, it is difficult to tell when and how Mr. Pierce’s character sketch was written.]

New Government Participation:  Supported the ratification of the Constitution. Served as Senator (1789 – 1801) for New Hampshire. Secretary of the Navy during the War of 1812.

Biography from the National Archives:  Langdon was born in 1741 at or near Portsmouth, NH. His father, whose family had emigrated to America before 1660, was a prosperous farmer who sired a large family. The youth’s education was intermittent. He attended a local grammar school, worked as an apprentice clerk, and spent some time at sea. Eventually he went into the mercantile business for himself and prospered.

Langdon, a vigorous supporter of the Revolution, sat on the New Hampshire committee of correspondence and a nonimportation committee. He also attended various patriot assemblies. In 1774 he participated in the seizure and confiscation of British munitions from the Portsmouth fort.

The next year, Langdon served as speaker of the New Hampshire assembly and also sat in the Continental Congress (1775-76). During the latter year, he accepted a colonelcy in the militia of his state and became its agent for British prizes on behalf of the Continental Congress, a post he held throughout the war. In addition, he built privateers for operations against the British—a lucrative occupation.

Langdon also actively took part in the land war. In 1777 he organized and paid for Gen. John Stark’s expedition from New Hampshire against British Gen. John Burgoyne and was present in command of a militia unit at Saratoga, NY, when the latter surrendered. Langdon later led a detachment of troops during the Rhode Island campaign, but found his major outlet in politics. He was speaker of the New Hampshire legislature from 1777 to 1781. In 1777, meantime, he had married Elizabeth Sherburne, who was to give birth to one daughter.

In 1783 Langdon was elected to the Continental Congress; the next year, to the state senate; and the following year, as president, or chief executive, of New Hampshire. In 1784 he built a home at Portsmouth. In 1786-87 he was back again as speaker of the legislature and during the latter year for the third time in the Continental Congress.

Langdon was forced to pay his own expenses and those of Nicholas Gilman to the Constitutional Convention because New Hampshire was unable or unwilling to pay them. The pair did not arrive at Philadelphia until late July, by which time much business had already been consummated. Thereafter, Langdon made a significant mark. He spoke more than 20 times during the debates and was a member of the committee that struck a compromise on the issue of slavery. For the most part, his sympathies lay on the side of strengthening the national government. In 1788, once again as state president (1788-89), he took part in the ratifying convention.

From 1789 to 1801 Langdon sat in the U.S. Senate, including service as the first President pro tem for several sessions. During these years, his political affiliations changed. As a supporter of a strong central government, he had been a member of the Federalist Party, but by the time of Jay’s Treaty (1794) he was opposing its policies. By 1801 he was firmly backing the Democratic-Republicans.

That year, Langdon declined Jefferson’s offer of the Secretaryship of the Navy. Between then and 1812, he kept active in New Hampshire politics. He sat again in the legislature (1801-5), twice holding the position of speaker. After several unsuccessful attempts, in 1805 he was elected as governor and continued in that post until 1811 except for a year’s hiatus in 1809. Meanwhile, in 1805, Dartmouth College had awarded him an honorary doctor of laws degree.

In 1812 Langdon refused the Democratic-Republican Vice-Presidential nomination on the grounds of age and health. He enjoyed retirement for another 7 years before he died at the age of 78. His grave is at Old North Cemetery in Portsmouth.

Date of Birth:  August 3, 1755

Date of Death:  May 2, 1814

Occupation:  Businessman of family store, real estate and land speculations, lending and investments, public security interests, politician, soldier

Prior Political Experience:  Confederation Congress (1786-1788)

Committee Assignments:  Committee of Leftovers

Convention Contributions:  Arrived July 23, present through the signing of the Constitution. Arrived too late to participate in the debate over representation of states. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Gilman is modest, gentile and sensible. There is nothing brilliant or striking in his character, but there is something respectable and worthy in the Man.” [Editor’s Note: Mr. Pierce left the Convention on July 2 and never returned. Mr. Gilman did not arrive until July 23. Accordingly, it is difficult to tell when and how Mr. Pierce’s character sketch was written.]

New Government Participation:  Supported the ratification of the Constitution. Served as Representative (1789-1797) for New Hampshire. New Hampshire U. S. Senator (1804-1814).

Biography from the National Archives:  Member of a distinguished New Hampshire family and second son in a family of eight, Nicholas Gilman was born at Exeter in 1755. He received his education in local schools and worked at his father’s general store. When the War for Independence began, he enlisted in the New Hampshire element of the Continental Army, soon won a captaincy, and served throughout the war.

Gilman returned home, again helped his father in the store, and immersed himself in politics. In the period 1786-88 he sat in the Continental Congress, though his attendance record was poor. In 1787 he represented New Hampshire at the Constitutional Convention. He did not arrive at Philadelphia until July 23, by which time much major business had already occurred. Never much of a debater, he made no speeches and played only a minor part in the deliberations. He did, however, serve on the Committee of Leftovers. He was also active in obtaining New Hampshire’s acceptance of the Constitution and in shepherding it through the Continental Congress.

Gilman later became a prominent Federalist politician. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1789 until 1797, and in 1793 and 1797, he was a presidential elector. He also sat in the New Hampshire legislature in 1795, 1802, and 1804, and in the years 1805-8 and 1811-14, he held the office of state treasurer.

Meantime, Gilman’s political philosophy had begun to drift toward the Democratic-Republicans. In 1802, when he was defeated for the U.S. Senate, President Jefferson appointed him as a bankruptcy commissioner, and 2 years later as a Democratic-Republican he won election to the U.S. Senate. He was still serving there when he passed away at Philadelphia, while on his way home from Washington, DC, in 1814 at the age of 58. He is interred at the Winter Street Cemetery at Exeter.

Date of Birth:  March 9, 1759

Date of Death:  December 17, 1828

Age during Convention:  28

The following is from James Madison’s  Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787  from Monday, September 17, 1787:

Whilst the last members were signing [the Constitution] Doctr. FRANKLIN looking towards the Presidents Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have said he, often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicisitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell 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.

No issue is more in need of careful consideration than the slavery question, because no issue is more likely to impeach the entire Founding enterprise than the slavery issue. Unfortunately, historians have a way of reading history backwards rather than forwards and when we read the slavery issue backwards it looks like in the most critical area—Article I, Section 9 on the Slave Trade—the delegates are unequivocally and perpetually endorsing the institution of slavery. It is as if Judge Roger Taney, in the Dred Scott Case—the Constitution embraces the perpetual enslavement of African Americans—has the story correct and Abraham Lincoln, in his debates with Douglas—the Framers intended to put slavery in the course of ultimate extinction—has it all wrong. There is no evidence that either Taney or Lincoln read Madison’s Notes. When we turn to the evidence in Madison’s Notes, which position makes more sense?

We need to ask a prior question: how did Article I, Section 9 get to be the way it is? Was there unanimity among the delegates, was there even a discussion, and if, so, was there anybody who put up the slightest resistance to the continuation of slavery?

On August 6, the Committee of Detail Report was presented to the delegates. Article VII, Section 1 itemized the powers of Congress and sections two through seven placed limitations on the powers of Congress. Section 4 stated that:

No tax or duty shall be laid by the Legislature… on the migration or importation of such persons as the several States shall think proper to admit; nor shall such migration or importation be prohibited. This is clearly a slaveholder’s document: Congress is forbidden forever from prohibiting the slave trade and any incentive through taxation is also prohibited. This section is the result of a demand from the North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia delegations to think practically rather than in terms of humanity and religion.

On September 17, the delegates signed the Constitution, Article I, Section 9 of which states the following:

The Migration or Importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such importation. Note that the final version permits Congress to eliminate the slave trade in 1808—which it did effective January 1, 1808—and permits Congress in the meantime to discourage the trade by taxation. Also the final version limits the Congressional prohibition to the existing States thus inviting the future restriction of slavery in the territories. In this regard, it is important to note that the Confederation Congress restricted slavery in the Northwest Territories in exchange for the return of fugitive slaves. The delegates adopt this Ordinance solution as part of Article IV.

What took place between August 6 and September 17? Rutledge of South Carolina argued on August 21, “Interest alone is the governing principle with Nations. The true question at present is whether the Southern States shall or not be parties of the Union.” Sherman and Ellsworth, moreover, recommended not making the slave trade a divisive issue: “Slavery in time will not be a speck in our Country.” Luther Martin disagreed: slavery “was inconsistent with the principles of the revolution.” On August 22, Mason supported Martin’s position: “Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a Country.” Dickinson, from Delaware, considered slavery “as inadmissible on every principle of honor & safety.” And Randolph stated, “he could never agree to the clause as it stands.”

On August 25, the delegates received a Committee compromise recommendation to permit Congress to prohibit the slave trade in 1800. Pinckney moved to alter this to 1808. Madison’s response was prophetic: “twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves.” The first time the slavery issue was raised in the convention is by Madison on June 6. There in his itemization of the causes of faction, or the unjust use of power, he says “that we have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.” G. Morris from Pennsylvania, on August 25, was rather blunt: why not say that this part of the Constitution was a compliance with… North Carolina, South Carolina & Georgia.”

The delegates agreed to the 1808 prohibition by a vote of Ayes 7, Noes 4. The 4 noes were New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia and they voted “no” because they thought that 1808 was too compromising. Lincoln, and not Taney, has the weight of the Founders on his side of the argument.

Constitutional Convention of 1787

By Stuart Leibiger

The Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787, at Independence Hall (then known as the Pennsylvania State House). The convention drafted the United States Constitution, the world’s oldest written national constitution still in use. The document, which divides power between the federal government and the states, launched a new phase of the American “experiment” in republican government (representative democracy). After being ratified by the American people, the Constitution began operation in 1789 in New York City (the federal capital until 1790) with the convening of the First Congress and the inauguration of George Washington (1732-99) as the first president. The writing of the Constitution in Independence Hall, along with the adoption of the Declaration of Independence there eleven years earlier, has led to global recognition of the building’s historical significance.

By the mid-1780s, several problems had arisen under the Articles of Confederation , which went into effect in 1781. In particular, Congress needed the authority to tax and to regulate commerce. It also needed the means to solve foreign policy problems, such as opening the Mississippi River to American navigation and expelling British troops from several forts in the Northwest Territory. The Confederation Congress called the Constitutional Convention on February 21, 1787, legitimizing a call issued by an earlier convention that met in Annapolis, Maryland, in September 1786 to discuss giving Congress control of commerce. Congress tasked the 1787 convention with revising the Articles to render the federal government “adequate to the exigencies of the union.” All agreed that the convention must strengthen the federal government at the expense of the states. The new constitution needed separate, coequal executive, legislative, and judicial branches restrained by checks and balances so that it could avoid repeating what many regarded as the injustices of the state governments, where, according to conservatives, popular majorities acting through unchecked legislatures often trampled the rights of religious or propertied minorities.

Fifty-five delegates, representing all of the states except Rhode Island, attended the convention in Philadelphia, a geographically central location. The biggest city in the United States, this metropolis of about 40,000 people featured boardinghouses, such as the Indian Queen Tavern and the City Tavern , where the delegates could reside, caucus, and dine. In addition to shops, theaters, and other cosmopolitan amenities, Philadelphia offered a religiously and ethnically diverse and tolerant atmosphere, where men of varying cultures felt comfortable. Many of the delegates found Philadelphia, the former national capital, a familiar place. Southerners, however, considered the antislavery views of the Quakers and like-minded residents troubling. With the windows of Independence Hall’s Assembly Room sealed shut to prevent eavesdropping, the delegates spent the humid summer months deliberating in sweltering conditions.

George Washington, Convention President

The convention, scheduled to open on May 14, did not achieve a quorum until May 25. On the first day, Robert Morris (1734-1806) of Pennsylvania nominated George Washington to be the convention president, to which the delegates unanimously assented. After agreeing to meet from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. six days a week and settling on rules (including keeping the proceedings secret, allowing one vote per state, and requiring at least two delegates to make an official delegation), the convention took up a proposal for the structure of the government. The Virginia Plan , drafted by the Virginians and supported by the Pennsylvanians in the preconvention days, proposed a bicameral legislature with representation in both houses based on either each state’s free population or federal taxes paid, along with executive and judicial branches. John Rutledge (1739-1800) pledged South Carolina’s backing of the Virginia Plan, even though he considered it favorable to the wealthiest and most populous states. In return, James Wilson (1742-98) promised Pennsylvania’s support for counting three-fifths of slaves towards representation in Congress.

The small states, led by William Paterson (1745-1806) of New Jersey, countered with the New Jersey Plan in opposition to the sweeping changes proposed by the Virginia Plan, especially the elimination of the Confederation’s one-vote-per-state system. The New Jersey Plan would essentially add executive and judicial branches to the existing Confederation and grant Congress power over taxation and commerce. At stake were not just the interests of large versus small states, but whether the new framework would be a national government of people, or whether it would continue a confederation of states. Upon reaching an impasse and nearly dissolving, the convention turned the divisive matter over to a grand committee composed of a member from each state. The committee, which included Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) of Pennsylvania, devised the Great Compromise (or the Connecticut Compromise) in which each state’s representation in the House of Representatives would be based on population (including three-fifths the number of slaves), and each state would receive two seats in the Senate. Appropriations bills could only originate in the House. This breakthrough created what James Madison (1751-1836) of Virginia called a partly national, partly federal “compound republic.”

At the end of July the convention recessed for ten days while a five-man Committee of Detail incorporated the agreed-upon resolutions into a draft Constitution. The committee, dominated by Rutledge and Wilson, replaced a blanket grant of power to Congress with a list of enumerated powers. At the same time, however, the draft included blank checks that undermined the concept of enumerated powers, such as the “necessary and proper,” “general welfare,” and “supremacy” clauses. In addition to the three-fifths compromise already agreed upon by the convention, the committee inserted a number of provisions favorable to the South, including a ban on export taxes, and requiring a supermajority of two-thirds of Congress rather than a bare majority to pass commercial legislation. Nor could Congress prohibit the African slave trade.

Struggle Over Slavery Issue

In August, the entire convention struggled with the slavery issue. Several northerners, led by Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816) of Pennsylvania, eloquently attacked the South’s peculiar institution as a moral abomination. The debate led to compromises in which the North traded a fugitive slave provision in return for the South’s abandonment of the supermajority requirement for commercial legislation. The convention prohibited Congress from banning the international slave trade for twenty years, but allowed a ten dollar tax on slave imports. The delegates also decided to use the word “persons” instead of “slaves.” By threatening disunion if slavery were not adequately protected, the South, especially Georgia and South Carolina, got the better of these compromises. The three-fifths compromise in particular secured enough additional seats in Congress to enable the “Slave Power” eventually to enact proslavery legislation such as the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act , which overturned the ban on slavery imposed in those territories by the Missouri Compromise of 1820 . Thanks to the Electoral College, moreover, the three-fifths compromise also made it easier to elect southern presidents, who in turn often nominated pro-slavery Supreme Court justices.

The draft constitution called for a president to be elected by Congress for one seven-year term. After considering myriad alternative arrangements, the delegates, at the beginning of September, turned the disposition of the presidency over to the “Committee on Postponed Parts.” Chaired by David Brearly (1745-90) of New Jersey, this committee redesigned the office, giving the executive a four-year term to be elected without a term limit by an electoral college. In accepting this change, the convention created a truly independent executive, coequal with the federal government’s other branches. The convention’s expectation that Washington, the likely first president, would not abuse his power convinced the delegates to take this bold step.

With all of the Constitution’s major provisions decided upon, the convention on September 10 appointed a Committee of Style to prepare the final draft. Gouverneur Morris, an eloquent writer, finalized the preamble and organized the document into its various articles and sections. Not knowing which states would ratify, Morris changed the preamble’s opening from a list of the thirteen states to, “We the People of the United States.”

On September 17, the convention met one last time to sign the embellished manuscript of the Constitution.  Benjamin Franklin called on the forty-two delegates still present to add their signatures to the document. George Mason (1725-92) of Virginia, Edmund Randolph (1753-1813) of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814) of Massachusetts remained unwavering in their opposition. As the delegates one by one affixed their names, Franklin pointed to the half sun carved into the backrest of Washington’s chair. The Pennsylvanian remarked that after wondering all summer whether it was a rising or setting sun, he now knew that it was in fact a rising sun.

The States Decide

The convention forwarded the Constitution to Congress with resolutions specifying that the ratification decision be made by conventions “chosen in each state by the people.” Congress voted unanimously, not to endorse but merely to transmit the document to the states for ratification. Article VII provided that the Constitution would take effect when ratified by nine states. Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey became the first three states to ratify the Constitution, all by lopsided margins. The Delaware ratification convention, meeting in Dover, happy with the Great Compromise and not wishing to see such a little state become a separate nation, ratified on December 7 by a vote of 30-0. The Pennsylvania convention, held in Independence Hall, approved the Constitution on December 12 by a vote of 46-23, rejecting the Antifederalists’ request to postpone ratification until they had time to propose amendments. The bitter response of Pennsylvania’s unreconciled Antifederalists to the Federalists’ heavy-handed approach caused remaining states to conduct a more thorough and sincere ratification debate. New Jersey’s convention in Trenton, eager for commerce (and import duties) to be controlled by the federal government because of the state’s dependence on out-of-state ports in New York City and Philadelphia, ratified on December 18 by a 38-0 vote. Philadelphians celebrated the Constitution’s ratification on July 4, 1788, with a “Grand Federal Procession” to the Bush Hill estate of William Hamilton (1745-1813), three miles outside of town, where James Wilson delivered a spirited address to a crowd of 17,000. Toasts and a sumptuous feast followed.

Visitors to Independence Hall can see the Assembly Room where the convention met and the Rising Sun Chair where Washington sat. The building, part of Independence National Historical Park, was designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for its role in the spread of republican government (representative democracy).

Stuart Leibiger is a Professor and History Department Chair at La Salle University. He is the author of Founding Friendship: George Washington, James Madison, and the Creation of the American Republic (University of Virginia Press, 1999), and editor of a Companion to James Madison and James Monroe (Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, 2013).

Copyright 2015, Rutgers University

• Independence Hall

Library of Congress

This engraving of Independence Hall dates to 1778. Built between 1732 and 1752, Independence Hall (then known as the Pennsylvania State House) hosted not only the Constitutional Convention of 1787, but also the debate and approval of the Declaration of Independence. The original steeple, shown to the right, was demolished before the Constitutional Convention began. It was later restored.

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention met in this building six days a week, five hours per day, to discuss the rules of the convention. It was in this hall that the Constitution was drafted, debated, and ultimately signed. Independence Hall is part of Independence National Historical Park, along with many other landmarks from the Revolutionary era, and is open to the public.

Signing of the Constitution

Architect of the Capitol

Howard Chandler Christy’s painting of the signing of the U.S. Constitution was commissioned in 1939 as part of the congressional observance of the Constitution’s sesquicentennial. Completed in 1940, the 20-by-30-foot framed oil-on-canvas scene is among the best-known images in the U.S. Capitol, on display in the east grand stairway of the House wing.

The painting depicts Independence Hall in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. George Washington is the most prominent figure; he stands on the platform next to Richard Spaight of North Carolina, who is signing the document. Eighty-one-year-old Benjamin Franklin is seated in the center, with Alexander Hamilton leaning toward him, while James Madison appears farther to the right.

(Caption credit: Architect of the Capitol)

Assembly Room, Independence Hall

National Park Service

Philadelphia was chosen as the Constitutional Convention site because of its central location, and deliberations took place in the Assembly Room of Independence Hall, then known as the Pennsylvania State House. Twelve of the thirteen states sent delegates to meet here, fifty-five in all, to debate and write the Constitution of the United States. Rhode Island was the only state not represented. Compromises were made between southern and northern delegates over the role that slavery would play in the new nation, a topic that was already beginning to divide the young nation, primarily due to Quaker influence in the Philadelphia area. Three years after the Constitutional Convention ended, Philadelphia served for a decade as the U.S. capital.

This photograph shows the Assembly Room, renovated in the mid-twentieth century so that it accurately reflects its appearance in the eighteenth century. Today the room is part of the Independence Hall tours that are available at no charge for visitors to Independence National Historical Park.

Heralding the New Constitution

The Constitution was heralded throughout the new republic by way of newspapers and magazines. This engraving by James Trenchard was printed in The Columbian magazine, depicting the Roman gods Cupid; Concordia, who represents societal agreement; and Clio, the muse of history. The temple they stand before has thirteen columns to represent the states. In their hands is the Constitution. An inscription on the temple reads, “Sacred to Liberty, Justice, and Peace.”

The Columbian was published in Philadelphia beginning in 1786. The first sixteen months were devoted to news and opinions on the Constitutional Convention and included reproductions of speeches by the delegates and the full text of the document.

Rising Sun Chair

This is the Rising Sun Chair from which George Washington presided during the Constitutional Convention. On September 17, 1787, the completed Constitution was signed by thirty-nine of the remaining forty-two delegates to the convention in their last meeting. Benjamin Franklin, the oldest delegate present, remarked that all summer he had wondered if the decorative gilded sun carved on Washington's chair was rising or setting. Once the manuscript was signed, he determined that the sun was rising—a symbol of the young nation ascending at the dawn of its new government.

More accurately referred to as the Speaker's Chair, it was built in 1779 to replace an older item destroyed during the British occupation of Philadelphia from 1777 to 1778. The chair remains on display in the Assembly Room of Independence Hall.

Bush Hill Estate

This 1789 engraving shows the Bush Hill estate of William Hamilton Esq. It was located in the Fairmount neighborhood, bordering the Schuylkill River to the west. On July 4, 1788, a Grand Federal Procession celebrating the one-year anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution ended here. The procession began at Third and South Streets at 9:30 a.m. and marched for about three miles. Among about 17,000 participants were military units, ambassadors from ally nations, and representatives of some forty-four professions. At the end of the procession, the celebrants gathered on the lawn of Bush Hill for food and drinks.

The Grand Federal Procession began a tradition of celebrating the ratification of the Constitution. While the 1788 event was held on July 4, later years saw Constitution Day celebrated on September 17, the day the document was endorsed.

Related Topics

• Philadelphia and the World
• Philadelphia and the Nation
• City of Firsts
• Cradle of Liberty

Time Periods

• American Revolution Era
• Center City Philadelphia
• Convention Centers
• Political Conventions
• Continental Congresses
• Declaration of Independence
• Constitution Commemorations
• Independence National Historical Park
• Articles of Confederation
• Grand Federal Procession
• National Constitution Center
• U.S. Supreme Court

Related Reading

Beeman, Richard R. Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution . New York: Random House, 2009.

Collier, Christopher, and James Lincoln Collier. Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787 . New York: Ballantine Books, 1987.

Greene, Jack P. The Intellectual Heritage of the Constitutional Era: The Delegates Library . Philadelphia: The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1986.

Isaacson, Walter. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life . New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.

Jensen, Merrill et al., eds. The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, vol. 2, Ratification of the Constitution by the States: Pennsylvania . Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1976.

Jensen, Merrill et al., eds. The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, vol. 3, Ratification of the Constitution by the States: Delaware, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut . Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1978.

Kirschke, James J. Gouverneur Morris: Author, Statesman, and Man of the World . New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005.

Koch, Adrienne, ed. Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison . Athens: Ohio University Press, 1985.

Leibiger, Stuart.  The Constitutional Convention of 1787 . Santa Barbara, ABC-Clio Publishers, 2019.

Maier, Pauline. Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 . New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010.

Rappleye, Charles. Robert Morris: Financier of the American Revolution . New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.

Rossiter, Clinton. 1787: The Grand Convention . New York: McMillan, 1966.

Smith, Charles Page. James Wilson: Founding Father, 1742-1798 . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956.

Stewart, David O. The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution . New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007.

Van Doren, Carl. The Great Rehearsal: The Story of the Making and Ratifying of the Constitution of the United States . New York: Viking Press, 1987.

Related Collections

Benjamin Franklin Papers , American Philosophical Society, 104 S. Fifth Street, Philadelphia.

James Wilson Papers , Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia.

William Paterson Papers , Askew Library, William Paterson College, Wayne, N.J.

Related Places

Independence Hall , 520 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.

James Wilson House site, Third and Walnut Streets, Philadelphia.

National Constitution Center , 525 Arch Street, Philadelphia.

Backgrounders

Connecting Headlines with History

• Founding Father's desk, papers on display to mark Constitution anniversary (WHYY, September 17, 2012)
• Do we need a new Constitutional Convention? (WHYY, December 23, 2013)
• Supreme Court says same-sex couples have right to marry in all 50 states (WHYY, June 26, 2015)
• Constitution Center focuses on religious freedom's evolution from a concept to a right (WHYY, August 19, 2015)
• From parchment to iPad: U.S. Constitution digitized (WHYY, September 16, 2016)
• Interactive Constitution (National Constitution Center)
• A Teacher's Guide to the Constitutional Convention (TeachingAmericanHistory.org)
• Ratification of the Constitution (TeachingAmericanHistory.org)
• Documents from the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention (Library of Congress)
• The Constitutional Convention of 1787 (EDSITEMent)

Connecting the Past with the Present, Building Community, Creating a Legacy

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essay on constitutional conventions

The phraseology of 'codifying convention' by itself is a contradiction of terms. Lord Norton remarked that the failure to appreciate the true nature of constitutional conventions is the underlying misconception of which the thoughts of codifications germinate. According to Professor Dicey, conventions are a set of rules which are founded on understanding and habitual practice which regulate the conduct of official and yet lack enforceability from the court. This is similar to Professor Marshall and Professor Moodie also defines convention along the line of being rules of constitutional behaviour that was not enforceable in court. Sir Ivor Jennings prefers to describe what constitutional convention is rather than affixing meaning. Thus, a rule of constitutional conduct would be deemed as convention if 3 elements are fulfilled: that there are precedents to such practise; that the relevant governmental entity regards itself to be bound; and thirdly, there was political significant which underlies the existence of the rule. It shall be noted that Sir Jennings methodology of identifying constitutional conventions had been approved in Re Amendment of Constitution of Canada. Professor James Wilson thus argued that the role of convention fills into the void to prescribe and restrain unfettered exercise of power allocated under the constitution.

Related Papers

Peace Semenya

This essay examines the nature and sources of constitutional conventions and their importance towards the British Constitution. It further evaluates whether conventions should be codified into the British Constitution.

Canadian Journal of Political Science

Emmett Macfarlane

The Supreme Court's recent invocation of the “constitutional architecture” in the Senate Reform Reference has led a number of scholars to question the status of constitutional conventions in the legal, as opposed to political, constitution. Has the Court, without expressly saying so, transformed at least some conventions into constitutional law? This would be a serious rupture, not only from existing precedent on the justiciability of conventions but also from the traditional understanding of conventions as binding political rules. In light of this recent scholarly debate, an exploration of the profound consequences of entrenching conventions in the legal constitution is warranted, as it implicates the meaning of constitutional conventions, their creation, their relation to law, and their enforcement. Judicial entrenchment of conventions would be a dangerous violation of the separation of powers and would have negative consequences for the functioning of Canada's system of g...

Andrew Heard

This article offers an analysis of constitutional conventions and the controversies over their nature, genesis, and operation. Three very different perspectives on the nature of conventions are explored. The orthodox model espoused by the Supreme Court of Canada is based on historical precedents; without precedents, there can be no rule. In examining this view, particular attention will be paid to the Supreme Court's analysis of conventions in the Patriation Reference to highlight the flaws in relying exclusively or rigorously on Jennings' formulation. At the other extreme is a view of conventions as flexible guidelines, which may pose only broad obligations and permit political actors to explore their own preferred course of action; what is conventionally permitted or required is what the attentive public will support or acquiesce to at any given time. A third view is that conventions are obligations arising from basic constitutional principles; these principles may bind po...

Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law

J.W.J. Bowden

"This article will examine first the nature of constitutional convention and constitutional principle, and second, examples of officialization of constitutional convention in Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. It will focus particularly on the Manual of Official Procedure of the Government of Canada, the British Cabinet Manual and the New Zealand Cabinet Manual. It also describes unsuccessful attempts to codify convention in Canada in 1978 and Australia in 1985. It will conclude that the officialization of constitution conventions into handbooks generally preserves the flexibility of the Westminster system and can serve as educational guidance for the media, parliamentarians, and general public; in contrast, codification would eliminate the politically-enforceable character of convention altogether by converting these political rules into justiciable law.

Vol 38 No 2 2015

Canada shares an ironic situation with many other countries with written Constitutions: the rule of law is praised while political actors ignore the law. Constitutional conventions at times permit, and on occasion require, public officials to act in ways other than what is detailed in law. In examining the consequences for the rule of law of constitutional conventions and unwritten principles, this paper will focus on the role and nature of constitutional conventions, their relationship to both unwritten constitutional principles and the formal Constitution, and the problems in either drawing from or ignoring them in judicial decisions. This focus provides a window on the importance of unwritten rules and principles in political systems with a formal Constitution.

philip tn koh

There are many of formal rules that govern Parliament. Some are statutory, some common law, and others are found in the Standing Orders of the House of Commons and the Rules of the Senate. But all of these formal rules together, give only a very incomplete picture of how Parliament works and what parliamentarians should or should not do. Constitutional conventions also play an important role in the work of Parliament. This article reviews the nature of constitutional conventions and their relationship with the formal rules of the constitution. It examines a few of the more important conventions including the Governor General's choice of prime minister, the address in reply to the speech from the throne, and the issues of what constitute a matter of confidence.

A critical reading of the above comment indeed affirms the contention between the concept of constitutionalism and the concept of philosophical foundation of the state leading to a host of vexing questions, including how a government can be legally limited if law is the creation of government? I will attempt to discuss this dichotomy in the two concepts by looking at the nature, identity and authority of constitutions, what constitutionalism is, the philosophical foundations of the state, the relationship between the two concepts in terms of situations where constitutionalism is practiced as against situations where constitutionalism is absent with examples and authorities from mainly Ghana and finally conclude this term paper with the position on whether or not this contention is a settled matter. A constitution is the blue print of a nation. It establishes the basic framework for the operation of the state and expresses its important social and political values. In many ways, it functions as the national conscience. The Free Dictionary defines constitution as " the fundamental law, written or unwritten, that establishes the character of a government by defining the basic principles to which a society must conform; by describing the organization of the government and regulation, distribution, and limitations on the functions of different government departments; and by prescribing the extent and manner of the exercise of its sovereign powers. " In modern Europe, written constitutions came into greater use during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Constitutions such as that of the United States, created in 1787, were influenced by the ancient Greek models. During the twentieth century, an increasing number of countries around the world concluded that constitutions are a necessary part of democratic or republican government. Many thus adopted their own constitutions. In its ideal form, a constitution emanates from the consent and will of the people whom it governs. Besides establishing the institutions of government and the manner in which they function toward each other and toward the people, a constitution may also set forth the rights of the individual and a government's responsibility to honor those rights. Constitutions, whether written or unwritten, typically function as an evolving body of legal custom and opinion. Their evolution generally involves changes in judicial interpretation or in themselves, the latter usually through a process called amendment. Amendment of a constitution is usually designed to be a difficult process in order to give the constitution greater stability. On the other hand, if a constitution is extremely difficult to amend, it might be too inflexible to survive over time. In a truly constitutional form of government, the three basic forms of governmental power: namely legislative power (making new laws), executive power (implementing laws) and judicial power (adjudicating disputes under law) are all subject to constitutional rules and provisions and may not violate them without punishment. Such constitutional governments are also called limited governments because the constitution restricts the scope of their power over the people. However, some governments that have constitutions do not practice true constitutionalism, the mere existence of a constitution of a state does not mean it is a constitutional government. The former

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