THE FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. IN FIVE BOOKS. BOOK THIRD. THE FEDERAL CONVENTION. MAY-SEPTEMBER 1787. CHAPTER I. THE CONSTITUTION IN OUTLINE. 14 MAY TO 13 JUNE 1787. Do nations float darkling down the stream of the ages without hope or consolation, swaying with every wind and ignorant whither they are drifting? or, is there a superior power of intelligence and love, which is moved by justice and shapes their course? From the ocean to the American outposts nearest the Mississippi, one desire prevailed for a closer connection, one belief that the only opportunity for its creation was come. Men who, from their greater attachment to the states, feared its hazards, neither coveted nor accepted an election to the convention, and in uneasy watchfulness awaited the course of events. Willie Jones of North Carolina, declining to serve, was replaced by Hugh Williamson, who had voted with Jefferson for excluding slavery from the territories. Patrick Henry, Thomas Nelson, and Richard Henry Lee refusing to be delegates, Edmund Randolph, then governor of Virginia and himself a delegate to the convention, named to one vacancy James McClurg, a professor in the college of William and Mary whom Madison had urged upon congress for the office of secretary of foreign affairs. No state except New York sent a delegation insensible to the necessity of a vigorous union. Discordant passions were repressed by the solemnity of the moment; and, as the statesmen who were to create a new constitution, veterans in the war and in the halls of legislation, journeyed for the most part on horseback to their place of meeting, the high-wrought hopes of the nation went along with them. Nor did they deserve the interest of the people of the United States alone; they felt the ennobling love for their fellow-men, and knew themselves to be forerunners of reform for the civilized world. George Washington was met at Chester by public honors. From the Schuylkill the city light horse escorted him into Philadelphia, the bells chiming all the while. His first act was to wait upon Franklin, the president of Pennsylvania. On the fourteenth of May, at the hour appointed for opening the federal convention, Virginia and Pennsylvania, the only states which were sufficiently represented, repaired to the state-house, and, with others as they gathered in, continued to do so, adjourning from day to day. Of deputies, the credentials of Connecticut and Maryland required but one to represent the state; of New York, South Carolina, and Georgia, two; of Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, and North Carolina, three; of Pennsylvania, four. The delay was turned to the best account by James Madison of Virginia. From the completion of the Virginia delegation by the arrival of George Mason, who came with unselfish zeal to do his part in fulfilling "the expectations and hopes of all the union," they not only attended the general session, but "conferred together by themselves two or three hours every day in order to form a proper correspondence of sentiments."* As their state had initiated the convention, they held it their duty at its opening to propose a finished plan for consideration. The choice lay between an amended confederacy and "the new constitution "+ for which Washington four years before had pleaded with the people of every state. "My wish is," so he had written to Madison, "that the convention may adopt no temporizing expedients, but probe the defects of the constitution to the bottom and provide a radical cure, whether agreed to or not. A conduct of this kind will stamp wisdom. and dignity on their proceedings, and hold up a light which sooner or later will have its influence." + We know from Randolph himself that before departing for the convention he was disposed to do no more than amend * George Mason to his son, Philadelphia, 20 May 1787. Washington to Lafayette, 5 April 1783. Sparks, viii., 412. |