FREE ESSAY ON A MORE PERFECT UNION:

A MORE PERFECT UNION:

The Articles of Confederation
The determined Madison had for several years insatiably studied history and political
theory searching for a solution to the political and economic dilemmas he saw plaguing
America. The Virginian's labors convinced him of the futility and weakness of
confederacies of independent states. America's own government under the Articles of
Confederation, Madison was convinced, had to be replaced. In force since 1781,
established as a league of friendship and a constitution for the 13 sovereign and
independent states after the Revolution, the articles seemed to Madison woefully
inadequate. With the states retaining considerable power, the central government, he
believed, had insufficient power to regulate commerce. It could not tax and was generally
impotent in setting commercial policy it could not effectively support a war effort. It
had little power to settle quarrels between states. Saddled with this weak government,
the states were on the brink of economic disaster. The evidence was overwhelming.
Congress was attempting to function with a depleted treasury; paper money was flooding
the country, creating extraordinary inflation--a pound of tea in some areas could be
purchased for a tidy $100; and the depressed condition of business was taking its toll on
many small farmers. Some of them were being thrown in jail for debt, and numerous farms
were being confiscated and sold for taxes. 
In 1786 some of the farmers had fought back. Led by Daniel Shays, a former captain in the
Continental army, a group of armed men, sporting evergreen twigs in their hats, prevented
the circuit court from sitting at Northampton, MA, and threatened to seize muskets stored
in the arsenal at Springfield. Although the insurrection was put down by state troops,
the incident confirmed the fears of many wealthy men that anarchy was just around the
corner. Embellished day after day in the press, the uprising made upper-class Americans
shudder as they imagined hordes of vicious outlaws descending upon innocent citizens.
From his idyllic Mount Vernon setting, Washington wrote to Madison: Wisdom and good
examples are necessary at this time to rescue the political machine from the impending
storm. 
Madison thought he had the answer. He wanted a strong central government to provide order
and stability. Let it be tried then, he wrote, whether any middle ground can be taken
which will at once support a due supremacy of the national authority, while maintaining
state power only when subordinately useful. The resolute Virginian looked to the
Constitutional Convention to forge a new government in this mold. 
The convention had its specific origins in a proposal offered by Madison and John Tyler
in the Virginia assembly that the Continental Congress be given power to regulate
commerce throughout the Confederation. Through their efforts in the assembly a plan was
devised inviting the several states to attend a convention at Annapolis, MD, in September
1786 to discuss commercial problems. Madison and a young lawyer from New York named
Alexander Hamilton issued a report on the meeting in Annapolis, calling upon Congress to
summon delegates of all of the states to meet for the purpose of revising the Articles of
Confederation. Although the report was widely viewed as a usurpation of congressional
authority, the Congress did issue a formal call to the states for a convention. To
Madison it represented the supreme chance to reverse the country's trend. And as the
delegations gathered in Philadelphia, its importance was not lost to others. The squire
of Gunston Hall, George Mason, wrote to his son, The Eyes of the United States are turned
upon this Assembly and their Expectations raised to a very anxious Degree. May God Grant
that we may be able to gratify them, by establishing a wise and just Government. 
likely. 
The Great Compromise
Also crowding into this complicated and divisive discussion over representation was the
North-South division over the method by which slaves were to be counted for purposes of
taxation and representation. On July 12 Oliver Ellsworth proposed that representation for
the lower house be based on the number of free persons and three-fifths of all other
persons, a euphemism for slaves. In the following week the members finally compromised,
agreeing that direct taxation be according to representation and that the representation
of the lower house be based on the white inhabitants and three-fifths of the other
people. With this compromise and with the growing realization that such compromise was
necessary to avoid a complete breakdown of the convention, the members then approved
Senate equality. Roger Sherman had remarked that it was the wish of the delegates that
some general government should be established. With the crisis over representation now
settled, it began to look again as if this wish might be fulfilled. 
For the next few days the air in the City of Brotherly Love, although insufferably muggy
and swarming with bluebottle flies, had the clean scent of conciliation. In this period
of welcome calm, the members decided to appoint a Committee of Detail to draw up a draft
constitution. The convention would now at last have something on paper. As Nathaniel
Gorham of Massachusetts, John Rutledge, Edmund Randolph, James Wilson, and Oliver
Ellsworth went to work, the other delegates voted themselves a much-needed 10-day
vacation. 
During the adjournment, Governor Morris and George Washington rode out along a creek that
ran through land that had been part of the Valley Forge encampment 10 years earlier.
While Morris cast for trout, Washington pensively looked over the now lush ground where
his freezing troops had suffered, at a time when it had seemed as if the American
Revolution had reached its end. The country had come a long way. 
The First Draft
On Monday August 6, 1787, the convention accepted the first draft of the Constitution.
Here was the article-by-article model from which the final document would result some 5
weeks later. As the members began to consider the various sections, the willingness to
compromise of the previous days quickly evaporated. The most serious controversy erupted
over the question of regulation of commerce. The southern states, exporters of raw
materials, rice, indigo, and tobacco, were fearful that a New England-dominated Congress
might, through export taxes, severely damage the South's economic life. C. C. Pinckney
declared that if Congress had the power to regulate trade, the southern states would be
nothing more than overseers for the Northern States. 
On August 21 the debate over the issue of commerce became very closely linked to another
explosive issue--slavery. When Martin of Maryland proposed a tax on slave importation,
the convention was thrust into a strident discussion of the institution of slavery and
its moral and economic relationship to the new government. Rutledge of South Carolina,
asserting that slavery had nothing at all to do with morality, declared, Interest alone
is the governing principle with nations. Sherman of Connecticut was for dropping the
tender issue altogether before it jeopardized the convention. Mason of Virginia expressed
concern over unlimited importation of slaves but later indicated that he also favored
federal protection of slave property already held. This nagging issue of possible federal
intervention in slave traffic, which Sherman and others feared could irrevocably split
northern and southern delegates, was settled by, in Mason's words, a bargain. Mason later
wrote that delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, who most feared federal meddling in
the slave trade, made a deal with delegates from the New England states. In exchange for
the New Englanders' support for continuing slave importation for 20 years, the
southerners accepted a clause that required only a simple majority vote on navigation
laws, a crippling blow to southern economic interests. 
The bargain was also a crippling blow to those working to abolish slavery.
Congregationalist minister and abolitionist Samuel Hopkins of Connecticut charged that
the convention had sold out: How does it appear . . . that these States, who have been
fighting for liberty and consider themselves as the highest and most noble example of
zeal for it, cannot agree in any political Constitution, unless it indulge and authorize
them to enslave their fellow men . . . Ah! These unclean spirits, like frogs, they, like
the Furies of the poets are spreading discord, and exciting men to contention and war.
Hopkins considered the Constitution a document fit for the flames. 
On August 31 a weary George Mason, who had 3 months earlier written so expectantly to his
son about the great Business now before us, bitterly exclaimed that he would sooner chop
off his right hand than put it to the Constitution as it now stands. Mason despaired that
the convention was rushing to saddle the country with an ill-advised, potentially ruinous
central authority He was concerned that a bill of rights, ensuring individual liberties,
had not been made part of the Constitution. Mason called for a new convention to
reconsider the whole question of the formation of a new government. Although Mason's
motion was overwhelmingly voted down, opponents of the Constitution did not abandon the
idea of a new convention. It was futilely suggested again and again for over 2 years. 
One of the last major unresolved problems was the method of electing the executive. A
number of proposals, including direct election by the people, by state legislatures, by
state governors, and by the national legislature, were considered. The result was the
Electoral College, a masterstroke of compromise, quaint and curious but politically
expedient. The large states got proportional strength in the number of delegates, the
state legislatures got the right of selecting delegates, and the House the right to
choose the president in the event no candidate received a majority of electoral votes.
Mason later predicted that the House would probably choose the president 19 times out of
20. 
In the early days of September, with the exhausted delegates anxious to return home,
compromise came easily. On September 8 the convention was ready to turn the Constitution
over to a Committee of Style and Arrangement. Governor Morris was the chief architect.
Years later he wrote to Timothy Pickering: That Instrument was written by the Fingers
which wrote this letter. The Constitution was presented to the convention on September
12, and the delegates methodically began to consider each section. Although close votes
followed on several articles, it was clear that the grueling work of the convention in
the historic summer of 1787 was reaching its end. 
Before the final vote on the Constitution on September 15, Edmund Randolph proposed that
amendments be made by the state conventions and then turned over to another general
convention for consideration. George Mason and Elbridge Gerry joined him. The three
lonely allies were soundly rebuffed. Late in the afternoon the roll of the states was
called on the Constitution, and from every delegation the word was Aye. 
On September 17 the members met for the last time, and the venerable Franklin had written
a speech that was delivered by his colleague James Wilson. Appealing for unity behind the
Constitution, Franklin declared, I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting
with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the builders of
Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the
purpose of cutting one another's throats. With Mason, Gerry, and Randolph withstanding
appeals to attach their signatures, the other delegates in the hall formally signed the
Constitution, and the convention adjourned at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. 
Weary from weeks of intense pressure but generally satisfied with their work, the
delegates shared a farewell dinner at City Tavern. Two blocks away on Market Street,
printers John Dunlap and David Claypool worked into the night on the final imprint of the
six-page Constitution, copies of which would leave Philadelphia on the morning stage. The
debate over the nation's form of government was now set for the larger arena. 
As the members of the convention returned home in the following days, Alexander Hamilton
privately assessed the chances of the Constitution for ratification. In its favor were
the support of Washington, commercial interests, men of property, creditors, and the
belief among many Americans that the Articles of Confederation were inadequate. Against
it was the opposition of a few influential men in the convention and state politicians
fearful of losing power, the general revulsion against taxation, the suspicion that a
centralized government would be insensitive to local interests, and the fear among
debtors that a new government would restrain the means of cheating Creditors.