James Lincoln Collier - Creating the Constitution: 1787

T HE D RAMA OF A MERICAN H ISTORY

CREATING the CONSTITUTION

1787

Christopher Collier

James Lincoln Collier

ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The authors wish to thank Peter S. Onuf, Chair, Department of History, and Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor, University of Virginia at Charlottesville, for his careful reading of the text of this volume of The Drama of American History and his thoughtful and useful comments. This work has been much improved by Professor Onuf's notes. The authors are deeply in his debt, but of course, assume full responsibility for the substance of the work, including any errors that may appear.

Photo research by James Lincoln Collier

COVER PHOTO: Independence National Historic Park

PICTURE CREDITS: The photographs in this book are used by permission and through the courtesy of:

Chapter I: Independence National Historic Park: "Signing of the Constitution," port of Philadelphia, minutemen attacking British troops. Corbis-Bettman: tobacco farming. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation: George III.

Chapter II: Corbis-Bettman: England standing on one leg, winter in Valley Forge, John Hancock. Independence National Historic Park: Joseph Brant.

Chapter III: Independence National Historic Park: Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, William Jackson. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation: George Wythe's dining room.

Chapter IV: Independence National Historic Park: Gouverneur Morris, Luther Martin, Independence Hall, Assembly Room, William Samuel Johnson. Corbis-Bettman: Roger Sherman. Historic Williamsburg Foundation: "Virginian luxuries."

Chapter V: Independence National Historic Park: The City Tavern. Corbis-Bettman: "A Declaration of Rights," Magna Carta on display, Virginia charter, United Nations, taxes, Truman with Churchill and Stalin, doctor holding a baby, Congress, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, "The Ninth Pillar erected!" free speech, free assembly.

Epilogue: Independence National Historic Park: George Washington's chair.

Maps by Laszlo Kubinyi

1999 Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright holders.

First ebook edition 2012 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.

Trade ISBN 978-1-62064-501-7

Library ISBN 978-0-7927-9548-3

CREATING the CONSTITUTION

1787

C ONTENTS

P REFACE

OVER MANY YEARS of both teaching and writing for students at all levels, from grammar school to graduate school, it has been borne in on us that many, if not most, American history textbooks suffer from trying to include everything of any moment in the history of the nation. Students become lost in a swamp of factual information, and as a consequence lose track of how those facts fit together, and why they are significant and relevant to the world today.

In this series, our effort has been to strip the vast amount of available detail down to a central core. Our aim is to draw in bold strokes, providing enough information, but no more than is necessary, to bring out the basic themes of the American story, and what they mean to us now. We believe that it is surely more important for students to grasp the underlying concepts and ideas that emerge from the movement of history, than to memorize an array of facts and figures.

The difference between this series and many standard texts lies in what has been left out. We are convinced that students will better remember the important themes if they are not buried under a heap of names, dates, and places.

In this sense, our primary goal is what might be called citizenship education. We think it is critically important for America as a nation and Americans as individuals to understand the origins and workings of the public institutions which are central to American society. We have asked ourselves again and again what is most important for citizens of our democracy to know so they can most effectively make the system work for them and the nation. For this reason, we have focused on political and institutional history, leaving social and cultural history less well developed.

This series is divided into volumes that move chronologically through the American story. Each is built around a single topic, such as the pilgrims, the Constitutional Convention, or immigration. Each volume has been written so that it can stand alone, for students who wish to research a given topic. As a consequence, in many cases material from previous volumes is repeated, usually in abbreviated form, to set the topic in its historical context. That is to say, students of the Constitutional Convention must be given some idea of relations with England, and why the revolution was fought, even though the material was covered in detail in a previous volume. Readers should find that each volume tells an entire story that can be read with or without reference to other volumes.

Despite our belief that it is of the first importance to outline sharply basic concepts and generalizations, we have not neglected the great dramas of American history. The stories that will hold the attention of students are here, and we believe they will help the concepts they illustrate to stick in their minds. We think, for example, that knowing of Abraham Baldwin's brave and dramatic decision to vote with the small states at the Constitutional Convention will bring alive the Connecticut Compromise, out of which grew the American Senate.

Each of these volumes has been read by esteemed specialists in its particular topic; we have benefited from their comments.

C HAPTER I : T HE A RTICLES OF C ONFEDERATION

IT IS, SAID William Gladstone, the celebrated nineteenth-century English politician, "the most remarkable work known to me in modern times to have been produced by the human intellect at a single stroke...." Many historians agree with Gladstone. The American Constitution is certainly one of the most important documents written in modern times, and a case can be made that it is one of the most important pieces of writing ever.

Why can we make such bold claims for this work, which is only about a dozen pagesfewer than six thousand words? For one thing, it finally bound the very argumentative thirteen original states into a single republic, which would, a hundred and fifty years later, be the most powerful and influential nation on earth. Without the Constitution or something very much like it, there would be no United States of America as we know it, and the history of the world would have been much different.

For another, the liberties set forth in the Constitution and its first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, exploded onto a world in which few people were truly free. The Declaration of Independence, adopted in 1776, inspired people everywhere to find freedom for themselves, and within a generation, nationsespecially in Latin Americabegan to overthrow their colonial masters. The Constitution of 1787 provided all these new nations, and those of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well, with a model of how their freedoms could be secured. By what magic, then, did this great document come into being?