The Critical Period of American History

by John Fiske

Thus, only three months before the Federal Convention was to meet, if indeed it was ever to meet, Congress was decisively informed that it would not be allowed to take any effectual measures for raising a revenue. There now seemed nothing left for Congress to do but adopt the recommendation of the Annapolis commissioners, and give its sanction to the proposed convention. Madison, however, had not waited for this, but had prevailed upon the Virginia legislature to go on and appoint its delegates to the convention. The events of the year had worked a change in the popular sentiment in Virginia; people were more afraid of anarchy, and not quite so much afraid of centralization; and now, under Madison's lead, Virginia played her trump card and chose George Washington as one of her delegates. As soon as this was known, there was an outburst of joy throughout the land. All at once the people began everywhere to feel an interest in the proposed convention, and presently Massachusetts changed her attitude. Up to this time Massachusetts had been as obstinate in her assertion of local independence, and as unwilling to strengthen the hands of Congress, as any of the thirteen states, except New York and Rhode Island. But the Shays rebellion had served as a useful object-lesson. Part of the distress in Massachusetts could be traced to the inability of Congress to pay debts which it owed to her citizens. It was felt that the time had come when the question of a national revenue must be seriously considered. Every week saw fresh converts to the party which called for a stronger government. Then came the news that Virginia had chosen delegates, and that Washington was one of them; then that New Jersey had followed the example; then that Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Delaware, had chosen delegates. It was time for Massachusetts to act, and Rufus King now brought the matter up in Congress. His scruples as to the legality of the proceeding had not changed, and accordingly he moved that Congress should of itself propose a convention at Philadelphia, identical with the one which the Annapolis commissioners had already recommended. The motion was carried, and in this way Congress formally approved and adopted what was going on. Massachusetts immediately chose delegates, and was followed by New York. In April, Georgia and South Carolina followed suit. Connecticut and Maryland came on in May, and New Hampshire, somewhat tardily, in June. Of the thirteen states, Rhode Island alone refused to take any part in the proceedings.

The Federal Convention meets at Philadelphia, May 14–25, 1787.

The convention held its meetings in that plain brick building in Philadelphia already immortalized as the place from which the Declaration of Independence was published to the world. The work which these men were undertaking was to determine whether that Declaration had been for the blessing or the injury of America and of mankind. That they had succeeded in assembling here at all was somewhat remarkable, when we think of the curious medley of incidents that led to it. At no time in this distressed period would a frank and abrupt proposal for a convention to remodel the government have found favour. Such proposals, indeed, had been made, beginning with that of Pelatiah Webster in 1781, and they had all failed to break through the crust of a truly English conservatism and dread of centralized power. Now, through what some might have called a strange chapter of accidents, before the element of causal sequence in it all had become so manifest as it is to us to-day, this remarkable group of men had been brought together in a single room, while even yet but few of them realized how thoroughly and exhaustively reconstructive their work was to be. To most of them it was not clear whether they were going merely to patch up the articles of confederation, or to strike out into a new and very different path. There were a few who entertained far-reaching purposes; the rest were intelligent critics rather than constructive thinkers; the result was surprising to all. It is worth our while to pause for a moment, and observe the character and composition of one of the most memorable assemblies the world has ever seen. Mr. Gladstone says that just "as the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from progressive history, so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man."[6] Let us now see who the men were who did this wonderful work,—this Iliad, or Parthenon, or Fifth Symphony, of statesmanship. We shall not find that they were all great geniuses. Such is never the case in such an assembly. There are not enough great geniuses to go around; and if there were, it is questionable if the result would be satisfactory. In such discussions the points which impress the more ordinary and less far-sighted members are sure to have great value; especially when we bear in mind that the object of such an assembly is not merely to elaborate a plan, but to get the great mass of people, including the brick-layers and hod-carriers, to understand it well enough to vote for it. An ideally perfect assembly of law-makers will therefore contain two or three men of original constructive genius, two or three leading spirits eminent for shrewdness and tact, a dozen or more excellent critics representing various conflicting interests, and a rank and file of thoroughly respectable, commonplace men, unfitted for shining in the work of the meeting, but admirably competent to proclaim its results and get their friends and neighbours to adopt them. And in such an assembly, even if it be such as we call ideally perfect, we must allow something for the presence of a few hot-headed and irreconcilable members,—men of inflexible mind, who cannot adapt themselves to circumstances, and will refuse to play when they see the game going against them.

The men who were assembled.

All these points are well illustrated in the assemblage of men that framed our Federal Constitution. In its composition, this group of men left nothing to be desired. In its strength and in its weakness, it was an ideally perfect assembly. There were fifty-five men, all of them respectable for family and for personal qualities,—men who had been well educated, and had done something whereby to earn recognition in these troubled times. Twenty-nine were university men, graduates of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, William and Mary, Oxford, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. Twenty-six were not university men, and among these were Washington and Franklin. Of the illustrious citizens who, for their public services, would naturally have been here, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were in Europe; Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee disapproved of the convention, and remained at home; and the greatest man of Rhode Island, Nathanael Greene, who—one likes to think—might have succeeded in bringing his state into the convention, had lately died of a sun-stroke, at the early age of forty-four.

James Madison.

Of the two most famous men present little need be said. The names of Washington and Franklin stood for supreme intelligence and consummate tact. Franklin had returned to this country two years before, and was now president of Pennsylvania. He was eighty-one years of age, the oldest man in the convention, as Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, aged twenty-six, was the youngest. The two most profound and original thinkers in the company were but little older than Dayton. Alexander Hamilton was thirty, James Madison thirty-six. Among political writers, these two men must be ranked in the same order with Aristotle, Montesquieu, and Locke; and the "Federalist," their joint production, is the greatest treatise on government that has ever been written. John Jay, who contributed a few pages to this immortal volume, had not been sent to the convention, because New York did not wish to have it succeed. Along with Hamilton, New York sent two commonplace men, Robert Yates and John Lansing, who were extreme and obstinate Antifederalists; and the action of Hamilton, who was thus prevented from carrying the vote of his own state for any measure which he might propose, was in this way sadly embarrassed. For another reason, Hamilton failed to exert as much influence in the convention as one would have expected from his profound thought and his brilliant eloquence. Scarcely any of these men entertained what we should now call extreme democratic views. Scarcely any, perhaps, had that intense faith in the ultimate good sense of the people which was the most powerful characteristic of Jefferson. But Hamilton went to the other extreme, and expressed his distrust of popular government too plainly. His views were too aristocratic and his preference for centralization was too pronounced to carry conviction to his hearers. The leading part in the convention fell, therefore, to James Madison, a young man somewhat less brilliant than Hamilton, but superior to him in sobriety and balance of powers. Madison used to be called the "Father of the Constitution," and it is true that the government under which we live is more his work than that of any other one man. From early youth his life had been devoted to the study of history and the practice of statesmanship. He was a graduate of Princeton College, an earnest student, familiar with all the best literature of political science from Aristotle down to his own time, and he had given especial attention to the history of federal government in ancient Greece, and in Switzerland and Holland. At the age of twenty-five he had taken part in the Virginia convention which instructed the delegates from that state in Congress to bring forward the Declaration of Independence. During the last part of the war he was an active and influential member of Congress, where no one equalled or approached him for knowledge of English history and constitutional law. In 1784 he had returned to the Virginia legislature, and been foremost in securing the passage of the great act which gave complete religious freedom to the people of that state. No man understood better than he the causes of the alarming weakness of the federal government, and of the commercial disturbances and popular discontent of the time; nor had any one worked more zealously or more adroitly in bringing about the meeting of this convention. As he stood here now, a leader in the debate, there was nothing grand or imposing in his appearance. He was small of stature and slight in frame, like Hamilton, but he had none of Hamilton's personal magnetism. His manner was shy and prim, and blushes came often to his cheeks. At the same time, he had that rare dignity of unconscious simplicity which characterizes the earnest and disinterested scholar. He was exceedingly sweet-tempered, generous, and kind, but very hard to move from a path which, after long reflection, he had decided to be the right one. He looked at politics judicially, and was so little of a party man that on several occasions he was accused (quite wrongfully, as I hope hereafter to prove) of gross inconsistency. The position of leadership, which he won so early and kept so long, he held by sheer force of giant intelligence, sleepless industry, and an integrity which no man ever doubted. But he was above all things a man of peace. When in after years, as president of the United States, he was called upon to manage a great war, he was out of place, and his reputation for supreme ability was temporarily lowered. Here in the Federal Convention we are introduced to him at the noblest and most useful moment of his life.

Other leading members.

Of the fifty-five men here assembled, Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison were of the first order of ability. Many others in the room were gentlemen of more than ordinary talent and culture. There was John Dickinson, who had moved from Pennsylvania into Delaware, and now came to defend the equal rights of the smaller states. There was James Wilson of Pennsylvania, born and educated in Scotland, one of the most learned jurists this country has ever seen. Beside him sat the financier, Robert Morris, and his namesake Gouverneur Morris of Morrisania, near the city of New York, the originator of our decimal currency, and one of the far-sighted projectors of the Erie Canal. Then there was John Rutledge of South Carolina, who ever since the Stamp Act Congress had been the mainstay of his state; and with him were the two able and gallant Pinckneys. Caleb Strong, afterward ten times governor of Massachusetts, was a typical Puritan, hard-headed and supremely sensible; his colleague, Rufus King, already distinguished for his opposition to negro slavery, was a man of brilliant attainments. And there were George Wythe, the chancellor of Virginia, and Daniel Carroll of Maryland, who had played a prominent part in the events which led to the creation of a national domain. Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, afterward chief justice of the United States, was one of the ablest lawyers of his time; with him were Roger Sherman and William Johnson, the latter a Fellow of the Royal Society, and afterward president of Columbia College. The New Jersey delegation, consisting of William Livingston, David Brearley, William Paterson, and Jonathan Dayton, was a very strong one; and as to New Hampshire, it is enough to mention the name of John Langdon. Besides all these there were some twenty of less mark, men who said little, but listened and voted. And then there were the irreconcilables, Yates and Lansing, the two Antifederalists from New York; and four men of much greater ability, who took an important part in the proceedings, but could not be induced to accept the result. These four were Luther Martin of Maryland; George Mason and Edmund Randolph of Virginia; and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts.

When these men had assembled in Independence Hall, they chose George Washington president of the convention. The doors were locked, and an injunction of strict secrecy was put upon every one. The results of their work were known in the following September, when the draft of the Federal Constitution was published. But just what was said and done in this secret conclave was not revealed until fifty years had passed, and the aged James Madison, the last survivor of those who sat there, had been gathered to his fathers. He kept a journal of the proceedings, which was published after his death, and upon the interesting story told in that journal we have now to enter.