Miracle At Philadelphia

After about a week of full debate, the Convention returned again to the question of how to elect members of each representative body in the Virginia Plan. Charles Pinckney of South Carolina did not think members of either house should be chosen directly by the people, and proposed that state legislatures should choose the lower house. Delegates were particularly concerned that people without property would have no vested interest in the government, and so would vote only in the interest of transferring wealth to themselves. The Founders were champions of rights, but the right to hold property was foremost in their minds, and so those without it were not to be considered full citizens. The delegates prioritized property rights in part because they themselves were propertied, and also because they “discussed America not in terms of social philosophy but in relation to the country as they saw it around them” (72), which included the presence of millions of enslaved people and therefore rendered any question of universal suffrage dangerous. This debate over the real meaning of citizenship informed debates over who possessed which rights under which scheme of representation, with some (such as Delaware’s George Reed) calling for an abolition of state governments entirely. The debate produced no resolutions. When they reconvened, they began to debate the proper character of the second house (which would later become the Senate) along with its proper mode of election. The hope was to create something like Britain’s House of Lords but without its aristocratic requirements, so that the ablest people were selected. With surprisingly little debate, the Convention agreed that state legislatures should elect senators—a provision that would enter the Constitution and remain there until the 17th amendment of 1913.

On June 8, James Wilson moved to give the national legislature power to invalidate state laws. He reminded the Convention that the states persevered in the Revolutionary War only by working together, and would lose all they had accomplished by going in 13 separate directions. He argued that the states were more likely to abuse their power than the federal government, especially large states. Others thought that such a veto would be difficult to implement in such a large country where news traveled slow, that it would take up too much of the national legislature’s time, and that the people in the states would be ceding too much power to a distant authority. The measure was defeated. The next day, they turned again to the topic of how to represent the states in the national legislature. A proportional scheme based on population alarmed many for giving too much power to the large states, while a more equitable scheme would unjustly favor the small states. William Paterson of New Jersey insisted that the states were sovereign, and warned if “the small states would not agree to any plan, the large states might confederate among themselves. Let them unite thus if they pleased! They could not compel others to unite” (85).

The case against a strong national government gained a new ally with the arrival of Luther Martin from Maryland, but he refrained from speaking as he recovered from the journey. Major issues had not been dealt with at all, and Washington wrote letters home expressing skepticism that the delegates could overcome “local views, the desire for independent sovereignty, separate interests” (87). George Mason’s own letters home were more confident that the weight of history would compel the delegates to act responsibly, and Madison similarly wrote that “the eyes and hopes of all are turned towards this new assembly” (89). Luminaries such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Henry Knox were absent from the Convention, but similarly expressed their hope in a successful Convention, with Knox in particular hoping that the delegates would overcome short-term political pressures to secure the country’s long-term interests.

Regional differences weighed heavily in the Convention, with New Englanders and southerners finding it hard to work together day after day. Aside from differences in taste and manners, the interests of the regions were at odds in many respects, particularly on the question of slavery. As tensions simmered, Roger Sherman of Connecticut emerged, proposing proportional representation for the lower house and one vote per state in the upper house. A month later, a slightly modified of this proposal would form the so-called Connecticut Compromise, and enter the final text of the Constitution. In the meantime, strident debate continued, especially over slavery, with Elbridge Gerry saying, with biting irony, that if enslaved people were to be counted for representation despite being considered property, “why then should not horses and cattle have the right of representation in the North?” (95). The slavery question could not be resolved until the general plan of representation was resolved. As summer approached, the heat was brutal, and bedbugs were rampant. Many of the delegates were crammed into boarding houses, but secrecy rules were strictly enforced, with Washington breaking his typical silence to chide a delegate for misplacing his notes. The delegates then argued over the frequency of elections, with Madison calling for elections every three years and Gerry for annual elections. Madison also proposed representatives take their salaries from the federal government, and not the states, which passed with a comfortable majority. Four weeks after the start of the Convention, a Committee of the Whole produced a revised version of the Virginia Plan, but the next day, New Jersey’s Paterson produced an alternative plan concentrating power in the states.

On June 15, Paterson put forth the so-called New Jersey Plan, explicitly framing it as a revision of the Articles. The advocates of the small states and skeptics of federal power now had their own template around which to organize debate. The plan called for a single legislature, with votes apportioned equally to all states. After some preliminary debate, the Convention adjourned without taking any votes. In the next session, on June 18, Alexander Hamilton finally broke his silence and spoke for six hours. Highly controversial, the foreign-born Hamilton “would have been home in the modern industrial world” (109), and so was profoundly distrusted among the men of his own time. Yet he also did little to assuage their suspicions that he wanted to reimpose monarchy. Marginalized within his own delegation since the governor of New York was staunchly anti-Constitutional, Hamilton went for broke in his speech. He proposed a president elected for life and with an absolute veto on the legislature. Senators would also serve for life, and the national government would appoint state governors. A main purpose of this government would be to control public passions, which if left unattended “spread like wild fire and become irresistible” (112). Hamilton’s comments may very well have been embarrassing for advocates of a central government, who could now be labeled as monarchists by their opponents. Hamilton left the convention shortly thereafter, and no debate was taken on behalf of his plan. His contribution to the Constitution would come later in his advocacy for its ratification, but he had little influence on its actual content.