Constitutional Convention Part 2

Correction:  Last week I wrote that the Articles of Confederation were drafted after the Revolutionary War ended in 1783.  They were actually drafted in 1776 after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Sorry.  My bad. I hope I haven't lost all credibility. :)

Now for Part Two:  Last week we left off at the Great Compromise.  The Great Compromise attempted to blend the Virgina Plan (representation according to population) with the New Jersey Plan (equal representation) by establishing The House of Representatives and the Senate. The quarelling persisted and they argued about how many representatives each state should have and whether slaves should be counted when determining population.  It was a total mess and it seemed as if the whole Constitution project was going to fall apart.  Finally some delegates had a change of heart (likely due to prayers) and the Great Compromise was adopted on July 16, 1787.  Yay!  So finally it was official that the House would have representatives according to population, and the Senate would have an equal number of votes.  They also determined that they would count three fifths of slaves when counting people. A lot of delegates really really really disliked (my word for "hate") slavery, especially Gouverneur Morris from Pennsylvania. (Gouverneur was actually his first name.  He was not the Governor of Pennsylvania.  He also had a peg leg.)  

Just 10 days later on July 26 they were ready to put together a committee called the Committee of Detail which, you guessed it, worked out the details of the Constitution, with John Rutledge of South Carolina in charge. Some of the other guys, such as George Washington, took off on a break and did things such as fishing while the committee was at work. Some of the details that they worked out were naming things such as:

• the "House of Representatives" and its leader the "Speaker"
• the "Supreme Court"
• the "President" as the head of the executive branch

On August 6th the Convention gathered together again and the committee said, "How does this look?"  They had a few more details to discuss such as how the president was to be elected and how the Constitution was going to be ratified.  These discussions concluded with an agreement on a system of electors to elect the president.  This meant that the people would indirectly choose the president.  They also decided that the people would be in charge of ratifying the Constitution.  Every state would have specially elected conventions to vote yay or nay on the Constitution. Nine of the thirteen states were needed to ratify the Constitution and make it the supreme law of the land.

Now that the last of the details were worked out, the document was passed onto the Committee of Style and Arrangement.  These were the guys in charge of the final draft.  Talk about stress, to know your handwriting was going to be on display for years to come!  I bet they wished they had spell check too. This committee did its thing and presented the final draft on September 17, 1787.  Ben Franklin did not agree with everything in the Constitution, but he signed it anyway because he was humble enough to admit that he was not always right.  Although he disagreed with some things, he at least knew the Constitution was very good.  Others had doubts too, but mostly because the Constitution didn't set forth rights of the individual.  This was later fixed with the addition of the Bill of Rights.

So the signatures began. Thirty-nine delegates signed the Constitution, with George Washington first. By July 4, 1788 ten states had signed the Constitution.  Here is a chronological list of when each of the 13 states ratified the Constitution.  As you can see, three states were unanimous, some had a large majority, and some were very close in votes:

	Date	State	Votes
			Yes	No
1	December 7, 1787	Delaware	30	0
2	December 11, 1787	Pennsylvania	46	23
3	December 18, 1787	New Jersey	38	0
4	January 2, 1788	Georgia	26	0
5	January 9, 1788	Connecticut	128	40
6	February 6, 1788	Massachusetts	187	168
7	April 26, 1788	Maryland	63	11
8	May 23, 1788	South Carolina	149	73
9	June 21, 1788	New Hampshire	57	47
10	June 25, 1788	Virginia	89	79
	July 4, 1788	BIG HUGE PARTY!
11	July 26, 1788	New York	30	27
12	November 21, 1789	North Carolina	194	77
13	May 29, 1790	Rhode Island	34	32

They had a big huge Fourth of July party with a big huge parade.  James Wilson, a signer from Pennsylvania, gave a speech and said, "Happy Country!" He said a lot more other important stuff, but that is material for another post....

That ends today's lesson.  I hope ya'll have a Happy Thanksgiving!  What a wonderful country we have to be grateful for.  I am grateful for our Founding Fathers and their willingness to spend a long hot summer drafting a document that produces an effective government to protect our God-given liberties.