Constitutional Convention

The Constitutional Convention

The Constitutional Convention began on May 25, 1787, when a quorum of delegates arrived at Philadelphia's Independence Hall, then known as the Pennsylvania State House. The distinguished gathering brought together nearly all of the nation's most prominent men, including George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the ailing Benjamin Franklin. As Thomas Jefferson wrote John Adams when he heard who had been appointed: "It is really an assembly of demi-gods." Conspicuously absent were Jefferson, then in Paris as ambassador to France, and Adams, then in London as ambassador to Great Britain.

At least one delegate came from each state except Rhode Island. Of the 74 delegates who had been appointed, 55 attended. Patrick Henry refused to attend, fearing that the convention would concentrate too much power in the central government. Another 18 delegates either declined to come or could not attend.

The delegates settled most of the scores of issues quickly. Four questions proved far more difficult to resolve: conflicts over how the people were to be represented in Congress; what to do about slavery; the powers of the president and the procedures for election to the office; and the powers and functions of the federal courts.

Congressional Representation

On the key question of congressional representation, the convention eventually agreed on a compromise between Edmund Randolph's Virginia Plan and William Patterson's New Jersey Plan. Randolph proposed that members of both houses of Congress be apportioned (divided) according to the population of each state. Because the population in three states alone—Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts—made up nearly half the country, Randolph's plan would have given these populous states control of the nation. Patterson's New Jersey Plan favored small states, giving all states equal representation in a one-chamber Congress regardless of population. Under the New Jersey Plan, the more numerous small states could unify against the larger ones. Not until mid-July did the delegates adopt a compromise originally put forth by Roger Sherman of Connecticut: let the states have it both ways. Give the states an equal voice in the upper house, the Senate, and representation apportioned by population in the lower house, the House of Representatives. This bargain became known as the Great Compromise.

Slavery

The Great Compromise sparked a heated and no less contentious dispute over slavery. Even though the words slave and slavery do not appear in the Constitution, the convention included ten provisions dealing with slavery. The most serious dispute arose over how to assign House seats to Southern states. If seats in the House of Representatives were apportioned according to state populations that included slaves, Southern states would gain an advantage because of their large slave populations. Northern states pushed to exclude slaves from the population calculations altogether. Southern states resisted, threatening to scuttle the entire Constitution. Finally abolitionists from northern states compromised. They agreed to the infamous clause in Article I that counted slaves as only three-fifths of a person and that barred Congress from ending the slave trade before 1808. The settlement over slavery led the convention to accept the Great Compromise.

Contributed By:
Jethro K. Lieberman, B.A., J.D., Ph.D.
Professor and Director of Writing Program, New York Law School. Author of The Evolving Constitution: How the Supreme Court Has Ruled on the Issues from Abortion to Zoning and The Enduring Constitution.
Constitutional Law