2G - Making the Constitution: the Philadelphia Convention and the constitutional debates between federalists and anti-federalists, the personalities and policies of the ‘Founding Fathers’
Learn how the Philadelphia Convention replaced the Articles, why representation and liberty produced competing proposals, and how the Constitution combined stronger national government with important compromises.
From revision to replacement
The Philadelphia Convention grew out of dissatisfaction with the Confederation's finances, commerce and security. The small Annapolis meeting of September 1786 recommended a wider convention. Congress endorsed a meeting to revise the Articles, but the delegates who assembled in Philadelphia in May 1787 soon considered a fundamentally different system. Their task became creating a government able to act on people directly, rather than relying mainly on state compliance.
Fifty-five delegates attended at some point, representing twelve states; Rhode Island sent none. Proceedings were secret. Secrecy allowed delegates to change position and negotiate without immediately defending every concession to constituents. It also made opponents suspicious that a small elite was deciding the nation's future without public oversight. Both effects matter when assessing how the Constitution was made.
George Washington presided. His military reputation lent legitimacy to a proposal which exceeded simple revision. James Madison arrived with extensive study and a coherent plan for stronger government; Edmund Randolph introduced the Virginia Plan. Benjamin Franklin encouraged compromise, while Gouverneur Morris played a major role in shaping the final wording. No individual wrote the entire settlement alone. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were serving abroad and did not attend: their importance to the founding does not make them Philadelphia delegates. NARA's convention history identifies the participants and debates.
The term Founding Fathers groups people with sharply differing policies. Some wanted sweeping national authority; others protected state equality or demanded stronger safeguards for rights. Understanding these disagreements is more useful than treating the founders as a single political mind.
Representation and the Great Compromise
Representation was a dispute over who would control national decisions. The Virginia Plan envisaged a national government with legislative, executive and judicial branches and representation favouring population. Large states could claim that a greater number of people deserved greater political weight. Small states feared losing the equal vote they possessed under the Articles.
William Paterson's New Jersey Plan retained state equality in Congress while adding powers to raise revenue and regulate commerce. Small-state delegates were therefore not necessarily rejecting all reform. They wanted reform which did not make their states dependent on larger neighbours. The conflict was between alternative distributions of authority as much as between “strong” and “weak” government.
The Great or Connecticut Compromise, associated with Roger Sherman and other Connecticut delegates, settled on a two-chamber Congress. The House of Representatives would reflect population; each state would have two senators. Under the original Constitution, state legislatures selected senators, while eligible voters chose representatives. This combined a national principle with a state principle and gave neither side everything it demanded.
The compromise was decisive because national powers meant little if delegates could not agree who would exercise them. It also shaped later politics: large states enjoyed greater strength in the House, while small states remained influential in the Senate. The settlement did not simply reproduce the Articles or abolish the states.
A stronger but divided government
The Constitution gave Congress power to tax, borrow, regulate interstate and foreign commerce and provide for defence. These powers addressed the Confederation's mismatch between national responsibilities and national resources. Federal laws made under the Constitution, and treaties, became the supreme law binding on state judges. State governments survived with extensive responsibilities, producing a system of federalism: authority divided between national and state levels.
The designers also divided power within the national government. Congress made laws; the president executed them; a federal judiciary included a Supreme Court and such lower courts as Congress created. Checks and balances meant that branches could restrain each other. A president could veto a bill, but Congress could override the veto by two-thirds votes in each chamber. The Senate shared control of major appointments and treaties. Congress could impeach and remove officers through distinct House and Senate procedures.
The presidency provided a single executive and commander-in-chief, elected for four years through an electoral system. This promised more decisive administration than congressional committees, but its military and appointing powers raised fears of monarchy. Alexander Hamilton advocated particularly strong institutions, including tenure during good behaviour for the executive in his convention proposal. That proposal did not become the Constitution. The actual president was elected for a fixed term and faced constitutional restraints.
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