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On May 25, 1787, delegates from seven states met in Philadelphia with the goal of revising the Articles of Confederation. Soon, delegates from five more states arrived.
Of the original states, only Rhode Island wasn’t represented. Some of the most famous names in America were there. Benjamin Franklin, at 80, was the oldest. George Washington served as chair. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were absent because they were in Europe serving as ambassadors for the new country. Others did not go because they did not want a stronger central government. Patrick Henry, John Hancock, and Samuel Adams fell into this category. Through the long, hot summer, the delegates debated many issues. In the end, they changed history.
Virginia came to the convention with a plan. It called for two houses of Congress, and gave each member of Congress one vote. Under the Articles of Confederation, each state had only one vote. The plan also proposed an executive branch and a judicial branch of the government. Congress would appoint the members of these branches. Soon, the delegates realized that they were going way beyond revising the Articles. They were creating a binding law for a new nation. The meeting had turned into the Constitutional Convention. ▼
Delegates at Independence Hall in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention
▲ No one worked harder for the convention than James Madison of Virginia. From France, Thomas Jefferson had sent him hundreds of books about government, and Madison had read them all. Before the convention, he drew up a list of the most important points to be covered, and at the convention, he took detailed notes. Thanks to Madison, there’s a written record of the meetings.
▲ Some delegates opposed the Virginia Plan. They worried that the states would lose all their power to the national government. But others believed that arguments among the states were the source of the country’s problems, and a strong national government would fix that.
The Virginia Plan said the number of members of Congress from each state should be based on the state’s population. Smaller states didn’t like this. The Great Compromise provided a solution. It said every state would send two senators to the Senate, and the number of members a state could send to the House of Representatives would be based on the state’s population.
The Growth of a Nation
It took many years, but the United States grew from the original 13 colonies to a total of 50 states. The first states joined the Union in 1787, and the last to join were Alaska and Hawaii, in 1959. Click through to see what the U.S. looked like throughout the years.
By September, the delegates had agreed on what the new document should say. A committee put it in final written form. Several delegates had already left the convention, and three of those still there refused to sign it. On September 17, 1787, 39 men signed the final draft. Now it was in the hands of the states. Nine had to ratify, or agree to it, before it could become the law of the land. ▶
▲ The North and South disagreed about whether slaves should be counted as part of a state’s population. The South said yes, because that would give southern states more members in Congress. The North said no. It argued that slaves were treated as property, so why should they be counted as people? Again, a compromise was reached. The Three-Fifths Compromise said that each enslaved person would be counted as three-fifths of a person.
Reflection
The Three-Fifths Compromise says that enslaved people weren’t considered full human beings equal to whites, but the Declaration of Independence says that “all men are created equal.” Reflect on the inconsistency in these two ideas. Who were the “men” the Founders were thinking of? Who weren’t they thinking of?
