The Tale of the Constitution, Part 1

At the center of American political life is a series of fundamental laws and defining creeds written with the country's formation in the 1770s and 1780s. Among these documents is the Constitution of the United States. Tucked within its contents is a detailed description of the three mechanisms driving the federal government's activities. Congress is ordained with the power to produce legislation; the president is ordained with the power to approve or reject legislation; the Supreme Court is ordained with the power to enforce legislation. Basic qualifications to hold public office were also set up, as were the procedures for elections and impeachments. The Constitution and its value are givens within US society. People from both sides of the political spectrum are determined to demonstrate how their proposals mesh with the Constitution and would be permitted by the text. However, the Constitution was not always the beloved pillar of civil government that it is today. It was a subject of vicious debate, not about how it should be enforced, but if it should be enforced at all. This article will give a history of how the document originated. I will start with the enactment of the first national constitution - the Articles of Confederation - and end at the halfway point during the Constitutional Convention. The rest will be detailed in tomorrow's article.

On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress passed the Lee Resolution, terminating British authority over the 13 Colonies and carving out the United States of America as an independent nation. With American independence now established, it was apparent to all the Founding Fathers that a new constitution must be created in order to govern the new country. Throughout the summer and autumn of 1776, John Dickinson of Pennsylvania wrote the Articles of Confederation. This constitution established a federal government composed of a unicameral legislature known as the "Congress of the Confederation". With 1 delegate from each state, the Congress of the Confederation mainly had control over foreign policy, with very little authority in regard to domestic policy. All of that was left up to the states. When arbitrating over even diplomacy and foreign policy, a bill could only be enacted by the Congress of the Confederation with a 2/3 majority or higher. Amendments required the approval of every single state. In order for the Articles of Confederation to take effect, it would have to be approved by all of the states as well.

Roughly a year after Dickinson wrote the Articles of Confederation, the document was approved by the Second Continental Congress on November 15, 1777. Now the job of enacting the constitution went to the states. By the start of 1781, every state, with the exception of Maryland, had expressed its approval of the Articles of Confederation. Maryland did not withhold its support for any real reasons based on political opposition or philosophical objection. Instead, it was frustrated with Virginia because it was claiming to control land truly in the possession of Maryland, and out of protest, wouldn't approve the Articles of Confederation until the issue was resolved. In February 1781, then-Governor of Virginia Thomas Jefferson realized how his state was harming the Union. Desperate to better bind the states with their first shared constitution, Jefferson convinced Virginia to rescind its claims to territory in Maryland. Thus, Maryland was appeased, approved the proposed constitution, and the Articles of Confederation took effect on March 1, 1781. The Second Continental Congress was abolished and in its absence, the Congress of the Confederation plugged the gap.

Later that same year, on September 28, 1781, American troops led by George Washington began attacking Yorktown, where British military director Charles Cornwallis was camped out. By October 11, 1781, what was left of Cornwallis' defenses were entirely destroyed and Britain finally surrendered on October 19, 1781. With the American victory at the Battle of Yorktown, the fighting phase of the Revolutionary War drew to a close. British and American diplomats then met in Paris, where they wrote a peace treaty. Known as the Treaty of Paris, the agreement required Britain to recognize the United States as an independent nation and to cede all of its land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River to the United States. This land became states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Minnesota. It also prohibited the US from persecuting supporters of British rule, secured American fishing rights off the coast of Canada, and ceded Florida to Spain, one of the powers that backed America. (Spain sold Florida to the US under James Monroe). On September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Revolutionary War with an American victory.

The nation's internal troubles did not die with the war for independence. During the revolution, the government borrowed huge amounts of money from banks and other world powers in order to fund the war effort. They also sold war bonds, in which they would borrow money from private citizens with the promise of giving them their wealth back attached to an enormous interest rate and hence a large profit. The country was suffocating under an Everest of overwhelming debt. Under the Articles of Confederation, however, the federal government was far too weak to gather the money it needed to liquidate these debts. It basically needed to ask the states for the funds, something that no state would ever do amidst the economic turmoil wrought by the war. For this reason, many people began desiring a new constitution. But it wasn't enough to push the Founding Fathers over the edge, not enough to persuade them as well. At least, not yet. Virginia and Maryland, whose territorial arguments had delayed the original enactment of the Articles of Confederation, also got into a dispute about which state should control and benefit from commerce conducted along the Potomac River. Yet again, federal authorities were too weak to diffuse the situation.

George Washington himself had to intervene in the ordeal. It was only when Washington hosted a meeting at his home - Mount Vernon - between Maryland and Virginia delegates that the crisis subsided. There, on March 28, 1785, the Mount Vernon Compact was signed, appeasing both sides. However, memory of the affair left many Americans with the realization that the Articles of Confederation had to be replaced, or at least amended in a way that empowered federal authorities to act in events as severe as the Potomac dispute. On September 11, 1786, delegates from 5 states met at Mann's Tavern in Annapolis, Maryland. The goal of the Annapolis Convention was to propose reforms to the Articles of Confederation that would give the federal government power over commerce, thus halting future arguments like the one held between Maryland and Virginia over the Potomac River. The Annapolis Convention dispersed right after, however, adjourning on September 14, 1786. Upon its dissolution, the attendants published a statement saying that the Articles of Confederation were so fundamentally broken that a whole new constitution was needed. This further radicalized Americans against the Articles of Confederation.

As this was going on, another crisis was brewing in Massachusetts. During the Revolutionary War, many farmers, particularly those working in Massachusetts, went to fight in the war themselves. For this reason, their profits declined, a fact worsened by the small pensions these veterans were granted by the state of Massachusetts. This, coupled with high taxes and the rarity of actual paper currency at the time, made it extremely difficult for farmers in Massachusetts to pay off their debts. Because of this, Massachusetts essentially declared farmers second-class citizens, stripping them of their property and arresting them en masse. Some of the arrested farmers were even kept in dungeons. Obviously, farmers and those sympathetic to their plight were very upset with this situation and began putting pressure on Massachusetts to tone down these policies. In response, Massachusetts, in 1785, suspended tax collection for a year. In mid-August 1786, various countries located across Massachusetts held local conferences discussing the current financial crisis. Most of these conferences called for lower taxes, scaring Massachusetts and causing it to immediately resume the enforcement of taxes.

For the farmers, this was the final straw. On August 29, 1786, Massachusetts farmers began an insurrection where they would forcibly confront courthouses and shut them down so that they couldn't continue enforcing anti-farmer policies. In honor of one farmer who led the revolt named Daniel Shays, the revolution became known as the Shays Rebellion. This finally caused Americans to abandon what little faith in the Articles of Confederation that remained. Alexander Hamilton, in the autumn of 1786, encouraged the Congress of the Confederation to host a new constitutional convention where the articles would be changed. On January 25, 1787, Shays and his men ambushed a state armory in Springfield, Massachusetts, being attacked and repelled back to Petersham, another town in Massachusetts. Later that morning, Shays' soldiers were shot at again, dispersing and fleeing into Vermont and Canada. The Shays Rebellion was crushed, but its death did not revive support for the Articles of Confederation. On February 21, 1787, the Congress of the Confederation approved Hamilton's request for a new convention.

On May 25, 1787, 55 delegates met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with the goal of altering the Articles of Confederation to meet the country's needs. The Constitutional Convention had begun. The 55 delegates were pulled from 12 of the then-13 states, with Rhode Island boycotting the meeting out of protest of the idea fo a stronger federal government at the expense of state sovereignty. Among the delegates was James Madison of Virginia. Madison was among those frustrated by the Articles of Confederation, but wasn't sure of what his specific complaint or complaints were. Throughout late 1786 and early 1787, he read dozens of texts on European history, trying to learn how the rulers of nations like Britain, Russia, Spain, and Greece solved their political, social, and economic issues. Using the information he uncovered, Madison concluded that the solution to America's current plagues was the expansion of the federal government to have control over certain domestic issues. He also believed that this could only adequately be accomplished through a whole new constitution, rather than simply changing the constitution that already existed.

Washington, who was elected president of the convention, agreed with Madison. Washington, having led the Continental Army to victory during the Revolutionary War, was a beloved figure and so Madison used Washington's support for a new constitution to pressure other delegates into taking the same stance. He also opened the convention by discussing the Virginia Plan. Crafted by Madison and Edmund Randolph, the Virginia Plan proposed the abolition of the Congress of the Confederation, which would then be replaced by a bicameral legislature. Unlike the Congress of the Confederation, where every state had only 1 delegate, the houses described in the Virginia Plan would have more delegates from states with more residents and fewer delegates from states with fewer residents. In other words, representation would be proportional to state population. This would be such a drastic change that it would require a whole new constitution to be implemented. So, by embarking on the convention with a debate over the Virginia Plan, Madison made it seem like a given that a new constitution would be adopted and that the point of contention was how the new government would be designed.

Madison's plan worked! By the end of June 1787, the whole convention agreed to produce a brand new constitution, cleansing the country of its many moments of despair endured under the Articles of Confederation. The first debate held by the convention after this point was one that pitted the Virginia Plan against the New Jersey Plan. Written primarily by William Paterson, the New Jersey Plan preserved much of the legislative functions contained in the Articles of Confederation. The New Jersey Plan advocated for a unicameral legislature with a sole delegate from every single state. Large states rallied around the Virginia Plan, while small states tended to endorse the New Jersey Plan. States like Delaware, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts argued that if the Virginia Plan was adopted, then the country would fall prey to tyranny of the majority. The federal legislature would be stuffed with delegates from large states concerned only with the will of large states. Small states would have only a small number of delegates, making their voice nugatory and unable to preserve states' rights. Supporters of the Virginia Plan cited the democratic underpinnings of the American Revolution, explaining that the Virginia Plan would ensure consent of the governed. They also said that since large states contribute more to the economy and military, they deserve more of a say in the legislature.

This intense argument seemed to be putting the convention at risk of an early adjourning or collapse. However, a middle ground was discovered. Roger Sherman, a delegate from Connecticut who, alongside Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, helped Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence as a member of the Committee of Five, proposed the Connecticut Compromise. Since its origin, the Connecticut Compromise has also been dubbed the Connecticut Plan and the Great Compromise. Under the Connecticut Compromise, the legislature was divided into two houses, thus becoming a bicameral institution. The first house, known as the House of Representatives, would determine its amount of delegates from each state on the basis of how many people lived in each state. When the Constitution first took effect, a state received 1 delegate for every 30,000 people within its borders. Members of the House of Representatives would also be directly elected by people living in the state they represent, a remarkably progressive and democratic idea at the time! The Senate, i,e. the second house, would contain 2 delegates from each state, regardless of population. Senators would be appointed by the legislature of whatever state they wanted to represent in Congress. In 1913, the 17th Amendment would, with the support of William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, make Senators directly elected as well. On July 16, 1787, the Connecticut Compromise was approved.