Part 15 (1/2)

During the winter of 1786, the times were perhaps even harder, and the country nearer to the brink of civil war and ruin. There were riots in New Hamps.h.i.+re and in Vermont and Shays's Rebellion in the old Bay State. There were also the threatened separation of the Northern and Southern states, the worthless paper money, wildcat speculation, the failure to carry out certain provisions of the treaty of peace, and many troubles of less importance.

As we may well suppose, all this discord made King George and his court happy. He declared that the several states would soon repent, and beg on bended knees to be taken back into the British empire.

{145} When it was predicted in Parliament that we should become a great nation, a British statesman, who bore us no ill will, said, ”It is one of the idlest and most visionary notions that was ever conceived even by a writer of romance.”

Frederick the Great was friendly to us, but he declared that n.o.body but a king could ever rule so large a country.

All these unhappy events produced a great change in public opinion.

People were convinced that anarchy might be worse than the union of these thirteen little commonwealths, under a strong, central government.

At this great crisis in affairs, Virginia boldly took the lead, and promptly sent seven of her ablest citizens, one of whom was Was.h.i.+ngton, to the Philadelphia convention. This was a masterly stroke of policy. People everywhere applauded, and the tide of popular sentiment soon favored the convention. At last Congress yielded to the voice of the people and approved the plan. Every state except Rhode Island sent delegates.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Old State House, in Philadelphia, now called Independence Hall]

It was a notable group of Americans that met in one of the upper rooms of old Independence Hall, the last {146} week of May, 1787.

There were fifty-five delegates in all, some of whom, however, did not arrive for several weeks after the convention began its meetings.

Eight of the delegates had signed the Declaration of Independence, in the same room; twenty-eight had been members of the Continental Congress, and seven had been governors of states. Two afterwards became presidents of the United States, and many others in after years filled high places in the national government.

Head and shoulders above all others towered George Was.h.i.+ngton. The man most widely known, except Was.h.i.+ngton, was Benjamin Franklin, eighty-one years old; the youngest delegate was Mr. Dayton of New Jersey, who was only twenty-six.

Here also were two of the ablest statesmen of their time, Alexander Hamilton of New York, and James Madison of Virginia.

Connecticut sent two of her great men, Oliver Ellsworth, afterwards chief justice of the United States, and Roger Sherman, the learned shoemaker.

Near Robert Morris, the great financier, sat his namesake, Gouverneur Morris, who originated our decimal system of money, and James Wilson, one of the most learned lawyers of his day.

The two brilliant Pinckneys and John Rutledge, the silver-tongued orator, were there to represent South Carolina.

{147} Then there were Elbridge Gerry and Rufus King of Ma.s.sachusetts, John Langdon of New Hamps.h.i.+re, John d.i.c.kinson of Delaware, and the great orator, Edmund Randolph of Virginia.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would no doubt have been delegates, had they not been abroad in the service of their country. Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams remained at home; for they did not approve of the convention.

How Rhode Island must have missed her most eminent citizen, Nathanael Greene, who had just died of sunstroke, in the prime of manhood!

Was.h.i.+ngton was elected president of the convention. The doors were locked, and, every member being pledged to secrecy, they settled down to work.

Just what was said and done during those four months was for more than fifty years kept a profound secret. After the death of James Madison, often called the {148} ”Father of the Const.i.tution,” his journal was published, giving a complete account of the proceedings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: James Madison]

When the delegates began their work, they soon realized what a problem it was to frame a government for the whole country. As might have been expected, some of these men had a fit of moral cowardice.

They began to cut and to trim, and tried to avoid any measure of thorough reform.

Was.h.i.+ngton was equal to the occasion. He was not a brilliant orator, and his speech was very brief; but the solemn words of this majestic man, as his tall figure drawn up to its full height rose from the president's chair, carried conviction to every delegate.

”If, to please the people,” he said, ”we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair; the event is in the hand of G.o.d.”

The details of what this convention did would be dull reading; but some day we shall want to study in our school work the n.o.ble Const.i.tution which these men framed.