On September 17, 1787, after a long, hot summer of tumultuous debate and hard-fought compromises, the Constitutional Convention signed what was seen by many as a most unlikely agreement on the future government of the United States. This agreement culminated in the Constitution, and it was finally going to see the light of day; the public had been anxiously awaiting the outcome of this convention, sealed behind closed doors and nailed-shut windows.
It is for good reason that Catherine Drinker Bowen entitled her best-selling book on the Constitutional Convention, Miracle in Philadelphia. And a miracle it was – but this was just the beginning of the difficult and uncertain passage that lay ahead. To become law, the proposed Constitution would still have to be adopted by nine of the thirteen states, through a ratification process outlined in Article VII of the document.
Ratification of the Constitution by nine states was by no means assured, and its framers recognized that the controversial document would be met with both admiration and suspicion. Just as in the convention, states tended to divide over it along lines of geography, commerce and culture: North versus south; industrial versus agrarian; free versus slave holding. As the Constitution was disseminated, many saw errors of commission and omission.
The Federalist Papers
Beginning in October 1787, in response to published articles and letters by some opposing the Constitution, three men began to write a series of articles in three New York newspapers, the Independent Journal, the New-York Packet, and the Daily Advertiser. The series, called The Federalist, was written under the pseudonym Publius, a tribute to Publius Valerius Publicola, one of the founders of the Roman Republic. Alexander Hamilton was the main architect of The Federalist, with James Madison and John Jay also contributing.
These articles were directed at the citizens of New York, a pivotal state that Hamilton hailed from and recognized as critical to ratification by the states. Outside of New York, The Federalist did not have wide readership, but it did provide intellectual fodder for nationalists to argue their case for the Constitution in other state ratifying conventions. The Federalist was so logically sound and tightly reasoned that Thomas Jefferson gave it his highest accolades, calling it the “best commentary on the principles of government which was ever written.”
In Federalist #1, Hamilton laid out the structure of the forthcoming articles, focusing principally on
- The importance of the union to political prosperity;
- The insufficiency of the existing Confederation to preserve that Union;
- The necessity of an energetic government to attain this union;
- The conformity of the proposed Constitution to the true principles of republican government;
- Its analogy to their own state constitutions; and,
- The additional security that its adoption would provide to the preservation of that “species of government, to liberty, and to property.”
Ratification
The Federalist Papers played a supporting role in the ratification of the Constitution, but Article V of the Constitution, the amendment process, played the leading role.
One of the serious defects of the Articles of Confederation was that amending it required unanimous consent among the 13 states. This was attempted, but never achieved. The Framers laid out a more achievable process, but still with the bar set high.
A major concern by several of the states was that the Constitution was all about the government, but silent on the rights of its citizens. This was not by accident or oversight; the Framers omitted any specific enumeration of citizen rights because some thought that they were implicit in the Constitution. If the government overreached, its citizens could take back the delegated power, admittedly a weak argument. The Framers also saw danger in enumerating rights; they feared that any not explicitly granted would not be extended. This reasoning did not go over well with the majority of states, and opponents of the Constitution seized upon this as their prime tenet of challenge. Only four states had endorsed the Constitution (Delaware, New Jersey, Georgia and Pennsylvania), whereas eight were deeply divided. (Rhode Island was still eschewing the process and sitting on the sidelines.)
Supporters and opponents of the Constitution divided into two camps: Federalists and Anti-Federalists (a moniker unhappily handed to the latter). The battle line was drawn over the lack of a Bill of Rights. Article V to the rescue!
The Anti-Federalists wanted the Constitution amended to include a Bill of Rights now, before it was adopted. The Federalists argued that there was no time for that. The Constitution was foremost in people’s minds and the center of public discourse. It had to be adopted now. They also knew the dangers in making any changes in its present form, as it would expose it to demands for more changes.
Finally, a compromise was reached. Massachusetts, a leader in the debate of the lack of a Bill of Rights, proposed a solution at its ratifying convention. If the new Congress would agree to consider amendments recommended by the convention, and submit any they approved to the states under Article V, Massachusetts would ratify. This formula worked, and the Anti-Federalists fell in line. Every state convention following the Massachusetts convention applied the same formula. On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution, and it became the law of the land. But the first Congress, in 1789, would be faced with over 200 proposed amendments (some historians lower that count), which is a story for another day.
Physical Passage
Besides the difficulties in drafting, ratifying and fulfilling the purposes of the Constitution, the document also had an interesting, sometimes unlikely, passage through time and terrestrial space.
- July 1789: The first U.S. Congress ordered that the Department of Foreign Affairs (later renamed the Department of State) should have “custody and charge of all records, books and papers" kept by its predecessor, including the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
- September 1921: President Harding ordered that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were to be transferred from the Department of State to the Library of Congress. The next day, Librarian of Congress Charles Putnam showed up at the State Department and transported the documents to his office on Capitol Hill in the Library’s Model T mail wagon, cushioned only by U.S. Mail sacks.
- December 1941: Three weeks after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were transported by train and convoy, under heavy guard by the Secret Service and military, to Fort Knox in the Bullion Depository. Three years later, after any danger of attack on Washington, DC, had passed, they were returned to the Library of Congress.
- 1934: After President Roosevelt appointed the first Archivist of the United States, he instructed that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence should reside at the National Archives. For nearly 20 years, however, a tug-of-war between the two institutions ensued. It finally took the Joint Committee on the Library, of the U.S. Congress, to authorize the transfer of the documents to the National Archives in 1952.
An Unlikely Passage to Washington, DC
So how did the Constitution end up here, in Washington, DC, or put another way, how did Washington, DC become the capital of the United States, where the Constitution would follow? Why here, instead of Philadelphia, Baltimore or New York City, where DAR Constitution Hall may just as well have been built? It wouldn’t have happened except for a fateful dinner in New York City one night in 1790. But, let’s step back briefly and see the framing circumstances around this dinner.
It began with assumption, Alexander Hamilton’s plan for the federal government to assume $25 million of state war debt. This was an extremely controversial issue in 1790. Hamilton, as the first Secretary of the Treasury, deeply believed that the federal government should assume the states’ war debts, for the better good. This was such a divisive issue that there was a serious threat of secession and the dissolution of the Union. Jefferson wrote, “This measure produced the most bitter and angry contest ever known in Congress, before or since the Union of the States.”
Some states favored this provision, such as Massachusetts and South Carolina, which still had substantial war debts. Others, such as Virginia and North Carolina, opposed it because they had paid off their debts and did not wish to bail other states out.
Hamilton lobbied Congress far and wide to support assumption, but suffered a major defeat in April 1790, when the House voted against it. A man of singular mind, Hamilton was undeterred and set about seeking a solution. His trump card was to be the location of the federal district, the capital of the government.
This was some unfinished business in the Constitution, which called for a federal district, no more than 10 miles square, to be the capital of the new government. Its location, however, was unspecified. It was widely assumed that the temporary capital would be either in Philadelphia or New York City; Hamilton, a New Yorker, hoped for the latter, but other locations were in the running. The common thinking was that the temporary capital would have an “incumbent” advantage as Congress began to determine a permanent location.
Just two months after the Constitution was ratified, Hamilton was already showing his willingness to horse-trade the capital location. Upon learning that New Jersey Gov. William Livingston was willing to support Philadelphia as the temporary capital, Hamilton proposed that if Livingston would endorse New York City as the temporary location, he would support Trenton as the permanent one. It was too early to settle upon this, but the issue would resurface two years later with the assumption controversy.
In June 1790, shortly after Hamilton’s setback by the House, it was horse-trading time. He approached Pennsylvania Sen. Robert Morris, and for his support of assumption, Hamilton would press for Germantown, Pennsylvania or Trenton (close by) to be the location of the permanent capital.
Hamilton soon learned, though, that Pennsylvania and Virginia were already negotiating for the temporary capital to be in Philadelphia, with the permanent one along the Potomac River. Others were trading off Hamilton’s horse; it was desperation time, which brings us to the dinner.
Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson wrote of an encounter with Hamilton one day in New York City, after his setback over assumption:
Hamilton was in despair. As I was going to the President's one day, I met him in the street. He walked me backwards and forwards before the President's door for half an hour. He painted pathetically the temper into which the legislature had been wrought; the disgust of those who were called the creditor States; the danger of the secession of their members, and the separation of the States. He observed that the members of the administration ought to act in concert.
Jefferson agreed to host a dinner at his residence on June 20, 1790. There, Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison ate dinner and traded horses.
Madison, who was opposed to assumption because Virginia had already paid off its debt, suggested that his mind could be changed if Virginia got something in return. If Hamilton would agree to throw his weight behind Philadelphia as the temporary capital, with a Potomac location later becoming the permanent site, Madison would rally support for assumption. Hamilton agreed, and traded away any chance for New York City to be at least the temporary capital. That horse was not going to run.
Both men kept their parts of the bargain. On July 16, 1790, Congress passed “The Residence Act,” cementing the permanent capital along the Potomac after a 10-year sojourn in Philadelphia. Ten days later, Congress passed the assumption bill. Hamilton finally succeeded in his objective, but was the object of great scorn by New Yorkers, as the city had already begun construction on the president’s mansion, unaware of the fact that they never really had a chance.
Conclusion
For all of its imperfections, ambiguities, compromises, hotly contested sections, and its amendments – only one of which was ever repealed, #18 – the Constitution has done us well. While today it is sometimes as hotly debated as it was over two centuries ago, we have endured as a nation because of it. We were torn asunder once, because of one intractable issue that the Framers left to a future generation to decide over the sword: slavery. We survived and became whole again.
We have survived as the United States, divided in opinion, but not in purpose; rich in diversity, talent, creativity, generosity, determination and spirit. We have survived attacks against our freedom on our own and foreign soil. And when our security is threatened in any fashion, public emotions are “excited,” as the Framers liked to put it, and we rally.
In relation to the security of our country, Jay wrote in Federalist #4:
As the safety of the whole is the interest of the whole, and cannot be provided for without government, either one or more or many, let us inquire whether one good government is not, relative to the object in question, more competent than any other given number whatever.
Without the Constitution and its stated purpose of forming a more perfect union, under a strong, structured government with its checks and balances, we could not have survived these past 223 years since its adoption. The debate thunders today about how much strength the federal government should have, or even whether any at all. But, addressing this very subject, Madison summed it up in Federalist #51:
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
That is what the Constitution empowers us to do, and on this 224th anniversary of its signing in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, we have reason to honor and celebrate it today in Washington, DC.
The above is the text of a speech that Terry Carter gave to the District of Columbia Daughters of the American Revolution on Constitution Day (September 17) 2011. Terry was representing the National Archives and Records Administration as a volunteer docent.