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Authors: Charles River Editors
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Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia, were all so different from each other that they would never form an alliance that dominated the national government at the expense of the small states. They also thought other states with similar economic and social conditions could ally with a large one, making the point of large state dominance a moot one. The New England states would rally around Massachusetts while the Southern states would look to Virginia as a leader, and the mid-Atlantic would split between Pennsylvania and New York.
Representatives from small states remained unconvinced, however. As a compromise, Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed a plan that combined the favorable elements of Madison's Plan with those from New Jersey's. The resulting Connecticut Plan called for one legislative body with proportional representation and another with equal representation.
Other thorny issues were also sorted out during the summer, most notoriously the question of how to count slaves as part of a state’s population. But by the end of the summer of 1787, the ideas were sorted out and the Constitution of the United States, which remains the longest continually operating constitution, had been born. James Madison was hailed as the Father of the Constitution because his broad outline, with only some modification, ultimately formed the final governing document.
Madison obviously did not get everything he wanted out of the Constitution that was eventually drafted, but nobody else did either. On the last day of the Convention, September 17, 1787, the date the Constitution was signed, Benjamin Franklin gave a speech that poignantly summed up many of the delegates’ thoughts when explaining why he was going to vote in favor of the Constitution:
“I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others… In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die.”
The famous painting “ Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States”. Madison is
Representatives from small states remained unconvinced, however. As a compromise, Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed a plan that combined the favorable elements of Madison's Plan with those from New Jersey's. The resulting Connecticut Plan called for one legislative body with proportional representation and another with equal representation.
Other thorny issues were also sorted out during the summer, most notoriously the question of how to count slaves as part of a state’s population. But by the end of the summer of 1787, the ideas were sorted out and the Constitution of the United States, which remains the longest continually operating constitution, had been born. James Madison was hailed as the Father of the Constitution because his broad outline, with only some modification, ultimately formed the final governing document.
Madison obviously did not get everything he wanted out of the Constitution that was eventually drafted, but nobody else did either. On the last day of the Convention, September 17, 1787, the date the Constitution was signed, Benjamin Franklin gave a speech that poignantly summed up many of the delegates’ thoughts when explaining why he was going to vote in favor of the Constitution:
“I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others… In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die.”
The famous painting “ Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States”. Madison is
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