Constitutional Convention

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention

In May 1787, 55 delegates arrived in Philadelphia. They came from every state except Rhode Island, where the state legislature opposed any changes to the Articles of Confederation to increase central authority. The delegates were men of property: merchants, slaveholding planters, and other men of wealth and means.

Some delegates, such as Benjamin Franklin, had been early advocates of independence. Others such as George Washington and Robert Morris had risen in popularity during the war. Some influential patriots embroiled in the cause for independence missed the Convention. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were in Britain and France, serving as ministers. Massachusetts rejected Samuel Adams as a delegate as he vehemently opposed a stronger national government.

Listed below are all 55 Delegates to the Constitutional Convention, organized by state. The (*) indicates delegates who attended but did not sign or ratify the Constitution. These delegates are often referred to as the “Framers” of the Constitution, as it is their summer of debate that shaped the current government of the United States.¹

President of the Constitutional Convention

The delegates unanimously elected George Washington to preside over the convention. They chose Washington as he was an immensely popular figure due to his successful command of the Continental Army and his respect as a politician from Virginia.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787

The absence of experienced leaders such as Adams - both Samuel and John, Jefferson, and Henry, allowed younger nationalists to set the convention's agenda. James Madison insisted on increasing national authority and was joined by Alexander Hamilton. What began in May of 1787 was a summer of intense debate and compromise after the nationalists convinced the other delegates that a new form of government was necessary.

Constitutional Convention Compromises

How will a new government be representative of the people? How will the government be structured? How can a system of government ensure a balance of power between states? Between the states and the federal government? How would the new government oversee the growing disparity between the states over the institution of slavery? All of these fundamentally essential but divisive questions had to be answered by the delegates to frame a new government.

The Virginia Plan vs. The New Jersey Plan

A portrait of James Madison, considered the "father of the Constitution". Source: Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

James Madison arrived at the Constitutional Convention prepared to present a case for an entirely new form of government. What he proposed is called the Virginia plan. His plan was multifaceted and addressed many of the issues of representation, the structure of government, and nationalist sentiments he felt were lacking in the Articles of Confederation.

The Virginia Plan

The Virginia plan presented three critical points of debate and a solution for each.

• First, the plan rejected state sovereignty in favor of a superior national government, including the power to override state laws.

• Second, the people would establish the federal government, not the states that established the Articles of Confederation, and national laws would operate directly on the citizens of the varying states.

• Third, Madison’s plan proposed a three-tiered election system and a bicameral legislature to address representation. Ordinary voters would elect only the lower house of the national legislature, naming the upper house members. Then both houses would choose the executive and judicial branches.

The New Jersey Plan

The New Jersey Plan held onto the structure of the Articles of Confederation and was strongly supported by the smaller states. It would give the Confederation the power to raise revenue, control commerce, and make binding resolutions on the states, but it preserved the state’s control of their laws. It also guaranteed state equality in the federal government by maintaining that each state would have one vote in a unicameral legislature.

A Portrait of Roger Sherman, a delegate from Connecticut who authored the "Great Compromise". Source: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

In mid-summer, The delegates from Connecticut proposed a resolution.

• The upper house, the Senate, would comprise two representatives from each state, elected by state legislatures, maintaining the equality in the legislative branch demanded by the smaller states.

• The lower chamber, the House of Representatives, is apportioned by state population- through a national census every ten years.

The debate over this proposal lasted another few weeks, such as discussion over each chamber’s powers and control began, such as giving the lower house the ability of the “purse” to control legislature involving taxes, tariffs, and funding while giving the upper house the power of approving executive appointments to office and courts. After bitter debate, delegates from the populous states reluctantly agreed to this “Great Compromise.”

Slavery: The Three-Fifths Clause and Compromise

Once the delegates had settled the structure of representation, delegates began to address the looming issue of slavery that hovered over many of the debates. Many northern delegates, such as Gouverneur Morris, saw slavery as a horrible institution and directly conflicted with the sentiments of free markets and personal liberty instilled in the new national government.

Finally, a compromise was made regarding slave populations and voting. Because enslaved peoples lacked the right to vote, northern anti-slavery delegates wanted to exclude their populations from appropriating seats in the House of Representatives, while - though hypocritically- southern delegates wanted enslaved peoples to be counted as full citizens. The compromise was that the delegates agreed to count each slave as three-fifths of a free person for representation and taxation.

Other Compromises

The Convention quickly settled other state-related issues by restricting the extent of Federal control:

• Some states opposed a federal system of courts. So the Constitution established one supreme court and allotted the power to create any lower courts to the national legislature.

• The delegates did not put any property requirements for voting in national elections, allowing states to determine their voting requirements, which precipitated up to nine states to extend their rights of suffrage beyond property owners.

• The Convention placed the selection of a President as the head of the executive branch in an electoral college chosen on a state-by-state basis, and specified state legislatures would elect their members of the U.S. Senate. By giving state legislatures important roles, delegates hoped for an acceptance of less state sovereignty.

Ratification: The Supremacy Clause v The Bill of Rights: The final Compromise.

Having addressed the concerns of the small states and slave states, the delegates created a structure for a strong national government. To ensure the sovereign power of the central government, the delegates created the “Supremacy Clause,” that the Constitution and national laws would be the supreme law of the land, and the power to create any laws “necessary and proper” to implement provisions to taxation, defense, and commerce.

The ratification debate began in early 1788, and factions supporting and opposing the Constitution quickly arose. Supporters called themselves the Federalists, and opponents called themselves the Antifederalists- early precursors of the political parties that would form during the creation of the U.S. government under the Constitution. Among the many issues, the most important for the Antifederalists was a lack of a declaration of individual rights to protect citizens from the “supremacy” of the federal government.

In a final act of compromise to ensure states with strong Antifederalist sentiment would ratify the new government, it was proposed that the first act of the government would also be to ratify a Bill of Rights, protecting explicit freedoms, protecting state's rights, and limited the extent of the federal government.

With that final compromise, the state conventions began their debates over the ratification of the new government and, over the next two years, approved the U.S. Constitution:

• Delaware: December 7, 1787,

• Pennsylvania: December 12, 1787

• New Jersey: December 18, 1787

• Georgia: January 2, 1788

• Connecticut: January 9, 1788

• Massachusetts: February 6, 1788

• Maryland: April 28, 1788

• South Carolina: May 23, 1788

• New Hampshire: June 21, 1788

• Virginia: June 25, 1788

• New York: July 26, 1788

• North Carolina: November 21, 1789

• Rhode Island: May 29, 1790

1. Meet the Framers of the Constitution. (2020, March 16). National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/founding-fathers

2. “From George Washington to the President of Congress, 17 September 1787,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-05-02-0306. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Confederation Series, vol. 5, 1 February 1787 – 31 December 1787, ed. W. W. Abbot. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997, pp. 330–333.]