The US Constitution Education
The year was 1787. The place: the State House in Philadelphia, the same location where the Declaration of Independence had been signed 11 years earlier. For four months, 55 delegates from the several states met to frame a Constitution for a federal republic that would last into “remote futurity.” This is the story of the delegates to that convention and the framing of the federal Constitution.
More from Grodon Lloyd’s fantastic Website:
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/
The Philadelphia Convention from Wikipedia
The Philadelphia Convention (now also known as the Constitutional Convention, the Constitutional Congress, the Federal Convention, or the “Grand Convention at Philadelphia”) took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain. Although the Convention was purportedly intended only to revise the Articles of Confederation, the intention of many of its proponents, chief among them James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, was from the outset to create a new government rather than “fix” the existing one. The delegates elected George Washington to preside over the convention. The result of the Convention was the United States Constitution. The Convention is one of the central events in the history of the United States.
This is a great one page lesson on the formation of our constitution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Convention
So it was in September 1786 that a conference was called to discuss the state of commerce in the fledgling nation. The national government had no authority to regulate trade between and among the states. The conference was called to discuss ways to facilitate commerce and establish standard rules and regulations. The conference was called by Virginia, at the urging of one of its great minds of the time, James Madison. Madison had designs on doing more than just discussing commerce, but his hopes were dashed when he arrived at the conference. Only five of the 13 states sent any delegates at all (Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia), and of those, only three (Delaware, New Jersey, and Virginia) had enough delegates to speak for their states.
Unable to do much of anything, the people who were there sat down and talked amongst themselves. The group consisted of some of the great political minds of the time; besides Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George Read, and Edmund Randolph. Most were dissatisfied with the current system of government. The delegates decided that another conference, “with more enlarged powers” meet in Philadelphia the following summer to “take into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union.” The report was written by Alexander Hamilton and sent to Congress for its consideration on September 14, 1786.
Congress approved the plan to hold another, more sweeping conference on February 21, 1787. The wheels were now in motion, though few had any inkling of the momentous changes that were about to come.
Tremendous research done and easy to follow internal links:
http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_ccon.html
A .gov site with some remarkable image from our history
The Federal Convention convened in the State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787, to revise the Articles of Confederation. Because the delegations from only two states were at first present, the members adjourned from day to day until a quorum of seven states was obtained on May 25. Through discussion and debate it became clear by mid-June that, rather than amend the existing Articles, the Convention would draft an entirely new frame of government. All through the summer, in closed sessions, the delegates debated, and redrafted the articles of the new Constitution. Among the chief points at issue were how much power to allow the central government, how many representatives in Congress to allow each state, and how these representatives should be elected–directly by the people or by the state legislators. The work of many minds, the Constitution stands as a model of cooperative statesmanship and the art of compromise.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html
Image of the original document Courtesy of the National Archives
