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Convention: A Daily Journal

Center for Civics Education

Convention: A Daily Journal

Convention: A Daily Journal is a day-by-day journal of the 1787 Constitutional Convention convened by twelve of the original thirteen states to amend the Articles of Confederation and create a “more perfect union.” It chronicles the daily activities of the Convention, profiles the delegates and their interactions with each other, and looks back to life in America in the 1780s. Writing in the first person, the story is told from an “observer” hearing events as told in contemporary newspaper accounts and delegates’ personal notes and letters.


December 31, 1787

January 11, 2021 - 5 minute read


Rivington hung in Effigy

On December 12, the Pennsylvania convention ratified the new Constitution. After an elaborate procession, ringing of bells, and firing of thirteen cannon, members of the ratifying convention “returned to the State House and subscribed the two copies of the ratification.” Thomas Hartley, a pro-Constitution member from York County, “hoped the opposition might yet be induced to sign the ratification” as a “fair and honorable acquiescence in the principle that the majority should govern.”  John Smilie would have none of it. “Speaking for himself,” he declared he “would never allow his hand, in so gross a manner, to give the lie to his heart and tongue.”

Two copies of the proposed Constitution were then formally signed by the members who had voted for it.  Although each of the opposition, like Smilie, refused to add their signature, John Harris of Cumberland County conceded, “though he had voted against it, and would still abide by that vote so far as to decline putting his signature to the ratification, yet he would now, and always should, consider himself to be bound by the sense of the majority of any public body of which he had the honor to be appointed a member.”

Refusal by the opposition to sign was most certainly exacerbated by the refusal of the majority to include in the official journal Robert Whitehill’s motion to adjourn “to some remote day,” as well as the fifteen amendments he had submitted. To assure their position would be accurately understood, twenty-one of the twenty-three members who had voted against ratification signed “The Dissent of the Minority of the Convention,” a lengthy dissertation published in the Pennsylvania Packet on December 18.  In addition to summarizing their reasons for voting against ratification, the authors included Whitehill’s amendments and the controversial tactics used by the majority to achieve its goal.

For some, defeat dies hard. The day after Christmas, in the town of Carlisle in Cumberland County, a Federalist celebration of Pennsylvania’s ratification of the Constitution was broken up by a riot. The next day, opponents of the Constitution burned in effigy Chief Justice Thomas McKean and James Wilson, two of the pro-Constitution forces most effective advocates. Events in Carlisle would escalate for several months as Antifederalists began an aggressive petition campaign urging the Pennsylvania Assembly to reject the convention’s ratification. 

Violence and threats were not confined to Pennsylvania.  Before 1776, Delaware was known as “the three lower counties” of Pennsylvania. Since 1704, it had its own unicameral legislature while the governor of Pennsylvania served as Delaware’s governor.  On June 15, 1776, less than a month before Pennsylvania declared independence from Britain, Delaware declared its own independence from Pennsylvania and began drafting its own State constitution, becoming the first State to actually be called a State. George Read was elected president of the convention called to write the constitution, which went into effect with the election of its first legislature in October 1776. Many of the elections, especially in Sussex County, were characterized by violence among competing factions, notably between Whigs and Tories.  Whigs were considered the “democratic” party, led by men such as Caesar Rodney. Tories, often referred to as the “aristocratic” or “court” party, looked to Read as their leader.

During the Revolutionary War, the Whig-controlled legislature adopted an act denying political rights to those who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the state and an act confiscating Tory property. Sussex County had become a refuge for Loyalists to the British monarch, fueling partisan divisions that were reflected in Delaware’s representation to the Continental Congress. New Castle County favored independence, but large numbers in Kent and Sussex Counties were opposed to breaking with Britain. 

On July 1, 1776, the division was crystallized in a preliminary vote taken in Congress “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.” The rules required a unanimous vote of those States present and voting for the motion to carry. Delegates from New York abstained (based on outdated instructions). Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted “nay,” but it became increasingly clear that their support for independence was all but formally secured.  

Delaware was divided. Read voted “nay.” His colleague from Philadelphia, Thomas McKean, voted “aye.” Caesar Rodney, Delaware’s third delegate, was absent. The final, official vote on independence was scheduled for the next day, July 2. Delaware’s position would determine whether or not the colonies would separate from Britain and become independent states.

Well aware of Rodney’s support for independence and that his vote would be decisive, McKean walked across the street from the Pennsylvania State House where Congress was meeting and hired an express rider to carry an urgent message to Rodney, ninety miles away in Dover. Rivaling Paul Revere’s midnight ride through Massachusetts a year earlier, Rodney’s midnight ride to Philadelphia the night of July 1 - 2, 1776 sealed independence for the United States.

Independence did not lessen the animosity between Delaware’s Whigs and Tories. As late as October 1787 complaints of violence and election interference were once again lodged in Sussex County against a “mob furnished with clubs, pistols, cutlasses, etc.” However, in spite of deep-seeded divisions, there was no overt opposition to the Constitution.  Both parties supported ratification and on December 7 unanimously (30 - 0) “subscribed” their names to the Constitution of the United States. Unfortunately, there is no extant official record of their proceedings and few informal documents exist to fill the void.

From the beginning, however, Delaware jealously guarded its status as an independent State, authorizing its five delegates to the Constitutional Convention to consider amendments to the Articles of Confederation but prohibiting them from agreeing to any proposal that might eliminate equality of States in the new national legislature. Although George Read threatened to leave the Convention when proportional representation was proposed, his Delaware colleague, John Dickinson, was the first to propose equality of States in at least one house of the legislature. His idea prevailed, although later attributed to Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth and known as the “Connecticut Compromise.” 

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