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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.


Monday, September 17, 1787 Part 2

September 18, 2020 - 4 minute read


Chair at the Constitution Convention

The business of the Constitutional Convention is nearing its end.  It has been agreed that the Convention’s approval of the Constitution will be “done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States present on September 17” and that the Journals and papers of the Convention will be kept by George Washington, “subject to the order of Congress, if ever formed under the Constitution.” The members “then proceeded to sign the instrument.” 

Throughout the Convention, roll call votes have been taken by the States from North to South, beginning with New Hampshire and ending with Georgia. Today, delegates signed in that same order, beginning with John Langdon and Nicholas Gilman. 

Fifty-five men representing twelve of the thirteen States had participated in the Convention, although some had arrived late, left early, or were temporarily absent due to various circumstances. New York has been unrepresented since two of its three delegates left in protest on July 5 while Rhode Island refused to participate from the outset. Twenty-nine delegates attended all or most of the sessions, and thirty-nine placed their signatures on the Constitution. George Read signed on behalf of John Dickinson who is ill but anxious to have his endorsement recorded. Of the delegates present today, three refused to sign – Elbridge Gerry, George Mason, and Edmund Randolph. 

Eight of the members of the Constitutional Convention were serving in the Continental Congress eleven years ago when they signed the Declaration of Independence, pledging to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to achieve independence from Great Britain. Their actions were considered to be treason against the king, punishable by a slow, gruesome death. On that day, some of them may have heard Benjamin Franklin’s now famous quip, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Today, they heard him speak again in similar fashion. As the delegates proceeded one by one to sign the Constitution, Dr. Franklin, “looking towards the President’s chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. ‘I have,’ said he, ‘often in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.’”

William Jackson simply recorded in today’s official Journal  the two motions which were approved and “the details of the Ayes and Noes”. James Madison’s notes ended with more dignity to the occasion: “The Constitution being signed by all the members except Mr. Randolph, Mr. Mason, and Mr. Gerry, who declined giving it the sanction of their names, the Convention dissolved itself by an adjournment sine die.” It was four o’clock in the afternoon.

Later in the day, Jackson notified George Washington that he had burned “all the loose scraps of paper which belong to the Convention“ and will deliver the Journals and other papers to him this evening.  

Washington’s personal diary records that he and other members of the Convention went to the City Tavern, dined together, and “took a cordial leave of each other, after which I returned to my lodgings – did some business with, and received the papers from the secretary of the Convention, and retired to meditate on the momentous work which had been executed, after not less than five, for a large part of the time six, and sometimes seven hours sitting every day, Sundays, and the ten days adjournment to give a Committee opportunity and time to arrange the business for more than four months.”

If there was a mood of cordiality and accomplishment among the delegates dining together for the last time, a sense of apprehension and anxiety also permeated the meeting. They had indeed exceeded their instructions to “amend” the Articles of Confederation, but undoubtedly had in mind James Wilson’s earlier admonition that they were “authorized to conclude nothing, but at liberty to propose anything.” They had proceeded in an orderly manner, driven by a will to succeed. They had surmounted enormous gaps between small and large States and disagreements over the role of a national government, an energetic executive, and slavery. They had made effective use of committees to facilitate compromise and grapple with details of both substance and language.

For all their efforts and near unanimity of individual delegates, how will the Constitution be received by the people?  The people are divided over the same issues that have divided the delegates, but will they accept the compromises offered to them?  To set the stage for the debates to come, a letter to the President of Congress from George Washington (but written by Gouverneur Morris in his own hand) accompanied the engrossed copy of the Constitution given to Secretary Jackson to deliver to Congress immediately. It began by noting the widespread national support for increasing the powers of a national government and amending the Articles, and the spirit with which the delegates deliberated – that is, with “amity, mutual deference and concession.” The Convention does not expect the Constitution will “meet the full and entire approbation of every State,” but just as “individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest,” so too must the States compromise. The letter closed professing the delegates’ “hope and belief that the Constitution may promote the lasting welfare of that Country so dear to us all and secure her freedom and happiness [which] is our most ardent wish.”

The ratification process will begin tomorrow – Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Fitzsimons and Thomas Mifflin will present it to the Pennsylvania Assembly, meeting just upstairs.

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