As Cato, Caesar, Brutus and Publius intensified their debate over the Constitution in the newspapers of New York, partisans in Pennsylvania were relentless in their own efforts to influence public opinion before the formal ratification debate would get under way at their state ratification convention.
The Anti-federalist effort to prevent the General Assembly from scheduling election of delegates and the convention itself had failed. Boycotting the Assembly’s final session of the year to prevent a quorum collapsed on September 29 when several of its “seceding members” were brought to the chamber by physical force. Despite their attempt to hold off until the next legislative election any consideration by the Assembly of preparations for a state ratifying convention, the Assembly set November 6 for a special election to choose convention delegates. It also called for the convention to convene at the State House on Tuesday, November 20. The number of delegates was set to equal the number of members in the Assembly.
Opponents of the Constitution were disappointed a second time when they suffered a setback in the legislative elections held in early October. Considered by many to be the first test of public opinion on the Constitution, the election resulted in the Federalists increasing their majority, including the election’s two top vote-getters - Thomas Fitzsimons and George Clymer, both delegates to the Constitutional Convention and decidedly pro-Constitution.
The November 6 election proved to be another setback. For a second time in a month, Pennsylvanians elected men who supported the Constitution. Turnout was unusually low. Federalist turnout was near average, but Anti-Federalist turnout plummeted. Unfortunately, around midnight a mob attacked leaders of the Anti-Federalists at Boyd’s boardinghouse, a favorite lodging place for many of their party, throwing stones and damaging the door before running away. Although the Assembly approved a reward of $300, no one was arrested, and the incident was not covered by any of Philadelphia’s newspapers.
When the ratifying convention convened on November 20, an insufficient number of delegates had arrived to make a quorum. By the next day, sixty of sixty-nine delegates were in attendance and elected as its president Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, a Lutheran minister who had served in the Continental Congress and as Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly. The convention also appointed officers and approved rules for its proceedings, including an order that “the doors of the Convention be left open during the session.”
Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of Philadelphia’s most respected citizens and signer of the Declaration of Independence, suggested that each session begin with an opening prayer. Similar to the response given to Benjamin Franklin’s motion for prayer during the Constitutional Convention, the delegates rejected Bush’s proposal, citing religious diversity throughout Pennsylvania and the precedent set at the Constitutional Convention against daily invocations.
On November 24, the Constitution was read to the convention along with the transmittal letter from Congress. Thomas McKean, the Chief Justice of Pennsylvania and signer of the Declaration of Independence, moved that Pennsylvania “assent to and ratify the Constitution agreed to on the 17th of September last by the Convention of the United States of America.” The motion was the appropriate procedural mode of putting the question to the convention and to initiate debate.
Immediately, James Wilson was on his feet. As one of Pennsylvania’s eight delegates to the Constitutional Convention and among its most active participants, he brought to the state convention a deeper understanding than any other member of the ratification convention.. At the Constitutional Convention, only Gouverneur Morris had spoken more frequently than Wilson, and Wilson will play an important role in the national debate over the Constitution as well as the debate in his own state.
Wilson began by referring to his status as member of the Constitutional Convention. “As I am the only member of that body who has the honor to be also a member of this,” he began, “it may be expected that I should prepare the way for the deliberations of this assembly…by tracing the general principles which they have adopted.” He emphasized the difficulty of devising a “good system of government” among “thirteen governments mutually independent” and so different in “their soil, their climates, their productions, their dimensions, and their numbers.” However, he added, “ The citizens of the United States, however different in some other respects, are well known to agree in one strongly marked feature of their character - a warm and keen sense of freedom and independence.” That sense was “heightened by the glorious result of their late struggle against all the efforts of one of the most powerful nations of Europe.” That good sense, as well as their “high spiritedness,” he continued, would lead them to support “that system of government which would be best, to promote their freedom and happiness.”
With that, Wilson launched into a long and elaborate defense of the theories underlying the Constitution, appealing to philosophers and examples of ancient and modern republics, positing that the United States “may adopt any one of four different systems.” They may consolidate into one government; act as separate and unconnected states; form two or more confederacies; or unite in one federal republic. Briefly evaluating the effects of each form, Wilson extolled the benefits of federalism, at the same time submitting that “it is hopeless and impractical to form a constitution which, in every part, will be acceptable to every citizen, or even to every government, in the United States; and that all which can be expected is, to form such a constitution as, upon the whole, is the best than can possibly be obtained.