The ink was hardly dry on the copies of the Constitution delivered to delegates at the Constitutional Convention when the Pennsylvania General Assembly agreed to have it have read to them at 11:00 o’clock in the morning on September 18. The day before, immediately after signing the proposal for a new government, the Convention had adjourned. Since mid-May, the Assembly had been meeting upstairs in the State House, having given up its usual quarters in the East Room to accommodate the Convention. Returning to the East Room, three of its members who had also served as delegates to the Convention, formally presented the new Constitution.
As Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Fitzsimons listened, their colleague, Thomas Mifflin, publicly read the Constitution to the General Assembly “in the presence of a large crowd of citizens who stood in the gallery.” According to the Pennsylvania Gazette, the crowd “testified the highest pleasure in seeing that great work at last perfected, which promises, when adopted, to give security, stability, and dignity to the government of the United States.”
Franklin had not only been a delegate to the Convention, but he was also President of Pennsylvania. He suggested that the Assembly immediately pass a law “vesting in the new Congress a tract of land of ten miles square, by which that body might be induced to fix the seat of government in this State – an event that must be highly advantageous to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” Moreover, if Pennsylvania were to be the first State to ratify the Constitution, it could increase its probability of becoming the site of the new capitol. Pennsylvania had the additional advantage of receiving the document before other States, and its Assembly was currently in session, facilitating its ability to act quickly.
However, the Assembly’s session was scheduled to end on September 29 and would not re-convene until after the October 9 election when the make-up of the Assembly could change. To complicate matters, Congress had not yet acted. In fact, Convention Secretary William Jackson had just left earlier that morning, September 18, for New York to deliver the Constitution to Congress. Could Pennsylvania actually call for a ratification convention before Congress submitted it to the States? What if Congress simply refused to act?
Although all of Pennsylvania’s delegates to the Convention approved the Constitution and affixed to it their signatures, the State had been sharply divided for more than a decade between those who support a stronger national government and those who harbor a deep distrust of any government. Generally called “Constitutionalists” and “Republicans,” the opposing parties initially differed vigorously over Pennsylvania’s own State Constitution.
For all practical purposes, independence from Great Britain in July 1776 meant that each former colony had to establish a new government. That year, ten States wrote new Constitutions while Rhode Island and Connecticut modified their colonial charters to organize their new governments. The next year, 1777, New York and Georgia followed suit. Of all the new State constitutions, Pennsylvania’s was arguably the most radical. It abolished property qualifications for voting and holding office. Essentially, any adult male who paid taxes was eligible to vote and run for public office. Fearing both an energetic executive and an overbearing legislature, it severely limited the power of its President and created a unicameral (one house) legislature, under the belief that an “upper house” smacked of an aristocratic body such as England’s House of Lords.
Pennsylvania’s “Constitutionalist” party advocated preserving its own 1776 State constitution and its objections to an energetic government of any kind spilled over into opposition to the recently proposed national Constitution. Its adherents will generally join the ranks of the Anti-Federalists while Pennsylvania’s “Republicans,” proponents of change in the State constitution, will become Federalists and support the national Constitution.
Supporters of the new national Constitution began immediately circulating petitions urging the Assembly to take steps toward adopting it. On Friday, September 25, the Assembly ordered two thousand copies of the Constitution to be printed in English and one thousand in German to be distributed throughout the State. Those numbers were soon increased.
On September 28, one day before the Assembly was scheduled to adjourn, Convention delegate George Clymer proposed a set of resolutions for convening a state ratifying convention on the last day of November. A frenzied debate erupted, the opposition led by Robert Whitehall, William Findley, and John Smilie. Not more than one in twenty people outside of Philadelphia know anything about the Constitution, Whitehall asserted. Why the hurry? Why not wait until after the October election? Why not wait until we hear from Congress, demanded Findley. Clymer and his allies responded that action by Congress was not necessary because the Constitution was not proposed as amendments to the Articles of Confederation. In short, in this case, the Articles did not apply
The first of Clymer’s resolutions passed by a vote of 43 – 19, reflecting the general partisan split in the Assembly, although several of the Constitutionalists (defenders of the State constitution) crossed the aisle and voted with those they usually opposed. The Assembly then recessed until 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon. In a deliberate attempt to prevent further action on Clymer’s additional resolutions, nineteen of the Constitutionalists, including the Speaker of the Assembly, refused to return to the afternoon session, assuring the lack of a quorum and the inability of the Assembly to conduct business. The Assembly then ordered the sergeant of arms to round up the missing members, most of them holed up at Boyd’s boardinghouse at Arch and 7th Streets. They refused to return to the State House, leaving the Assembly no alternative but to adjourn until the next day, the last day of its term.
That night, crowds gathered throughout the city, filling the taverns with belligerent partisans on both sides, anticipating and preparing for the critical events to take place the next day.