November 30, 1787
By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 12/7/2020 - 5 minute read
James Wilson’s opening speech to the Pennsylvania ratification convention was more than the opening defense of the work of the Constitutional Convention; it was an appeal to something greater. “Governments, in general,” he noted, “have been the result of force, of fraud, and accident.” For the first time in recorded history, “the United States exhibit to the world the first instance, as far as we can learn, of a nation assembling voluntarily, deliberating fully, and deciding calmly, concerning that system of government under which they would wish that they and their posterity should live.”
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