Scouting, Volume 63, Number 1, January-February 1975 Page: 28
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confused with America's Declaration
of Independence, which was actually
framed 11 years before. In his recent
television series of America, Alistair
Cooke, the highly-regarded British
commentator, mixed up the two docu-
ments in a segment on Independence
Hall in Philadelphia, where both histor-
ic papers were signed. To his aston-
ishment not one person out of the mil-
lions in the United States and else-
where who heard his boo-boo seemed
to catch it. Cooke reports: "Constitu-
tional lawyers, the Daughters of the
American Revolution, nobody called or
wrote to point out or protest the er-
ror."
Until the Constitution was signed the
people of the 1 3 new United States
had been living since the Revolution
by the Articles of Confederation and
Perpetual Union. Under these instru-
ments, the states delegated to the
federal government only those rights
they could not handle individually,
such as the power to wage war, estab-
lish a uniform currency, make treaties
with foreign nations and collect taxes
for general expenses, like paying the
army. It was a very loose league, in-
deed, and when the Articles were
forged in 1 777, Canada was even in-
vited to join on equal terms but did not
act.
The realities and needs of wartime
held the original colonies more or less
together, but when the British were
routed things began to unravel. It
rapidly became apparent that a
stronger, more workable togetherness
was needed. Each state, under the
Articles of Confederation, could put its
own interests ahead of the nation as a
whole, and they all did just that.
National power was in a one-body
Congress, with no provisions for a
separate judiciary or executive
branch. The Congress in which each
state had only one vote whether it sent
the minimum two delegates or the
maximum of seven, named one of its
members as presiding officer with the
title of president.
The president didn't pack any
weight and Congress itself wasn't
much stronger. It couldn't compel the
states to carry out its decisions. Even
when foreign trade treaties were made
for the "United States," many of the in-
dividual states imposed their own ex-
port and import taxes. Each state was
assessed according to the value of
land held by private owners for money
to meet national obligations. It was left
up to the various states to collect
these taxes, though, and many
dragged their feet with the result that
the ante for the central government
was often late or never paid at all.
As each state asserted its own
rights they began conducting petty
cold wars against one another. Some
wanted slavery, and others did not. In-
terstate commerce was in a mess.
Property owners demanded special
rights, assuming an arrogance over
the less wealthy. Congress was not
much more than a debating society,
and with the states linked only in what
was called "a firm league of friend-
ship" there was more calamity than
real cooperation. The general attitude
was: "We won our independence from
Britain and we don't want to lose it
again to a central government."
Matters continued to worsen. Many
states began experimenting with their
own inadequately-backed paper
money. Financial panic resulted in a
deep depression in 1784-85, and
bankrupt farmers staged armed re-
volts. Against this background of
near-anarchy and what George Wash-
ington called "a half-starved, limping
government," a convention was finally
called to revise the badly-battered Ar-
ticles of Confederation.
The first meeting of the Constitu-
tional Convention was set for May 14,
1787 in Philadelphia, but on that day
only the delegates from Virginia and
Pennsylvania were on hand, travel be-
ing what it was then. It took George
Washington, who wasn't to become
the nation's first fully-elected Presi-
dent until later, four days to come from
Mt. Vernon on the Potomac, a distance
of only about 100 miles.
Things actually didn't get started in
Philadelphia's State House — now In-
dependence Hall — until May 25. By
that time delegates from seven states
were there, enough to make a majority.
In the next few days there were ar-
rivals from four more states. The men
from New Hampshire limped in on July
25. Rhode Island, whose highly indi-
vidualized farmers and merchants
feared a more centralized form of gov-
ernment would interfere with their
local privileges, never sent anyone at
all.
Although 74 delegates were actual-
ly named to the Constitutional Con-
vention, only 55 attended, and of
these not all were present all the time.
In the end, only 39 of the originally-
named delegates signed what was to
become one of man's most important
and lasting papers. John Dickinson, of
Delaware, who was absent, had his
name signed by proxy.
The delegates could hardly be
classed as a typical cross-section of
all the people. Almost all of them were
men of property — self-accumulated,
inherited or achieved through mar-
riage — and only a few were known
outside their own states. Nearly all of
them had seen military or political ac-
tion during the Revolution. Their ranks
included 26 lawyers, 11 merchants, 8
large plantation owners, 3 physicians,
2 college professors, 3 professional
politicians and a farmer. Only six of
them were over 60 years of age, the
oldest being 81-year-old Benjamin
Franklin who was so crippled with gall
bladder trouble that he had to be car-
ried to and from the State House in a
sedan chair. The average age of the
delegates was 44 years and many
were much younger. Gouverneur Mor-
ris of Pennsylvania, who is credited
with 173 speeches — the most made
during the 116 days of meetings —
and wrote the last draft as it was final-
ly approved, was 35 years old.
Some of the big names in America's
fight for independence were notice-
ably missing. Patrick Henry was
elected a delegate from Virginia but
he refused to come and later was a
vigorous opponent of the Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson was in France and
John Adams in England, both as Ameri-
can ministers. Tom Paine was on his
way to France — always the
pamphleteering firebrand — to take a
hand in that country's just-budding
revolution. Anyway, he hadn't been
invited to be a delegate.
Although it took the Constitution
fathers only four months to draft, pol-
ish and sign the decisions which guide
the nation's lawmakers to this day, the
Convention was never harmonious.
Constant and bitter disagreement, fac-
tional disputes between the state
delegations, deadlocks, near-dissolu-
tion and walkouts marked the birth of
what has survived as the oldest writ-
ten Constitution in the world.
Certainly, the delegates did not be-
lieve that all men were created free
and equal, a Thomas Jefferson phrase
from the Declaration of Independence.
The great Bill of Rights, with its
guarantees against invasion of human
privileges, was not part of the original
Constitution. The delegates left it out
deliberately, and it was only forced in
four years later with the adoption of
the first 10 amendments.
The entire (continued on page 66)
28
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Reference the current page of this Periodical.
Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 63, Number 1, January-February 1975, periodical, January 1975; New Brunswick, New Jersey. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353656/m1/28/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.