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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
While it has frequently been stated that in framing the Constitution of the United States the federal convention of 1787 was engaged in a very practical piece of work, it never seems to have been realized how completely the members of that convention were dependent upon their own experience. With the Declaration of Independence the colonies organized themselves as States, framing and adopting constitutions. In the course of the Revolution, those States united under the Articles of Confederation. When this latter instrument of government proved to be inadequate, a fresh essay was made and our present Constitution was the result. That the Constitution was framed because of defects in the Articles of Confederation is universally accepted, but it does not seem to be recognized that experience had shown certain specific defects to exist, that the convention was called for the purpose of correcting those specific defects, and that the Constitution embodied in itself little more than the remedies for those defects.
In order to appreciate this point of view, which it is believed is the true historical interpretation of the action of the federal convention in framing our Constitution, it is necessary to divest oneself of preconceived ideas and prejudices due to modern misinterpretation.
1 For example, George Ticknor Curtis misses the essential idea when he states that “it was an entirely novel undertaking to form a complete system of government * * * to be created at once, * * * for the accomplishment of the great objects of human liberty and social progress. Their chief source of wisdom was necessarily to be found in seeking to avoid the errors which experience had shown to exist in the Articles of Confederation.” (Winsor, , Narrative and Critical History of America, vii, p. 237.Google Scholar)
2 Jefferson to Joseph Jones, August 14, 1787. Ford, P. L., Writings of Jefferson, iv, 437–439.Google Scholar
3 Jay to Lord Lansdowne, April 16, 1786. Johnston, H. P., Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, iii, 188–190.Google Scholar
Cf. Letter to Benjamin Vaughan, September 2, 1784. Ibid, iii, 131–132.
4 Letter to the Chevalier de La Luzerne, August 1, 1786. Ford, W. C., Writings of Washington, xi, 48–50.Google Scholar
5 Letter to Edward Carrington, August 4, 1787. Ford, , Writings of Jefferson, iv, 423–425.Google Scholar
6 Documentary History of the Constitution, i, p. 4. Also in Elliot, , Debates, i, 118.Google Scholar
7 Documentary History, i, 8–46. Journal of the Federal Convention (edition of 1819), pp. 5–58. Elliot, , Debates, i, pp. 120–139.Google Scholar
8 Preamble to resolution of congress.
9 In a recent “Memorial” to congress, Mr. Hannis Taylor has put forth rather extravagant claims in behalf of Pelatiah Webster as the “Architect of our Federal Constitution.” While Mr. Taylor has rendered a great service in reprinting in accessible form Webster's, Dissertation on the Political Union (1783)Google Scholar, students of American history were not ignorant of that pamphlet. Although some of the ideas voiced by Webster were then printed for the first time, they were by no means original with him. Most of the ideas for which he could claim originality were of no apparent influence upon the members of the federal convention of 1787; nor is it surprising, as some of them were directly in opposition to the tendency of American institutions.
10 It is interesting to notice that Jefferson and Madison mention this as a defect.
11 Documentary History, iv, 126–165.
12 Documentary History, iii, 13–16; Yates, , Secret Proceedings (edition of 1821), p. 97Google Scholar; McHenry, , in American Historical Review, xi, 596–598.Google Scholar
13 Yates, , Secret Proceedings, pp. 187–188.Google Scholar
14 Ibid., p. 195.
15 Documentary History iii, p. 91.
16 Documentary History, iii, p. 74.
17 Ibid., iii, p. 216.
18 Yates, p. 194
19 See statements of Lansing and Paterson on June 16. (Documentary History, Yates, et al.)
20 Documentary History, iii, 151–162.
21 Ibid., 162.
22 Note, for example, proposals of Madison, Gouverneur Morris, and Pinckney on August 18 and 20.
23 Article ii, section 4.
24 Note especially Alexander Johnston, The First Century of the Constitution, in the New Princeton Review, September, 1887, and Robinson, J. H., Original and Derived Features of the Constitution, in Annals of the American Academy, October, 1890, i, 203–243.Google Scholar
25 It may be worth while, incidentally, to call attention to the fact that the New York constitution of 1777 exercised a far greater influence than that of any other State.
26 Madison, in the Federalist (Nos. 40 and 45)Google Scholar stated: “The truth is, that the great principles of the Constitution proposed by the convention may be considered less as absolutely new, than as the expansion of principles which are found in the Articles of Confederation.” * * * “If the new Constitution be examined with accuracy and candor, it will be found that the change which it proposes consists much less in the addition of New Powers to the Union, than in the invigoration of its Original Powers.
27 See exchange of letters between Madison and Washington preceding the convention.
28 Documentary History, iii, 519.
29 Joseph Story: “I have ever considered the embargo a measure which went to the utmost limit of constructive power under the Constitution.” (Story's, Life of Story, i, 185Google Scholar; cited in Adams, Henry, History of the United States, iv, 270–271.)Google Scholar
30 See Farrand, , Compromises of Constitution, American Historical Review, ix, 482–484.Google Scholar
31 Cited by Nicholas Murray Butler in Johns Hopkins University Studies, Fifth Series, p. 258.
32 McLaughlin, Confederation and Constitution, chap. 15.
33 Documentary History, iii, 444, 458, 720.
34 Poore, B. P., Federal and State Constitutions (2d ed.), ii, 1519.Google Scholar
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