Constitution Thursday

As the first couple of weeks of the Convention drone on, the debates become very heated. Perhaps best described as "frank, bordering on direct." The small States, led by New Jersey's Attorney General William Paterson, attack the idea of proportional representation as destructive to them.

 It is now that we discover that the great debates of our time, are the same debates of the Convention. Is it to be "One Man=One Vote?" Or will each State have equal representation in the proposed government? 

When it seems that there is an impasse, it is James Wilson of Pennsylvania, along with South Carolina's Pickney and Rutledge, who hammer out the compromise which so many have proclaimed a "Faustian Bargain," the 3/5th's Compromise.

The Convention finally gets underway. First things first, rules have to be established and agreed upon. Then the business of reforming the Government can get rolling. The first presentations take on the problems the nation confronts, including the biggest danger facing America. 

The local Newspapers want a story, and somebody, just who isn't exactly clear, is giving them one. 

George Wythe and his rules committee approve two special rules that will serve to ensure secrecy and flexibility.

To say that General Washington was angry would have been the understatement of the century. He was as close to losing his legendary cool as he had been since the war ended, and with his personal reputation on the line, he circulated the parties and dinners of Philadelphia's social network. He faced a barrage of questions about the rumors swirling through the City. "Do you mean to destroy the government?" 

The source of the rumors was the discovery that the Virginia delegation was meeting in secret each day as they waited for the rest of the delegates to arrive, to refine a plan that James Madison had written to do just that. Was this... treason? 

Of bigger concern, the small States were horrified that Virginia meant to swallow them up, through "addition, division, or impoverishment." The call went out as a letter was dispatched to John Dickinson of Delaware. He would arrive in time to fight to save the small States...

Today, May 14th is the 228th Anniversary of the Date set for the Constitutional Convention to begin in Philadelphia. 

The American Democracy, founded on the ideas of the God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, was now on trial before the entire world. Anxious empires awaited the outcome of the Convention with their eyes on what would be left to take, should the Americans fail to restore good government, and end up going their separate ways. The Philadelphia convention did not get off to a prompt start, as heavy rains had turned every road into the city to rivers of mud. By the assigned starting date, only eight delegates had arrived. It was an inauspicious beginning to the last-ditch attempt to save the United States of America.

Today we begin our look at the Convention itself. For the next few months, we will take a look at what happened at the Convention in the previous week. What was debated and discussed. We will meet the fifty-five men who wrote our Constitution, starting with one Daniel St. Thomas Jennifer of Delaware.

Two rebellions, the first in the 1760 and the second in the 1780’s lead to the Constitutional ideas of Establishing Justice and Insuring Domestic Tranquility

"The 1st Amendment protects citizens from the government when they exercise their speech and press rights. So was it "free speech” or "creating a hostile learning environment,” when the President of the University of Oklahoma expelled two students for what they sang on a bus? And when a local man rips down a neighbors offensive house decorations, is it protected?

"What is the opposite of "slavery?"

It's not actually "freedom." The Founders weren't fighting for freedom, they fought for Liberty. So what is the difference?

The prohibitions contained in the Constitution allowed for the abolition of all forms of slavery, by prohibiting ex post facto laws, enshrined the writ of habeas corpus and prohibited Titles of Nobility. In all, these things did more to secure and protect liberties than anything that was contained in the State Constitutions under the Confederacy."

By 1786, the United States were on the brink of utter destruction as a nation. The government had no way to raise money, no way to defend the borders, and no way to protect individual rights. Armed insurrection was a real threat, and armed invaders stood ready to pounce on whatever was left. The Philadelphia Convention was more than just "fixing” the government. It was, quite literally, the last chance for the American dream. In the Preamble, we see how the Convention proposed to save the nation, what it would accomplish and it took a direct aim at those who would support the fatally flawed government already in place.

(Editors note: We apologize for the excessive background noise. Ben was home from school today, and he was just wound up and wasn’t going to calm down for anything. This 45-minute podcast took nearly six hours to record, but we powered through it and got it done as best we could…)

When the Massachusetts Convention gathered in early January 1788 to consider ratification of the Constitution, the state faced three hurdles to ratification.

First, the lingering suspicion and distrust of a central government from the western part of the State when just two years before, Shay's Rebellion had shaken the nation. The western part of the State saw the Constitution as little more than a larger form of the same government that had suppressed their rights and demanded their hard currency, and strongly objected to the idea that Congress would be able to tax and that only gold and silver could be used to pay debts.

The Second problem was Maine. At the time, Maine was part of Massachusetts, and because of its physical separation had often felt both neglected and treated as second class by the Boston mercantile class. Furthermore, Maine had staunch loyalist leanings during both the Revolutionary war, and would again during the War of 1812. It was assumed by most people that Maine wanted to separate from Massachusetts, but that the proposed Constitution made it virtually impossible to do so since Massachusetts would have to give its consent to do so. But like many assumptions about both people and the Constitution, this turned out to be the least of the Federalist's worries.

The third, and potentially the greatest hurdle to Massachusetts' ratification was Sam Adams. He had made it clear that he saw in the Constitution, not a protection of the sovereignty of the States in a federal union, but instead, a national government, which he was certain would crush the rights so recently and so difficultly won. Despite his "open-mouthed" opposition to the Constitution, he was elected as a delegate by Boston, which supported the ratification.

As Henry Knox informed General Washington, 2/7th's of Massachusetts were "insurgents" who had supported Shays, 2/7th's was Maine which opposed the ratification on their own grounds. Leaving only 3/7th's to try and carry the Constitution and try and make Massachusetts the 6th State to ratify...

In Yuba City, a Sikh man is told that he cannot serve as a juror as long as he refuses to remove his kirpan, a symbol of deep meaning and religious devotion to baptized Sikhs. This raises the question: Is there a "right" to serve on a Jury?" Does the need for public safety outweigh religious freedom? And what does it teach us about the jury system?