Chapter 4 3. Philadelphia is not Liangshanbo

On May 25, 1787, a convention to amend the Articles of Confederation convened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The meeting was originally scheduled for "the second Monday in May", that is, May 14th, but very few representatives attended the meeting that day. Qi, until the Friday of the second week, only 29 representatives attended the meeting.Fortunately, this makes the United States still a "United States" (Confederacy), with each state having one vote. The people who attended the meeting on May 25th were just enough to represent 7 states, and when half of the 13 states were passed, the meeting could finally be held.

However, there is still a detail to be worded here, that is, the authorization of representatives by each state is not the same.In Connecticut and Maryland, only one person present can vote for the state.New Hampshire, New York, South Carolina, and Georgia require at least two people, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, and North Carolina require at least three people, and Pennsylvania requires at least four people.Coincidentally, on May 25th, there were exactly four representatives from Pennsylvania (Robert Morris, Thomas Fitzsimmons, James Wilson, Guweno Morris), and on the 28th four more (Benjamin · Franklin, George Cramer, Thomas Mifflin, Jared Ingersoll), is a strong lineup.Pennsylvania plays an important role in this constitutional convention, and its representatives are almost all chosen at one time (we will talk about this later). When the Pennsylvania delegates reach a quorum, there is hope for the conference to be held.

New Jersey, which needed at least three delegates, happened to have three: David Brailli, Churchill Houston, and William Paterson.Of particular note here is 42-year-old William Paterson.We know that the Philadelphia Conference in 1787 was actually a battlefield where various states and factions competed for the Central Plains, and the "chief swordsman" who fought against the mainstream plan in the first round was Mr. Paterson.Please remember his name, because we will talk about him later. Paterson's ally is Gunning Bedford, 43.He was a representative of Delaware and a classmate and roommate of Madison, the "father of the United States Constitution" at the Academy of New Jersey.However, he sang an opposite scene with Madison at the meeting, and once named Madison and others by name and denounced Madison and others for "playing monsters".Gunning Bedford was present on the twenty-eighth. Before the 25th, three members of the Delaware delegation attended the meeting: George Reed, Richard Bassett, and Jacob Bloom.Among them, Reed was the first to challenge the mainstream program, but his shot was not as heavy as Paterson.

North Carolina was oversubscribed and came with 4 players (Alexander Martin, William Richard David, Richard Dobbs Speight).South Carolina, which needs 2 reps, is also oversubscribed, also with 4 (John Rutledge, Charles Codsworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler).New York has exactly 2 people (Robert Yates, Alexander Hamilton).Both representatives of New York are important.Hamilton, a close friend of Washington and the first Treasury secretary of the federal government, is a charming figure in American history. He was only 32 years old when he participated in the Constitutional Convention.At the constitutional convention, he didn't speak much, but his role was not small, and he also put forward his own constitutional plan (that is, "Hamilton plan"), which was the fourth plan of the meeting (there was another kind of South Carolina representative Charles Pinckney's proposal, the "Pinckney Plan").Robert Yates, 39, did not speak at the Constitutional Convention, but joined forces with John Lansing (attended on June 2) to overwhelm Hamilton 2-1 in the New York delegation and became a well-known opposition at the meeting .Later, they found that even if they stayed at the meeting and insisted on opposing opinions, they could not turn things around, so they left together on July 10, leaving Hamilton without voting rights in vain.However, although Hamilton was in an embarrassing situation at the Constitutional Convention and did little, his ideal - to establish a financial, industrial and commercial society controlled by his wife - eventually became a reality in the United States.

Massachusetts has only one (Rufus King) and not enough numbers (two more came on the 28th: ​​Nathaniel Gorham, Kaliba Strong).Georgia also had only 1 (William Faw), which wasn't enough either.No one from Connecticut (one person came on the 28th: ​​Olivier Ellsworth), no one from Maryland (one person came on the 28th: ​​James McHenry), and New Hampshire couldn’t afford the travel expenses, which means they couldn’t start the journey ( came two months later at his own expense), and Rhode Island has always refused to send representatives to participate.Calculated in this way, as of May 25, the above-mentioned states with legal representation are 6.With the full presence of the Virginia delegation, there are seven represented states.Of course, the official meeting was postponed for 11 days because it was not until this day that seven states were gathered.

This is a bit of a bad start. In fact, this meeting was also very difficult.There were 74 official representatives, but only 55 actually arrived at the meeting. After the meeting started, 13 people left the meeting due to various reasons, and only 42 people persisted to the end; and among these 42 people, 3 people refused to enter the constitutional text. signature.In this way, only 39 representatives from 12 states signed the constitutional text.Among them, Hamilton has no voting rights and can only sign in his own name, not on behalf of his state.Therefore, it is precisely 11 states that signed the constitution.

But the meeting finally started.After 27 people attended the meeting on May 25, there were another 9 people on the 28th.And, since Connecticut and Maryland had one each, and Massachusetts had two more delegates, there were ten voting states. One of the delegates present on the 28th, Mr. Olivier Ellsworth, must be given particular attention. Aylesworth, 42 Is a Connecticut representative.On the one hand, he resisted the tendency of Madison and others to centralize power, and on the other hand, together with other representatives of the state, he promoted the "great compromise" between the large state and the small state, bringing the almost dead meeting back to life.We will elaborate on this story in later chapters.

On May 29, John Dickinson of Delaware and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts were present.These are two heavyweights. The 55-year-old John Dickinson was the spiritual leader of the early American independence movement and the chairman of the drafting committee of the Articles of Confederation to be revised at this meeting. The 43-year-old Albridge Gerry was one of the pioneers of the American Revolution. He was elected as a member of the Massachusetts Assembly at the age of 28. He followed Samuel Adams to fight for independence. signature.Their presence added weight to the meeting. Later, people came to the venue one after another. On May 30, Roger Sherman of Connecticut was present. Roger Sherman, 64, was a veteran revolutionary leader who participated in the first and second "Continental Congresses" and was a member of the drafting committee of the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation.He was also an important figure in this meeting.The deadlock in the Constituent Assembly over the number of seats in Parliament was one he, along with Olivier Ellsworth of the same state, managed to break.Of course, in the early stage of the meeting, he did not sing against Madison and the others.

On May 31, William Pierce of Georgia was present.His greatest contribution was to leave behind a "Character Description of Representatives of the Constitutional Convention". On June 1, William Housestone of Georgia attended the meeting. He later cast the "crucial vote" at the meeting on July 2, resulting in 5 states in favor and 5 states against each other. half situation.This vote was extremely thrilling and almost ruined the future of the United States. We will talk about this later.The point to be made here is that Georgia has a vote because of the presence of William Housestone.Unfortunately, James McHenry of Maryland happened to leave the meeting the next day, so there were still 10 states with voting rights the next day.

On June 2, William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut, Daniel of Thomas Jennifer of Maryland, and John Lansing of New York were present. William Samuel Johnson, 60, was Columbia Cadets' first principal.After the Revolutionary War, he became one of the most influential representatives in the Confederate Congress.The case of John Lansing was stated earlier, and the arrival of Thomas Jennifer's Daniel, 64, continued Maryland's voting rights and restored the number of voting states to eleven.However, this Thomas Jennifer's Daniel's views were always at odds with Luther Martin who attended the meeting on June 9, and the result was always an embarrassing situation where "the Maryland delegation was in favor and half against".

On June 5, 64-year-old New Jersey Chief Executive William Livingston attended the meeting. On June 9, Maryland representative Luther Martin, who had been in the opposition from beginning to end, was present. On June 11, Abraham Baldwin of Georgia was present. On June 20, William Blount, North Carolina's representative, was present. On June 21, the youngest delegate to the Constitutional Convention (26), Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, attended. On July 9, Daniel Carleur (57 years old) from Maryland attended the meeting.As soon as he came, the number of Maryland representatives changed from two to three, and the situation of "the Maryland delegation was in favor and half against" was terminated. On July 23, John Langdon and Nicholas Gilman of New Hampshire were present.They were able to come thanks to the generosity of the 46-year-old Mr. John Langton, who paid for the travel expenses of the two of them out of his own pocket, so that New Hampshire was finally not absent.After Lansing and Yates left the meeting on July 10, the New York delegation lost its voting rights.The arrival of the New Hampshire delegation brought the number of voting states back to eleven. On August 6, John Francis Mercer of Maryland was present.This was the last representative to attend the meeting, and almost immediately (August 8th) he expressed his disgust with the whole plan, asserting that it could never succeed.After making some 18 speeches, he left the meeting on 17 or 18 August and never returned.His attendance seemed to be merely to express opposition.Like him, there were 4 representatives who expressed their boycott by leaving the venue.Two were from New York, Yates and Lansing; the other two were from Maryland, Luther Martin and Mercer.However, Mercer's time at the meeting was short, Yates did not speak, and Lan Xin and Luther Martin were the main ones fighting the Confucian scholars.Among them, the most powerful one was Luther Martin, who fought until September 4 before leaving. When I write this paragraph, I feel like I am reading "Water Margin". After a while, a group of heroes go up the mountain, and after a while, a group of heroes go up the mountain.It's a pity that Philadelphia is not Liang Shanbo, and the conference representatives are not heroes of the rivers and lakes.They didn't come here to "drink in the same big bowl, eat meat in large pieces, and divide gold and silver in large scales", nor would they sing in unison "The leader brother said yes" whenever there was any movement.On the contrary, for the future of the country, the righteousness of the nation, as well as the interests of all states and their personal views, they will start a protracted and inextricable debate here, making the meeting place of verbal confrontation no less than a battlefield filled with gunpowder.