Chapter 12: Signing the Constitution

One week later the document goes to the delegates for approval. It consists of a preamble (“We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union…”) and seven framework Articles, running to a mere five oversized pages and 4,000 words in total. As signing the document looms, a fresh debate opens up that threatens a complete unraveling. The Anti-Federalists make a last ditch effort on behalf of what they see as protecting the sovereign states and their citizens from a potential federal threat to their basic liberties. Their solution lies in adding more “guarantees” modeled after Britain’s 1689 Bill of Rights. But when the Virginian George Mason offers a resolution to this effect, it is unanimously defeated, mainly for fear of “starting over” from scratch.

So comes the end of the convention on September 17, as thirty-eight of the fifty-five total attendees appear to sign or reject the document. For the first and only time, Washington addresses the group, gaining approval to raise the number of seats in the House from fifty-one to sixty-eight in total. Other members follow with their final thoughts, before all but three (Edmund Randolph, George Mason and Elbridge Gerry) signal their approval.

The outcome is widely applauded. Washington calls it “little short of a miracle.” South Carolina’s Charles C. Pinckney is “astonished that something so perfect could have formed from such discordant and unpromising material.” Nicholas Gilman of New Hampshire offers this summary: “It was done by bargain and compromise…testing whether or not we shall become a respectable nation or a people torn to pieces by intestine commotions and rendered contemptible for ages.”