25 May to 17 September 1787
The Philadelphia Convention and the Northwest Ordinance
The convention opens in the Pennsylvania State House on 25 May with delegates from seven states, and fifty-five delegates from twelve states take part over the summer. Rhode Island sends nobody. Washington presides, and the debates are kept secret. The delegates are supposed to amend the Articles, but within a week Madison’s Virginia Plan puts a new national government on the table, with a two-house legislature, an executive and courts.
The large and small states deadlock over representation. The Connecticut Compromise of 16 July bases the House on population and gives each state an equal vote in the Senate. Slavery is written in by counting three fifths of the enslaved for representation and by protecting the slave trade for twenty years.
While the convention sits, Congress in New York passes the Northwest Ordinance on 13 July. The land north of the Ohio, ceded by Virginia and the other claimant states, will be governed as a territory and admitted as three to five new states on equal terms with the old. Slavery is banned there. Settlers from New England found Marietta, on the Ohio, the next April.
The Northwest Ordinance, printed for Congress in July 1787Wikimedia Commons, Unknown author, Public domain (1787 Ordinance - DPLA - 16ee7c49e3fd859d7fbe6cbab4b7bd51 (page 1).jpg)
The Constitution is signed on 17 September by thirty-nine delegates. Three refuse. It is to take effect among the ratifying states once nine have approved it in conventions elected for the purpose.
Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, painting by Howard Chandler Christy, 1940Wikimedia Commons, Howard Chandler Christy, Public domain (Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States.jpg)
The first page of the Constitution as signed on 17 September 1787Wikimedia Commons, Constitutional Convention, Public domain (Constitution of the United States - DPLA - 9ca804144bd5965e992ae3528bc3c6a3 (page 1).jpg)
Sources
- Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787–1788 (2010).
- Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (1969).
- Max Farrand (ed.), The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (1911).
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