Convention: A Daily Journal

By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 8/21/2020 - 4 minute read

This evening New Jersey’s David Brearley dashed off a letter to his colleague William Paterson who had returned to New Jersey two weeks ago. “Cannot you come down and assist us?” he asked. “We have many reasons for desiring this…We actually stand in need of your abilities.” Brearley had hoped the Convention would adjourn by the first of September, but “at present I have no prospect of our getting through before the latter end of that month. Every article is again argued over, with as much earnestness and obstinacy as before it was committed.”

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 8/20/2020 - 4 minute read

As the Convention devotes considerable time considering paragraph-by-paragraph and line-by-line the report of the Committee of Detail, events outside the State House are taking place. Yesterday, George Washington and his close friend and confidante Samuel Powel rode up to White Marsh. For the first time since the Convention convened in May, Washington’s daily journal contained a trace of solemn emotion. “We traversed my old encampment,” he wrote, “and contemplated on the dangers which threatened the American Army at that place.”

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 8/19/2020 - 4 minute read

The bell in the tower of the Pennsylvania State House cracked on its first test ring in 1752. Isaac Norris, Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, had ordered a bell for the bell tower from the Whitechapel Foundry in London in 1751. When it cracked, two local craftsmen, John Pass and John Stow, twice cast a new bell using metal from the original. For the bell’s inscription Norris chose a verse from the Old Testament Book of Leviticus: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,” an instruction to the ancient Israelites to return property and free slaves every fifty years.

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 8/18/2020 - 4 minute read

The Convention is nearly finished considering the list of legislative powers proposed by the Committee of Detail. The final three are the powers to raise armies, build and equip fleets, and “call forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, enforce treaties, suppress insurrections and repel invasions.”

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 8/17/2020 - 4 minute read

On Wednesday, several delegates complained of the tediousness of the work in which they are engaged while their letters home report they are likely to remain in Philadelphia for another month. Tempers and patience were short, undoubtedly aggravated by the heat wave and high humidity that saps everyone’s energy and makes even short walks almost unbearable. To everyone’s relief, the temperature dropped yesterday as cooling breezes flowed through the city. 

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 8/16/2020 - 4 minute read

The rule of secrecy governing the Convention’s proceedings has not inhibited newspapers from speculating or putting their “spin” on rumors. Yesterday, The Pennsylvania Gazette published the disturbing but inaccurate report that the Convention is considering a monarchy. The Pennsylvania Herald and General Advertiser reported that “the debates of the federal convention continued until five o’clock on Monday evening; when, it is said, a decision took place upon the most important question that has been agitated since the meeting of this assembly.” Of course, the paper did not identify this “most important question.” It most assuredly is not privy to that information.

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 8/15/2020 - 4 minute read

A circular letter is handing about the country, recommending a kingly government for these States. The writer proposes to send to England for the bishop of Osnaburgh, second son to the king of Great-Britain, and have him crowned KING over this continent. We have found by experience, says he, that we have not wit enough to govern ourselves, that all our declamations and parade about republicanism, liberty, property and the rights of man, are mere fluff and nonsense, and that it is high time for us to tread back the wayward path we have walked in these twelve years.

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 8/14/2020 - 4 minute read

“Mr. Martin I saw at Convention,” Elbridge Gerry wrote in a letter today to his wife, Anne. “Martin rode from Trenton in the forenoon and had nearly fainted when he dismounted, on account of the heat. This city is now and has been for several days excessive hot.” The few Philadelphians who have a second home or property in the countryside, such as the Robert Morris’s and the Andrew William’s, may go there seeking relief from the heat, but most simply endure it, doing their best to cope with flies, mosquitoes, dusty roads, and periodic outbreaks of sickness and disease.

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 8/13/2020 - 4 minute read

Yesterday George Washington dined with his friend William Hamilton at his large home in Bush Hill in the city of Philadelphia. Hamilton is the grandson of Andrew Hamilton, from whom he inherited 300 acres of land in the countryside near the bend in the Schuylkill River. It was Andrew Hamilton who defended John Peter Zenger from charges of criminal libel back in 1735. William Hamilton has spent the last twenty years building an imposing mansion surrounded by a picturesque landscape in the style of grand English gardens, complete with a large botanical collection. He calls it The Woodlands.

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 8/12/2020 - 4 minute read

The delegates are enjoying their usual Sunday recess, many using the time to write letters to friends and family back home. Still under the rule of secrecy, there is little they can report. Richard Spaight wrote to his friend Richard Iredell that the Convention has “agreed on the outlines of a plan of government,” but could reveal nothing more. James Madison simply told his inquiring father which States are and are not in attendance and sent him a few newspapers, “not because they are interesting but because they may apply the want of intelligence that might be more so.”

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