Convention: A Daily Journal

By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 5/31/2021 - 5 minute read

News that New Hampshire had adjourned its ratification convention and agreed to reconvene in June reverberated throughout America. John Langdon and his pro-Constitution allies had made significant progress convincing many of the “Antis” to reconsider their position. However, nearly forty towns had instructed their delegates to vote against ratification. The purpose of the adjournment – postponing a vote until a second convention in June – was to permit delegates to return home and persuade their constituents to change their instructions.

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 5/24/2021 - 5 minute read

Politics in post-Revolutionary War New Hampshire were dominated by rivalry between John Langdon and Gen. John Sullivan, but there was much on which they agreed, including the need for a more energetic national government.

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 5/17/2021 - 5 minute read

General Henry Knox had been a trusted advisor to George Washington since their first meeting in July 1775. In December of that year Washington chose Knox to lead one of the most consequential missions in the early days of the rebellion against Great Britain – to steal the artillery and munitions at Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain and transport them to Boston. His remarkable feat enabled the Continental Army to defeat the British at Dorchester Heights the following March of 1776.

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 5/10/2021 - 5 minute read

On February 2, the Massachusetts ratifying convention voted unanimously to appoint a committee to consider John Hancock’s amendments to the proposed Constitution. Chaired by former governor James Bowdoin (whose son was also a convention delegate), the committee was nearly evenly divided between supporters and opponents of the Constitution, with pro-Constitution Federalists having a slight edge. Two days later, the committee submitted its report and dined at Bowdon’s home as his guests.

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 5/3/2021 - 5 minute read

It was a dramatic entrance. Racked with pain and “wrapped in his flannels,” John Hancock was carried by his servants into the Long Lane Congregational Church at 11:00 a.m. on January 30. George Benson, a Rhode Islander viewing the convention from the gallery, noted in his journal that Hancock’s appearance “diffused much pleasure in the gallery and below.”

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 4/26/2021 - 5 minute read

James Bowdoin has been a force in Massachusetts politics from when he was first elected to the provincial assembly in 1753.  Born in Boston, his father was a wealthy merchant whose own father had immigrated to America as a Huguenot refugee.  Like many of his fellow delegates to the Massachusetts ratifying convention, Bowdoin’s opposition to British rule had increased as British policies became more unpopular and oppressive and Bowdoin himself was viewed as an irritant by the royal governors.

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 4/12/2021 - 5 minute read

Two weeks after the Constitutional Convention adjourned in Philadelphia, Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee wrote to his good friend, Samuel Adams.  “Having long toiled with you, my dear friend, in the vineyard of liberty,” he began, Lee continued by asserting that the people of the United States, having fought for free government against the British, “had no idea of being brought under despotic rule under the notion of’ ‘strong government;’ or in form of elective despotism.” His “elective despotism” was a direct reference to the Constitution which had just been circulated to the States for ratification. “Surely this is not a ground upon which a wise and good man would choose to rest the dearest rights of human nature,” he declared.

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 3/29/2021 - 5 minute read

Words matter, and delegates to the Massachusetts ratifying convention took them seriously, asking the full meaning of the words “from time to time” and “except such parts as may require secrecy,” and more. William Symmes, a young attorney from Andover, was alarmed at the “general welfare clause.” Could it “be applied to any expenditure whatever?” he queried.

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 3/22/2021 - 5 minute read

For an entire week the first four sections of Article I of the proposed Constitution commanded the attention of delegates to the Massachusetts ratification convention. At this rate, the convention could drag on for months, but the issues were too important to be passed over without serious inspection and more than three hundred fifty delegates had the right to speak…and speak they did!

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By Center for Civics Education
Posted on 3/15/2021 - 5 minute read

Delegates to the Massachusetts ratifying convention agreed at the outset to consider the proposed Constitution paragraph by paragraph before taking any votes. As they deliberated Article I Section 2 providing that members of the House of Representatives would serve two-year terms and be elected biennially, Gilbert Dench of Hopkinton rose to speak. It is “immaterial whether biennial or annual,” he said. “My difficulty is, whether biennial elections are secured to the people in the fourth section.”

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