Will Jones
Claude Pullen
October is American Archives Month. Among the documents held in the National Archives is the Constitution itself: four parchment sheets in glass cases in the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. But hardly anyone knows the conflict that preceded the creation of our founding document. In fact, it is the Constitution that almost wasn’t.
This is one of the major themes of The 17th of September 1787 Constitution Day by late author Dale Dungan Pullen (1929-2017), now available on Amazon. In this clear and accessible history of Constitution Day, complete with visuals, Pullen shows us how the forming of the Constitution was a miracle, and that if the delegates had not compromised, we might not have had a Constitution.
Fifty-five delegates came to Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. They met in the Pennsylvania State House, closed to the public, with the windows shut. There was no air conditioning and no deodorant. But more than the sweat, it was the sharp disagreements and endless argumentation that filled the atmosphere.
The nation the delegates came to fix was coming apart. States were acting like rival nations, to the point of printing their own paper money. A financial depression had set in, and farmers were losing their land to lenders. Only months earlier, armed Massachusetts farmers facing foreclosure had closed state courts in Shays’s Rebellion (August 1786 to February 1787). The Articles of Confederation, which had held the states together since the Revolutionary War, gave the national government no power to address any of this.
Dale Pullen
James Madison, a 36-year-old Virginia delegate, arrived with a written plan, later known as the Virginia Plan. Delegates approved its three-branch government with little trouble. Then they reached the question of how many votes each state would get.
Madison’s plan based representation on population, which favored Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. On June 15, New Jersey’s William Paterson answered with a plan that kept one vote per state. James Wilson of Pennsylvania warned that his state would “confederate on no other” plan. By July, Roger Sherman of Connecticut said the convention had reached a “full stop.” On July 16, delegates approved the Great Compromise by a vote of 5 to 4: representation by population in the House, equal representation in the Senate. Edmund Randolph, on the losing side, called it a “frightening embarrassment.” The convention held together.
The issue of slavery also resulted in some of the angriest exchanges of the summer, and it was never resolved. The words “slave” and “slavery” appear nowhere in the Constitution. Enslaved people became “three-fifths of all other persons.” Gouverneur Morris called slavery “the curse of heaven.” John Rutledge of South Carolina answered that “religion and humanity had nothing to do with this question,” and said his state and Georgia would leave the convention if slavery were restricted. The delegates protected the slave trade from federal limits until 1808. Pullen cites historian Richard Beeman for the cost: more than 200,000 enslaved people were landed in the United States between 1787 and 1808. It took the Civil War and the 13th Amendment to end slavery.
Even the subject of the presidency was a battlefield. Morris and Madison argued that a president chosen by the legislature would be dependent on it. Elbridge Gerry said popular election would be “vicious.” John Dickinson called it the “best and purest method.” The compromise came out of a committee in September: each state would have as many electors as it had senators and representatives combined, with the state legislature deciding how they were chosen.
On September 17, 39 delegates signed. Randolph, George Mason, and Gerry refused. Ratification was still ahead. Virginia approved it 89 to 79, and Rhode Island, the last state, agreed in 1790 by 34 to 32.
One may wonder, since now we have a Constitution, why bother about its contentious history? But that is precisely the point the late author is trying to make.
Pullen, who was a Washington political correspondent and recipient of the National Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship, spent his life advocating for Constitution Day to become a national holiday and for Americans to take civic education, particularly constitutional history, seriously.
To him, it matters considerably that opposing members of the convention from warring states could reach a compromise and develop the foundational document that continues to unite and govern the United States.
“If they hadn’t compromised, it would have fallen apart,” Pullen said in 2016, a year before his death.
The 17th of September 1787 Constitution Day has been published posthumously by his son, Claude Pullen. If you seek an accessible and engaging guide to the forming of the Constitution, 17th of September is an excellent resource.
Available now on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle formats.