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Chapter IV - Government Strengthened
Government Strengthened 1787
Widespread economic crises and internal revolts in nine states convinced political leaders that the existing central government was simply too weak both politically and structurally to promote and protect American interests at home and abroad. The future president of the struggling republic concluded in 1786: "We probably had too good an opinion of human nature in forming our confederation." On February 21, 1787, after months of delay, the Confederation Congress finally agreed to a convention for the "sole and express purpose" of revising the Articles of Confederation. On May 25 twenty-nine delegates representing all the states but Rhode Island assembled in Philadelphia to begin that momentous revision.
The majority of these delegates were young men of "property and substance" with an average age of forty-two. The youngest was twenty-six while Benjamin Franklin was the oldest at eighty-one. Only two of these men were small farmers, while the majority were from the upper classes of planters, merchants, physicians and lawyers. Many had studied law, been in the military, served as state governors or had participated in the Continental Congress. Most were graduates of American colleges such as Princeton, Yale and Harvard. These delegates elected George Washington as chairman, but Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were serving as ambassadors in Paris and London respectively and could not participate. Though Patrick Henry of Virginia refused to come, complaining that he "smelt a rat," and Sam Adams, the leader of revolutionary Boston radicals, had not been chosen as a delegate, those attending represented the cream of America's political crop. One of the delegates insisted, "experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us." However, they relied on both during the next sweltering four months. Battling the humidity, flies and "frequently each other," they worked on political compromises an average of five to six exhausting hours a day for six days a week, discouraging outside pressure by meeting behind closed doors.
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