Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/417

 ed George Washington its President. The result of its labors was the formation of the present Constitution of the United States, though some amendments were afterwards made.

The fourteenth of May was the day appointed for the meeting of the convention; but seven states were not present till eleven days later, when the convention assembled in the chamber of the State House in Philadelphia, in which the Continental Congress, while resident in that city, had been accustomed to hold its sessions, and in which the independence of the United States had been declared. Washington was a member, and so was Franklin, for the two years since his return from Europe president of Pennsylvania. As Franklin could be the only competitor for the place of president of the convention, the nomination of Washington came gracefully from Robert Morris, on behalf of the Pennsylvania delegation. A secretary was chosen, and a committee appointed to report rules of proceeding.

Upon the report of this committee rules were adopted, copied chiefly from those of Congress. As in Congress, each state was to have one vote; seven states were to constitute a quorum; all committees were to be appointed by ballot; the doors were to be closed, and an injunction of secrecy, never removed, was placed on the debates. The members were not even allowed to take copies of the entries on the journal.

Eleven states were soon represented by about fifty delegates from among the most illustrious citizens of the states — men highly distinguished for talents, character, practical knowledge, and public services. The aged Franklin had sat in the Albany convention of 1754, in which the first attempt had been made at colonial union. Dickinson, who sat in the present convention as one of the members from Delaware, William S. Johnson, of Connecticut, and John Rutledge, of South Carolina, had participated in the Stamp Act Congress of 1165. Besides Washington, Dickinson, and Rutledge, who had belonged to the Continental Congress of 1174, there were also present, from among the members of that body, Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, William Livingston, governor of New Jersey, George Read, of Delaware, and George Wythe, of Virginia; and of the signers of the Declaration of Independence — besides* Franklin, Read, Wythe, and Sherman — Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, and Robert Morris, George Clymer, and James Wilson, of Pennsylvania. Eighteen members were at the same time delegates to the Continental Congress; and of the whole number there were only twelve who had not sat at some time in that body. The officers of the revolutionary army were represented by Washington, Mifflin, Hamilton, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who had been colonel of one of the South Carolina regiments, and at one time an aide-de-camp to Washington. Of those members who had come prominently forward since the declaration of independence, the most conspicuous were Hamilton, Madison, and Edmund Randolph, who had lately succeeded Patrick Henry as governor of Virginia. The members who took the heading part in the debates were Madison, Mason, and Randolph, of Virginia; Gerry, Gorham, and King, of Massachusetts; Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and Franklin,