Report From Philadelphia Part 1 and 2

It is 1787, 200 years ago. Just 11 years have passed since the American colonies declared their independence from England in this very room. What a moment that was. What an assemblage of men. Thomas Jefferson with his flaming red hair. Samuel and John Adams. Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Rush. 56 patriots in all. 56 patriots who are also rebels. We declare that these United colonies are and have right ought to be free and independent states. They match their eloquence with courage and cannon. What they declared in this room, they won on the battlefield in a war that ended just six years ago. They were united then. Revolutionary America was a body with thirteen hearts. But today, today America has thirteen heads without a body. The government established under the Articles of Confederation is operating with dismal inefficiency. Congress has no power to tax or regulate. There's no chief executive.

The government is bankrupt. In desperation, some of the country's most notable men have call for a convention to cope with the emergency and delegates are right now on their way to this state house. The plan is to revise the Articles of Confederation, but some of the delegates have a far more radical purpose. They intend not to revise the Articles, but to replace them altogether with a constitution and a strong national government. George Washington is the symbol of their hopes. The general has arrived in Philadelphia early, brooding over his country's troubles. 13 sovereignty is pulling against each other and all tugging up a federal head. We'll soon bring ruin on the whole. Those dark fears are shared by many of his countrymen. In letters to newspapers, citizens confess their anxieties publicly. We are impoverished by the continual drain of money from us in foreign trade. Our navigation is destroyed. We are discontented at home and abroad. We are insulted and despised.

No various sentiment for a strong, central government, but there are formidable odds. Having won their independence from the British Crown and Parliament, the states resist yielding a shred of their sovereignty. These men must try to repair a union that is dissolving before their very eyes. We will be here for as long as the convention lasts to report on this effort to save the new American nation. I'm Bill Moyers. Day by day, the delegates arrive in Philadelphia. A local newspaper is already calling this the grand convention. But some statesmen worry it's more likely to be a grand debacle. The final dashing of those hopes, they fastened on revolution 11 years ago when the Declaration of Independence was signed in this very room. Then the 13 states had a common enemy in King George III. Now they're at each other's throats. Soldiers from Pennsylvania have fired on

settlers in Connecticut. Virginia and Maryland quarrel over who can fish for oysters in the Chesapeake. The small states have set up borders where customs guards inspect the traveller's luggage. Nine states boast their own navies. There's even talk in some quarters of leaving the union for alliances with the old world, even as Spain's Viceroy rules New Orleans and her ships prowled in Mississippi. To the north, while British Red Podes camp freely on American soil, just below the Canadian border. Watching General Washington move about Philadelphia, you wouldn't think him perturbed at all by this bad news. He puts on a good public show, dining with old comrades, attending Catholic Mass on Fourth Street, taking tea with the ladies and chatting with Dr. Franklin. But we're told the general's heart is uneasy. If this convention fails to turn a weak government into a strong, he fears the union will fall apart. The general is just 55, but lately he's been feeling old and miserable with rheumatism, and he doesn't say much publicly, his modesty

is as true as his valor. Fortunately, there will be younger men in this hall, as outspoken as Washington is reticent. Men like Alexander Hamilton, he's only 32, but the young lawyer who was Washington's lieutenant in the war, shares his old commander's vision. There is something noble and magnificent in the perspective of a great federal republic, closely linked to the pursuit of a common interest, prosperous at home, respected abroad, contrasted to a number of petty states, jealous and perverse, without any determined direction, fluctuating and unhappy at home, weak and insignificant in the eyes of other nations. General Washington's age is actually more unusual here than Hamilton's youth. Most of the delegates are in their 30s and 40s, some are even younger. They're the first generation to come of age as free Americans. Only eve of this convention here in 1787, who can estimate what their work will mean for the generations to follow. I'm Bill Moyers.

If it proves as hard in Philadelphia to make a government, as it does just to get here, the delegates to this federal convention are in for a long and difficult summer. There are so many stragglers that only four states are represented. Three more are needed before the convention can even begin. The delay is partly because traveling in 1787 is a burden hard to imagine. For the delegation from New Hampshire, the journey will take 21 days, much of it on rocky trails down the Connecticut River Valley. From the far off wilderness of Georgia, the trip is 800 miles over swollen rivers without bridges and forest trails left almost impassable by recent rains. Just to get here from New York requires a stage coach, a ferry, and three days of travel sunrise to sunset. All this was not enough to prevent James Madison from arriving in Philadelphia 11 days early. Since then, he's done little but stay in his rooming house and scribble, scribble, scribble. Madison is a small man.

He's been called no bigger than half a piece of soap, but he has an intellect worthy of the herculean task he has set for himself. Word has it that Thomas Jefferson, whose in Paris, has virtually emptied the bookstores of France and shipped them to Madison so he might study everything ever written about the science of politics. As much as anyone, Madison wants the convention to forge a strong national government, but his letters indicate a distinct pessimism. If the approaching convention should not agree on some remedy, I am persuaded that some very different arrangements will ensue. A propensity towards monarchy is said to have been produced in some leading minds. The bulk of the people will probably prefer a lesser evil. The nearer the crisis approaches, the more I tremble for the issue. Madison's anxiety is shared by many other delegates, and it's partly the result of what happened in Massachusetts last year. A revolutionary war veteran named Daniel Shays, led an uprising of desperate farmers forced into bankruptcy by dead in taxation.

They marched on the county courthouses with rebellion in their hearts and pitchforks in their hands, and just about overran a federal arsenal. It took the state six months to regain control. This brush with rebellion convinced many of America's leading citizens of the need for a new government that can cope with such emergencies, a national government. Some of the delegates have arrived here haunted by the prospect of anarchy, and the uninvited unseen visitors at this convention will be Captain Shays and his angry mob of farmers. I'm Bill Moyers. At last it's happened. The federal convention has begun. 11 days late in the middle of a downpour. 29 delegates from seven states, a quorum, finally got down to business in this state house. They accomplished just one thing today, but it was crucial. They elected the chairman. Robert Morris, a Philadelphia, one of the richest men in America, made the

motion. Gentlemen, by the instruction and in behalf of the deputation of Pennsylvania, I have the honor to propose George Washington as scribe, late commander in chief for president of the convention. Washington will make only one formal speech here, but the delegates don't need his wisdom as much as his presence. The general is the most admired man in America. He's the symbol of everything this new nation wants to be, virtuous, respected, honorable, successful. Put anyone else in that chair, and the convention would lose much of its luster, much of its legitimacy. Ironically, General Washington didn't really want to come to Philadelphia. He has served his country for over 30 years, many on the battlefield, and now he yearns to be home in Mount Vernon, nursing his rheumatism, and enjoying the life of a country squire. What summoned him for Virginia was the alarm of America's leading citizens, letters urging

him to lend his authority to this convention by coming here. One came from the governor of his own state, Edmund Randolph. I must call upon your friendship to excuse me for again mentioning the convention at Philadelphia. I feel like an intruder when I again hint a wish that you would join the delegation. Every day brings forth some new crisis, and the confederation is I fear the last anchor of our hope. No one who loves his country or his image of virtue could be deaf to such a petition. The general is no marble saint. He loves fox hunting, fancy clothes, and dinner parties. He may be the best dancer in the country. When he loses his temper, he can make the rivers run backwards. But like most educated men of this day, he believes he can mold his character by force of will, and the general's will can be as sure as coal steel. It would be surprising if he didn't remind himself of how the Roman statesmen won fame by serving their country first. The general's fame and honor are on the line here at this convention. That's

for certain. So is the fate of this young nation. I'm Bill Moyers. Benjamin Franklin arrived at this convention today, and what an entrance he made. Swing in a sedan chair carried on poles by four husky convicts from the Walnut Street jail. It's a theatrical vehicle, the first one ever seen in America. Dr. Franklin uses it to cushion his body to keep the cobbled streets from stirring up his gout. But the shrewd old politician knows the value of commanding some public attention as well. Franklin's entrance wasn't the only drama here today. Pierce Butler, one of the wealthy delegates from South Carolina, moved to keep these proceedings entirely secret. The others agreed, and will stick to their decision with religious fervor. Nothing, not a single fact, will leak from this hall doing the entire convention. George Mason wrote to his son in Virginia about the importance of the secrecy rule.

It is expected that communications on the business of the convention be forbidden during its sitting. This, I think, was a proper precaution to prevent mistakes in misrepresentations until the business shall have been completed. When the whole may have a very different complexion from that in which the several crude and indigested parts might appear, if submitted to the public eye. What this means is that the delegates will have maximum freedom to argue and negotiate. They can change their minds without having to justify their every move, even launch a trial balloon without causing an uproar among the folks back home. Naturally, the press doesn't like the secrecy rule. A New York editor complains of an appearance of mystery. Several newspapers will announce scoops straight from the convention, but they all turn out to be false in this summer of inventive journalism. Not only the press is upset, though, Thomas Jefferson, our ambassador to France, who's been paying close attention to the preparations for this convention, will bridle when he hears of the secrecy plan from his friend, James Madison.

I am sorry they began their deliberations with so abominable a precedent as that of tying up the tongues of their members. Nothing can justify this example, but the innocence of their intentions and the ignorance of the value of public debate. Jefferson is in the minority. There will be no great public outcry against the rules of the secrecy. The people appear willing to wait and pass judgment on the results of this convention, not on its procedures. Until it ends, everyone will have to be content with speculation, rumors, and gossip, and the contemplation of Dr. Franklin's wonderful sedan chair. I'm Bill Moyers. Now we know what James Madison has been scribbling all this time in his room at the Indian Queen Tavern. Now we know what the Virginians were plotting during those three-hour caucuses every day before this convention even opened. Today, the Virginians announced their intentions. They want to scrap the articles of Confederation under which the United States is presently

governed, and they want a whole new system of government in its place. They didn't say it in those words, but that was the import of what they did say, and the other delegates realized it. The plan already being called the Virginia plan was announced in a three-hour speech delivered by their popular governor, Edmund Randolph, but its chief architect is James Madison. By all rights, he should have delivered what he had worked so hard to prepare, and Madison is a small man with a soft and sweet voice and ideas so revolutionary, ideas so radical, require a trumpet, not a flu. Edmund Randolph, on the other hand, can sound like an entire symphony. He's six feet tall, 33 years old, with flowing brown hair and a voice described as most harmonious. He spoke of great and grave consequences if this convention fails. We must prevent the fulfillment of the prophecies of the American downfall. Look at the public countenance from New Hampshire to Georgia. Are we not on the eve of war,

which is only prevented by the hopes from this convention? One by one, Governor Randolph put before the delegates the 15 resolutions of the Virginia plan. They call for a strong national legislature that can override the states, a national executive with veto power and a national judiciary. Those words echoed again and again in the ears of these delegates, national, national, national. Practically every delegate here knows the articles of confederation must be overhauled. They're simply not working, but this proposal is sweeping. Right now, the states are sovereign. They call them their own money. They impose their own taxes. They even float their own navies. Nine states have navies. Power rests with the state legislatures and the National Congress is their servant, their agent. That will all change if this plan succeeds. There's no doubt about it. The Virginians have lost no time in bringing this convention to the very heart of the matter. Without an effective

and energetic government, they say, a national government, this nation cannot be saved. But will the states agree? I'm Bill Moyers. This was the scene over at the state house today. Edmund Randolph was back on the floor to reveal more of the Virginia plan, the outline for an entirely new form of government. This time Randolph spelled out the scheme even more precisely. A union of the states merely federal will not accomplish the objects proposed by the Articles of Confederation. A national government ought to be established consisting of a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary. To the men in this hall, the terms national and federal are poles apart. Two distinct systems, political philosophies, competing for the minds of 18th century America. In the federal form of government, established six years ago under the Articles of Confederation,

the 13 states are bound together only by a loose agreement. The individual states have supreme power. Only they can enact laws over their citizens. But under a national government, Congress would have ultimate authority to impose its laws directly on the people as citizens of the United States. That thought terrifies some of these men, men whose loyalties are to their states first, the United States second. They fear a national government can mean an end to the states. But today, Governor Morris of Pennsylvania tried to calm those fears. When the powers of the national government clash with the states, only then must the states yield, we had better take a supreme government now than a despot 20 years hence. Well, come, he must. Not only is Morris emerging as one of the most vocal proponents of a strong national government, he's a most colorful character. His first name is Governor, almost like Governor. At 35, he's made a name for himself as a lawyer and financier. When he speaks, he often punctuates his sentences by thumping his wooden leg on the floor. How he lost

that leg is a matter of legend. One that says Morris had to leap from a second floor window to escape an irate husband. Groven of Morris seems to revel in the tale, but the truth is less than romantic. He lost the leg in a carriage accident. Morris is open reputation as a lady's man and his profanity haven't endeared him to some of the other delegates, especially the straight-laced Yankees from New England. To them, Morris is a man of pleasure and that's men as no compliment. But this strapping fellow is also a brilliant thinker. It is Morris who says this generation will die away and give place to a race of Americans. This convention will determine if Governor Morris is not only a man of pleasure, but a prophet as well. I'm Bill Moyers. When we begin our report, I ask you to remember this is 1787, not our own day in time. Only in the minds I can we of the modern world grasp the 18th century notions of this federal

convention. Democracy, for example. The debate over at the State House today was all about whether the people themselves should elect any of their representatives to Congress. And some of the delegates talked about democracy as if it were a villain greater than King George and Benedict Arnold put together. The evils we experience throw from the excess of democracy. People do not like virtue, but other juke's of pretended patriots. That's Elbridge Gary, a self-made man from Massachusetts. He's another New Englander who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, Roger Sherman of Connecticut. The people should have as little to do as maybe about the government. They lack information, and are constantly liable to be misled. Sherman began his career as a shoemaker and crowned it by helping Thomas Jefferson draft the declaration of independence. You'd think he and Gary ought to support government by the people. But they fear the danger of the leveling spirit. They don't believe the mass of ordinary citizens without education and experience could rue wisely. They won't

Congress to be composed of responsible men of reputation and property. And their solution is to let the state legislatures pick the House of Representatives. On the other side, our Madison Wilson and Franklin, who believe the people will have more confidence in the Congress, they've helped to choose. And that renegade aristocrat from Virginia, George Mason, who wrote most of his state's famous Declaration of Rights. Mason spoke eloquently today for the common man. The lower House is to be the grand repository of the Democratic principle of the government. It ought to know and sympathize with every part of the community. We ought to attend to the rights of every class of the people. Mason's argument prevailed. The majority of states today approved direct election of the lower House. But keep in mind that even when the champions of democracy at this convention speak of the people, they mean only certain white males. Mason himself is a man of vast holdings in Virginia, slaves included. Paradoxically, he thinks slavery is inhuman. His heart is

in the right place, but he's bound by the circumstances of his day. Democracy in 1787 is an idea whose time is coming, but very slowly. I'm Bill Moyers. There was a silence in this hall today. The delegates had just heard a proposal that the executive power in the new government should be placed in a single person, one man. It must have been hard for them not to turn and look at General Washington when the proposal was made. Almost everyone agrees that if there is to be one chief of state, he will be the man. No delegate wanted to appear to be sliding the general by arguing against a single executive. So no one spoke for a while. It took some prompting from Benjamin Franklin. So beloved, he's above suspicion of ill motives. It took some prompting from Dr. Franklin before others would speak their minds. Finally, Governor Edmund Randolph from Virginia was

bold enough to sound a warning. A single executive is the fetus of monarchy. I cannot see why the great requisites for the executive power could not be found in three men as well as one. Randolph's proposal for a three-man executive wasn't even the most radical idea heard here today. Fellow Virginian George Mason wants three men and a council of advisors. He's afraid, so many in this room are afraid, of placing power in one pair of hands. But James Wilson of Pennsylvania asked him to think it over. Wouldn't three men in the same office always be struggling for power? Among three equal members, I foresee nothing but uncontrolled, continued, and violent animacities, which would diffuse their poison through the other branches of government, through the states, and at length through the people at large. The question proved too much to settle in one day. The delegates agreed only to postpone the matter for the time being. After today's session, George Mason wrote a letter to his

son in Virginia acknowledging that such debates weigh heavily on these men because they realize so much is at stake. The revolt from Great Britain and the formations of our new governments at the time were nothing compared to the Great Business now before us. The influence which the establishment now proposed may have upon the happiness or misery of millions yet unborn is an object of such magnitude as absorbs the operations of human understanding. It's obvious to the men in this room that they're not here mirrored it to tinker with the present machinery of government. They're on a task profound and enduring. One that is James Madison says, may decide, forever, the fate of Republican government. I'm Bill Moyers. The United States will have a single chief executive, a president, though he's not call that yet. That was finally decided today after three days of intense debate. But should the president

be paid a salary? These delegates know the dilemma, pay your public servants too much and you invite the greedy, pay them too little, and they'll be tempted by corruption. During Saturday session, the resident philosopher of this convention, Benjamin Franklin, argued that the executive should serve without salary. Dr. Franklin is 81 years old. He doesn't quite trust his memory anymore, so he put his thoughts in a letter. It was read by James Wilson, who was born in Scotland, but like Dr. Franklin, now calls Pennsylvania home. There are two passions which have a powerful influence on the affairs of men, the love of power, and the love of money. Separately, each of these has a great force in prompting men to action. But when united in view of the same object, they have in many minds the most violent effects. And of what kind are the men that will strive for this profitable preeminence? It will not be the wise and moderate, the lovers of peace and good order. It will be the bold and violent, the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity

and their selfish pursuits. These will thrust themselves into your government and be your rulers. Strong passions from the old man and Dr. Franklin conceded that he may sound utopian, but he does believe great men will put public service before private profit. He pointed to various offices in England and France that offer little or no salary. He said Quakers, here in the city of brotherly love, serve on committees solely out of a sense of duty. And he reminded the delegates that in their very midst set the model of public service. Have we not seen the great and most important of our offices, that of general of our armies, executed for eight years without the smallest salary, by a pay today to whom I will not now offend by any other praise? I think we shall never be without a sufficient number of wise and good men to undertake the office in question. Ten days they've labored. Ten days and so far not one major issue has been settled, at

least not permanently. The delegates to this federal convention now suspect they're likely to be here in Philadelphia for a long time. Edmund Randolph said as much today in a letter back to his native Virginia. It will not be settled in its principles for perhaps some weak sense. The prospect of a very long sojournment here is determined me to bring up my family. No one should be surprised by this. One reason things are going so slowly is a rule the convention adopted that allows the same issue to be debated again and again, even after it's been voted up or down. For example, six days ago the delegates agreed one branch of Congress should be elected directly by the people. Today that question was raised again. Charles Pinkney of South Carolina argued again that the state legislatures should choose the representatives. Pinkney believes as he put it that the people are not fit judges. And listen to the Harvard man, Elbridge Gary, he doesn't think the people can be trusted and he pointed to his own home state.

In Massachusetts the worst men get into the legislature. Several members of that body have lately been convicted of infamous crimes. Men of indigence, ignorance and baseness spare no pains, however dirty, to carry their point. To secure what he calls a just preference of merit, Gary said the people should nominate a list of candidates from which the state legislature would then make the final selection. James Madison objected. His speech was full of those references to Greece and Rome that the delegates have come to expect of this Virginia scholar. Madison's main point was this. The people must choose at least one branch of the legislature as a, quote, clear principle of free government. That idea was echoed in the Scottish broke of Pennsylvania's James Wilson. The government ought to possess not only the force, but the mind or sense of the people at large. The legislature ought to be the most exact transcript of society. Madison and Wilson cared the day again. Of course these delegates are free to change their

minds again. This means no one needs to storm out of here after losing a vote. Everyone gets a second, a third or a fourth chance. But it means a good deal of maddening repetition. And it could mean that Edmund Randolph's wife should bring a fall wardrobe. I'm Bill Moyers. It's proving hard to build a government from scratch, even harder when the scratching is done by committee. So you can imagine the delight today when the committee finally agreed on something. What these men agreed on was that it really is possible to have too much democracy. You may recall the controversy last week, and again, yesterday, when this convention decided to let the voters at large elect the lower House of Congress. Many delegates said this would give the people more confidence in their government. But today, in the question of the Upper House arose, nearly everyone in this hall agreed the Senate should not be elected by the people. James Madison of Virginia summed up what the role

of this Upper House, the Senate, should be. The use of the Senate is to consist in its proceedings with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom than the popular branch. What kind of man should be a senator? Listen to John Dickinson, the aristocrat who's been elected to the highest office of both Delaware and Pennsylvania. I wish the Senate to consist of the most distinguished characters, distinguished for their rank in life and their weight of property, and bearing as strong a likeness to the British House of Lords as possible. That's not a peculiar notion here. All of these men are familiar with the British Parliament. There the House of Commons stands for the people and the House of Lords for the aristocracy. They act as a check on one another's excesses. George Washington explains the idea with a homely analogy, just as you pour your coffee into a saucer to cool it, so you cool overheated legislation by pouring it into a senatorial saucer. James

Wilson of Pennsylvania was one of the few dissident forces today. He argued vigorously for popular election of both houses. The British government cannot be our model. We have no materials for a similar one. Our manners, our laws, the whole genius of the people are opposed to it. Wilson argued in vain. It's liberty, these men admire, not democracy. To many of them, pure democracy is simply too dangerous. To protect property from those who don't have it, in order from those who would change it too swiftly, these men won't the Senate at least once removed from the passions of the multitudes. So they decided senators will be chosen by the state legislatures, not by the people directly. That settles it. It will not be too much democracy in the Senate. I'm Bill Moyers. Big State's small states, how should they be represented in Congress? Should every state

be equal, irrespective of size, or should the states with more people have more representatives? These delegates tried to put this debate off as long as they could. They know it could tear this convention apart. Each state, big or small, has one vote in Congress right now. The Virginia plan introduced two weeks ago would give the large states greater power in a new Congress. To the small states, this is a death sentence. Here is Gunning Bedford of Little Delaware. Will not these large states crush the small ones whenever they stand in the way of their ambitions or interested views? It seems as if Pennsylvania and Virginia wish to provide a system in which they will have an enormous and monstrous influence. And Judge David Burley of New Jersey. The large states, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia will carry everything before them. Virginia, with her 16 votes, will be a solid column indeed. While Georgia, with her solitary vote and the other little states, will be obliged to throw themselves constantly

into the scale of some large one in order to have any weight at all. Judge Burley admitted it isn't fair to give a small state equal weight with a large, so he made a novel proposal. Spread out a map of the United States, he said. Erase all the existing boundaries and then divide the whole into 13 equal parts, equality by geography. It didn't wash. Then the small state men said, look at the instructions our states gave us. We're not here to annihilate the sovereignty of our states in an effort to form one nation. No one argued that more fiercely than Judge Burley. I declare that I will never consent. Myself or my state will never submit to tyranny or despotism. But James Wilson said no. Little New Jersey should not have the same strength in Congress as his own state of Pennsylvania. It is unjust. If no state will part with any of its sovereignty, it is in vain to talk of a national government. Wilson and the large states won today. The idea

of proportional representation for both the House and the Senate was approved, but only with a narrow margin. No doubt the issue will come up again. 13 states of unequal size and equal ambition must somehow decide how to share power in a new government, or this convention and this nation will surely end in failure. I'm Bill Moyers. There was open conflict here today. Until now, attention centered on the Virginia plan, which calls for a supreme national government. The states that oppose this notion say the convention is exceeding its authority even to consider it. John Lansing of New York. New York would never have concurred in sending deputies to the convention. If she had supposed the deliberations were to turn on a consolidation of the states and a national government. The small states are especially alarmed. They fear being swallowed up or run over by their bigger neighbors, Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. So today, the small states

came up with their own plan, the New Jersey plan. It provides for a Congress with only one House and gives every state, regardless of size, an equal vote in that House. New Jersey's William Patterson presented the plan. I came here not to speak my own sentiments, but the sentiments of those who sent me. If the sovereignty of the states is to be maintained, the representatives must be drawn immediately from the states, not from the people. And we have no power to vary the idea of equal sovereignty. The small states insist on equality in Congress. Tiny Delaware's 37,000 citizens equal with Pennsylvania's 360,000. The larger states won't proportionate representation. The greater the population, the more representatives in Congress. Patterson shifted his argument against the large states from principle to pocketbook. The Virginia plan would have 270 members of Congress, coming at least once a year from the most distant parts, as well as the most central parts. In the present deranged state

of our finances, can so expensive a system be seriously thought of? It is being thought of and has this convention deeply split. After today's session, Delaware's James Dickinson, Warren James Madison, the architect of the Virginia plan, not to trifle with the small states. You see the consequence of pushing things too far. Some of the small states are friends to a good national government, but we would soon submit to a foreign power that submit to be deprived of an equality of suffrage, and thereby be thrown under the domination of the large states. So the lines have been drawn in this hall, and no reprieve is in sight from the tensions. The small states are now openly hitting that if they don't get their equal vote in the new government, there may be no union at all. I'm Bill Moyers. It's hot here in Philadelphia and getting hotter, especially in this room where the federal

convention meets every day. Some of these delegates are, shall we say, corpulant men, they're fat, and they sweat, which doesn't make it any more pleasant in here. The doors are closed to keep the preceding secret, and the windows are closed to keep out Philadelphia's notorious stinging flies. But I doubt a mountain breeze could cool the tempers in this room. The convention is just like the current heat wave. It goes on and on with no relief. Yesterday we thought there'd finally been a breakthrough. After three weeks of debate, first on the plan proposed by Virginia for a strong new government, then on an alternative proposed by New Jersey, the delegates voted to support the Virginia plan. All well and good, except none of this debate was for keeps. The delegates had been meeting as a committee of the whole. That's a parliamentary device that allows informal discussion binding on no one. This morning, the convention went back into formal session. George Washington, who'd been sitting out here with the delegates, returned to his place up there as president of the convention.

The first to speak today was Oliver Ellsworth, a shrewd country lawyer from Connecticut. He noted that many of the delegates were still unhappy about the strong national government call for in the Virginia plan, and he had a shrewd country lawyer solution. I propose and therefore move to expunge the word national. Just drop the word. Don't call it the national government. Call it the government of the United States. A small change, but it was meant to appease the forces that don't want a central government ruled by the big states. Well it didn't appease John Lansing of New York. I don't care what you call it. He said, this convention has no business creating a new form of government. George Mason of Virginia had heard enough. Hadn't they spent three weeks resolving this very issue? I did not expect this point would have to be re-agitated, but it seems everything that has come before is being re-agitated. Luther Martin, an enemy of the Virginia plan and a man not noted for

brevity, rose to speak. I know that government must be supported, but if one form of government is incompatible with the other, I would support the state government at the expense of the Union. Martin and the other delegates from the small states don't really have the numbers to win their fight, but they do have the ability to irritate, just like those pesky flies. I'm Bill Moyers. How much should congressmen be paid and who should pay them? As usual behind the routine carpentry of government lay some fascinating questions of political philosophy. Oliver L's worth of Connecticut started things off today. Each state should decide how much to pay its own national representatives. The states are very different in their style of living. What would be deemed a reasonable compensation in some states, in others, would be very unpopular. But Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts said all congressmen should

receive the same salary and that congress can be trusted to set its own pay level. I wish not to refer the matter to the state legislatures who are always pairing down salaries in such a manner, keep out of office men most capable. Let the national legislature provide for their own wages from time to time. It was James Madison of Virginia who got to the philosophical heart of the matter. If congressmen are paid by their individual states, they will be dependent on those states. Madison thought this improper. Allowing congress to pay itself might be even worse. The members of the legislature are much too interested to ascertain their own compensation. It would be indecent to put their hands into the public purse for the sake of their own pockets. So Madison offered an alternative. Fix a specific salary for congressmen, right into the Constitution, and index it to some commodity-like wheat to protect against price fluctuations. The other delegates didn't even consider it. They couldn't agree on anything about compensation

for congress today except that it should be adequate. The delegates considered another question today. Should there be a minimum age to serve in the lower house of congress? George Mason of Virginia said yes. Congressmen should be at least 25. He admitted that even his own political opinions at age 21 were simply too crude to merit national influence. James Wilson of Pennsylvania argued against any minimum age. I am against a bridge in the rights of election in any shape. The motion tends to damp the efforts of genius and laudable ambition. Many instances might be mentioned of signal services rendered in high stations to the public before the age of 25. Wilson lost that argument. The convention voted for the minimum age of 25. It may be just a coincidence, but the youngest man in this hall is 26. They haven't disqualified themselves from anything. I'm Bill Moyers. As if a Philadelphia heatwave isn't enough, this convention was today saturated by a gust

of hot air from one of its own members. The windbag in question is Luther Martin, the Attorney General of Maryland. Martin arrived at the convention just three weeks ago, but he has quickly earned a place as its least favorite son. His speech today was variously described as diffuse, fatiguing, and disgusting. He covered much of the same territory that was debated many days ago and put aside. If Martin's rambling discourse had a central theme, it was that the small states are being trampled on. He argued that the convention has no authority to alter the present system of government, which gives each state one vote in Congress. And he tried to discredit the Virginia plan, which calls for representation based on a state's population. The propositions on the table are a system of slavery for ten states. Unequal confederacies can never produce good effects. The cornerstone of a federal government is a quality of votes. States may surrender this right, but if they do, their liberties are lost. If I err on

this point, it is the error of the head, not of the heart. The other delegates were questioning Martin's head or heart just as long as his speech went on for more than three hours before he finally gave in to exhaustion. Not that anyone was totally surprised. Luther Martin is known as the wild man of this convention, and he's rumored to have a, well, a fondness for the bottle, especially when there's brandy in it. That hasn't prevented him from achieving a reputation as a first-class lawyer. There are stories of Martin arriving late in the courtroom after one of his mini-binges, taking a nip from his flask and proceeding to argue brilliantly and successfully. No one here claims Martin is a stupid man. He did graduate first in his Princeton class, only that he's insufferable. He proved it today. I would not trust a government organized on the reported plan for all the slaves of Carolina or the horses and oxen of Massachusetts. I would rather see partial confederacies take place than the plan on the table.

With his speech today, Luther Martin emerged as one of the leading spokesmen for the small states and their demand for equal representation. But rather than persuade anyone by his arguments, he served only to alienate the large states even further. With friends like Luther Martin, the small states don't need, well, you know the rest. I'm Bill Moyers. You of the large states say you will never hurt or injure the lesser states. I do not gentlemen trust you. That's gunning Bedford of Delaware. The object of his fury is the proposal of the large states that their size should give them greater power in any new government approved by this convention. Carry through with it, he said, and see what happens. If you possess the power, the abuse of it could not be checked, and what then would prevent you from exercising it to our destruction. Sooner than be ruined, there are foreign powers that will take us by the hand. If we solemnly renounce your new project, what will be

the consequence? You will annihilate your federal government and ruin must stare you in the face. Gunning Bedford today, there to admit what until now has been unspoken. The small states will leave this convention if their power and influence are diminished in new government. And if they leave the convention, they could leave the union. Every man in this room knows what that means, but Elbridge Gary of Massachusetts said it for them. If we do not come to some agreement among ourselves, some foreign sword will probably do the work for us. But there is no agreement. The convention is deadlocked, stuck. Hours, days of sweaty argument have not solved the great question. Should the small states be equal in Congress? One state, one vote. No, say the large states, trust us to be fair. But the small states would just as soon trust in the goodness of Julius Caesar as Virginia or Pennsylvania. The words flew hard today and hit their target.

I make this proposal not because I belong to a large state, but in order to pull down a rotten house. The plan on the table is an amphibious monster, and it will never be received by the people. Nothing could be more preposterous or absurd than to sacrifice the rights of individual men to the rights of the states. My mind is prepared for every event, rather than to sit down under a government founded in a vicious principle of representation. No wonder the gloom in this hall when the afternoon ended. No wonder the pessimism tonight. Both the small states and the large know someone's got to compromise, but neither side is willing to make the first sacrifice. Ruin is staring this convention in the face. Ruin right here and now. I'm Bill Moyers. There was a showdown at this convention today with all the tension of a Shakespearean drama.

The crucial question came to a vote in the statehouse again this morning. Should the larger states have greater representation in Congress, after the deadlock and fury of last week, the outcome seemed inevitable. The big states would ram their plan through, the small ones would walk out an anger, and the hopes for a new government would go with them. But in true Shakespearean fashion, no one reckoned on the invisible hand of Caprice writing the last act. Three delegates didn't show up, another changed his mind, and the vote ended in a flat-footed tie. Nobody won, nobody lost, and nobody walked out. That tie vote made clear what hours of stubborn argument would not. No one can dictate the terms here. The states really will have to compromise. Even that disputatious Harvard man, Elbridge Geary, can see the handwriting now. Something must be done, or we shall disappoint not only America but the whole world. We must make concessions on both sides.

Here's how it happened. Most of the states voted as expected, Connecticut, four equality in Congress, Pennsylvania against. When Georgia came to cash the final vote, the states were split five to five. Georgia would cash the tie-breaking vote. Until now Georgia has been siding with the large states, but two of her four delegates were absent today. The third has voted with the large states all along and were sure to stand firm. This left the fourth Georgia delegate, a lawyer named Abraham Baldwin, with the decisive vote. He's been supporting the big states too, but today he switched, and by switching he canceled out the other Georgians vote, leaving the final decision still deadlocked five states to five. What did he do it? Was it the pull of his roots? Baldwin was born in Little Connecticut and only came to Georgia three years ago, perhaps his affections linger up north. Or perhaps this former preacher knew the convention was doomed unless somebody forced it to face reality.

He did just that. There set Washington, Franklin, Madison, all of them helpless. It took a man trained at Yale who moved to the wiles of Georgia who traded the Bible for the bar. It took Abraham Baldwin to give this convention a second chance. I'm Bill Moyers. There is something in the wind. The delegates have returned from two days off knowing they must compromise or fail. So they resorted today to an old trick of political debate. If you can't find the answer, change the question. The question had been, what's the best government we can make? This week it's become what's the most acceptable government we can get. And the committee appointed last Monday already has an answer. If the small states insist on equality in Congress and the large ones demand a greater voice to represent their greater numbers, why not give them both some of what they want? Give each state an equal

vote in the Senate and let the larger states have more votes in the House of Representatives. Not all the delegates are buying yet. James Madison, James Wilson, Hoover Nomaris, men who drew up the first plan for a new government say there can be no substitute for principle. And the principle to them is clear, the majority ought to rule. There are, after all, more people living in the large states than the small. Therefore, the small ought to submit to simple justice or so say the delegates from the large states. Madison took the floor to argue for the large states. We are driven to an unhappy dilemma. Two-thirds of the inhabitants of the Union are to please the remaining one-third by sacrificing their essential rights. We ought to pursue a plan which will be espoused and supported by the enlightened and impartial part of America. The small states respond that justice is more than counting numbers. Either we come into the new government as equals, one state, one vote, or we may not come at all. Such hints, threats, have begun to take effect. Some of the large state delegates now say

that perhaps the first of all principles is survival, the survival of Union. Albert's Gary of Massachusetts said as much today and this convention listened. I have very material objections to the report. But if no compromise should take place, that will be the consequence. I foresee a cessation. The mood here is changing. They're beginning to tell themselves if we keep worrying about justice for all, we'll end up with a government for none. It would not be the first or last time Americans discover the virtue of compromise. If men of principle are the true heroes of humanity, as some notable delegates believe, flexible and supple men, men who trade horses and votes are the true heroes of political conventions. I'm Bill Moyers. Here's an exercise in the politics of this convention. Imagine yourself a delegate from Delaware, the smallest of the states here. Listen to the convention, haggle over how many

representatives each state will have in the lower house of Congress. Today's proposal, eight from Massachusetts, eight for Pennsylvania, your northern neighbor, ten for Virginia just to the west for your state one. Under this new system, it looks as if the lower house will have members chosen on the basis of population. That means your state, Delaware, will have to stand on a single toe while Virginia and the other big states have two feet to plant firmly on the ground. Delaware did see this coming. She sent her delegates off to the convention with strict instructions, never agreed to anything that would change the present system of one state, one vote. And they've done their best to honor that commandment. Remember Gunning Bedford and his threat to seek a foreign alliance rather than knuckle under to the big states. And at another point, George Reed came up with an idea only a tiny state could love. He suggested doing away with state boundaries altogether. The people at large are wrongly suspected of being averse to a general government. A

state government must sooner or later end. And therefore, we must make the national government as perfect as possible. A few of the small state delegates have even suggested that the state lines might be erased and thirteen new boundaries are on making each state equal. The big states obviously scoffed at the idea. So why isn't Delaware walking out in protest? Two reasons. There's the compromise, of course. If it passes, each state will have an equal vote in the Senate, the upper house. Furthermore, the arguments here are beginning actually to open some minds. Some of the delegates from Delaware and the other small states beginning to realize that a strong national government could be their best protection against any big state that tries to be a bully. After all, in the colonial days, little Delaware was attached to New York and appended to Pennsylvania. Even now, she has to depend on other states to give her access to ports and trade routes if they choose to. So Delaware is deciding to be practical. She's preparing to settle for a mere

toehold in the lower house as long as equality in the Senate and a vigilant national government can keep Virginia's big feet under Virginia's own table. I'm Bill Moyers. It's a subject this convention would rather avoid, but it can't. Slavery. Today, the delegates begin to bathe on a touchy question. When it comes to representation in Congress, how should slaves be counted? Or should they be counted at all? Right now, in 1787, there are six to seven hundred thousand slaves in this country, one in five Americans. They live in nearly every state, north and south alike, or implicated in the system. The harbors of the north are filled with Yankee ships carrying Yankee rum to trade for African slaves. Slaves work as farmers and craftsmen and servants in New England and the Middle States. In the south,

they clear the swamps and cultivate the cross. At least sixteen of the delegates to this convention own slaves. Some acknowledge it as an odious practice. They're trouble living with it, but are not prepared to live without it. The contradiction mocks them, once they're very steps. Eleven years ago, when Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, he had first included slavery in that long list of grievances directed at King George III. The King of England kept an open market where men are bought and sold, violating the sacred rights of life and liberty. But those words cut too close to home. After all, Jefferson himself is a slave owner. So in the final version of the Declaration, all references to slavery were dropped. Now the issue faces these men again. Then they simply looked the other way. They were silent. Now they will give it another name. One of the proposals on the table here

says, representation will be determined by the number of free white men and three fifths of other persons. It appears the new constitution of America will actually protect slavery. The question is, how long will the conscience of America tolerate it? The story is told of a revolutionary soldier, a patriot named Inus Reeves, who came upon a slave auction in North Carolina near the end of the war. He saw men, women and children in chains on those auction blocks, and he wondered, is this liberty? Is this the land of liberty I've been fighting for these six years? It is, except for those other persons. I'm Bill Moyers. Some of the speeches here this week would surprise anyone hearing only parts of them. Two of the biggest slaveholders in South Carolina argued that slaves should be considered the

equal of free men. Here's Charles Koch's worth pinkney. I insist that blacks be included in the rule of representation equal with whites. And Pierce Butler. A slave in South Carolina is just as productive and valuable as a free man and Massachusetts. And consequently, an equal representation ought to be allowed for them in any government. But there's a catch. Pinkney and Butler are not saying slaves should have the same rights as free men. They aren't saying slaves should vote or anything like that. They're saying slaves are valuable, valuable property and should be counted for the purpose of increasing a state's influence in Congress. There's the motive. If the convention agrees to proportional representation in the new Congress, then the more people a state has, the more representatives it gets. South Carolina, like every other state here, wants all the power it can get. So it wants every one of its slaves counted. That doesn't sit well with the delegates from the states

with fewer slaves. Here's William Patterson and New Jersey. New Jersey is against it. I can regard slaves in no light but as property. They have no personal liberty, no faculty for acquiring property. They are themselves property and entirely at the will of the master. And Albert's Gary of Massachusetts. Any ought not to be the rule of representation. Why should the blacks who are property in the south be counted any more than the horses and cattle of the north? And Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania said the people of his state would revolt if they were put on an equal footing with slaves. So the convention agreed to a compromise. Count only three-fifths of the slaves for the purpose of representation. William Davy said that's the least North Carolina would accept anything less and they'd walk out of this convention. That's what everyone fears, a walk out of the southern states. So the compromise prevailed and this is the formula. The number of white inhabitants and three-fifths of every other

description. Every other description. When it comes to recording their decision for all the world to see, these men still cannot bring themselves to use the word slave. I'm Bill Moyers. This is the United States today, 1787. 13 states, some four million people, spread down the Atlantic coast between the sea and the mountains. Here's what these delegates are wrestling with. Right now most of the population is in the north. The three biggest cities are there. Philadelphia alone has more people than all of Georgia. So as things stand right now, the states north of Maryland will have 35 representatives in the new Congress and the south will have 30. But the south will attract settlers by the thousands. Will the north then hand over power gracefully? George Mason of Virginia doesn't think so. From the nature of man, we may be sure that those who have power in their hands will not

give it up. If the southern states therefore should have three-quarters of the people of America within their limits, the northern will hold fast the majority of representatives. One-quarter will govern the three-quarters. And then there's the west. There's an empire of land out there and land is the basis of power. Everyone knows this is where the American future lies. It will fill up two. Rumors says with rowdy barbarians who shoot two grizzly bears each before breakfast. North and south might not agree on much at this convention, but they're both afraid of what will happen when Congress is eventually invaded by rough and uncivilized men wearing coonskin caps and muddy moccasins. Hoover de Maris at Pennsylvania foresees the worst. The west would not be able to furnish men equally enlightened to share in the administration of our common interests. The busy haunts of men, not the remote wilderness, is the proper school of political talents. If the western

people get the power into their hands, they will ruin the Atlantic interests. So over in the state house this week, they've been debating how and when to measure population and power. After a lot of haggling, they've agreed. There will be a census taken every 15 years and Congress will be reapportioned according to the results. Power will be shared. The western states will be treated equally. After all, says Roger Sherman of Connecticut, we're providing for our children and our grandchildren who will as likely be citizens of new western states as the old states. It's settled. As future Americans track the sun, the nation's destiny will follow. I'm Bill Moyers. This was the telling day. Everyone of the convention knew it. For weeks they've been debating the issue should the small states have equality in the Senate with the large. The last time the vote came up, it ended in a time. Today they would have vote again on this compromise.

Two members in the Senate for each state and representation according to population in the house. More than a few delegates have said they'd pack up and go home if the issue wasn't settled immediately. So the role was called for the compromise or against. Connecticut. I. South Carolina. Nate. Pennsylvania. Nate. Delaware. I. The final count. Five states I. Four states nay and one divided. The compromise passed. The small states won. Equality in the Senate now gives them the power to offset the greater numbers possessed by the large states in the house. The large states are dejected. This is not what they wanted, not what they expected. They have the larger population by far and they fear a tyranny of the minority over them. Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia was so angry he came close to destroying this convention with a rash act. No sooner were the votes counted than he asked for another chance. I wish the convention might adjourn but

the large states might consider the proper steps to be taken in the present solemn crisis. But did Randolph mean an adjournment for the day or for some indefinite period of time? If these men were to adjourn and go home, it's doubtful they could ever assemble again. However he meant, his bluff was called by William Patterson of New Jersey, who was equally angry at this attempt to derail the compromise. I think with Mr. Randolph that it is high time for the convention to adjourn that the rule of secrecy ought to be rescinded and that our constituents should be consulted. Randolph realized he had put this convention at risk. He quickly said he had been misinterpreted that he only meant an adjournment until tomorrow. This was finally agreed to and the delegates went out to their taverns and ends. The vote for the compromise stands. To many, today's vote was the critical moment for this convention. The question of representation in Congress came close to destroying any chance of forming a new government. But now it's been settled once and for all by today's compromise. The

delegates have chosen. Half a loaf is better than half a union. I'm Bill Moyers. Right now the world at large has no idea what's going on at this federal convention. From the start the delegates have kept their word. No secrets have leaked. But there is a record of what's happening. An extraordinary record actually kept on extraordinary man James Madison of Virginia. He set out from the very beginning to record these proceedings in detail. I chose a seat in front. In this favorable position I noted in terms legible what was read from the chair or spoken by the members. I was not absent a single day. No more than a casual fraction of an hour and any day so that I could not have lost a single speech unless a very short one. It's a good thing James Madison took on this burden. The official secretary of the convention, Major William Jackson, was just not up to the

task. Major Jackson's recorded notes are as skimpy as chicken tracks. Madison on the other hand is recording the entire debate. Even the remarks uncomplominary to Mr. M. as he calls himself in his notes. That's characteristic of James Madison. He's as modest as he is accomplished. Only 36 years old he's already served three years in Congress. More than any other man Madison orchestrated the event leading to this convention. He wrote most of the Virginia plan. That is the blueprint the delegates are now working on. And it's Madison who knows the soul and story of mankind so well he insists that the new American system must include checks and balances. If men were angels he will say no government would be necessary. Men are not angels so this convention struggles with the challenge he poses to give a government enough power without giving it too much. If it succeeds no one will deserve more credit than the man who sits here. His mind and his pen and such harmony.

Studiest temperate general. He said still to be hurting from the last five years ago of his heart's great love. She was a pretty 16 year old named Kitty Floyd. Madison was about to leave for the wedding in New York when he received her letter breaking the engagement so she could marry a young medical student. Madison has written his friend Thomas Jefferson about his pain but apparently no one else. He is as discreet about his private life as he is diligent about this convention. An extraordinary man James Madison. I am Bill Moyers. With all the give and take with all the debates over detail it's easy to forget what's remarkable about this convention in the first place. The remarkable thing is that it's happening at all. Remember this nation is to be a republic. These delegates are striving to create a government chosen by the people. In 1787 that's practically unheard of. Look at Europe,

the mother of America. The example these men know best. Monarchs reign across the continent. Monarchs accountable to no one. America's minister to France Thomas Jefferson has moved among them. He will never forget them. While in Europe I often amuse myself with contemplating the characters of the then reigning sovereigns. Louis XVI was a fool. The king of Spain was a fool. The queen of Portugal was an idiot by nature. The king of Prussia was a mere hog in body as well as in mind. Gustavus of Sweden and Joseph of Austria were really crazy. Yet against the cruelty of these royal fools the people have no recourse except for Great Britain there are no popular branches of government to check the monarch's will and the will of most is for more. More power, more wealth, more glory. To get these they make love or war or both. Royal marriages weave dynasties. Royal wars are fought for the sake

of King the Gain. At home they wage a different kind of war against their own people. Everywhere Jefferson looks he sees despair, suffering and injustice. Nine-tenths of European mankind he says. Nine-tenths are poor and enslaved so that one-tenth can live in luxury. It is that tragic experience the men at this convention want to avoid as they try to steer a course between monarchy and anarchy. Otherwise George Washington could crown himself Emperor and marry the daughter of Mury Antoinette. That's Europe's way. Here a handful of men meet day after day to create a government accountable to its citizens resistant to tyranny and open to change. This new little republic is an exception today. The old world knows it and sends a stream of visitors to America to listen, inquire and observe. There is a new spirit of politics in the air. They come here to get a whiff of it. I'm Bill Moyers.

The men at this convention are right now inventing the president of the United States and they're having a hard time of it. They are sure what kind of executive they want for this new government they're creating. Mainly they know what they don't want. They don't want another monarch like King George III known around here as the royal brood of Britain. And they don't want anyone like the governors the states created for themselves when they declared their independence. That was the other extreme. Governors dominated by the legislatures with little more than the duties of a clerk. Instead these delegates are searching for some middle ground and that's not easy to find. Even James Madison, a man with a very clear vision of what the new American government ought to be, even James Madison is vague about the office of president. He wrote about that before this convention even began. I have scarcely ventured as yet to form my own opinion either of the manner in which the

executive ought to be constituted or of the authorities in which it ought to be clothed. So this week the delegates are trying to reach some consensus on just what the office of president should look like. On some questions there's general agreement. The national executive shall consist of a single person. I. I. I. But other issues are proving much harder to decide. For example, who should choose the president? This is something these men have argued about before and they'll continue to argue about it. Here's Gouverneau Morris of Pennsylvania. The executive ought to be elected by the people at large. They will doubtless choose a man of distinguished character. If the legislature elects, it will be the work of intrigue. It will be like the election of a pope. But Roger Sherman of Connecticut thinks letting the people choose the president is a terrible idea. The people will never be sufficiently informed and besides they will never give a majority of

votes to any one man. They will generally vote for some man of their own state. George Mason of Virginia agreed and came up with a unique analogy. Leaving the choice of chief magistrate to the people is as unnatural as leaving a trial of colors to a blind man. So who will choose the chief executive? As of today, the state legislatures will appoint electors and they will choose the president by a complex tricky process. But it's pretty clear these delegates are still groping on this one. The office of president won't be invented in a day. I'm Bill Moyers. What if the president of the United States turns out to be a scoundrel or a thief or worse? Should he be impeachable? That was the question today as the delegates to this convention continue to discuss the presidency. Gouverneau Morris of Pennsylvania said the president should never be removed from office. If he's bad enough, he just won't be reelected. And besides,

who will do the impeaching? Charles Pinkney of South Carolina agreed. I do not see the necessity of impeachments. I am sure they ought not to issue from the legislature who would hold them as a ride over the executive and destroy his independence. Just about everyone else thought otherwise, their arguments were filled with skepticism of human behavior and an awareness that the president will be a mere human. Just listen to their fears. Here's James Madison. He might lose his capacity after his appointment. He might pervert his administration into a scheme of oppression. He might betray his trust to foreign powers. Fellow Virginia, George Mason. No point is of more importance than the right of impeachment. Shall any man be above justice? Above all, that man who can commit the most extensive injustice? And finally, the Obridge Gary of Massachusetts, who also are good in favor of impeachment.

A good magistrate will not fear them. A bad one ought to be kept in fear of them. I hope the maxim will never be adopted here that the chief magistrate can do no wrong. Then Governor Morris took the floor again to announce a change of heart. He had argued against impeachment, but the debate convinced him he was wrong. I now sense the necessity of impeachments. The magistrate is not the king. The people are the king. Frankly, it's surprising they took so long to decide that a rogue in the presidency should be thrown out. These men know the history of colonial governors, some of whom feathered their own nest with bribes or sold appointments or land grants. Others were downright weird, like the governor of New York who was rumored to be a transvestite and reportedly posed for a portrait in his dress. Could the president of the United States be that weird? Could the president turn out to be a crook? These men thought it over and decided to take no chances.

I'm Bill Moyers. These delegates are having a hard time of it trying to figure out how the president of the United States should be elected. Should the people decide? Should the Congress decide? They can't decide. Now there's even been a suggestion to leave it partially to chance. James Wilson of Pennsylvania came up with the idea, why not choose electors by lot from among the members of Congress and let them pick the president. Suppose there are 90 people in the legislature put in 90 wooden balls. A small number of those balls will be gilded. Those who draw the gilded balls will be the electors. But Elbridge Geary of Massachusetts said wait just a minute. That is committing too much to chance. If the lot should fall on a set of unworthy men, an unworthy executive would be saddled on the country. And another Massachusetts delegate,

Rufus King, was just a skeptical. The lot might fall on a majority from the same state, which would ensure election of a man from that state. We ought to be governed by reason and not by chance. Governor Morris of Pennsylvania said the proposal for a lottery might seem far fetched at first, but better chance should decide than entry. Why all the agitation? Well, this country has never had a president before, so these men agree on the need for a strong chief executive, but don't know how to pick him. They don't quite trust the people to choose a president directly. It's too easy for demagogues to whip up popular passions. And if the legislature makes this election, which house will decide? Or will both? And won't there be so much horse trading between them that the president will wind up a mere tool of the factions that got in the job? These are difficult questions, and there are no easy answers. The delegates can't even agree on how many years the president should serve. 11 years. 15 years. 20 years.

Before the debate on the presidency is over, they will take 60 votes and will change their minds almost as often. Outside the state house, there are rumors that the convention intends to establish a monarchy. There's even some muttering inside the convention that maybe a king wouldn't be so bad after all. This only six years after they threw out George III. It may have been easier to dispose of that king than find a way to replace him. I'm Bill Moyers. You can understand why the delegates to this federal convention are tied in knots over the role of the president when you consider this fact. Every one of these men grew up the subject of a king. So the monarchy is the model they have when they debate the presidency. Take the question that came up again today. Should the president be eligible for re-election to more than one term? Or would that tempting to think the office was permanently his, just like a monarch?

George Mason of Virginia was emphatic. A second election ought to be absolutely prohibited. I hold it as an essential point at the very palladium of civil liberty that the executive should at fixed periods return to that mass from which he was first taken in order that he may feel and respect those rights and interests. But if the president can't be re-elected, there's a danger that the most capable men might be turned out of office simply because their time is up. So James Wilson, who believes the people should decide these things, thinks there should be no restriction whatsoever on how many terms the president can serve. If the executive should come into office at 35 years of age and his continuum should be fixed at 15 years, then at the age of 50, in the very prime of life, and with all the aid of experience, he must be cast aside like a useless hulk. And Guvenomars of Pennsylvania raised another point. If the president is ineligible for a second

term, he might be tempted into corruption. Ineligibility tends to destroy the motive for good behavior, the hope of being rewarded by a reappointment. It is saying to him, make hay while the sun shines. That warning was ignored. The convention voted once again to limit the president to a single seven-year term. But remember, the delegates could change their minds yet again before their work is finished. And they're beginning to think seriously about when that might be. Tomorrow, a special five-band committee will start writing the first draft of a new constitution. It's not that all the details have been worked out far from it, but they want to put down on paper what they have agreed on. The committee has ten days before it reports. In the meantime, the convention will adjourn. This will be the first real holiday these delegates have had since they began their work two months ago. General Washington, for one, intends to spend some of the holiday, trout fishing. That's about the only thing that can be done this summer without a committee. I'm Bill Moyers.

What is an American anyway and what is America going to be? Cut through all the debate of this convention and those two questions of the heart of the matter. Right now, the delegates are on a recess, but before they began their holiday, Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania put things very bluntly. He said there is something sorely lacking in the proposals already before the convention. Among the many provisions which might have been urged, I see none for supporting the dignity and splendor of the American Empire. Note, the American Empire, not Virginia's Empire or Maryland, the American Empire. In other words, Morris is asking, do we think big and see a single American people or do we let local and petty jealousies tie us down forever? If our ambitions are great, Morris says, then we will need a supreme national government to act boldly for all.

The small states must not be able to frustrate the grand design. They must not become a ball and chain around the ankles of this new young giant. If they put their own interest above the nation, Morris argues, they will turn Congress into a mere whisp of straw and what can a whisp of straw do for a mighty nation. Morris reminded the convention that the states are but an invention of circumstance. They will once just a part of Britain, and if they ceased to exist altogether, America would remain. What if all the charters and constitutions of the states were thrown into the fire? Now, and all their demagogues into the ocean, what would it be to the happiness of America? There you have it. Are we to be the people of this state or that state or citizens of America? Earlier in the convention, James Wilson of Pennsylvania recalled the spirit of 1776. We must remember the language with which we began the revolution. Virginia is no more. Pennsylvania is no more. We are now one nation of brethren and must bury all local interests and distinctions.

Elegant? Yes. Persuasive, not yet. The politics, customs and laws of each of the 13 states are too deeply rooted in local affections. My country? My country is Virginia. My country is Maryland. My country is Carolina. No, here in 1787, America, fully a nation exists in the imagination only. I'm Bill Moyers. So far, William Blount of North Carolina has not set a word at this convention, but for a man of few words, he's no slouch when it comes to action. One of the big questions facing these delegates is what to do about the unsettled western lands, though he keeps it to himself. Blount has his own answer. He's buying it. Tens of thousands of acres of it. And in the process, he employed bribery, forgery and fraud. There is a paradise of opportunity out there.

This vast wilderness stretching from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River is a wealth of rich soil, abundant rivers and beautiful forests, with fish and game despair and plenty of elbow room for independence. It's inspiring dreams of wealth and ease and also greed, deceit and sheer stupidity. Just about everyone wants a piece of the west. Some are so dazzled by the prospect of getting rich. They spend thousands of dollars. They don't even have. James Wilson, the delegate from Pennsylvania, for example, he's over his head, his speculation out west, and that's both sad and significant, given the man's intellect and his promise as a leader in the new government. Other delegates have built paper fortunes out west, own speculation and hope. Some are perfectly legitimate. George Washington and Benjamin Franklin are investors in land. Some are more calculated. Knowing the value of western land will be increased if a strong national government builds roads

and canals to the frontier and sends militia to protect its development. William Blount, on the other hand, is crass in his methods. So far as he's concerned, you can never be too rich, and nothing should be allowed to stop you. If one law limits how much land a person can buy, well, he invents a dozen people on paper, all of whom want to buy land next to his. If another law requires a land commissioner to approve a deal, Blount will cut him into the profits. This is how Blount wrote to one of them, a public servant, remember. In order that we may both obtain our purposes, it is necessary that our action tend to our mutual advantage. There's an old proverb which says, make hay while the sun shines. I wish you an agreeable journey and great plenty of Chikamaga squaws. An old story in a new land. The problem of the Great American West in 1787 is the problem of every garden of Eden. There are snakes in it. I'm Bill Moyers.

The convention is in recess and some of the delegates have gone home for a brief visit with their families. We can only guess what they have to say to their wives about the work here. In fact, women have no voice in this convention and will have none in the new constitution. They have duties, not rights, and the men who write the laws prefer to keep it that way. Oliver Ellsworth is a delegate to this convention. When he was a judge in Connecticut, he once ruled that a woman should not have the power to make wills because the government is not placed in her hands and it would only generate endless teasing and discord. The prejudice of the day is that all a woman needs to know is how to make a shirt and a pudding. Prejudice is blind, of course. Women in 1787 exhibit character and industry equal to men and have through colonial days. There were soldiers to fight the Revolutionary War because the women who stayed behind kept the family farms and mills running at great personal risk. Just last year, a widow in New Jersey

named Rachel Wells petitioned Congress with this reminder. I have done as much to carry on the war as many that now sit at the helm of government and no notice is taken of me. Now, gentlemen, is this liberty? And Abigail Adams of the Great Boston family has a similar point. Patriotism in the female sex is all the more virtuous because we are excluded from honors and offices, deprived of a voice in legislation, and obliged to submit to those laws which are imposed on us. Yet throughout the country women are vital to its life. They run farms, stores, printing presses, and consider Eliza Lucas Pintney of South Carolina. She took over her father's plantations near Charleston when she was 17. Now she celebrated on two continents as an agronomist. It was she who turned indigo into a mass-produced crop in this country. Eliza Pintney is also the mother of four children. One of them, Charles Coatesworth Pintney,

is a delegate to this convention. Think about it. He can vote, she cannot. He can hold office, she cannot. He can help write the Constitution, she cannot. Like all the women of 1787, Eliza Pintney gives the cause of freedom, its sons, soldiers, and statesmen, but she cannot be present at the birth of a nation. I'm Bill Moyers. Many weeks ago this convention agreed on a very important issue. The House of Representatives will be elected by the people, but by which people should only the rich be allowed to vote. In effect, that's what Hoover de Maris of Pennsylvania suggested today. He moved that only property owners should be eligible to vote. Anyone else doesn't deserve that right. Give the votes to the people who have no property, and they will sell them to the rich, who will be able to buy them. The time is not too distant. When this country will abound

with merchants and manufacturers who will receive their bread from their employers, will such men be the secure and faithful guardians of liberty? If that sounds harsh, just listen to John Dickinson of Delaware. We are safe by trusting the owners of the soil. They are the best guardians of liberty and unnecessary defense against the dangerous influence of those multitudes without property and without principle. And Hoover de Maris again. Children do not vote. Why? Because they lack prudence, because they have no will of their own. The ignorance and the dependence can be as little trusted with the public interest. Many of these men are simply following the example they know best, that of England. Their only landowners can vote for Parliament. But George Mason of Virginia suggested they're becoming too dependent on the British example. We view things too much through a British medium. The true idea is that every man with a permanent interest in the society

ought to share in all its rights and privileges. Then Benjamin Franklin took the floor. The old man always argues for the common folk and the day was no exception. In time of war, a country owes much to the lower class of citizens. Our late war was an instance of what they could suffer and perform. If denied, the right of suffrage, it would debase their spirit and detach them from the interest of the country. Finally, these delegates voted against the idea that only property owners should be permitted to vote. Instead, they decided to leave voting right up to the individual states. There's the catch. Most of the states already have some kind of property qualification of their own. So right now, in 1787, voting will for the most part be limited to white males, white males with property. I'm Bill Mortars. Governor Morris broke the unwritten rule today. Up until now, the word slavery was a signal

everyone at this convention understood. Be careful. Don't tear anything apart. Talk about numbers. Talk about representation. But whatever you do, don't talk about morality. Today, for a little while, Governor Morris of Pennsylvania did. Slavery is an aferious institution. It is the curse of heaven on the states where it prevails. Every step you take through the great regions of slaves presents a desert increasing with the increasing proportion of these wretched beings. Morris' speech was a surprise attack. The delegates weren't even planning to discuss slavery today. They've already agreed on the three-fifth compromise. A state is entitled to representation in Congress based on its white population plus three-fifths of its slaves. Today, they were supposed to figure out the number of representatives for each state. But Morris saw a chance to turn the numbers issue into a moral issue and he took it, arguing that representation should be based on the number of free citizens only. The inhabitant of Georgia and South Carolina, who goes to Africa and

in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections, damns them to the most cruel bondages. So they have more votes in a government instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind. Morris has things on his mind other than the evil of slavery. He's angry that the South is getting representation for more than half its slaves. But he's also taking a longer view than most of his fellow delegates. He's thinking about what the compromise will say about the United States to future generations. I would sooner submit myself to a tax for paying for all the Negroes in the United States than saddle posterity with such a constitution. Governor Morris is a spell-binding order. One fellow delegate says that when he speaks, he charms, captivates, and leads away the senses of all who hear him. Well, today his auditory charm practically no one. Slavery is nefarious. Many delegates agree to that,

but it's also a fact of life for half this country. And right now, morality is too divisive an issue for these delegates. They're trying to fashion a government both halves of the nation will accept. So when Morris broke the unwritten rule, the convention did the only practical thing. It refused to listen. I'm Bill Morris. Should foreigners be allowed to serve in Congress, and in America today, 1787, just what is a foreigner anyway? Those were two of the questions the delegates at this convention tried to answer today. They were discussing who should be eligible to serve as a senator or representative. Governor Morris of Pennsylvania started things off. He thought that to be a senator, someone should be a citizen for at least 14 years. After all, Morris said it takes seven years to apprentice as a shoemaker. Pierce Butler, South Carolina, who came to America at age 21 as an officer in the British Army, thought that a reasonable

restriction. Foreigners, without long residents here, bring with them ideas of government so distinct from ours that in every point of view, they are dangerous. If I myself had been called into public service within a short time after coming to America, my foreign opinions would have rendered me an improper agent in public affairs. But James Madison said 14 years is far too long. Such a long wait would discourage many desirable people from coming to America. Governor Morris was still not convinced. Yes, he said we should encourage foreigners to come here, but that doesn't mean we should immediately allow them in our government. And Morris found, as usual, a unique way to make his point. There is a moderation in all things. It is said that some tribes of Indians carried their hospitality so far as to offer to strangers their wives and daughters. I would admit them to my house. I would invite them to my table, but I would not go so far as to bed them with my wife. It is true we invited the oppressed to come and find asylum in

America. We invited them to come and worship in our temple. But we never invited them to become priests at our altar. All this touched a sensitive cord in James Wilson. He calls Pennsylvania home now, but he was born in Scotland and only arrived in America at age 23. There is the possibility, if the ideas of some gentleman should be pursued, that I would be incapacitated from holding an office under the very constitution which I have shared in making. Wilson is not alone. Eight of these delegates were born outside the United States. The convention finally reached a compromise. Nine years of citizenship to be a senator, seven years to run for the House of Representatives. So foreigners are welcome to be a part of this new government. They'll just have to be a little patient. I'm Bill Moyers. The delegates to this convention almost put a price tag on public service today. They were trying to decide what qualifications should be required to hold office,

Charles Pinkney of South Carolina, who comes from one of that state's wealthiest families, argued that high official should be men of property. It is essential that the members of the legislature, the executive and the judges should be possessed of sufficient property to make them independent and respectable. Pinkney even proposed a dollar amount for each office. The president, he said, should be worth $100,000. Federal judges and members of Congress at least half that. This notion is not as strange as it might sound. The reigning wisdom here in 1787 is that office holders should have a large enough stake in society to assure their independent judgment, possibly to assure they can't be brined. So almost every state requires its legislators to own property. But should similar requirements be included in the Constitution of the United States? John Dickinson of Delaware says no. He's offended by the very idea. I doubt the policy of interweaving into a Republican Constitution of veneration for wealth.

I have always understood that a veneration for poverty and virtue were the objects of Republican encouragement. James Madison, the Virginia, also are get against Pinkney's idea. A republic may be converted into an aristocracy by limiting the number capable of being elected. The issue was finally settled, not surprisingly, by a few words of wisdom from the venerable Benjamin Franklin, age 81. Some of the greatest rogues I was ever acquainted with were the richest rogues. This Constitution will be much read in Europe, and if it should betray a great partiality to the rich, it will not only hurt us in the esteem of the most liberal and enlightened men there, but discourage the common people from removing to this country. In his daily record of the proceedings, James Madison reports that Charles Pinkney's motion was rejected by such a resounding no that no one even bothered count the votes.

So for a citizen to hold office in the new government, he'll have to be a male, white, and of a certain age, but he won't have to be rich. I'm Bill Moyers. It has occurred to the minute this convention that someone must pay for the government they're creating. That means taxes and bold patriots shudder at the thought. They remember the rally and cry of the revolution. No taxation without representation. They know it humbled the mighty British empire. A touchy subject taxes. The question dividing them right now is who should have the power to levy taxes, the power of the purse? Should it be only the House of Representatives? Its members are to be elected directly by the voters, so many delegates believe the House more responsive to the will of the people. Or should the Senate be included? Senators are to be elected by the state legislatures instead of the people. The Senate is therefore viewed with

deep suspicion by some of these men to them at smacks of aristocracy. Here's George Mason of Virginia. The Senate does not represent the people, but the states in their political character. In all events, I contend that the purse string should be in the hands of the people. Today, Edmund Randolph of Virginia proposed to compromise that the House have the sole right to initiate tax bills give the Senate some limited power to amend them, check and balance a familiar theme in Philadelphia this summer. James Wilson of Pennsylvania liked the idea. He said the Senate must at least share control. It is to be observed that the purse has two strings, one of which is in the hands of the House of Representatives and the other in the Senate. Both must concur in the untying. Wait just a minute, said Elbridge Geary of Massachusetts. He warned that any attempt to remove the power of taxation from the sole control of the House from the people would turn them against the Constitution and lead to its defeat. Taxation and representation are strongly

associated in the minds of the people, and they will not agree that any but their immediate representative shall metal with their purses. In short, the acceptance of the plan will inevitably fail if the Senate is not restrained from originating money bills. The delegates couldn't reach in the agreement today. They'll have to try again, or the new Constitution won't be worth the paper it's printed on. Come to think of it, the new government won't even be able to afford paper. For the moment, these delegates are finding taxation with representation every bit as thorny as taxation without it. I'm Bill Moyers. The subject here today was ambition, and the men at this federal convention know what that is. They're divided on whether the Constitution should encourage ambition or restraint. Some say the only way to get the best most competent people to serve in Congress is to let them

hold other government offices at the same time. For example, Senator and Secretary of State won in the same. Charles Pinkney of South Carolina asked, why not? Those elected to the Senate already have the confidence of the people. Let the Senate become a school of public ministers, a nursery of statesmen. Here here said James Wilson, his state of Pennsylvania allows legislators to hold other offices. Nobody there is drunk with power. But other delegates have doubts. Should anyone who craves power be entrusted with it? If they permit a senator to hold two offices at once, don't they risk turning an appetite for power into an addiction? George Mason of Virginia suspects that public officials would spend their time creating influential and high-paying positions for one another. It would encourage that exotic corruption which might not otherwise thrive so well in the American soil and would complete that aristocracy, which is probably in the contemplation

of some among us. Not so, said James Wilson, he insisted that putting too many restrictions on members of Congress would only drive away the most capable men. The men this country needs most. To render its members ineligible to national offices would take away its power of attracting those talents, which are necessary to give way to the government and render it useful to the people. Hoover and Amaris of Pennsylvania agreed. Why do we expect that lawmakers who win elections will be corrupt, he asked. They're the very ones who have passed the test of public scrutiny. The argument ended in a draw. No decision today. But these men will find hard to forget something said here by John Francis Mercer of Maryland. He reminded them that the paper there writing, the Constitution, will not itself actually govern the country. It only sets down the fundamental rules for government. The governing will be done by human beings. In other words, either these

delegates figure out how to lure the best and brightest to office or the country will be in deep trouble the moment the ink dries on the Constitution. I'm Bill Moyers. This convention took very little time today to dispose of a very big topic. War. Who should be able to declare war? Who should be able to end it? The first draft of the Constitution grants the power to make war to both houses of Congress. Charles Pinkney of South Carolina thinks that's a bad idea. He wants to give the power of war to the Senate alone. The House of Representatives will be too numerous for such deliberations. Its proceedings are too slow. The Senate will be the best depository being more acquainted with foreign affairs and most capable of proper resolutions. Pinkney's colleague Pierce Butler had another idea. He moved to take the power to make war out of the legislative branch altogether. I am for Western the power in the president who will have all the requisite qualities and will

not make war but when the nation will support it. That brought Elbridge Gary of Massachusetts to his feet shocked. I never expected to hear in a republic a motion to empower the executive alone to declare war. And George Mason of Virginia agreed. I am against giving the power of war to the executive because he's not to be trusted with it or to the Senate because it is not constructed to be entitled to it. I am for clogging rather than facilitating war. I am for facilitating peace. Keep in mind that these delegates are trying to create a republican form of government, one that answers to the people. Too well they remember the kings of Europe who go to war at the drop of a royal hat or for the lust of a royal heart. George Mason struck the right note with them when he said they should clog the avenue to war. Make the government think twice before taking that ultimate step. And yet they know the question of war could be an immediate one. There are threats

to the United States on all sides. The new government has to be able to defend itself and the president alone can act quickly and decisively. So the delegates compromised as usual with an eye to checks and balances. Here's their solution. Change the wording so that only Congress can declare war legally but leave the president free to repel sudden attacks and give the Senate the power to make treaties of peace. Oliver L's worth of Connecticut summed up the judgment of the delegates this way. It should be more easy to get out of war than into it. I'm Bill Moyers. Something extraordinary is happening at this convention. Something that could make the United States an exception among nations. Right now in 1787 11 of the 13 states have religious qualifications for public office. You must be a Christian to hold office in Massachusetts. In New Hampshire, New Jersey, the Carolinas and Georgia you have to be a Protestant Christian. Even in

free thinking Pennsylvania, you must profess a belief in God and acknowledge the divine inspiration of both the old and the new testaments. So we might expect these men, sent here as delegates from those states, to write similar requirements into the new constitution. A citizen named Jonas Phillips certainly thinks they will and the idea greatly disturbs him. So he's writing a letter to the delegates. I am one of the people called Jews of the City of Philadelphia to swear and believe that the new testament was given by divine inspiration is absolutely against the religious principle of a Jew and it is against his conscience to take any such oath. He thinks this is unfair considering especially how Jews were true and faithful patriots. During the late contest with England, they have been foremost in assisting the states with their lives and fortunes. They have bravely fought and bled for liberty which they cannot enjoy. Jonas Phillips as he hopes to live under a government where all religions are on an equal footing

and he enters letter with a prayer. May the people of these states rise up as a great and young lion. May God extend peace to them so long as the sun and moon and dureth. Jonas Phillips has no way of knowing that even as he writes, these men are taking a revolutionary step. The convention includes some notable champions of religious liberty. They believe faith is a private matter even for a public man. So there was hardly an eyebrow raised today when Charles Peakney of South Carolina offered this proposal. No religious test or qualification shall ever be annexed to any oath of office under the authority of the United States. If they eventually vote this into the proposed constitution, these men will have set the new American government on a course radically different from the past and they will have made it possible for Jonas Phillips to serve his country without denying his God. I'm Dormoyers. If these delegates succeed in creating a new national government,

all they have done will be for naught unless it can provide for the common defense of the United States. While you say there's an answer for that, create an army, a standing army. But that idea sends a chill down the spine of many Americans including some of these delegates. Listen to Elbridge Gary of Massachusetts. An army is dangerous in time of peace and I can never consent to a power to keep up an indefinite number. I propose that there shall not be kept up more than three thousand troops. Say the word army and most Americans hear tyranny and oppression. They know how monarchs have used armies against the people to crush opposition. King George had an army right here not too long ago in peacetime troops were ported in American homes. That was one of the chief grievances in the Declaration of Independence. He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military

independent of and superior to the civil power. As soon as America's own continental army sent the Red Code's packing, Congress disbanded it. Americans feel safe as now relying on their own neighbors for defense on local militia companies, civilians all who practice with the rifle only when they're finished with the plow. Yet this is a continent of dangers and the country is vulnerable. Could a few half-baked companies of half-trained farmers really defend the country against a surprise attack by Spain or Great Britain? General Washington doesn't say much at this convention, but the old commander in chief knows a little something about fighting. So when Elbridge Gary moved to limit the army to three thousand troops, the general reportedly nudged a colleague and whispered a motion of his own. He suggested that no foreign enemy should invade the United States with more than three thousand troops. The general's joke was supposed to be off the record,

but it wasn't off the mark. The delegates put aside their doubts and decided the government should maintain a standing army. But they will give supreme command of that army to the president, who will be a civilian, and the power over its purse to the Congress accountable to the people. Just in case the army should one day stand against the country instead of for it. I'm Bill Moyers. For a moment today, you might have thought an Old Testament prophet had seized the floor of his convention. The language was biblical, the language of Amos and Isaiah. But the voice belonged to George Mason, and the accent was unmistakably Virginia. Though Mason himself is a slave owner, he spoke on the evil of slavery. And like those prophets have owed, he warned that evil has its consequences. Slaves bring the judgment of heaven on a country. As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects,

providence punishes national sins by national calamities. The subject today was the slave trade. Should the new constitution put limits on bringing more slaves into the country? John Rutledge of South Carolina said, don't try it. If the convention thinks that North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia will ever agree to the plan unless they're right to import slaves is untouched, the expectation is vain. The people of those states will never be such fools as to give up so important an interest. That's reality, said Charles Cotesworth-Pinkney. Even if he were convinced that slavery is evil, it still would make no difference back home in South Carolina. If I and all my colleagues were to sign the constitution and use our personal influence, it would still be of no avail in obtaining the ascent of our constituents. South Carolina and Georgia cannot do without their slaves. Those states are demanding a guarantee in the constitution

that Congress will not outlaw or tax the slave trade. If they don't get it, they'll walk out of the convention. This leaves the practical men of New England, men such as Connecticut's Roger Sherman, to consider politics before principle. I disapprove of the slave trade, yet it is expedient to have as few objections as possible to the proposed scheme of government. I think it is best to leave the matter as we find it. A committee has been appointed to search for a compromise, but here in this hall, after all the delegates have gone, you can hear echoes of the angry debate, the defiance of the deep South, and the melancholy prophecy of George Mason that national sins will be punished by national calamities. I'm Bill Moyers. If George Mason has his way, it will be unconstitutional in the new republic to overeat, overspend or overdress. The Virginia proposed giving Congress the power to make

sanctuary laws, laws that prohibit extravagant spending on luxuries. In Mason's opinion, what at stake is the very survival of the country. No free government or the blessing of liberty can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. Mason is no eccentric. He does wash his head in cold water every morning, handy-rights, testy letters home, complaining about the silly social world here in Philadelphia. But he's not alone in believing that a popular taste for extravagance could eventually destroy this republic. That passage about frugality and virtue comes from one of the most honored documents in America, the Declaration of Rights of the State of Virginia, which Mason wrote in 1776, and it reflects one of the most enduring of American political traditions that the nation will be strong and blessed only as long as its people are virtuous.

It's a simple equation. A republic is based on the people and dedicated to the common good. If the people put the common good before their own selfish interest, the republic flourishes. If they pursue only private gain, the republic dies. So nothing could be more selfish, more un-American than for citizens to mass great wealth and spend it on themselves. Another delegate, John Dickinson of Delaware, said as much one day in convention. He was arguing against a proposal to require that holders of public office own a minimum amount of property. I doubt the policy of interweaving into a republican constitution of veneration for wealth. I have always understood that a veneration for poverty and virtue were the objects of republican and encouragement. The idea that prudence and sacrifice are essential to the country goes back to ancient days. Many settlers brought it to this new world, but America keeps growing and changing and people

increasingly want to live their lives as they please. George Mason's proposal for some jury laws to regulate private behavior was voted down. The new constitution, it seems, will make America safe for extravagance. I'm Bill Moyers. Imagine you're a member of this convention, not an observer, reporter or outsider, but a delegate sent here by your state to help write a new constitution for America. Remember, the present government isn't working. It can't pay its debts, Congress can't keep peace among the states and the nation is virtually helpless against foreign enemies. The country's greatest hero, George Washington, has said the union is falling apart and many leading citizens agree. That's why you're here to write a constitution to help create a new national government strong enough to save the country. You and the other delegates have worked all summer and now you have the rough draft of a new constitution. Here it is. You're down to

the finishing touches and one of the most difficult issues, how the states will be represented in Congress has been settled by compromise. You've also compromised on the other dangerous question of counting slaves for the purpose of representation, but the slavery issue won't go away. South Carolina and Georgia are threatening right now to walk out unless the convention guarantees that the new constitution will not stop them from importing more slaves. Their economies depend on huge numbers of slaves to grow rice to back in indigo. The work is backbreaking, slaves die young and plantation owners want to keep the supply coming. That's why South Carolina and Georgia are demanding that the constitution include an explicit clause, one that forbids the new government from interfering with the slave trade. Their demand has the convention in knots. Edmund Randolph of Virginia puts it this way. The convention is in a dilemma. If it agrees to the slave trade clause, it will revolt the Quakers, the Methodists and many others in the states that

have no slaves. On the other hand, two states might be lost to the union. No one here hates the slave trade more than Governor Morris at Pennsylvania. To him, it's a nefarious institution, the curse of heaven. But Morris is a practical man too, and he wants the Northern and Southern states to strike a bargain. He proposed this today. Let the slave trade continue for now, but after 1800, let Congress, if it will, put a stop to it. There's your choice. Union with slavery or slavery without union. You're a delegate. How will you choose? I'm Bill Moyers. They argued for days about the powers of the presidency. They fought for weeks over representation in Congress. But when they finally got around to the judiciary today, the delegates to this convention disposed of it in very little time and almost without debate. It's not that they

think the court's unimportant, far from it. When Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence 11 years ago, the judicial system was included among the long list of complaints directed at King George. He has made judges dependent on his will alone. For the tenure of their offices and the amount in payment of their salaries. So these men all agree on the most fundamental point. The courts must be independent, truly a third branch of government separate and distinct from the other two. But how to ensure that independence? Well, one way is for judges to serve for life, impeachable only if their guilty of gross misconduct. That's agreed to. Another way to ensure independence is to provide that judges salaries can't be cut while in office. This means they won't be punished in the pocketbook for an unpopular decision, agreed. Then a harder question who should choose the judges? According to the proposal on the table right now, selecting judges will be the job of the Senate. But some delegates aren't very happy with that

arrangement. Nathaniel Gorm of Massachusetts thinks the president would be more responsible than senators. The executive would certainly be more answerable for a good appointment, as the whole blame of a bad one would fall on him alone. Yes, said James Madison of Virginia. Let the president name the judges, but make sure the Senate agrees. I suggest that the judges be appointed by the executive with the concurrence of the second branch. This would unite the advantage of responsibility in the executive with the security against any in cautious or corrupt nomination. Madison's idea will prevail. The delegates decide they can guarantee the independence of the judicial branch by making the other two branches responsible for choosing the judges. It's a simple outline they agree on for the courts. There will be a supreme court of the United States and lesser courts Congress can create as needed. Beyond that, the judicial branch will have to be defined over time. It will be separate from the other two

branches separate but equal. I'm Bill Moyers. They're trying to write a constitution for the United States of America, but today the delegates at this convention were thinking about the free state of Franklin, the free state of Franklin. It isn't one of the 13 states in the union, but it wants to be the 14th. Here's the story. North Carolina long has claimed control over the Tennessee territory. A three years ago some pioneers out in the remote Tennessee River Valley decided the state government wasn't looking out for their interests. So they seceded and declared themselves the free and independent state of Franklin. They elected a governor. They set up a militia and they provided for the collection of taxes. Now they're eager to join the union as a state in their own right. So what's the problem? Well, there's all that tax revenue north Carolina would lose

and there's national security. Some Franklinites are muttering that if the union doesn't want them, maybe the Spanish across the Mississippi will. And there's the principal. What state wants to see itself slowly dismembered by its own citizens? It's enough to drive a proud state to civil war and there was a not-so-veil threat to that effect by the governor of North Carolina while back. If no other ways are found to save the state's honor, but this last sad expedient, she may regain her government over the revolted territory or render it not worth possessing. Now you see why the delegates have been preoccupied with the free state of Franklin and other territories such as Vermont and Kentucky that are also clamoring to join the union. Do these men write a constitution that admits new states on the same terms with the first 13? In principle, yes. James Madison put the reasoning this way. The western states neither would nor ought to submit to a union which degrades them from equal rank

with the other states. But then what's to prevent every band of disgruntled citizens from bolting their state, proclaiming independence and asking for admission to the union? The delegates came up with this solution. New states will have the same rights and privileges as old ones, but no new state can be created inside another without the consent of Congress and the state legislatures concerned. In other words, all states are created equal, provided they first get permission. I'm Bill Moyers. Until today there was absolutely no mention of religion in the proposed constitution of the United States. It isn't that the men writing the constitution aren't religious, some are, some aren't, but they all seem to agree on one thing. An American's religious beliefs are not the business of the national government and certainly shouldn't be a prerequisite for holding national office. Today Charles Pinkney of South Carolina moved to make that clear in the constitution.

No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the authority of the United States. It passed and it passed unanimously. The only word of protest came from Roger Sherman of Connecticut and he said he wasn't sure they needed even that guarantee. I think it is unnecessary. The prevailing liberality is a sufficient security against such tests. The prevailing liberality, that's quite a switch from colonial days. The Puritans came here to worship the way they wanted to, but they didn't have much tolerance for anyone who worship differently. The centers could be thrown in jail or chased out of town or worse. Most of the colonies had established churches and some of the states still do. That means a specific church is sanctioned by the government and people have to pay taxes to support it whether they belong to it or not. This infuriated Thomas Jefferson who wrote Virginia's Statute of

Religious Freedom. All mighty God had created the mind free. To compel a man to furnish money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is tyrannical. No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship whatsoever. The revolution acted as a win to such ideas and religious tolerance has spread in America. Still the country is overwhelming the Christian. In fact it's Protestant Christian. There are fewer than 2,000 Jews in the country and only about 25,000 Catholics. That's why something George Washington did on the first Sunday of the convention was so significant. He went to a Roman Catholic Mass. Washington is an Episcopalian. He's also a politician and he knows the value of a symbol. This was his signal of things to come. In this new country, religious tolerance, religious freedom will be the only official greed. I'm Bill Moyers.

The Constitution must be almost finished because the delegates stop debating what's in it long enough to debate what happens to it when they're done. It's one of the most critical decisions they'll make all summer. How many of the 13 states will have to ratify the Constitution before it takes effect? Seven, that is a majority. Ten states at least. Nine, that is a respectable majority. Daniel Carroll of Maryland would have none of that. He said only one number was possible. It's all or nothing. Fill in the blank with 13. Unanimity is necessary to dissolve the existing confederation. Carroll argued that all 13 states agreed to the present government. The articles of confederation and they agreed all 13 would have to approve any changes in it. Anything less would be mutiny. But Carroll's proposal, as you can see, would kill the new Constitution in its cradle. Rhode Island didn't even bother to come to this convention. That's one negative vote

for certain. There's also strong opposition in New York and Maryland. So the delegates agreed on the number nine, a respectable majority. But then this question, should the Constitution be ratified by the state legislatures or by special conventions of the people? Elbridge Gary is already on record. Not the people. They have the wildest ideas of government in the world. But Nathaniel Gorm, Gary's colleague from Massachusetts, disagree. Leave it to the legislatures he said and local politicians who benefit from the present system will surely find some way to block ratification. Two Virginians, George Mason and James Madison, also argued for the choice to be made by the people. Refer in the plan to the authority of the people is essential. The legislatures have no power to ratify. I consider the difference between a system founded on the legislatures only and one founded on the people to be the true difference between a league or treaty and a constitution.

The issue then is settled. The people in special conventions and not the state legislatures will decide if the Constitution shall ever die. James Madison said that by resorting to the people all difficulties are overcome. It's an article of faith to him. One he's expressed over and over at this convention. It will soon be tested. I'm Bill Moyers. Philadelphia, September 1, 1787. I am distressed my dearest girl at the notice of your indisposition. I would not remain here two hours except to prevent my colleagues from saying that I broke up the representation. That's Elbridge Gary, delegate from Massachusetts, riding home to his wife Ann. The other delegates know him as stubborn and contrary, but Gary has a surprising private side. He's a doding newlywed. Last year, just shy of 42, he was finally married to a bride of 20, rich, educated and rumored

to be the most beautiful woman in the United States. Gary misses her passionately. If anything makes life and the least desirable, it is you, my dearest girl, detached from your comforts life to me would be a source of evils. I am as sick of being here as you can conceive. Everybody is sick of being here by now, but Gary may be the most desperate of all. He's confided to his wife that he will not sign the Constitution. He thinks it will give the national government far too much power, and he foresees nothing but dissension throughout the country when the plan is released. I am exceedingly distressed at the proceedings of the convention, and almost sure they will lay the foundation of a civil war. Had I known what would have happened, nothing would have induced me to come here. Gary's worried about the health of his wife and their baby daughter in New York. The climate there is a little healthier than Philadelphia's. Here, even on a beautiful day like this, you often see the bodies of small children being carried through

the streets, but summer can be deadly in any city where disease festers, so Gary fills his letters to Anne with advice. Take Ruebar two or three evenings successively and drink Ruell morning and evening with cold chamomile tea, guard against the coolness and dampness of mornings and evenings, and also the house when washed. The baby should not be carried in a room the day it is washed. Elbridge Gary crankily takes his seat in the state house every day. He thinks of civil war and damp rooms of his public duty and his young wife of this republic, its fate and chamomile tea. He is very much a character, Gary, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a chronic worry wart. It's typical of these men who are creating a nation while yearning for home. I'm Bill Moyers. Charles Coatesworth Peagney had a confession to make. The general from South Carolina told his

fellow delegates here that he used to have prejudices against New Englanders, but now he's willing to admit he might have been wrong. He finds they can be as liberal and candid as anyone. It's a telling incident for what it reveals of the obstacles that lie beyond this convention. America and 1787 isn't one nation indivisible. It's more like 13 little kingdoms, each full of pride and prejudice. They don't trust each other in part because they are so outrageously opinionated about each other. The Yankees from New England are looked upon as intolerant, self-righteous, and cunning as the very devil. Hoover and Amaris is a delegate from Pennsylvania. When he was young, his father wrote in his will that the boy should receive the best education possible with one restriction. My expressed directions are that he'd be never sent for that purpose to Connecticut, lest he should imbibe that low craft and cunning so incident to the people of that country. And how do Pennsylvania mothers scare their children into obedience? Better be good, they say,

or we'll give you a way to the Yankees. So deep are the prejudices between every state and region, on top of the economic issues that divide them, that an English clergyman named Josiah Tucker, who considers himself a friend of America, had this to say about the new country. The mutual antipathy and clashing interests of the Americans indicate they will have no center of union and no common interest. They never can be united under any government, whatever. A dis-united people, suspicious and distrustful of each other, they will be divided and sub-divided into little common moves. And consider that American patriot John Adams, all people love their country he once said, but the affection they feel for local places is much more passionate. It is stronger and stronger as we descend to the country, town, parish, neighborhood, and family, which we call our own. And here we find it often so powerful as to darken our understandings and pervert our wills. How they enter these 13 little kingdoms to avoid the

endless squabbling that brought ruin to the republics of ancient Greece and the city-states of medieval Italy. More than a change of government is required, the new constitution will have to create a change of heart in the people. I'm Bill Moyers. The Congress of the United States will have the power to regulate trade with the Indians. The convention made that decision today and it's about all the new constitution will have to say about the Indians, the people who were here first. Not that the Indian question hasn't been on the minds of these delegates. It's one of the gravest issues facing the country and one of the reasons this convention was called in the first place. Ever since white settlers arrived on the shores, encounters between the Indians who were already here and the white to keep coming have grown more and more heart-breaking. Just look at what's happening right now down in Georgia.

Only the easternmost edge of that state is settled. The rest belongs to the Creek Indians. White settlers covet the rich and interior and they've been making unauthorized treaties trying to get it. Congress protests, Congress issue statements, Congress studies the matter. Just last month, the Congressional Committee reported that pure greed on the part of the white settlers is to blame for the whole situation. An averageous disposition to acquire large tracts of land and often by unfair means appears to be the principal source of difficulties with the Indians. But Congress has also declared its good intentions. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians. Their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent. Laws founded in justice and humanity shall be made for preventing the wrongs being done to them. But for all the fine words about good faith and justice right now, Congress can't guarantee either. It has no power to stop the Georgians from doing as they please

in their own state. Meanwhile, the Indians are fighting back with attacks and raids and making treaties with the Spanish. Rumor has it that Spanish Florida recently set 100 horseloads of arms and supplies to the Creeks. That situation could lead to war with Spain and now Georgia calls for help. The situation is in chaos and Congress can't do anything without authority and power to back it up. That's why the proposed constitution will give the new Congress not the states the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and Indian tribes, foreign nations and Indian tribes. There's something inevitable and sad about it that people who were here first will now officially be recognized as outsiders. I'm Bill Moyers. Desperate times breed desperate measures. These delegates have so disparate over the method of electing the president that this week they invented something called the Electoral College.

It's an ungainly creature and it has about it the look and smell of compromise. But you can't blame them for throwing up their hands. They've argued through at least seven different schemes for electing the executive. They've taken dozens of votes and they found fatal flaws in each suggestion. Each time they arrive at an impasse they feel the frustration expressed by James Wilson of Pennsylvania. This subject has greatly divided the house. It is in truth the most difficult of all in which we have had to decide. I have never made up an opinion on it entirely to my own satisfaction. When in doubt, compromise, an electoral college. Here's how it works. Each state will appoint as many electors as it has members of Congress. Each elector will vote for two candidates. The candidate with the most votes will be president. The one who comes in second will be vice-president. And if no one gets a clear majority, well the House of Representatives will then pick the president. Sounds complicated and awkward and it is. But these men think it's better than the alternatives

already considered. Election by Congress would violate the whole idea of separation of powers. The president would be too much at the mercy of the men who put him into office. But letting the people elect the president directly is hardly realistic. How could the voters in a country this big ever know enough about the candidates from far away states? Electors on the other hand will have time. They can weigh the merits of candidates a step removed from popular passions. It sounds rational. Yet these delegates can't be sure and their debates are filled with ambivalence. The plan is not so objectionable when well considered as at first view. The mode is not free from objections, but much more so than the election by the legislature. I mean to support the plan to be recommended as better than nothing. The plan for an electoral college does have one obvious advantage over the others. It's on the table right now. They can take it and move on or reject it and start over.

So they take it. Sometimes at this convention compromise means being too tired to argue anymore. I'm Bill Moyers. Now you see it. Now you don't. That's been the case at this convention all summer. The delegates approve one proposal and then they take it back. Just this week they agreed on a plan for the presidency, conferred almost everything they had already decided. Creating the presidency has been one of their biggest headaches here. They fear that if the Constitution gives the president too much power, he could end up a monarch, a tariff, a monster. But if his powers are limited, he might not be able to govern effectively. Until last week most of these delegates fear tyranny more than inefficiency and that's understandable. These men have lived under kings and governors, but they've never lived under a president. No one has even seen a president. So no one knows what one might do once in office.

He could turn into a king as naturally as a tadpole becomes a fraud. Benjamin Franklin said as much back in June. It will be said that we don't propose to establish kings. I know it, but there is a natural inclination in mankind to kingly government. I am apprehensive therefore that the government of these states may in future times end in a monarchy. Not surprisingly, given such fears, most delegates kept right on voting to weaken the president. He was to have an imperial title, your exency, but no imperial power. So little power, one has to wonder what would he do all day. But suddenly this week all that changed. A special committee that had been instructed to bring back a report on the presidency returned with one that completely reinvents the office. The president is a weekly no longer. Now he will be empowered to make treaties, appoint justices, name ambassadors, or with the approval of Congress. He's to be elected by an electoral college and he can stand for re-election

as many times as he wishes. It appears his powers have been left so open that president will be able to make the office what he wants it to be. It's difficult to say why this turn about occurred. Maybe it's this. The delegates have said all summer they want to create a government based on the popular will and carry it out by three branches which can prevent one another from going too far. The presidency may be the true test of this idea. If these men have done their work well, Congress, the people, the courts, and the Constitution will prevent your exency from becoming your royal highness. I'm Bill Moyers. What if this Constitution they're writing turns out to be less than perfect? It's a reasonable assumption and these men have thought about it. They also know times change and future generations will have needs that can't be foreseen now. So they agree the Constitution should contain

some mechanism by which it can be amended. George Mason of Virginia stated the principle back in June. The convention, though comprising of so many distinguished characters, cannot be expected to make a faultless government. Amendments therefore will be necessary and it will be better to provide for them in an easy, regular, and constitutional way than to trust a chance in violence. But how, if they make the amendment process too easy, the Constitution could be changed by every gust of popular passion. If they make it too difficult, the Constitution might be so inflexible that people will be afraid to ratify. The most recent proposal gives state legislatures the power to suggest amendments. But today, Alexander Hamilton of New York objected to that idea and offered one of his own. The state legislatures will not apply for alterations but with a view to increase their own pounds. The national legislature will be the most sensible to the necessity of amendments.

George Mason said no. The power to propose amendments must be placed in the states and the people. It can't be given to Congress. The plan is exceptionable and dangerous. No amendment of the proper kind would ever be obtained if the government should become oppressive as I very believe will be the case. As usual, the delegates compromised. Congress will be able to propose amendments. And so will the state legislatures. Either way, an amendment won't go into effect until approved by three quarters of the states. So it won't be easy to change the Constitution, but it will be possible. Except in one respect. Some weeks ago, the small states on the threat of walking out of here forced the large states to give them equality in the Senate. Now, the small states demand an insurance policy in the Constitution. A provision that the arrangement can't be changed without their consent. The large states capitulate again. Since almost no one gives up power voluntarily,

there's one provision in the Constitution that's almost certain never to be amended. I'm Bill Moyers. There was a rumbling in this convention today, a signal of possible storms to come. Not over what's in the proposed new Constitution, but what isn't? When the delegates gathered to look at the draft of the document, George Mason of Virginia said something's missing. I wish the plan was prefaced with a bill of rights, and I would second-emotion if made for the purpose. A bill of rights, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, eight of the state constitutions have one and Mason himself wrote for genius. He said he could draw up a national bill of rights in just a few hours, but Roger Sherman of Connecticut said it's not necessary. I am for securing the rights of the people, but the state declarations of rights are not repealed by this Constitution. They are sufficient. Mason objected the government could become

zealous, and the people would be at its mercy without a guarantee of their individual liberties. He feels this so deeply that he says he won't sign the Constitution unless it does contain a bill of rights. But when the question was called, every state present, even Mason's own Virginia, voted against adding a bill of rights. Why? Possibly because the delegates have been here almost four months now and can't bear the thought of prolonging this convention. Nor do the southern states want to stir up the hound of hypocrisy that slumbers in the corner of this convention. Charles Coatesworth, Pigniff, South Carolina, was candid about why he doesn't want a bill of rights. Such bills generally begin with declaring that all men are by nature born free. Now we should make that declaration with very bad grace when a large part of our property consists in men who are actually born slaves. The chief opposition to a bill of rights comes from those delegates who honestly see no need for it. They point to those state constitutions with their guarantees

and to the care and attention this convention has paid to individual liberties. The new Constitution limits the powers of the national government by spreading it among three branches. The American people just fought a war to secure their rights. Surely they can now and always count on Congress or the president or the court to guard those liberties. Or can they? I'm Bill Moyers. In 1776 on the eve of the American Revolution, the Patriot John Adams was excited by the times in the pamphlet addressed to his countrymen. Adams wrote this. You and I have been sent into life at a time when the greatest law givers of antiquity would have wished to have lived. How few of the human race have ever enjoyed the opportunity of choosing a government for themselves or their children? Eleven years later, the delegates to this convention know that's exactly what they're doing, choosing a government for themselves and their children

and their children's children. It says if they're putting down the foundation for a great house, one many generations will live in. As the family grows and changes, new needs will require new rooms. But the foundation is the bedrock on which the generations bill. It's not a new idea in America. Every one of the 13 states began as a colony with a written charter setting out the basic principles of how government should work, what it could and could not do. The Protestants who came here called in a covenant between themselves and God. With the revolution of 1776, the colonies declared themselves independent states and wrote their own constitutions. These men have drawn on those state constitutions for ideas and language. Take the one in Massachusetts which John Adams helped to write. All power residing originally in the people and being derived from them, officers of government are their substitutes and agents, not at all times accountable to them. Few of the men

here would disagree with those words. One great idea unites them. That government exercises power only in the name of the people and with their consent. Office holders are but temporary stewards of the nation's destiny. Put that in writing and make it binding. That's the purpose of a constitution. Of course, it's not enough just to engross the words on parchment. A philosopher much admired by these men reminds them that any constitution is a mere dead letter. The best laws are useless if they aren't sacredly observed. True enough. But if the foundation is deep and strong, the house may survive its most reckless tenet or so these men trust. I'm Bill Moyers. The last delegate just left the hall. This was the longest session of the entire convention

and one of the most frustrating. They finished writing the constitution and this evening they approved it as expected. But the hope that every delegate here would support it was shattered by the decision of three men not to sign the final document. Edmund Randolph, the governor of Virginia, spoke first. It pains me to differ from the body of the convention at the close of the great and awful subject of our labors. The men listening must have been struck by the irony. Almost four months ago the handsome young governor stood to introduce the very proposal, the Virginia plan, which has become the principal outline of the proposed constitution. But as the convention added more and more powers to Congress, Randolph grew alarmed. Am I to promote the establishment of a plan which I very believe will end in tyranny? Now Randolph says he will sign only if the delegates approve his plan for a second convention, one to take place after the people have had time to study the new constitution. His fellow

Virginia and George Mason seconded the motion. This constitution has been formed without the knowledge of the people. It is improper to say to the people, take this or nothing. It's a radical turnabout for Mason too. In July he declared he would rather they bury his bones in Philadelphia than leave here without a constitution. But Mason didn't mean just any constitution and he's grieved by this one because it doesn't stop the slave trade and doesn't have a bill of rights. Mason now swears he would rather cut off his right hand than sign a constitution that leads to despotic government. The third non-signer is Elbridge Geary of Massachusetts. The new constitution gives Congress too many vague and unlimited powers to suit him. But the other delegates are not swayed. They had heard enough debate. So shortly before six o'clock, General Washington called the question. First, on Randolph's proposal that everything be submitted to a second convention, no. Then on whether to agree to the constitution now before them,

yes, it was done. The constitution will be put to parchment and will be ready for signing. I'm Bill Moyers. They kept arguing all day down to the last minute. The 38 delegates who said they will sign the constitution were trying to change the minds of the three who said they will not. The signers won't everybody's name on it because the enemies of the constitution and there are many. We'll explore every division among these men who wrote it. The three dissidents are men of influence. Edmund Randolph and George Mason of Virginia and Elbridge Geary of Massachusetts. So there were strong and eloquent pleas to make the signing unanimous. Listen to Alexander Hamilton of New York. I am anxious that every member should sign. A few characters of consequence by refusing to sign the constitution might do infinite mischief. And Gouverneau Morris of Pennsylvania.

I too have objections, but I will take the constitution with all its faults. The majority have determined in its favor and by that determination I shall abide. Benjamin Franklin named his remarks directly at one of the holdouts, Edmund Randolph. I hope that you will lay aside your objections and by concurring with your brethren prevent the great mischief which the refusal of your name may produce. But Randolph was not moved nor were Geary and Mason. So when the signing takes place there will be three names missing. It's not really surprising. Remember this is 1787. A national political community is only slowly emerging in this country. And these men have been shaped primarily by their experience in local and state politics. Different origins, different interests, different habits of thought make it hard for them to understand each other. The country is deeply divided over the issues they've been debating here.

Go into the streets and taverns and churches. Read the newspapers, the pamphlets and essays, and you'll hear the hot words and clashing opinions of a people still trying to decide what is America anyway. The convention wants to speak in a single American voice. To won't such unanimity is understandable. To expect it is a little un-American and to get it would be a miracle. I'm Bill Moyers. Gentlemen, I have the honor to propose George Washington for a president of the convention. We face the most difficult crisis and we must prevent the fulfillment of the prophecies of the American downfall. I declare that I will never consent. Myself or my state will never submit to tyranny or despotism. I would not trust a government organized on the reported plan

for all the slaves of Carolina or the horses and oxen of Massachusetts. We must make concessions on both sides. I too have objections, but I will take the Constitution with all its votes. I consent to this Constitution because I expect no better and I am not sure that it is not the best. This Daily Report is made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Public Television stations and painwebber. Thank you, painwebber.