It was Monday, September 17, 1787. For more than three months, representatives from twelve of the newly independent states had argued bitterly on a wide range of issues, including whether the newly proposed constitution should have a strong or weak executive; whether small states should be treated the same as large states; whether the national government should be able to tax; and much more. They had adroitly avoided the issue of slavery, knowing it would divide the states even more, making union impossible.
Finally, they were prepared to vote to propose an entirely new form of government, one born of multiple compromises and hopes for the future. Benjamin Franklin had prepared a speech for the occasion, but due to frailty and ill heath he requested it be read to the convention by his fellow delegate from Pennsylvania, James Wilson. It began, “I confess that there are several parts of the Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall ever approve them…it astonishes me to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does…I consent to this Constitution because I expect no better, and I am not sure that it is not the best.” Franklin then moved the Convention be signed by unanimous consent of the States present.
The official Journal, kept by William Jackson, simply noted that each State voted “Aye.” James Madison’s notes ended with more dignity to the occasion. “The Constitution being signed by all the members except Mr. Randolph, Mr. Mason and Mr. Gerry, who declined giving it the sanction of their names, the Convention dissolved itself by adjournment sine die.”
Edmund Randolph’s refusal to sign was particularly notable because he was the delegate from Virginia who had formally introduced the Virginia Plan on which the new Constitution was largely based. However, its final form, he believed, contained “the fetus of monarchy.” Even though he was a member of the Committee of Detail that prepared a draft of the Constitution, just a week before the Convention adjourned, Randolph announced twelve specific objections to the final draft. If changes could not be made, he said, he “should be obliged to dissent from the whole of it.”
However, when the Virginia ratification convention met in June the following year, Randolph emerged as one of the Constitution’s strongest advocates. Acknowledging he would be charged with hypocrisy, he explained his change of heart. “I still have objections to the Constitution,” he said, but the fact that eight states had already ratified the Constitution and only one more was required before it would go into effect, the question had now become “the single question of union or no union.”
Elbridge Gerry had been one of the most active members of the Convention, including chairing the committee that proposed the “Great Compromise” and saved the Convention from falling part. Among his many objections to the Constitution was its absence of a Bill of Rights. Five days before adjournment, Gerry moved to add such a bill. Seconded by Mason, the motion failed and both men voted against the Constitution.
By the time the Massachusetts ratification convention met in February 1788, five states had approved the Constitution. However, due to Gerry’s efforts, Massachusetts ratified with proposed amendments, many relating to a national bill of rights. Massachusetts was the first, but not the last state convention, to ratify with the expectation that amendments be added after ratification.
As author of the Virginia Bill of Rights, George Mason insisted that a national bill of rights was essential to protecting individual rights against the long arm of government. After refusing to vote for the Constitution at the Constitutional Convention, he drafted a document outlining his objections. Widely circulated, it became the basis for much of Anti-Federalist thought. “Declarations of Rights in the separate States are no security,” he argued. Although he failed to gain support for a national bill of rights at the Virginia ratification convention, his persistence contributed to James Madison’s promise to draft such a bill in the First Congress.
The author of the Virginia Bill of Rights would live to see the day when the first ten amendments – known as the Bill of Rights – were added to the Constitution: December 15, 1791.