[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 67 (Thursday, May 25, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4413-S4415]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          CONVENING OF CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, MAY 25, 1787

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, today, May 25, in the year of our Lord 2000, 
marks the 213th anniversary of a monumental event, the most monumental 
event that ever occurred in American history. It was on May 25, 1787, 
that a sufficient number of State delegations convened in Philadelphia 
to begin their deliberations ``to form a more perfect Union.'' Fifty-
five delegates labored through that long, hot summer in Independence 
Hall in the very room where the Declaration of Independence had been 
signed 11 years earlier. By September 17 of that year, when they 
adjourned sine die, they had produced a remarkable document, the most 
remarkable document of its kind that was ever written, the Constitution 
of the United States.
  I place only the King James version of the Holy Bible above this 
document, the Constitution of the United States. That is the remarkable 
document that established our Federal Government, that provided for a 
U.S. Senate, that provided for the equality of the small States with 
the large States. That is the document that made it possible for tiny, 
mountainous West Virginia to have two votes, to be equal to the great 
State of New York, to be equal to the great States of California, 
Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana in the Senate. If it were not for this 
document which I hold in my hand, the Constitution of the United 
States, we wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't be here. The 
distinguished Presiding Officer who comes from the State of Illinois 
would not be here. He would not be presiding in that chair. These would 
not be the United States of America. In all likelihood, they would be 
the ``Balkanized States of America.''
  This remarkable document has established our Federal Government. It 
is fitting, therefore, that we pause today, and I thought it fitting 
that someone take the floor to remark about the importance of this day 
in history and the importance of this document. It is fitting that we 
pause to reflect on what those men who met at the Constitutional 
Convention hoped to accomplish and to remark on what they achieved.
  The fledgling United States was in dire straits in 1787. There were 
no automobiles. There were no airplanes, no diesel motor trains, no 
electric lights, no sulfa drugs, no antibiotics in 1787. It had become 
painfully apparent that the first National Government under the 
Articles of Confederation was not working.
  Having thrown off the yoke of royal rule during the Revolution, 
Americans at first had been reluctant to establish another strong 
central government. Not many people, I wager, in this country remember 
much, if anything, about the Articles of Confederation, our first 
Constitution, but our forebears had created a Government under the 
Articles of Confederation that represented little more than a loose 
association of 13 States, with the States retaining the real power. 
Those States were the former Colonies.
  The National Government consisted of a single legislative body. Most 
of the governments in the world today consist of unicameral legislative 
bodies, one legislative body. But there are 61 governments in the world 
today that have bicameral legislatures. Most of the larger countries 
have bicameral legislative bodies. There are 61 of them. And in only 
two, the United States and Italy, are the upper chambers not 
subordinate to the lower chambers.
  Each State, under the Articles of Confederation, regardless of size--
whether it was Pennsylvania, New York, tiny Delaware, Rhode Island, or 
Georgia--each State, regardless of size, had a single vote in the 
Congress, in that one body. Under the Articles of Confederation, 
Congress could raise money only by asking the States for it. Congress 
had no power to force a State to pay its share. At times, Congress 
lacked the funds to pay its soldiers' salaries and faced the threat of 
mutiny. General George Washington faced that threat of mutiny. The 
Nation's international credit remained weak because of its war debts, 
which went unpaid due to wrangling between and among the States.
  This discouraged foreign investments--as one could imagine--and 
further complicated the efforts to fund the Government operations.
  As economic conditions worsened, a band of farmers in western 
Massachusetts, led by the Revolutionary War veteran, Daniel Shays, shut 
down the State courts to stop their creditors from foreclosing on their 
lands. I wonder what Senator Ted Kennedy would think of that today. How 
would Senator John Kerry feel about that--Shays' Rebellion? And not 
only did they close down the courts to stop their creditors from 
foreclosing on their lands, but they also attacked the Federal arsenal 
at Springfield. When Massachusetts appealed for assistance, Congress 
had neither an adequate army nor adequate funds to suppress Shays' 
Rebellion.
  George Washington, who had retired to his estate at Mount Vernon 
after commanding American forces during the Revolutionary War, feared 
for the survival of his country and predicted ``the worst consequences 
from a half-starved, limping Government, always moving upon crutches 
and tottering at every step.'' That was George Washington, the first 
President and the greatest President ever of the United States.
  In 1785, a dispute over navigation rights on the Potomac River 
prompted the States of Virginia and Maryland to set up a meeting to 
settle their differences. Maryland's delegation went to Alexandria, VA, 
only to find that Virginia's delegates had not yet arrived. They had no 
interstate highways. They had no great bridges that spanned the river. 
They had no airplanes. There was no airport over at National in those 
days. There were only horses and buggies.
  As I say, Maryland's delegation went to Alexandria, VA, only to find 
that Virginia's delegates had not yet arrived. Anxious for the 
conference not to fail, George Washington graciously invited the 
delegates to Mount Vernon. There the two delegations discussed tolls 
and fishing rights on the Potomac. Where does the Potomac rise? It 
rises in my State, in West Virginia. Of course, there was no West 
Virginia in those days, but there was Virginia. And other questions 
were raised that went beyond their immediate disputes. When the 
Virginia delegates submitted their report to the Virginia Assembly, it 
went to a committee chaired by James Madison, Jr.
  Convinced that larger issues remained, Madison persuaded the assembly 
to pass a resolution calling for a convention in the States to deal 
with interstate commerce. In the fall of 1786, that convention met in 
Annapolis, MD. You see, if it were today, Senators Barbara Mikulski and 
Paul Sarbanes would be there. But it was long before their time. That 
convention could do nothing, since only 6 of the 13 States sent 
representatives. Spurred by Madison of Virginia and Alexander Hamilton 
of New York, the Annapolis convention called for another convention the 
following year in Philadelphia to go beyond commercial disputes and 
consider creating a Federal Government strong enough to meet the needs 
of the new Nation.

[[Page S4414]]

  On May 14, 1787, the date set for that convention to open, a quorum 
could not be attained. Not until May 25--213 years ago today--did 
delegates from a majority of the States arrive. That was an important 
day--the day that a quorum of delegates arrived. Eventually, all but 
Rhode Island would send delegates.
  With a quorum established, they got down to business by unanimously 
electing George Washington as their Presiding Officer. Talk about a 
great President, one that all the subsequent Presidents--I am sure most 
of them--have tried to emulate, there was the greatest President of 
all, George Washington, first in the hearts of his countrymen. His 
great prestige, the delegates knew, would help to quiet public 
suspicion of the convention's intent. That convention closed its doors. 
They didn't open the doors to the public. They locked the doors and 
established sentries at the doors and conducted its proceedings in 
secret. That was a good thing.

  According to James Madison's notes from May 25, Washington, ``in a 
very emphatic manner . . . thanked the convention for the honor they 
had conferred on him, reminded them of the novelty of the scene of 
business in which he was to act, lamented his want of better 
qualifications, and claimed the indulgence of the House toward the 
involuntary errors which his inexperience might occasion.'' The 
convention then elected a secretary and appointed a committee to 
prepare its standing rules. The convention knew the importance of 
standing rules. The convention had learned that from the colonial 
legislatures, the State legislatures, and from Parliament in the 
motherland. Several of those forebears came from England, Scotland, and 
Ireland; they were all subjects of Great Britain, of course. They knew 
about Parliament. So, they prepared standing rules.
  Over the next 3 months, the delegates crafted an entirely new Federal 
Government for the United States. Ever fearful of tyranny, they solved 
the problem of concentration of power by dividing responsibilities 
among three equal branches of Government. O, that more of our people 
today would study American history! I am not talking about social 
studies; I am talking about history--American history. O, that more of 
our Members would refresh their memories concerning American history! 
How many times have I reminded ourselves of the importance of the 
checks and balances, the separation of powers, the fact that there are 
three equal and coordinate branches of Government?
  As pragmatists who doubted the perfectibility of human beings, they 
assumed--those delegates at the convention--that strong individuals and 
groups would always grasp for more power--and they were right--which 
would be dangerous, even if meant for good purposes. They, the 
delegates, believed that government evolved from the people and, 
indeed, they began their document with the words: ``We the 
People.'' But they also anticipated that public opinion would swing 
wildly--swing like a pendulum--wildly at times, and that public 
passions could get swept away in the frenzies of the moment. Some 
people glibly refer to our form of government as a democracy. When you 
hear someone say that form of government is a democracy, mark that 
person as not knowing what he is talking about. That person does not 
know what he is talking about when he says that this Government is a 
democracy. It is not. Rather than a democracy, the Framers created a 
representative government, a republic, with elaborate checks and 
balances.

  If we want to understand the difference between a democracy and a 
republic, let James Madison explain the difference in Federalist No. 10 
and Federalist No. 14.
  As James Madison later explained in the Federalist: ``If men were 
angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, 
neither external nor internal controls on government would be 
necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men 
over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the 
government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to 
control itself.''
  Mr. President, because the U.S. Constitution still functions 
essentially the way its authors intended, and because it has been 
amended only 27 times in the past two centuries, that Constitutional 
convention has sometimes been celebrated as the ``Miracle at 
Philadelphia,'' and the delegates praised by none less than Thomas 
Jefferson as ``demigods,'' suggesting that their work was divinely 
inspired. In point of fact, the convention was a long, hard, bitterly-
debated ordeal that on several occasions came close to collapse. They 
did not have air-conditioning in those days. Those summers were just as 
hot as they are now, I suppose. The delegates needed to reach several 
crucial compromises before enough of them would agree to the new 
constitution. One of these compromises--known as the Great Compromise--
created the U.S. Senate as a means of satisfying the smaller states' 
demands for equality, while the House of Representatives would grant 
more votes to the larger states by apportioning on the basis of 
population. Another pivotal compromise--the Three-Fifths Compromise--
addressed the emotional issue of human slavery, by permitting slaves to 
be counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of taxation and 
representation. Without the agreement, the Southern states would not 
have ratified the new constitution. Yet, it left in place the peculiar 
institution of slavery that eventually would tear the nation apart in 
civil war.
  In other words, Mr. President, as remarkable as was the Constitution 
that emerged from Philadelphia in 1787, and as much as it solved the 
problems that had festered under the Articles of Confederation, it was 
not a finished document. Despite the towering presence of George 
Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Madison, Mason, and 
other wise and trusted leaders at the Constitutional convention, there 
remained deep public suspicion over this new government, which after 
all had been debated entirely in secret session. Some delegates refused 
to sign the Constitution because it lacked protection of individual 
rights. This omission proved a major obstacle to the ratification of 
the Constitution, leading Madison to pledge his support for a series of 
amendments while the ink on the Constitution was still wet. During the 
First Congress, as a member of the House of Representatives, Madison 
proposed the first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, and two 
other amendments not ratified at the time (one of which more recently 
resurfaced as the 27th amendment) and which we remember in our own time 
here in the Senate.
  The late Justice Thurgood Marshall once commented that he could not 
admire the framers' decision to compromise with slavery, and that, 
therefore, he preferred to celebrate the Constitution as ``a living 
document, including the Bill of Rights and other amendments protecting 
individual freedoms and human rights.'' Several amendments to the 
Constitution were more administrative in scope, designed to fix flaws 
in the Electoral College, change the calendar for congressional 
sessions and presidential inaugurations, and permit the levying of a 
federal income tax. But most of the amendments dealt with expanding 
democratic rights and freedoms, from the abolition of slavery to the 
extension of the right to vote to blacks, women, and 18-year-olds, and 
even for the right of the people to directly elect their United States 
senators. These few amendments have improved the original document. 
Yet, in so many respects the Constitution remains unchanged. Today, 
each branch of the government retains essentially the same powers it 
was given in 1787--albeit magnified to meet the challenges of 
subsequent centuries. Ours, as Justice Thurgood Marshall reminded us, 
is a living Constitution.
  If the Holy Bible were small enough, I would carry that with me, too. 
This is the Constitution of the United States. Fortunately, it is a 
small document. It is a compact document that fits comfortably inside 
my shirt pocket, and several Senators in this body carry the 
Constitution in their pockets. It is far shorter than most State 
constitutions, including my own West Virginia Constitution. It does not 
take long to read. But each time one reads it, one will find something 
new in that Constitution--some thought that did not occur to that 
individual before.
  It does not take long to read, and yet opinion polls show that many 
Americans have either never read it or have

[[Page S4415]]

forgotten most of what they learned about it in school. That may also 
go for a good many of the Members of this body, and the other body. It 
would be very well if all Members of the Senate and House reread the 
Constitution from time to time. It is vital that all Americans 
familiarize themselves with this document so that they know their 
constitutional rights and their constitutional responsibilities.
  Let me suggest, therefore, that May 25, marking the anniversary of 
the day the Constitutional Convention got down to business, would be an 
appropriate day for all of us to once again read the Constitution and 
to appreciate the framers' efforts ``to form a more perfect Union, 
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common 
defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of 
Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.''
  This coming Monday is Memorial Day, May 29. On that day, Edmund 
Randolph, Governor of the State of Virginia, presented his 15 resolves, 
his 15 resolutions to the convention. The debates in those ensuing days 
largely centered around Randolph's resolutions, or the so-called 
Virginia plan. So, I say to my colleagues, remember this coming Monday. 
That was the day when the convention first heard about the Virginia 
plan.
  Long live the memories of the Framers of the U.S. Constitution!

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