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    Creating the Constitution: 1787
    Creating the Constitution: 1787
    Creating the Constitution: 1787
    Ebook108 pages1 hour

    Creating the Constitution: 1787

    By Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier

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    Using a narrative format, Creating the Constitution details the events leading up to the writing of the US Constitution and what American leaders went through to create it. The authors describe the conflicts between the new states and the delegates each sent to the Constitutional Convention, as well as the work that was done to resolve the many issues at hand.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBlackstone Publishing
    Release dateJun 1, 2013
    ISBN9781620645017
    Creating the Constitution: 1787
    Author

    Christopher Collier

    Christopher Collier is an author and historian. He attended Clark University and Columbia University, where he earned his PhD. He was the official Connecticut State Historian from 1984 to 2004 and is now professor of history emeritus at the University of Connecticut. He is the brother of James Lincoln Collier, with whom he has written a number of novels, most of which are based on historic events. His books have been nominated for several awards, including the Newbery Honor and the Pulitzer Prize.

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    Reviews for Creating the Constitution

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      Big v Small States
      Slave v. No Slave
      States Righters v. Nationalists
    • 4/5
      I preferred the title over 'Miracle in Philadelphia' as more reflective as what actually occured. A good overview of the Convention, and how the Constitution was actually written (as opposed to how many would like to believe it was written).
    • 4/5
      Overall this book was ok, but the narrative jumped around in time so as to present each major topic (North vs South, small states versus large state) in a chapter by itself. This was effective in some ways, but rather distracting at times.
    • 4/5
      A young nation shook off the colonial chains of its European mother country, but in doing so it created financial and political upheaval internally as well as looking weak on the world stage so 55 men from across the nation gathered in a last-ditch attempt to save their nation. Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787 by Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier is a history of the meeting in a hot Philadelphia summer of the men who completed the American Revolution.The Colliers telling of the Constitutional Convention began with how the meeting came about and the major figures that has helped bring it out and would attend. The Colliers followed the proceedings of the Convention through topic and not day-to-day retelling, thus allowing them to show how the Constitution was created through the various conflicts between the delegates first between “big” and “small” states (based on population) and then the section conflict between North and South especially in connecting slavery and economic issues. Throughout the book the authors reminded their readers to remember the men at the Convention were not looking at things from a 20th Century perspective—the book was published in advance of the 200th Anniversary of the Convention—but from the events of their lives in the latter half of the 18th Century as well as their prejudices, but also how in the Convention the participants changed their way of thinking of political philosophy. Yet the authors while praising the work the men of the Convention did were not above criticism of the final document that they elaborated on in the final chapter.Decision in Philadelphia is a good look into how the Constitution of the United States was created, the brothers Collier together produced a well-written history of the document that founded the American government.

    Book preview

    Creating the Constitution - Christopher Collier

    SERIES

    PREFACE

    OVER MANY YEARS of both teaching and writing for students at all levels, from grammar school to graduate school, it has been borne in on us that many, if not most, American history textbooks suffer from trying to include everything of any moment in the history of the nation. Students become lost in a swamp of factual information, and as a consequence lose track of how those facts fit together, and why they are significant and relevant to the world today.

    In this series, our effort has been to strip the vast amount of available detail down to a central core. Our aim is to draw in bold strokes, providing enough information, but no more than is necessary, to bring out the basic themes of the American story, and what they mean to us now. We believe that it is surely more important for students to grasp the underlying concepts and ideas that emerge from the movement of history, than to memorize an array of facts and figures.

    The difference between this series and many standard texts lies in what has been left out. We are convinced that students will better remember the important themes if they are not buried under a heap of names, dates, and places.

    In this sense, our primary goal is what might be called citizenship education. We think it is critically important for America as a nation and Americans as individuals to understand the origins and workings of the public institutions which are central to American society. We have asked ourselves again and again what is most important for citizens of our democracy to know so they can most effectively make the system work for them and the nation. For this reason, we have focused on political and institutional history, leaving social and cultural history less well developed.

    This series is divided into volumes that move chronologically through the American story. Each is built around a single topic, such as the pilgrims, the Constitutional Convention, or immigration. Each volume has been written so that it can stand alone, for students who wish to research a given topic. As a consequence, in many cases material from previous volumes is repeated, usually in abbreviated form, to set the topic in its historical context. That is to say, students of the Constitutional Convention must be given some idea of relations with England, and why the revolution was fought, even though the material was covered in detail in a previous volume. Readers should find that each volume tells an entire story that can be read with or without reference to other volumes.

    Despite our belief that it is of the first importance to outline sharply basic concepts and generalizations, we have not neglected the great dramas of American history. The stories that will hold the attention of students are here, and we believe they will help the concepts they illustrate to stick in their minds. We think, for example, that knowing of Abraham Baldwin's brave and dramatic decision to vote with the small states at the Constitutional Convention will bring alive the Connecticut Compromise, out of which grew the American Senate.

    Each of these volumes has been read by esteemed specialists in its particular topic; we have benefited from their comments.

    CHAPTER I: THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

    IT IS, SAID William Gladstone, the celebrated nineteenth-century English politician, the most remarkable work known to me in modern times to have been produced by the human intellect at a single stroke. . . . Many historians agree with Gladstone. The American Constitution is certainly one of the most important documents written in modern times, and a case can be made that it is one of the most important pieces of writing ever.

    Why can we make such bold claims for this work, which is only about a dozen pages—fewer than six thousand words? For one thing, it finally bound the very argumentative thirteen original states into a single republic, which would, a hundred and fifty years later, be the most powerful and influential nation on earth. Without the Constitution or something very much like it, there would be no United States of America as we know it, and the history of the world would have been much different.

    For another, the liberties set forth in the Constitution and its first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, exploded onto a world in which few people were truly free. The Declaration of Independence, adopted in 1776, inspired people everywhere to find freedom for themselves, and within a generation, nations—especially in Latin America—began to overthrow their colonial masters. The Constitution of 1787 provided all these new nations, and those of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well, with a model of how their freedoms could be secured. By what magic, then, did this great document come into being?

    This famous painting, by Thomas Rossiter, shows the Founding Fathers signing the Constitution in what is now called Independence Hall. Rossiter was not, of course, painting from life, but drew upon his imagination to set the stage. George Washington is seated at the desk at top.

    It was no easy task. There were more forces pulling the states apart than pushing them together. They were quite different from one another in many ways. The New England states had a great shipbuilding industry and earned a lot of their money through fishing and trade. The Southern states, by contrast, had few ships. They earned their money by growing tobacco, rice, and other crops, and depended upon New England ships to carry much of their produce to markets at home and abroad.

    In the Southern states a large proportion of the labor was provided by slaves, and a whole way of life

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