The Grand Convention - The Committee of Detail

On July 26th the convention handed 4 months of resolutions to 5 men and adjourned. On August 6th it got back a constitution — 7 pages, 23 articles, wide margins for the fight. This is the grind of August, told the way the room actually lived it: everything at once. The taxing power ending 10 years of begging circulars on an ordinary Thursday, while 2 days’ walk of clauses away Gouverneur Morris demands 14 years of citizenship for a senator — “7 years must be applied to learn to be a Shoe Maker” — in a room where the Constitution’s own draftsman was born in Scotland. Franklin’s rogues and prison hulks against the freehold franchise; Wilson telling the convention what it is to face ineligibility under a constitution he shared in making; the placemen fenced out; the war powers split; Pinckney’s buried list with 7 words about the press; Section 9’s wall of nevers written by men who had lived every item on it; the sentries, the shut windows, and “we never once thought of a king.” And on August 30th, 11 quiet words against every religious test in America. Send us Fan Mail