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Miracle at Philadelphia

PotomacBob 🚫

They met in Philadelphia to strengthen the old Articles of Confederation. What they came out with was the new Constitution of the United States.
During the months they spent in Philadelphia, we know what happened only through notes of some of the participants, and through the Constitution they had agree on.
Their deliberations were secret - the public was not allowed in.
Speculate, if you would, on what would have happened had the meetings in Philadelphia been open to reporters, other politicians, lobbyists. Would they ever have reached agreement at all? Would the document have been considerably different from the one that they produced?
Would slavery have been enshrined in the document? Would two houses - one of equal representation and the other weighted toward population - have emerged? Would we have had a single executive or more? Might we have had a king? All those options were discussed, according to the notes.
If they had failed to reach an agreement, would we today be British colonies?

Replies: Uther_Pendragon red61544 richardshagrin

Uther_Pendragon 🚫

@PotomacBob

If they had failed to reach an agreement, would we today be British colonies?

Fairly clearly, no. We already had independence under the Articles.

red61544 🚫

@PotomacBob

That should be the premise of an entire book. The big question in your post is "Would they have reached an agreement at all?" The one thing they had going for themselves was that there were no political parties! That means that compromise was still available. Now, that word hasn't been used in years, and when it was, compromise means "See it my way or else."

Replies: bk69

bk69 🚫

@red61544

there were no political parties!

Well, the fact that there were factions known as 'Federalist' and 'Anti-federalist' seems to imply that just because there weren't traditional 'parties' doesn't mean there wasn't a fairly large fundamental difference of opinion.

Replies: Uther_Pendragon

Uther_Pendragon 🚫

@bk69

Well, the fact that there were factions known as 'Federalist' and 'Anti-federalist' seems to imply that just because there weren't traditional 'parties' doesn't mean there wasn't a fairly large fundamental difference of opinion.

AFAIK, the name, "Antifederalist," was first applied to the Jeffersonian Party after the national government was established under Washington. (And it must have infuriated Jamie Madison.)

The people advocating the Constitution called themselves "Federalist,": but I haven't heard of an organized faction opposing the Constitution.

Replies: Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫
Updated:

@Uther_Pendragon

The people advocating the Constitution called themselves "Federalist,": but I haven't heard of an organized faction opposing the Constitution.

Aside from the free/slave state dynamic, there were two distinct factions at the constitutional convention.

One side got labeled "Federalists", because one of their principle leaders, Alexander Hamilton in particular, were the main authors of the "Federalist Papers" advocating for adoption of the new constitution in the wake of the national constitutional convention.

At the convention the "Federalists" actually started out wanting an unlimited national government.

Hamilton in particular argued at the convention for completely dissolving the individual states or in the alternative, reducing them to mere corporations mere subjects of the national government.

See: How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America

The Jeffersonian faction (they weren't political parties the way we think of such things today) got labeled "Anti-Federalists" because they opposed the people behind the "Federalist Papers" at the constitutional convention.

The "Anti-Federalists" wanted a national government with only marginally greater power than it had under the Articles of Confederation, preserving the co-sovereignty of the individual states.

Neither the "Federalist" faction nor the "Anti-Federalist" faction from the constitutional convention opposed ratification of the new Constitution because both sides saw it as the best compromise they could get.

Note: This arrangement of "Federalists" and "Anti-Federalists" is almost the polar opposite of how we view federalism today and the positions taken by modern "Federalists".

richardshagrin 🚫

@PotomacBob

When North America was part of the British Empire there were Political Parties, the Tories and the Whigs.
"Whig and Tory, members of two opposing political parties or factions in England, particularly during the 18th century. Originally "Whig" and "Tory" were terms of abuse introduced in 1679 during the heated struggle over the bill to exclude James, duke of York (afterward James II), from the succession. Whig—whatever its origin in Scottish Gaelic—was a term applied to horse thieves and, later, to Scottish Presbyterians; it connoted nonconformity and rebellion and was applied to those who claimed the power of excluding the heir from the throne. Tory was an Irish term suggesting a papist outlaw and was applied to those who supported the hereditary right of James despite his Roman Catholic faith."

Similarly, the Go Pee party and the Democraps may be terms of abuse.

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Miracle at Philadelphia

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