Let Us Astonish Our Enemies

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Over the course of the convention, Gouverneur Morris has lost every single debate, discussion, argument, and point. It would be hard to find any single man who had a less successful direct influence on the direction of the debates. Everything that he wanted or stood for in the new government had been defeated.

Now, as the work draws to its close, the convention turns to the one man in whom they have the utmost confidence to stitch together the final document.

And that man is Gouverneur Morris.

When all is said and done, it is Ben Franklin who rises to the moment. His words of self-sacrifice and putting the nation ahead of oneself ring in our hearts even today. And most of all, let us astonish our enemies.

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The Steamship Perseverance

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Today, we debate and discuss the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which may, depending on how you read it, give the President the authority to make war, while Congress has not declared a war. Oddly enough, the delegates had exactly the same debate, which is why the Constitution gives Congress the power to DECLARE war and the expected the President to MAKE war… as long as the people approved…

Needing a bit of a break, most of the Delegates headed down to the shore of the Delaware River to take a ride on a steamship. Yes… a steamship. Twenty years before anybody ever heard of Robert Fulton. Is it possible that little adventure helped them to empower Congress to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts?”

Roughly a hundred years after the convention, Otto von Bismark will develop his political maxim of the “realpolitik.” He could have learned it from Rutledge, who, in response to Luther Martin’s call to accept the immorality of slavery, reminds the Convention that IF there is to be a Union, it WILL be with slavery. And if there is a Union WITH slavery, non-slave States… will make a whole lot of money…

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You Mean To Take Our Slaves

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For some weeks, Gouverneur Morris of New York has been absent from the Convention. Now, at the lowest point of the proceedings, he arrives with a single purpose: to derail the 3/5th’s compromise. The tensions rise as the Slave States begin to believe that there are those, “within or without doors” who mean to take their slaves away. This will never be acceptable to the Slave States, and indeed, there is at least one non-Slave State that admits that it feels the same way.

The debate boils down to one simple thing, do we unite with slavery, or do we dissolve without it? Morris will attempt to force the latter, but like all others before him, he will fail.

When the dust settles, the Connecticut Compromise passes, and the Convention begins to move forward again.

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