Constitution

The Constitution is drafted eleven years after the Declaration, in a different city and a different mood. The Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781, have proved unworkable as the framework of a national government — no power of taxation, no executive, no judiciary, a unanimity rule for amendment that means nothing can be changed. A convention is called for Philadelphia in May 1787 to revise the Articles. Fifty-five delegates from twelve states attend (Rhode Island refuses). Washington presides; Madison takes the detailed notes that are the historian's chief source for what was said in the closed sessions; the Convention sits for four months in the same State House where the Declaration had been signed. The result is not a revision of the Articles but a wholly new framework.

The central structural achievements are separation of powers and federal compromise. Article I creates a bicameral legislature — a House elected directly by the people every two years, a Senate originally chosen by state legislatures for staggered six-year terms — with carefully enumerated powers and a list of explicit prohibitions. Article II creates a single chief executive, elected indirectly through state-appointed electors, with vested executive power and the duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Article III creates a federal judiciary with original and appellate jurisdiction over a defined set of cases. The mutual checks among the branches — veto and override, Senate confirmation, judicial review — are Madison's "auxiliary precautions": the constitutional architecture is designed so that the ambition of officeholders in each branch will, in the ordinary course, defend the boundaries of that branch against the others.

The Convention produces two great compromises. The Connecticut Compromise creates the bicameral legislature — a House apportioned by population, a Senate with two senators per state regardless of population — breaking the deadlock between the large-state Virginia Plan and the small-state New Jersey Plan. The Three-Fifths Compromise, considerably more shameful, gives the slave states a disproportionate voice in the House and Electoral College by counting three-fifths of the enslaved population for apportionment. The Constitution is signed on September 17, 1787 and sent to the states for ratification. New Hampshire becomes the ninth state to ratify on June 21, 1788, and the Constitution comes into force.