53 pages • 1 hour read
Catherine Drinker BowenMiracle At Philadelphia
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1966A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
State Versus Federal Power
The most important question at the Constitutional Convention was how to balance power between the states and the federal government. Practically everyone agreed on the need for a new institutional arrangement, given the acute weaknesses of Congress under the Articles of Confederation. Classical republican theory held that government should be as localized as possible so as to mirror the local population’s character and interests. As things currently stood, the states were in fact the sovereign power, and at that time it was common to refer to the United States as a plural entity (singular pronouns were not common until after the Civil War). Given that many people “mistrusted a strong central government and preferred some version of the old Confederacy, where Congress could be controlled by the states” (105), the Convention could only produce slight revisions to address discrete problems. It could not innovate a new form of government with no historical precedent. As Bowen explains, “innovation was a word that had been in bad repute for centuries. It meant something impulsive, a trifle addled, the work of an enthusiast and certainly an infringement on the law” (12). Anything that went too far outside of established strictures was considered neither permissible nor prudent.
On the other hand, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, and others regarded a strong central government as indispensable for liberty, particularly for a country as large and potentially powerful as the United States. The country had been rattled by recent rebellions, financial crises, and humiliations at the hands of foreign powers, and they warned that a government too weak to control the people was likewise too weak to protect them. When opponents leveled the charge of monarchism at any concentrated federal authority, delegates conceded that “a country so large […] seems to require the vigor of monarchy” (57), albeit one that was accountable to the public.
The debate on state versus federal power played out largely in discussions about the composition of the legislature, with Federalists arguing for proportional representation, symbolizing a single national population, and Anti-Federalists insisting on equal representation for all states, to reinforce the notion of a federal government as “a mere compact, resting on the good faith of the parties” (42). The House reflected the first scheme and the Senate the second, and so even though the advocates of federal power ultimately won the battle to create an entirely new system, the advocates of state power were able to make sure their preferences were lodged into that new arrangement.
Idealism and the Need for Compromise
Bowen takes pains to point out that those at the Constitutional Convention were sincere in their convictions. Contrary to the historians who emphasize economic gain or regional self-interest, Bowen describes the delegates in terms of their beliefs and visions for the future. Given this focus, it is curious that Bowen says very little about the influence of the Enlightenment on the delegates, which was substantial. The English philosopher John Locke provided the template of “life, liberty, and property” that informed Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence and the subsequent understanding of freedom as the ability of a man to “rise in the world according to his abilities and his industry” (71). Alexander Hamilton would repeatedly cite the work of Montesquieu, a major French Enlightenment thinker, who argued that for a republic to operate successfully on a large scale, it would need a powerful executive as well as a commercial ethos. It may be that Bowen does not wish to overestimate the role of philosophy when for her the real “miracle” of the Convention was the creation of a political document despite so many competing interests and pressures weighing upon the delegates. The Convention would have been a dismal failure without the willingness to give way to political reality.
Rather than discuss their philosophical influences, Bowen describes the delegates as possessing varying strands of idealism, rooted in different ideas based on lived experiences. With respect to the Constitution, compromise was less a matter of abandoning one’s position than of finding a way for institutional arrangements to accommodate multiple positions at once. One example of compromise can be seen in the creation of the national executive. Some delegates feared that such an office was dangerously close to a monarchy; recognizing that “absolute monarchy in Europe had reached its peak” (135), they weaved elaborate conspiracy theories of King George putting his son on an American throne. For other delegates, the “British example” was the best template they had in terms of designing a government, and as much as they might have chafed under British rule, there was no way to design an effective chief executive without taking some cues from monarchs. The compromise the delegates reached was to clothe the office in republican simplicity. The president would not be elevated above the people in formal rank or address, taking the title “Mr. President” rather than “His Highness, the President of the United States and Protector of Their Liberties” (192). However, the powers of the office would be immense. This compromise allowed advocates of both positions to claim the office as an embodiment of their vision.
America’s Relationship to the Outside World
In 1787, America was a young country, but it had already made a considerable impression beyond its shores, especially in Europe. Some of the country’s most prominent citizens, such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, had spent years abroad, either building diplomatic support for the Revolution or trying to secure loans after the war ended. European interest in the new country was intense, with many travelogues describing the character of the land and its people to eager audiences at home. Within two years, the storming of the Bastille in Paris would mark the start of the French Revolution. The winds of change were blowing, and the world was eager to see if this new example of representative government could possibly succeed. The egalitarian spirit of America—with the glaring exceptions of enslavement and the ethnic cleansing of Indigenous tribes—was a source of inspiration and dread to Europeans. One traveler notes the complete absence of a feudal tradition in the United States, so that “the spirit of servility to those above them so prevalent in European manners is wholly unknown, and the [Americans] pass their lives without any regard to the smiles or frowns of men in power” (155).
The delegates to the Convention were worldly men—many had been born or lived abroad, especially the Caribbean-born Hamilton, who urged the delegates to adopt the example of the British constitution as “the best model the world has ever produced” (112), “balancing public strength and individual security” through its monarch-like presidency (112), aristocratic Senate, and democratic House. Hamilton’s views were immensely controversial, and not everyone wanted to imitate the British model from which they had just broken away, but they could all agree that a strong national government would secure the new country’s standing in the world. During the many moments when disagreements flared and it appeared as though the Convention itself could fall apart, delegates appealed not only to Heaven but also to “the threat of disunion, the possible secession of the West, the jealousies among new states and the rapacity of Europe” (184)— external dangers they could combat only with the help of a strong national government. America was not just a country, but an experiment in self-government, even though the country’s own commitment to those principles had severe and brutal limits. The delegates’ eagerness to prove that “the equality of man was not a matter for philosophers, poets, and the conversation of enlightened drawing rooms” (154) surely helped inspire them to push through hot days, sleepless nights, and endless arguments.
