Preface A System to Last for Ages Tnew he fifty-five men who gathered at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia during the spring and summer of 1787 wrote a constitution for the United States of America. Their motive was to revise or replace the failing Confederation with a more effective republican government capable of keeping the thirteen states united in a single Union for decades, if not centuries, to come. As James Madison put it, they hoped to design “a system” of government “to last for ages.” The key to success would be devising a framework that allowed the majority to rule but that protected the rights of minorities. It would be a challenge to create a stronger central government so soon after overthrowing the strong central government of Great Britain.1 The convention participants expressed admiration for one another. Eighty-one-year-old Benjamin Franklin described the gathering as “une assemble des notables.” George Mason, the author of Virginia’s 1776 Dec- laration of Rights, pronounced his fellow attendees “men of fine repub- lican principles. America has certainly, upon this occasion, drawn forth her first characters there are upon this Convention many gentlemen of the most respectable abilities, and so far as I can discover, of the purest intentions.” James Madison, too, characterized the delegates as “the most respectable characters,” while William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut declared them as “the most able men in America.” From Paris, Thomas Jefferson agreed with this consensus, glowingly proclaiming the conven- tion “an assembly of demigods.” Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale College, judged the delegates to be “some of the most sensible and great characters in America.”2
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