The successful creation of the Constitution is a suspense story. The Summer of 1787 takes us into the sweltering room in which delegates struggled for four months to produce the flawed but enduring document that would define the nation -- then and now.
George Washington presided, James Madison kept the notes, Benjamin Franklin offered wisdom and humor at crucial times. The Summer of 1787 traces the struggles within the Philadelphia Convention as the delegates hammered out the charter for the world's first constitutional democracy. Relying on the words of the delegates themselves to explore the Convention's sharp conflicts and hard bargaining, David O. Stewart lays out the passions and contradictions of the often painful process of writing the Constitution.
It was a desperate balancing act. Revolutionary principles required that the people have power, but could the people be trusted? Would a stronger central government leave room for the states? Would the small states accept a Congress in which seats were alloted according to population rather than to each sovereign state? And what of slavery? The supercharged debates over America's original sin led to the most creative and most disappointing political deals of the Convention.
The room was crowded with colorful and passionate characters, some known -- Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, Edmund Randolph -- and others largely forgotten. At different points during that sultry summer, more than half of the delegates threatened to walk out, and some actually did, but Washington's quiet leadership and the delegates' inspired compromises held the Convention together.
In a country continually arguing over the document's original intent, it is fascinating to watch these powerful characters struggle toward consensus -- often reluctantly -- to write a flawed but living and breathing document that could evolve with the nation.
Autorentext
David Stewart
Inhalt
ONTENTS
The Delegates
The United States in 1787
CHAPTER ONE It Started at Mount Vernon: March 1785
CHAPTER TWO Blood on the Snow: Winter 1787
CHAPTER THREE "A House on Fire": Spring 1787
CHAPTER FOUR Demigods and Coxcombs Assemble: May 1787
CHAPTER FIVE Virginia Leads: May 25-June 1
CHAPTER SIX Wilson's Bargain: May 31-June 10
CHAPTER SEVEN Three-Fifths of a Human Being: June 11
CHAPTER EIGHT Festina Lente: June 12-19
CHAPTER NINE To the Brink: June 21-July 10
CHAPTER TEN The Small States Win: July 11-17
CHAPTER ELEVEN The Touch of a Feather: July 9-14
CHAPTER TWELVE The Ipswich Miracle: July 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Presidential Muddle: July 17-26
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Rutledge Hijacks the Constitution: July 27-August 6
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Back to Work: August 6
CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Curse of Heaven: August 8-29
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN David Brearley's Presidency: August 24-September 7
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The Loyal Opposition: August 31
CHAPTER NINETEEN With All Its Faults: September 8-17
CHAPTER TWENTY Happiness, Perpetual and Otherwise: July 4, 1788
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Making Amends
Appendix 1: The Elector System
Appendix 2: The Constitution of 1787
Notes
Further Reading
Acknowledgments
Index