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The Achievement of the Philadelphia Convention
ways addressed as Dr. Johnson. He had been neutral during the Revolution, though he was active in the earlier Stamp Act Congress. Johnson
served as one of his State’s first Senators under the new Constitution and
as the first president of Columbia College.
Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, the mayor of New Haven, was a selfmade man who began as a shoemaker. He spoke nearly a hundred and
forty times at the convention—always effectively—and was a principal
negotiator of its compromises.
Oliver Ellsworth, judge of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, was a defender of the small States and an advocate of the New Jersey Plan. He
feared the possibility of intrusions by a federal government into the affairs of the several States.
Luther Martin, of Maryland, argued in favor of keeping most political
power in the States, though he was willing to revise the Articles of Confederation. An immensely successful lawyer, he later fought the Federalists in
courts during the first two decades of the nineteenth century.
Most of the delegates lived interesting lives. Anyone who studies the
careers of all the fifty-five Framers must be surprised by the great energy
that nearly all of them possessed. They came from a variety of backgrounds, including agriculture, trade, the law, the military, and political
administration. Hugh Williamson of North Carolina, for example, had
been Presbyterian preacher, professor of mathematics, physician, businessman, physical scientist (especially in astronomy), philosopher, political pamphleteer, Surgeon General of North Carolina, a member of the
North Carolina legislature, and a member of the Continental Congress.
He held more than seventy thousand acres of land on the frontier. Williamson put forth a variety of interesting and original proposals for the
new Constitution, but few were accepted by his fellow-delegates.
Surprisingly, two of the more famous and talented of the delegates
contributed