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speakers, nor in the sort of education they had obtained. For the men at
Philadelphia in 1787 had studied formal rhetoric, and so spoke with
care—and often with eloquence. The majority of them had attended
colleges or universities during an era when intellectual disciplines were
taken seriously. It was remarked, even then, that this was a gathering, as
Jefferson put it, of ‘‘demigods.’’ Yet some of America’s most brilliant
leaders were absent. Jefferson himself was in Paris and John Adams was
in London, both representing the United States as foreign ministers. Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia had refused to attend, and
John Jay of New York had been refused an appointment.
Many of the Framers were intensely ambitious men who had great expectations for both the nation and themselves. They were acutely aware
that at Philadelphia they had become involved in high concerns. That
consciousness was reflected in their manner and speech. It has been remarked by many writers and political leaders that it would probably not
be possible in the United States today to assemble a group of delegates
equal in talent to the fifty-five men who met at Philadelphia two centuries ago. Qualified by personal experience, schooling, and character, and
moved by their knowledge of America’s necessities, the Framers of our
Constitution acted with unusual wisdom.
Plans and Progress at Philadelphia
The more one reads about those delegates of 1787, the more one becomes
aware that they came to Philadelphia with open minds—in the sense
that few were committed in advance to any particular scheme for improving upon the Articles of Confederation. They believed strongly in
certain political principles, but they did not advocate elaborately detailed
political systems or master plans for the ‘‘perfect’’ commonwealth. The
plans of government that were offered at the outset of the Convention
were intended to serve merely as general guidelines.
Of course they took certain matters for granted. One was that the
United States should remain a republic, as had been declared in 1776. By
a republic, as we noted earlier, the Framers meant a state in which the
sovereign power rests in the people as a whole but is exercised by representatives chosen by a popular vote. History furnishes examples of
monarchic, aristocratic, and democratic republics. Sparta, Athens, and