Word: summered
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...ANNIVERSARY done in Convention . . . the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth ARTICLE VII THE CONVENTION How the Deed Was Done When 55 men spent a hot summer arguing their way to greatness...
Some of the notables invited to the convention in that summer of 1787 simply refused to come. One, Virginia's Patrick Henry, said of the gathering in Philadelphia that he "smelt a rat." Others came and found the impassioned arguments profoundly dispiriting. "I almost despair of seeing a favorable issue to the proceedings of the convention," George Washington wrote to Alexander Hamilton, who had already gone back to New York City, "and do | therefore repent having had any agency in the business...
Actually the 55 delegates who concocted that remarkable Constitution over the course of a long, hot summer had no real mandate to do what they did. They had gathered only to consider some possible improvements in the Articles of Confederation, which the 13 rebellious colonies had agreed to in 1777 but which had clearly failed to establish an effective national Government. Neither Congress nor anyone else had authorized the delegates to invent a whole new political system...
When the committee presented its constitution on Sept. 12, the delegates eagerly began trying to change things all over again, in ways large and small. Mason of Virginia declared for the first time that summer that there should be a bill of rights. He was voted down by ten states to none. Madison wanted a statement that Congress should create a national university, and Franklin wanted it authorized to dig canals, but they were both voted down...
Still ahead lay nine months of bitter debate before the necessary nine states ratified what had been written that summer in Philadelphia. Ahead lay the creation of the Bill of Rights. Ahead lay the Civil War, which led to the 13th Amendment, finally abolishing slavery. And the 19th Amendment declaring that women have the right to vote. But on this 17th day of September 1787, Washington wrote in his journal: "The business being closed, the members adjourned to the City Tavern, dined together and took a cordial leave of each other; after which I returned to my lodgings . . . and retired...