This summer I am studying "Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison," reading each entry close to the appropriate day (May 28 through September 17) and marveling at what an "iffy" enterprise the Constitutional Convention was. To mention merely one convoluted issue (equal representation in the Senate): but for a single delegate's "aye" (in the 110th vote, on July 2), the entire Convention would have collapsed . . . and who knows where we'd be today.
It can be thrilling to wade, day by day, through the murky and churning waters with these (surprisingly young) political explorers, who were by no means assured of success. That they were tough, hard-headed, practical, and far-seeing is hardly news. What is news to me is how charmingly and touchingly naïve some of their assumptions sound today.
Contrasting these suppositions with the realities of the current administration can only make one weep---or maybe chuckle, with a cynical shake of the head. Three quick, relevant samples, taken almost at random (from July 17 and 18):
---Gouverneur Morris (Pennsylvania) on election of the President "by the people at large"---"[T]hey will not be uninformed of those great & illustrious characters which have merited their esteem & confidence."
---Roger Sherman (Connecticut) on allowing the President to be eligible for a second term---"If he behaves well he will be continued; if otherwise, displaced, on a succeeding election."
---Nathaniel Gorham (Massachusetts) on allowing the President to appoint judges---"As the Executive will be responsible in point of character at least, for a judicious and faithful discharge of this trust, he will be careful to look through all the States for proper characters."
Finally, these quotations bring to mind, in a free-associative way, some lines from Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," which, incidentally, celebrates its 150th anniversary this month. In "By Blue Ontario's Shore" (sec. 12), the Good Gray Poet poses some questions which, even if taken out of their original context, might profitably be asked of W himself:
"Have you consider'd the organic compact of the first day of the first year of Independence, sign'd by the Commissioners, ratified by the States, and read by Washington at the head of the army?
"Have you possess'd yourself of the Federal Constitution?
. . .
"Can you hold your hand against all seduction, follies, whirls, fierce contentions? Are you very strong? Are you really of the whole People?
"Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere religion?"