The other convention

Constitution Day, which falls on Sunday this year, celebrates the ratification of our nation’s charter document, signed by 39 delegates in convention at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on Sept. 17, 1787.

Less well remembered is another convention, a year earlier, in Maryland. Only 12 delegates from five states showed up at the Annapolis Convention held Sept. 11, 1786, which had been called by James Madison to discuss interstate commerce, among other weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation.

With such a poor showing naturally limiting the group’s authority, the attending commissioners declined to take any formal action toward the convention’s proclaimed purpose to “Remedy the Defects of the Federal Government.” The one thing they did decide to do, however, turned out to be significant in history.

They initiated an invitation. John Dickinson was the Annapolis Convention’s chairman, and he presided over brief meetings for a couple of days before Alexander Hamilton rose to introduce a resolution on Sept. 14.

After affirming the small representation of states to be too “partial and defective” to proceed as a body, Hamilton’s resolution nevertheless expressed some observations: “That there are important defects in the system of the federal government is acknowledged by the acts of all those states, which have concurred in the present meeting …

“Your commissioners decline an enumeration of those national circumstances … . They are, however, of a nature so serious, as, in the view of your commissioners, to render the situation of the United States delicate and critical … .

“Under this impression, your commissioners, with the most respectful deference, beg leave to suggest their unanimous conviction, that … the states, by whom they have been respectively delegated, would themselves concur, and use their endeavours to procure the concurrence of the other states … to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday in May next, to take into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the constitution of the federal government adequate … .”

Though barely an historical footnote now, it was the Annapolis failure (even host Maryland failed to send delegates) that aided in sparking the Philadelphia success, where commissioners Madison, Hamilton and Dickinson would all figure prominently the following summer.

Of the three, Dickinson is likely the least familiar and arguably one of the most underrated of our founding fathers. He had a prodigious political career in Pennsylvania and Delaware, and was such a gifted writer that he earned his unofficial title of “Penman of the Revolution,” at least in part by improving upon the writing of Thomas Jefferson in composing the final draft of the “Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms” in 1775.

That document was issued by the Second Continental Congress to explain to King George III and the British parliament why the colonists were essentially engaging in revolutionary war against the mother country. Its stirring language rivals that of the later declaration in ringing clarity and tone: “[A] reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end.”

The boundaries between Jefferson’s first draft and Dickinson’s final draft are blurred, and lost forever to speculation in some respects. There is no dispute, however, of one powerful section penned by Dickinson toward the closing paragraphs, perhaps the most famous and memorable words of the entire work.

“Our cause is just. Our union is perfect,” Dickinson wrote. “Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable.”

Despite his contributions to writing the document defending an armed rebellion, Dickinson strongly favored reconciliation (through force, if necessary) with Britain rather than independence from her. When Congress voted the following year on July 2 to declare independence, Dickinson abstained. When Congress formally signed the Declaration of Independence two days later, Dickinson was absent.

Following the necessary break with other delegates who had mutually pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor, Dickinson joined the Pennsylvania militia, but his prowess with the pen would lead him to write the first draft of the Articles of Confederation — a vastly superior draft to what was ultimately adopted. Those later revisions would render the Articles anemic, and Dickinson would, as president of the Annapolis Convention, become a leading voice in redress to improve upon them.

Following his significant contributions in Philadelphia, Dickinson authored the Fabius Letters in April 1788 to argue passionately for ratification of the Constitution.

Less influential overall than the Federalist Papers, Dickinson’s essays were still powerfully persuasive at a critical time when the momentum of ratification had stalled.

He closed his second letter of Fabius by asserting that the Constitution was written “in the most clear, strong, positive, unequivocal expressions, of which our language is capable. Magna charta, or any other law, never contained clauses more decisive and emphatic. While the people of these states have sense, they will understand them; and while they have spirit, they will make them to be observed.”

Jefferson himself couldn’t have said it plainer.