CONSTITUTION DAY | 233rd Anniversary Celebration

September 17, 2020. On this day in 1787 the United States Constitution was signed by delegates at the final meeting of the Constitutional Convention. 

The Signing of the United States Constitution by Louis S. Glanzman, 1987. 

Commissioned by State Societies of the Daughters of the American 

Revolution. Independence National Historical Park Collection.

We may forget that the Constitutional Convention was created to raise money for the central government so it could maintain a military to stop piracy. The central government was supposed to provide such services but it didn't have the money to pay for them. It didn't have an effective means of collecting its debts.

The war with Britain had officially ended four years before, but the Articles of Confederation created by the Second Continental Congress were weak. After overthrowing an imperious monarch, George III, the Americans had no taste for another strong central authority. The United States had no real executive, just a president of the Congress. The Second Continental Congress had thrown the government-creating job back to each of the 13 colonies. They did their job, and took on what they could, but some things could only be done centrally, like maintaining an Army and a Navy.

By 1787, not one of the states was up-to-date on its federal taxes. The central government had no way to force collection. Meanwhile, pirates were attacking American ships, and the central government could afford neither to pay them off nor defend the ships. Troops were deserting, and the national military was unable to come to the aid of states when they needed it.

James Madison and other leaders organized the Constitutional Convention to enable the central government to collect taxes and provide reliable services. In May 1787, delegates arrived in Philadelphia and there spent the next four months rewriting the Articles of Confederation. It was hot and buggy. The 55 highly educated, and by-now politically seasoned, delegates averaged 42 years of age:

• George Washington was elected president and rarely spoke. 
• Alexander Hamilton was absent from much of the deliberations but emerged as the principal author of the Federalist Papers, arguing why the Constitution should be ratified. 
• Governor Morris was a witty man with a peg leg who wrote the famous preamble to the Constitution. 
• Benjamin Franklin, 81, could no longer walk and had to be carried around Philadelphia in a sedan chair.
• James Madison was constantly in attendance, taking notes and arguing strenuously for a more powerful central government. A small man, 5'6" and weighing 120 pounds, he became known as "the Father of the Constitution.” On the final day of the Constitutional Convention, he wrote: "“Franklin, looking towards the President's Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have, said he, often … looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun.”

Today, the National Archives is celebrating the 233rd anniversary of the signing of the Constitution with special virtual programs for all ages, including book talks,  public programs, and interactive webinars. The National Archives is the permanent home of the original Constitution. See the Archives special Celebrating Constitution Day page for information about its public programs, family activities, and online resources.

YOUNG AMERICA | Aug. 22–The British Land on Long Island

After landing on Long Island, the British pursued
the Continental Army at a slow pace, strung out across
the East Coast. On Dec. 25, Washington struck back.

This day in 1776, after the Declaration of Independence in July, the British army under Gen. Sir William Howe landed 24,000 men on Long Island–in what is now Brooklyn. The rebellion began in April 1775 at Lexington and Concord.

The British plan was to end the war by capturing New York City and controlling the Hudson River, splitting apart the rebel colonies. This plan to take New York City succeeded, but the underlying plan to defeat the rebellion failed.

Howe misjudged the resentment of the rebels and their determination to be independent, much as a dog-owner misjudges a pet that has tasted independence and doesn't follow its master's commands any more.

Five days after landing, on August 27, Howe's troops marched against the "rebels"–from the American perspective, the Patriots–ensconced in Brooklyn Heights. They first overcame the Patriots defending Gowanus Pass and then outflanked the Continental Army. The Patriots suffered 1,000 casualties; the British lost only 400.  This was the greatest battle of the war. After this, General Washington avoided direct confrontation, playing the Scottish "secret war" that won against Edward I and Edward II, a defensive game, attacking only relatively small British contingents. Washington surely learned about this game when he was a colonel serving loyally under unpopular General Edward Braddock in the French and Indian War.

Ignoring staff advice, Howe opted not to pursue the Patriots to Brooklyn Heights, where he might have captured General Washington and his senior command, executed them as rebels and probably ended the rebellion. British General William Howe and his brother Admiral Richard Howe believed their Mission was Accomplished and that General Washington or the Congress would surrender.

On September 11, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and other congressional representatives did reopen negotiations with the Howes. But after a couple of meetings the British refused to accept the non-negotiable demand for American independence and the congressional team went home.

The delays meanwhile gave General Washington and his troops time to retreat by boat to Manhattan under cover of darkness and fog. By the time the British army went back to work and captured New York City on September 15,  Washington and his men were on their way first north to White Plains and then across the Hudson to New Jersey. After many skirmishes in New Jersey, the Continental Army retreated to Pennsylvania.

NYC would remain in British hands until the end of the war. But on Christmas Day 1776, Washington led a bold counter-attack, recrossing the Delaware River above Trenton, and the Continental Army drove the British out of New Jersey. The war ended in Britain's defeat in 1781.