The original United States Constitution, without amendments, was ratified at a convention: The Constitutional Convention of 1787 held in Philadelphia. At the time there was significant controversy over the very idea of a Constitution that would robustly unify the states by granting a national government serious powers. The version of the Constitution that was voted upon contained all sorts of compromises so it would get enough votes to pass. As the list below indicates, even with the compromises not every delegate voted in favor of the U.S. Constitution, a document that has become a model for modern democracies all over the world. I can understand why for reasons either of principle or pragmatism, some delegates voted against the 1787 Constitution. But the delegates who voted against the Constitution held views that I do not think I would have agreed with at the time. Regardless, every delegate explained his (and of course the delegates to the 1787 Convention were all men) reasons for voting as he did, in the days leading up to the vote and as the final language of the Constitution was being debated. The group assembled chose to use democratic procedures to govern their convention, and they stuck to those procedures. Because of that, I respect the vote of each delegate to the 1887 Constitutional Convention, even those delegates with asterisks. Today, of course, delegates to the Democratic National Convention face a situation that is, in its own way, as charged as the the situation that confronted the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention had to decide whether to cater to short term pressures or whether to think of the the bigger picture; they had to respect the will and interests of their constituencies and use their consciences to analyze what would seriously count as showing such respect. As the delegates today wrestle with these questions, I would encourage them to picture a list like the one below but with their names on it, indicating who voted how when the chips were down. * indicates delegates who did not sign the Constitution Connecticut

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William Samuel Johnson Roger Sherman Oliver Ellsworth (Elsworth)* Delaware

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George Read Gunning Bedford, Jr. John Dickinson Richard Bassett Jacob Broom   Georgia

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William Few Abraham Baldwin William Houstoun* William L. Pierce* Maryland

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James McHenry Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer Daniel Carroll Luther Martin* John F. Mercer* Massachusetts

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Nathaniel Gorham Rufus King Elbridge Gerry* Caleb Strong* New Hampshire

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John Langdon Nicholas Gilman New Jersey

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William Livingston David Brearly (Brearley) William Paterson (Patterson) Jonathan Dayton William C. Houston*   New York

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Alexander Hamilton John Lansing, Jr.* Robert Yates* North Carolina

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William Blount Richard Dobbs Spaight Hugh Williamson William R. Davie* Alexander Martin* Pennsylvania

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Benjamin Franklin Thomas Mifflin Robert Morris George Clymer Thomas Fitzsimons (FitzSimons; Fitzsimmons) Jared Ingersoll James Wilson Gouverneur Morris South Carolina

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John Rutledge Charles Cotesworth Pinckney Charles Pinckney Pierce Butler Rhode Island

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Rhode Island did not send delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Virginia

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John Blair James Madison Jr. George Washington George Mason* James McClurg* Edmund J. Randolph* George Wythe*