Summary:

"Shh!  We're Writing the Constitution" is an account of the Grand Convention held to discuss improvements to be made to the Articles of Confederation during the spring and summer of 1787.

If you pre-read or re-read this story with your child, have your child browse and read aloud the title, names of the author and illustrations throughout the text before reading.  This will help them to establish what they want to learn from the story and activate prior knowledge. 

It had been two years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the creation of the Articles of Confederation.  The Articles of Confederation was the document that had established how the new government of the United States of American would be set up and run.  But problems with this plan were becoming evident.  There was only a Congress as a central government and it had very little power to make the states do anything.  For example, they could ask the states to contribute money to pay of the nation’s debts from the war, but could not make any state actually send the money.  The states operated very independently of each other. But the new nation was quickly showing signs of falling apart and several leaders of the time felt strongly that something had to be done and soon!

So some men, including George Washington and James Madison, suggested all the 13 states send delegates to a convention in Philadelphia to discuss ways to improve the existing plan of government.  The meetings were chaired by George Washington and recorded by James Madison.  After much debate and compromise on the floor of the assembly, the group finally voted (7 states to 3) to abandon the Articles of Confederation in favor of a stronger national government with three branches: the executive, the judicial and the legislative. The constitution was the plan for this stronger national government.  There would be a president (executive branch), a two-part Congress to make laws (legislative branch),  and a high court to make sure new laws followed the constitution (judicial branch).  The greatest challenge was to move enough of the independent minded states from the idea of a loose federation of states to the notion of living under a true central government with some power to enforce laws.  This was a very threatening notion to many in the young nation that had just fought so hard for independence. This story ends mid-convention when the group finally agrees to the most basics structure of the new government.  But many disagreements still existed and the convention would spend the rest of the summer working out the compromises that would result in the full constitution that is the basic plan for our government today.

Key concepts:

Uniting the states was an almost impossible task.

The work of this group of men at the convention provided the basis on which our county is run.

Vocabulary: 

• nation  (group living in one area under one gov't)
• confederation  (the act of joining states together for a common purpose)
• convention  (formal meeting for a special purpose)
• constitution (basic principles used to govern a state, country)
• federal  (formed by an agreement of states to join together as one nation)

Story questions:

1. What was the problem with the rules the early Congress made?  (had no power to make states follow them)

2. Why couldn't the Convention get started for several months and what excuse did some states give?  (only  2 states showed up at first, other states said they were late because of weather, muddy roads, personal business, lack of money)

3. Why did the delegates keep what went on at the meetings a secret?  (knew there would be arguments and didn't want whole country listening and taking sides)

4. Why did A. Hamilton think America was a “13-headed” monster? (thought the 13 states were more loyal to themselves than to the union).