Transcript 2007 Constitution PowerPoint Presentation

Mark A. Campbell
Cataract Lodge #2
Lodge Education Officer
2007-2008
The Constitution of the United States of America –
September 17, 1787 – September 17, 2007
On February 21, 1787, the Continental Congress resolved that:
... it is expedient that on the second Monday in May next a
Convention of delegates who shall have been appointed by the
several States be held at Philladelphia for the sole and express
purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation...
Assembly Room in Independence
Hall, Philadelphia, site of the
signing of the Constitution in 1787.
Photo courtesy of Independence
National Historical Park.
The original states, except Rhode Island, collectively appointed 70
individuals to the Constitutional Convention, but a number did not
accept or could not attend. Those who did not attend included
Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams,
Samuel Adams and, John Hancock.
In all, 55 delegates attended the Constitutional Convention
sessions, but only 39 actually signed the Constitution. The
delegates ranged in age from Jonathan Dayton, aged 26, to
Benjamin Franklin, aged 81, who was so infirm that he had to be
carried to sessions in a sedan chair.
©
Copyright
2004 Twin Cities Public Television. All Rights Reserved
King George III ascends to the throne of England.
Treaty signed between England and France ending the
French and Indian War. Canada and the continent east
of the Mississippi River added to Great Britain's
growing empire.
Parliament passes The Stamp Act as a means to
pay for British troops on the American frontier.
Colonists violently protest the measure taxing
newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, legal
documents, dice and playing cards.
March 18. Stamp Act repealed, but on the same day
parliament passes the Declaratory Act asserting its right to
make laws binding on the colonies.
October. British troops arrive in Boston to enforce customs
laws.
March. Four workers shot by British troops stationed in
Boston. Patriots label the killings "The Boston Massacre."
December. Massachusetts patriots dressed as Mohawk
Indians protest the British Tea Act by dumping crates of tea
into Boston Harbor.
January. The Privy Council reprimands Benjamin
Franklin in London for leaking letters damaging to
the Royal Governor of Massachusetts. September.
First Continental Congress convenes in
Philadelphia.
April. Shots fired at Lexington and Concord. "Minute Men"
force British troops back to Boston. George Washington takes
command of the Continental Army.
January. Thomas Paine's July 4. Thomas
July. A huge British force
Common Sense
Jefferson's
arrives in New York
published. Becomes an
Declaration of
harbor bent on
instant best seller and
Independence ratified
crushing the rebellion.
pushes the colonies
by the Congress.
closer to
independence.
December 26.
December. In desperate
Washington crosses
need of financing and
the Delaware River
arms, Congress sends
August. Continental
and captures a
Benjamin Franklin to
Army routed at Long
Hessian force at
France to urge the
Island, New York.
Trenton, New Jersey.
French to ally with
America.
July. A British force Washington defeated October 17.
led by John
at Brandywine
Americans
Burgoyne takes
(September 11)
capture Burgoyne
Fort Ticonderoga
and Germantown
and his army at
in a devastating
(October 4).
Saratoga.
loss to the
Philadelphia is
Americans. The
lost to the British.
Marquis de
Lafayette arrives
in America.
February. France signs a treaty of alliance with the United
States and the American Revolution becomes a world war.
British attack Charleston, South
Carolina. City falls in May.
1780-'81 Americans "lose"
series of engagements in the
south, but exact a heavy toll
on the British army.
African-American Elizabeth
Freeman sues for her freedom
in Massachusetts. Her victory
prohibits slavery in that state.
October 19. A miraculous
convergence of American and
French forces traps Lord
Cornwallis at Yorktown,
Virginia. He surrenders his
British army.
September. A peace
treaty is signed
between Great
Britain and the
United States.
December. George
1783-'87 Noah
Washington gives up
Webster creates and
command of the
publishes a speller
Continental Army
which helps
and returns to
standardize
private life.
American English.
1785-'86 Treaty talks with Spain for rights to navigate the Mississippi
fail because of regional conflicts between northern and southern
states.
1786-'87 Shay's Rebellion, an armed insurrection of debt-ridden
farmers in Massachusetts, quashed by the state militia.
Northwest Ordinance In May, delegates
September 18. The
adopted by
from all 13 states
Constitutional
Confederation
arrive in
Convention
Congress. Prohibits
Philadelphia to
adjourns having
slavery in
rewrite the Articles
passed a National
territories and
of Confederation.
Constitution that
provides a means
required
for new states to
ratification by 3/4
enter the union.
of the states.
The crucial states of Virginia (June 25) and New York (July 26) become
the 10th and 11th states to pass the Constitution.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Masonic scholar and writer Paul Bessel of the Washington, DC
area has assembled a reasonably definitive accounting
of which signers of the Constitution were confirmed
Freemasons. His work built upon that of Bro. Ronald Heaton as
published by the MSA in 1962 and 1986.
Brother Bessel’s work can be viewed in detail on the Philelethes
web site Freemasonry.org and his web site Bessel.org.
Portions of his work are included here.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Included in the 39 signatures affixed to the Constitution
are 13 who are known to be Freemasons.
Of the 16 who attended the convention and did not
sign the constitution, 6 are known to be Freemasons.
So 19 of 55 men involved in framing our constitution were
believed to be Freemasons dedicated to the principles of
our craft (35%).
Their names and stories follow.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Gunning Bedford, Jr. – First Grand Master of Delaware.
Born in Philadelphia in 1742, Bedford was a Colonel and aide
to General Washington, graduate of Nassau Hall (which
became Princeton) and was appointed by Washington to the
U.S. District Court bench for Delaware.
M.W.B. Bedford was raised in Washington Lodge No.14 which
became Delaware Lodge No.1 and which served as Master.
He became Delaware’s first Grand Master in 1806.
The two Senator requirement to equalize representation
between large and small states is attributed to Bedford.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
John Blair – First Grand Master of Virginia 1778-1784.
Blair was appointed by Washington as one of the first Supreme
Court Justices in 1789.
Blair was the only Virginian voting in favor of the adoption of
The Constitution.
Blair was raised in Williamsburg Lodge No. 6 on December 23,
1773 and elected Master in May of 1774.
Blair is often confused with his father, John Blair, Sr. who was
President of the Council of Virginia (same as Governor) under
British rule.
Blair resigned from the Supreme Court in 1796 and died in 1800.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
David Brearley – First Grand Master of New Jersey from
1786 until his death in 1790. Born in 1745 near Trenton,
Brearley was a Revoutionary War soldier, officer and hero
who became Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court
until 1789 when he was appointed to the U.S. District Court
bench by President Washington.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Jacob Broom of Delaware was a member and officer of
Christina Ferry Lodge No. 14 in Wilmington serving as
Secretary and Treasurer in 1780 . He later served as a Warden
and another term as Treasurer.
Broom was a member of the Delaware legislature from 17841788 and the first Postmaster of Wilmington 1790-92.
A school teacher, real estate dealer and surveyor, Broom drew
a map and provided it to General Washington weeks
Before the Battle of Brandywine.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Daniel Carroll – was raised in Maryland Lodge No.16 in
Baltimore on May 8,1781. Bro. Carroll participated in the laying of
the cornerstone for the U.S. Capitol with George Washington.
Carroll was elected to Congress from Maryland in 1789 and
served until 1791 when he was appointed Commissioner for the
surveying of Washington, DC. His farm formed much of the area
currently occupied by the District of Columbia.
Carroll was a cousin of Charles Carroll, a signer of the
Declaration of Independence and source for the city names of
both Carrollton and New Carrollton, MD.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Jonathan Dayton – believed a member of Temple Lodge No.1
Elizabethtown, NJ, and son of Brig. Gen Elias Dayton of the
Revolutionary Army. Dayton served as an officer under his father
during the revolution and was a three term Congressman from
New Jersey and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Bro. Dayton was elected to the Senate in 1799 and served there
until 1805.
Bro. Dayton was arrested for alleged conspiracy with Aaron Burr,
but was never tried on the charges. Dayton studied law and
was a graduate of Princeton
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
John Dickinson – “Penman of the Revolution” was raised in
Lodge No. 18, Dover Delaware. Dickinson studied law in
Philadelphia and England, and served as a private in the
revolution who was commissioned Brigadier General of the
Delaware militia in 1777.
Dickinson served as the fifth President of the Delaware council
until he resigned to become the President of Pennsylvania
council. He Founded Dickinson College at Carlisle, Pa.
Bro. Dickinson had opposed the Declaration of Independence
as premature, but supported the constitution ten years later.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Benjamin Franklin – was the first native born Provincial
Grand Master in 1750. Franklin was raised in St. John’s Lodge
in Philadelphia in 1731. He served his lodge as Secretary
1735-38 and was elected to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania
as its Grand Master June 24, 1734.
Inventor, statesman and diplomat, Franklin garnered French
support during the revolution and helped assure the colonists
victory. Because of his poor health, Benjamin Franklin
needed help to sign the Constitution. As he did so, tears
streamed down his face. He died shortly thereafter in April
1790.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Nicholas Gilman – was made a Mason March 20, 1777 in
St. John’s Lodge No.1 of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
An adjutant in Washington’s military family during the
Revolutionary War, It was Gilman’s responsibility to account for
the prisoners surrendered by Cornwallis at Yorktown.
He was elected to congress from New Hampshire and served
In that role from 1789 to 1797. He was elected to the U.S.
Senate in 1804 and served in that position until his death in
May 2, 1814.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Rufus King - served with Gen. Sullivan during the Revolution.
A 1777 graduate of Harvard, King is thought to have been a
member of St. John’s Lodge, Newburyport, Massachusetts.
King moved to New York to practice law and served a term in
that state legislature before being elected to the U.S. Senate,
serving there From 1789-96 and 1813-25. He was an
unsuccessful candidate for the Vice Presidency in 1804 and
1808 and the Presidency in 1816.
King’s brother William was the first governor of Maine and the
first Grand Master of Maine.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
James McHenry – served as private Secretary and surgeon
to Washington and Lafayette during the war. Dr. McHenry was
a member of Spiritual Lodge No. 23 of Baltimore, Maryland.
Bro. McHenry served in the Maryland legislature from 178186 and concurrently represented Maryland in the Continental
Congress from 1783-86. In 1796 he joined President
Washington’s Cabinet as Secretary of War.
Fort McHenry is named in his honor.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
William Paterson – graduated from Princeton (1763) and
entered the bar in 1769 becoming New Jersey attorney General in
1776. Paterson was a delegate to the Continental Congress 178081 and elected U.S. Senator in 1780. Bro. Paterson resigned from
The Senate to become Governor of New Jersey in March of 1781.
In 1793 President Washington appointed Bro. Paterson to the
U.S.Supreme Court where he served until his death in September
1806.
Paterson was a member of Trenton Lodge No. 5 of
Trenton, New Jersey.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
George Washington – was initiated in Fredericksburg Lodge
On November 4, 1752 just before his 21st birthday. He was
passed to the degree of a fellow craft on March 3, 1753 just
after his 21st birthday and raised to the Master Mason degree
August 4, 1753.
Alexandria Lodge No.39 became his home, and Washington was
elected Master of the lodge May 29, 1788. His lodge transferred
its charter to Virginia and became Alexandria Lodge No.22, and
in 1805 Washington Alexandria Lodge No. 22.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
William R. Davie – a graduate of Princeton in 1776,
he immediately entered the army serving with
distinction. Later commissioned a major general in the
North Carolina militia, he participated in the
constitutional convention but did not sign due to illness.
Bro. Davie became Governor of North Carolina in 1798.
Bro. Davie was raised in Occasional Lodge in 1791, and
in 1792 became Grand Master serving until 1798
although he had never been Master of a lodge.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Elbridge Gerry – a signer of the Declaration of
independence he opposed the constitution as drafted.
Bro. Gerry was believed to be a member of Philanthropic
Lodge At Marblehead, Massachusetts, but all lodge records
from 1740-1778 have been lost.
Gerry served as a U.S. Congressman representing
Massachusetts from 1789-93. His efforts to retain Republican
control of Massachusetts through redistricting caused the
creation of the term Gerrymandering.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
William Houstoun – a Georgia delegate to the convention,
Houstoun presented his credentials as one of Georgia's
delegates. He stayed for only a short time, from June 1 until
about July 23, 1787.
Bro. Houstoun was a member of Solomon’s Lodge No. 1 of
Savannah, Georgia.
Houston Street in Manhattan is named after William
Housto(u)n in recognition of his accomplishments and those
of his father.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Alexander Martin – a graduate of Princeton, Martin settled
in Guilford County, North Carolina to practice law. Service in the
2nd NC regiment at Germantown and Brandywine, he rose to the
Rank of colonel. He served the state senate, and a term as
President of the senate, elected governor in 1781.
Bro. Martin was elected tot the U.S.Senate serving from
1793 to 1799.
Bro. Martin was raised at a communication of the Grand Lodge
Of North Carolina in Fayetteville in 1788. Bro. Martin was
elected Junior Grand Warden in 1807 – and died in office.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Dr. James McClurg – a member of Williamsburg Lodge No.6
And a representative of that lodge to the convention that
Established the Grand Lodge of Virginia.
Bro. McClurg was a fellow student of William and Mary
College with Thomas Jefferson, and took his medical degrees
at Edinburgh, Scotland and studied in London and Paris.
Bro McClurg was a member of the Virginia Executive Council
And an associate of Edmund Randolph.
Masonic influences on the U.S.Constitution
Edmund Randolph – Governor of Virginia and Grandmaster
of Virginia at the time of the convention, Randolph attended
and participated as his schedule would permit. He did not
support and did not sign the finished document.
Bro. Randolph was raised in Williamsburg Lodge No.6 and in
1777 Withdrew to become charter master of Jerusalem Lodge
No. 54.
He served as Attorney General and Secretary of State under
President John Adams.
Fascinating Facts about the U.S.Constitution
The U.S. Constitution has 4,400 words. It is the oldest and shortest
written Constitution of any major government in the world."
Of the typographical errors in the Constitution, the misspelling of
the word “Pensylvania” above the signers’ names is probably the
most glaring.
Thomas Jefferson did not sign the Constitution. He was in France
during the Convention, where he served as the U.S. minister. John
Adams was serving as the U.S. minister to Great Britain during the
Constitutional Convention and did not attend either.
Fascinating Facts about the U.S.Constitution
James Madison, “the father of the Constitution,” was the first to arrive in
Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention. He arrived in February,
three months before the convention began, bearing the blueprint for the
new Constitution.
Of the forty-two delegates who attended most of the meetings, thirtynine actually signed the Constitution. Edmund Randolph and George
Mason of Virginia and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts refused to sign
due in part to the lack of a bill of rights.
When it came time for the states to ratify the Constitution, the lack of
any bill of rights was the primary sticking point.
Fascinating Facts about the U.S.Constitution
The oldest person to sign the Constitution was Benjamin Franklin (81).
The youngest was Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey (26).
When the Constitution was signed, the United States’ population was 4
million. It is now more than 300 million. Philadelphia was the nation’s
largest city, with 40,000 inhabitants.
A proclamation by President George Washington and a congressional
resolution established the first national Thanksgiving Day on November
26, 1789. The reason for the holiday was to give “thanks” for the new
Constitution.
Fascinating Facts about the U.S.Constitution
The first time the formal term “The United States of America” was used
was in the Declaration of Independence.
It took one hundred days to actually “frame” the Constitution.
There was initially a question as to how to address the President. The
Senate proposed that he be addressed as “His Highness the President of
the United States of America and Protector of their Liberties.” Both the
House of Representatives and the Senate compromised on the use of
“President of the United States.”
Fascinating Facts about the U.S.Constitution
George Washington and James Madison were the only presidents who signed
the Constitution.
In November of 1788 the Congress of the Confederation adjourned and left
the United States without a central government until April 1789, when the first
Congress under the new Constitution convened with its first quorum.
Although Benjamin Franklin’s mind remained active, his body was
deteriorating. He was in constant pain because of gout and having a stone in
his bladder, and he could barely walk. He would enter the convention hall in a
sedan chair carried by four prisoners from the Walnut Street jail in
Philadelphia.
Fascinating Facts about the U.S.Constitution
The members of the first Congress of the United States included 54 who
were delegates to the Constitutional Convention or delegates to the
various state-ratifying conventions. The number also included 7 delegates
who opposed ratification.
Benjamin Franklin died on April 17, 1790, at the age of 84. The 20,000
mourners at his funeral on April 21, 1790, constituted the largest public
gathering up to that time.
Vermont ratified the Constitution on January 10, 1791, even though it had
not yet become a state.
Fascinating Facts about the U.S.Constitution
John Adams referred to the Constitution as “the greatest single effort
of national deliberation that the world has ever seen” and George
Washington wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette that “It (the
Constitution) appears to me, then, little short of a miracle.”
The Pennsylvania State House (where the Constitutional Convention
took place) was where George Washington was appointed the
commander of the Continental Army in 1775 and where the
Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. It was also where
the Articles of Confederation were adopted as our first constitution in
1781.
Fascinating Facts about the U.S.Constitution
The word “democracy” does not appear once in the Constitution.
There was a proposal at the Constitutional Convention to limit the
standing army for the country to 5,000 men. George Washington
sarcastically agreed with this proposal as long as a stipulation was
added that no invading army could number more than 3,000 troops!
Fascinating Facts about the U.S.Constitution
At the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin
observed the symbol of the sun at the top of George Washington’s chair
and mused: “I have the happiness to know it is a rising sun and not a
setting sun”
Bibliography:
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/marryff.html
http://bessel.org/constmas.htm
http://www.constitutionfacts.com/index.cfm