News Journal: The 56 signatures that matter so much today

Thinking about what’s going on in Washington these days, I realized when I set out to write a column for this Fourth of July weekend that I wanted to say just what I did one year ago. So if you’ll forgive me a rerun, here it is:
We all remember and revere “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” but another favorite line of mine from the Declaration of Independence is its last: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
The 56 brave signers were declaring war on the most powerful nation in the world. They risked everything. None doubted the terrible truth of what Benjamin Franklin famously predicted: “We must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately.”
They represented 13 colonies with very different economies and cultures. About the only thing many of them could agree on was the desire for independence. When that was finally, implausibly won, most still thought of themselves first as South Carolinians or New Yorkers.
That’s why the Articles of Confederation adopted in 1781 said: “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.”
After eight years it became clear that the United States could not survive under that arrangement, so a constitutional convention was convened.
Some delegates wanted to establish a nearly all-powerful monarchical central government. Others demanded the states remain supreme, with a very weak central government.
Every historian who has studied the convention ends up marveling that these fractious, strong-willed men were finally able to agree on the document that became the Constitution of the United States.
The small states would never have agreed to a legislature apportioned by population. The compromise? A bicameral Congress that included a popularly elected House of Representatives and a Senate composed of two members from each state.
North and South seemed hopelessly divided on the issue of tariffs. Agricultural Southern states were dependent on trade and opposed tariffs. Northern industries wanted tariff protection from foreign competition. The compromise? Congress was given the right to regulate trade but could not tax exports.
Some wanted direct election of the President. Others wanted Congress to choose the chief executive. Still others thought that a plurality of state legislatures should do that. The compromise? The Electoral College system we still have today.
Slavery was an issue that could well have wrecked the convention. Northern states wanted to end the slave trade immediately. The compromise? Give Congress the power to do so beginning in 1808. Southern states wanted to count slaves as part of their populations, thus increasing their representation in the House.
Northern states were adamantly against this. The compromise? A slave would be counted as 3/5 a person. As barbaric and bizarre as this seems to us today, that agreement was enshrined in our Constitution. It is part of our history. And without the compromise, no constitution would have been possible in 1789.
Our constitution remains one of the seminal documents in world history. It has more than stood the test of time; after passage of the Bill of Rights, very few amendments have been adopted or even seriously proposed. Our founders were generally wise and far-sighted men, but they were as different from each other as any other diverse group of human beings with different backgrounds and personalities. If they had one characteristic in common, however, it is reflected in the document they produced. They were – sorry, I know this has become a loaded word for some today – compromisers.
It is ironic that many of the politicians today who are loudest in their defense of their own interpretations of the Constitution are also adamant in their refusal to compromise with political opponents. If Hamilton or Jefferson had felt that way, we would not have a Constitution and probably not a country.
Last year I ended this column saying I saw some faint signs that the gridlock in Washington might end on some issues. I was wrong. But I remain an optimist. I still can’t think of a better Independence Day hope for our country than that we return to the kind of political give-and-take that gave us the democracy we celebrate today.
Ted Kaufman is a former U.S. senator from Delaware.

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