Compromise Was a Key Factor That Produced the Constitution: Our Political Leaders Should Pause and Reflect on Its Example
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| Howard Christy's Painting Hanging in the U.S. Capitol |
After several months of robust debate, extensive
negotiation, and genuine compromise, it was on this day in 1787 that the
Constitution was signed. The Constitutional Convention was filled daily with passion, harsh disagreement, and lack of
unanimity. The very process of forging this document among numerous competing
interests, such as small versus large States, Federalists versus Anti-Federalists, and agrarian versus industrial, was a monumental task. But in the end the delegates compromised
on numerous issues and produced a document that governs us to this day. One
notable exception, of course, is the ill-fated compromise regarding slavery and
citizenship, ultimately remedied by our brutal Civil War and the Thirteenth,
Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.
