![\"Scene](\"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/files\/2014\/07\/Scene_at_the_Signing_of_the_Constitution_of_the_United_States.jpg\")
<\/a>Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, by Howard Chandler Christy<\/p><\/div>\n
And it\u2019s easy to forget how easily the nascent nation could have been snuffed out by the fortunes of revolution, or could have become progressively less democratic, rather than more. It\u2019s hard to overstate the lack of consensus that obtained at the beginning of the Constitutional Convention. Anything could have come out of that meeting of 55 delegates. While we are fortunate that they came to such a flexible and durable result, it could have been otherwise, and even the \u201cmore perfect union\u201d they envisioned was less than perfect, as the years, wars and amendments since attest.<\/p>\n
The 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention did not represent a cross-section of 1787 America<\/a>.\u00a0 The Convention included no women, no slaves, no Native Americans or racial minorities, no laborers.\u00a0 As one historian noted, it was a “Convention of the well-bred, the well-fed, the well-read, and the well-wed.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That being said, the abolition of slavery at the nation\u2019s founding was the intent of a number of delegates<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Luther Martin of Maryland said that forbidding Congress from banning the importation of slaves was \u201cinconsistent with the principles of the revolution and dishonorable to the American character.\u201d Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania said that slavery was a \u201cnefarious institution\u201d and a \u201ccurse of heaven on the states where it prevailed.\u201d George Mason of Virginia spoke at length about the horrors of slavery and criticized slave owners, who he called \u201cpetty tyrants,\u201d and the slave traders who, he said, \u201cfrom a lust of gain embarked on this nefarious traffic.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But instead, a compromise led to more lifetimes of slavery, The Civil War and a legacy of pain and unequal justice that endures until this day.<\/p>\n