Table of Contents

Principal Speakers at the Convention

Abbreviations

1. Introduction

Part 1: The Illness and the Cure
2. The Setting
3. The Remedy
4. Controlling Republican Politics: The Main Challenge
5. Broad Nationalism: The Politics of Virginia's Plan
6. Narrow Nationalism: The Virginia Plan's Opponents

Part 2: The Politics of Building Government Institutions
7. Selecting U.S. Representatives
8. Selecting U.S. Senators
9. Congressional Independence
10. Selecting the President
11. Presidential Independence and Isolation
12. The Courts and a Bill of Rights

Part 3: The Politics of Government Power
13. Federalism
14. Slavery
15. Economic Authority
16. National Security and Foreign Policy Authority
17. The End Game
18. Conclusion: A Republic If You Can Keep It

Appendix 1: Chronological Sequence of Constitutional Convention Decisions
Appendix 2: The United States Constitution and accompanying documents from the Constitutional Convention

About the Author

David Brian Robertson is Curator's Distinguished Teaching Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He is the author of The Constitution and America's Destiny and Federalism and the Making of America.

Reviews

"The Original Compromise combines profound scholarship with remarkably accessible writing to make more clear than ever before just how and why the Constitution emerged in the form that it did. Robertson is attentive to the framers' ideas and their intertwined interests, and he traces persuasively the initiatives, negotiations, and compromises that led to their imperfect but enduring achievement." --Rogers M. Smith, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished
Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania
"By systematically considering the political process that produced the Constitution, this immensely useful and beautifully realized study reveals the many compromises that made the government of the United States possible. So doing, it deepens understanding of key themes in American political development, and thoughtfully explains why ambiguities about constitutional meaning continue to animate contemporary disputes." --Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of
Political Science and History, Columbia University
"The Philadelphia Convention may have been 'an assembly of demigods,' as Thomas Jefferson later suggested. But the Constitution was still written one word at a time. By letting the delegates speak for themselves, Robertson shows us that genius works in pieces, that creation is a stormy voyage of discovery, and that human frailty is a necessary virtue." --Richard F. Bensel, Professor of Government, Cornell University
"...Robertson draws chiefly from the records of the convention debates to portray the reasoning of the delegates and the progression of agreements and compromises... Recommended." --CHOICE