Decision In Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention Of 1787

2 Pages 479 Words

In the book Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787, Christopher and James Lincoln Collier describe in joint authorship the events that occurred in Philadelphia which created the oldest living written constitution in the world. It is the account of how fifty-five men met in Philadelphia in May of 1787 and worked until September of 1787 to produce one of the most noted documents in the history of western civilization. The authors adequately discuss the event in a balanced fashion, handling each individual “issue” of the Constitution and giving the resolution to these issues in a chronological order. The approach that was considered by the authors was one that yielded a very descriptive as well as analytic view of the Constitutional Convention.
Coming from a historical point of view, the book interprets the convention as a marvel of political genius. The book starts out with a brief description of some of the more influential members, telling the story behind each man and his motives and goals. The author glorifies some of the men’s presence at the convention while only briefly skimming others’ contributions; it is fair to say that the authors had an unbiased view in this collection of documentation. Many of the views discussed are cited as being direct sources written by the members of the convention. The authors present the information in a factual rather than theoretical manner.
With each chapter, the story of the Constitutional Convention builds upon itself by first introducing the key personalities and then discussing how their plans went into effect in the debates of how the Constitution should be constructed. The book is broken down into four sections. The first discusses why the Constitution was needed; the second compares and contrasts the general qualities of the “big states” as opposed to the “small states.” The most important sections however, were the third and the fourth in which ...