State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

Laying the Groundwork for a Second Constitutional Convention

Route Fifty: When the states convened the 1787 Constitutional Convention that formed the modern United States Constitution, Patrick Henry of “Give me liberty, or give me death” fame turned down his invitation. He famously stated he “smelt a rat in Philadelphia, tending toward the monarchy.”

At the time, there was an assumption this convention was to revise the “Articles of Confederation” that bound the nation together. After three months, the conveners emerged from a veil of secrecy with their proposal to scrap the governing document for a new Constitution—one that provided for a dramatic growth in federal power, shaping the United States as we know it today.

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