On Monday, August 6th, the Committee of Detail was ready with its report. The five members had labored hard, but they never considered that they were presenting the final United States Constitution to the Convention; to them, it was merely the Virginia Plan, once again amended, yet one more stage in this long summer’s progress. A fundamental constitution, Edmund Randolph called it. First of all, he said, only essential principles should be inserted, lest government be clogged by permanent, unalterable provisions which ought to be shaped to later times and events. Simple, precise language should be used, and none but general propositions stated – “for the construction of a constitution of the country differs from that of law.”
For this very reason, the committee had been dubious about composing a preamble. Preambles, Randolph stated, are for the purpose of designating of government, to be expressed perhaps in the first formation of state governments. Neither did he consider it proper to pledge in a preamble the mutual faith of the parties. The object of this particular preamble ought to “briefly to declare that the present foederal government is insufficient to the general happiness, that the conviction of this fact gave birth to this convention . . . “
It is always a surprise to find men proceeding with extreme simplicity toward a complex and important end. The committee, for all its experience, worked hard and humbly to define a constitutional preamble. Preambles, after all, had been invented centuries earlier. The English Commons had used them to publish their views to the people. Heralds read these preambles on street corners – and Queen Elizabeth had not liked it at all. Tudor monarchs saw no need for justifying new laws to the people. Laws represented the Crown’s initiative and the Crown’s authority; they were to be obeyed, not explained.
The Committee of Detail had divided their material into articles and sections, and had it neatly printed, and on August 6th, John Rutledge handed out copies in the State House. Attendance was small, for most delegates had not yet returned from their ten-day vacation. But what they now held in their hands was a clear design for a government, bold, national, and directed at the people as individuals rather than at the states.
The new document contained much that was surprising, even shocking, though it included nothing that had not already been discussed at length. But to see it all laid out so plain, set down by article and section, reawakened the old fears and made many of the men more cautious. By the rules of the Convention, any one of these clauses could be reargued, even voted on again. Five weeks of intensive debate would ensue before delegates could agree and give the document to yet another committee for final polishing
