Again in 1774, conditions having become worse, delegates from twelve colonies met at Philadelphia at the First Continental Congress to consider the grievances against Great Britain. The Second Continental Congress following it carried on the first years of the Revolutionary War. It drafted and adopted the Declaration of Independence. It raised and provided for the armies, and brought the States together.
But it needed a kind of constitution. So in 1777 the Articles of Confederation were drawn up and adopted by Congress and by 1781 all the States had finally adopted them. But they were inadequate. Each of the thirteen States wanted all the power in its own hands.(43)
You cannot blame them. Picture to yourself these little settlements down on the Atlantic Coast. All together they did not have as many people as there are in the State of New Jersey to-day. They and their fathers had left their homes and traveled thousands of miles over stormy seas to find liberty. They themselves had fought a long war against England to make themselves free. They did not wish to give up these powers.(44)
But the wiser people in the different States saw that to form a more perfect union it was necessary to grant the central government more powers, and to fix forever certain rights which every American citizen should enjoy throughout the years to come. So the people selected men as their representatives and authorized them to meet with the representatives from other States at Philadelphia in 1787 to draw up a plan of government which would be strong enough to hold the country together and govern it effectively.
Now who were these men? They were men who were selected by their neighbors to represent them, just as men are elected to-day to represent us in the legislature of our State or in Congress. To be sure, in those days not all men were allowed the right to vote. In some States a man had to have a certain amount of money before he could vote. In others men of certain religious faiths were not allowed to vote. But the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were men who were fairly representative of all the people. When we consider the work that they did, that they wrote our Constitution, that they were able to do this at the time they did, we must feel that a wise Providence guided their selection and inspired them in their wonderful work.