Signing the Constitution.--Gouverneur Morris was selected to give the document its final form. The clear, simple English used is due largely to him. After thirty-nine members, representing twelve different States, had signed the Constitution, the convention adjourned. While the last signatures were being written, Franklin said to those standing near him, as he called attention to a sun blazoned on the back of the President's chair: "I have, often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now, at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun."
Difficulties of Ratification.--The convention submitted the Constitution to Congress. Here, for eight days, it was attacked by its opponents. Finally, Congress passed it on to the State legislatures. It was sent by them to State conventions elected by the people. This ratification was provided for by Article VII of the Constitution, as follows: _The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same._
The period included between September 28, 1787, when Congress transmitted the Constitution to the State legislatures, and June 21, 1788, when New Hampshire, the last of the necessary nine States, ratified, was one of the most critical in our history. Political parties, in a truly National sense, were formed for the first time. Among the leaders who defended ably the views of those who opposed the ratification of the Constitution were Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Elbridge Gerry, and George Clinton. It was urged that there was no bill of rights,[9] that the President would become a despot, and that equality of representation in the Senate was an injustice to the larger States. "Letters from the Federal Farmer," prepared for the press of the country by Richard Henry Lee, set forth clearly the views of the Anti-Constitutional party.
[Footnote 9: A bill of rights, in which the idea of the rights of man were set forth, was a significant part of nearly all the State constitutions. Englishmen, generally, had been familiar with the formal statement of these principles since 1689, when William and Mary accepted the Declaration of Rights as a condition of their receiving the crown of England. During the same year Parliament gave the Declaration of Rights the form of a statute, under the name of the Bill of Rights. Among other rights it demanded that the king, without the sanction of Parliament, should not raise an army, secure money, or suspend the laws; also, that the right of petition, freedom in the exercise of religion, and equality under the laws were to be granted all subjects.]