Summer in Philadelphia can be hot and muggy. Not a time to be locked in a sealed room with locked doors and windows and 55 other delegates from all over the country trying to fix a system of government that was failing but in the summer of 1787 it had to be done.
Something HAD to change. The States were feuding over borders and excise taxes; the treasury was empty but debts weren’t paid; despite the Treaty of Paris ceding these lands to the United States, British troops still occupied forts in the Northwest Territories, and no one could agree on how to move forward. Twice before, this august body meet and failed to find a way to amend the Articles of Confederation. This attempt cannot fail.
Of course there is no way to make a lasting improvement to this confederation. An entirely new government would have to be created. So once again in the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania Statehouse, in secret meetings, an open discussion of treason is on the agenda.
In 1776, the words were clear: “… that whenever any Government becomes destructive to these Ends, it is the Right of the People to Alter or to Abolish it….” Americans don’t like tyranny. Not active tyranny by a despot nor passive tyranny by a weak confederation. A new Constitution was necessary and
creating this would be fight. A fight between all the special interests of all the states. A fight between all the visions of a future United States by all the visionaries and pragmatist. A good and noble fight.
And so on September 17, 1787; barely five years after the victory at Yorktown, yet a new nation is born in these United States. One governed by “We the People”, one that forms “a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insures domestic Tranquility, provides for the common defense, promotes the general
Welfare, and secures the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,”
Treason is not as American as apple pie, its more! Treason is as American as good beer, good argument, and good intentions! Raise a glass treason and rebellion, assembly and protest, righting wrongs and making a “more Perfect Union.”
Want to Buy Beer from the Colonial Brewmeister?
Help us build a Tavern and Brewery.
Visit our GoFundMe Site
Want the Regimental Brewmeister at your Site or Event?
Michael Carver -- Historical Interpreter/Reenactor 