COMMENTARIES, 27 DECEMBER 1787-APRIL 1788

Editors' Note
New York Reprinting of the Dissent of the Minority of
the Pennsylvania Convention, 27 December 1787-April 1788
The Pennsylvania Convention convened on 20 November, attained a
quorum on 21 November, and debated the Constitution until 12 De-
cember, when it was ratified. Early in the debates the Convention de-
feated an Antifederalist motion to allow any member to enter on the
journal his reasons for dissenting to any vote. (Such a privilege was
accorded to members of the state Assembly by the state constitution of
1776.) When an earlier motion to ratify the Constitution was reintrod-
uced on 12 December, Antifederalist Robert Whitehill presented peti-
tions, praying that the Constitution should not be ratified without
amendments, especially not without a bill of rights. After the petitions
were tabled, Whitehill read fifteen proposed amendments and then
moved that the Convention adjourn to allow Pennsylvanians to con-
sider these amendments and any amendments that might be recom-
mended by other states. Whitehill's motion was rejected. The Consti-
tution was then ratified by a vote of 46 to 23. On 13 December Whitehill
and fellow Antifederalist John Smilie protested that Whitehill's amend-
ments were not inserted in the Convention Journal as they should have
been. Recognizing that the opponents of the Constitution would lose
a vote to insert the amendments on the Journal, Smilie withdrew his
motion requesting that the amendments be so inserted.
The Pennsylvania Herald printed Whitehill's amendments on 15 De-
cember and soon after the Convention's minority published its formal
objections and the amendments. On 18 December the "Dissent of the
Minority" appeared in the Pennsylvania Packet and in a broadside struck
by Eleazer Oswald of the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer. Dated Phila-
delphia, 12 December, the dissent was signed by twenty-one of the
twenty-three Convention members who voted against ratification of the
Constitution.
The "Dissent" was probably written by Samuel Bryan. Bryan also
wrote the "Centinel" essays. The "Dissent" summarized the arguments
made against the Constitution in the Convention and the public debate
preceding and during the Convention. It attacked the authority of the
Constitutional Convention to draft a new constitution and its secret
proceedings. It denounced the force used to secure a quorum of the
state Assembly in calling the state Convention and the procedures em-
ployed by the Convention's majority. Most important, the "Dissent," as
the formal statement of the Convention's minority, provided the public
with Whitehill's amendments.

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