A Failed Nation - A Convention of the States

American Political History · Sep 15, 2026 · 26m

The convention that produced the Constitution was born, improbably, out of a fishing dispute and a failure. This is the story of the strange chain of events that led to Philadelphia. It begins in 1785 at Mount Vernon, where commissioners from Virginia and Maryland settle a quarrel over the Potomac — and prove that states can cooperate outside a paralyzed Congress. It runs through Annapolis in September of 1786, where a grand convention on interstate trade collapses when only five states bother to show up — and where a dozen men with no authority whatsoever, led by Alexander Hamilton’s pen…