ly impossible task. Frederick the so-called Great had said that a
federal union of widely scattered communities was impossible. Its final
accomplishment has blinded the world to the essential difficulty of the
problem.

The time was May 25, 1787; the place, the State House in Philadelphia, a
little town of not more than 20,000 people, and, at that time, as
remote, measured by the facilities of communication, to the centres of
civilization as is now Vladivostok.

The _dramatis personae_ in this drama, though few in numbers, were,
however, worthy of the task.

Seventy-two had originally been offered or given credentials, for each
State was permitted to send as many delegates as it pleased, inasmuch as
the States were to vote in the convention as units. Of these, the
greatest actual attendance was fifty-five, and at the end of the
convention a saving remnant of only thirty-nine remained to finish a
work which was to immortalize its participants.

While this notable group of men contained a few merchants, financiers,
farmers, doctors, educators, and soldiers, of the remainder, at least
thirty-one were lawyers, and of these many had been justices of the
local courts and executive officers of the commonwealths. Four had
studied in the Inner Temple, at least five in the Middle Temple, one at
Oxford under the tuition of Blackstone and two in Scottish Universities.
Few of them were inexperienced in public affairs, for of the original
fifty-five members, thirty-nine had been members of the first or second
Continental Congresses, and eight had already helped to frame the
constitutions of their respective States. At least twenty-two were
college graduates, of whom nine were graduates of Princeton, three of
Yale, two of Harvard, four of William and Mary, and one each from the
Universities of Oxford, Columbia, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. A few already
enjoyed world-wide fame, notably Doctor Franklin, possibly the most
versatile genius of the eighteenth century and universally known and
honoured as a scientist, philosopher, and diplomat, and George
Washington, whose fame, even at that day, had filled the world with the
noble purity of his character.

It was a convention of comparatively young men, the average age being
little above forty. Franklin was the oldest member, being then
eighty-one; Dayton, the youngest, being twenty-seven. With the
exception of Franklin and Washington, most of the potential
personalities in the convention