=The Constitutional Convention: Its Members.=—In the convention there were fifty-five delegates representing twelve states. Some states sent six or seven delegates; others only two or three. The number did not matter much, for each state had one vote on all questions. The delegates were never all present at any one time; some of them came and soon went away; others kept coming and going; but the majority stayed right through the summer and attended the meetings regularly. The convention met in the old brick state house in Philadelphia, the building in which the Declaration of Independence had been signed eleven years before. It met behind closed doors and the delegates agreed that they would not tell what was going on. Day after day, from May to September, they wrestled with the problem of framing a new constitution and although their differences of opinion often seemed impossible to adjust, the convention finally managed to draft a document which a majority of the delegates were willing to sign. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WASHINGTON AT THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1787 By Violet Oakley This picture is in the Pennsylvania State Capitol at Harrisburg. It portrays the Fathers of the Republic at their great work of framing the national constitution. Washington, the presiding officer of the convention, is appealing to his colleagues with the notable words which encircle the top of the picture. Around and below him are Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, William Paterson, James Dickinson, Edmund Randolph, Robert Morris, and Gouverneur Morris, all of them in quaint costumes of the later eighteenth century. The picture is symbolic of America’s great aspiration—Let us raise a standard to which the honest can repair! [Illustration: WASHINGTON AT THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. By Violet Oakley _Copyright by Violet Oakley. From a Copley Print, copyright by Curtis & Cameron, Boston. Reproduced by permission._ ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Sidenote: The Fathers of the Republic.]