A careful study of the debates in the convention at Philadelphia will reveal the fact that the different governments, institutions, rulers, and statesmen of Europe were referred to in the making of the Constitution.
During the discussions in the convention one hundred and thirty allusions were made to the government and institutions of England. The allusions made to France numbered nineteen. Those made to the German States were seventeen. Those made to Holland were nineteen. Greece was referred to thirteen times; Switzerland was alluded to five times; and Rome was alluded to sixteen times.
The English government and institutions were held up as a model to be imitated fifty times; as an example to be avoided, twenty-four times. France was held up as a model three times, and as a warning five times. Rome was cited five times as a model and seven times as a warning.
From the standpoint of training, experience, and general qualifications for constitution makers, the delegates who sat in the Federal convention at Philadelphia were the most remarkable group of statesmen the world has ever seen. Sixty-five delegates were chosen, of whom fifty-five attended the convention and of these thirty-nine signed the Constitution, three were present but refused to sign, and thirteen were absent on the last day. Of the fifty-five who sat in the convention, twenty-five were from northern States and thirty from southern States. Of the thirty-nine signers, nineteen were from the North and twenty from the South.
Of the fifty-five men thirty were college men, twenty-six had degrees, forty-seven were afterwards prominent in public life; of the remaining eight, at least four died soon after the close of the convention. The most noted men were: Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Wilson, Patterson, Gerry, Sherman, Pinckney, and Randolph. Six men who signed the Constitution had also signed the Declaration of Independence--Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Robert Morris, and George Clymer of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and George Read of Delaware.--Meyerholz's _The Federal Convention_.
36 Montesquieu, a famous French writer of the eighteenth century, tells us that political liberty consists in the security one feels in doing whatever the law permits. However we must remember that the laws themselves must likewise be sound.