A few months ago we and a caller who was of the opinion that “only a few” guys actually “did anything” at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The idea is one that many people might have, simply because they just don’t know anything about anybody except the few names that bubble to the top of the historical bottle. But if you uncork that bottle, you get a wonderful bouquet of ideas and of people that you have never heard anything about before.
Sitting in that room in Philadelphia was a man who was one of the calming and guiding hands on the tiller. When the “four masters” gathered as the committee of style*, it was this man, William Samuel Johnson, who chaired the committee that would oversee the final draft of the Constitution.
He was a man who had come late to the American Revolution. In fact, he had once been arrested by the Patriots for communicating with the enemy. Once American Independence was declared, he was fully  on board with his new country. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. He came from a legacy of inventing new ways of doing things.
In fact, you could make the argument that it was his father who actually invented America…
*Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, Rufus King and Alexander Hamilton
Links:
America Begins: How Samuel Johnson Created America (JAR)
Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson, D.D.
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

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