Contrary to popular opinion, America had to be dragged kicking and screaming into nationhood. Although Americans were happy to be free of England, the states were used to being sovereign and that was the way many of them wanted to keep it.

Against this background of confusion, fifty delegates gathered in the summer of 1787 to attempt to draw up a plan that would bring order out of confusion. The result was the writing of the Constitution, but initially no one agreed as to what should be in it, or even if a constitution should be drawn up!

Patrick Henry, when told of the convention, said he "smelt a rat" and wouldn't go. Alexander Hamilton felt that America at that time was "nothing but a monster with thirteen heads."

But come the delegates did. Ben Franklin arrived in a sedan chair carried by four convicts. Elbridge Gerry brought his worries and complaints with him, earning the name "Grumbletonian." And, of course, George Washington presided over the meetings, exerting his strong convictions to keep the process going.

With her characteristic candor and scrupulous accuracy, Jean Fritz brings us the shouts and emotional outbursts as well as the political divisions and complex issues of the Constitutional convention, from which emerged the basis of our government.

From the dust jacket