July 2016

In the village of Niobrara, the tiny Ponca tribe operates a museum in a one-story community center covered with dark-brown shingles and white trim. The town is located in the Northeast corner of Nebraska, across from North Dakota, where the Niobrara River flows into the Missouri -- a beautiful stretch of water that remains much the same as it was when Lewis and Clark paddled by 210 years ago.

In the community center, the Ponca hold tight to their memories. The tribe’s historian, Vance Appling, eagerly recounts the story of Standing Bear and the “Ponca Trail of Tears,” when the U.S. forced the tribe to relocate to barren land in Oklahoma in 1877. The debate that followed would have a lasting impact on the nation.

Under the Articles of Confederation, these United States were barely united. Unable to agree on either foreign or domestic policy, they sank into economic depression. In May 1787, delegates from twelve states (Rhode Island sent none) arrived in Philadelphia to define a new federal government. In September, they had a new constitution.

But for the Constitution to become law of the land, conventions in nine states had to ratify it. By June 1788, eight states had done so. Anti-Federalists, as opponents of the new Constitution came to be called, saw the Virginia ratifying convention of June 1788 as their last stand.

The leading Anti-Federalist in Virginia was Patrick Henry, who was generally acknowledged as the Revolution's greatest orator. The leading Federalist in Virginia, indeed in all the United States, was James Madison, generally acknowledged as the founder most responsible for the Constitution.

There has been much talk in recent months about the possibility of a contested Presidential nominating convention. But commentators seem to be quite unaware that candidates have often not been decided until later ballots -- sometimes with happy results. Twelve of the Presidential conventions convened over the years by major parties failed to produce a winner on the first ballot. For example, only 22% of the delegates voted for Abraham Lincoln on the first ballot at the Republican convention in 1860. Lincoln eventually won because supporters of William Seward and Salmon Chase adamantly refused to vote for their rival, while delegates who had supported nine other candidates eventually coalesced around Lincoln as the compromise.