William Samuel Johnson - Contributions To The Constitutional Convention

Contributions To The Constitutional Convention

In 1787, Johnson played a major role as one of the Philadelphia Convention's delegates. His eloquent speeches on the subject of representation carried great weight during the debate. He looked to a strong federal government to protect the rights of Connecticut and the other small states from encroachment by their more powerful neighbors. To that end he supported the so-called New Jersey Plan, which called for equal representation of the states in the national legislature.

In general, he favored extension of federal authority. He argued that the judicial power "ought to extend to equity as well as law" (the words "in law and equity" were adopted at his motion) or, in other words, that the inflexibility of the law had to be tempered by fairness. He denied that there could be treason against a separate state since sovereignty was "in the Union;" and he opposed prohibition of any ex post facto law, one which made an act a criminal offense retroactively, because such prohibition implied "an improper suspicion of the National Legislature."

Johnson was influential even in the final stages of framing the Constitution. He gave his fullest support to the Connecticut Compromise, which foreshadowed the final Great Compromise that devised a national legislature with a Senate that provided equal representation for all states and a House of Representatives based on population. He also served on and chaired the five-member Committee of Style, which framed the final form of the document. In Miracle at Philadelphia, Catherine Drinker Bowen called Johnson "the perfect man to preside over these four masters of argument and political strategy ...His presence on the committee must have been reassuring; the doctor's quiet manner disarmed." (Bowen, p. 235 of the 1986 edition)