When the Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia University of Virginia
On one of the few occasions he spoke publicly prior to the four months of meetings and debate in Independence Hall, Washington said: “It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God.” (quoted by Gouverneur Morris, Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, March 25, 1787). Other Founding Fathers also acknowledged the hand of Providence in the Constitution that resulted from the Convention on September 17, 1787:
“All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?”
--Benjamin Franklin, Speech at the Constitutional Convention, June 28, 1787
“The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted, and surmounted with a unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it [the Constitution] a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.”
--James Madison, Federalist No. 37, January 11, 1788
“For my own part, I sincerely esteem it a system, which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interest.”
--Alexander Hamilton, Letter to Mr. Childs, October 17, 1787
“When the general convention met, no citizen of the United States could expect less from it than I did, so many jarring interests and prejudices to reconcile! The variety of pressing dangers at our doors, even during the war, were barely sufficient to force us to act in concert and necessarily give way at times to each other. But when the great work was done and published, I was not only most agreeably disappointed, but struck with amazement. Nothing less than that superintending hand of Providence, that so miraculously carried us through the war (in my humble opinion), could have brought it [the Constitution] about so complete, upon the whole.”
--Charles Pinckney (signer), Letter in State Gazette of South Carolina, May 2, 1788
“I am as perfectly satisfied that the Union of the States in its form and adoption is as much the work of a Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament were the effects of a Divine power.”
--Benjamin Rush, Letter to Elias Boudinot, July 9, 1788
Washington concluded: “We may, with a kind of grateful and pious exultation, trace the finger of Providence through those dark and mysterious events, which first induced the States to appoint a general [Constitutional] Convention and then led them one after another into an adoption of the system recommended by that general Convention; thereby in all human probability, laying a lasting foundation for tranquility and happiness.”
--George Washington, Letter to Governor John Trumbull of Connecticut, June 30, 1788
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