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Moyers: Report from Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787
Moyers Report from Philadelphia The Constitutional Convention of 1787 Author:Bill Moyers Eleven years after the Declaration of Independence, fifty-six men from twelve of the thirteen states (Rhode Island refused to send a delegation) gathered in Philadelphia in a deperate effort to save the fragile United States of America. They would spend their summer in the hot city, meeting in secrecy in a closed room, writing a Constituti... more »on that -- as James Madison put it -- would "decide forever the fate of republican government." If they failed -- and many feared they would -- so would the new American nation.
Two hundred years later, one of America's most respected broadcast journalists, Bill Moyers, gives us the opportunity to "witness" the delegates' deliberations. Based on his unique television series on PBS, Moyers: Report from Philadelphia dramatically captures the tense fragility of the convention as an all-too-human endeavor, a reality of which the Framers themselves were painfully aware. The debates they waged, the conflicting philosophies of government they offered, their clashes and compromises -- all are illuminated in the succinct and inspiring look at the making of the Constitution.« less