The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution.

• Position: Book review

There was a lot wrong with this nation in 1787, when 55 delegates from 12 states traipsed to Philadelphia for secret meetings on the creation of a new central government. At the time, the fledgling federal government didn't have the power to collect taxes or regulate trade. The Spanish prohibited Americans from crossing the Mississippi River and the British occupied forts in the west, refusing to trade with them. The states and Congress each issued their own money, though Congress' money was widely thought useless. There was no organized military; rebel factions fought state troops in skirmishes scattered all over. Half the nation's economy was based on slavery.

"The present system neither has nor deserves advocates," wrote Virginia statesman James Madison, as he convened the delegates, "and if some very strong props are not applied will tumble quickly to the ground."

So the delegates made their way through summer in Philadelphia, with its biting blackflies and free-roaming pigs feasting on the bodies of dead dogs and horses that littered the vacant lots. Ben Franklin, 81, rode over in a glass-walled sedan chair carried by four prisoners from the nearby Walnut Street jail. Thirty delegates stayed the whole time...