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====Who were the leading figures in this debate? What positions did they stake out?====

The formal debates in Richmond, in June 1788, were one of the greatest dramas in all of American history. In no other gathering during the entire revolutionary era was there so fierce a contest between so many talented, famous, and committed leaders. Patrick Henry, the greatest orator of the age, insisted the Constitution betrayed the Revolution’s deepest principles. He was joined by George Mason, who wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights and conceived the first state constitution in America, and by the war hero and future president James Monroe. They faced off against James Madison, the principal architect of the Constitution and probably the greatest intellectual force of that generation. George Washington, already beloved as the “father” of the country, worked behind the scenes to help Madison. And Madison joined forces at the Richmond convention with John Marshall, the future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Virginia’s popular governor, Edmund Randolph. Men on both sides agreed on one thing: they would be deciding, “not the welfare of a state, but, that of mankind.”

====What did the opponents of Constitution want instead? What vision did these people have for a federal government?====