Journal of Southern History

In The Fate of the Revolution: Virginians Debate the Constitution, Lorri Glover argues that Virginia's ratification convention in 1788 "was a game changer" (p. 5). More than determining Virginia's support for the newly drafted Constitution, the vote the convention cast also carried the fate of the Revolution. As the most populous state in the Confederation, possessing one-fifth of the country's land mass, Virginia was crucial. According to Glover, "Many well-informed Americans believed that Virginia's rejection, regardless of which other states ratified, would sink the proposed Constitution" (p. 4).

Glover's book carries the torch of Gordon Wood's Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787(Chapel Hill, 1969) by evaluating the significance of state politics to the formation and, in Glover's case, the survival of the Constitution. Her engaging narrative moves the reader past the drafting of the Constitution at the Philadelphia convention to the intensely personal and erudite speeches that boomed from the halls of the New Academy in Richmond, Virginia. Given that Massachusetts had narrowly ratified the Constitution, Rhode Island refused to [End Page 945]hold a convention, and the New Hampshire Federalists suspended their convention, the Virginia debate, according to the author, took on added weight.

By dividing the book between the push for a convention and the convention itself, Glover dives deeply into the political and social context of Virginia society, deftly tying local debates and personalities to broader national questions concerning governance. The author enlivens the convention debate with glowing narratives detailing the speeches of Patrick Henry, George Mason, James Madison, and Edmund Randolph. By focusing on personal relationships, Glover highlights the importance that contingency played in the convention's success, particularly in the tenuous days after Virginia ratified the Constitution. The ardent Antifederalist Patrick Henry would, in the words of George Washington, "'submit … peaceably'" to the convention's decision out of respect for the republican process and the public good (p. 141). The author shows that this bipartisanship proved to be important to ratification given that other less influential Antifederalists plotted subterfuge.

Also of importance for Glover, Virginia's convention foreshadowed the political economy of the early nineteenth century. Debates about trade relations with Spain anticipated future political animosities between eastern and western states as well as the eventual need for a treaty to open trade on the Mississippi River. The growth of newspapers proved increasingly attractive to politicians as the first party system formed. Patrick Henry's success in getting Virginia's state legislature to draw districts that benefited his like-minded friends prefaced the gerrymandering of a later era. And while Glover artfully details how Virginia's convention shaped the political systems that followed, such analysis seems to supplant a broader contextualization of other ratifying conventions. For instance, New York voted to ratify the Constitution, succeeding by a mere three votes, almost a month after Virginia's convention closed. Did Virginia's convention provide impetus for New York to ratify the Constitution? New York, much like Virginia, possessed power to derail the new government. Despite these issues, Lorri Glover's much-needed work fills a hole in the literature and would serve as an excellent text for undergraduates interested in the conceptual and political bridges binding the Confederation period to the early republic.