The opening phrase of our Constitution’s preamble, “We the People,” spoke volumes regarding upon whose authority the Constitution rested and suggested the unanimity of country and purpose that this new Constitution would create. The document is a 4,543-word masterpiece of political thought that has stood the test of time and is the longest standing written constitution in the world.

One of the most troublesome questions at the Constitutional Convention was what to do about slavery. Not whether it should be abolished by the new Constitution, but whether slaves would be counted in the census and if the states or the central government would control the institution and what that control would look like. All delegates recognized the terrible inconsistency between slavery and the words expressed in our Declaration of Independence. But they understood the task at hand was to create a new form of national government that could prosper under the conditions that existed. Most importantly, the fact remained that the southern states were not ready to completely let it go and, as John Rutledge from South Carolina stated, the true question was “whether the southern states shall or shall not be part of the Union.”

On May 29, 1787, Edmund Randolph from Virginia introduced fifteen resolutions to the Constitutional Convention. Known as the Virginia Resolves or the Virginia Plan, Randolph’s proposal outlined an entirely new national government, including a strong executive, a two-house legislature, and an independent judiciary. It would be the basis for discussion at the convention for the rest of the summer.

Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress lacked the authority to raise an army without the approval of the states, all treaties had to be unanimously approved, and most importantly, Congress did not have the power to levy taxes. Congress decided to hold a convention of all states in Philadelphia to review how to fix these and other issues. To add credibility to the convention, the primary organizers, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, felt it was critical for George Washington to attend. Washington reluctantly agreed to represent Virginia at the gathering, and was unanimously chosen to preside over the convention, which began on May 25, 1787 in Philadelphia.

On December 4, 1783, General Washington gathered his officers together at Fraunces Tavern and bid them an emotional farewell. The next task was to resign his commission, no small matter for the man who had led the nation since June 1775. Washington recognized it was critical to the preservation of our republic that he relinquish his military power to civilian authority. Consequently, on December 23, Washington addressed Congress, then meeting in Annapolis, to resign his commission.

General George Washington’s leadership on March 15, 1783, ended the Newburgh Conspiracy, upholding the revolutionary principle of civilian control of the military. In November, the Continental Army was officially disbanded, and the following month, General Washington traveled to Annapolis and resigned his commission to the Confederation Congress on December 23, 1783. That Washington resisted this chance to be king speaks volumes about his character and commitment to this country.

By early 1783, a few high-ranking officers in the Continental Army, then stationed in Newburgh, were considering refusing to disband until Congress fulfilled their promises of a pension for the men. Their leader was General Horatio Gates, George Washington’s second-in-command. On March 10, Major John Armstrong, aide to General Gates, circulated a letter suggesting the Army refuse to disband until its demands were met and requested all officers meet the following day. On the appointed day, General Gates opened the session but was soon superseded when General Washington unexpectedly entered the room.

In December 1782, the Continental Army had been fighting the British Army for over seven years. With peace negotiations underway, the soldiers were garrisoned near Newburgh, New York. Congress had passed a resolution in 1780 when the outcome of the war was still in doubt that promised Army officers a lifetime pension of half-pay upon discharge from the service. However, as peace talks progressed and the need for the Army decreased, Congress and the states began to waffle on their promise. The nation’s treasury was empty, and the Confederation Congress was helpless to do anything about it.

After Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, peace negotiations commenced in Paris in April 1782 with the talented United States contingent that included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens. In September, France’s Foreign Minister Vergennes put forth a proposal that would have left America an independent but weak nation, with thousands of miles of hostile borders and no possibilities for westward expansion. Adams and Jay wisely decided to bypass the French and open direct negotiations with England.

General George Washington led his combined Continental and French Army into Virginia in mid-September 1781 to trap the British Army under General Lord Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown. To support Washington, the French fleet arrived in the Chesapeake on August 30 and six days later outgunned the British at the Battle of the Capes. On September 28, Washington’s army of 16,000 men opened the siege of Yorktown. Two weeks later, the last British outer forts were captured by Colonel Alexander Hamilton and his men.

After marching throughout the Carolinas and Georgia, winning most of the pitched battles but never securing the “hearts and minds” of the upcountry people, British commander Lord Charles Cornwallis entered Virginia to await reinforcements and further instructions. In late July 1781, Cornwallis was ordered to establish a deep-water port in the Chesapeake Bay and he selected Yorktown on the York River. Meanwhile, General George Washington had been keeping an eye on the British Army in New York City. Upon hearing from Admiral de Grasse, the French naval commander, that he planned to sail to the Chesapeake and arrive off the Virginia Capes in late August, Washington immediately seized this opportunity and headed south to attack Cornwallis.

The Penobscot Expedition of 1779 ended in dismal failure with the entire American fleet, the largest ever assembled in the American Revolution, being destroyed and the army walking back to Boston embarrassed and humiliated. All fiascos need a scapegoat, and the Penobscot Expedition was no exception.

On August 13, 1779, the Americans in Penobscot Bay were trapped by a British fleet under Sir George Collier. Between midnight and 5 a.m., 750 Massachusetts militiamen and all their supplies were loaded back onto twenty-five transport ships and moved north towards the Penobscot River, hoping to make their escape. Inconceivably, the entire American fleet, all 44 ships, would be gone the next day, without any shots being fired by either side.

The Penobscot Expedition stalled soon after the fighting started due to a squabble between the army commander, General Solomon Lovell, and his naval counterpart, Commodore Dudley Saltonstall. Showing a reluctance to engage the enemy that bordered on cowardice, Saltonstall was an obstacle that Lovell could not overcome. Without the support of Saltonstall’s guns, Lovell refused to risk a frontal assault on Fort George. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the Americans, they were now in a race against time as a British fleet under Sir George Collier was sailing north from New York to relieve the British garrison in Penobscot Bay.

The Penobscot Expedition that sailed from Boston Harbor consisted of 1,400 men loaded onto 25 transport vessels and defended by 19 warships, the largest fleet ever assembled by the Americans during the war. It approached Penobscot Bay on July 25, 1779, six weeks after the British had arrived and began construction on Fort George. Despite their best efforts, the fort was unfinished and remained only a five-foot-tall earthen rampart. Early on July 28, the Americans stormed ashore and, following a determined assault, the Massachusetts militiamen reached the edge of the woods at the top of the plateau, a few hundred yards from the fort.

The greatest naval disaster in our nation’s history until Pearl Harbor was a largely forgotten episode that took place on the remote coast of Maine in the summer of 1779. That year, Lord George Germaine, the British Secretary of State for the American colonies, decided to establish a northern foothold on the coastline between Boston and Halifax to better suppress smuggling that was rampant in New England.

Between 1779 and 1782, Spain pressed the British in such disparate places as Gibraltar, the Caribbean, and Central America, and even threatened to invade Britain’s home islands, thus tying up dozens of British warships and numerous regiments of British regulars. Luckily for the United States, two key regions important to America became Spanish priorities as well – British held Florida and the Mississippi River Valley. Almost singlehandedly, the Spanish removed the British from West Florida, which forced England to also relinquish East Florida as part of the terms to end the war.

Despite cultural differences, Spain and Americans living west of the Appalachians became natural allies in the fight against England. The welfare of both was tied to the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans, and both wanted the British out of the region. Over the course of the war, Spain provided loans that allowed the United States to purchase over 200 cannons, 30,000 muskets and bayonets, half a million musket balls, and 150 tons of gun powder, most of it going to support George Rogers Clark’s western army. Importantly, these supplies kept America’s fragile western war effort alive when our own Congress was helpless to send Clark any munitions.