WI: Probability of Earlier Constitutional Convention.

Is it possible for the United States to have an earlier constitutional convention immediately after the American revolution, and perhaps have the Presidency begun about 2 or three years earlier?
 
Is it possible for the United States to have an earlier constitutional convention immediately after the American revolution, and perhaps have the Presidency begun about 2 or three years earlier?

Not really. Remember that they DID have a constitution and a president, it just didnt work very well and had to be fixed. So you need time to SHOW how much it needed to be fixed.
 
In my opinion, no. By the end of the ARW the thirteen states were operating under the Articles of Confederation which had been drafted by the Continental Congress and adopted by all of the states.
The Articles provided for a permanent Congress and some national government and they were probably as far as the very jealous of their sovreignty states were prepared to go in the direction of common action.
It took several years for the defects of the Articles to become apparent to a significant portion of Americans (but never to many of them) and there were several false starts in attempting to deal with these perceived defects. These included attempts to expand the taxing powers of Congress by amendment to the Articles (frustrated by the requirement that all amendments be adopted unaimously by the states) and the Annapolis Convention to deal with intestate commerce issues (frustrated by the lack of a quorum of the states)
Looking at the state of American politics in 1787, it is almost ASB that the proponents of a stronger union were able to gather a decent number of states in Philadelphia, agree on a replacement to the Articles, get the Congress to send the proposal to the states for ratification and most improbably obtain the necessary 2/3 ratification from the states.
I think that rather than an earlier Constitutional Covention and an earlier Constitution, the much more likely outcome is more muddling through with the Articles or a breakup of the American Union.
So, in order to get an earlier Convention there would have to be a major POD that would result in the states being willing much earlier to give up a major portion of their power and privileges.
But that's just my opinion.

AH
 
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