The slender attendance can only partially be attributed to the weather, for in the following three months and a half of the Convention, at which fifty-five members were present at one time or another, the average attendance was only slightly larger than that of the first day.

In such a small body personality counted for much, in ways that the historian can only surmise.

Many compromises of conflicting interests were reached by informal discussion outside of the formal sessions.

In these small gatherings individual character was often as decisive as weighty argument.
George Washington was unanimously chosen as the presiding officer of the Convention.

He sat on a raised platform; in a large, carved, high-backed chair, from which his commanding figure and dignified bearing exerted a potent influence on the assembly; an influence enhanced by the formal courtesy and stately intercourse of the times.