Constitution Chamber, which is what the large hall was named (according to the brass plaque at the two main entrances, was pretty much what you’d expect: very much like a college lecture hall.
The seat-desk things — the backs of seats had a slide-up/out board to serve as a desk — where arranged in a 3/4 circle with the other 1/4 at the focus of the room, and between the two main doors, serving as the president’s place as well as stations for the various staff. The elevation between arcs was minimal, much less than your average movie theater.
All 375 delegates had assigned seats (arranged by state delegations) with the fifty alternates being housed in an adjacent room with the proceedings piped in. It took a good twenty-plus minutes to get everyone assembled. When the doors were sealed, the President of the Convention (PoC) called us to order.
“Welcome, everyone. I know we all want to settle in and get acquainted with our fellow delegates, but before we retire for the evening, it was important that we officially declare ourselves in session.
“We now convene to strengthen our nation. Since the time of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, we have grown more than the Founders could have imagined and learned much about the strengths and weaknesses of the document they gave us as the foundation of our republic. With that experience, and whatever unseen guidance is offered to aid us on this journey, we will leave here to present to the people the recipe for a revitalized nation that will long endure.
“To that end, I declare us all here assembled to be a Committee of the Whole resolved to revising our current constitution until such time as the task is finished. All in favor, say, ‘Aye’.”
At that point, pretty much everyone said, “Aye”, although some did it with more exuberance than others.
“The Secretary will record that on voice vote, the resolution has been passed. And now, a few administrative items before we recess until tomorrow morning at 10, which will be our usual start time.”
Then followed about ten minutes of instructions on how to present resolutions and whatnot, as well as dorm rules. Overall, it was left to be pretty free-form. This made sense since I don’t think most would follow strict rules in any case. This simply acknowledged that a lot of what we were going to do would probably take place in small private groups. Which, as I remember, isn’t too different from the first convention “ConCon I”.
When we got to leave, you could tell that a number of power brokers already had their own ideas as cliques started wandering off to wherever. As for me, I joined a small group of four other “regular folk” for an early get-acquainted dinner.
