Mount Vernon Conference

Examples of Mount Vernon Conference in the following topics:

• Calls for a Stronger Constitution

  • On March 25–28, 1785, delegates from Virginia and Maryland met at George Washington's estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia.
  • This meeting, which came to be known as the Mount Vernon Conference, preceded the Annapolis Convention of 1786 and was a precursor of the 1787 Philadelphia Convention that saw the drafting of the US Constitution.
  • The Mount Vernon delegates encouraged Pennsylvania and Delaware to join on to the agreement.
  • On January 21, 1786, following the Mount Vernon Conference, Virginia invited all states to attend a meeting on commercial issues.
  • Examine the significance of the Mount Vernon Conference in shaping the American political structure

• From Annapolis to Philadelphia

  • Prior to the Philadelphia Convention, delegates met twice-—at Mount Vernon and Annapolis—to discuss changes to the Confederation.
  • Prior to the Annapolis Convention and the 1787 Philadelphia convention that saw the drafting of the United States Constitution, delegates from Virginia and Maryland met at George Washington's home at Mount Vernon, Virginia in March 1785.
  • The report contained thirteen proposals known as the Mount Vernon Compact, ratified by both Maryland and Virginia.
  • The Mount Vernon delegates encouraged Pennsylvania and Delaware to join the agreement as well.
  • Examine how the Mount Vernon Conference pushed states further away from the Articles and closer to the Constitution

• The Colonial Elite

  • Mount Vernon was the plantation home of George Washington, who was a member of the Virginia gentry class prior to becoming the first U.S. president.

• "Poor Whites"

  • In his study of Edgefield County, South Carolina, Orville Vernon Burton classified white society into three groups: the poor, the yeoman middle class (also called the plain folk of the Old South), and the elite.
  • Wetherington reports that although enough men remained at home to preserve the paternalistic social order, there were too few to prevent mounting deprivation.

• War Propaganda

  • In one example, Irish-American tenor John McCormack sang at Mount Vernon before an audience representing Irish-American organizations.

• Globalization and the U.S.

  • After the Second World War, work by politicians led to the Bretton Woods Conference from July 1-22, 1944.
  • Formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, the conference was a gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel, situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, to regulate the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of World War II.
  • Out of the conference came an agreement by major governments to lay down the framework for international monetary policy, commerce, and finance, as well as the founding of several international institutions intended to facilitate economic growth by lowering trade barriers.

• The End of the War

  • With a growing list of nations signing up with France and Britain, Germany and its imperial allies suffered mounting losses.
  • The details of the agreement were hammered out the following year during the Paris Peace Conference.

• The Expansion of the Civil Rights Movement

  • In 1963, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) led by King mounted protests in some 186 cities throughout the South.

• The Role of Religion in the Civil Rights Movement

  • The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization that  was central to the Civil Rights Movement.
  • Led by Reverend Hosea Williams of SCLC and John Lewis of SNCC, the marchers were attacked by state Ttoopers, deputy sheriffs, and mounted possemen who used tear gas, clubs, and bull whips to drive them back to Brown Chapel.
  • Shortly after Martin Luther King's death, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference used this poster—issued in an edition of one hundred—for a fundraising drive.