[kalimus]

•Although the United States Treasury Department stopped distributing currency denominations of $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 in 1969, for all intents and purposes the production of each stopped after World War II. However, these notes are still legal tender and may be found on rare occasions in circulation. James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” is on the $5,000 bill.
•At the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin observed the symbol of a half-sun on George Washington’s chair and remarked, “I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”
•Benjamin Franklin made a suggestion at the Constitutional Convention that the sessions be opened with a prayer. The delegates refused to accept the motion stating that there was not enough money to hire a chaplain.
•Of the fifty-five delegates who attended the convention, 34 were lawyers, 8 had signed the Declaration of Independence, and almost half were Revolutionary War veterans. The remaining members were planters, educators, ministers, physicians, financiers, judges, and merchants. About a quarter of them were large land owners and all of them held some type of public office (39 were former Congressmen and 8 were present or past governors).
•William Few of Georgia was the only member to represent the yeoman farmer class which comprised the majority of the population of the country. Nineteen of the members who were chosen to represent their state never attended a meeting.
• Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania was known as the “Sage of the Constitutional Convention.” He was also the mediator at the convention and often counseled that “we are here to consult, not to contend.”
•George Washington and James Madison were the only Presidents who signed the Constitution.
•Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts was opposed to the office of vice president. “The close intimacy that must subsist between the President and Vice President makes it absolutely improper.” However, he put his feelings aside and became Vice President under James Madison!
•When Paul Revere learned that Sam Adams and John Hancock were reluctant to offer their support for the Constitution during the ratification fight, he organized the Boston mechanics into a powerful force and worked behind the scenes for the successful approval by the Massachusetts convention.
•The only other language used in various parts of the Constitution is Latin.
•The term “others” is used in the Constitution to categorize ethnic minorities.
•Four of the signers of the Constitution were born in Ireland.
•John Tyler was the first Vice President to assume the responsibilities of the Presidency upon the death of William Henry Harrison in 1841. There was nothing in the Constitution that provided for the vice president to BECOME the president. Article II, Section 6 of the Constitution states that: “In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President...” The Article did not state that the vice president would BECOME the President! Tyler immediately began to refer to himself as the President with no actual Constitutional authority to do so, and every succeeding vice president in the same position did the same. It was not until the Twenty-Fifth Amendment was passed in 1967 that the vice president technically BECAME the president. This amendment legitimatized Tyler’s unconstitutional assumption!
•During an event to celebrate the Constitution’s Sesquicentennial in 1937, Harry F. Wilhelm recited the entire document through the newly added 21st Amendment from memory. He then obtained a job in the Sesquicentennial mailroom!