Yes and no.
If we are counting the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 (Fifty-seven if we count Charles Thomson, the Continental Congress secretary, since his name appears on the printed broadside version of the Declaration)? Good lord no, most of those morons didn't even truly believe in a separate nation nor the fight to create it. As well some vital names are missing: George Washington, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. There were of course brilliant men among them, but most were morons in my personal opinion. Which is why, of course, the
Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was/were the first constitution of the United States.
- The Continental Congress could print money but it was worthless.
- No state paid all their U.S. taxes.
- Most of the troops in the 625-man United States Army were deployed facing (but not threatening) British forts on American soil.
- Spain closed New Orleans to American commerce (in fact until 1801) over debt
- When Barbary pirates began seizing American ships of commerce; the Treasury had no funds to pay their ransom.
- Individual state legislatures independently laid embargoes, negotiated directly with foreign authorities, raised armies, and made war, all violating the letter and the spirit of the Articles.
If we are assuming that anyone who made at least some fraction of the constitution at the Grand Convention at Philadelphia or at least debated the points to further their merit and wording then sure. They were Great Men certainly, and the lesser men of today pale in comparison just as certainly.
However there were further points in their favor beyond their intelligence, the crisis of the Confederation virtually ceasing to govern after its voting paralysis lending the necessary seriousness and political capital to the Grand Convention, General Washington and several famous Fathers of the Union demanding it, and the strong desire for a federal army that would be able to put down such insurrections as Shays' Rebellion over unpaid Continental Army service.
The United States of the Founding Fathers really were a collective Gong Show until people decided to get serious. The constitutions of the various states, while supposedly based on the principle of separation of powers, all fell into a more European (French, but not just them) problem of Parliamentary sovereignty versus Presidential systems where they—by all placing powers traditionally considered as belonging to the executive and judicial branches in their legislatures (since they were viewed as most representative of the people)—possessed State governors who all lacked significant authority, and state courts and judges who were entirely under the control of the legislative branch. Historically France provides the best (or worst) examples to the question of separated powers as she oscillated between the various answers where under the Third Republic the president was quite powerful. When the Fourth Republic was created (after the Second World War) France had a vastly more parliamentary system, in which the office of president of the Republic was a largely ceremonial and powerless one. The Constitution of the Fifth Republic, that replaced it in 1958, greatly increased the president's powers to the modern Semi-Presidential System of today. There are many ways to separate the powers and the rather extreme form of Parliamentary sovereignty in the Early American States suffered as exactly the French Fourth Republic did. Being the most representative of the people isn't any proof of long-term functionality and often proves to be the very opposite. The early governments of the various states were fractional and given to laxity and so soon ruin.
The Congress of the Confederation at what stood for the federal level, by comparison, was given a limited set of powers, mainly in the area of waging war and foreign affairs. However the Confederation also had no executive or judicial branches, which meant the Confederation government was still a creature of Parliamentary sovereignty but also lacked effective means to enforce its own laws and treaties against state non-compliance as well. It could not levy taxes or tariffs, and it could only request money from the states, with no power to force delinquent states to pay. Since the Articles could only be amended by a unanimous vote of the states, any state had effective veto power over any proposed change. A super majority (nine of thirteen state delegations) was required for Congress to pass major legislation such as declaring war, making treaties, or borrowing money. In short, The United States were individually unserious and collectively quite short of what could be remotely thought of as genius.
At the time, the Grand Convention at Philadelphia was not referred to as a constitutional convention, nor did most of the delegates arrive intending to draft a new constitution. Many assumed that the purpose of the convention was to discuss and draft improvements to the existing Articles of Confederation, and would not have agreed to participate otherwise. Only 30 to 40 delegates were present on a typical day, and each state had its own quorum requirements. Despite the sweltering summer heat, the windows of the meeting hall were nailed shut to keep the democratic proceedings a secret from the public they represented. Once the convention began, however, most of the delegates – though not all – came to agree in general terms that the goal would be a new system of government, not simply a revised version of the Articles of Confederation. Among the things that the Convention rightly did were to choose a presiding officer, unanimously electing George Washington to be the president of the convention.
The Convention then adopted rules to govern its proceedings. Each state delegation received a single vote either for or against a proposal in accordance with the majority opinion of the state's delegates. This rule increased the power of the smaller states. When a state's delegates divided evenly on a motion, the state did not cast a vote. Throughout the convention, delegates would regularly come and go. Maryland and Connecticut allowed a single delegate to cast its vote. New York required all three of its delegates to be present. If too few of a state's delegates were in attendance, the state did not cast a vote. After two of New York's three delegates abandoned the convention in mid-July with no intention of returning, New York was left unable to vote on any further proposals at the convention, although Alexander Hamilton would continue to periodically attend and occasionally to speak during the debates. The rules allowed delegates to demand reconsideration of any decision previously voted on. This allowed the delegates to take straw votes to measure the strength of controversial proposals and to change their minds as they worked for consensus. It was also agreed that the discussions and votes would be kept secret until the conclusion of the meeting. The belief that the states were independent entities and, as they entered the United States of America freely and individually, should remain so took a long time to come around to the idea of National Government.
Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, the most populous states, were unhappy with the one-vote-per-state rule in the Confederation Congress because they could be outvoted by the smaller states despite representing more than half of the nation's population. Quotas of contribution appealed to southern delegates because they would include slave property, but Rufus King of Massachusetts highlighted the impractical side of such a scheme. If the national government did not impose direct taxes (which, for the next century, it rarely did), he noted, representatives could not be assigned. Calculating such quotas would also be difficult due to lack of reliable data. Members concerned with preserving state power wanted state legislatures to select senators, while James Wilson of Pennsylvania proposed direct election by the people. It was not until June 7 that the delegates unanimously decided that state legislatures would choose senators. On June 9, William Paterson of New Jersey reminded the delegates that they were sent to Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation, not to establish a national government. Therefore while he agreed that the Confederation Congress needed new powers, including the power to coerce the states, he was adamant that such a government required equal representation for states. On this question of proportional representation or equal representation, the three large states still faced opposition from the eight small states. James Wilson realized that the large states needed the support of the Deep South states of Georgia and the Carolinas. For these southern delegates, the main priority was protection of slavery. Working with John Rutledge of South Carolina, Wilson proposed the Three-Fifths Compromise on June 11. This resolution apportioned seats in the House of Representatives based on a state's free population plus three-fifths of its slave population. Nine states voted in favor, with only New Jersey and Delaware against. This compromise would give the South at least a dozen additional congressmen and electoral college votes. That same day, the large-state/slave-state alliance also succeeded in applying the three-fifths ratio to Senate seats (though this was later overturned). It was a process, no one was particularly gifted but by straw votes and debate the collective wisdom and reason worked itself out. They relied on a system to work out compromises which were smarter than any one person's ideas.
TL;DR When you study the founding fathers, you come to the conclusion not that they were geniuses gifting us mere mortals with their wisdom. You see that they had a rational system of debate which took from May 25 to September 17 to work, an objectivity on the seriousness of their mission which kept them focused, and formal training in how to debate each other well enough to avoid a ton of modern emotional baggage.