Shapers of the Great Debate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787: A Biographical Dictionary

SHAPERS OF THE

GREAT DEBATE AT THE

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1787

Recent Titles in Shapers of the Great American Debates Shapers of the Great Debate on Immigration: A Biographical Dictionary Mary Elizabeth Brown Shapers of the Great Debate on Native Americans—Land, Spirit, and Power: A Biographical Dictionary Bruce E. Johansen Shapers of the Great Debate on Jacksonian Democracy: A Biographical Dictionary Paul E. Doutrich Shapers of the Great Debate on Conservation: A Biographical Dictionary Rachel White Scheuering Shapers of the Great Debate on the Great Society: A Biographical Dictionary Lawson Bowling Shapers of the Great Debate on the Civil War: A Biographical Dictionary Dan Monroe and Bruce Tap Shapers of the Great Debate on the Freedom of Religion: A Biographical Dictionary Jonathan A. Wright

SHAPERS OF THE

GREAT DEBATE AT THE

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1787 A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY

Joseph C. Morton Shapers of the Great American Debates, Number 8 Peter B. Levy, Series Editor

GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Morton, Joseph C. Shapers of the great debate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 : a biographical dictionary / Joseph C. Morton. p. cm.—(Shapers of the great American debates, ISSN 1099-2693 ; no. 8) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-313-33021-2 (alk. paper) 1. United States—History—1783-1815—Biography—Dictionaries. 2. Statesmen—United States—Biography—Dictionaries. 3. Politicians —United States—Biography—Dictionaries. 4. United States. Constitutional Convention (1787) 5. United States—Politics and government—1783-1789. 6. Constitutional history—United States. I. Title. II. Series. E302.5.M674 2006 973.3'18'0922—dc22 2005018725 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2006 by Joseph C. Morton All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2005018725 ISBN: 0-313-33021-2 ISSN: 1099-2693 First published in 2006 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10

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To Drew, Sabra, Daniel, and Noah— With Them and Others of Their Generation, the Country and the United States Constitution Will Remain in Good Hands!

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CONTENTS SERIES FOREWORD xiii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv INTRODUCTION 1 ABRAHAM BALDWIN (1754-1807) 22 RICHARD BASSETT (1745-1815) 26 GUNNING BEDFORD, JR. (1747-1812) 29 JOHN BLAIR (1732-1800) 33

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WILLIAM BLOUNT (1749-1800) 35 DAVID BREARLEY (1745-1790) 39 JACOB BROOM (1752-1810) 42 PIERCE BUTLER (1744-1822) 45 DANIEL CARROLL (1730-1796) 50 GEORGE CLYMER (1739-1813) 54 WILLIAM RICHARDSON DAVIE (1756-1820) 58 JONATHAN DAYTON (1760-1824) 62 JOHN DICKINSON (1732-1808) 66 OLIVER ELLSWORTH (1745-1807) 83 WILLIAM FEW (1748-1828) 88

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THOMAS FITZSIMONS (1741-1811) 91 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-1790) 94 ELBRIDGE GERRY (1744-1814) 107 NICHOLAS GILMAN (1755-1814) 114 NATHANIEL GORHAM (1738-1796) 117 ALEXANDER HAMILTON (1755-1804) 122 WILLIAM CHURCHILL HOUSTON (1746P-1788) 140 WILLIAM HOUSTOUN (1755-1813) 143 JARED INGERSOLL (1749-1822) 146 DANIEL OF ST. THOMAS JENIFER (1723-1790) 150 WILLIAM SAMUEL JOHNSON (1727-1819) 154

x

Contents RUFUS KING (1755-1827) 157 JOHN LANGDON (1741-1819) 163 JOHN LANSING, JR. (1754-1829) 168 WILLIAM LIVINGSTON (1723-1790) 173 JAMES MADISON, JR. (1751-1836) 178 ALEXANDER MARTIN (1740-1807) 189 LUTHER MARTIN (1744-1826) 193 GEORGE MASON (1725-1792) 199 JAMES McCLURG (1746-1823) 205 JAMES McHENRY (1753-1816) 209 JOHN FRANCIS MERCER (1759-1821) 213

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xi

THOMAS MIFFLIN (1744-1800) 216 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS (1752-1816) 220 ROBERT MORRIS (1734-1806) 229 WILLIAM PATERSON (1745-1806) 234 WILLIAM LEIGH PIERCE (1740-1789) 239 CHARLES PINCKNEY (1757-1824) 242 CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY (1746-1825) 248 EDMUND RANDOLPH (1753-1813) 255 GEORGE READ (1733-1798) 261 JOHN RUTLEDGE (1739-1800) 265 ROGER SHERMAN (1721-1793) 271

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RICHARD DOBBS SPAIGHT (1758-1802) 276 CALEB STRONG (1745-1819) 280 GEORGE WASHINGTON (1732-1799) 283 HUGH WILLIAMSON (1735-1819) 295 JAMES WILSON (1742-1798) 301 GEORGE WYTHE (1726-1806) 308 ROBERT YATES (1738-1801) 313 APPENDIX A: THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION AND PERPETUAL UNION 319 APPENDIX B: THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 329 SELECTED ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 355 INDEX 361

SERIES FOREWORD American history has been shaped by numerous debates over issues far ranging in content and time. Debates over the right, or lack thereof, to take the land of the Native Americans, and the proper place and role of women, sparked by Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, respectively, marked the earliest years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Debates over slavery, the nature and size of the federal government, the emergence of big business, and the rights of labor and immigrants were central to the Republic in the nineteenth century and, in some cases, remain alive today. World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War sparked debates that tore at the body politic. Even the Revolution involved a debate over whether America should be America or remain part of Great Britain. And the Civil War, considered by many the central event in American history, was the outgrowth of a long debate that found no peaceful resolution. This series, Shapers of the Great American Debates, will examine many of these debates—from those between Native Americans and European settlers to those between "natives" and "newcomers." Each volume will focus on a particular issue, concentrating on those men and women who shaped the debates. The authors will pay special attention to fleshing out the life histories of the shapers, considering the relationship between biography or personal history and policy or philosophy. Each volume will begin with an introductory overview and include approximately twenty biographies of ten to fifteen pages, an appendix that briefly describes other key figures, a bibliographical essay, and a subject index. Unlike works that emphasize end results, the books in this series will devote equal attention to both sides, to the "winners" and the "losers." This will lead to a more complete understanding of the richness and complexity of America's past than is afforded by works that examine only the victors. Taken together, the books in this series remind us of the many ways that

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Series Foreword

class, race, ethnicity, gender, and region have divided rather than united the inhabitants of the United States of America. Each study reminds us of the frequency and variety of debates in America, a reflection of the diversity of the nation and its democratic credo. One even wonders if a similar series could be developed for many other nations or if the diversity of America and its tradition of free expression have given rise to more debates than elsewhere. Although many Americans have sought to crush the expression of opposing views by invoking the imperative of patriotism, more often than not Americans have respected the rights of others to voice their opinions. Every four years, Americans have voted for a president and peacefully respected the results, demonstrating their faith in the process that institutionalizes political debate. More recently, candidates for the presidency have faced off in televised debates that often mark the climax of their campaigns. Americans not only look forward to these debates, but they would probably punish anyone who sought to avoid them. Put another way, debates are central to America's political culture, especially those that deal with key issues and involve the most prominent members of society. Each volume in the series is written by an expert. While I offered my share of editorial suggestions, overall I relied on the author's expertise when it came to determining the most sensible way to organize and present each work. As a result, some of the volumes follow a chronological structure; others clump their material thematically; still others are separated into two sections, one pro and one con. All of the works are written with the needs of college and advanced high school students in mind. They should prove valuable both as sources for research papers and as supplemental texts in both general and specialized courses. The general public should also find the works an attractive means of learning more about many of the most important figures and equally as many seminal issues in American history. Peter B. Levy Associate Professor Department of History York College

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS All books are collaborative ventures. Many people have aided me in the researching, writing, and publishing of this manuscript. I thank my Greenwood Editors Mr. Kevin Ohe and Ms. Sarah E. Colwell, and Production Editor Ms. Shelley Yeager, for their unfailing courtesy, professionalism, and valuable assistance. I also acknowledge the support and counsel of my Department of History colleagues at Northeastern Illinois University. In ways many of them were no doubt unaware of, Professors Steven Riess, June Sochen, Sue Sheridan Walker, P. Craig Smith, Gregory Holmes Singleton, and President Salme Harju Steinberg all contributed meaningfully to my understanding of the study and writing of history. Also, I gratefully acknowledge the always sagacious counsel of the Reverend Mr. Charles W. Holsinger and Professor W. Landis Jones. Over the years, my discussions with these two keenly discerning friends have always been and continue to be unique and valuable learning experiences. I also thank librarian and friend Ms. Esther Perica for the exacting job of preparing the Index (a task, however, which she always does with grace and enviable skill) and Ms. Jill Althage, Reference Services Coordinator in the Northeastern Illinois University Library, for her continued and valuable assistance in obtaining both primary and secondary source materials. Special thanks go to Ms. Jacqueline Sue Morton for her authoritative translations of the biographical sketches of many of the fifty-five Convention delegates written by the French charge d'affaires in New York. Finally, but not in the least, I thank my wife Deanne for her continued love, support, and her willingness to endure living with an "old curmudgeon history professor."

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INTRODUCTION Like the Roman god Janus, the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention looked both backward and forward. The framing of the United States Constitution marked the end of one era and the beginning of another. In looking backward, the Convention represented the last great culminating event of what is usually referred to as the American Revolution. The American Revolution was really a series of events that included, most importantly, political separation from Great Britain and the establishment of a stable new-world republic based on the revolutionary concept of the sovereignty of the people. With the writing of the Constitution in the eleventh year of American independence, the "Framers" were finally able to craft a constitution that in the main implemented many of the revolutionary concepts delineated in the Declaration of Independence. In looking forward, Januslike, the Constitutional Convention marked the successful establishment, after the apparent failure of the first experimental attempt at constitution making with the Articles of Confederation, of a structure of government that has endured for over two hundred years and is still, in the twenty-first century, the beacon for, and the envy of, people worldwide. It is important for Americans, in these tempestuous times of the new millennium, to become more familiar with their country's early history. It is especially important to become better acquainted with the country's fundamental governing charter—the Constitution. As the oldest, still-operational, written constitution in the world, the U.S. Constitution and the concepts it proclaims, have been, ever since its promulgation in 1789, under almost constant attack. Americans must remain vigilant in protecting their constitutional rights. If knowledge is power, knowledge of the writing of the Constitution and of the men who framed it will help give Americans the power and the will to meet successfully the constitutional challenges and opportunities of the new millennium and will further enhance their ap-

2

Introduction

preciation of the already-won constitutional rights given to them in the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. The fifty-five men who attended the Convention met in the Pennsylvania State House in response to the Confederation Congress's resolution of February 2 1 , 1787, which read, Whereas there is provision in the Articles of Confederation & Perpetual Union for making alterations therein by the Assent of a Congress of the United States and of the legislatures of the several States; And whereas experience hath evinced that there are defects in the present Confederation, as a mean to remedy which several of the States and particularly the State of New York by express instructions to their delegates in Congress have suggested a convention for the purposes expressed in the following resolution and such Convention appearing to be the most probable means of establishing in these states a firm national government. Resolved that in the opinion of Congress it is expedient that on the second Monday in May next a Convention of delegates who shall have been appointed by the several states be held at Philadelphia for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the states render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government &c the preservation of the Union.1 During the sixteen-week Convention authorized by the February 1787 congressional resolution, the delegates created a constitution that established a strong national government capable of confronting, with a good chance of success, the manifold problems facing the young American republic. In constructing the country's second basic charter, the delegates deliberated, often intensely and at some length, on the nature and structure of government. They debated such questions as how much power should be given to government and how should this power be allocated. From these discussions, temporary "interest" groups or coalitions were formed. Their composition inevitably varied as the issues under discussion changed. Altogether there were six discernible major divisions at the Convention. Perhaps the most obvious one was the north-south split. There were five state delegations (with twenty-five delegates attending at least part of the summer) from the south and seven (with thirty members) from states north of the Mason-Dixon Line (since 1767, the traditional dividing line between north and south). The issues dividing these two groups usually involved trade and navigation disputes. As the major exporting region, the south favored non-restrictive trade policies. Especially, it demanded that any newly created national government be prohibited from levying export taxes. Also

Introduction

3

the south, in favoring free trade, wanted to make it difficult or impossible to enact navigation laws, which, it was believed, would benefit northern shipping interests at the expense of southern agricultural exporters. The north on the other hand, as the commercial region, favored the enactment of trade and navigation laws that would enable it to control and regulate commerce for its own economic advantage. A second major division, similar in composition to the first but not exactly, was the split between those delegates who owned slaves (or least supported the institution of slavery) and those who did not own bond servants (or opposed the "peculiar institution" for either practical or moral reasons). Most of the delegates from the five southern states were slave owners and were therefore overwhelmingly ardent and vocal supporters of the institution from which they believed they benefited socially, politically, and economically. The four-member South Carolina delegation was particularly adamant in its insistence that the Convention not only not interfere with the institution of slavery as it existed but also not, in any way, restrict the importation of slaves. Interestingly, at least one prominent southern delegate (George Mason of Gunston Hall on the Potomac River), although an owner of some two hundred slaves himself, vehemently attacked in general the institution of involuntary servitude and specifically the "nefarious traffic" (i.e., the slave trade). Another division was the obvious one between political conservatives and political liberals. At the Convention, this division was referred to as differences between those delegates with "democratical" inclinations (political liberals in eighteenth-century parlance) and those who favored "monarchical" or autocratic-leaning government. The basic difference between these two groups involved the question of who should possess ultimate political power. Should political authority rest primarily with a single individual (monarchy) or a small group (aristocracy), or should it reside in the main with the people—or at least those people who possessed the suffrage? Actually, there were no out-and-out monarchists at the Convention, although there were several delegates who advocated what could be characterized as "an elective monarch" (i.e., an executive or president appointed or elected for life). Most of the fifty-five delegates were, in fact, quasi-democrats who championed what could be called "filtered" democracy. That is, a majority of the delegates favored a governmental structure that gave most political power to the people as filtered through such devices as an aristocratic senate, a system of indirect appointment or election of the chief executive, an independent judiciary, and a restricted suffrage. Also, there was general agreement that the new government structure should consist of three branches (executive, legislative, and judicial) and that these would, in essence, act as a further "filter" to the unbridled political power of the people. Although there was a consensus that the proposed government should be "mixed" (i.e., a mixture of monarchy,

4

Introduction

aristocracy, and democracy), there were disagreements, sometimes subtle, but frequently blatantly open, as to how to balance or allocate power between the various component parts or branches of government. Yet another discernible division at the Philadelphia Convention was the split between commercial/banking and agricultural interests. Several delegates (primarily from Pennsylvania and New England) were merchants who made sure that the government to be constructed would be "friendly" (or indeed would enact laws and policies that favored commercial/banking interests even if they were detrimental to those of the agrarian south). One of the most noticeable divisions was between nationalists and states' righters. Although, overwhelmingly, most delegates who accepted election or appointment to the Convention were nationalists who wanted to create a strong, central government, probably, a majority of ordinary Americans in the late eighteenth century subscribed to the revolutionary notion found in the Declaration of Independence that since government was, by its very nature, potentially (even inevitably) tyrannical, the power that must be allocated should be given to those governmental units closest to the people. It was thought by many that state governments would be more responsive to the will of the people than would a faraway, national one and therefore should retain the preeminent political power they already possessed under the Articles of Confederation. The states' rights contingent at the Convention had several articulate spokesmen (mostly from New England and the middle states of New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland), and these men were passionate in their defense of states' rights and in their opposition to a strong, "continental," central, national government. Debate over the issue of nationalism versus rights did absorb much of the attention of the Convention, especially during the first few weeks. However, the most serious and the most noticeable division at the Grand Convention was that between large and small states. This split came close several times to paralyzing and even sabotaging the Convention. In fact, several small-state delegates left the Convention early because they felt the Convention was exceeding its mandate to meet "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation." A Delaware delegate (Delaware was the smallest state in population and therefore the one that would potentially lose the most if the state political equality, intrinsic in the Articles of Confederation, was altered or abandoned) openly accused the delegates from the large states of a conspiracy against the small states. "I do not, gentlemen, trust you," Gunning Bedford, Jr., declared. "If you possess the power, the abuse of it could not be checked." Thus "The Great[est] Debate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787" was not between north and south, was not between pro-slave and anti-slave delegates, was not between liberals and conservatives, was not between commercial and agrarian interests, and was not even between those who favored the creation of a strong national government and those who wanted an essen-

Introduction

5

tial retention of the Articles of Confederation. The most prolonged and vehement debates (and thus the "Great Debate" as recorded in the journals kept by the delegates themselves) were between large states (primarily, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) and small states (most notably, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland). On more than one occasion during the almost-four-month Convention, there was the imminent threat that the Convention would dissolve over the issue of large states versus small states. Happily, the so-called Great Compromise (Connecticut Compromise) of July 16 ended this often acrimonious debate. After midJuly, most of the delegates supported (or at least accepted) the compromise that seemingly solved the vexing problem. Each delegate, at one time or another, belonged to, and voted with, at least one of these major interest groups during the eighty-eight days the Convention was in official session. As each issue or question was discussed and voted on, the delegates usually joined others of like mind in a loose, often temporary, coalition to support their commonly held views. A good example of a delegate moving from one interest group to another in response to the particular issue or question under discussion would be James Madison. As a delegate from Virginia, he invariably championed the southern point of view, was usually pro-slavery, more often than not supported "democratical" views politically, upheld the agrarian rather than the commercial interest, was the champion and, the most vocal supporter of nationalism, and was the leading advocate of the determined large-state group. Luther Martin of Maryland is another example of a delegate "wearing several hats" (i.e., belonging to more than one interest group). As a delegate from a state that was an agricultural slave state, Martin usually voted with his southern colleagues on trade and navigation matters, was somewhat surprisingly an outspoken opponent of the institution of slavery, was in the main a political conservative, favored the agrarian as opposed to the commercial/banking interest, was one of the leaders of the group that championed states' rights, and finally was the most vocal and ardent supporter of the small-state position. Although most men did serve as delegates to the Constitutional Convention out of a sense of duty and even altruism, they all, at one time or another, debated in favor of and voted to benefit their own social, economic, and political interest groups. The most cohesive, enduring interest group at the Convention was that of the small-state nationalists. With a fervor and a single-mindedness not always displayed by the other Convention delegates, this small group of New England and middle-state delegates was able to thwart effectively the early attempts of the large-state nationalists to ram through an essentially unamended version of the Virginia Plan that would have given the larger states (especially Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts) control of both houses of Congress and the executive. Not only was this group able to foil the early designs of the large states, but it was also largely respon-

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Introduction

sible for fashioning the series of compromises (commonly referred to as the Great Compromise) that probably saved the Convention from dissolution at a most critical time in the early summer. To gain an appreciation of the importance of the Constitutional Convention as the last significant act of what is commonly referred to as the American Revolution, a brief survey of the Confederation period (a period that is too often neglected or slighted in standard U.S. history textbooks) should be made. At the official conclusion of the War of Independence in 1783, the new American republic was beset with numerous problems. The national government expected to deal with these vexing problems was the one established by the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The Articles, written and approved by Congress in 1777, but not ratified until March 1, 1781, when Maryland at last ratified after Virginia agreed to give up to Congress its western land claims north and west of the Ohio River, established the weak national government most Americans thought they wanted. During the Revolutionary War being fought against a strong imperial British government, the colonists had hesitated to create for themselves a strong national government capable of duplicating the oppression and tyranny they thought they were experiencing from Great Britain. However, it soon became patently apparent that the weak Confederation government could not deal effectively with the manifold and complex problems confronting post-war America. In creating, with the Articles of Confederation, a relatively powerless central government, the Americans were adhering to the two commonly held eighteenth-century views that all governments are potentially tyrannical and oppressive and that what limited powers to be given should go to local or state governments, which would be, it was thought, more responsive to the will of the people. Thus, in the allocation of political and economic powers, the Articles reserved what few it bestowed to the individual states. Because the single-branch government established (a national legislature in which each state, regardless of size, wealth, or population, had one vote) had been created by the states, not by the people, it had evolved into little more than a legislative debating society. To ensure that the national government would not become despotic and non-responsive to the will of the people, it was specifically denied the power to tax, the power to regulate trade, and most importantly the power to enforce its laws. Further, the Articles could only be amended with the concurrence of all thirteen states. This inflexibility perhaps made inevitable, and even necessary, the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when the Articles of Confederation were overthrown (many would claim illegally) in favor of the extraordinarily flexible Constitution of 1787. What the Articles had established was "a firm league of friendship" in which "each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence"—a league, however, that did not possess the necessary powers for effective national governance.

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Most of the problems facing the newly created Confederation government in the immediate post-war period were caused by the long, costly Revolutionary War. First and foremost, both the national and state governments were heavily in debt. The war had been financed by Congress primarily with foreign loans (totaling almost $9 million) and with the issuance of large amounts of paper currency. However, by 1778, the paper money issued had depreciated in value to such an extent that 4 paper dollars exchanged for 1 dollar in hard money, in 1779 the exchange rate was 8 to 1, and in 1780 over 40 to 1. By 1780, Congress had issued almost two hundred million dollars in paper currency. The drastic currency depreciation that resulted by 1780 prompted Congress in mid-March of that year to issue new paper currency at a ratio of 1 new dollar for 40 old depreciated dollars (Continental bills). Thus the national debt was reduced, through this inflationary tactic, almost forty fold. Despite this drastic debt-reduction scheme, the Confederation government still carried a heavy indebtedness into the post-war period without the adequate means either to extinguish it or to even fund it (defined as arranging for the orderly and timely payment of interest). Furthermore, this indebtedness grew in the early 1780s despite two feeble, and as it turned out to be ineffectual, attempts to give the national government limited taxing power so it could deal more effectively with the whole debt problem. In 1781, the newly appointed superintendent of finance (Robert Morris) urged Congress, in what would be the first attempt to give the impoverished national government the financial means to come to grips with the debt problem, to approve his proposal for a 5 percent import tax (The Impost of 1781). Since this would have constituted an amendment to the Articles of Confederation, it required the approval of all thirteen states. Only the recalcitrant Rhode ("Rogues") Island refused initially to ratify it. However, this resulted in one state (actually the smallest geographically) successfully thwarting the wishes of the other twelve. A second effort to impose an import tax met with a similar fate a few years later, this time primarily because of the opposition of the largest state geographically— namely Virginia—and of New York. The result, of course, of these two failures to enact a national tax meant the Confederation government was not able to deal effectively with its indebtedness or able to establish financial credibility. Yet a second, unsolved, major challenge to the new American republic involved the inability to revive trade. At the conclusion of hostilities in 1783, Great Britain steadfastly refused to re-open the British West Indies to American trade. As part of the British empire before the Revolutionary War, the American colonies had carried on a brisk and extremely lucrative trade with the British West Indian sugar islands. As a result of Britain's refusal to allow the resumption of what had been, prior to the War of Independence, the mainstay of colonial commerce, American trade Ian-

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Introduction

guished. Indeed, by 1785, United States had slid into a post-war depression resulting in falling wages and farm prices and increased state and personal indebtedness. Debtors in all thirteen states demanded relief through stay laws (laws that suspended execution of legal judgments against those debtors unable to meet contractual obligations) and inflationary papermoney issuances. During the economic hard times of the mid-1780s, seven states (Pennsylvania, South Carolina, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and most notably Rhode Island) did issue small amounts of paper money in an attempt to ameliorate the debt problem for the evergrowing number of debtors. However, these debt-relief measures were so unsuccessful as to give rise to wide-spread non-compliance with existing laws and, in the case of Massachusetts, to violence. By 1787, many creditors and debtors alike were becoming convinced of the need to give the national government the power to tax, to regulate trade and commerce, and to enforce its laws. The government under the Articles of Confederation had failed, many Americans believed, to create or even maintain a viable economy. With the advent of peace in 1783, the Confederation Congress was faced with yet another set of problems involving Native Americans (Indians). With the acquisition, in the Treaty of Paris (1783), of the land between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi River, the new American republic found it necessary to formulate policies for dealing with the numerous Indian tribes of the old southwest and old northwest. Despite concluding treaties with several of the major Native American tribes (most notably, with the Choctaws and Chickasaws in 1786), the weak Confederation government was unable to enforce the treaty provisions that would have protected the Indians from land-hungry, rapacious frontiersmen. In its dealings with foreign countries, the United States experienced numerous difficulties, in the immediate post-war period, in establishing normal diplomatic and commercial relations with the major European powers. In obvious violation of the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain continued to occupy several strategically located Northwest Territory military posts, which enabled her to control much of the lucrative fur trade of the Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes region. Also, many Americans believed that the British in the northwest were encouraging and even openly aiding the Native Americans of the region to armed conflict against the ever-westward moving American settlers. Britain also, as has been mentioned, refused to allow American trade with her West Indian islands, and in addition successfully thwarted American attempts to collect compensation (as stipulated in the treaty) for the slaves the British had taken during the war. Perhaps the most noticeable example of British arrogance toward, and non-respect of America, occurred when King George III postponed for several months receiving John Adams (appointed in 1785 as the first American minister to the Court of St. James) officially and formally. This diplomatic snub was

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a clear indication that the new-world republic was not strong enough to command or even earn the respect of Great Britain. Although the United States did gain its political independence from Britain as a result of the War of Independence, she did not gain the recognition and respect she thought was her due as a newly created nation, or the economic independence she had hoped for until she had fought a second war against her former mother country (the War of 1812). Relations with Spain were no better. Although Spain had declared war, in 1779, against Great Britain, she had not entered into a formal alliance with the rebelling colonies, as had France. In the 1780s, Spain controlled large areas of what is today the United States. Her control of the mouth of the mighty Mississippi River and of Florida and the numerous and powerful Indian tribes along the Florida-Georgia border made her a potential enemy to the United States. All attempts during the unsettling 1780s to come to some mutually satisfactory accommodation with Spain failed. Especially troublesome were the negotiations by John Jay (secretary for foreign affairs, 1784-1790) with the Spanish that led to the Jay-Gardoqui Agreement of 1786—an agreement in which the United States would have acquiesced in Spain's closure of the Mississippi River to Americans in return for Spain granting important trade concessions that would have been beneficial only to eastern shipping interests. Fortunately for the United States, this agreement never received congressional approval and therefore was never implemented. However, the apparent willingness of the easterncontrolled Confederation government to sacrifice western interests (i.e., free passage on the Mississippi River) resulted in extreme western dissatisfaction with the weak national government and perhaps, more significantly, resulted in threats of disunion and dismemberment of the young American republic. It was patently obvious to most Americans (especially westerners) that the national government in New York could not or would not solve the vexing problem of free access to the Mississippi River. Relations with France, although outwardly cordial, were troubled by minor irritants, which prevented the establishment of the rapport expected of two countries that had, in 1778, negotiated and ratified both a treaty of alliance and a commercial treaty. France, of course, was an absolute monarchy whereas the United States was a republic. These differing basic governmental structures and differing economic systems hindered the creation of a truly harmonious and mutually advantageous relationship. Although Franco-American trade increased, France had never been the natural trading partner of the British colonies before the Revolutionary War and would not become such in the post-war period. Great Britain and her colonies were, and would remain, the major trade partners of the increasingly adventuresome Yankee shippers up to the War of 1812, and even beyond. Also, the annoying and largely unsolved question of French aid during the War of Independence plagued Franco-American relations. Was the exceed-

10

Introduction

ingly valuable French financial aid given to the struggling colonies a gift or loan? This question had been one of the causes of the acrimonious Silas Deane-Arthur Lee political quarrel during the Revolutionary War and would remain after the war to sour normal diplomatic relations between the two former allies. In one area, and one area only, did the Confederation Congress achieve notable success. With the passage of the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the troublesome problem of what to do with the western lands (basically the territories between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi River) acquired from Great Britain, in the Treaty of Paris of 1783, was solved. The two viable choices were to establish dependent colonies or to create new states on a basis of equality with the original thirteen. Congress chose the second, statesmanlike option thereby setting the precedent for the orderly creation of new republican states that has been followed, with modifications, ever since. These twin land ordinances constituted the greatest achievement of the Confederation Congress. However, in all of the other problem areas confronting post-war America, the weak Confederation government failed to meet the challenge they posed to create a financially stable new-world republic, a republic that could and would implement the revolutionary ideals for which Americans had fought only a few years earlier. This inability, on the part of the national government created by the Articles of Confederation, to govern effectively and the actions of many states (especially Rhode Island) in opposing the granting of any additional powers to the central government, even if they seemed obviously warranted by the ever-changing political and economic conditions, prompted many Americans to start thinking "continentally"; that is, to consider drastic amendments to the Articles of Confederation or draft a new constitution that would create a strong national government. The nationalistic movement that culminated in the calling of the 1787 Convention actually had its beginnings as early as the end of the War of Independence. By 1781 (two years before the official termination of that long conflict), an increasingly large number of prominent political leaders (many who had come to think "continentally" while serving in the national legislature or in Washington's Continental army) were lamenting the weaknesses of the central government and the irresponsibility of some states (again especially Rhode Island) in financial and political matters. Letters exchanged between such emerging nationalists as George Washington, Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, James Wilson, and John Jay were filled with suggestions and even appeals for remedies to prevent the political anarchy and economic instability they believed then existed. The four most important stepping stones leading to the February 2 1 , 1787, congressional resolution officially sanctioning the calling of the Grand Convention took place between 1785 and 1787. The first was the

Introduction

11

meeting in Alexandria, Virginia, of four commissioners from Virginia (that included future delegates to the Philadelphia Convention James Madison and George Mason) with an equal number of commissioners from Maryland (that included future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase). Dubbed the Mount Vernon Conference because the commissioners spent at least one day out of the three-day meeting as guests of George Washington at his Potomac River mansion, the meeting dealt primarily with problems pertaining to navigation rights on both the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. There was agreement reached on the issues of navigation rights on the Potomac River and on the marking of a navigational channel in the Chesapeake Bay. At the conclusion of the meeting on March 28, 1785, the commissioners issued a report, which recommended the calling of annual meetings to discuss commercial matters and the inviting, to future meetings, of delegates from Pennsylvania and Delaware to join in these yearly gatherings. Soon after the conclusion of the Mount Vernon Conference, Congress, in early May of 1786, considered a motion made by Charles Pinckney of South Carolina (a future delegate to the Constitutional Convention) to reorganize the national government. This reorganization, it was well realized by most congressmen, would have been "nationalistic," meaning it would have strengthened the national government at the expense of the individual states. On August 7, 1786, the special congressional committee appointed to make the organizational recommendations submitted its report. If adopted by Congress and ratified by all thirteen states, these recommendations would have constituted a far-reaching series of amendments to the Articles of Confederation. Specifically, the committee recommended the establishment of a seven-judge federal court that would have appeal jurisdiction from the various state courts in cases involving foreign nations. This would have meant, of course, essentially the creation of the beginnings of a second branch of government under the Articles. The two other significant recommendations involved, first, giving Congress limited power to regulate domestic and foreign trade and, second, to give it somewhat circumscribed power to compel states to meet their financial obligations under the increasingly ineffectual requisition system then in existence. Clearly, these proposals were nationalistic. For that reason, the nationalists in Congress realized that the unanimous approval of all thirteen states, which was required to amend the Articles of Confederation, could not be obtained. Therefore, these nationalistic proposals were never even submitted to the states for possible ratification. However, even in failure, this somewhat feeble attempt to amend the Articles should be considered a stepping stone (indeed a necessary stepping stone) that would eventually lead to the Constitutional Convention. The relative success of the Mount Vernon Conference led James Madison, in late January 1786, to persuade the Virginia legislature to issue an invitation to all the states to send delegates to a convention (that will be-

12

Introduction

come the third stepping stone) to be held at Annapolis, Maryland, in September 1786. Virginia's formal invitation only mentioned that the proposed conference would confine its deliberations primarily to trade and navigation concerns, but it was well understood by many that there would be discussions regarding political matters and even possible reorganization of the national government. This understanding was seemingly confirmed when the names of the delegates who attended the Annapolis meeting turned out to be almost all prominent nationalists—men who were advocating the strengthening of the Confederation government or its overthrow. Nine states accepted the Virginia invitation to attend the "commercial" Convention in the Maryland capitol, but only five ended up sending delegations. Interestingly, the host state Maryland, and Georgia, South Carolina, and Connecticut took no official notice of Virginia's invitation. Moreover, delegates selected from North Carolina, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, for a variety of reasons, did not reach Annapolis in time for the September 11-14 meeting. The five states adjacent to the Chesapeake Bay and therefore supposedly most interested in discussing interstate commercial problems relating to that important trade waterway, did send delegations to this abbreviated, but exceedingly significant pre-Philadelphia Convention gathering. The twelve delegates that were appointed or elected to attend the Annapolis Convention were, as nationalists or "continentalists," determined to advance their program of carrying out what would constitute, when the Constitution of 1787 was finally ratified, a "constitutional revolution." Seven of the twelve would later serve as delegates to the Philadelphia Convention. Prominent among the five state delegations in Annapolis was that of Virginia. It included James Madison (the future "father of the Constitution"), Saint George Tucker, and the well-regarded, popular scion of a distinguished Virginia aristocratic family Governor Edmund Randolph. New York sent Egbert Benson and the meteoric Alexander Hamilton. New Jersey was ably represented by Abraham Clarke, James Schuarman, and the future Constitutional Convention delegate William Churchill Houston. Pennsylvania chose a five-member delegation consisting of Thomas Fitzsimmons, George Clymer, Robert Morris—who all would later be elected delegates to the Grand Convention—John Armstrong, Jr., and Tench Coxe. However, only Tench Coxe (a future deputy to the first secretary of the treasury Alexander Hamilton) actually attended the Annapolis gathering. The other Pennsylvania delegates waited, in vain, for the New England representatives who did not arrive in time to attend what turned out to be an abbreviated four-day meeting. Delaware's delegation was composed of three future Convention members: Richard Bassett, George Read, and John Dickinson. Read and Dickinson would, the following summer, both play significant, but somewhat unheralded, roles at the Grand Convention. In recognition of his well-deserved reputation as "The Penman of

Introduction

13

the Revolution," Dickinson was unanimously elected chairman of the Annapolis Convention. With the non-arrival of the delegates from the four states that had apparently agreed to send delegations, the twelve attending members realized that the small attendance would make it impractical and non-productive to proceed to the discussion of interstate commerce problems (i.e., the avowed reason for the meeting) or to the consideration of the non-avowed, unwritten, but well-understood reason of nationalists to meet to propose measures that would grant the national government additional powers to enable it to govern, from their point of view, more effectively. Thereupon, the convention appointed a small committee to draft an address to the states, which was formally approved on the last day of the meeting. Drafted primarily by Alexander Hamilton, the report sent to the states invited them to send delegates to yet another meeting to be held this time in the more accessible and, many thought, more hospitable city of Philadelphia on the second Monday of May 1787 (i.e., May 14). The address to the states mentioned, somewhat ambiguously, the need to meet not only to discuss commercial problems, but also to consider other matters needed "to render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." Thus the Annapolis Convention had become the fourth and final stepping stone leading to the Philadelphia Convention. This September 14 address to the thirteen states was the clarion call for the Constitutional Convention of 1787. In mid-October, Congress dilatorily considered the invitation to the states by referring it to a committee. Finally, on February 21, 1787, Congress approved the calling of the Philadelphia Convention, but only "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein." Shays' Rebellion (August 1786-February 1787) was perhaps the final event that convinced many Americans that the Confederation government was too weak and that what was needed was a stronger national government that would have the power and authority to quell such frontier uprisings. Occasioned by the unwillingness of the eastern-dominated, commercially oriented, and creditor-controlled Massachusetts state government to heed the demands of debt-ridden farmers for state stay laws and for the issuance of paper money, this rebellion, although it did not reach its bloody conclusion until late February 1787 when five of the states had already selected their delegates to the Constitutional Convention, was on the minds of the delegates when they convened in Philadelphia on that "second Monday in May next" (May 14, 1787). The rebellion itself was really a series of skirmishes between disgruntled, debt-ridden farmers and state militiamen. Daniel Shays (a former captain in the Continental army) and his rag-tail army initially posed a threat to the take-over of the federal arsenal at Springfield, Massachusetts. This

14

Introduction

prompted the national Congress to send General Henry Knox with a large force of Massachusetts and Connecticut militia to confront the insurgents. Without bloodshed, the rebels scattered when one of their leaders was captured. More seriously, the insurgents attempted, in late 1786 and early 1787, to close some of the courts that were most active in seizing mortgaged farm and home properties for non-payment of debts. This led to actual bloodshed when state militia, under the command of General Benjamin Lincoln, finally routed the rebels at Petersham in February of 1787. At the state level, the threat of such future insurrections prompted the Massachusetts legislature to pass several much-needed debt-relief measures. At the national level, this rebellion further convinced many Americans of the need to establish a strong, central government; a government that could quickly and effectively squelch such riotous behavior. Knowledge of the socalled Shays' Rebellion did undoubtedly influence some of the delegates as they crafted the Constitution. However, this Massachusetts uprising did not influence, to any great extent, the actual calling of the Philadelphia Convention, because the riots that constituted the rebellion took place, for the most part, after the movement to call a Convention was well underway. The Great Debate (i.e., the issue, which generated the most discord and animosity) at the Convention was not between nationalists and states' righters, mainly because a vast majority of the attending delegates were already devout "continentalists" (i.e., nationalists). The most divisive debate, indeed the one that several times produced a threat (usually subtly implied) of a walk-out by disgruntled members (mainly from Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey) who opposed the sometimes intimidating, imperious tactics employed during the first weeks of the Convention by some of the Pennsylvania and Virginia delegates, was between large-state and small-state nationalists. Because the delegates, therefore, really had more in common than not regarding the major potentially divisive questions they faced, they were able, admittedly often after acrimonious debate and heated discussion, to compromise their relatively less important differences and produce that "bundle of compromises" we call the Constitution of 1787. The delegates selected to attend the Philadelphia Convention had been, almost without exception, political and/or military leaders in their individual states and active participants in the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson characterized the gathering as "an assembly of demi-gods." Divine they were not! Rather they were an exceedingly talented, well-educated, politically and/or militarily experienced group of men, a majority of whom were dedicated nationalists who saw the need to either amend drastically the Articles of Confederation or write an entirely new constitution. Altogether seventy-four delegates were elected or appointed either by the legislatures or governors of the twelve states that sent delegations. Alone of all the states, Rhode Island refused to send a delegation because it was convinced that any tampering with the existing national charter (either by

Introduction

15

amendments or by a new constitution) would result in a drastic diminution of the equal-state power it enjoyed in the Confederation's "firm league of friend-ship"; a league in which "each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence." Therefore, under the Articles of Confederation, tiny Rhode Island (the smallest of the thirteen states geographically, although not in population—that distinction belonged to Delaware) possessed essentially the same power in national affairs as the largest, most populous state—namely, the lordly and often imperious Virginia. It is interesting to note the names of the many prominent men who were chosen to represent their states and did not accept their appointments or, for a variety of reasons, did not attend the four-month conclave. Thus, the Framers were denied the participation of such worthy state-leaders as Erastus Wolcott of Connecticut, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, Francis Dana of Massachusetts, Abraham Clark of New Jersey, Richard Caswell and Willie Jones of North Carolina, and Thomas Nelson, Richard Henry Lee, and Patrick Henry of Virginia. Also of interest, three of the most famous Revolutionary War leaders (i.e., John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Samuel Adams) were not chosen. John Adams was not selected because he was serving, in 1787, as the first American minister to the Court of St. James in London. Likewise, Thomas Jefferson was not available because of diplomatic duties in France. He had succeeded Benjamin Franklin as minister to Versailles in 1785 and thus was, in the summer of 1787, enjoying French art, music, and architecture in and around the French capital. In the case of the once popular Samuel Adams, he had embraced, by 1787, a narrow state perspective, which prevented him from thinking "continentally." During the early phases of the War of Independence, Adams had epitomized the "Spirit of 1776" with its emphasis on individual liberty and freedom, but by the mid-1780s his obvious provincialism alienated him from that spirit with its emphasis on nationalism. Thus he was not seriously considered for election. Fifty-five delegates did attend the Convention, at least for part of the time. Of that number, thirty-nine signed the final document on September 17, which left sixteen non-signers. The average age of the attendees was approximately forty-two; the oldest delegate (by some fifteen years) was the venerable and world-renowned Dr. Benjamin Franklin; the youngest was Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey—aged 26. As a group, those who were more continental in outlook (as were most of the men at the Convention) were on the average almost ten years younger than their average states' rights opponents (called Anti-Federalists during the 1787-1790 ratification period). Overwhelmingly, the delegates were well educated. As far as can be determined, twenty-six members attended college: two in Great Britain and twenty-four in America, the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton) claimed nine members, Yale four, the College of William and Mary four,

16

Introduction

Harvard three, King's College (present-day Columbia) two, and the College of Philadelphia (present-day University of Pennsylvania) two. The two foreign university graduates were James Wilson of Pennsylvania (St. Andrews University in Scotland) and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina (Oxford University in England). More than half of the men who gathered in the Pennsylvania State House were at least part-time lawyers. Their legal training (usually obtained in some form of apprentice system) constituted, more often than not, an education in legal and political theory, in practical politics, and in the oratorical arts so necessary for success in the legal profession. Besides being attorneys, they were large landowners, slave owners, merchants, educators, clergymen, and physicians. That is to say, the delegates were not a cross section of American society. Instead, they were in 1787, with only a few exceptions, men who possessed enviable wealth, significant political power (at least at the state or local level), and praise-worthy reputations as dedicated public servants. They were also an extremely experienced group both politically and militarily. Thirty-nine delegates had seen service in either the First or Second Continental Congress. More than twenty members had been in the military during the War of Independence, eight had signed the Declaration of Independence, seven had served or were serving as their state chief executives, and seven had attended the Annapolis Convention of September 1786—the convention that was largely responsible for the calling of the Philadelphia Convention. It is important to remember, and indeed emphasize, that the fifty-five delegates to the Grand Convention had more in common than not. Without exception, they were all, at least in 1787, from the uppermost economic, political, and social strata of American society. As has been mentioned, most were committed nationalists. Moreover, they were all adult white males who, with only a couple of exceptions, possessed similar basic political philosophies, great wealth, and respected reputations (at least at the local and/or state level) as devoted and successful public servants. Religiously, they were overwhelmingly, at least nominally, Protestant Christians. The two Catholic members (Daniel Carroll from Maryland and Thomas Fitzsimmons from Pennsylvania) were, one suspects, condescendingly tolerated, more than seriously listened to, in any discussions even remotely related to religion. There were no avowed or practicing Jews in attendance and none who openly in any way embraced agnosticism or atheism. All in all, the assemblage that wrote the Constitution of 1787 was an exceedingly homogeneous group regarding most economic, social, and political matters. Perhaps this homogeneity in thought and background helps explain how fifty-five articulate, talented, well-educated, politically experienced but always independently minded, mostly middle-aged men from twelve states could fashion an enduring constitution, which, even in the be-

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17

ginning of the twenty-first century, continues to serve as the model of a workable fundamental organic law both for emerging nations and for countries moving, frequently begrudgingly, toward the creation of democratic or at least semi-democratic political structures. A question to be asked is did, to use Jefferson's oft-quoted phrase, this "assembly of demi-gods" represent the whole of American society—a society that was slowly but inexorably becoming more pluralistic. The answer to that intriguing question is both yes and no. It depends on what definition or interpretation of the word "represent" is used. If we could ask the average individual delegate if he represented the society from whence he came, he would undoubtedly answer in the affirmative. He would say that he did indeed represent the African Americans, the Native Americans, the women, the children, and even the large number of politically powerless white men of his state. As a privileged member of the upper class in what was still a hierarchical society, the average delegate truly believed that he could and should represent in economic and political matters his less-fortunate, less-educated, less-talented, less-experienced, less-lucky compatriots. However, by the standards of today, these selfassured constitution-makers did not represent directly, in any reasonable way, American society as a whole. It is true that the white, adult, male, affluent or near-affluent segment of the population was amply represented, since all fifty-five members belonged to this advantaged group. However, there were no Native Americans, no African Americans, no females, and no white males who could not meet the various state property requirements for voting, among the "revered" Framers. Thus, a vast majority of Americans were not represented explicitly in any meaningful fashion by the delegates who framed the constitution under which all would live. Rather it can be asserted that the members of the Philadelphia Convention directly represented probably less than one in four (or 25 percent) of all Americans. It is therefore fortuitous that this unrepresentative small group of white men was able to craft our fundamental organic law, which has not only survived for over two hundred years, but has been generally responsible for giving most, if not all, the people residing in the United States one of the most responsive, stable, democratic governments in existence. Happily, quite a few delegates kept journals in which they recorded, at least a synopsis of, some, but certainly not all, of the debates and decisions made in the Convention. Major William Jackson of South Carolina was elected secretary of the Convention. His Convention notes (the official journal) were, however, fragmentary and therefore not very useful. Interestingly, this official journal lay dormant until 1819 when President James Monroe instructed his secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, to supervise the publication of this official, but haphazardly written, daily chronicle. With the help of William Jackson and some recently made public notes written by delegate David Brearley of New Jersey, Secretary Adams saw to the publi-

18

Introduction

cation of the Journal, Acts and Proceedings of the Convention, . . . which formed the Constitution of the United States. Of much more value than Adams' edition of Jackson's official notes were the rather extensive ones taken by James Madison. Madison claimed, in the Preface he wrote before his death in 1836 to the 1840 publication of his meticulously written and carefully post-Convention edited journal, to have chosen "a seat in front of the presiding member, with the other members, on my right and left hand. In this favorable position for hearing all that passed I noted in terms legible and in abbreviations and marks intelligible to myself what was read from the Chair or spoken by the members; and losing not a moment unnecessarily between the adjournment and reassembling of the Convention, I was enabled to write out my daily notes during the session or within a few finishing days after its close."2 Other chronicles that have been made public include the incomplete and highly partisan journal of Robert Yates of New York. Published in 1821, it covered only the period to July 5 when Yates and his states' rights New York colleague John Lansing, Jr., left the Convention for good because they felt the Convention was too nationalistic and their continued attendance would constitute a violation of their official instructions to go to Philadelphia to consider amendments to, not to the overturning of, the Articles of Confederation. Rufus King of Massachusetts kept valuable notes that were finally edited and published by his grandson Charles R. King in 1894. Also useful are the notes taken by James McHenry of Maryland. However, they are incomplete since McHenry left the Convention on June 1 and did not return until August. For the time when the Randolph Plan (i.e., the Virginia or Large State Plan) was introduced (May 29) and debated, McHenry's notes are extremely helpful as they are for the last month of the Convention. The journal kept by Georgia delegate William Pierce (first published in 1828) is primarily interesting for the brief and sometimes amusing, but not always accurate, character sketches he wrote of his fellow delegates. The fragmentary notes taken by William Paterson of New Jersey are useful primarily for an understanding of the so-called Paterson (or New Jersey) Plan he presented to the Convention on June 15 as the small states' answer to the Virginia Plan. The scattered notes taken by Alexander Hamilton of New York are helpful in gaining an insight into the thinking of the man most responsible for the calling of the Convention. However, his sporadic attendance at the Convention renders the notes less useful than they could have been. The papers of George Mason of Virginia, partially published in 1892, contained a few notes and memoranda taken by this scholarly Virginia planter at the Convention. They are useful primarily for gaining an understanding of Mason's growing opposition to the work of the Convention, which culminated in his refusal to sign the finished document.

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19

It is primarily from the careful reading of these eight journals or sets of notes that scholars have been able to conduct useful research on the Constitutional Convention. Although none of these journals or notes recorded every word or decision made, taken together, they give as accurate an account of the debates as is possible in the absence of a modern audio/video electronic recording. Of the most benefit were the meticulously recorded (and afterward carefully revised) notes of James Madison (considered by his fellow delegates as the "unofficial secretary" of the gathering). Madison's journal and William Jackson's official journal (as revised by John Quincy Adams in 1819) when collated with the other six incomplete sets of notes, give us a relatively clear picture of the daily workings of the Grand Convention. In any study of the inner workings of the Constitutional Convention, its meeting time (May 25-September 17) can conveniently and usefully be divided into two periods. The primary debate during the first part of the initial period (May 25-June 11) was between those who wanted to create a new national government and those who went to Philadelphia merely to revise or amend (as stated in the instructions from the individual states to their delegates) the existing Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The nationalists won the debate inasmuch as the Convention essentially accepted their proposal submitted by Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia. Led by James Madison of Virginia, James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris, both of Pennsylvania, and Alexander Hamilton of New York, the large-state nationalists set the early tone and agenda for the entire Convention. These nationalists, sometimes aggressively, introduced and advanced their program to create a strong, large-state-dominated national government. The Virginia Plan, introduced on May 29 by the youthful Virginia governor, incorporated their ideas. With significant modifications, it became the basis for the Constitution that was signed in September. This large-state plan (often called the Randolph Plan) called for the creation of a relatively weak executive, a stronger two-house legislature, and a national judiciary. Since the executive was to be elected by the legislature and since the large states would control, through proportional representation, the legislature, this proposal (probably actually crafted by the scholarly James Madison) was blatantly nationalistic. The states' rights advocates (led this time by Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, William Paterson of New Jersey, John Dickinson of Delaware, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, John Rutledge, Pierce Butler all of South Carolina) opposed vehemently the early attempt to railroad this nationalistic program though, seemingly, without any consideration for the views of the states' righters and with little regard for their instructions that stated they were to meet for "the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation." Many of these states'

20

Introduction

rights advocates were in fact nationalists. They were nationalists who wanted to establish a true federal system of government. The federal system as established in the United States Constitution is an arrangement under which significant power is granted to both the national government and to the states. It was during the second half of the initial, large-state-dominated, period (essentially June 11-July 16) that the Great Debate between large and small states (actually between two sets of nationalists—large-state nationalists and small-state nationalists) took place. Particularly in early July, the debate between these two ably led interest groups was the most heated and even acrimonious. This debate was really a clash of wills over the issue of who would dominate the new national government. Specifically, the debate was between those delegates who advocated proportional representation in both houses of the legislature and those who wanted to retain equal state representation in at least one of the legislative chambers. The large states of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina along with South Carolina and Georgia favored proportional representation, whereas Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware supported the concept of state equality in one branch of the legislature. This debate overshadowed the other relatively significant debates, which, while important, did not threaten, like this did, the very existence of the Convention. The compromises between north and south, between slave owners and those opposed to the "peculiar institution," between agrarian and commercial interests, between political liberals and conservatives, and even between nationalists and states' righters, while important and even necessary, were all made possible when the debate between the two nationalistic groups was finally settled, in favor of the small-state nationalists, with the Great Compromise of July 16. With the clash over proportional versus equal representation finally settled in mid-July, the Convention moved on to its final phase—a period of relative harmony. Interestingly, with their victory of obtaining state equality in what becomes the Senate, the small-state nationalists came to dominate these later meetings of the Convention similar to the early sessions in which the large-state nationalists dominated. Although the debates were often prolonged over such issues as immigration, citizenship, trade regulations, new states, and slavery, they were relatively harmonious because the two heretofore antagonistic groups (i.e., large-state nationalists and smallstate nationalists) now worked together, although sometimes begrudgingly, to fine tune the basic decisions made in mid-July. To be sure, the ensuing debates over what powers should be granted to the executive, how the executive should be elected, what powers should be given to each house of the legislature, and how should the Constitution be amended were important, but they were generally resolved amiably. The resolution of the Great Debate between large-state nationalists and small-state nationalists over

Introduction

21

proportional versus equal representation brought together into one nationalistic group, men who worked effectively in the late summer of 1787 to craft the final "bundle of compromises" that is the U.S. Constitution. The fifty-five biographical sketches that follow this introductory essay will all focus on the individual's participation in the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention with an emphasis on their views and activities on the Great Debate between large-state nationalists and small-state nationalists. Obviously some delegates played prominent roles in the debates, discussions, and decision-making while others apparently spoke infrequently or not at all and were desultory in their participation in the deliberations. Undoubtedly, there were many important discussions, debates, and decisions made outside of the official sessions. At the many taverns (especially the Indian Queen, the Old London Coffeehouse, and the City Tavern) and rooming houses located near the Pennsylvania State House (today's Independence Hall), there would have been many opportunities for the delegates to discuss and debate, perhaps over a convivial glass or two of "spirituous liquors," the various issues confronting the Convention at its official meetings. To what extent there were serious and meaningful discussions at these unofficial meetings will, of course never be known with certainty. However, by reading the many extant personal letters of the delegates written during and after the Convention and the eight journals or sets of notes written by the official secretary William Jackson, the unofficial secretary James Madison, and the other six note takers, we can get a clear picture of most of the Convention activities and views of the Framers. NOTES All of the quotes in this book, unless otherwise stated, are taken from the three volumes of Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996); or James H. Hutson, ed., Supplement to Max Farrand's The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. 1. Farrand, 3:13-14. 2. Farrand, l:xvi.

ABRAHAM BALDWIN (1754-1807) Abraham Baldwin was the most distinguished, best-educated, most politically experienced delegate in the four-member Georgia delegation to the Constitutional Convention. Born November 2, 1754, in North Guilford, Connecticut, Baldwin enjoyed, during his thirty-two years in public service, a measure of success and popular recognition in four distinct career fields. The second son of a blacksmith who altogether fathered twelve children, Baldwin was early on provided with opportunities for education and advancement not usually available to sons of lower-middle-class craftsmen in colonial Connecticut. Apparently, his father believed in the value of education for his children and went deeply into debt to provide, at least for the older sons, the solid basis of what would today be considered a classical education. For his part, Abraham attended a local private school where he studied a pre-collegiate classical course that prepared him for entrance into the nearby Yale College in New Haven. At the age of 18 in 1772, Baldwin was graduated with a degree from Yale in what would have been a similar academic program to his twenty-four future Constitutional Convention colleagues, who were college or university graduates. Thus young Baldwin studied such classical subjects as moral philosophy, Greek, Latin, and history. The similarity of curricula in eighteenth-century colleges and universities meant that many of the Convention delegates could refer to certain ancient and European moral and political philosophies and to philosophers, some of which would be today mostly unknown, and know that the references and inferences they made would be instantly and fully understood by their readers and listeners. As a result, in the letters, speeches, and public papers of most of the eighteenth-century Founders and Framers, there are numerous references to what would be today largely unknown people, ideas, theories, and concepts.

ABRAHAM BALDWIN

23

Upon graduation, Baldwin began the serious study of theology at Yale and was subsequently ordained as a congregational minister three years later (1775). Between 1775 and 1779, Abraham Baldwin entered into two professional careers simultaneously: the first, as an ordained minister at his alma mater, and the second, as a professor or academic tutor, also at Yale. In 1777, at the age of 23, he entered the Continental army as a chaplain and two years later formally resigned his tutorial at Yale. During his sixyear stint (1777-1783) as chaplain in the Second Connecticut Brigade, the ambitious, studious Yaleman studied law and was admitted to the bar and set up a legal practice in Fairfield in 1783. However, he practiced law (his third career field) in Connecticut for only a year. In 1784, he moved to Augusta, Georgia, where he obtained a sizeable land grant in Wilkes County, established what would quickly become a lucrative legal practice, and almost inevitably, because of his legal prominence, became involved in local and state-wide politics (his fourth career field). His election to the Georgia State House of Representatives in 1785 was followed almost immediately by his election to the Continental Congress. Therefore, during the summer of 1787, he served, as did a number of his Convention colleagues, as both a member of Congress and a delegate to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. At the Convention, Baldwin played only a small, inconspicuous role. His Convention attendance appeared at best to be somewhat sporadic because of a late arrival (June 11) and because of several apparent absences due probably to trips he took to New York City to discharge his duties and obligations as a sitting member of Congress. During the Convention, Baldwin was portrayed by his Georgian colleague William Pierce as a "Gentleman of superior abilities, and joins in a public debate with great art and eloquence. Having laid the foundation of a compleat [sic] classical education at Harvard College" (it was, as mentioned above, actually at Yale), "he pursues every other study with ease. He is well acquainted with Books and Characters, and has an accommodating turn of mind, which enables him to gain the confidence of Men, and to understand them. He is a practicing Attorney in Georgia, and has been twice a Member of Congress. Mr. Baldwin is about 38 years of age" (he was actually 32 years old at the time of the Convention). 1 The French consul in New York City in his oftquoted report to his superior in Paris noted briefly that Baldwin was "reasonable and well intentioned, but never having the occasion to distinguish himself. Congress is beginning to give him the means, in naming him among the commissioners that regulate accounts with the States."2 Although appointed to represent Georgia at the Convention, Baldwin generally spoke and voted as if he was representing his birth state of Connecticut. Thus he assiduously supported the small states in their insistent demand for equal representation in the national Senate. In late August, as the Georgia member of the important Committee on Postponed Matters,

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Shapers of the Great Debate at the Constitutional Convention

Baldwin, along with Chairman David Brearley of New Jersey, Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, James Madison of Virginia, and John Dickinson of Delaware grappled with the problem of devising a scheme for electing the president that would satisfy both those who wanted the chief executive elected by the people and those who favored election by state legislatures. The committee, in its September 4 report to the full Convention, came up with the convoluted system we designate as the Electoral College. Also, the committee made several recommendations, most of which were adopted, that gave the Senate, where it was believed the small states would predominate, additional powers in the areas of treaty-making and executive appointments. Undoubtedly, Baldwin, as a philosophical small-state advocate, worked within the committee to obtain these concessions and to give the states what was thought to be the dominant voice in the election of the president. Originally it was thought that the Electoral College would result in the large states (with their larger number of electoral votes) essentially nominating the president and the more numerous small states (with each state's House of Representatives delegation having one vote in case no candidate received a majority of the electoral vote actually electing, in most elections. However, in actual practice, the House of Representatives has elected the president in only two instances: 1800 and 1824. Baldwin's voice and vote within the committee for measures favorable to small states was probably crucial in helping other small-state advocates in the group such as Brearley, Dickinson, and Sherman to prevail against the vehement opposition of such large-state fellow committeemen as Rufus King of Massachusetts, Gouverneur Morris, and James Madison. Therefore, Abraham Baldwin should be considered an important, although somewhat inconspicuous and unheralded, member of the small-state nationalist faction, which came to dominate the Convention during its latter weeks. Along with William Few, Baldwin was one of the two Georgia delegates to sign the Constitution on September 17. Like eight of his Convention colleagues, Baldwin was elected to the national House of Representatives in 1789, serving in the first and the four succeeding Congresses. Although initially an ardent supporter of the Washington administration and of the secretary of the treasury Alexander Hamilton's bold and far-reaching financial program, Baldwin slowly gravitated to the opposition party of Jefferson and Madison. He especially opposed the overly nationalistic policies of the audacious secretary of the treasury. Election in 1799 (re-elected in 1805) to the U.S. Senate as a supporter of President Thomas Jefferson completed his political conversion from Federalist to Republican. As an indication of the esteem in which he was held as a "Framer" and "elder" statesman, Baldwin was twice elected president pro tempore of the Senate. As one of the few Convention bachelors, Baldwin was able, as an adult, to devote his energies and time to the creation and maintenance, not of a

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family, but of what many Georgians today consider the first state university. In 1784, he was commissioned, along with six other civic-minded Georgians, to establish a state college. Their efforts were rewarded in 1798, when Franklin College was founded. Modeled after his alma mater Yale, Franklin College later evolved into the University of Georgia. As the author of its charter and long-time university president, Baldwin, along with Thomas Jefferson (University of Virginia), William Richardson Davie (University of North Carolina), and Benjamin Franklin (University of Pennsylvania), was the primary founder of one of the country's premier state universities. At the time of his death on March 4, 1807, in Washington, D.C., as a sitting member of the Senate, he was widely eulogized as a revered "Framer" and distinguished educator. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:97. 2. Ibid., 238.

RICHARD BASSETT (1745-1815) At the time of his February 3, 1787, election as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Richard Bassett was one of the wealthiest planters and well-thought-of lawyers in Delaware. Born April 2, 1745, in Kent County on Maryland's Eastern Shore, he was the son of a tavern-keeper who abandoned his wife and family, leaving them virtually povertystricken. Fortunately, he was adopted by a wealthy relative, Peter Lawson, and was thereafter given opportunities for education and advancement not normally enjoyed by people who had come from similar humble beginnings. His benefactor saw to it that young Richard received the best basic education then available in rural Maryland. He then entered into a legal apprenticeship in Philadelphia. In 1770, at age 25, he passed the bar and entered into what soon became a thriving legal practice in rural Dover, Delaware. From his patron, he inherited the beautiful Bohemia Manor in Maryland. His lucrative legal practice enabled him to become a wealthy gentleman farmer. He added to his considerable inherited landholdings elegant homes in both Wilmington and Dover, Delaware. During the Revolutionary War, Bassett secured a commission as captain of a Dover militia unit and served as such briefly, but without notable distinction. With his honorable military background and success as a lawyer and planter, it was almost inevitable that he enter the political arena. He was an active delegate at the Constitutional Convention, which drafted Delaware's first state fundamental governing charter in 1776. Toward the end of the conflict with Great Britain, he served, with local distinction, in the Delaware State Senate. This was followed by election to the state house of representatives. In recognition of his reputation as an experienced, highly regarded politician and of his well-known views regarding the obvious need (and for tiny Delaware, which was often exploited economically and politically by its bigger neighbor Pennsylvania, the desirability) for either dras-

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tically amending the Articles of Confederation or overthrowing them completely, Bassett was chosen to represent Delaware at the 1786 Annapolis Convention. From this convention, of course, came the clarion call for the Constitutional Convention. Not surprisingly then, Bassett was chosen, along with Gunning Bedford, Jr., Jacob Broom, and his two fellow delegates at the Annapolis Convention, George Read and John Dickinson, to represent his state at the Philadelphia Convention. Bassett arrived in Philadelphia on May 20. From the scant information available regarding his activities at the Convention, it appeared that he attended regularly the formal Convention sessions. In his portrayal of Bassett, William Pierce described him as "a religious enthusiast, lately turned Methodist, and serves his Country because it is the will of the people that he should do so. He is Man of plain sense, and has modesty enough to hold his tongue. He is a Gentlemanly Man, and is in high estimation among the Methodists. Mr. Bassett is about 36 years old" (he was actually 42).1 Somewhat strangely, Richard Bassett is not recorded as having ever spoken at the convention, apparently deferring to his more loquacious cohorts to present, what surely would have been, his small-state nationalistic views. Likewise, it is not recorded that he served on any of the ad hoc committees. However, there is, in the Madison notes, a single instance of Bassett voting. On June 8, the Delaware delegation divided two-to-two on the question of giving the proposed national government added authority to negate state laws: Read and Dickinson voted yes and Bedford joined Bassett in casting a negative vote. From a careful review of the voting patterns of the Delaware delegation, it seems apparent that Bassett most often voted, within the delegation, with his highly nationalistic colleagues George Read and John Dickinson rather than with the more states' rights-minded Jacob Broom and Gunning Bedford, Jr. Therefore, Bassett clearly belongs in the small-state nationalistic faction led by his erudite colleague John Dickinson. Bassett's votes usually meant that the Delaware delegation favored measures that eventually led to the creation of a true federal system of government—a system that divided power between the central government and the states. Specifically, Bassett always voted for states having an equal vote in at least one chamber of the national legislature—actually, a stance he and the other Delaware delegates were obligated to take because of the instructions they were given at the time of their selection. Along with his four Delaware colleagues, Bassett enthusiastically signed the completed Constitution on September 17, 1787. Bassett's post-Convention political career was one of solid accomplishment. As a member of his state's ratifying convention, he joined in the 3 0 0 vote for the Constitution on December 7, 1787, giving Delaware the honor (some considered it the dishonor) of being the first state to ratify the document so laboriously crafted at the Philadelphia Convention. With fellow delegate George Read, Bassett was elected to the U.S. Senate in

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1789, serving until 1793. During his brief senatorial career, Bassett faithfully supported the nationalistic policies of President George Washington, with one exception. Somewhat strangely, he opposed Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton's proposal for the national government to assume most of the outstanding state debts. From 1793 to 1799, Richard Bassett served as the chief justice of the Delaware Court of Common Pleas. He then served as governor of Delaware from 1799 to 1801. On March 3, 1801, outgoing President John Adams appointed Richard Bassett as a judge of the U.S. Circuit Court. Therefore, this judicial selection was one of the famous (Jeffersonian Republicans would have characterized them as the "infamous") Adams' "mid-night" appointments. When the newly elected President Thomas Jefferson and his Republican Party congressional majority abolished Bassett's judicial position, he moved permanently to his Cecil County, Maryland estate (Bohemia Manor) to honorable retirement. As a devout Methodist, Bassett gave generously to his church and hosted numerous religious meetings on his spacious country estate. Twice married, Bassett fathered several children. His death, at age 70, on August 15, 1815, on his Maryland estate was locally noticed and lamented. Richard Bassett's legacy is one of honorable, but not conspicuously acclaimed, public service, primarily at the state level, in both the political and judicial fields. NOTE 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New H a v e n : Yale University Press, 1966), 3:93.

GUNNING BEDFORD, JR. (1747-1812) Gunning Bedford, Jr., belonged to that group of small-state nationalists, led by his colleague and good friend John Dickinson, which favored the creation of a true federal system of government. Especially during the early weeks of the Convention, when the debates often became rancorous and heated over the issue of what kind of government should be established, Bedford spoke frequently, and at length, to champion the interests of the smaller states. He was one of the earliest, outspoken opponents of Virginia Governor Randolph's fifteen resolutions (the Large State or Virginia Plan), claiming that they constituted what could be considered a constitutional revolution. Particularly, he opposed the suggestion for proportional representation in both houses of the proposed national legislature. During the June 8 debate on giving the new national government veto power over state laws, Bedford vehemently warned his colleagues that this would enable the large states (with proportional representation, the large states would control the central government) to "crush" the "small ones whenever they stand in the way of their ambitions or interested views." He went on to say that he thought the Virginia Plan "was m e a n t . . . to strip the small States of their equal right of suffrage. In this case, Delaware would have about V90 (for its) share in the General Councils, whilst Pennsylvania and Virginia would possess V3 of the whole. . . . This shows the impossibility of adopting such a system as that on the table" (i.e., the Virginia Plan), "or any other founded on a change in the prinple [sic] of representation. . . . It seems as if Pennsylvania and Virginia by the conduct of their deputies" (he was particularly referring to James Madison and Edmund Randolph of Virginia, and James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania) "wished to provide a system in which they would have an enormous and monstrous influence."1 In the June 8 vote on the issue of a national veto, the Convention reversed an earlier decision by voting 7 to 3

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against giving the national government veto power over state laws. Interestingly, the Delaware delegation was evenly split on this issue because John Dickinson and George Read apparently favored giving the central government the veto over state laws. It is almost certain, given his earlier remarks, that Bedford voted, within the Delaware delegation, against giving the veto power to the central government. Thus in the instance, Gunning Bedford, Jr., can be credited with leading the small-state/state sovereignty coalition in its first "victory" against Randolph, Madison, and their large-state cohorts. 2 Later in June, Bedford again spoke, this time at some length, on the question of proportional versus equal representation in the national legislature. In an outburst that was unusual for the usually affable, but determined Bedford, he attacked the very motives of the large-state delegates in insisting on proportional representation. He "contended that there was no middle way between a perfect consolidation" (i.e., the Virginia Plan) "and a mere confederacy of the States" (i.e., the New Jersey Plan). "The first is out of the question, and in the latter they must continue if not perfectly, yet equally soverign [sic]."3 Here, Bedford seemed to be advocating a true federal system in which both the national government and the state governments would retain a measure of political sovereignty. In what was one of his longest Convention speeches, Bedford then continued his verbal assault by saying "We have been told (with a dictatorial air) that this is the last moment for a fair trial in favor of a good Governmt [sic]. It will be the last indeed if the propositions reported from the Committee" (i.e., the proposals for proportional representation) "go forth to the people. . . . The Large States dare not dissolve the confederation. If they do the small ones will find some foreign ally of more honor and good faith, who will take them by the hand and do them justice." He did not mean by this to intimidate or alarm. "It was a natural consequence; (which ought to be avoided by Enlarging the federal powers not annihilating the federal system. This is what the people expect. All agree in the necessity of a more efficient Govt. and why not make such an one; as they desire)."4 The Robert Yates notes for that fateful Saturday, June 30, 2004, recorded Bedford's oft-quote remark that he does not "trust" the large-state advocates. "If you possess the power, the abuse of it could not be checked; and what then would prevent you from exercising it to our destruction? . . . Sooner than be ruined, there are foreign powers who will take us by the hand." 5 It is impossible to know whether this not-so-subtle threat to seek foreign help influenced his colleagues as they labored to craft an acceptable compromise on the troublesome question of congressional representation. However, it is possible that the large-state nationalists had apparently, finally, been thwarted in their attempt to secure proportional representation in both houses of the proposed national legislature. Although the actual vote, to give each state an equal voice in one branch of

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the national legislature, was not made until July 5, Bedford's June 30 speech undoubtedly helped to convince the large-state nationalists that they must compromise on this all-important issue. Bedford concluded his lengthy June 30 discourse by reiterating that "The small states never can agree to the Virginia Plan; and why then is it still urged? . . . Let us then do what is in our power—amend and enlarge the confederation, but not alter the federal system. The people expect this, and no more. We all agree in the necessity of a more efficient government—and cannot this be done? Although my state is small, I know and respect its rights, as much, at least, as those who have the honor to represent any of the larger states." 6 With this impassioned plea for compromise, Gunning Bedford, Jr., could be credited with being one of the authors of the Great Compromise. The good-natured, sociable Bedford was invariably described by contemporaries as being portly or corpulent. In his description of the mild Delaware delegate, William Pierce wrote that "Mr. Bedford was educated for the Bar, and in his profession I am told, has merit. He is a bold and nervous Speaker, and has a very commanding and striking manner;—but is warm and impetuous in his temper, and precipitate in his judgment. Mr. Bedford is about 32 years old, and very corpulant [s/c]."7 Like many of his Convention colleagues, Gunning Bedford was descended from a distinguished family. Born in 1747 in Philadelphia, he was given opportunities for education and advancement denied to most of his compatriots. He was graduated with honors from the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton University) in 1771, therefore becoming one of the many Constitutional Convention delegates to have been mentored by the irascible president and learned tutor of that institution, John Witherspoon. Although not chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Witherspoon's influence was undoubtedly felt at the Convention, especially through the work of Bedford and his college classmate James Madison. Sometime during his tenure at the College of New Jersey, Gunning married Jane B. Parker. The couple was known to have had at least one daughter. After graduation, Bedford studied law in Philadelphia and was admitted, in 1779, to the Delaware bar. First in Dover and then later in Wilmington, the young barrister built a thriving legal practice. Almost inevitably, success in the law led to a political career. Election to the Continental Congress in 1783 was followed by his appointment, the next year, as Delaware's attorney general (1784-1789). His selection as a delegate to the Annapolis Convention in 1786 seemed to indicate that Bedford was at least regarded as a nationalist who favored a strengthening of the national government, but not at the expense of the states—especially the smaller states. For reasons now unknown, he did not actually attend the Annapolis gathering. His election as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention was in part recognition that he was a mild na-

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tionalist, but, as Delaware's attorney general, would be protective of the sovereign rights of the individual states. At the Convention, Bedford was a frequent speaker who consistently championed the interests of the states, while acknowledging the necessity of creating a stronger national government. When the provision of equality in the proposed upper house of the national legislature was finally secured with the Great Compromise, Bedford became an enthusiastic champion of the completed document. Along with all four of his Delaware Convention colleagues (actually George Read signed for the ill, departed John Dickinson), Bedford signed the Constitution on September 17, 1787. In recognition of the high esteem in which he was regarded by his Delaware political colleagues and of the fact that he, as the state's longtime attorney general, was one of Delaware's leading political/judicial figures, Bedford was chosen as a delegate to the state convention, which unanimously ratified the Constitution on December 7, 1787, by a vote of 30-0. In September 1789, the newly elected President George Washington appointed Gunning Bedford, Jr., as the U.S. judge for the state of Delaware, an important judicial position he occupied with distinction until his death, at age 65, on March 30, 1812. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 1:167. 2. Ibid., 163. 3. Ibid., 490-491. 4. Ibid., 492. 5. Ibid., 500-501. 6. Ibid., 501-502. 7. Ibid., 3:92.

JOHN BLAIR (1732-1800) Born into a distinguished Virginia aristocratic family in Williamsburg, John Blair took full advantage of the benefits that such an ancestry could bestow. As the son of the politically prominent John Blair and nephew of James Blair, who was the founder and first president of the College of William and Mary, it was almost foreordained that young John would follow his illustrious ancestors into public service and the legal profession. His graduation from the College of William and Mary was followed by a stint at the famous Middle Temple in London where he received what was considered the best legal training available in the English-speaking world. As one of the relatively few colonials to have had the opportunity to attend one of the prestigious English Inns of Court, Blair was able to establish, upon his return to America, a thriving legal practice in his hometown of Williamsburg. As a member of a politically well-connected family and as a well-regarded, busy, young lawyer, it was almost inevitable that John would quickly become involved in the political life of the bustling Virginia capitol. Elected in 1766 as the College of William and Mary's delegate to the Virginia House of Burgesses, John soon joined those fellow burgesses who actively opposed Great Britain's taxing and coercive policies of the late 1760s and 1770s. Thus, for example, he ardently supported the non-importation of British goods movement established by the Virginia Association of 1770, to protest the hated Townshend Taxes. He served as an active member in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1776, which drafted one of the first state constitutions. In 1778, in recognition of his legal talents, Blair was elected as a justice of the Virginia General Court and later as its chief justice. Election in 1780 to Virginia's high chancery court only confirmed his deserved reputation as one of the leading legal practitioners in a state known for its distinguished legal talent. In his interesting word depiction of this eminent Virginia barrister, William Pierce refers to Blair as "one of the most respectable Men in Vir-

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ginia, both on account of his Family as well as fortune. He is one of the Judges of the Supreme Court in Virginia, and acknowledged to have a very extensive knowledge of the Laws. Mr. Blair is however, no Orator, but his good sense, and most excellent principles, compensate for other deficiencies. He is about 50 years of age." 1 In early December of 1786, John Blair was elected as a member of Virginia's seven-man delegation to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. With his excellent educational background, his extensive legal experience, and especially his involvement in state constitution making, his selection to Virginia's delegation was almost a foregone conclusion. It was expected that John Blair, along with fellow Virginia delegate George Wythe (another eminent Virginia legal scholar) would play significantly important and active roles at the Convention. Interestingly, neither of these two distinguished legal scholars contributed much, at least publicly, to the deliberations during the four-month meeting. Wythe left Philadelphia for good on June 4 to care for his ailing wife. Blair, for his part, arrived at the Convention, promptly on time, on May 15. Thereafter, he seems to have attended the Convention sessions regularly, but apparently did not ever serve on any of the committees established, or give a speech. At least none of the extant journals consulted record even a single speech by the eminent Chancellor Blair. He was one of the three Virginia delegates (along with James Madison and George Washington) to sign the Constitution on September 17. A careful reading of the Convention journals, especially that of James Madison, strongly suggest that John Blair followed the lead of Madison and Washington, in the Virginia delegation, in working for the creation of a strong, large-state dominated, national government. At several crucial junctures when some of the Virginians (most notably George Mason and surprisingly—because he had formally presented the nationalistic Virginia Plan to the Convention on May 29—Edmund Randolph) seemingly voted against some of the nationalistic aspects of the Virginia Plan (Large State Plan), Blair apparently voted with the ardent nationalists within the Virginia delegation. In fact, he appeared to have been the "swing" vote on the nationalist side on more than one occasion. At the Virginia ratifying convention, Blair worked with Madison to secure a favorable vote for ratification. In 1789, the newly elected President Washington appointed John Blair as an associate justice of the first U.S. Supreme Court. In 1796, he resigned from the court to spend his remaining few years in Williamsburg as a respected widower (his wife Jean Balfour having died in 1792). He died on August 31, 1800, full of honors, and was buried in the cemetery of Williamsburg's Bruton Parish Church. NOTE 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:95.

WILLIAM BLOUNT (1749-1800) William Blount was one of the younger (at age 38) and one of the more inactive delegates at the Philadelphia Convention. Born March 26, 1749, near Windsor, Bertie County, North Carolina, William was the greatgrandson of Thomas Blount who migrated in the 1660s from England to North Carolina, where he became a planter. By dint of hard work and, one suspects, through luck and political influence, the three generations of male Blounts who preceded William (the Framer) had managed to build the originally purchased farm into a prosperous agricultural enterprise. As members of the planter aristocracy, William's parents were financially able to provide at least two of their sons (William and Thomas) with excellent preparatory educations at an academy in New Bern, North Carolina. 1 However, there is no evidence that either one of the brothers ever attended college. Instead, after completion of his formal studies, he helped his father manage his extensive landholdings and purchased land and slaves of his own. When William's father Jacob died in 1789, his 40-year-old son inherited, as the oldest male child, a sizable estate, which made him one of the wealthiest planters in the entire state. Soon after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, William enlisted, in 1776, as paymaster of the North Carolina Line in the Continental army; a position he apparently held for four years. In 1780, he embarked upon what would be a long political career. His tenure in the lower house of the North Carolina legislature part of the time as speaker (1780-1784), and in the upper chamber (1788-1790) was interspersed with service in the Continental Congress (1782-1783 and 1786-1787). When Blount was appointed, on April 23, by Governor Richard Caswell to replace Willie Jones (who had originally been appointed by the legislature, but had declined to serve), he was a sitting member of the national Congress. His spotty attendance at the Convention was caused in large part by the

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fact that he spent much of the summer of 1787 in New York City as a member of the North Carolina delegation to the Continental Congress. Because of his late appointment and his preoccupation with his congressional duties, Blount did not attend his first Convention session until mid-June. He was known to have been in Philadelphia from June 20 to July 2 and from August 7 to September 17.2 In his word portraiture of his fellow southerner, William Pierce of Georgia was obviously influenced by the reputation the still-youthful Blount had apparently already acquired. "Mr. Blount is a character strongly marked for integrity and honor. He has been twice a Member of Congress, and in that office discharged his duty with ability and faithfulness. He is no Speaker, nor does he possess any of those talents that make Men shine—he is plain, honest, and sincere. Mr. Blount is about 36 years of age." 3 During his attendance at the Convention, Blount was usually content to let his North Carolina colleagues (especially Hugh Williamson) speak for him. On the few occasions when he did participate in the discussions, he seemed to be mildly opposed to the nationalistic direction the Convention was taking. Although he believed the Articles of Confederation did need amending, he seems to have thought his nationalistic cohorts had gone too far, both in enhancing the power of the central government and in curtailing the sovereignty and independence of individual states. However, he did favor those features of the proposed Constitution that supported the institution of slavery. In their lengthy report to the governor of North Carolina, written the day after the Convention adjourned, the three North Carolina delegates still in Philadelphia (Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson, and Blount) informed Caswell "When it is also considered that five Negroes are only to be charged the Same Poll Tax as three whites the advantage" (to the south in general and to North Carolina specifically) "must be considerably increased under the proposed Form of Government." They went on to state their belief that "The Southern States have also a much better security for the Return of Slaves who might endeavour to Escape than they had under the original Confederation." 4 In other words, the North Carolinians (especially William Blount) were lukewarm in their support of the drafted organic law. In fact Madison, in his notes for the last day of the Convention, recorded Blount as declaring "that he would not sign so as to pledge himself in support of the plan, but he was relieved by the form proposed and would without committing himself attest the fact that the plan was the unanimous act of the States in Convention." 5 Although a reluctant signer, William Blount did support ratification of the Constitution in North Carolina and also did seek a Senate seat in the new national government. Because he was probably considered too nationalistic for the prevailing Anti-Federalist sentiment in the North Carolina legislature, he was not elected. In 1790, he moved westward to what became the state of Tennessee.

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President Washington, perhaps as a reward for his signing and support, despite misgivings, of the Constitution, appointed Blount governor of the territory south of the Ohio River and superintendent of Indian affairs (17901796). In these two administrative posts, Blount seemingly believed (as did fellow Convention delegate Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, during the American Revolution) that using public office for private gain was not incompatible with the proper discharge of his governmental duties. He became heavily involved in several land speculation ventures, which invariably ended up as financial failures. In 1796, William Blount presided at the convention that framed the first constitution of the new state of Tennessee. He then was quickly elected to the U.S. Senate. By 1797, Blount apparently got himself involved in a plot in which Native Americans (primarily Creeks and Cherokees), American frontiersmen, and British naval forces were to conquer, for Great Britain, the Spanish provinces of Florida and Louisiana. This plot was never implemented. A letter, in which he hinted at his involvement in this ill-advised conspiracy, fell into the hands of President John Adams who turned it over to the U.S. Senate. On July 8, 1797, the Senate voted 25-1 to expel Blount on the charge of "high misdemeanor inconsistent with public trust and duty." Still popular among his frontier constituents, Blount was elected, in 1798, to the Tennessee State Senate, where he quickly was elected speaker. Back in 1778, age 29, Blount had married Mary Grainger with whom he had at least six children. Their son, William Grainger Blount, also entered politics in Tennessee, serving as a state representative and a member of the national House of Representatives. He died March 2 1 , 1800 (five days short of his 51st birthday), in Knoxville, Tennessee, heavily in debt but still politically popular. His legacy is that of a dedicated patriot of second rank who, like several of his Founding Fathers contemporaries, floundered financially in imprudent landspeculation endeavors. NOTES 1. William's younger brother Thomas (born 1759) became a politician of local note. He served in the Continental army, in the North Carolina state legislature, and as a member of the national House of Representatives (1793-1799, 18051809, and 1811-1812). 2. In a letter written July 10 to North Carolina Governor Richard Caswell, Blount gave the reason for his departure on July 2 from the Convention. "After having been there a few days, we received a Letter from Charles Thomson" (secretary of the Continental Congress) "informing us that our presence would Complete Seven States in Congress and that a Congress was absolutely Necessary for the great purpose of the Union. . . . I conceived it more for the benefit and honor of the State, in which Opinion my Colleagues in the Convention agreed, to return . . . and represent the State in Congress than to Continue in the Convention

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especially as my Colleagues in that Body were Generally unanimous and Competent to the Purposes of their Mission. In this instance I hope my Conduct will meet the approbation of Your Excellency and my fellow Citizens." Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:57. 3. Ibid., 95. 4. Ibid., 83-84. 5. Ibid., 2:646.

DAVID BREARLEY (1745-1790) David Brearley (his name was sometimes spelled Brearly) was a welleducated, well-trained lawyer who spent most of his relatively short adult life as a practicing attorney and judge, primarily, in his home state of New Jersey. Born June 11, 1745, at Spring Grove near Trenton, Brearley was given the opportunity, not afforded to many, to study the classics in preparation for admission to college. He was eventually admitted to the nearby College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton University) where he continued the traditional classical studies of Greek, Latin, history, moral philosophy, and theology offered by all of the nine colonial colleges. For reasons not now fully known, David was not graduated from the college, but left early to pursue a career in the law. Admitted to the New Jersey bar, he began his legal career in Allentown, New Jersey. Success in his legal practice led to a political/judicial career. Early on, he had enthusiastically embraced the Patriot cause. During the War of Independence, he served as a captain (eventually promoted to colonel) in the New Jersey militia. He apparently saw limited action in some of the numerous guerrilla skirmishes that characterized much of the fighting in New Jersey during the Revolutionary War. For his early and ardent support of the Revolutionary cause, Brearley was arrested and incarcerated by the British for high treason, but was fortuitously freed by fellow Patriots thus escaping further punishment and possible execution. Even while serving in the militia, he found the time to play an important role in the convention, which drafted, in 1776, New Jersey's first state constitution. In 1779, Brearley was elected to the prominent and influential post of chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, a position he held while attending the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. As his state's leading jurist, he presided, in 1780, over a significant court case that set the precedent, at the state level, for the principle of judicial review. For

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this important far-reaching judicial decision, David Brearley was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree by the College of New Jersey. Appointed in November 1786 as a New Jersey delegate to the Philadelphia Convention, the 41-year-old (the approximate average age of the fiftyfive attending representatives) Brearley arrived in time to be present at the opening session on May 25. During the four-plus months the Convention met, Brearley was regular in his attendance, but spoke infrequently usually deferring to the acknowledged, more politically experienced leaders of the New Jersey delegation—William Paterson and William Livingston. However, probably because of his well-earned reputation as a respected jurist, Brearley was appointed, on Friday, August 31, as New Jersey's representative to the important Committee on Remaining Matters, which was given the charge to consider "such parts of reports as have not been acted on." Chosen chairman of the committee by his colleagues, Brearley, on the following day, "from the Comme. of eleven to which were referred yesterday, the postponed part of the Constitution, & parts of Reports not acted upon" presented the anxiously awaited committee report to the full Convention. 1 Throughout the Convention, David Brearley, although he spoke infrequently, consistently followed the lead of his colleague William Paterson in opposing the large-state proposal (as contained in the Virginia Plan) of proportional representation of the states in both chambers of the national legislature. When it was finally determined that each state would have an equal vote in the upper branch (Senate), Brearley moved squarely into the smallstate nationalists group. Thus, late in the summer, he supported most of the measures designed to enhance the appointive powers of the Senate where it was thought the small states would be dominant. He also, apparently, gave his approval to the idea that, since it was thought most (if not all) of the presidential elections would be decided by the House of Representatives, each state should have one vote—regardless of size or population—in electing the chief executive. William Pierce's verbal characterization of the courtly Brearley coincides with that of most of his colleagues. "Mr. Brearly is a man of good, rather than of brilliant parts. He is a Judge of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, and is very much in the esteem of the people. As an Orator he has little to boast of, but as a Man he has every virtue to recommend him. Mr. Brearly is about 40 years of age." 2 Phrased in modern terms, it can be said that David Brearley was undoubtedly an honorable, well-intentioned, hardworking, appropriately pious public servant and American revolutionary figure of second rank. He was, however, just the sort of individual often needed to help implement the policies and plans of more renowned, recognized leaders of any movement or group. Without talented lieutenants willing to follow, leaders (in the case of Brearley at the Convention, they would be such men as Paterson, Livingston, Dickinson, and Ellsworth) would not be able to achieve the success and fame often attributed to them

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alone. Along with three of his New Jersey colleagues (the fourth one— William Churchill Houston—had departed much earlier because of illness) Brearley enthusiastically signed the final draft of the fundamental governing charter on September 17. His major contributions to American constitutional history might well have been his successful efforts, as presiding officer at the New Jersey ratifying convention, to obtain the unanimous vote of 39-0 for ratification and his service as a federal district judge. President Washington had appointed him in 1789 to the federal bench on which he sat until his early death in 1790, at age 45, at his hometown of Trenton. During his latter years, Brearley was active as a mason in New Jersey, as the state vice president in the Society of the Cincinnati (the controversial hereditary organization of former Revolutionary War officers), and as a devout lay leader in the Episcopal Church. Earlier, at age 22, he had married Elizabeth Mullen. Upon her death in the early 1780s, he married Elizabeth Higbee. Buried in Trenton, New Jersey, at St. Michael's Episcopal Church, David Brearley should be remembered as an American Patriot who served his state and country with honor and distinction during the turbulent times of the American Revolution and early National Period. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 2:473, 484. 2. Ibid., 3:90.

JACOB BROOM (1752-1810) Born in 1752 in Wilmington, Delaware, Jacob Broom was the oldest son of a prosperous blacksmith/farmer. His formal education consisted of intense home schooling followed by a brief stint at Wilmington's Old Academy. Forsaking his father's twin careers as a craftsman and planter, young Jacob became a merchant and real-estate agent. Success in business led to involvement in local politics. In his twenties, during the 1770s, Jacob served as an assistant burgess of Wilmington for six terms, as chief burgess for four terms, as the city's borough assessor, and as a justice of the peace for New Castle County, Delaware. At age 21, in 1773, he married Rachel Pierce. This marriage appeared to have been a happy union, and for sure was a productive one inasmuch as Rachel gave birth to eight children. For reasons now unknown, Broom apparently did not serve, even briefly, in any military capacity during the Revolutionary War. However, in his thirties, during the 1780s, Jacob held several political positions of more than local importance. He sat in the Delaware state legislature for three terms [1784, 1786, and 1788], was selected to attend the Annapolis Convention in 1786, but did not attend, and was appointed to represent his state at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. He arrived in the City of Brotherly Love on May 20 and attended the unofficial, informal gatherings, which were held that week up to Friday, May 25, when a quorum of the state delegations was finally reached. He apparently was one of the very few delegates who attended every scheduled meeting of the summer-long Convention. William Pierce's depiction of Jacob Broom seemed to have captured the essence of the man when he wrote, "Mr. Broom is a plain good Man, with some abilities, but nothing to render him conspicuous. He is silent in public, but cheerful and conversable in private. He is about 35 years old." 1 At the Convention, Broom spoke infrequently. The few times he did

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speak, make or second a motion, or vote, it was usually as an advocate or supporter of questions or issues favorable to small states and to maintaining state sovereignty. For example, in the intense discussions just prior to the passage of the Great Compromise of July 16, Jacob Broom reminded his colleagues that each state should have "an equal voice in the 2d branch: which he thought could not be denied after this concession of the small States as to the first branch." Since Broom and his small-state colleagues had conceded to the large states' proportional representation in the proposed House of Representatives, they were adamant in their demand that there be equal representation in the proposed Senate. On that fateful day when the Great Compromise (sometimes referred to as the Connecticut Compromise) was finally passed by the narrowest of margins, Broom opposed adjournment sine die (i.e., indefinitely) as proposed by states' rights advocate William Paterson. Paterson, fearing that the compromise being considered (which was favorable to small states) would be defeated, sought an adjournment during which the small-state delegates could presumably re-group. On the 5-4 vote for passage of the Great Compromise, Delaware joined Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia, and North Carolina in voting yea while Pennsylvania, Maryland, South Carolina, and Georgia voted nay. The Massachusetts delegation was evenly divided on this all-important question (Elbridge Gerry and Caleb Strong apparently voted yes and Rufus King and Nathaniel Gorham voting no). Within the Delaware delegation, it is almost certain that Jacob Broom voted with his small-state nationalists colleagues in support of the compromise, which probably saved the Convention from dissolution. Thus, Jacob Broom's role in the passage of the Great Compromise was significant in that his vote within the state delegation ensured that Delaware would support the compromise that had been so laboriously crafted. After the passage of the Great Compromise (which ensured state equality in the second legislative chamber), Broom joined his small-state cohorts in advocating and voting for measures favorable to the creation of what we might describe as a true federal system of government. After July 16, he generally voted in favor of measures, which would give the national government (and especially the Senate, where small states had an equal voice with the large states) the power, lacking under the Articles of Confederation, to govern effectively. For example, Broom favored payment of national legislators by the national government. He did not believe this would encroach or infringe on states' rights or state sovereignty. On August 23, Broom seconded Charles Pinckney of South Carolina's highly nationalistic motion to give the national legislature the power "to negative all laws passed by the several States interfering in the opinion of the Legislature with the General interest and harmony of the Union." On the other hand, in obvious support of state sovereignty, Broom seconded a motion (made by the champion of states' rights—Luther Martin of Maryland) that the

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executive (president) be chosen by electors appointed by the state legislatures. On the vexing question of how the chief executive was to be chosen, Broom favored various motions that eventually evolved into the Electoral College system as contained in Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 of the Constitution. In most of the post-Great Compromise debates where his views (or votes) are known or surmised, Jacob Broom usually followed the lead of his elder Delaware colleague John Dickinson in support of measures, which were mildly nationalistic, but at the same time protective of state sovereignty. With all four of his Delaware colleagues, Jacob Broom proudly affixed his name to the finished document. After the Convention, Broom returned to Wilmington to engage in local politics and local philanthropic enterprises. Seemingly, as a reward for his services at the Convention in favor of a federal system of governance, and in recognition of the esteem in which he was held by his Delaware compatriots, President Washington, in 1790, appointed Jacob Broom as Wilmington's first postmaster. He also became chairman of the board of directors of Wilmington's Delaware Bank. He died unexpectedly on April 25, 1810, while on a business trip to Philadelphia. His legacy is a well-deserved reputation for being a benevolent philanthropist, for being a conscientious public servant in his home state of Delaware, and for being a minor, but important, participant in the framing of the U.S. Constitution. NOTE 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:93.

PIERCE BUTLER (1744-1822) As a younger son of Sir Richard Butler (a member of Parliament and a baronet) and a descendant of the Duke of Ormond, Pierce Butler was one of the most aristocratic delegates at the Constitutional Convention, both in lineage and in bearing and deportment. He frequently felt the need to remind his friends and colleagues of his noble birth. Born July 11, 1744, in County Carlow, Ireland, Pierce, like many younger sons of nobles who had virtually no prospect of inheriting the father's title and estates, decided on a military career. Commissioned a major in His Majesty's Twenty-ninth Regiment, Pierce served in the British army without notable distinction and, one suspects, without much enthusiasm, until the early 1770s. His regiment was one of those sent to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1768, to quell the radical American rioting, which followed the passage of the Townshend Duties and the June 11 seizure of the Liberty. For reasons now largely unknown, Major Pierce resigned his commission in the early 1770s and moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where he apparently hoped to join the planter aristocracy as a slave-owning planter. Like many of his fellow Founders and Framers, he married into a wealthy, aristocratic family. In 1771, he married Mary Middleton, the daughter of a rich and wellconnected Charleston merchant and politician. Mary and Pierce were known to have had at least one daughter (Sarah). With the approach of the War of Independence, Pierce, like many of his fellow Carolina low-country nabobs, championed the American cause. In 1778, he was elected to the South Carolina legislature. The following year, in obvious recognition of his previous military experience, Pierce was appointed adjutant general in the South Carolina militia. Since his military duties were largely administrative, he apparently did not serve in an actual combat situation. When the British finally captured Charleston in May 1780, they destroyed many of the plantations of low-country Patriots and

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carried off hundreds of (some claim thousands) slaves. Thus, Pierce Butler was left almost bankrupt by this wanton devastation of the departing British troops. His precarious financial condition at the conclusion of the war made necessary a hurried trip to Amsterdam to secure a much-needed personal loan, which he was able to obtain, thus enabling him to restore his landholdings and slave population. Soon, he was able to re-enter the ranks of the wealthy, slave-owning, Carolina low-country aristocracy. During the post-war 1780s, he served in the state legislature, up to 1787 when he was elected both to the Continental Congress and, as a delegate, to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. While serving in the state house of commons, Pierce became, inexplicably, the political champion of the democratic Carolina backcountry. As such, he often supported measures and policies, which seemed, at times, to be detrimental or at least not favorable to his own tidewater planter class. His selection, along with his three aristocratic cohorts, as a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention, confirmed his status as one of South Carolina's leading planters and politicians. At the Convention, Pierce Butler quickly became an influential and frequent spokesman for southern interests generally, and slave-owning and aristocratic interests specifically. He was also a thoroughgoing nationalist who consistently supported the largestate nationalists (i.e., Madison, Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and King) in their largely successful attempts to create a strong central government favorable to large-state interests. William Pierce accurately characterized his southern compatriot Pierce Butler as "a character much respected for the many excellent virtues which he possesses. But as a politician or an Orator, he has no pretentions to either. He is a Gentleman of fortune, and takes rank among the first in South Carolina. He has been appointed to Congress, and is now a Member of the Legislature of South Carolina. Mr. Butler is about 40 years of age; an Irishman by birth." 1 At the Convention, Pierce was present on Friday, May 25 (the first official session) and seemed to have attended regularly thereafter right up to the closing session on September 17. Throughout the summer, he was an influential and outspoken member of James Madison's nationalistic caucus. When the Rules Committee made its initial report on the first real working day of the Convention (Monday, May 28), Pierce Butler moved "that the House provide against interruption of business by absence of members, and against licentious publication of their proceedings." 2 This was essentially a secrecy motion to ensure that the Convention proceedings would not be made public, which otherwise would make it impractical or even impossible for the commissioners to change their minds and votes without public embarrassment and censure.3 In the case of the aristocratic Pierce Butler, his motion had the effect of preventing his South Carolina constituents (many of whom would not be happy with his strong nationalistic predilections and his oft-stated desire to create a central government

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dominated by "the rich and well-born") from learning the specifics of what could be considered to be his conservative, and at times, even seemingly anti-democratic political philosophy. Many of Butler's speeches at the Convention were given in defense of the south's "peculiar institution" (i.e., slavery) and of property in general. Working closely with his three slave-owning South Carolina colleagues (John Rutledge, Charles Pinckney, and General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney), Butler was frequently on his feet reminding his Convention colleagues that what the southern states wanted "is that their negroes may not be taken from them which some gentlemen within or without doors, have a very good mind to do." 4 In the crucial debates leading up to passage of the Great Compromise, Butler initially supported the concept that representation in the national Congress should ideally be based solely on a state's wealth and on its financial contribution to the central government. Specifically, "He urged that the 2d. branch ought to represent the States according to their property." 5 However, he soon realized that the eastern states (i.e., states north of the Mason-Dixon Line) would not support such an obviously pro-southern measure. In what he considered to be a compromise on this vexing and complex issue, he then supported Gouverneur Morris' motion of July 12 that representation should be "according to the principles of wealth & number of inhabts [sic]" by stating that he "contended again that Representation sd. be according to the full number of inhabts [sic], including all the blacks." 6 This brief comment, of course, indicated graphically Butler's opposition to what is generally referred to as "the three-fifths" compromise in which slaves are not counted fully for purposes of representation. When the vote on the Great Compromise was made (which included, among other such much-debated and controversial measures, the "three-fifths" provision), Butler joined his South Carolina colleagues, in opposition. South Carolina, with Butler's wholehearted approval, voted with Georgia (with its growing slave population and entertaining the belief that because of its geographically large size it would, before too long, become one of the more populous states) and the already hugely populated states of Pennsylvania and Virginia in voting "nay" to what was probably the convention-saving compromise. Despite his opposition to this finely honed compromise, Pierce Butler's nationalistic predilections overcame his stubborn support for the idea that representation should be based primarily on wealth and that slaves should be counted fully in determining population. Along with all three of his South Carolina cohorts and most of the other determined large-state nationalists (e.g., Madison, Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and King), Butler signed the final draft of the Constitution on September 17. Upon his return to South Carolina, after the Convention, although not elected as a delegate to the state ratifying convention, Butler publicly supported ratification, which was secured on May 23, 1788, by a comfortable margin of 149-73.

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As a well-known supporter of the Constitution and the potentially strong national government it created, Butler was, not surprisingly, elected senator, along with Ralph Izard, to the First Congress, which convened in M a r c h 1789 in N e w York City. Re-elected in 1792, he served in the second branch of the national legislature from 1789 to 1796, usually voting in support of President Washington's policies of neutrality and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton's far-reaching and nationalistic financial program. O n most issues, he was, therefore, considered a member, in good standing, of the emerging Federalist Party. However, he sometimes displayed a political independence by opposing Federalist Party measures. In his most non-partisan vote, Butler voted against Senate ratification of the highly controversial Jay Treaty, thus incurring the w r a t h of many of his die-hard Federalist colleagues. H e resigned his Senate seat in October 1796 to devote full time to a less-demanding and less-stressful career as a tidewater country gentleman and respected senior citizen. In 1802, he resumed, for a brief time, his political career by accepting election to the U.S. Senate to fill a vacancy caused by the death of incumbent J o h n Ewing Colh o u n . However, he resigned this interim appointment in 1804 to resume his comfortable life as a well-respected low-country n a b o b . Having moved to Philadelphia, probably after the War of 1812, presumably to be near his married daughter Sarah, Pierce Butler died on February 15, 1822 (age 77) in the City of Brotherly Love and was buried there in the Christ Church cemetery. His death was little noted in Philadelphia, but when news of it reached Charleston, it was publicly noticed. H e was remembered, and indeed still is, as a Framer w h o steadfastly championed at the Philadelphia Convention the interests of his state and of the south, but in the end demonstrated his willingness, by signing the Constitution and then working diligently to secure its ratification, to compromise for w h a t he came to believe was the c o m m o n good of the young American republic. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:96-97. 2. Ibid., 1:13, 15. 3. Somewhat surprisingly, Butler's secrecy motion adopted on May 29 was adhered to most of the time by most of the delegates. The few leaks that have been discovered were usually contained in private letters the delegates wrote home to their governors, to family members, or to close friends. Madison, for example, wrote several letters to his close friend and confidant Thomas Jefferson who was serving at the time as American minister in Paris, and to his father in Virginia with tidbits of just what was transpiring in Philadelphia. Also, it is now known that George Mason wrote frequent letters to his son George that contained comments, which could be considered as violating the Convention's secrecy rule. The most

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well-known possible violator of this rule was the Convention's official host, Benjamin Franklin. No doubt innocently, the venerable doctor would inadvertently on occasion mention the substance of Convention's debates and decisions at one of the many dinners he hosted for his fellow delegates—and usually this would be only after sufficient "spirits" had been consumed to loosen the tongues of even the most taciturn and rule-abiding individual. 4. Farrand, 1:605. 5. Ibid., 529. 6. Ibid., 591-592.

DANIEL CARROLL (1730-1796) Described by fellow-delegate and Convention chronicler William Pierce of Georgia as "a Man of large fortune, and influence in his State," Daniel Carroll was born into one of the most distinguished land-wealthy Maryland families.1 He was related, primarily through generations of intermarriages between cousins and other near relatives, to many of the other prominent Maryland aristocratic families. He numbered among his close relatives such notable grandees as Richard Brent, Charles Carroll the Barrister, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton (who was also selected as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, but chose not to attend). Daniel's younger brother John became the first Roman Catholic bishop in America, soon after the Convention met. Because Carroll did not arrive in Philadelphia until July 9, 1787, Pierce, who left the Convention shortly after the Marylander's late arrival, did not have much opportunity to observe this wealthy Maryland plantation owner. Therefore, his brief, written portrayal of Carroll was based primarily on the highly regarded reputation Daniel Carroll enjoyed as a large landowner and influential political figure in his home state. Pierce concluded his short characterization of Carroll by stating "He possesses plain good sense, and is in the full confidence of his Countrymen." 2 Born July 22, 1730, in Upper Marlboro, Prince George's County, Maryland, Daniel Carroll grew up living the privileged life that befitted the wellconnected scion of the prosperous and universally esteemed Carroll clan. At an early age, he was sent to the Jesuit School at Bohemia Manor on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Because he was a Roman Catholic (he and Thomas Fitzsimons of Pennsylvania were the only two Catholic members at the Philadelphia Convention) and therefore would not have had any chance to be admitted to one of the nine American colleges, Daniel was sent, at the tender age of twelve, to complete his formal education at the

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Jesuit school at St. Omer's in Flanders (1742-1748). After finishing his formal studies and after a leisurely tour of much of western Europe, the classically educated colonial came home to Maryland to assume his place as a large land-owning, plantation-owning grandee. His marriage to his distant, wealthy, and well-connected cousin Eleanor Carroll only solidified his position as a leading member of colonial Maryland planter aristocracy. During the more than two decades prior to the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1775, Daniel Carroll apparently lived the life expected of a financially well-off blue blood, wherein he oversaw the management of his numerous farms and slaves. He also entered enthusiastically into the social life enjoyed by the privileged few; a life that revolved around frequent parties and trips to the horse races held near Maryland's colonial capital. It could well be that it was at the Annapolis race track that Daniel first met his Virginia neighbor George Washington (who was also an avid racing fan). Whether at the races or elsewhere, Carroll and Washington did become good friends in the years (1750-1775), when both men were beginning to make their mark as leaders in their respective tobacco colonies. This friendship would eventually prove to be beneficial to both men after the Revolutionary War. During the seven-year-long conflict, Daniel Carroll reluctantly supported the Patriot cause. He is not known to have participated, in any meaningful way, in the military or in public life during the turbulent years of fighting. Since there was little actual fighting in Maryland, Carroll could assume, without opprobrium, what would be an almost neutral stance regarding the conflict with Great Britain. However, his election, in 1780, to the Continental Congress suggests strongly that Daniel Carroll had not been a Loyalist. Being considered a Loyalist would have probably prevented his being elected or chosen to any public office. His most noteworthy service in his four years in Congress was to bring the news to Philadelphia that Maryland had finally ratified the Articles of Confederation. On March 1, 1781, Carroll, along with John Hanson, signed the country's first fundamental governing charter, little knowing then that he would be signing a second one six years later. In the mid-1780s, Carroll was elected as a member to the first Maryland State Senate, a position he held almost continuously, until his death in 1796. His four years in Congress (1780-1784) probably helped to convince him of the growing need to give the national government additional powers—especially to tax and to regulate, at least minimally, trade and commerce. The Maryland state legislature had originally voted, on April 23, 1787, to appoint five of its more prominent political leaders as delegates to the upcoming Constitutional Convention. Somewhat surprisingly, all five (including Daniel's well-respected cousin Charles Carroll of Carrollton) declined to serve. Thereupon, a new slate was appointed on May 26—a day after the official Convention opening. The second group included the two

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determined states' rights proponents Luther Martin and John Francis Mercer and the three mild nationalists (but only after each state was guaranteed an equal vote in at least one chamber of the proposed national legislature) Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, the physician James McHenry, and Daniel Carroll. Convention Secretary Jackson's first entry for Monday, July 9, 1787, read "The honorable Daniel Carroll Esquire One of the Deputies from the State of Maryland attended and took his seat." 3 Although late in arriving, he was thereafter regular in his attendance. He immediately became an active participant in the deliberations, giving numerous speeches (approximately twenty have been recorded) and making motions and seconding motions, usually in support of the mildly nationalistic views of his Maryland colleague Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer and the known nationalistic views of his friend and Virginia neighbor George Washington, and in opposition to the extreme states' rights views of his fellow delegates—the verbose Luther Martin and the quixotic John Francis Mercer. In August, the four Maryland representatives (James McHenry missed most of the August sessions mainly because he spent much of the month at home tending to a sick brother), who more or less regularly attended the Convention, when many of the Convention debates revolved around the issue of exactly what powers should be granted to each of the legislative branches were frequently at loggerheads resulting in countless tie votes within the delegation, thus diminishing Maryland's influence. There were many instances (especially during the brief stay of Mercer) when the vote within the delegation was 2-2 (with Jenifer joining Carroll against the irreconcilable states' rights duo of Martin and Mercer). Daniel Carroll's known views and Convention speeches place him squarely into the small-states nationalist camp. When his votes can be ascertained, he usually supported Dickinson, Read, Ellsworth, Rutledge, and the other mild (i.e., small-state) nationalists in their attempt to forge a "true federal" system of government, rather than going along with the unattainable, exceedingly nationalistic, highly detrimental-to-state-sovereignty wishes of Madison, Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, King, Hamilton, and their diminishing number of followers, to strengthen the national government even if it could only be accomplished at the expense of state autonomy. After July 16, when state sovereignty was seemingly assured with the granting of equality in the upper legislative chamber, Carroll supported most of the measures to give the Senate additional appointive and ratification powers and the right to elect the vice president in case of an Electoral College gridlock. With state sovereignty confirmed, Carroll and his compromising colleagues also worked to enhance the power of the chief executive. It was thought that a strong president would be needed to counter, what was believed to be, an almost all-powerful Congress that had been crafted earlier. In recognition of his well-deserved reputation as a man who "possesses

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plain good sense" and "has influence in his State" (to quote William Pierce's portrayal), Daniel Carroll was appointed, along with other such worthies as James Madison, John Dickinson, Rufus King, Gouverneur Morris, Roger Sherman, and Chairman David Brearley, to the prestigious Committee on Postponed Matters. This important committee was charged with the task of dealing with "such parts of the Constitution as have been postponed, and such parts of reports as have not been acted on." 4 Thus, as a member of the committee that served as the final arbitrator of many of the issues still in dispute as late as the end of August, Carroll undoubtedly had a significant influence on the drafting of the final version of the finished document. It contained many of the views he had continuously espoused in his numerous Convention speeches. By early September, he was in full agreement that the fundamental organic law he had helped draft was the best attainable. Along with his Maryland cohorts, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer and James McHenry, Daniel Carroll signed the Constitution on September 17. Although not chosen as a delegate to the Maryland Ratifying Convention, Carroll worked diligently to secure a favorable ratification vote in his home state. After Maryland ratified the Constitution, Carroll won an election to the first national House of Representatives (1789-1791). During his one term in the House, he wholeheartedly supported most of the Hamiltonian Fiscal Program, especially, the secretary of the treasury's highly controversial proposal to have the national government assume most of the debts of the states. He also voted for locating the country's capital on the banks of the Potomac River (near Mt. Vernon, near the confluence of the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers, and near the colonial village of Alexandria). In 1791, President Washington appointed Daniel Carroll to the threemember commission that was charged with determining the exact location of the District of Columbia. Interestingly, the final location of what became the nation's capital was almost exclusive on land owned by Commissioner Daniel Carroll. He resigned from this Commission in 1795 to devote his time and energies to agricultural pursuits. Unfortunately, he died May 7, 1796, at age 65, at his Rock Creek (present-day Forest Glen) home. Daniel Carroll left a legacy of honorable public service, most notably as one of the ever-since revered Framers of the Constitution of 1787. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:93. 2. Ibid., 93. 3. Ibid., 1:557. 4. Ibid., 2:473.

GEORGE CLYMER (1739-1813) Born into a prominent mercantile family on March 16, 1739, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, George Clymer was orphaned in 1740 and thereafter was raised by an uncle. The uncle, William Coleman, was a wealthy merchant who took his nephew into his mercantile firm as an apprentice clerk and legal ward. Starting as a lowly clerk, the ambitious young Clymer soon worked his way to being a full-fledged partner in the firm. Upon the death of the uncle, George became the sole owner of the thriving company. After a few years, during which the firm continued to prosper, Clymer merged his company with that owned by the well-known merchant Reese Meredith. The merger created one of the largest, most successful mercantile firms in Philadelphia. As if to make the business merger more secure, George married Elizabeth Meredith, the daughter of his new business partner, in 1765. Despite numerous ventures into the political and financial arenas, George Clymer always remained actively engaged in the business and banking world throughout his adult years. During the turbulent early 1770s, Clymer, now firmly established both economically and socially, became increasingly disenchanted with many of the British colonial policies, which appeared to him, and indeed to many of his mercantile colleagues, to be imposing, unconstitutional, and economically detrimental restrictions on colonial commerce and trade. It was, however, the Tea Act of 1773, which seemingly created a potentially lucrative monopoly for the venerable, but failing British East India Company, that finally prompted the 34-year-old merchant to join, openly and publicly, in the increasingly hostile and even violent anti-British agitation. His motivation for embracing the Patriot cause thus appeared to be both ideological (Britain was restricting American rights and liberties) and economic (the mother country was unduly hampering and impeding colonial commerce).

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When news reached Philadelphia of the passage of the Tea Act, Clymer headed an ad hoc committee that brought pressure on the Philadelphia tea consignees, appointed by Great Britain to sell the tea in America, to resign their positions. Violence in some cases, and the threat of violence in others, did force the sought-after resignations. Seemingly now committed to the Patriot cause, Clymer was one of the first prominent Philadelphians to advocate independence. He became an active member of the revolutionary Pennsylvania Council of Safety. In the two years just prior to the congressional Declaration of Independence, Clymer served (1775-1776) as one of the first two treasurers of the Continental Congress. With the outbreak of fighting in 1775, Clymer served briefly as the captain of a volunteer militia company. However, he was to spend most of the war years as a merchant and congressman. Throughout the war years, Clymer's mercantile firm acted as an agent for the procurement of much-needed supplies and additionally, and generously, underwrote the American cause financially by exchanging much of its own specie (i.e., British pound sterling and Spanish pieces of eight) for rapidly depreciating Continental currency. His election to the radical Second Continental Congress, in 1776, confirmed his adherence to the Patriot cause. He served in Congress conscientiously, but without noticeable fanfare, during the troubled but exciting years 1776-1778 and 1780-1783. His public persona was always that of an unassuming, but hardworking public servant. As a member of Congress in July 1776, George Clymer voted for the independence motion of Richard Henry Lee on July 2, voted approval of the Jefferson draft (as amended) of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, and with fifty-five of his congressional colleagues signed the famous Charter of Liberty on or shortly after August 2. Clymer was to pay dearly for his "treason" in signing the Declaration of Independence. During the British invasion of Pennsylvania in the fall of 1777, British troops went out of their way to ravage Clymer's rural estate in Chester County. His wife and children were forced to flee to a nearby forest as the estate was being systematically demolished. With the coming of peace in 1783, Clymer returned full time to the management of his mercantile firm and to banking. He was one of the founders and early directors, along with his friend and merchant colleague Robert Morris, of the Bank of North America. At this time, he invested heavily in bank stock and in continental securities. However, his respite from politics lasted only a year. In 1784, he was re-elected to the Pennsylvania state legislature (re-elected because he had served earlier in the state assembly concurrently with his service in the Continental Congress). As a state assemblyman (1780-1782 and 1784-1788), George Clymer joined the ranks of the Anti-constitutionalists who worked to overthrow the overly democratic (at least in their view) Pennsylvania state constitution of 1776. During his four years as a state legislator, Clymer supported measures that called for a thorough reform of what he considered the outdated state penal

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code, favored the reduction in the number of crimes that called for the death penalty, advocated a bicameral legislature for Pennsylvania, and was appointed as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention scheduled to meet in the same Pennsylvania State House (today's Independence Hall) as the state legislature. Obviously, Convention journalist William Pierce of Georgia only knew Clymer by reputation when he portrayed him simply and incorrectly (in what would be one of the briefest of his biographical sketches) as "a Lawyer of some abilities;—he is a respectable Man, and much esteemed. Mr. Clymer is about 40 years old." 1 Clymer, of course, was not a lawyer, but was rather a well-known merchant, financier, and politician. Clymer attended his first Convention session on Monday, May 28. Although he was regular in his attendance at the Convention (he apparently missed only a few sessions), he spoke infrequently, apparently allowing his more verbal colleagues, especially within the Pennsylvania delegation, to present and support their mutually held nationalistic, large-state views. He was appointed to one committee (Committee on the Assumption of State Debts), but evidently did not play a major role in its deliberations. He was probably appointed to this Committee because of his prior experience in financial matters as one of the treasurers to the Continental Congress during the early part of the Revolutionary War. In the report presented to the full convention on August 21 by chairman William Livingston of New Jersey, the Committee on Assumption of State Debts recommended that the national congress be given the power to pay all debts incurred by the Continental Congress and the individual states during the Revolutionary War. As an investor in both national and state securities, Clymer undoubtedly concurred with this recommendation, which was considered highly nationalistic. In fact, George Clymer invariably supported his large-state nationalistic cohorts in their efforts to bring about a "constitutional revolution." He can, therefore, be readily classified as a member of "Mr. Madison's large state phalanx" of delegates who openly supported the Virginia Plan with its built-in provisions for enhancing the power of the national government, even if only possible at the detriment of small states, and for giving the large states essential control of that government. With all seven of his Pennsylvania colleagues, George Clymer signed the finished document on September 17 and then publicly supported ratification of the Convention's handiwork. With the establishment of the new government in 1789, Clymer won election to the First Congress where he served only one term (1789-1791). During this brief congressional tenure, he supported most of the nationalistic proposals of President George Washington and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Clymer did not stand for re-election in 1790, but instead accepted an appointment as the collector of excise taxes in

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Pennsylvania. He resigned from this thankless and increasingly unpopular post in 1794, when opposition to the hated tax erupted in the four western counties of the states into the so-called Whiskey Rebellion. Clymer then accepted President Washington's appointment to a commission that negotiated several treaties with the Cherokee and Creek Indians in Georgia (1795-1796). He retired (age 57) to pursue a variety of philanthropic, cultural, banking, and mercantile projects that included active and financial support for the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He also served as the first president of the Philadelphia Bank. Also during his retirement, he maintained an active interest in his now exceedingly prosperous mercantile firm. In 1806, he purchased a country estate (Summerseat) located in Morrisville, just a few miles outside of Philadelphia. He died there (age 73) on January 23, 1813, and was interred in the Friends Graveyard, Trenton, New Jersey. Like many of his Convention colleagues who today are not well-known or remembered in history books, George Clymer should be honored and venerated as one of the country's Founders (signer of the Declaration of Independence) and Framers (signer of the Constitution). NOTE 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:91.

WILLIAM RICHARDSON DAVIE (1756-1820) At age 30, William Richardson Davie was one of the youngest delegates to the Philadelphia Convention. Born on June 20, 1756, in Egremont, Cumberlandshire, England, he was one of only eight delegates not born in one of the thirteen English mainland colonies. His father, Archibald Davie, migrated in 1763 with his 7-year-old son to Waxhaw, South Carolina, where the son was left to the care of his maternal uncle, William Richardson, a Presbyterian clergyman. The uncle saw to William's education and on his death bequeathed to him a sizable estate. In his brief portrayal of Davie, fellow delegate William Pierce described him as "a Lawyer of some eminence in his State." He further made mention that Davie had a "good classical education, and is a Gentleman of considerable literary talents. He was silent in the Convention, but his opinion was always respected." 1 Young William started "his good classical education" at Queen's Museum College in Charlotte, North Carolina. Perhaps hoping that his nephew would follow him into the clergy, the uncle then sent him to the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton University) from which he was graduated in 1776. Thus, Davie became one of the ten Constitutional Convention delegates to have attended the New Jersey college and one of the five or six who studied under the direct and stern guidance of the college's Calvinistic president John Witherspoon; who is often referred to as "The Father of American Presbyterianism." Eschewing a career in theology, William, soon after finishing college, undertook the study of the law in Salisbury, North Carolina. However, his legal studies were interrupted by the Revolutionary War. He helped to raise a troop of North Carolina cavalry and eventually became its commanding officer with the rank of colonel. As part of Casmir Pulaski's division, Davie's cavalry troop fought in several of the guerilla skirmishes that characterized much of the fighting in the Carolinas, in the late 1770s and early

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1780s. On his twenty-third birthday, Davie was wounded while leading a cavalry charge in the battle of Stono Ferry (June 20, 1779). During the period of recovering from his wounds, Davie passed the bar, enabling him to practice law before the county courts (1779) and before the state superior court (1780). Upon his return to military service, Davie was appointed commissary-general of General Nathanael Greene's southern Continental army. As such, he helped provide the American army with the supplies and arms it very much needed to force Lord Cornwallis' British army out of the Carolinas into Virginia and to an inglorious defeat at Yorktown. At the conclusion of the war, Davie began, in earnest, the practice of law. By dint of hard work and well-prepared courtroom presentations, he soon acquired a large estate from his legal practice. In 1782, he married Sarah Jones and settled down in Halifax, North Carolina, where he soon acquired the reputation as one of the most distinguished lawyers in the state. His eminence as a legal practitioner led almost inevitably to a political career. He served in the North Carolina legislature from 1786 to 1798 where he led the fight to revise the antiquated state legal code, arranged to have appointed delegates to the Annapolis Convention (actually the North Carolina delegation did not arrive in time to participate in what led to the clarion call for the Philadelphia Convention) and to the Constitutional Convention, and finally, led the movement to cede what became the state of Tennessee in 1796. His legal acumen and political eminence led to his appointment, in January 1787, to the North Carolina delegation to the Grand Convention. Arriving in Philadelphia on May 22, Davie was regular in his Convention attendance until his early departure on August 13. On his thirty-first birthday (i.e., June 20, 1787), in a letter to Governor Richard Caswell, Davie indicated his impatience with the proceedings when he wrote: "We move slowly in our business. It is indeed a work of great delicacy and difficulty, impeded every step by jealousies and interest." 2 Davie's premature departure from the Convention might well have been prompted, at least in part, by his growing discontentment with the sometimes agonizingly slow pace of the proceedings. Although he spoke infrequently, when he did address the Convention, he invariably spoke in favor of and voted within the North Carolina delegation for measures that enhanced the power and authority of the national government, even if they sometimes seemed detrimental to state sovereignty. On two separate occasions, William Davie's actions were crucial during the often acrimonious debates leading to the Great Compromise and to the counting of slaves for representation in the lower legislative chamber. The first time was on July 12 (just four days before the Great Compromise was narrowly adopted), when Davie gave his most impassionate speech. "It was high time," he said, "now to speak out. He saw that it was meant by some gentlemen to deprive the Southern States of any share of Representation for their blacks. He was sure that North Carolina would never confeder-

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ate on any terms that did not rate them at least as 3-5. If the Eastern States meant therefore to exclude them altogether the business was at an end." 3 This not-too-subtle threat that North Carolina might well join South Carolina and Georgia in bolting the Convention if it interfered in any meaningful way with the institution of slavery or if it even attempted to deprive the southern slave states of the advantageous three-fifths provision, may have been the deciding factor in having this blatantly pro-southern, proslavery measure included in the July 16 compromise. The second occasion occurred on July 16 itself when Davie cast, what appeared to be, the tiebreaking vote within the North Carolina delegation in favor of the Great Compromise. North Carolina thus joined the four small states of Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware in favoring the Great Compromise—the compromise which probably saved the Convention from possible dissolution and failure. Although he left the Convention in midAugust and therefore was not in Philadelphia to sign the completed document on September 17, he vigorously supported ratification in the North Carolina Ratifying Convention. In part, because of Davie's influence and efforts, both inside and outside the state convention, North Carolina did finally ratify the Constitution on November 21, 1789 (some six months after George Washington's inauguration as the first president), by the comfortable margin of 195-77. Davie's post-ratification career was devoted to his legal practice, to state politics, and to education. While continuing to practice law, he was elected Governor of North Carolina in 1798. The following year, President John Adams appointed him as a brigadier general in the U.S. Army during what is often referred to as the quasi-war against France. The same year, Adams appointed Davie (actually chosen to replace Patrick Henry, who had declined because of ill-health) along with William Vans Murray and chief justice, fellow Convention delegate, and fellow 1776 graduate of the College of New Jersey Oliver Ellsworth to the three-member peace commission sent to France to bring to a happy conclusion the ill-advised naval war with America's revolution ally. In 1803, Davie was defeated in his election bid to the national Congress. Two years later, he formally retired from politics and moved to his plantation "Tivoli" in Chester County, South Carolina. During his retirement years, William continued his efforts to found what became the University of North Carolina. Like Thomas Jefferson in the founding of what became the University of Virginia, Davie was extremely active in the early years of the college. He chose its eventual location, selected its professors, helped design its curriculum, and worked diligently to secure financial backing. For these efforts, the university's board of trustees, in 1810, conferred upon him the title of "Father of the University" and the following year granted him the degree of Doctor of Laws. The statue of William Richardson Davie on the campus of the University

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of North Carolina in Chapel Hill is an enduring reminder of his abiding interest in education. His death on November 29, 1820 (age 64), was widely noticed and lamented. His legacy is one of devoted public service to both his country and to his adopted state of North Carolina. He was buried in the Old Waxhaw Presbyterian Churchyard near his beloved "Tivoli" plantation in Lancaster County, South Carolina. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:95-96. 2. Charles Warren, The Making of the Constitution (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1937), 232. 3. Farrand, 1:593.

JONATHAN DAYTON (1760-1824) Born October 16, 1760, in Elizabethtown (present-day Elizabeth), New Jersey, Jonathan received an excellent education graduating, at age 16, from the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton). In college, Dayton, like at least four of his future Convention colleagues, undoubtedly was greatly influenced by its stern, Presbyterian pastor/politician/educator/president, John Witherspoon. Although not elected as a delegate to the Convention, Witherspoon probably had, at least, an indirect impact on the 1787 summer proceedings in Philadelphia. Education mentors often have a profound influence on young impressionable minds. In Witherspoon's case, his Calvinist theology and political radicalism (as a congressman in 1776, he signed the revolutionary Declaration of Independence) might well have been reflected in the Convention speeches and votes of his former students.1 His father, Elias Dayton, was a storekeeper and politician of some local and state renown. This paternal prominence was duly recognized as the father was made a general in the New Jersey militia during the War of Independence. Jonathan's birth into this locally respected family afforded him the opportunity, denied or not available to most young men of the time, to study, at an early age, the classical curriculum required to gain admission to college. Upon graduation, the 16-year-old quickly enlisted into the Continental army as a junior officer in the Third New Jersey Regiment. During his seven-year stint in the military, Dayton was promoted eventually, at age 19, to the rank of captain. He served at various times as an aide-de-camp to both his father, General Elias Dayton, and to General John Sullivan. He also saw extensive combat duty and, according to contemporaries, always acquitted himself courageously. He was captured by the British in a skirmish near Elizabethtown in October 1780, but happily was exchanged a few months later. After his honorable discharge from the army in November 1783, Jonathan, like many of his future Convention cohorts, studied the

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law and was admitted to his state's bar. His success as a legal practitioner led, almost inevitably, to a political career. Elected three times to the New Jersey state assembly (1786, 1787, and in 1790 as speaker), the still-young Dayton became a firm supporter (after some earlier reservations) of the Constitution he helped draft. His appointment to the New Jersey delegation, along with Yale graduate William Livingston and fellow Princetonians William C. Houston, David Brearley, and William Paterson, confirmed his status as a talented, well-connected, ambitious, young politician.2 In 1787, the busy Dayton simultaneously served as a member of the New Jersey general assembly, as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and as a newly chosen, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of fellow Convention delegate William Paterson, member to the soon-to-bereplaced Continental Congress. Since Jonathan was selected after the Constitutional Convention had officially convened, he was not able to attend his first session until June 21. Thereafter, however, he regularly attended the sessions and participated frequently and meaningfully in the deliberations. It was obvious that William Pierce, in his brief biographical sketch of the Convention's youngest member, was favorably impressed with the sometimes-impulsive young New Jerseyite. "Capt. Dayton is a young Gentleman of talents, with ambition to exert them. He possesses a good education and some reading; he speaks well, and seems desirous of improving himself in Oratory. There is an impetuosity in his temper that is injurious to him; but there is an honest rectitude about him that makes him a valuable Member of Society, and secures to him the esteem of all good Men. He is about 30 years old, served with me as a Brother Aid to General Sullivan in the Western expedition of '79." 3 On the other hand, Otto's (French charge de'affaires in New York City) brief portrayal of Dayton indicated that the youngest delegate was virtually unknown outside of his state in 1787. Dayton is, Otto wrote, "little known; having no other merit than to be the son of a good patriot and the benefactor of Monsieur d'Anteroches, which makes one presume that he likes the French." 4 Since he was one of the four New Jersey representatives to sign the Constitution, he evidently approved, in the main, of the document he and others so laboriously drafted. However, his stated reservations regarding the Great Compromise of mid-July suggest that he was, at this stage of his career at least, no more than a mild nationalist and maybe more accurately could be classified as a moderate states' rights advocate. Just a week after attending his first session, Dayton and ardent states' righter John Lansing, Jr., of New York offered a motion that "the rights of suffrage in the 1st branch ought to be according to the rule established by the Confederation." With this motion, Dayton joined his fellow New Jersey colleagues and most of delegates from Delaware and Maryland in a spirited defense of the socalled New Jersey Plan, which had been presented to the Convention on

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June 15 by William Paterson. When the motion was not immediately acted upon, Dayton supported the request of Lansing and Robert Yates of New York to table the measure. He "expressed great anxiety that the question might not be put till tomorrow; Governr. Livingston being kept away by indisposition, and the representation of New Jersey thereby suspended." 5 However, as the Convention progressed, Dayton slowly evolved from a moderate states' righter to a mild nationalist. Thus, by the end of the Convention, Dayton was firmly in the "true federalist" camp of Dickinson, Ellsworth, Read, and their small-state nationalist colleagues. He had apparently been persuaded that the equal vote in the second branch of the national legislature (Senate) would preserve the state autonomy and independence he wanted and that was inherent in the New Jersey Plan, which he had originally endorsed. Especially gratifying to the often-capricious Dayton were the measures, adopted late in the summer, to strengthen the power and authority of the Senate where the small states (like New Jersey), it was believed, would dominate. With the establishment of the new American republic, Dayton became a steadfast supporter of the Washington and Adams administrations. He served for four consecutive Congresses (1791-1799) as a Federalist member of the House of Representatives. During this period, he voted for the various measures collectively known as the Hamiltonian Fiscal Program. In 1794, he enthusiastically backed the president and the treasury secretary in their successful suppression of the so-called Whiskey Rebellion in the four western-most counties of Pennsylvania. He also supported Washington in the highly (politically) partisan controversy surrounding the negotiating, and senatorial approval, of the Jay Treaty of 1794 with Great Britain. His support of the Federalist measures was particularly valuable since he served as Speaker of the House of Representatives during the fourth and fifth Congresses (1795-1799). In 1799, he accepted election to the U.S. Senate, serving in the upper chamber from 1799 to 1805. Although elected as a Federalist, Dayton did support the Louisiana Purchase, but otherwise generally opposed the policies of President Thomas Jefferson and his Democrat/Republican party. Partly because of this alleged apostasy in voting for the purchase of 1803 and partly because of ill health, Dayton was not reelected to the Senate. In 1806 and 1807, Dayton became involved, to what extent is still unknown, with Aaron Burr's plans to mount an invasion of Spanish-held lands in the southwest, with an intent either to create a new western empire or to annex the area to Spain. Luckily for him, illness prevented Jonathan Dayton from joining Burr's abortive and ill-fated expedition. Even so, Dayton was soon indicted for treason, but never brought to trial. However, Dayton's association with the former vice president and his apparent plans for empire building has tarnished his historical reputation to such an extent that he is today relatively unknown and unappreciated.

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Dayton retired to Elizabethtown, where he spent his last fifteen or so years in relative obscurity. As a young man, he had married Susan Williamson. They had t w o daughters. H e died on October 9, 1824, in his home t o w n and is buried there in St. John's Churchyard. His legacy is a tattered reputation earned both from his often-impetuous nature and from his still ill-defined association with Aaron Burr and—because he had earlier secured title to some 250,000 acres of Ohio land—a city named after him, Dayton, Ohio. Despite the controversy surrounding his apparent connection with the so-called Burr Conspiracy, J o n a t h a n D a y t o n should be remembered as a devoted public servant, of second rank, w h o gave years of dedicated service to both his state and nation. NOTES 1. Nine of the fifty-five delegates to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention were graduates of the College of New Jersey. A tenth delegate, David Brearley of New Jersey, attended the College of New Jersey, but was never graduated. Of the nine who were graduated from the New Jersey school, five (William R. Davie of North Carolina, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, Gunning Bedford, Jr., of Delaware, James Madison of Virginia, and Dayton) were graduated during the presidential tenure of John Witherspoon. The four who were graduated prior to 1768, the year Witherspoon finally accepted the presidency, after an earlier refusal, were: Luther Martin of Maryland (1766), William C. Houston of New Jersey (1768), William Paterson of New Jersey (1763, 1766), and Alexander Martin of North Carolina (1756). 2. Jonathan Dayton was not originally selected as a delegate. On November 23, 1786, the New Jersey legislature voted to appoint David Brearley, William C. Houston, William Paterson, and John Neilson. Brearley, Houston, and Paterson accepted their appointment whereas Neilson declined. In mid-May of 1787, the legislature voted to add the names of William Livingston and Abraham Clark to the three who had accepted their appointments. Livingston accepted the appointment and Clark did not. Finally on June 5, Jonathan was added to the delegation, in part because his father, Elias Dayton, declined to attend. 3. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:90. 4. Ibid., 235. 5. Ibid., 1:445.

JOHN DICKINSON (1732-1808) John Dickinson was one of the most important and influential political figures of the last quarter of the eighteenth century. He rightly belongs in the pantheon of our most revered Founding Fathers and Framers. However, somewhat strangely, he is today rarely accorded the honor and respect usually given to leaders of his stature. By dint of his notable achievements as the "Penman of the Revolution" just before, during, and after the Revolutionary War, as the primary author of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (the country's first constitution), by his service, during turbulent times, as president (governor) of both Delaware and Pennsylvania, as the acknowledged leader of the small-state nationalists at the Constitutional Convention, and as one of most widely read and influential pamphleteers urging ratification of the Constitution he worked so diligently to write, John Dickinson belongs, along with such better-known Founders and Framers as John Adams, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington, on any list of Revolutionary War era giants. By 1787, when he was elected to head the five-member Delaware delegation to the Grand Convention, Dickinson was certainly well-qualified to assume a leadership role in drafting the country's second constitution. Born November 8, 1732, on his parents' estate (Crosiadore) near the rural village of Trappe in Talbot County, Maryland, he was the second son of Mary (Cadwalader), his father's second wife, and Samuel Dickinson. His mother came from a respected Pennsylvania Quaker family. His father, also a Friend (Quaker), was a locally well-known, prosperous Maryland Eastern Shore farmer and judge. Like his fellow Constitutional Convention delegate James Madison, John Dickinson was apparently a sickly child, with numerous diseases and ailments, the names and nature of which we can now only surmise.

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John, along with his younger brother Philemon, was educated initially by his mother at home and then by an Irish teacher, who in 1745 moved into the Dickinson household to continue, what must have been, a rigorous course of study. From the reading of John's later writings (especially his letters and numerous published pamphlets), it is obvious that he had a solid grounding in what we would consider today a "classical" education. Thus, under his tutor's stern guidance, young John and his still-younger brother delved deeply in such classical subjects as moral philosophy, Latin, Greek, and history. As a result of this intense home schooling, he received an education, which was at least the equivalent to that of his twenty-six college-educated fellow delegates at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. He just as obviously had learned to write knowingly, cogently, and persuasively, but not always concisely. Some of his later writings demonstrated flights into unnecessary verbosity, which, however, was the norm for many eighteenth-century writers. In 1740, his father moved the family to property previously purchased in what was then rural Kent County, Delaware (near the present capital city of Dover). Thus, his adolescent years were spent in a rural, somewhat rustic environment. With the pleasing prospect, as the older son, of inheriting an enviably large estate (which would make useful, if not absolutely necessary, at least a familiarity with property law) and with the urging of his father, the 18-year-old John was sent to Philadelphia to enter into a formal legal apprenticeship with the well-known and highly respected John Moland. Under the tutelage of this former king's attorney, young Dickinson was introduced to intricacies of the law, especially the English Common Law. John's enthusiasm for his legal studies and his obvious talent for rigorous academic study, led his mentor (himself a Middle Templar) to urge his quiet, but eager, young, law clerk to continue his study of the law at the Middle Temple in London. With his parents' blessing and financial backing, John lived and studied in England in the years 1753-1757. It was probably during this four-year stint in Great Britain that John became the serious, somber-looking, rarely smiling man he was, and still is, invariably depicted as being in portraits and in descriptions by friends, colleagues, historians, and biographers. From the reading of the few extant letters he wrote home during this impressionable period in his life, it becomes apparent that the young Pennsylvania provincial did partake, although somewhat sparingly, of London's cultural life. However, it is equally apparent that he generally avoided the often frivolous, even hedonistic social life many provincial Americans gave free rein to when confronted with the many enticing temptations available, especially to rustic, young, single men from the colonies, in the imperial metropolis. At that time of life when many young men, in all ages, seemingly reject, at least temporarily, the moral, ethnical, and religious teachings of their youth, John Dickinson seemed to have held fast to the simple, unworldly, charitable views and

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ways he learned from his Quaker parents. Interestingly, although raised in a Quaker household, marrying into a prominent Philadelphia Quaker family, and as an adult adopting the Quaker way of speaking (e.g., frequently using the pronouns "thee" and "thou"), Dickinson never formally joined the Society of Friends. It is at the Inns of Court that the serious, hardworking law student gained a thorough knowledge of, and a life-long appreciation for, the English Common Law and the quasi-democratic (at least for the eighteenth century) British political system. The British government, of the late eighteenth century, seemed to the impressionable provincial to be the almost perfect embodiment of a viable political system; a system where a potentially strong executive (monarch), a relatively talented, although at times overly dissolute and licentious, upper class (House of Lords), and the people—at least some of land-owning adult males—(House of Commons) all worked together in relative harmony to maintain a system, which was protective of property rights, which put some constitutional restraints on the power and authority of the hereditary monarch, and which bestowed, with the English Common Law, a few legal rights to ordinary, even landless and therefore politically powerless, citizens, especially males. His often-stated admiration for, and knowledge of, the basically conservative eighteenthcentury British political and legal systems along with his relatively strict Quaker upbringing may help to explain the conservative political, social, economic, and religious views he espoused later as a political leader and constitution maker in the emerging American republic. Returning to America in 1757, the 25-year-old barrister took up the practice of law in the City of Brotherly Love. His excellent legal training (as a Middle Templar), his numerous family and friend connections (especially among Philadelphia's Quaker elite), and especially his thorough and studious application to the legal cases he handled all led rather quickly to enviable, and increasingly lucrative, prominence as a legal practitioner. It can be reasonably inferred that John Dickinson was what we might call today a "workaholic." Despite being frequently "indisposed" with unnamed ailments (occasionally inferred to as severe headaches) and always looking gaunt and undernourished, Dickinson became one of the busiest and most respected attorneys in Philadelphia—a city well known for its array of distinguished lawyers. Surviving portraits almost invariably depict Dickinson as looking older than his actual age. In his most well-known portrait, painted by the famous painter and museum curator Charles Willson Peale in 1770, Dickinson looks not only somewhat emaciated, but also older than his actual age of 37 or 38. Colleagues and friends would sometimes mention Dickinson's predilection (which he shared with fellow delegate James Madison) for wearing only black or dark apparel. This, of course, only added to the frail, older appearance he usually exhibited. Perhaps inevitably, as a well-connected, successful lawyer, John became

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involved in politics first in Delaware and then in Pennsylvania. In 1760, he was not only elected to the Delaware Assembly, but he was chosen Speaker. Two years later, he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly where he became a staunch, active supporter of the proprietary government of the Penn family. It should be mentioned that because Dickinson maintained substantial residences and land holdings in both the "Lower Counties" (Delaware) and Pennsylvania, he was legally able to hold public office in both colonies (after 1776, in both states). As he quickly emerged as one of the leaders of the "proprietary party," Dickinson soon gained the enmity of the Benjamin Franklin/Joseph Galloway faction, which was lobbying on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean to have the proprietorship overthrown and for Pennsylvania to become a royal or crown colony. In fact, Franklin had been sent to London in 1757 by the Pennsylvania Assembly expressly to bring about this change in government. This was to be Franklin's primary task in the years (1757-1762 and 1764-1775) that he spent in London as a colonial agent. It must be said, however, that in this endeavor, Franklin failed completely. Pennsylvania remained a proprietary colony until the outbreak of the War of Independence. The political ill will gained by Dickinson's continued adherence to the Penn proprietary government greatly affected him both in the short run and long run. In 1764, this enmity resulted in his being defeated in a bitterly fought bid for re-election to the Pennsylvania Assembly primarily by the efforts of the Franklin/Galloway party. This hotly contested election also, ironically, resulted in Franklin's electoral defeat making possible, and perhaps necessary, Franklin's return to England as a colonial agent. In the long run, Dickinson's split with the ever-popular Dr. Benjamin Franklin has hurt Dickinson's historical reputation. Sometimes people are judged by the enemies they acquire. During his long and distinguished political career, John Dickinson acquired as political foes not only the always greatly admired Benjamin Franklin, but also the popular democratic (Constitutionalist) faction in Pennsylvania and the powerful and well-entrenched Adams/Lee faction in the Continental Congress. Since Franklin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Richard Henry Lee, were all, at one time or another, political adversaries of the taciturn Delaware/Pennsylvania politician and since most of these more well-known men enjoy, deservedly to be sure, meritorious historical reputations, their political adversary, John Dickinson, must be viewed as not to be meritorious, or at least to be less meritorious, and therefore deserving of the relative historical obscurity to which he has usually been relegated. In the mid-1760s, after his failed legislative bid for re-election, Dickinson became ever more involved, first as a pamphleteer and later as a more active participant, in the growing anti-British movement. Initially, the colonial opposition to the George Grenville revenue program was peaceful and non-violent. However, angered by British attempts to impose hated direct

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taxes for revenue and to tighten even more the imperial control over what the mother country considered to be her increasingly wayward, ungrateful North American dominions, the colonies, led by Massachusetts and Virginia, resorted to more direct and even violent measures to get the British ministry to revoke at least the more detested Parliamentary acts. However, the passage by the British Parliament of the Stamp Act in March 1765 only aggravated an already tense situation and produced the first major crisis in Anglo-American relations. In the ensuing fracas over the Stamp Act, Dickinson emerged as the most effective and thoughtful spokesman and pamphleteer in defense of American rights. His often profound, persuasive, and always legalistic pamphlets, broadsides, letters, and public declarations gained for him the nom de plume of the "Penman of the Revolution." His 1765 anti-Stamp Act pamphlet entitled The Late Regulations Respecting the British Colonies . . . Considered brought Dickinson's name to the attention of colonial radicals outside of Delaware and Pennsylvania and led to his being chosen by the Pennsylvania Assembly as a delegate to the so-called Stamp Act Congress. In this thoughtful and widely circulated pamphlet, Dickinson argued convincingly that the best way to get Great Britain to repeal the despised revenue acts (namely the Currency Act of 1764, the American Revenue Act—Sugar Act—also of 1764, and the Stamp Act of 1765) was to convince English and Scottish merchants that their rigorous enforcement would be highly detrimental to their own financial interests. Realizing this, they would then, Dickinson hoped and reasoned, lobby and petition Parliament for repeal. Thus, Dickinson always resolutely supported the legal, nonviolent approaches of non-importation, non-exportation, and nonconsumption agreements as the appropriate, non-violent, legal means to oppose the British ministry's taxing and coercive policies of the immediate pre-Revolutionary War period. As one of the three Pennsylvania representatives sent to New York City in October 1765, Dickinson quietly assumed a leadership role at the Stamp Act Congress. The moderately conservative character of this extra-legal, if not illegal, gathering of twenty-seven delegates from nine of the thirteen colonies was reflected in its "Declaration of Rights and Grievances." Its fourteen resolutions represented a victory for the conservative majority (led by Dickinson, William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut, and John Rutledge of South Carolina) over the more radical minority (led by James Otis, Jr., of Massachusetts and Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina). This declaration was not only written by Dickinson, it rather accurately represented his pre-1776 moderate views. In it, Dickinson and the conservative majority declared that their intention was not to infringe upon the traditional powers of either Parliament or the Crown, but was rather to claim unequivocally that the colonists were entitled to all the rights enjoyed by British subjects in the mother country. Specifically, the declaration stated

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that taxation without representation was a violation of the rights all Englishmen should possess (and that would include the colonists), that the colonists certainly were not, or indeed could not be, directly represented in the faraway British House of Commons, and finally, taxes could only be imposed on the colonists by their own legislatures. Before disbanding, the Congress sent piously worded petitions to the king, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons praying specifically for the repeal of both the Stamp Act of 1765 and the American Revenue Act (Sugar Act) of 1764. These three petitions represented the final victory of the conservative majority over the more radical minority in that the radicals favored petitioning only the crown and ignoring Parliament, alleging that the American colonists did not hold their rights from that body (i.e., Parliament did not have right to tax or even pass legislation pertaining to the colonies). It is apparent that John Dickinson played a leadership role at the conservative, but extremely significant Stamp Act Congress. It is, however, for his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies that he gained everlasting fame as a writer and the common pseudonym as the "Farmer." After 1767, Dickinson would be known as both the "Penman of the Revolution" and the "Farmer." Indeed, up to 1776, no American was better known or more often quoted than this quiet, unassuming pamphleteer—with the possible exception of the ever-popular and frequently quoted Dr. Benjamin Franklin. Written in late 1767, the twelve letters were published initially in the Pennsylvania Chronicle and later, in widely-distributed pamphlet form. In the fall of 1767, Dickinson had quietly brooded over what he considered recent British actions, which infringed upon colonial rights and long-held privileges. Specifically, he was disturbed by what he viewed as Parliament's unconstitutional taxes (especially the Stamp Act, even though it had been repealed in March of 1766) and by British attempts to tighten control over colonial commerce. Especially galling to this largely British-trained barrister was the establishment of vice-admiralty courts in America, thus denying alleged violators of British maritime laws the hard-fought right supposedly enjoyed by all British subjects of a trial by a jury of their peers. Dickinson was prompted to action initially after Parliament passed the Restraining Act, which suspended the New York legislature until such time as it complied with those provisions of the Quartering Act that called for providing suitable quarters and supplies for his Majesty's troops stationed in New York City. However, what hastened his return to his writing desk was the passage of the Townshend Acts. As the actual leader of the British ministry (the titular leader Lord Chatham—William Pitt, the Elder—was frequently absent at home pouting or recovering from real and/or imagined illnesses), the chancellor of the Exchequer "Champagne" Charles Townshend lobbied successfully for a new revenue act to take the place of the repealed Stamp Act. With the passage of the Townshend Acts, the mete-

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oric Chancellor attacked the distinction many Americans made after the enactment of the Stamp Act in 1765 between internal (direct) and external (indirect) taxation. Since the colonists had vehemently and even violently opposed the direct Stamp Act, he would make up some of the revenue lost with its repeal, with a set of external (indirect) taxes. Passed by Parliament in late June of 1767, the Townshend Duties levied import taxes on glass, paint, lead, paper, and tea. Dickinson had never subscribed to the distinction, made by some on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, between internal and external taxes. He had come to the belief that any taxation, levied by a legislative body in which the colonists were not directly represented, was unconstitutional. In the Letters, he elaborated on the constitutional position the colonists had taken earlier in the Stamp Act Congress' "Declaration of Rights and Grievances." Greatly alarmed by what he considered these most recent assaults on American freedom and liberty, Dickinson set about to warn his compatriots of these new threats to American freedom and liberty. In his introduction to the series, he posed as a simple farmer: My dear Countrymen, I am a Farmer, settled, after a variety of fortunes, near the banks of the river Delaware, in the province of Pennsylvania. I received a liberal education, and have been engaged in the busy scenes of life; but am now convinced, that a man may be as happy without bustle, as with it. My farm is small; my servants are few, and good; I have a little money at interest; I wish for no more; my employment in my own affairs is easy; and with a contended grateful mind, undisturbed by worldly hopes or fears, relating to myself, I am completing the number of days allotted to me by divine goodness. . . . From my infancy I was taught to love humanity and liberty. . . . These being my sentiments, I am encouraged to offer to you, my countrymen, my thoughts on some late transactions, that appear to me to be of the utmost importance to you.1 Thus, in the guise of a modest country farmer, Dickinson was able to appeal to the large number of Americans who were in fact unsophisticated, God-fearing country farmers. After reiterating his earlier stance that Parliament did have the authority to regulate trade even if the regulation produced revenue, he went on to deny its right to impose any kind of tax levied primarily to raise revenue. His suggestions for relief from oppressive unconstitutional British acts and decrees included the sending of petitions from colonial legislatures and individual colonists to the king (the king being the only official in London, according to Dickinson's view, in 1767, of the unwritten British constitution, with constitutional authority to rule the colonies) and the imposition and enforcement of non-consumption, non-importation, and non-exportation agreements. However, he specifi-

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cally reiterated his long-standing aversion to the use of violence in any form to achieve the desired redress of grievances. He thereupon declared the Townshend Duties to be unconstitutional and the suspension of the New York legislature an illegal threat to American freedom and liberty. In reflection of his basic political conservatism and especially of his lifelong adherence to the rule of law, Dickinson denied that there was even an incipient independence movement in the American colonies. "If once we are separated from our mother country," he wrote in one of the highly influential letters, "what new form of government shall we adopt, or where shall we find another Britain to supply our loss?" With the fame and esteem bestowed upon him when his authorship of the Letters became well known, Dickinson became the most influential, widely read spokesman for American freedom and liberty. Thus, his election in 1774 as a member of the Pennsylvania delegation to the First Continental Congress was not unexpected. Meeting in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, The First Continental Congress (September 5-October 26, 1774) set in motion the American revolutionary engine. Although a majority of the fifty-six delegates, representing all of the states except Georgia, were conservatives (i.e., they favored, at this juncture, reform within rather than separation from the British Empire), the importance of this gathering of what amounted to the colonial political elite, cannot be overemphasized. For many of the locally prominent delegates, this trip to Philadelphia was their first trip outside of their own colony. Local provincial political leaders were discarding their longstanding provincialism and becoming Americans. As one of the leaders of the conservative faction, John Dickinson, along with Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania, James Duane of New York, and George Read of Delaware, was able to moderate the most revolutionary proposals advocated by the radicals (led by John Adams and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, and Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia). However, the radical Adams/Lee faction did secure congressional endorsement of the somewhat militant Suffolk Resolves. Perhaps the most far-reaching decision to emerge from the First Continental Congress was that in this gathering and future such meetings, each colony/state would have one vote. This meant sparsely populated Delaware would have an equal vote (and therefore an equal voice in governmental affairs) with mighty Virginia. This method of congressional voting will prevail throughout the fifteen-year life of the Second Continental Congress and become the precedence for the small states to demand its continuance at the Constitutional Convention. Dickinson's insistence, at both the First Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, on giving each colony/state an equal vote in at least one house of the legislature, will be his major contribution to constitution making during the revolutionary epoch. He was, therefore, one of the leaders of

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the small-state, "true federalist" contingent, both in the Continental Congresses and at the Constitutional Convention, which was largely responsible for the inclusion of the unique federal system of government inherent in the Constitution of 1787. As a renowned wordsmith, Dickinson wrote the First Continental Congress' "Declaration and Resolves," which attempted to justify to the public the quasi-revolutionary actions of what many considered to be an illegal (or at least extra-legal) political assembly. This declaration also, as a reflection of Dickinson's pacific beliefs, advocated non-violent economic sanctions against Great Britain as the best way to obtain repeal of the onerous taxing and coercive acts. It was as a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Second Continental Congress that John Dickinson incurred the wrath of the radical Adams-Lee faction. As the acknowledged leader of the conservative middle colony/state faction in Congress, John Dickinson was hesitant to embrace the idea of independence in the spring and early summer of 1776. He had earlier written the so-called Olive Branch Petition (July 5, 1775), which professed the continuing allegiance of the American people to King George III and the hope for a peaceful restoration of harmonious relations and a return to the status quo of the pre-French and Indian War period of "salutary neglect." He also co-authored (with Thomas Jefferson) the "Declaration . . . Setting Forth the Causes and Necessity of Their Taking Up Arms." Passed by Congress on July 6, 1775, some two and a half months after the initial clash of arms at Lexington and Concord, this declaration was to be used to muster public support for Congress' actions in waging war against the mother country and to bolster the morale of the New England militiamen besieging Boston. Dickinson's reluctance to support the idea of independence in June and early July 1776 was due to his belief that Congress should make one more major, concerted attempt at reconciliation before taking, what he considered would be, the unwise and irrevocable decision for independence. He also favored the creation of some sort of colonial union before declaring independence. In recognition of his writing talents and his strong, often-stated belief in creating a colonial union even before declaring independence, Congress, on June 12, 1776, appointed Dickinson chairman of a thirteen-member committee charged with drafting what would become America's first national constitution—the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. In his initial draft of this plan of union, Dickinson incorporated the one state-one vote provision that almost guaranteed that each individual state would retain its "sovereignty, freedom, and independence." His long-time adherence to this principle was in evidence with his insistence at the Constitutional Convention that each state have an equal vote in at least one chamber of the national legislature. It was Dickinson's refusal to sign the Declaration of Independence that gained for him the enmity of his more radical colleagues and that has be-

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smirched his historical reputation ever since. In a characterization often quoted by historians and biographers, John Adams described Dickinson as "a certain great Fortune and piddling genius, whose Fame has been trumpeted so loudly, has given a silly cast to our Whole doings." 2 However, after the decision for separation from Great Britain was finally made and declared publicly, John Dickinson embraced "The Glorious Cause" wholeheartedly. He served briefly in the military, first, as a private and later, as a brigadier general of the Pennsylvania militia. His undistinguished military career was intermixed with service in the Continental Congress (from Pennsylvania 1774-1776 and from Delaware intermittently between 1776 and 1780). In 1780, Dickinson retired from the national political scene to confine his political activities to the state level. In 1781, he was chosen President (governor) of Delaware. The following year, he was elected President of Pennsylvania. For two months, he served as president of both Delaware and Pennsylvania. The three-year period (1782-1785) he served as President of Pennsylvania's Supreme Executive Council (governor) was the most tumultuous and unhappy time of his entire political career. He was much maligned by the state democratic faction (dubbed the "Constitutionalists" for their support of the democratic Pennsylvania state constitution of 1776) for his growing adherence to the conservative anti-constitutionalist faction. In 1785, he moved happily and permanently to the relative tranquility of Delaware, where he would maintain a town house in Wilmington and his rural country estate—Poplar Hall—in Kent County. John Dickinson was always a devoted family man. He had married the amiable Mary (Polly) Norris, daughter of the prominent, wealthy Quaker politician Isaac Norris, on July 19, 1770. The happy couple had two daughters: Sally, born in 1771, and Maria, born in 1784. Dickinson had hoped, in returning to Delaware, to be able to retire from politics altogether. He wanted to assume the role of country gentleman farmer and to help Polly raise their teenage and infant daughters in the ancestral home on St. Jones Neck near Dover. However, the Delaware legislature interrupted what he hoped would be a tranquil political retirement by electing him on February 3, 1787, as a delegate, along with George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., Richard Bassett, and Jacob Broom, to represent Delaware at the upcoming Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. In his notes, apparently written during the early weeks of the Convention, William Pierce of Georgia described the somber-looking Dickinson as having been "famed through all America, for his Farmers Letters; he is a Scholar, and said to be a Man of very extensive information. When I saw him in the Convention I was induced to pay the greatest attention to him whenever he spoke. I had often heard that he was a great Orator, but I found him an indifferent Speaker. With an affected air of wisdom he labors to produce a trifle,—his language is irregular and incorrect,—his flourishes

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(for he sometimes attempts them), are like expiring flames, they just shew themselves and go out;—no traces of them are left on the mind to chear or animate it. He is, however, a good writer and will ever be considered one of the most important characters in the United States. He is about 55 years old, and was bred a Quaker." 3 Louis Otto, the French envoy who wrote brief, but useful mini-sketches of at least twenty of the fifty-five Convention delegates, correctly described Dickinson as a "very rich man" who was one of the pre-war leaders of "the anti-Anglican party." He also noted accurately that Dickinson, in early July of 1776, had not favored Richard Henry Lee's famous motion, which called for American independence. However, Otto's concluding comment, written the year following the Convention, that Dickinson was "old-fashioned, weak, and without influence" clearly showed that the Frenchman was totally unaware of John Dickinson's pivotal role at the Convention. 4 As the senior member of the five-member Delaware delegation (in both age and political experience and esteem at the national level), it was expected that the primary author of the country's first constitution (Articles of Confederation) would play a major role in the drafting of the second fundamental organic law. Immediately upon taking his seat at the Convention on Tuesday, May 29, Dickinson assumed "an active and articulate role" as the leading spokesman for the small-state nationalistic coalition. Despite being sick for much of the summer, John Dickinson did indeed participate meaningfully and effectively especially in the bitter early summer debates that led eventually to the Great Compromise of July 16. Initially, outmaneuvered and even somewhat intimidated by the aggressive large-state nationalists led by James Madison, Gouverneur Morris, and James Wilson, Dickinson and his followers (at first this group including states' rights advocates such as Luther Martin of Maryland and Robert Yates of New York and small-state nationalists such as William Paterson of New Jersey, George Read of Delaware, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, and Pierce Butler of South Carolina) were able, by midJune, to present alternative plans to the large-state, highly nationalistic, Virginia Plan presented to the Convention by Virginia's gifted, but sometimes quixotic, governor Edmund Randolph on the very day Dickinson arrived at the Convention. In his introduction of the Virginia Plan, Governor Randolph candidly confessed that his resolutions were not intended to create a truly federal government, but were offered to establish a strong consolidated union, "in which the idea of state should be nearly annihilated." The initial small-state/states' rights group's response to Randolph's fifteen resolutions (Virginia Plan) was the New Jersey Plan, formally presented to the Convention by William Paterson on June 15. It called for the essential retention of the Articles of Confederation, but with several significant modifications. Each state would retain its equal vote in the national legislature, therefore ensuring small-state dominance in the national government or at

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least ensuring that the attempt inherent in the Virginia Plan of a few large states (e.g., Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) to control the central government would be temporarily thwarted. Under Paterson's plan, Congress would be given the power to tax and to regulate trade and commerce. Even though the Convention voted, on June 19, to create a new national government based on the Virginia Plan (therefore essentially discarding the New Jersey Plan), Dickinson and his true federalist colleagues had both introduced and argued persuasively, although temporarily ineffectually, for their program, which called for both a strengthening of the national government and a retention of the states as viable political entities (i.e., for a workable federal system of government). Dickinson's role in these early and often acrimonious debates over what can be termed nationalism versus states' rights was as an arbitrator and compromiser. The earliest major divisive issue involved proportional versus equal representation in Congress. The small-state group, led by Dickinson, George Read, and Gunning Bedford, Jr., all from Delaware (the smallest state in population), argued forcefully and threateningly for a retention of the voting system inherent in the Articles of Confederation (i.e., each state having one vote). Dickinson's colleague George Read reminded the Convention on May 30 that the Delaware delegates were "restrained by their commissions from assenting to any change of the rule of suffrage and in case such a change should be passed on, it might become their duty to retire from the Convention." The large-state delegates (most notably Madison and Wilson) were, on the other hand, just as adamant in favoring proportional representation, which would give a few large states virtual control of the newly created national government. On May 30, Dickinson, in his first lengthy Convention speech, stated his agreement with the majority of his convention colleagues that the confederation is defective all agree that it ought to be amended. We are a nation altho' consisting of parts or states—we are also confederated, and he hopes we shall always remain confederated. The enquiry should be 1. what are the legislative powers which we should vest in congress. 2. what judiciary powers. 3. what executive powers. We may resolve therefore, in order to let us into the business. That the confederation is defective; and then proceed to the definition of such powers as may be thought adequate to the objects for which it was instituted.5 Three days later, Dickinson presented in more detail his views as to the form of government they should construct. In essence, Dickinson favored the creation of a three-branch government with the legislative, executive, and judicial branches each being as independent as possible. In what would be one of his busiest days at the Convention, he stated his admiration for

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the British government claiming that the source of its desirable stability is its two-house legislature. He went on to say that in America the "division of the Country into distinct States formed the other principal source of stability." He expressed his hope that the individual states would not be abolished as separate political entities and "that each State would retain an equal voice at least in one branch of the National Legislature." He went on to state emphatically that representation in both houses of the legislature founded solely on numbers was "unreasonable and dangerous." With this early call for an equal vote in at least one branch of Congress, we have an indication of Dickinson's willingness to compromise on the vexing issue of proportional versus equal representation. Indeed, throughout his time at the Convention (in late 1787, he submitted a bill to the Auditor of Delaware for per diem for his seventy-four days attendance at the Philadelphia Convention), John Dickinson was consistently the voice of reason, moderation, and compromise. During one of his numerous speeches of June 2, he stated his sincere hope that their deliberations "must probably end in mutual concession." On June 7, Dickinson again took the floor to move "that the members of the second branch of the national legislature ought to be chosen by the individual legislatures." He then reiterated his hope "that each state would retain an equal voice at least in one branch of the national legislature." After June 15, with two formal plans before the Convention (i.e., the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan), Dickinson, as both a small-state representative and a nationalist, was in a quandary. He favored the creation of a strong, central, national government and the retention of the states as sovereign political entities. Not surprisingly, Dickinson therefore became once again the voice of moderation, reason, and common sense. Thus, in the Great Debate between the large-state nationalists and small-state nationalists (i.e., the debate over proportional versus equal representation in Congress), John Dickinson chose to compromise. His efforts, mostly done quietly and behind the scenes, to effect a compromise on what some saw as an insoluble problem were eventually rewarded with the passage of the Great Compromise. Along with Oliver Ellsworth and Roger Sherman both of Connecticut, Dickinson should be credited with being a co-author of the Great Compromise. Under Dickinson's leadership, Delaware voted for the Compromise, which probably saved the Convention from dissolution. Although we do not know with precision the vote within the Delaware delegation, we can surmise that at least Richard Bassett, George Read, and John Dickinson voted for the carefully crafted compromise. Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, and North Carolina joined Delaware in voting for the compromise while Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia voted in the negative. The Massachusetts vote was divided and the states of New Hampshire and New York were unrepresented in the voting.

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With passage of the Great Compromise, Dickinson became a thoroughgoing nationalist. He favored giving the national government the power to veto state laws and supported the creation of a strong national judicial system that would be superior to the state judiciaries. As he wrote in his "Letters of Fabius" (1788) urging ratification of the Convention's handiwork, the national government must be the "superintending sovereign," to which the states were to be subordinate. There is recent evidence uncovered by James H. Hutson that Dickinson had formulated his own plan in opposition to both the Virginia and New Jersey Plans. Although, apparently, never formally presented to the Convention, what we might well call the Dickinson Plan incorporated much of the nationalistic Virginia large-state plan with the equality in at least one branch of the legislature feature of the New Jersey Plan.6 In publishing a portion of these recently discovered Dickinson notes, Hutson makes abundantly clear the salient point that Dickinson was never a proponent of the states' rights New Jersey Plan. For example, he favored a bicameral legislature; something the New Jersey plan rejected in favor of the retention of the existing unicameral legislature. What is also made clear, John Dickinson was consistently a small-state nationalist. On June 18, apparently just before Alexander Hamilton's famous, lengthy presentation of his plan of government, Dickinson offered the following motion: "that the articles of confederation ought to be revised and amended so as to render the Government of the U.S. adequate to the exigencies, the preservation and the prosperity of the union." 7 The never-formally presented Dickinson plan does consolidate some of the major aspects of the Virginia Plan with the New Jersey Plan's feature of state equality in at least one branch of the national legislature. In other words, John Dickinson was one of the early leading voices calling for plausible compromise between what appeared in June 1787 to be two diametrically opposing philosophies of governance. His reputation as a scholarly and persuasive writer and as an experienced, but moderately conservative, politician undoubted aided him in being able to assume a leadership role among the small, but determined group of delegates who were both nationalists and states' rights proponents. In other words, Dickinson, by June 18, had come to the realization that compromise was absolutely necessary. Along with Oliver Ellsworth, Roger Sherman, and George Read, he successfully thwarted the efforts of Madison, Wilson, and Gouverneur Morris to impose what would have amounted to an unitary system (i.e., an almost omnipotent national government and the states being reduced to being little more than administrative units of the all-powerful central government). Dickinson, by virtue of his property holdings and vast experience as an office-holder in both a small state (Delaware) and a large state (Pennsylvania), was in a unique position to see and understand both sides in the seemingly insoluble controversy of proportional versus equal repre-

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sentation. Today, the main feature of the Great Compromise of proportional representation in one legislature chamber and equal representation in the second seems like the obvious solution to the controversy between large and small states. However, in the summer of 1787, it was not viewed by a majority on either side of the issue as obvious, desirable, or even acceptable. As proponents of proportional representation in both houses, Madison and Wilson, for example, never philosophically accepted the compromise eventually made final on July 16. On the other hand, staunch states' rights advocates, like Luther Martin, Robert Yates, and John J. Lansing, showed their disapproval of the compromise, which probably saved the Convention from threatening dissolution, by leaving Philadelphia early and not signing the completed document. With one foot in each camp, so to speak, the quietly wily John Dickinson, despite periods of debilitating and often-complained-of illnesses, was able to lead the forces of reasonable compromise, along with his small-state nationalist colleagues George Read, Oliver Ellsworth, and Roger Sherman, through the turbulent period from mid-June to mid-July 1787, when the very continuance of the Convention was in doubt. The workable, true federal system fashioned at the Constitutional Convention, under which political power is distributed between a central government and state governments, is America's unique and most valuable contribution to political science. As an early proponent, at least in general outline, of what became the Great Compromise (i.e., the creation of a viable federal system), Dickinson deserves recognition as one of the principal Framers of the U.S. Constitution. If James Madison legitimately earned the title of "Father of the Constitution," then the mild-mannered, erudite John Dickinson could be said to have rightly earned the appellation of the caring "stepfather (or surrogate father) of the Constitution." In letters written during the summer of 1787, Dickinson mentioned frequently of being sick and overly weary. The maladies most often mentioned were severe headaches, extreme fatigue, and symptoms associated with the gout. His obvious ill-health did not, however, prevent his regular attendance at and meaningful participation in the deliberations in at least seventy-four of the eighty-eight days the Convention met formally. Having worked diligently after the Committee of Detail submitted its report on August 6 to ensure that the Senate, where the small states would have the predominant voice, was given sufficient authority to maintain appropriate state sovereignty, Dickinson left the Convention a few days early. However, since he wholeheartedly approved of the final draft, he asked his colleague George Read to sign his name to the finished document on September 17. In the months immediately following the Convention, Dickinson took up his pen in defense of the Constitution. In the late fall, he wrote nine "Fabius letters," which were published first in the Delaware Gazette in early 1788, and then later in a widely distributed pamphlet. In these thoughtful "letters," he first urged ratification and then went on to explain in general

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terms his philosophy of government. He particularly made known his belief that "the power of the people pervading the proposed system, together with the strong confederation of the states" (i.e., a true federal system) constituted a system that would protect the people from both excessive central control and the inordinate and often inefficient localism found in some of the states (particularly Rhode Island). He also urged his compatriots to be constantly diligent lest the rights given in the new frame of government be lost through indifference and neglect. In retirement, Dickinson assumed the role of a respected, elder statesman. He had been urged by friends to accept election as a Senator from Delaware in the first congress. He refused this flattering call to public service as well as most of the other requests for participation in public life. However, he did accept selection as a representative to a Delaware Convention, which met late in 1791 to revise the state constitution. In recognition of his long public service and his well-known talents, he was chosen president of this state constitutional convention. Presiding impartially, Dickinson did not, however, take at this time a public stance on the most controversial issue confronting the convention. Although he himself had manumitted his slaves in 1781, he did not openly support a Quaker delegate's demand that the new, revised state constitution include a provision for the abolition of slavery in Delaware. He seems to have held to the idea that slavery would eventually die out without the need for divisive legislation or the bloody violence that would surely accompany slave revolts. Thereafter, he accepted few calls for public service. Selected as a state senator from New Castle County, Dickinson did attend briefly a legislative session, but because of an "indisposition" tendered his resignation. Thus, at the age of 61, "The Penman of the Revolution" finally ended his distinguished, thirty-plus-year career as a public servant. Living alternately in his "fine house" in Wilmington and on his rural St. Jones Neck estate in Kent County, "The Farmer" maintained, in retirement, an active correspondence with many of the major political figures of the early American republic—including, most notably, Thomas Jefferson. Also he seems to have shed some of his political conservatism when he became an articulate supporter of Thomas Jefferson, the Democratic/Republican political party, and Jeffersonian Democracy. His death, on February 14, 1808, was widely noticed and greatly lamented. NOTES 1. Milton E. Flower, John Dickinson: Conservative Revolutionary (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983), 63-64. 2. Ibid., 137. 3. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:92. 4. Ibid., 237.

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5. Ibid., 1:42. 6. At least a portion of Dickinson's Convention notes were discovered by James H. Hutson at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. A few of the more informative papers are included or ably summarized in Hutson's exceedingly useful article that goes a long way in validating the assertion that John Dickinson played a major role in the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. James H. Hutson, "John Dickinson at the Federal Constitutional Convention," The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, 40 (1983), 256-282. 7. Farrand, 1:282.

OLIVER ELLSWORTH (1745-1807) Oliver Ellsworth was one of the more active participants at the Convention. Universally respected for his legal acumen, he was steadfastly a smallstate nationalist who favored the creation of a true federal system in which the national government would be given substantial additional powers and authority, but under which at the same time each individual state would retain much of the independence and sovereignty it enjoyed under the increasingly discredited Articles of Confederation. As a member of the threemember influential Connecticut delegation, Ellsworth should be considered as one of the co-authors of what is often referred to as the "Connecticut (or Great) Compromise." Born April 29, 1745, in Windsor, Connecticut, into the locally prominent family of Captain David and Jemima Ellsworth, Oliver received a classical, liberal arts education (primarily in theology) and first-rate training in the law. After pursuing an intense pre-college course of study, the 17-yearold Ellsworth entered nearby Yale College in 1762 where he was exposed to the largely classical curriculum offered at the time by all nine of the American colonial colleges. After two years at Yale, for reasons not fully known today, he transferred to the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton University) from which he was, at age 21, graduated in 1766. Like many of the Founders and Framers, Ellsworth took up the study of the law (1766-1771). Admitted to the bar in 1771, he steadily built up a lucrative law practice first, in Windsor and then after 1775, in New Haven. His marriage, in 1772, to Abigail Wolcott solidified his claim to social, economic, legal, and political prominence. The Wolcott family connection, his excellent education, and his obvious legal talents were all exceedingly helpful to the ambitious and able young attorney. Almost inevitably, the young barrister was drawn into the political arena in the immediate pre-war period of the mid-1770s.

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Election to the Connecticut general assembly in 1775 (re-elected in 1776) was followed by his appointment in 1777 as the state attorney for Hartford County. That same year, Ellsworth was selected as one of Connecticut's delegates to the Continental Congress, serving on numerous important congressional committees, for six annual terms, until 1784. During the War of Independence, he also served on a committee that oversaw Connecticut's military expenditures, and was appointed to the state's revolutionary Council of Safety. Simultaneously with his congressional service and abovementioned state assignments, he was appointed to the Connecticut governor's council (1780-1785). From 1784 to 1789, he served with notable distinction as a judge of the Connecticut Superior Court. It was, therefore, as a judge that he was selected, along with Roger Sherman and Dr. William Samuel Johnson, as a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention. Although relatively young (he was 42 in May of 1787—the approximate average age of all the delegates at the Constitutional Convention), he had achieved a degree of preeminence, if William Pierce in his biographical sketch is to be believed, that belied the fact that he was, by seventeen years, the youngest of the three worthy representatives from Connecticut. "Mr. Elsworth," Pierce wrote soon after his own arrival in Philadelphia and therefore obviously relying heavily on hearsay and the reputation Ellsworth had already earned, "is a Judge of the Supreme Court in Connecticut,—he is a Gentleman of a clear, deep, and copious understanding; eloquent, and connected in public debate; and always attentive to his duty. He is very happy in a reply, and choice in selecting such parts of his adversary's arguments as he finds make the strongest impression,—in order to take off the force of them, so as to admit the power of his own. Mr. Elsworth is about 37 years of age, a Man much respected for his integrity, and venerated for his abilities."1 In his comments on Oliver Ellsworth, the French charge de'affaires Louis Otto indicated graphically that he had either never met or did not know much about the man who played such a significant role at the Convention when he remarked simply that he was a simple, wise, and infinitely reasonable man.2 At the Convention, Ellsworth usually assumed the middle course between the extreme large-state nationalists (i.e., Madison, Wilson, and the two Morrises) and the equally determined states' righters (i.e., Luther Martin and Mason). As a small-state (mild) nationalist, he favored such classical republican stances as frequent elections and elimination of property qualifications for voting and office holding. As an early proponent of giving each state an equal vote in at least one chamber of the national Congress, Ellsworth enthusiastically seconded his colleague Roger Sherman's motion of June 11, which read "That in the second branch of the National Legislature each State have One vote." Although this motion was initially "passed in the negative (Ayes-5: noes-6)," Ellsworth and his small-state nationalist colleagues (especially, but not exclusively, his Connecticut co-

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horts, Dickinson and Read from Delaware, and for most of the time, the four South Carolina grandees) were undeviating in their insistence that each state (regardless of population, size, or wealth) could only retain its sovereignty and independence by being given an equal voice in the proposed Senate with the large states (i.e., Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia).3 Their pertinaciousness, from the start, in insisting on state equality in one branch of the national legislature made possible, and perhaps even necessary, the crafting of the Great Compromise of July 16, which undoubtedly saved the Convention from dissolution during the sometimes acrimonious debates of June and early July (particularly the angry and bitter verbal exchanges of Thursday, July 5). The Convention had appointed an eleven-member committee (one member from each of the states then in attendance—New Hampshire was not represented at the Convention until July 23) on July 2. Oliver Ellsworth was chosen as Connecticut's representative to this all-important committee. On the following day, this so-called Grand Committee drafted its report. The Convention was in recess on July 4 so the delegates could attend the gala celebration on this thirteenth anniversary of American independence. On Thursday, July 5, Committee Chairman Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts presented the Committee's report to the whole Convention. Since the Committee's proposed compromise coincided with Ellsworth's known views regarding state sovereignty and an equal voice for each state in one chamber of the national legislature, there is little doubt that Connecticut's junior delegate was instrumental in the fashioning of what became the core issue between large-state nationalists and small-state nationalists (i.e., how much power should be taken away from the states and given to a new and powerful central government). Specifically, the Committee recommended that there be one representative for every 40,000 inhabitants in the lower house, that the lower chamber be given the exclusive right to originate money bills, and most importantly, that in the second legislative branch each state would have an equal vote. Thus, the Committee's report became the central part of the July 16 Great Compromise. Not only did Ellsworth help draft this report, he thereafter enthusiastically supported it in the ensuing Convention debates. On the issue of slavery, Ellsworth did not take a strong stand at the Convention on either the morality or practicality of the institution, but did oppose the abolition of slave trade. During the August 21 debate on the foreign slave trade, Ellsworth thought "the morality or wisdom" of slavery should be left to the states. As one of the leaders of the faction seeking a compromise on the vexing issue of the "nefarious traffic" (i.e., the slave trade), he reminded his colleagues that "the old confederation had not meddled with this point" and he therefore did not "see any greater necessity for bringing it within the policy of the new one." Ellsworth, apparently, believed John Rutledge's thinly disguised threat that South

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Carolina, which would have undoubtedly been joined by Georgia, would bolt the Convention if there was any provision in the proposed Constitution that would either interfere in any way with the existence of the institution of slavery or abolish the slave trade. The influential South Carolinian had stated emphatically that "Religion &c humanity had nothing to do with this question [i.e., slavery and the slave trade]—Interest alone is the governing principle with Nations—The true question at present is whether the Southn. States shall or shall not be parties to the Union. If the Northern States consult their interest, they will not oppose the increase of Slaves which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers." Following the speeches of Rutledge and Ellsworth, the youthful Charles Pinckney ominously declared that "South Carolina can never receive the plan if it prohibits the slave trade." 4 To prevent the dissolution of the Convention, Ellsworth had, from the beginning, adopted the policy of compromise regarding most divisive issues. Thus, he did support the highly controversial three-fifths provision on the enumeration of slaves. Besides, his vehement support for giving each state an equal voice in at least one legislative chamber, Ellsworth's major contributions at the Convention involved his insistence, on June 20, that the phrase "the United States" be used instead of the word "national" in the proposed Constitution and his appointment, on July 24, to the Committee of Detail.5 This well-balanced committee (two southern members— John Rutledge of South Carolina and Edmund Randolph of Virginia, one from the middle states—James Wilson of Pennsylvania, and two from New England—Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut) was the most significant committee at the Convention. All the proposals and decisions submitted to, and passed by, the Convention up to the time this committee was constituted were referred to it with the charge to "report a Constitution conformable to the Resolutions passed by the Convention." 6 Ellsworth's appointment to this all-important committee is undoubtedly indicative that he was considered by his colleagues as one of the more active and influential delegates. In any ranking of the delegates, Oliver Ellsworth should be considered among the top ten or twelve in importance and influence. Although Ellsworth's name is not among the thirty-nine who signed the finished document on September 17 (he had left for home on August 23), he wholeheartedly approved of the Constitution that he had helped greatly to draft and worked diligently for its ratification with the writing of the Letters of a Landholder, which were published in the Connecticut Courant between November 5, 1787, and March 24, 1788. These letters probably had little influence on the January 9, 1788, vote of the Connecticut Ratifying Convention (Connecticut was the fifth state, by the overwhelming vote of 128 to 40 to approve of the Convention's handiwork). Most Connecticut delegates apparently were convinced, even without reading the some-

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what stilted arguments Ellsworth made in the Letters, that their state would benefit from the governmental structure crafted in Philadelphia. However, the Letters do indicate conclusively that Ellsworth was one of the major proponents of what is called the "true federal" system inherent in the Constitution and that he was one of the "work-horses" at the Convention. After the ratification of the Constitution, Ellsworth embarked upon a distinguished political, diplomatic, and judicial career in the young American republic. In 1789, he was chosen (along with fellow Convention delegate Dr. William Samuel Johnson) as one of Connecticut's senators to the First Congress. During his senatorial tenure (1789-1796), Ellsworth was particularly influential in proposing and working for passage of legislation that put "flesh" on the judicial skeleton of Article III of the Constitution— an Article he was so instrumental in having included in the finished document. For his work at the Convention to draft Article III, for his congressional labors to establish an independent national judicial system, and because he was recognized as a well-educated, extremely able legal practitioner, President Washington, in 1796, appointed Oliver Ellsworth as the second chief justice of the United States. Although there were few, if any, ground-breaking court decisions during his brief three-year tenure on the high court, he served his country honorably and faithfully in what was then considered a position of second-rank importance. He resigned his judicial position in 1799 to accept President John Adams' appointment as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary (along with fellow Convention delegates Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts and William Richardson Davie of North Carolina) to France to bring about a peaceful resolution of the so-called quasi-war (the undeclared naval conflict with that country, 1798-1800). Although the mission was initially unsuccessful, peace with France was finally achieved in 1800 with the signing of the Treaty of Mortefontaine. Upon his return to the United States in 1801, Ellsworth was again appointed as a member of the Connecticut Governor's council serving in that largely honorific position until his death on November 26, 1807. At the time of his death, at age 67, Oliver Ellsworth was eulogized as one of the most revered of the Framers. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:89. 2. Ibid., 233-234. 3. Ibid., 1:193. 4. Ibid., 2:364. 5. Ibid., 1:335; 2:97. 6. Ibid., 2:106.

WILLIAM FEW (1748-1828) Born into relative poverty near Baltimore, Maryland on June 8, 1748, William Few was a self-made man who rose to political prominence through diligence and hard work. The Georgia legislature voted, on February 10, 1787, to appoint a six-member delegation to represent that frontier state at the Constitutional Convention. However, only four of the six attended any of the formal sessions. Since Georgia's four attending delegates were simultaneously serving as that state's representatives in Congress, Few split his time, during the summer of 1787, between the Convention in Philadelphia and Congress in New York City. Thus, his attendance in Philadelphia was sporadic; he apparently was absent from the Convention for most of July and much of August. However, he returned from his congressional duties to Philadelphia in time to vote within the Georgia delegation with Abraham Baldwin to support and then to sign, on September 17, the final document. In his oft-quoted biographical journal of his fellow delegates, William Pierce described his Georgia colleague in mildly complimentary terms. "Mr. Few possesses a strong natural Genius, and from application has acquired some knowledge of legal matters;—He practices at the bar of Georgia, and speaks tolerably well in the Legislature. He has been twice a Member of Congress, and served in that capacity with fidelity to his State, and honor to himself. Mr. Few is about 35 (he was actually 39) of age." 1 Otto was equally mildly complimentary of Few when he wrote "Without being a great genius, he has more knowledge than his name and his exterior would appear to indicate. Although still young, he was constantly employed during the war." He correctly observed that Few's "colleagues have a good opinion of him. He is very shy and embarrassing in society, unless one speaks to him of business."2 At the time of his election to Georgia's delegation, Few was influenced

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by his military and political experiences at the national level to support and reflect the nationalistic views of most of his constituents. Most Georgians favored the creation of a strong central government; a government, which could effectively come to the military aid of their state in the event of Spanish incursions from Florida and Creek Indian attacks from neighboring states or from within. Also most of the leading Georgia politicians were slave owners who wanted to be able to call upon a militarily strong national government for help in the event of slave insurrections. Thus Georgia, although one of the smaller states in terms of population (it ranked ninth, with a population of 82,548, in the First Federal Census of 1790), frequently sided with the nationalistic large states of Virginia and Pennsylvania in crucial Convention votes. William Few's life before 1787 was one of success in overcoming his humble, but honorable beginnings. His father moved the family from Maryland to Orange County, North Carolina, in 1758 where the 10-year-old William received enough basic education to enable him later to compete with his better-educated colleagues as a practicing frontier lawyer. In the late 1760s and early 1770s, William, along with his brother and father, got involved in the short-lived Regulator Movement. Actually, there were so-called Regulator Movements in both North and South Carolina over the issues of frontier defense, the dispensing of justice (or injustice) by the state and local courts and unfair taxation. The North Carolina Regulators were routed by colonial militia under the command of Governor William Tryon in a bloody clash of arms at Alamance Creek near Hillsboro on May 16, 1770. As one of the insurgent leaders, William's father James Few was found guilty of treason and executed. After completing a legal apprenticeship, young William fled to Augusta, Georgia, to join his brother. In 1776, he was admitted to the bar and began his career as a practicing frontier lawyer. Success at the bar led to a political career. During the late 1770s he served several terms as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives, in 1778 as the presiding judge of the Richmond County Court, and as a member of the Confederation Congress 1780-1782 and 1785-1788. In recognition of his political prominence and abilities, he was added to Georgia's delegation to the Grand Convention. Also, he served briefly in the military as a lieutenant colonel in the local county militia. During the 1778 campaign against British Florida, William Few displayed leadership talents, which led to further political preferment. On the last day of the Convention, Few, along with thirty-eight of his Convention colleagues, signed the completed draft. Then, as a member of the Confederation Congress, he quickly traveled to New York City where he worked to secure passage of the September 28 motion to send the Constitution to the states for ratification. Then, as an elected member to the Georgia Ratification Convention, he worked to obtain the early, unanimous vote for ratification of the Constitution he had inconspicuously helped draft with his critical nationalistic votes within the Georgia delegation.

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William Few's post-Convention public career included election as a senator from Georgia to the First Congress (1789-1795) and service as a judge of the circuit court of Georgia (1794-1797). In 1799, he moved to New York City where he re-entered public service first as a member of the New York State Assembly (1802-1805), then as state prison inspector (18021810), as United States Commissioner of Loans (1804), as director (and president 1814) of the Manhattan Bank (1804-1814), and as a city alderman (1813-1814). His death on July 28, 1828, saw the passing of a dedicated, hardworking public servant who rendered noteworthy military, judicial, and political service during tumultuous times. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:97. 2. Ibid., 238.

THOMAS FITZSIMONS (1741-1811) Thomas Fitzsimons (often spelled Fitzsimmons) was one of the few foreignborn delegates and one of two Roman Catholics at the Grand Convention. Born in 1741 in County Tubber, Wicklow, Ireland, Thomas migrated to America around 1760 and took up a lifelong residence in Philadelphia. The year following his arrival in the New World, he married Catherine Meade, a daughter of the prominent merchant and trader Robert Meade. He established, with his new brother-in-law George Meade, a mercantile firm, which soon became one of the leading commercial trading companies in Philadelphia. Although he was to spend years in the public service as a congressman, educator, and banker, and briefly as a militia officer during the Revolutionary War, Fitzsimons was, during his adult years, first and foremost a merchant who participated primarily and profitably in the West Indian trade. When the War of Independence broke out in the mid-1770s, the young Irish-American was given command of a local home-guard militia company and served in the military for two years (1776-1777) without noticeable distinction. His most notable service to the American cause, which he had embraced enthusiastically, was as an active member of the Philadelphia committee of safety, committee of correspondence, and navy board. Also during the war, his mercantile firm provided much-needed supplies and money to the Continental army. Thus, like his friend, fellow Philadelphia merchant, and future Convention colleague Robert Morris, Thomas Fitzsimons was able to make money while rendering significant aid to his adopted country in its struggle against Great Britain. In recognition of his growing eminence as a merchant, a banker, an educator, and a philanthropist, Fitzsimons was elected to two one-year terms as a member of the Continental Congress (1782 and 1783). During this brief stint in what had become the almost moribund national legislature,

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Fitzsimons saw first-hand the inability of Congress to deal effectively with the many post-war problems confronting the new American republic. It was probably during this experience as a congressman that Thomas Fitzsimons became a thoroughgoing nationalist. Just prior to his selection as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, he served two years in the Pennsylvania state assembly (1786-1787). It was as a state assemblyman that he became a confirmed Anti-constitutionalist (i.e., an opponent of the democratic Pennsylvania state constitution of 1776). His public opposition to the Constitutionalists, no doubt, led to his appointment to the Pennsylvania delegation to the Constitutional Convention (all seven of his Convention colleagues—with the possible exception of the sometimes quixotic and hard-to-classify Benjamin Franklin, were active in the political struggle within Pennsylvania to overthrow the 1776 state constitution). In the Convention, Fitzsimons supported measures favorable to the large states and to mercantile and banking interests. In his brief biographical sketch of Thomas Fitzsimons, Georgia delegate/journalist William Pierce correctly characterized him as "a Merchant of considerable talents, and speaks very well I am told, in the Legislature of Pennsylvania. He is about 40 years old." 1 The brevity of Pierce's portrayal of Fitzsimons suggests strongly that the Georgian only knew of Fitzsimons by the reputation the merchant had achieved prior to his selection as a delegate. The two delegates did not board at the same rooming house (along with all of his Pennsylvania colleagues, Fitzsimons stayed at his city residence) and therefore probably did not socialize much together. Along with fellow Philadelphia merchant/delegates Robert Morris, Thomas Mifflin, and George Clymer, Fitzsimons helped to make sure that the new government being created would possess the power to regulate trade and commerce. He was, throughout the four months of deliberations, a dedicated large-state nationalist. He was in favor of the Virginia Plan with its plea of proportional representation in both national legislative chambers and voted with his Pennsylvania cohorts to defeat the New Jersey Plan that proposed essential retention of the Articles of Confederation and state equality in the national Congress. His role at the Convention could be characterized as that of a dependable foot-soldier in "Generals" James Madison and James Wilson's large-state nationalistic "army." He had voted with his Pennsylvania colleagues against the Great Compromise, but after its passage in mid-July he seemingly accepted the idea of each state having an equal voice in the upper house of the national legislature. He signed, along with all seven of his Pennsylvania colleagues, the Constitution on September 17 and thereafter favored publicly its ratification. Like many of his fellow delegates, Fitzsimons served in the national government that had been so laboriously created. He served three terms (17891795) as a Federalist in the national House of Representatives where he ardently supported Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton's far-

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reaching four-part financial program (Funding, Assumption, National Excise Tax, and the chartering of the first bank of the United States). Although always a loyal supporter of the Washington administration and its nationalistic policies, he was somewhat strangely defeated for re-election to the Fourth Congress in 1794. During the late 1790s, now as a private citizen busily engaged as a merchant in foreign trade, Fitzsimons favored retaliation against both Great Britain and France for their depredations and plundering of American shipping. Operating under the so-called Berlin and Milan Degrees, Napoleonic France was seizing American ships (and their cargoes) if they were trading, or even were suspected of trading, with Great Britain. Britain, for her part, was not only seizing American ships and cargoes thought to be trafficking with the French, but was impressing American sailors into the British navy. As a prominent Philadelphia merchant, Thomas Fitzsimons quite naturally decried the obvious high-handedness of both the European belligerents. Therefore, he supported the Adams administration in its quasi-war with France (1798-1800). In the early nineteenth century, Fitzsimons remained a loyal Federalist. He vigorously opposed President Thomas Jefferson's policy of "peaceable coercion" (The Embargo of 1807) and favored the re-chartering of the first bank of the United States. While continuing to be active as a merchant and banker, Fitzsimons became involved in numerous civic, educational, and philanthropic enterprises. Earlier in the 1780s, he had been one of the founders and directors (along with fellow delegate Robert Morris) of the first bank chartered in the United States (the Bank of North America). While maintaining his interest in banking, he served several terms as the president of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and as a trustee of what became the University of Pennsylvania. He died in Philadelphia on August 26, 1811. His legacy was a reputation of having been a dedicated Patriot during the American Revolution and of serving the public well in a variety of civic, educational, banking, and political posts. He should be remembered as a Founder and Framer of second rank. NOTE 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:91.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-1790) Benjamin Franklin, as a scientist, philanthropist, diplomat, politician, educator, editor, and printer, was truly a multi-talented "Renaissance Man." His long life and public career spanned the eighteenth century. His active participation in the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention like that of the universally respected George Washington gave, what some considered, an illegal, or at least an extra-legal, gathering a legitimacy it would have lacked had these two Revolutionary War giants not agreed to accept their appointments as delegates. Added belatedly to the Pennsylvania delegation in late-March 1787, Franklin, for his part, adroitly played the role of senior sage, conciliator, and peacemaker. In his speech nominating Dr. Franklin to be the eighth Pennsylvania delegate, Convention colleague Robert Morris said that "a Convention met on so important and interesting an occasion could not fail to derive great assistance and advantages from the knowledge and patriotism of that experienced statesman and philosopher." 1 Despite his advanced age and often painful bouts with gout and kidney stones, Franklin quietly and unobtrusively exerted a necessary conciliatory influence on the Convention proceedings, especially during the sweltering days of August and early September when the patience of many delegates was wearing thin. As the fifteenth child and youngest son in a family of seventeen children, Benjamin Franklin did not have the benefit of an extensive formal education or of inherited wealth enjoyed by most of his Convention colleagues. Instead, he was heir to lower-middle-class respectability and a stern Calvinist upbringing. Born to Josiah Franklin (1655-1744) and Abiah Folger (1667-1752) on January 17, 1706, in Milk Street, Boston, near the Old South Church, young Benjamin received only two years of formal education (one year at the Boston Grammar School—now the renowned Boston Latin School and the second one at George Brownell's English School for

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writing and arithmetic). In 1716, at age 10, this youngest son of the youngest son for five generations was apprenticed to his father's tallow shop where he somewhat unwillingly learned to make candles and soap. He soon came to dislike the drudgery of the chandlery business and agreed to an apprenticeship with his older brother James who had established a new printing shop in Boston. Although resenting greatly his brother's tyrannical ways, the young apprentice did learn to be an accomplished printer in the five years he spent under James' at-times-harsh supervision. Starting at an early age, Benjamin became an avid reader and prolific writer. His earliest literary endeavors, however, were usually stilted pompous tomes, but with the perseverance he demonstrated repeatedly throughout his long life, Benjamin soon acquired the writing style and vocabulary of an accomplished author. His first significant literary efforts were the fourteen "Silence Dogood" essays written anonymously for his brother's newspaper. In obvious imitation of the writing style of Joseph Addison and Richard Steele as found in The Spectator, the somewhat brash 16-year-old Benjamin dispensed practical and pragmatic advice that somewhat surprisingly was well received by the newspaper's readership. His known letters and published writings, over a lifetime of publishing, cover a wide range of topics from such seemingly frivolous satires as "Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress" (1745) and "Speech of Miss Polly Baker, before a Court of Judicature . . . where she was prosecuted the Fifth Time, for having a Bastard Child" (1747) to more serious and sometimes ponderous essays on "Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain" in which he argued against free will (1725), "Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be reduced to a Small One" (1773), and "Information to Those Who Would Remove to America" (1784). However, his most famous and widely read writings were the sayings of Poor Richard Saunders which appeared in his highly profitable Poor Richard's Almanack (which Franklin published annually from 1733 to 1758) and his never-completed Autobiography. The Almanackkwas an instant and long-lasting success. The profits from the more than ten thousand copies sold each year, along with the revenues from several lucrative printing business ventures were the basis for Franklin's fortune, which enabled him to retire from the business world in 1748, at the age of 42. Through the pithy sayings of Richard Saunders, the name of Benjamin Franklin became well known throughout the thirteen mainland colonies and even, to a lesser extent, in Great Britain. These aphorisms, borrowed (plagiarized) and frequently re-written, reflected Franklin's own personal practical philosophy for success. Sayings such as "Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee," "Fish and Visitors stink after three days," "If Passion drives, let Reason hold the Reins," "Wink at small faults—remember thou hast great ones," "In Marriage without love, there will be Love without Marriage" constituted a needed practical home-spun

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philosophy well suited for the colonists living in the wilderness that was eighteenth-century America. Likewise, Franklin's Autobiographyyhas enjoyed tremendous success ever r since its initial publication. It is now considered one of the most popular autobiographies in American letters. Written in several segments from 1771 to 1788, this revealing self-portrait contains not only a wealth of selfcongratulatory information, but also includes valuable practical advice (even if sometimes only half true) on how the author overcame humble origins to achieve a large measure of fame and fortune. Unfortunately, the self-narrative stops short of carrying the author's life story through the eventful years of the American Revolution and the Constitutional Convention. Still, it is a must-read for anyone who wants to begin to gain insight into the complex persona of this talented, exceedingly ambitious, largely self-taught early-American hero. In 1723, the somewhat impulsive 17-year-old apprentice, as he wrote in his celebrated Autobiography, "took upon me to assert my freedom" and left Boston, thus escaping from what he considered the unnecessarily "harsh & tyrannical" treatment of his brother James and the unduly strict, for a young lad of Franklin's temperament and ambitious aspirations, expectations, and demands of puritanical Boston and of his family's Calvinistic church. With this abrupt departure from the Bay Colony, Benjamin became, in reality, a fugitive who was fleeing from a legally binding apprenticeship. His first stop was New York City where he offered his "service to the Printer of the Place Mr. Wm. Bradford. He could give me no Employment, having little to do, and Help enough already: But, says he, my Son at Philadelphia has lately lost his principal Hand, Aquila Rose, by Death. If you go thither I believe he may employ you." Arriving in Philadelphia "fatigu'd with Traveling, Rowing & Want of Rest," Benjamin Franklin thus began a long, mutually beneficial association with the City of Brotherly Love.2 He soon found employment as a journeyman printer in the shop of Samuel Keimer. With a propensity for meeting and ingratiating himself with wealthy and important people, Franklin soon became acquainted with Pennsylvania's Governor William Keith. The Governor promised to help Franklin get started with his own print shop. At the suggestion of Keith, who promised to write letters of introduction to prominent Londoners, Benjamin traveled to England, in what would the first of four transatlantic trips to and from Europe, to purchase the necessary machinery and supplies needed to establish his own print shop. The promised letters were apparently never sent and Franklin found himself in London without money or employment. Soon, however, he was able to find employment at Samuel Palmer's print shop. His two-year stay in England working under the stern supervision of a master printer enabled the hard-working young colonial to further hone his printing skills. In 1726, he returned to Philadelphia to resume his career, now as a journeyman printer. In 1729, the ambitious

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craftsman purchased the almost-bankrupt Pennsylvania Gazette. With diligence, Franklin turned what had been a struggling newspaper into a highly lucrative and widely circulated publication. Thus, at the age of 24, Benjamin Franklin had embarked upon an exceedingly profitable business career, which allowed him the leisure years later for philanthropic enterprises, scientific experiments, public service, politics, diplomacy, and constitution making. On September 1, 1730, Benjamin "took to wife" Deborah Read. Because Deborah's first husband had deserted her, the cautious Franklin did not want to be legally liable for the departed husband's debts. Thus, this common law union was never made formal. Interestingly, Franklin brought to this "marriage" his illegitimate son William (born in 1729 or early 1730 to an unidentified mother). The early years of this relationship were undoubtedly harmonious, but difficult. Ben worked diligently in the print shop and Deborah handled the adjacent stationery shop and raised the young William. At least in the first years of this "union," Deborah was a loving, hard-working helpmate to her ambitious husband. In addition to William, Deborah and Benjamin had two children of their own: Francis Folger (born in 1732) and Sarah (born in 1743). Tragically, Francis died of smallpox in 1736. On the other hand, Sarah (Sally) lived to a ripe old age and was an enduring source of pride and comfort to Franklin, especially in his old age. The 1730s were particularly busy and productive years for both Benjamin and his wife. Along with their increasingly profitable business enterprises, Franklin initiated, or became involved in, countless civil and philanthropic enterprises. For example, in 1731, he established what was probably the first circulating library in America. In addition among other initiatives, he founded Philadelphia's first police force and in 1736 the Union Fire Company. In 1736, Franklin began, what would become, a life-long political career when he was chosen clerk of the unicameral Pennsylvania Assembly. As clerk, Benjamin learned the nitty-gritty of politics at the grass-roots level. This practical educational experience would serve him especially well in his future careers as a legislator and a diplomat. By 1740, Benjamin Franklin, printer, had become, by dint of hard work, obvious talent, and perhaps a measure of good luck, a well-known and well-thought-of citizen of America's bustling metropolis at the confluence of the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers. Franklin had a life-long interest in "Natural Philosophy" (what today would be called applied science). With an inventive, curious mind, he invented numerous useful artifacts such as bifocal glasses, the lightning rod, and the Franklin stove (he called it the Pennsylvania Fireplace). He took great pride in never securing patents for his myriad inventions. They were, he said, to be used freely by the public for its enjoyment and advantage.

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In the years 1745-1752, the study of electricity became a particular passion with him. With the help of his son William, Franklin conducted a variety of electrical experiments the results of which when published, both in America and Great Britain, established his international reputation as a scientist of note. For these "philosophical studies," this increasingly notso-humble former Philadelphia craftsman was awarded the honorary degrees of Master of Arts by Harvard (1753), by Yale (also in 1753), and by the College of William and Mary (1756) and the doctorate by St. Andrews in Scotland (1759) and Oxford in England (1762). Of all the honors bestowed upon him during his long and productive life, none pleased him more than the honorary academic degrees from these prestigious colleges and universities. In 1748, age 42, Franklin, having accumulated a tidy fortune from his various business enterprises, was able to retire from active business to devote the rest of his life to politics and diplomacy. In 1751, he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly where he quickly became the leader of the anti-proprietary faction, which sought the overthrow of the Penn family proprietary government in Pennsylvania. With the outbreak of the French and Indian War (1754-1763), Franklin was chosen as a delegate to the Albany Conference called to negotiate a treaty with the militarily powerful Iroquois Indians. While in Albany, Franklin audaciously presented a plan of union for the thirteen mainland colonies. However, this bold plan was rejected by both Great Britain and the colonies as being too radical and impractical. Although not adopted in the 1750s, Franklin's plan contained the essential elements of a system of government later incorporated into many of state constitutions and both the national constitutions promulgated during the revolutionary period. In 1757, Benjamin embarked upon his second trip to Europe, this time as the colonial agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly, which sent him to lobby in London for the overthrow of the Pennsylvania proprietary government. Except for a brief two-year hiatus (1762-1764) to mend his political fences back in Philadelphia, Franklin spent the decade (1765-1775) in London lobbying, unsuccessfully, for the abolition of the proprietary government in Pennsylvania. Living in virtual princely splendor as the houseguest of the widow Margaret Stevenson and her daughter Mary on Craven Street, London, Benjamin established a London-based "family" to take the place of his Philadelphia-based family, which he increasingly ignored. It should be mentioned that he did write an occasional letter home. In these infrequent missives, while always dutifully solicitous of his wife's financial welfare (he maintained for her and their daughter Sally an elegant city home in Philadelphia), he rarely, if ever, expressed anything approaching tenderness or love to his American family he had all but abandoned. It was obvious by the late 1760s that Benjamin and Deborah had grown apart: he had become a cosmopolitan, sophisticated, well-educated world traveler, and bon

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vivant while she remained the simple, kind, semi-illiterate woman he "took to wife" over three decades earlier. Deborah died in 1774, and Franklin did not bother to return to America, to care for her in her last illness or to attend her funeral. Instead, he was reveling in his growing fame as the world-renowned Dr. Franklin. He had gained entrance into the highest political, social, and scientific circles of Great Britain. Appointed colonial agent for Georgia (1768), for New Jersey (1769), and for Massachusetts (1770), Franklin became the leading London-based spokesman for the American colonies. Although he failed completely in his endeavor to convince the British government to revoke the Penn family's proprietary charter and issue a new charter making Pennsylvania a royal colony, he stayed on in England even periodically suggesting that he might permanently stay in the imperial metropolis. Certainly, up to 1765, and perhaps even for a time afterwards, he remained a staunch and enthusiastic supporter of the British Empire and British imperial policies. However, with the passage by Parliament of the Stamp Act in March 1765, Franklin slowly became disenchanted with British colonial policies— especially those that imposed taxes or attempted to tighten British colonial administration over the thirteen mainland colonies. From the beginning, he had opposed the Stamp Act but after its passage, urged colonial compliance until such time as it could be legally replaced with a less-exacting requisition system instituted by the colonists themselves. In 1765, Franklin was obviously out of touch with his American constituents not realizing that the unpopular tax was universally hated and, as it turned out, successfully opposed in America. However, by February 1766, during the parliamentary debates over possible repeal of the Stamp Act, Franklin had come around to urging repeal. He was, as the leading American spokesman in London, summoned to appear before the committee of the whole of the House of Commons. In his thoughtful answers to the many questions posed, Franklin was adamant and articulate in pointing out that the stamp duties were contrary to established custom, were unconstitutional, and probably uncollectible in the colonies. The account of what was a brilliant verbal encounter before the august House of Commons re-established his good reputation (a reputation that had suffered grievously as a result of his initial apparent acquiescence in its passage) among his American constituents as the leading spokesman for American constitutional rights and liberties. As a colonial agent for Massachusetts, Franklin had become aware of what he considered the "duplicity" of the American-born Governor of the Bay Colony, Thomas Hutchinson and his Oliver relations. Therefore, in 1772, he knowingly became involved in what is sometimes referred as the "Hutchinson Letters" affair. He had somehow gained possession of six letters, written by the Massachusetts Governor in the late 1760s, allegedly addressed to William

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Whately, formerly secretary to Chancellor of the Exchequor George Grenville, which advised the ministry that "there must be an abridgment of what are called English Liberties" in the American colonies. The letters were "mysteriously" published in Boston and were thereafter widely disseminated in both the mother country and America. To prevent a second duel between Thomas Whately, executor of the estate of the deceased William Whately, and John Temple, whom Thomas Whately had accused of purloining the letters, Franklin confessed that he, in fact, was the one who had sent the letters to Boston where they were read by several radical colonial leaders and then published. Upon learning of Franklin's involvement in this unfortunate affair, the British government dismissed him from what had become almost a sinecure post as deputy postmaster general for North America and summoned the now chagrined colonial agent to what became a public humiliation before the Privy Council in the Cockpit. On January 29, 1774, British Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn denounced Franklin unmercifully as a man without honor who would "henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a man of letters: Homo Trium Literaruml—a man of three letters, i.e., FUR, the Latin word for thief."3 Up to the time of his abrupt dismissal from his long-held postal position, Franklin still hoped that reconciliation between Great Britain and America was possible. However, with this public humiliation and loss of his postal sinecure, Franklin became a vocal proponent of quasi-autonomy for the colonies within the British imperial structure and, if that proved impossible or impractical, of complete independence from British rule. Fearing that he might be arrested for his "thievery," Franklin set sail for America on March 20, 1775, now fully convinced that reconciliation was a vain hope. Almost immediately after what turned out to be his triumphant return to Philadelphia in late May, the 69-year-old Benjamin was elected to the recently convened Second Continental Congress. Although he had spent sixteen out of the last eighteen years in England, his reputation was such that he was appointed to several of the more important congressional committees that were actively girding the country for war. Therefore, not surprisingly, he was appointed, along with Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, to serve on the committee that drafted the famous Declaration of Independence. Although Jefferson was the primary author of this Charter of Liberty, Franklin and Adams particularly did make numerous suggestions, some of which were incorporated in the final committee draft. In late 1776, after an unsuccessful trip to Canada to persuade the Canadians to join the thirteen mainland colonies in their struggle against British "tyranny," Franklin was appointed, along with Arthur Lee of Virginia and Silas Deane of Connecticut, to go to France to negotiate a treaty of alliance with Great Britain's ancient foe. The nine years (1776-1785) he spent in Paris as the senior and best-known American diplomat were among the

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happiest and most productive of his entire distinguished career. He assiduously cultivated the friendship of the leaders of French society. While in France, he became the personification of America with his simple, unadorned dress, his studied unpretentious demeanor, and his wit, charm, and wisdom. His fame as a scientist, of course, contributed greatly to his success as a diplomat. The crowning achievement of his nine years in the French capital was the February 6, 1778, signing of two treaties with the government of King Louis XVI. The commercial treaty signed granted to both France and the United States most-favored-nation status by the other. Of greater immediate importance, the treaty of alliance, which in the summer of 1778 brought France into the conflict as an ally, was perhaps a decisive factor in the colonies eventually achieving their independence. This treaty was, in large part, the result of Franklin's efforts and represented a diplomatic coup of great importance. Appointed in 1781 as a member of the peace commission, Franklin, along with John Adams and John Jay, negotiated the exceedingly favorable Treaty of Paris (1783), which finally brought to a successful conclusion the eight-year American War of Independence. Franklin's main contribution to the whole peace process took place after the treaty had been negotiated. He was given the unenviable task of explaining to the French just why America had violated the Treaty of Alliance with France by negotiating a separate treaty with their common enemy. Utilizing his unusual skills as a conciliator, he cleverly and successfully convinced the French foreign minister that it would to be to France's benefit to acquiesce in the treaty as negotiated. In 1785, Congress finally agreed to the 79-year-old Franklin's plea to be relieved of his diplomatic duties and be allowed to return home to his beloved Philadelphia. Soon after his arrival at home, he was chosen, somewhat surprisingly, since he had spent the last nine years in Europe, president of the Pennsylvania Executive Council (he was to be re-elected in 1786 and 1787). As chief executive (governor) of Pennsylvania, Franklin remained busy and active at an age when most men were satisfied to live in leisured and honorable retirement. With the calling of the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention in 1787, Franklin, as governor, acted as official host. As such, frequently during the almost four-month meeting, Franklin hosted numerous dinners for the visiting delegates. In December 1786, the Pennsylvania legislature voted to appoint what was certainly a distinguished seven-man delegation, but just two months before the scheduled opening of the Convention, it was learned that Dr. Franklin expressed a desire to be added to the group. This was quickly done. Thus, on March 28, 1787, the 81-year-old Franklin embarked once again on a career of constitution-maker.4 Benjamin Franklin's acceptance of his appointment to, and attendance at, the Convention, like that of George Washington, gave the gathering a

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legitimacy that greatly enhanced its chances of success and having the fruits of its labors accepted by the American people. Although he missed the official opening session on May 25, his attendance thereafter was regular and punctual. William Pierce, in his largely complimentary characterization of the Convention's oldest delegate, captured the essence of the enviable reputation Franklin had earned in his over five decades of public service as a scientist, politician, writer, diplomat, and philanthropist. "Dr. Franklin," he observed, "is well known to be the greatest philosopher of the present age;—all operations of nature he seems to understand,—the very heavens obey him, and the Clouds yield up their Lightning to be imprisoned in his rod. But what claim he has to the politician, posterity must determine. It is certain that he does not shine much in public Council,—he is no Speaker, nor does he seem to let politics engage his attention. He is, however, a most extraordinary Man, and tells a story in a style more engaging than anything I ever heard. Let his Biographer finish his character. He is 82 years old, and possesses an activity of mind equal to a youth of 25 years of age." 5 In his informative portrayal of Franklin written to the French foreign minister in 1788, the French charge d'affaires noted that "the Dr. Franklin, current President of this State, is too well known to have need of the praises which we owe him. He feels, more than any other American, that in order to be truly patriotic, it is necessary to be the friend of France. Unfortunately this philosopher, who had known how to brave the thunderbolts of the sky and of the English Parliament, will not be struggling much longer against the infirmities of age. We must regret that immortality belongs only to his name and to his writings." 6 Although it was expected by his colleagues and probably by the public at large, that his contributions to the deliberations would be at most perfunctory, Franklin, in actual fact, played a significant role as the Convention's sage senior statesman. Also, not a few historians ever since 1787 have written that Franklin's contributions at the Convention were minimal and of little consequence.7 However, it now appears to many constitutional scholars that Franklin's role at the Convention was more significant than previously thought. 8 He served brilliantly as the Convention's much-needed and often-utilized conciliator. His speeches in the Convention (often read by his Pennsylvania colleague James Wilson) were always well thought out (in fact usually written out beforehand) and often profoundly germane to the topics under discussion. At several crucial junctures, when the Convention appeared to be at an impasse, the wily old philosopher would come up with suggestions and comments (often whimsically), which were specifically designed to cool heated tempers and constructively move the deliberations forward. An early example of this was his relating, on June 5 during the debate over the mode of selecting judges, the story of the method "that he had understood was practiced in Scotland." In Madison's notes, he records that Franklin "in a

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brief and entertaining manner related a Scotch mode, in which the nomination proceeded from the Lawyers, who always selected the ablest of the profession in order to get rid of him, and share his practice (among themselves)."9 Later, in June, during a spirited debate on the issue of salaries for congressmen, Franklin had reluctantly agreed that the legislators should be compensated. However, he insisted that the salaries should be "moderate" not "liberal." He then briefly observed that there was the "tendency of abuses in every case, to grow of themselves when once begun, and related very pleasantly the progression in ecclesiastical benefices, from the first departure from the gratuitous provision for the Apostles, to the establishment of the papal system." With this brief homily on the alleged practices of the Roman Catholic Church regarding compensation, Franklin was able to convince his largely Protestant and therefore anti-Catholic Convention colleagues to delete the word "liberal" in the motion then being debated.10 At a particularly critical moment, during the acrimonious debate on June 30 over the vexing issue of equal versus proportional representation in the proposed national Senate, Franklin claimed that "The diversity of opinions turns on two points. If a proportional representation takes place, the small States contend that their liberties will be in danger. If an equality of votes is to be put in its place, the large States say their money will be in danger." He then proceeded to relate the oft-quoted fable of the carpenter "when a broad table is to be made, and the edges of planks do not fit. . . takes a little from both, and makes a good joint. In like manner here," he continued, "both sides must part with some of their demands, in order that they may join in some accomodating proposition." He then proposed the following: "That the Legislatures of the several States shall choose & send an equal number of Delegates, namely who are to compose the 2d. branch of the General Legislature."11 Although this eminently practical solution had been hinted at earlier (most notably by John Dickinson on June 2), the fact that it was now being offered by the distinguished Dr. Franklin gave it added credence and probably helped to convince wavering colleagues of the absolute necessity of compromise on what was the single most divisive issue facing the Convention. With Franklin's support of the core feature of what became the Great Compromise of July 16, he should perhaps be considered, along with Sherman, Rutledge, Ellsworth, and Dickinson, as one of the authors of the compromise that probably saved the Convention from possible failure and probably dissolution. In what was Franklin's most famous, longest, and most often quoted Convention speech, Franklin, according to Madison's notes for September 17, rose with a speech in his hand, which he had reduced to writing for his own conveniency, and which Mr. Wilson read in the words following: Mr. President. I confess that there are several parts of this

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constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them; For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error. Steele, a Protestant in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. . . . In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered, for a course of years. . . . Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good—I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad—Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. Franklin then ended his brilliantly and carefully crafted concluding speech with an emotionally moving plea for unanimous approval of the Convention's efforts. This appeal was no doubt made primarily to convince the three delegates (Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, George Mason of Virginia, and, somewhat surprisingly since he had presented to the Convention the Large State Plan that eventually served as the basis of the finished Constitution, Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia) who had repeatedly and openly stated that their objections to the document drafted were such that they could not in good conscience sign the completed draft. "On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility—and make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument." Wilson then read Franklin's final plea for unanimity with the following motion, which was passed by the unanimous vote of the states represented: "Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present the 17th. of Sepr. &c—In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names." 12 This concluding exhortation was, no doubt, Franklin's most notable contribution to what Jefferson referred to, in a letter to John Adams in August of 1787, as "an assembly of demigods." Due, in part at least, to this impassioned supplication of the Convention's still universally esteemed

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elder statesman, thirty-nine out of forty-two delegates present did affix their names to the Constitution. Although not a few of those who did sign had reservations regarding various aspects of the document, representatives from all twelve states were apparently convinced by Franklin "on this occasion" to "doubt" their "own infallibility" and put their names "to this instrument." Madison concluded his notes for September 17 with the following oft-quoted story: Whilst the last members were signing it Doctr. Franklin looking towards the Presidents Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have, said he, often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun.13 Although Franklin was not elected as a delegate to the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, his well-known public support for the Constitution undoubtedly helped the state's Federalists (led by James Wilson and Thomas McKean) to secure ratification, on December 12, 1787, by the comfortable margin of 46-23. During the last few years of his life, Franklin remained mentally, but not physically active. In 1787, he was elected the first president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery—a cause, which he came late in life to embrace whole-heartedly. In fact, his last public act was the signing, as President, of the society's memorial to Congress recommending the abolition of the institution of slavery in the United States. Franklin lived with his daughter Sarah (Sally) and his grandchildren in the spacious house he had earlier built, and had more recently remodeled, near the corner of Third Street and Market Street in Philadelphia just a few short blocks from what is now called Independence Hall. Now honored as an elder statesman, world-renowned scientist, philanthropist, and diplomat, Franklin happily spent his time corresponding and visiting with his numerous friends and being read to by his doting daughter and older grandchildren. He had long suffered from the gout and from painful gall stones. In his last months, he experienced great pain and inconvenience for which he was given increasingly large doses of opiates. Between the times when he became totally incapacitated, he revised portions of his Autobiography and reminisced, as old men are wont to do, with his family (particularly with his favorite grandsons William Temple Franklin and Benjamin Franklin Bache). He died quietly about 11:00 P.M. on April 17, 1790. He was, as his numerous newspaper obituaries reported, "in the 85 year of his

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age." His eighty-four years had certainly been among the most productive and interesting of any of the revered Founders and Framers. His funeral cortege from the Franklin house to nearby Christ Church burial ground was witnessed, according to contemporary accounts, by some twenty thousand people—certainly a fitting final tribute to the city of Philadelphia's most famous citizen. NOTES 1. Charles Warren, The Making of the Constitution (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1937), 58. 2. J.A. Leo Lemay, ed., Benjamin Franklin: Writings (New York: The Library of America, 1987), 1325-1329. 3. Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (New York: The Viking Press, 1938), 469. 4. Franklin's earlier endeavors at constitution making included his drafting of the Albany Plan of Union in 1754 and, during the two-year period (1775-1776) he spent in Philadelphia between his tenure as colonial agent in London and his nine-year term as American minister to France, his serving as President of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1776, which drafted the most democratic state constitution in America. 5. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:91. 6. Ibid., 235-236. 7. Historian Charles A. Beard, in his highly controversial study of the Constitution, first published in 1913 asserted, incorrectly, that Benjamin Franklin "at the time of the Convention was so advanced in years as to be of little real weight in the formation of the Constitution." Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York: The Free Press, 1965), 197. 8. William G. Carr, in his excellent study on Franklin at the Convention, has devoted an entire book detailing his manifold contributions. William G. Carr, The Oldest Delegate: Franklin in the Constitutional Convention (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990). 9. Farrand, 1:119-120. 10. Ibid., 216. 11. Ibid., 488-489. 12. Madison seemed to have been given a copy of Franklin's concluding speech since his notes apparently include the entire oration. Ibid., 3:641-648. 13. Ibid., 2:648.

ELBRIDGE GERRY (1744-1814) Elbridge Gerry was both one of the most active as well as the most controversial delegates at the Philadelphia Convention. He seemed to be, in the Convention, as well as throughout his long and generally distinguished political career, consistently inconsistent. For example, during the initial stages of the Constitutional Convention, Gerry was a firm supporter of the largestate Virginia Plan, but after mid-July, he slowly, but surely, became one of the most vocal opponents of the fundamental government charter being drafted. By September 17, when thirty-nine of the forty-two delegates present signed the final version of the organic governing charter, Gerry steadfastly refused, along with fellow attendees George Mason and Edmund Randolph, to affix his name to a document he believed was potentially a threat to his somewhat idealistic concept of republicanism. Later, as a congressman, Gerry was initially a Federalist Party stalwart, but eventually gravitated into the ranks of the opposition Democrat/Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Throughout his long career in politics and diplomacy, Gerry frequently pursued, regardless of consequences, the politically independent course, which often put him at loggerheads with his more partisan contemporaries. Because of his "consistent" erratic, unpredictable, seemingly constantly changing political behavior, his oft-stated dislike of pure "democracy," and his frequent haughty and peevish demeanor, Elbridge Gerry was considered, and often called, by his compeers an elitist obstructionist and has given him, among most historians and biographers ever since his death, the reputation of being a "Founding Father" of no higher than second rank. However, recent scholarship has resurrected somewhat Gerry's historical reputation to the point that historian George Athan Billias, in his excellent, thoroughly researched, definitive biography of the sometimes quixotic New Englander, has placed Gerry in what might be considered the near-highest pantheon of early American statesmen.1

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Born July 17, 1744, into a moderately wealthy, politically and commercially well-connected Marblehead, Massachusetts mercantile family, Elbridge, the third of twelve children, was given a classical education that prepared him for admission to nearby Harvard College. He was graduated (age 18) from the Cambridge school in 1762 and soon thereafter joined his father and two brothers in the family mercantile business. For ten years, Elbridge was an active merchant-shipper accumulating, in the process, a small fortune, which allowed him the leisure and opportunity to embark upon a political career in 1772. It was during this formative period between 1762 and 1772 when Gerry was pursuing a mercantile career fulltime that he became increasingly disenchanted with British colonial and taxing policies. Elected to the Massachusetts General Court, he served as a member of its radical committee of correspondence. In 1774 he was elected (re-elected in 1775) to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress where he seemed to have become a political protege of Samuel Adams and John Hancock. These two revolutionaries arranged Gerry's appointment to the Provincial Congress's important executive committee of safety. In 1776, now firmly committed to the revolutionary American cause, Gerry was elected to the Second Continental Congress where he served almost continuously until 1785. During the Revolutionary War, Gerry served faithfully and effectively as a member of most of the congressional committees having to do with finances and trade. Along with John Adams, he was one of the most active members of congress (in current parlance, he would be considered a workaholic). As a congressional advocate for whole-hearted support of the Continental army, he gained the epithet of "soldiers' friend." He had early and enthusiastically endorsed the idea of independence and therefore happily signed America's Charter of Liberty in August of 1776. Recognizing the absolute need for creating a central national government that could successfully, if only loosely, unite the thirteen new American states and wage war against the former mother country, Gerry signed the country's first national constitution—The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. Upon his retirement from Congress in 1785, Gerry served briefly as a member of the Massachusetts state legislature where he witnessed firsthand the western Massachusetts political and economic unrest, which evolved into the famous (to Gerry the infamous) and bloody Shays' Rebellion. Thoroughly frightened by what he considered "anarchical" behavior on the part of what he would consider the unlettered frontier rabble, Gerry became ever more convinced of the need to strengthen the national government so it could deal quickly and effectively with such "popular" uprisings. In recognition of his valuable service in Congress during the war and of his standing as one of Massachusetts' leading merchants, Gerry was appointed on March 10, 1787, along with Francis Dana (who did not attend because of ill health), Caleb Strong, Rufus King, and Nathaniel Gorham,

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a member of the Massachusetts delegation to the upcoming Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. Apparently, not aware that Francis Dana would not be attending the Convention, French charge d'affaires Otto noted that "In Congress, he (Francis Dana) has always made common cause with Mr. Gerry, who does not like us, and who is principally opposed to the ratification of our consular convention. He has more talents than Mr. Gerry and less duplicity." The Frenchman then went on to portray Elbridge Gerry as "a small man, very intriguing, and full of small finesses, which until now have been successful for him. He is the one of all the members of Congress who has been active the longest. He has acquired a great knowledge of public affairs, on which he draws to make himself equal to his fellow citizens. In 1782, he made such a beautiful speech in the Boston legislature in order to urge them to not permit the ratification of the consular convention. He pretends to very much like Mr. le chev. De la Luzerne but one must mistrust all of his considerable protestations. We generally have very few friends among the powerful men of Massachusetts, our commerce does not interest them and our fisheries embarrass them. Mr. Bowdoin, Mr. King, Mr. Sam. Adams, etc., have been able to have all their political notions in the writings or in the conversations of Mr. Jay and Mr. J. Adams. The people in general like the French, since they have often seen our fleets and remember the services that we have often rendered them." He concluded by characterizing Gerry as "a simple man in his manners, but wise and infinitely reasonable; having never followed any party and wanting the well-being without considering personal motives. He has often given us proof of attachment and zeal." 2 Convention journalist and colleague William Pierce was a bit more fulsome and discerning in his brief biographical sketch of the Marblehead merchant. "Mr. Gerry's character is marked for integrity and perseverance. He is a hesitating and laborious speaker;—possesses a great degree of confidence and goes extensively into all subjects that he speaks on, without respect to elegance or flower of diction. He is connected and sometimes clear in; his arguments, conceives well, and cherishes as his first virtue, a love for his Country. Mr. Gerry is very much of a Gentleman in his principles and manners;—he has been engaged in the mercantile line and is a Man of property. He is about 37 years of age." 3 At the Convention, to which he attended regularly, Gerry spoke a recorded 119 times, which made him, along with Gouverneur Morris (with 173 speeches), James Wilson (168), James Madison (161), Roger Sherman (138), and George Mason (136), one of the most active delegates in the crafting of the U.S. Constitution. Interestingly, Gerry went through several stages at the Convention. At first, he was a mild nationalist, later, he became critical of the tremendous powers being given to the proposed new government, and finally he became an outright obstructionist opponent of

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the finished document. During the first few weeks after the official opening session on May 25, Gerry, as a delegate from one of the large population states, followed the lead of Madison and his talented coterie of extreme nationalists in supporting the Virginia Plan with its provisions for a bicameral legislature representing the states proportionally, with the lower house elected by the people and the upper house elected by the lower house from nominees proposed by state legislatures, for an executive chosen by the legislature, for a national judiciary (consisting of a supreme court and inferior courts), and for a council of revision consisting of the executive and several members of the judiciary with a veto over legislative acts. Gerry apparently believed initially that Randolph's resolutions (i.e., the Virginia Plan) conformed to what he considered to be sound Republican principles. Gerry favored the creation of a national government that would create a balance between unbridled democracy (anarchy) and unchecked aristocratic rule (oligarchy) and would also consist of three branches that could act as checks upon each other. Gerry's major single contribution to the drafting of the Constitution was as a member of the committee, appointed July 2, which was charged with fashioning an acceptable compromise on the vexing issue of proportional versus equal representation in at least one chamber of the proposed legislature. Just prior to his appointment to this important committee, Gerry had given an impassionate speech in which he pleaded for "accommodation." "The world at large expect something from us. If we do nothing, it appears to me we must have war and confusion—for the old confederation would be at an end. Let us see if no concession can be made. Accommodation is absolutely necessary, and defects may be amended by a future convention." 4 This speech probably prompted his selection as chairman of the "compromise committee." This "grand" committee's report, which incongruously chairman Gerry did not approve of, became the basis of the Great Compromise in which there would be proportional representation in the lower house and equal representation in the upper chamber. Gerry opposed what was obviously viewed by many as a convention-saving compromise primarily because, in its entirety, he believed it gave too much power and authority to the national government and gave the small population states more power than their wealth and population warranted. Despite his mild opposition to the Great Compromise, it would not, however, be the primary reason he refused to sign the final version on the Convention's last day. During the latter stages of the Convention, Gerry slowly assumed the mantle of the Convention's most ardent and vocal obstructionist. It was said of him, at this stage of the Convention, that he "objected to everything he did not propose." On September 15, as the members were preparing to conclude their summer's work, Gerry articulated his numerous objections to the proposed constitution. After Edmund Randolph and George Mason had given their reasons for refusing their signature to the

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new instruction of government, Gerry, in a stammering voice, listed eight reasons "which determined him to withhold his name from the Constitution. 1. the duration and re-eligibility of the Senate. 2. the power of the House of Representatives to conceal their journals. 3. the power of Congress over the places of election. 4. the unlimited power of Congress over their own compensations. 5. Massachusetts has not a due share of Representatives allotted to her. 6. % of the Blacks are to be represented as if they were freemen. 7. Under the power over commerce, monopolies may be established. 8. The vice president being made head of the Senate." He concluded his speech with the observation that "Under such a view of the Constitution, the best that could be done he conceived was to provide for a second general Convention." He then supported Randolph's motion to "provide for a second general Convention" that could, after the delegates had gone home to consult with their constituents, "correct" some of the defects he and the other two non-signers saw in the document as it stood. The motion was unanimously rejected.5 After his return to Massachusetts, Gerry led the Anti-Federalists in their attempt to defeat ratification of the Constitution. At home he denounced the document as "full of vices." Now he stressed that his opposition was because the Constitution lacked a bill of rights, because of the potential danger of an oppressive national judiciary, and because of inadequate representation of the people in the government it created. It should be noted that Gerry's refusal to sign the Constitution and his opposition to immediate ratification did not mean he was unalterably opposed to the organic law he helped craft. What Gerry hoped for, and worked for, was the calling of a second convention, which would, he fervently hoped, be able to rectify the anti-republican "defects" he believed the final version contained. Despite Gerry's valiant efforts to defeat ratification, Massachusetts ratified the U.S. Constitution on February 6, 1788, by the narrow vote of 187-168 thus becoming the sixth state (second large state) to do so. When official ratification was achieved in the summer of 1788 with the favorable vote in New Hampshire (the ninth state to do so) and Virginia (the tenth state and third large state), Gerry announced his support of the Constitution and his intention, somewhat incongruously given his recent opposition to ratification, to run for Congress. Elected as an Anti-Federalist to the First and Second Congresses (1789-1793), Gerry, true to his predilection to be "consistently" inconsistent, became a supporter of the Federalists and the Hamiltonian Financial Program. Retiring from Congress in 1793, Gerry then resumed his career as a full-time merchant-shipper. It was during this period of temporary retirement from public service that he became a firm supporter of the emerging Democrat/Republican party of Jefferson and Madison. His main objection to the Federalists was the overly pro-British stance he believed the Washington administration was taking, especially after it had concluded the controversial Jay Treaty of 1794. Gerry

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continued to believe that the best interests of the United States (especially the commercial interests of New England, of which he was an integral part) would be better served by supporting revolutionary France in its titanic struggle with Great Britain. In 1797, his friend President John Adams appointed Gerry, along with John Marshall and fellow Convention colleague Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, to the three-member commission charged with resolving, diplomatically, differences with France. Traveling to Paris, Gerry got enmeshed in what has ever after been referred to as "The XYZ Affair." Through agents (dubbed Mr. X, Mr. Y, and Mr. Z in the dispatches later given to President Adams), French Foreign Minister Talleyrand demanded a sizable American loan and a bribe before serious negotiations could be undertaken. The three American commissioners were "shocked" by what they all considered as "gross impropriety" and insult. Marshall and Pinckney returned to America, while Gerry remained in France in the vain hope that he alone could bring about some sort of agreement with the wily Talleyrand and thus avoid the war that he felt would be inevitable in the absence of a treaty, or at least a diplomatic accord, with the former American Revolution ally. President Adams, embarrassed by Gerry's behavior as Talleyrand's toady or sycophant, recalled the embattled diplomat. Upon his return in disgrace to America, Gerry was severely censured by the Federalists. In the period 1800-1809, the increasingly unpopular (especially in commercial, pro-British New England) Gerry ran repeatedly and unsuccessfully as the Jeffersonian (Democrat/Republican) candidate for governor of Massachusetts. Finally in 1810, he was elected (re-elected in 1811) chief executive of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Toward the end of his second and last term as governor, he apparently supported a highly partisan Democrat/Republican election redistricting plan that would ensure its dominance in the state senate. As a result, ever since 1812, the partisan redistricting of election boundaries has been derisively referred to as "gerrymanding" much to the detriment of Elbridge Gerry's historical reputation. In what has become the time-honored practice of creating balance to presidential election tickets, Gerry, as one of the few prominent New England Democrat/Republicans, was put on the national ticket, after fellow New Englander and former Convention cohort John Langdon refused the nomination because of ill health and old age, with southerner President James Madison in 1812. The two former Convention delegates easily won the election over Dewitt Clinton (nephew of the recently deceased Vice President George Clinton) and former Convention colleague Jared Ingersoll. Gerry died (age 70) on November 23, 1814, thus becoming the second vice president to die in office in the two-year period (1812-1814). In most histories of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Elbridge Gerry is depicted as a cantankerous obstructionist who refused to sign the Constitution, as a commissioner to France who embarrassed him-

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self, his president, and his country in the XYZ Affair, as a politician who often favored and pursued unpopular, seemingly undemocratic policies, and as an enigmatic political elitist who was, at times, opposed to what he considered to be "mob rule" (i.e., rule by a "semi-illiterate," largely "undereducated," popular majority). Like former Convention colleague Alexander Hamilton, Gerry seemed to have favored the notion that "the rich and wellborn" (a category in which he placed himself) should be the primary governors in any well-ordered republic. Gerry clearly deserves better at the hands of historians and biographers. He should be considered worthy of membership in the pantheon of secondrank Founders and Framers (right behind Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison). Given his notable achievements as a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, as one of the most active delegates at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, as governor of Massachusetts, as vice president of the United States, and as a consistent advocate, which he often expressed and pursued in unpopular and seemingly inconsistent ways, to what he deemed to be the basic principles of classical republicanism. NOTES 1. George Athan Billias, Elbridge Gerry: Founding Father and Republican Stateman (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1976). 2. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:233. 3. Ibid., 88. 4. Ibid., 1:519. 5. Ibid., 2:632-633.

NICHOLAS GILMAN (1755-1814) Born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1755 into a locally prominent mercantile family, Nicholas Gilman took advantage of the opportunity his genteel birth provided to acquire a formal academic education at local schools and a practical education in his father's mercantile firm. At the outbreak of the War of Independence, young Nicholas enlisted in the Continental army. He served honorably, but without notable distinction, throughout the war. For most of the war, he served as adjutant of a New Hampshire regiment and ended his military career with the rank of captain. With the coming of peace and the establishment of the American republic, Nicholas pursued a mercantile career and entered the political arena. He served in the Continental Congress from 1786-1788. In midJanuary of 1787, the New Hampshire legislature voted to appoint its congressional delegation as its representation to the upcoming Constitutional Convention. Thus, Gilman became one of the two New Hampshire delegates. Because the legislature refused to pay the delegates' per diem or expenses, Gilman and his Convention colleague, state House of Representatives Speaker John Langdon, did not set out for Philadelphia until the wealthy Langdon himself agreed to pay the delegation's expenses out of his pocket. Nicholas Gilman and John Langdon did not take their Convention seats until July 23, thus missing the often heated debates that led up to the Great Compromise. William Pierce's brief biographical sketch of Nicholas Gilman mirrors the views held by many of Gilman's contemporaries, and historians and biographers ever since. "Mr. Gilman is modest, genteel, and sensible. There is nothing brilliant or striking in his character, but there is something respectable and worthy in the Man.—about 30 years of age." 1 Writing the year after the Convention, the French attache in New York described Gilman as a "young man of pretentions; little liked by his colleagues; one

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calls him by derision to the Congress. He has however the advantage of having represented his State in the great Philadelphia Convention and having signed the new Constitution. This circumstance proves that there is not a great choice of things to do in this State, at least the most sensible and skillful men are not rich enough to accept a public position. Mr. G. served during the war as aid to camp." 2 At the Convention, Gilman played a minor role usually deferring to his senior, better-known colleague John Langdon. However, on August 31, he was appointed to the eleven-member Committee on Postponed Matters. With one member from each of the states in attendance (New York was not officially represented at the Convention after Robert Yates and John Lansing, Jr., had permanently left the Convention on July 10, and Rhode Island, of course, did not even send a delegation), this important Committee submitted its report to the full Convention on September 4. The report recommended a convoluted method of electing the president (the Electoral College). It also recommended giving the chief executive significant appointive and treaty-making powers, but specified that these additional powers were to be exercised only with the advice and consent of the Senate. Gilman almost certainly did not play a major role in the Committee on Postponed Matters because its membership included such major Convention figures as James Madison, Gouverneur Morris, Roger Sherman, and John Dickinson. It is presumed that these more influential, more articulate delegates would have dominated the weeklong committee deliberations, overshadowing the contributions of the somewhat meek and mildmannered junior member from New Hampshire. However, in the informal atmosphere of a small committee, Gilman would have felt less hesitation in presenting his views on the controversial matters discussed and therefore should be credited with contributing to the committee's final report. The committee's recommendations, with relatively minor modifications, were accepted by the Convention and this acceptance represented a victory for the John Dickinson-led small-state nationalists (of which Nicholas Gilman was a minor, largely unheralded member). In granting the Senate, where each state had an equal voice, an important role in the president's appointive and treaty-making functions and giving the House of Representatives (with each state, regardless of size or wealth having one vote when voting for the president in the event that no candidate received a clear-cut majority in the Electoral College), most delegates felt comfortable in agreeing to the creation of a strong, national government and an independent, strong president. Because most of the delegates believed, most if not all, presidential elections would be decided in the House of Representatives, it was thought that the Electoral College system finally agreed to would result in the large states (with their majority in the initial electoral voting) nominating and the smaller states (with their state delegation majority) electing the country's chief executive. In actuality, only two pres-

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idential elections have gone to the House of Representatives. In 1800 the House, on the 36th ballot, selected Thomas Jefferson over Aaron Burr and in 1824, it chose John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson and William H. Crawford. Although Gilman played a relatively insignificant role in the drafting of the Constitution, he did sign the completed document and then worked long, hard, and effectively in the immediate post-Convention period to secure its ratification. First, as a member of Congress, he supported the congressional resolution that sent the Constitution to the states, without congressional approval or disapproval, for their hoped-for ratification. Then, as an active member of the New Hampshire Ratifying Convention, Gilman worked hard to secure New Hampshire's favorable vote (57-46) for ratification. As the ninth state to ratify, New Hampshire's vote completed, in a sense, the Constitutional Revolution, started back in May, in the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall). Nicholas Gilman played an important, if minor, role in the drafting and the ratifying of America's fundamental charter, which when ratified by New Hampshire's favorable vote, completed the constitutional overthrow of the Articles of Confederation. With the establishment of the government under the new organic charter, Gilman became politically active. Elected to the first House of Representatives in 1789, he served four consecutive terms (1789-1797) as a loyal Federalist supporter of President George Washington's nationalistic program and of the Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton's farreaching, but highly controversial, fiscal policies. Interestingly, he declined to run for re-election in 1797 and slowly drifted politically, along with his fellow Convention delegate John Langdon, into Jefferson and Madison's Democrat/Republican Party. Between 1795 and 1805, he served three terms in the New Hampshire legislature. It was as a Jeffersonian that Gilman was elected, in 1805, to the U.S. Senate where he served continuously until his death in 1814, generally supporting the policies of presidents Jefferson and Madison. Concurrently with his senatorial term, Gilman held the office of New Hampshire state treasurer (1805-1808 and 1811-1814). With his death, at age 58, New Hampshire and the nation lost a dedicated, but largely unacclaimed public servant. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:87. 2. Ibid., 3:232.

NATHANIEL GORHAM (1738-1796) Nathaniel Gorham was invariably described, certainly by his friends, but even by many of his political and business rivals, as always being affable, congenial, gracious, and good-natured. Apparently, these were the attributes plus, undoubtedly an adherence to a puritan-like work ethic (defined here as a belief in hard work being moral good), rather than extensive formal education and high birth, that carried Nathaniel to positions of political leadership and, until the last few years of his life, to economic affluence and social prominence. Born May 27, 1738, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, to parents of modest means and reputation, young Nathaniel attended local public schools. Then, he was placed into an apprenticeship with a New London, Connecticut, merchant. It was during the six years or so, spent as a hardworking and eager apprentice, that he learned the necessary basic business skills and acumen that would later lead him to success in the highly competitive world of commerce. Returning to Charlestown in 1759, he established his own mercantile firm, which soon brought the young entrepreneur financial independence and local social prominence. In 1763, at age 25, Nathaniel married Rebecca Call, who was to bear the couple's nine children. Success in business, almost inevitably, led the ambitious Gorham into the political arena. He began his career in politics modestly with an appointment as a public notary. However, continued and growing success in business soon led to his being elected to serve as a member of the increasingly revolutionary colonial legislature. Thus, like many of his "Founder"/"Framer" colleagues throughout the thirteen colonies, Nathaniel Gorham entered political manhood during auspicious times—times that provided ample opportunities for young men of ambition and ability to succeed in political, economic, and military careers in colonial and revolutionary America. By 1774, Gorham seemed to have been caught up in the revolutionary

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anti-British fervor sweeping the maritime Bay Colony. Elected in that year to the Massachusetts provincial legislature, he participated, in the following year, in the establishment of the provincial government, which eventually overthrew British royal rule. During the War of Independence, he served diligently as a member of the Massachusetts Board of War (17781781). During two of those years (1779-1780), he also served as a delegate to the state Constitutional Convention that wrote the Massachusetts state constitution of 1780 (actually largely drafted by John Adams). In the 1780s, he served in both houses of the state legislature (1780-1787); service that included three terms (1781, 1782, and 1785) as speaker of the lower legislative chamber. Although lacking any formal legal training, he was made a judge of the Middlesex County court of common pleas in 1785 serving as such until his death in 1796. However, Gorham's most notable immediate post-war public service was as a member of the Confederation Congress. He served in that increasingly ineffective governing body in the years 1782, 1783, and 1785-1787, and in fact was chosen as its president (largely an honorific position of little power and influence) in 1786. Therefore, by the time he was selected as one of the four delegates from Massachusetts to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention (the appointment was made in March of 1787), Gorham was able to bring to Philadelphia a reputation for devoted public service, valuable political knowledge in general, and specifically worthwhile legislative, judicial, and constitution-drafting experience. Particularly, this experience was to serve him well during the long months he spent in Philadelphia, helping to draft the country's second fundamental governing charter. Arriving at the Convention on Monday, May 28, 1787, Gorham apparently attended every session right up to September 17. William Pierce's depiction of Gorham confirmed that the senior member of the important Bay State delegation was almost universally respected, and even beloved, when he wrote: "Mr. Gorham is a Merchant in Boston, high in reputation, and much in the esteem of his Country-men. He is a Man of very good sense, but not much improved in his education. He is eloquent and easy in public debate, but has nothing fashionable or elegant in his style;—all he aims at is to convince, and where he fails it never is from his auditory not understanding him, for no Man is more perspicuous and full. He has been President of Congress, and three years a Member of that Body. Mr. Gorham is about 46 years of age, rather lusty, and has an agreeable and pleasing manner." 1 In obvious recognition of, and a possible reward for, being "high in reputation," for his being "much in the esteem of his Country-men," and for his "agreeable and pleasing manner," Nathaniel Gorham was chosen, on May 30, to the all-important post of chairman of the Committee of the Whole. 2 As such, Gorham probably presided over many of the more heated

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and acrimonious debates, but their contents can only be guessed, because no official records were kept in the Committee of the Whole. That Gorham was judicious and fair-minded as presiding officer of this most important committee can be surmised by the lack of substantial verifiable criticism, by any of his Convention colleagues, of his chairmanship. In the official Convention sessions, Nathaniel Gorham was one of the more active delegates. His regular attendance, his numerous speeches on the Convention floor, his election as chairman, and therefore one of the more influential members, of the Committee of the Whole (in which most of the more controversial issues were candidly debated and many resolved), and his appointment, on July 24, to the Committee of Detail all suggest that this Massachusetts merchant played a significant role—a role, however, that has largely gone unheralded and unappreciated by historians. Throughout the summer, he was a mild nationalist usually supporting, as a member of one of the three largest states that would benefit most from the Virginia Plan, the speeches, ideas, and motions of Madison, Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and their large-state nationalists. In a letter written shortly after Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph had presented the controversial Virginia Plan on May 29, Gorham (seemingly violating the secrecy rule just imposed) stated to Massachusetts congressman, Nathan Dane, that he thought it was "a pretty good plan." 3 He therefore was indicating an apparent preference to a complete overthrow of the existing governmental arrangement under the Articles of Confederation and the virtual elimination of individual states as viable political entities, as seemingly suggested in Randolph's proposals. However, in the end, he did sign, along with colleague Rufus King, the finished document, with the Great Compromise firmly in place, on September 17. His election to the Committee of Detail is particularly noteworthy, because the other four members were among the busiest and most influential delegates in attendance. Appointed July 24, Gorham and his Committee of Detail colleagues (John Rutledge of South Carolina, Edmund Randolph of Virginia, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, and James Wilson of Pennsylvania) were charged with the momentous task of drafting "a Constitution conformable to the Resolutions passed by the Convention." 4 On August 6, Rutledge, as chairman, presented to each member of the Convention a seven-page draft of the committee's report. In the main, this early constitutional draft was a composite of many of the proposals and provisions embodied in the Randolph (Virginia) Plan, in the Articles of Confederation, in the Paterson (New Jersey) Plan, in the plan apparently submitted by Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, and in various state constitutions (especially Massachusetts and New York).5 Shortly before he died in 1807, Oliver Ellsworth asserted that the Committee of Detail (on which he and Gorham both actively served) actually wrote the Constitution. Although this assertion should not be taken at face value, it does suggest strongly

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that the Committee of Detail, in bringing together (in one coherent document) the many provisions and proposals already agreed to and voted on, performed a most valuable task. It also suggests that Nathaniel G o r h a m , as a hardworking member of that important Committee, should be considered one of the major, most influential figures at the Philadelphia Convention. T h a t he is not, is due in part to the fact that he did not serve in the government he helped create and that he died, like his colleague R o b ert Morris, in poverty and disgrace. In the immediate post-Convention period, G o r h a m w o r k e d feverishly, as a member of the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, to secure a favorable vote for ratification, which came, partly through his efforts, on February 6, 1788, by the uncomfortably close vote of 1 8 7 - 1 6 8 . His last years were taken up with a risky, and as it turned out unsuccessful, venture into land speculation. In 1788, he was a major partner in a scheme to purchase 6 million acres of unimproved land in western N e w York. G o r h a m and his partners purchased this large tract for 1 million dollars in devalued M a s sachusetts scrip. W h e n the value of the state scrip increased dramatically, the purchase price increased well beyond w h a t the investors could afford. The result was insolvency and social reproach. He died (age 58) in 1796, heavily in debt and largely unheralded. The obscurity that plagued his last few years has, somewhat undeservedly, followed him to the present.However, for his diligence and hard w o r k at the Constitutional Convention and for his public service to his state and nation for over twenty-five years, Nathaniel G o r h a m belongs in the pantheon of revered and remembered Founders/Framers.

NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:87-88. 2. The Committee of the Whole was used as a ploy to enable legislative bodies to meet informally and to discuss and debate without having speeches and votes recorded. It allowed for a free-wheeling exchange of ideas in which members could be brutally candid, frank, and honest, away from the notice of the public in general and their constituencies back home specifically. It also permitted members to change their minds and their votes without the possible adverse repercussions that an official permanent recording could bring. The vote to elect Gorham chairman of this hardworking committee was almost unanimous. Apparently, it was seven votes for Gorham and one for the respected senior member of the South Carolina delegation, the eminent John Rutledge. In reviewing Secretary William Jackson's official Journal, the secretary of state in 1819, John Quincy Adams, speculated that "The vote for Rutledge was probably Gorham's" (see Farrand, 1:29). 3. James H. Hutson, ed., Supplement to Max Farrand's The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 46-47. 4. Farrand, 2:106.

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5. Since a copy of the so-called Pinckney Plan was apparently not given to Secretary Jackson or to any of the other Convention journalists, its precise provisions and proposals are largely unknown. However, the author, Charles Pinckney, later claimed that his plan was, in many respects, similar to the Virginia Plan. Since the Virginia Large State Plan, with numerous and several significant modifications, became the basis of the completed draft of the Constitution that was signed on September 17, the young South Carolinian was seemingly claiming that he, along with James Madison (who has been given the appellation of "Father of the Constitution") should be considered "Co-Father of the Constitution" or at least a major figure at the Convention. However, available evidence does not validate Pinckney's claim to preeminence.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON (1755-1804) Alexander Hamilton was one of the most energetic, influential, talented, and ambitious of all the revered Framers who gathered in Philadelphia in May of 1787 "for the sole purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several Legislatures, such alterations and provisions therein, as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government, and the preservation of the Union." 1 No one, with the possible exception of Madison, had worked harder or more effectively to bring about the passage of the above quoted congressional resolution than the industrious immigrant from the British West Indies. Along with fellow nationalists and future Convention delegates George Washington, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, and James Madison, Hamilton worked diligently, in the years preceding the calling of the Federal Convention, to give the national government the power to tax (especially with the so-called Imposts of 1781 and 1783). When these efforts in Congress were thwarted, initially by the sole intransigence of Rhode Island and later by Rhode Island and Virginia, Hamilton, in collaboration with Madison, set about to gather support for the increasingly necessary idea, at least in their view, of overthrowing completely the ineffective Articles of Confederation and drafting a new national constitution. Their collaborative efforts eventually resulted in the calling of the so-called Mount Vernon Conference of 1785, out of which came the invitation sent to all thirteen states, to send representatives to the Annapolis Convention of September 1786. Out of the Annapolis Convention came the clarion call for the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. Chosen as a delegate from New York to the Constitutional Convention, which he had worked so long and hard to bring about, Hamilton rather surprisingly did not play a major role in the deliberations at the Pennsyl-

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vania State House (present-day Independence Hall). Hamilton's most notable contributions to the creation of the U.S. Constitution of 1787 were his pre-convention efforts to gather support for the calling of a Convention and his equally significant post-Convention endeavors to gain ratification of the finished document. It is, therefore, for his exertions before and after the Convention, rather than the somewhat insignificant part he played at the Convention itself, that Alexander Hamilton should be considered one of the major figures in the construction and adoption of the Constitution. Called "the bastard brat of a Scots peddler," by the always brutally frank and candid John Adams, Alexander Hamilton had risen from the humble origins suggested above, to become George Washington's most trusted political and financial advisor, the most effective spokesman for an energetic national government, the architect of a national financial program that brought about economic prosperity, and the controversial leader of the Federalist Party. His early and steady ascendancy to prominence started on the tiny island of Nevis in the British West Indies. Born January 11, 1755, the second child of Rachel Faucett Lavien and James Hamilton, the precocious Alexander, by dint of innate intelligence, diligence, a measure of luck, and the welcomed help of several mentors who recognized the potential for greatness in the almost hyperactive, young lad, took full advantage of all the opportunities to overcome the stigma of his illegitimacy, which in his day was considered an almost insurmountable obstacle to acceptance and respectability.2 From his father James Hamilton, Alexander claimed noble heritage. Born sometime before 1720 in Scotland, the father was believed, at least by the unduly sensitive young Alexander, to be the fourth son of Alexander Hamilton, Laird of Grange in Ayrshire and his wife Elizabeth. In 1736, the father migrated to the British West Indies with the hope of improving his financial situation. His mother Rachel, born in the late 1720s on Nevis in the Leeward Islands, was the daughter of John Faucett (a Huguenot physician and planter) and his wife Mary. In the mid-1740s, Rachel married Johann Michael Lavien, a wealthy merchant on the island of St. Croix in the Danish West Indies. This marriage was apparently an unhappy one since the young mother left her husband and child (a son Peter was born in 1746) in the early 1750s and took up housekeeping with James Hamilton. Now living out of wedlock with James, Rachel gave birth to two sons: James (born in 1753) and Alexander (born in 1755). In 1759, after years of what was evidently an unhappy union, Rachel was finally able to obtain a divorce from Johann Michael Lavien. Interestingly, the divorce decree forbade Rachel from remarrying. Thus, both Alexander and his brother James were considered "bastards" (to use Adams' descriptive phraseology) and were therefore subjected to the cruel opprobrium attached to that word and condition in the eighteenth century.

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In 1765, the apparent ne'er-do-well father James Hamilton abandoned his family for good. Left to raise her two young sons, Rachel opened up a store in Christiansted, selling supplies to local planters. Undoubtedly, this is where Alexander first learned the rudiments of business and finance. Rachel died in 1768 leaving her two sons to fend for themselves. Unfortunately for the two orphaned boys, Rachel's small estate had all gone to Peter Levien, her only legitimate son. James was apprenticed to a carpenter and Alexander became an apprentice-clerk in the mercantile firm of David Beekman and Nicholas Cruger. Cruger soon became the first of several mentors to the obviously talented, ambitious, and hardworking young, orphaned Alexander. In recognition of his maturity and business acumen, Cruger gave the management of his company to his young clerk during a prolonged absence on a trip to New York City. Hamilton's successful handling of the firm's business further convinced Cruger of the young man's manifold abilities and work ethic. In 1772, the 17-year-old Hamilton gained a measure of local fame with the publication of the first (of what would become later in his life a virtual avalanche) of his well-written, thoughtful pamphlets, essays, and letters. The so-called "Hurricane Letter," published October 3, in the Royal Danish American Gazette, described, in graphic terms, a devastating tropical storm that had destroyed much of St. Croix. This hurricane letter almost literally "blew Alexander Hamilton into history." Perhaps, because the business and educational opportunities were somewhat limited in the West Indies (e.g., there were no colleges or universities in the Isles) for a young man of Hamilton's potential, he was encouraged, and indeed given the funds necessary, by his mentors Nicholas Cruger and Hugh Knox, minister of the Presbyterian Church in Christiansted, to move to the North American mainland where opportunities abounded for talented and ambitious young men. Armed with letters of introduction written by Cruger to New York mercantile associates, and with the money raised by the Reverend Knox, Hamilton set sail for the mainland, never to return to his West Indian birthplace. Aided by the glowing letters of introduction written by Knox to Hamilton's future fellow-Convention delegate and Constitution signer William Livingston and to Elias Boudinot (both eminent barristers and politicians) and by Cruger to influential New York merchants, Hamilton gained entrance to Francis Barber's Presbyterian Academy in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. It was there that Hamilton began in earnest to study Greek and Latin, in preparation for admission to college. Rather audaciously, Hamilton sought admission to the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton University) in 1773 as a junior. Denied admission to the New Jersey college, one suspects by its crusty, tradition-bound Calvinistic president John Witherspoon, Hamilton applied and was admitted to King's College (present-day Columbia University) in 1774. With his roommate Robert Troup (who soon became his best and lifelong friend and confidant), the 19-year-

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old Alexander Hamilton entered into the serious study of Greek, Latin, anatomy, history, and mathematics. His quick mastery of practical mathematics would be particularly helpful when he entered the army as an artillery officer in 1776. At King's College, Hamilton studied the classical curriculum required at all nine of the colonial colleges. Thus, his course of study would have been very similar to that of his twenty-five future Philadelphia Convention colleagues who were university-educated. During his two and a half years as a student at King's College, the studious Hamilton read widely and deeply in the ancient Greek and Latin classics and also in, what then would have been, the modern history and moral philosophy. As a youth in the West Indies, Hamilton had studied enough French so as to become fluent in what was then considered the language of diplomacy and culture. This mastery of French would serve him well in later years, especially during the War of Independence when he served as a translator for General George Washington and other foreign-language-challenged Americans in their talks with French General Jean Baptiste Rochambeau, and his officers and men. With the addition of Greek and Latin to his language repertoire, Hamilton had gained fluency in the four languages (i.e., Greek, Latin, French, and English) considered necessary to be thought of as being well-educated and cultured in the English-speaking world of the eighteenth century—a noteworthy accomplishment for the "bastard brat of a Scots peddler." During his stint as a college student, Hamilton became increasingly involved in the growing radical movement against alleged British tyranny. In December 1774, he published his first anti-British pamphlet entitled A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Continental Congress. Written in response to Samuel Seabury's political polemic entitled Free Thoughts on Congress (a pamphlet that was highly critical of the First Continental Congress), the exuberant Hamilton cautioned his "Friends and Countrymen" to "beware of the men who advise you to forsake the plain path, marked out for you by the congress. They only mean to deceive and betray you. Our representatives in general assembly cannot take any wiser or better course to settle our differences, than our representatives in the continental congress have taken." 3 In this lengthy essay, Hamilton systematically and logically responded to most of Seabury's criticisms regarding the meeting and actions of the First Continental Congress. In early 1775, Seabury wrote a pamphlet in response to A Full Vindication. Quickly, the young Hamilton countered with The Farmer Refuted, in which he reiterated his views regarding the alleged perfidy of the British crown, ministry, and Parliament. With the publication of these two pamphlets, Alexander Hamilton embraced wholeheartedly the "radical" American side of the dispute with Great Britain. On May 10, 1775 (the same day the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia), Hamilton and his friend Robert Troup became in-

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volved in an incident, which demonstrated their sense of fair play and their aversion to mob violence and lawlessness. King's College President Myles Cooper (another one of Hamilton's mentors during the West Indian's first few years in America) was a known Loyalist who openly defended British actions in the early 1770s. Beset by an angry mob, which had it in mind to provide the beleaguered Loyalist with a free coat of tar and feathers, Cooper was saved that unwanted "gift" when Hamilton and Troup were able to dissuade the crowd, with impassionate speeches on their abhorrence of mob violence, from entering the college gate, long enough to allow the now fully frightened president to make good his escape. Thus is seen the first indication of Hamilton's lifelong antipathy to mob violence and his adherence to the rule of law. Alexander had long expressed his interest in things military. Even as a young apprentice-clerk in Beekman and Cruger's mercantile firm, he had exclaimed to a friend, "I wish there was a war!" Even while studying the classical curriculum at King's College, Hamilton somehow found time to study gunnery and join the New York provincial militia. In March 1776, the 21-year-old student dropped out of college (he never did receive an earned college degree) to accept appointment as commander (with the rank of captain) of a newly organized militia artillery company. As an artillery officer, Hamilton served ably and courageously, but without notable distinction, in many of the battles and skirmishes, in and around New York City as General Washington's ragtag army was driven out of the city in 1776. Hamilton's artillery company did play an important role in Washington's successful surprise attack on the Hessians at Trenton, New Jersey, in late December 1776. In the January 1777 Battle of Princeton, Hamilton's artillery unit participated in the bombardment of Nassau Hall at the college and, therefore, contributed to the morale-boosting American victory. These military actions brought the young militia captain to the attention of General Washington. Always looking to appoint capable young officers to his personal staff, Washington (perhaps upon the recommendation of William Livingston—another mentor, with whom Hamilton had boarded briefly after his initial arrival in New Jersey in 1772) appointed Hamilton as an aide-de-camp, with the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Continental army. Hamilton would remain in this staff position until 1781, when he was finally able to finagle a field command in time to take part in the climatic battle of Yorktown. The four years Hamilton spent as a member of Washington's military "family" ushered in the beginning of a lifelong association, which would prove repeatedly beneficial both to George Washington and to the talented, and always ambitious, Alexander Hamilton. This relationship between "The Father of His Country" and the young (he was twenty-three years younger than Washington) Hamilton has been likened to that of father and

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son. It is sometimes suggested (however, without convincing, hard evidence) that Hamilton often seemingly played the role of the "son" Washington never had (he was apparently sterile) and that Washington frequently acted as the "father" Hamilton never really had. Even though perhaps somewhat far-fetched, the characterization of the often-close relationship (there has never been, however, even a hint that it was in any way sexual) of these two revered Revolutionary War figures as that of "father" and "son" does describe in broad terms this obviously mutually advantageous association. Washington, at several crucial times in the younger man's life, appointed Hamilton or otherwise arranged for his appointment, most of the important military and political positions associated with Hamilton's name—positions in which his conspicuous talents were utilized for the undeniable benefit, not only of the appointee, but also for the person who made the appointment and for the larger community—be it city, state, or country. The older man appointed Hamilton as a military aide thus inaugurating what would become a distinguished, and politically helpful, military career. He supported openly (primarily in letters to influential politicians) Hamilton's efforts, in the 1780s, to strengthen the weak Confederation government and to bring about the calling of the Convention of 1787. He appointed his 33-year-old former aide-de-camp as the first secretary of the treasury (although it appears that Hamilton was Washington's second choice for that all-important position). Finally, Washington's influence was instrumental in securing for Hamilton the eagerly sought appointment as inspector general of the United Army (1798-1800) during the quasi-war with France. Thus, most of the more conspicuous and consequential positions and offices in which Hamilton demonstrated the competence, and even brilliance, usually associated with his name were obtained through the "good offices" of "father" George Washington. The advantages to Hamilton of this unique relationship are therefore evident. The benefits to Washington are also obvious. With the appointment of the 22-year-old artillery officer to his staff in 1777, the commander in chief obtained the valuable services of an individual who quickly became his official private secretary and closest official confidant, not only in military, but also in political and diplomatic matters. Certainly Hamilton's eminently successful 6-year tenure as secretary of the treasury reflected favorably on the president who appointed him and supported him wholeheartedly in his efforts to stabilize the country's tangled finances. Finally, Hamilton's appointment, engineered in large part by Washington over the wishes of President John Adams, as inspector general of the army (a position that really constituted the top active military post, since the nominal army commander was Washington himself and the former president, at the age of 66 and in failing health, was not about to assume an actual field command in case of open land hostilities) enabled Washington to have the

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honor of being named commander of the army without any real prospect of ever having to discharge the arduous duties normally attached to that physically and psychologically demanding position. As a member of Washington's inner official military "family," Alexander soon became disenchanted with his staff duties. Although he had become the commander's most trusted aide-de-camp (some would say Washington's virtual "alter ego"), Hamilton wanted a field command with which he could win fame and glory as a courageous combat soldier—something he had dreamed about since boyhood. Even in his staff position, Hamilton did witness fighting at the battle of Brandy wine Creek (September 1777) and the battle of Germantown (October 1777). Along with the depleted American army, Hamilton spent most of the winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge. With the welcomed coming of spring in 1778, Hamilton accompanied Washington at the, bloody but indecisive, battle of Monmouth Court House, where he witnessed the verbal confrontation between General Charles Lee and Washington. At Lee's subsequent court-martial for insubordination, Hamilton testified as a prosecution witness in support of Washington's attempt to reprimand or even to force Lee's resignation from the army for his inexplicable behavior during the hotly contested New Jersey battle. This confrontation between Charles Lee and George Washington, although only an interesting sideshow to the main battle of Monmouth Court House, did lead to Hamilton's first participation in a duel. Hamilton's talented aide-de-camp colleague John Laurens, taking umbrage to remarks made by General Lee on Washington's character and conduct during the aforementioned battle, challenged Lee to a duel. Hamilton served as his good friend's second in the encounter in which Lee was wounded. During what were for him the frustrating years as a mere staff officer (1777-1781), Hamilton repeatedly requested to be transferred to a field command—requests to which Washington steadfastly refused to honor claiming that he was an indispensable member of his staff. Washington's official "family," with Hamilton as its acknowledged leader, was an exceeding talented group of young, ambitious, devoted officers. It included, besides the meteoric Hamilton, such notables as John Laurens, Tench Tilghman, and the Marquis de Lafayette. That Alexander Hamilton was able to become the "indispensable" member of such a talented group gives a clear indication as to his value, to his military mentor, and to the Patriot cause. The one "bump" in the otherwise long-time harmonious relationship between the aide-de-camp and his commander occurred in February 1781, when the increasingly desperate Hamilton, rather foolishly, precipitated a temporary break with Washington that led to a field command and the military "fame and glory," long sought by the increasingly frustrated young staff officer. Most of what is known about the verbal confrontation is contained in a letter written by Hamilton and therefore is really only his side

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of the controversy. At the 1781 winter encampment, Washington apparently said he wanted to speak to Hamilton. The young man said yes, but first wanted to deliver a letter to a colleague. After delivering the missive, Hamilton ran into the Marquis de Lafayette, with whom he evidently had a somewhat extended conversation. Then, Hamilton returned to encounter what can only be described as an enraged Washington. "Colonel Hamilton," the general was reported to have said, "you have kept me waiting at the head of the stairs these ten minutes. I must tell you, sir, you treat me with disrespect." In response, Hamilton allegedly claimed to have said "I am not conscious of it, Sir, but since you have thought it necessary to tell me so, we part." Much to his credit, Washington passed the unseemly incident off as the result of unthinking impatience, on the part of Hamilton, at not securing the much-desired field command and did not press charges of insubordination and disrespect of a superior officer. Later, Washington magnanimously, and certainly unnecessarily, apologized to his imprudent, temporarily disrespectful, young staff officer and even gave the overly eager Hamilton the field command of a New York and Connecticut light infantry battalion, which enabled the young colonel to participate in and win "fame and glory" at the battle of Yorktown in the late summer and early fall of 1781. Most notably, on October 14, Colonel Hamilton courageously led the successful infantry assault on the British Redoubt Number 10, thus making certain that Lord Cornwallis would be unable to defend his increasingly precarious position. The fall of Redoubt Number 9 to the French and of Redoubt Number 10 to Hamilton led directly to Lord Cornwallis's surrender of his entire command to General Washington on October 19. Hamilton's fearless (fool-hardy?), but successful bayonet charge on Redoubt Number 10 gained for the still youthful, 26-year-old New Yorker the reputation as a warrior, which he had long sought. Soon after the devastating British defeat that signaled the end of large-scale fighting, Hamilton left the army and returned to New York City and to his recently acquired bride, Elizabeth Schuyler. Hamilton's December 14, 1780, marriage to the daughter of the politically and socially prominent General Philip Schuyler provided him with valuable political connections, social status, wealth, and entrance to the aristocratic salons of New York. During his 24-year marriage, Hamilton proved to be, with one notable exception, a devoted husband and father. The one substantiated scandal of his life was a torrid and unseemly love affair in the 1790s with a Maria Reynolds. Hamilton was forced to confess this transgression publicly to disprove a charge of financial wrongdoing while serving as President Washington's first secretary of the treasury. In what has been called the "Reynolds Pamphlet," Hamilton embarrassingly published his account of what was a sordid affair. "The charge against me," he wrote in July 1797,

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is a connection with one James Reynolds for purposes of improper pecuniary speculation. My real crime is an amorous connection with his wife, for a considerable time with his privity and connivance, if not originally brought on by a combination between the husband and wife with the design to extort money from me. This confession is not made without a blush. I cannot be the apologist of any vice because the ardour of passion may have made it mine. I can never cease to condemn myself for the pang, which it may inflict in a bosom eminently intitled to all my gratitude, fidelity, and love. But that bosom will approve, that even at so great an expence, I should effectually wipe away a more serious stain from a name, which it cherishes with no less elevation than tenderness. The public too will I trust excuse the confession. The necessity of it to my defence against a more heinous charge could alone have extorted from me so painful an indecorum.4

His marriage, despite the "Reynolds" aberration, was overwhelmingly one of genuine love and mutual respect. To this couple were born eight children: two daughters (Angelica—born in 1784 and Eliza-born in 1799) and six sons (Philip—born in 1782, Alexander—born in 1786, James Alexander—born in 1788, John Church—born in 1792, William Stephenborn in 1797, and Philip [named for the first child who was tragically killed in a duel with a supporter of political enemy Aaron Burr in 1801]—born in 1802). Up to his untimely death, Hamilton maintained a close, caring, loving relationship with all of his children. His many long and loving letters to his progeny attest to his parental love and devotion. They all in turn were devoted to their father and even well after his death in 1804, defended in print his policies and actions. Back in New York City, Hamilton, like many of his talented colleagues, turned to the study of the law. After only six months of intense study, he was admitted to the New York bar and embarked on what would soon become a distinguished legal career. While establishing a busy, but not overly lucrative legal practice, the somewhat brash, still youthful barrister published a legal manual entitled Practical Proceedings in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, in which he demonstrated a clarity of written expression and the rare ability to condense, logically, a mass of factual information. These abilities were to serve him well in both his legal and political careers. As a young lawyer in New York City, Hamilton joined the most distinguished group of practicing barristers in America. Despite his relative inexperience in legal matters and young age, he soon was able to hold his own legally with such eminent notables as John Jay, Aaron Burr, James Duane, and Robert R. Livingston. In the 1780s, Hamilton built up his legal practice and entered the po-

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litical arena. Elected in 1782 to the first of what would eventually be four terms in the morbid and ineffectual Confederation Congress, he increasingly decried the weakness of the national government under the Articles of Confederation. He therefore became one of the leaders of a small group of nationalists, who worked to give the central government the power to tax and then, when that became unattainable, to overthrow the country's first fundamental governing charter altogether. Thus, Hamilton joined his military and political mentor George Washington, his fellow New Yorkers John Jay and Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, and his financial mentor Robert Morris in the growing nationalistic movement, which led slowly but directly to the calling of the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention in 1787. With the collaboration of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton was responsible for the calling of the Annapolis Convention of September 1786. Actually called at the invitation of the Virginia legislature after the abortive Mount Vernon Conference of 1785, the Annapolis Convention was an important, perhaps necessary, step on the way to the Constitutional Convention. Five states (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) sent delegates to the Maryland state capitol. Seven of the twelve representatives (William Churchill Houston of New Jersey, George Read, Richard Bassett, and John Dickinson of Delaware, Edmund Randolph and James Madison of Virginia, and of course Alexander Hamilton of New York) would serve as delegates to the Philadelphia Convention. The sparse attendance convinced the twelve attending representatives that it would be impractical to proceed further to a study of the alleged reasons for the calling of the meeting (i.e., to address interstate political and commercial problems). However, before disbanding, they adopted an address to all thirteen states. Drafted by Hamilton, it called upon the states to send delegates to a new convention, which would meet in Philadelphia on the second Monday of May 1787 to discuss not only commercial problems but also all matters necessary "to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." Thus it was that Hamilton had written what would become the clarion call for the Constitutional Convention of 1787. On March 16, 1787, the New York state legislature voted to appoint John Lansing, Jr., Robert Yates, and Alexander Hamilton as commissioners to the upcoming Philadelphia Convention. In arranging the appointment of Lansing and Yates (both political lieutenants of the long-time, powerful chief executive of New York), Governor George Clinton made sure that Hamilton (a bitter political enemy) would be outvoted within the New York delegation and therefore New York would be in a position to hamper, and even completely sabotage, the Convention's well-known nationalistic predilections. To ensure his complete dominance of the New York delegation, Clinton had inserted in the commissioners' instructions a

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provision that required the concurrence of at least two delegation members before New York could vote. In fact, that is exactly what transpired. Lansing and Yates could, and in fact did, repeatedly and effectively nullify Hamilton's vote. Thus, when Lansing and Yates left for New York on July 10, New York was effectively deprived of its vote and of any measurable influence at the Convention. At the age of 32, Hamilton had already acquired an enviable reputation as a valuable member of General Washington's military "family" and courageous combat leader, as a successful lawyer, and as an energetic legislator. During the Convention, Georgia delegate William Pierce wrote pithy, often informative biographical sketches of his fellow conventioneers. In what was one of his longest portraits, He noted, Colo. Hamilton is deservedly celebrated for his talents. He is a practitioner of the Law, and reputed to be a finished Scholar. To a clear and strong judgment he unites the ornaments of fancy, and whilst he is able, convincing, and engaging in his eloquence the Heart and Head sympathize in approving him. Yet there is something too feeble in his voice to be equal to the strains of oratory;—it is my opinion that he is rather a convincing Speaker, than a blazing Orator. Colo. Hamilton requires time to think—he inquires into every part of his subject with the searchings of philosophy, and when he comes forward he comes highly charged with interesting matters, there is no skimming over the surface of a subject with him, he must sink to the bottom to see what foundation it rests on.—His language is not always equal, sometimes didactic like Bolingbroke's at others light and tripping like Stern's. His eloquence is not so defusive as to trifle with the senses, but he rambles just enough to strike and keep up the attention. He is about 33 years old, of small stature, and lean. His manners are tinctured with stiffness, and sometimes with a degree of vanity that is highly disagreeable. Interestingly, the French charge d'affaires in the United States (Louis Guillaume Otto), in his report on the Constitutional Convention, apparently written in 1788, to the French secretary of foreign affairs (Count Armand Marc de Montmorin), described the transiently brilliant Hamilton in terms similar to those of Pierce. In his most insightful portrayal of any of the "most interesting personages from the different States," Otto noted that the New Yorker was a Great orator; intrepid in public debates. Zealous and even exasperated partisan of the new Constitution and declared enemy of Governor Clinton, whom he had the courage to publicly attack in the Gazettes, without any provocation. He is one of these rare men who

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distinguishes himself equally on the battlefield and at the bar (law). He owes all to his talents. An indiscretion caused a split between him and Washington, for whom he was the secretary of trust; other indiscretions obliged him to leave Congress in 1783. He has too many pretensions and too little prudence. Here is w h a t . . . Lucerne said of him in 1780: "Mr. Hamilton, one of the aids of camp for Washington has the most of the rising star in him; man of spirit, of a mediocre integrity; estranged from the English because of being from a very low extraction in one of their colonies, he fears coming back to his former State. Special friend of Monsieur de La Fayette. Monsieur Conway thinks that Hamilton hates the French, that he is absolutely corrupted and that the relationships that he would appear to have with us would always be deceptive." Mr. Hamilton has done nothing which would be able to justify this last opinion; he is only too impetuous, and due to wanting to control everything, he misses his objective. His eloquence is often out of season in public debates, where one prefers precision and clarity to a brilliant imagination. One believes that Mr. Hamilton is the author of the pamphlet entitled the 'Federalist.' He has yet again missed his aim. This work has no usefulness to educated people, and it is too wise and too long for the ignorant. It has however given him great celebrity, and one has named the 'Hamilton' a little frigate which, in; the great federal procession one has dragged in the streets of New York. But these parades are only here as elsewhere an impression and like the party of the AntiFederalists is the most numerous in the State, Mr. Hamilton has rather lost than won by the zeal he has deployed on this occasion. Stranger in this State, where he was raided by charity, Mr. Hamilton found the means of taking away the daughter of Schuyler, kidnappings are more common in America than in France, the parents were angry at first, they softened up and reconciled at the end of several months. Everyone is interested in these kinds of marriage, since they appeared to be more in accordance with the first impulsion of nature, great landowner and very influential. After having been reconciled with the family, he now enjoys the credit of his father-in-law.5 At the Convention, Hamilton did not play the prominent role expected of one who had worked so long and so eagerly to bring about its calling. His attendance was sporadic at best. He apparently arrived in Philadelphia on May 18. Therefore, he did attend the first official Convention meeting on Friday, May 25 and was regular in his attendance thereafter until June 29. During the period June 29 to August 11 or 12, he was at home in New York City practicing law and enjoying the company of his ever-growing family. He returned briefly to Philadelphia in mid-August, but only spent a few days there before returning to New York, to his increasingly busy

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law practice. Significantly, Hamilton did return to the Convention on September 6 and thus was there on September 17 to sign the Constitution. The reasons for his irregular Convention attendance were varied. As one of the younger delegates, he might well have considered it difficult, or inappropriate, to seek a leadership role when there were, in attendance from other states, older men of talent, experience, and enviable reputation. As the Convention convened, it was generally expected that George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Dr. William Samuel Johnson, Robert Morris, James Madison, John Rutledge, John Dickinson, George Wythe, and George Mason would provide the leadership and knowledge needed to amend the Articles or draft an entirely new fundamental governing charter. Also Hamilton was unable to play a more prominent role, because his two New York colleagues were states' rights advocates who could, and did, thwart at every turn the New York delegation's attempt to support the nationalistic measures of Madison, Wilson, and Gouverneur Morris. Finally, Hamilton's extreme nationalistic political views, indeed his whole political philosophy, put him at odds with those of most of his more moderate nationalistic Convention colleagues. On three separates occasions, however, Alexander Hamilton did meaningfully participate and thus assert a measure of influence during the proceedings. On the first day, he was appointed, along with Charles Pinckney and George Wythe, to the Rules Committee. As such, he was largely responsible for establishing the rules under which the Convention operated, including that of meeting in secret, that seven states should be considered a quorum, that "all questions should be decided by a majority of the States which shall be fully represented," and "that the house may not be precluded by a vote upon any question from revising the subject matter of it, when they see cause; nor, on the other hand, be led too hastily to rescind a decision which was the result of mature discussion."6 The second exception to Hamilton playing a passive role occurred on June 18. In what was probably the longest speech of the entire Convention, Hamilton spoke for almost five hours putting forth an eleven-point plan of government that reflected his deeply felt, conservative political philosophy. Obviously the result of much preparation and effort, the New Yorker's speech indicated his opposition to both the Virginia Plan (presented on May 29) and the New Jersey Plan (presented on June 15). His oration was received with silence and amazement. Interestingly, his audacious proposal was not referred to a committee, nor was it seconded by any delegate for possible later Convention discussion. Hamilton probably realized that his extreme nationalistic views would not be supported by his colleagues, but hoped his speech would aid the large-state nationalists in their efforts to create a strong central government and help thwart the states' rights proponents in their endeavors to retain the essential features of the Articles of Confederation.

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In his lengthy discourse, Hamilton explained in great detail why the country needed a strong national government. He then went on to state categorically his opposition to both plans then before the Convention, but especially his absolute disapproval of the states' rights New Jersey Plan. In their place, he presented what could be called the Hamiltonian Plan. It called for a single chief executive, who would be chosen for all practical purposes for life; a two-house national legislature, the upper chamber, of which the members would be named by electors chosen by the people, and lower house members elected by the people for three years; and a national judiciary that would have the power to declare any national law unconstitutional. He went on to propose, what would have meant, the virtual elimination of the individual states as viable, independent political entities when he advocated giving the president the authority to appoint state governors and the power to veto all local and state laws. During what Gouverneur Morris called one of the most able and impressive speeches he had ever heard, Hamilton praised the British government as being "the best in the world" and that he doubted "any things short of it would do in America." Hamilton's plan of government was totally ignored because of its extreme conservatism and because it had no chance of being accepted by either his fellow Convention delegates or by the American people. His favorable remarks regarding the British government also were not well received by his colleagues, many of whom had played significant roles in the late war against that government.7 The third instance of Hamilton's consequential participation in the Convention proceedings occurred when he was "appointed by ballot" on September 8 to the all-important Committee of Style and Arrangement, which was given the task "to revise the stile of and arrange the articles which had been agreed to by the House." 8 This committee actually wrote, in draft form, what emerged from the Convention on September 17 as the U.S. Constitution. Hamilton's appointment to this committee clearly indicated that his colleagues thought highly of his abilities and that they considered him one of the leaders in the whole nationalistic movement, which culminated in the ratification of the fundamental governing charter so laboriously drafted in the summer of 1787. The committee consisting of Dr. William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut (chairman), Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, Rufus King of Massachusetts, James Madison of Virginia, and Alexander Hamilton of New York, was composed of those Convention delegates who were known and admired for their writing abilities. Although the distinguished legal scholar Dr. Johnson was designated chairman of the committee, it appeared that Gouverneur Morris did most of the re-arranging of the twenty-three articles previously agreed to into the seven articles in the final draft.9 However, Hamilton, never one to shirk his duty or avoid the opportunity to demonstrate his obvious talent for effective written discourse, undoubtedly contributed within the committee to

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the writing of the final draft. The draft constitution, as it emerged from this committee, represented, in the main, the nationalistic views of all five of the committee members. Although Hamilton objected to some of the features of the committee's draft, he willingly signed the finished document on September 17 and afterwards led the fight for ratification both in New York and throughout the country.10 The reasons why Hamilton did not influence more profoundly the Convention's deliberations are threefold. For one thing, his lengthy absences from Philadelphia were often during the crucial times when the most significant and far-reaching measures were debated and agreed to. Secondly, his political philosophy (especially his wellknown and often stated distrust of the masses and his extreme nationalism) placed him outside of the mainstream of late-eighteenth-century American political thought. And finally, his failure to exert more influence at the Convention was due to personality and tactics. Particularly, his oft-displayed vanity was frequently his undoing. Hamilton's main contributions to what could be referred to as the "Constitutional Revolution of 1787" were twofold. More than any other single individual, even James Madison, Alexander Hamilton was responsible for the calling of the Convention. Initially there were his efforts, unsuccessful to be sure, to amend drastically the morbid Articles of Confederation. When those efforts failed, he penned the resolution that came out of the Annapolis Convention of 1786, of which he was the most active member, inviting all of the thirteen states to send representatives to what became the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. Perhaps of even more significance were his Herculean efforts to secure ratification of the Constitution. In private letters to influential leaders in many of the states and in published political tracts, Hamilton extolled the virtues of the proposed charter and usually persuasively answered the concerns of those who opposed ratification. Most notably, he conceived of the plan to publish a series of pamphlets that would explain simply, and in positive terms, the fundamental organic law drafted in Philadelphia. Enlisting the aid of fellow New Yorker John Jay (who wrote five of the eighty-five essays) and James Madison (who wrote some thirty-nine essays including the oft-quoted Federalist Number ten), Hamilton painstakingly explained, at times in almost excessive detail, in the fifty-one essays attributed to him, just why the Constitution of 1787 should be ratified. Written initially to influence the vote in the New York Ratifying Convention, The Federalist Papers probably influenced few of the largely Anti-Federalist delegates to the Poughkeepsie meeting. However, these thoughtful, generally well-written essays remain the best commentary now available on the Constitution of 1787, and are still read with profit. In the new national government established by the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton played a major role. To nobody's surprise, Hamilton's mentor and benefactor George Washington was unanimously elected the first president in 1788. Also non-surprisingly, Washington appointed his former

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aide-de-camp to be his first Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton's involvement in the founding of the Bank of New York in 1784, his oft-stated and widely known advocacy of establishing a strong, energetic national government, and his long-time friendship with "The Father of his Country" make Hamilton's appointment as finance minister almost inevitable, although there is speculation that Washington's close friend Robert Morris ("the financier of the Revolution") was his initial choice for this allimportant post. However, when Morris refused the apparent invitation to resume the office of "superintendent of finance" (a position he did hold from 1781-1784 in the Confederation government), Washington turned once again to utilize Hamilton's obvious administrative and financial abilities. It is for his financial program as secretary of the treasury that Hamilton is deservedly remembered and honored. Shortly after his appointment to the treasury post, Hamilton was instructed by the House of Representatives to propose "an adequate provision for the support of public credit" and "to prepare a plan for that purpose." In four brilliantly written reports, the still youthful New Yorker proposed an economic program that, when largely implemented, brought about a period of financial prosperity and stability. Simply stated, Hamilton's financial program consisted of four parts: funding, assumption, national excise tax, and the establishment of the first bank of the United States. By 1791, this far-reaching program was in place. The major consequences were threefold. First, the country was soon on the road to economic prosperity and public credit was fully restored. Secondly, this program forged an alliance between the new national government and the banking/commercial interests, primarily of the north. Finally, this financial program was the cause for the emergence of political factions, which, by the time of the presidential election of 1796, had evolved into identifiable political parties. Thus, somewhat ironically, Alexander Hamilton, a long-time and vociferous critic of factionalism, was at least partially responsible for the emergence of the present two-party system. In 1795, Hamilton resigned as secretary of the treasury and returned to his family and New York City law practice. Although now a private citizen, he maintained a keen interest in public affairs and indeed at times served as an unofficial confidant to President Washington. As such, he wrote most of Washington's oft-quoted Farewell Address. His last ten years, however, were increasingly unhappy ones. In 1798, he secured the appointment from a reluctant President John Adams as inspector general of the army with the rank of major general during the quasi-war with France. When Adams opted for peace rather than a continuation of the ill-advised shooting war with the former ally, there appeared a division in the Federalist Party between the Adams moderates and the Hamiltonian high federalists. This split in the up-to-now dominant Federalist Party opened the way for a Republican election victory in 1800.

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Hamilton's role in the controversial election of 1800 was a curious one. Although publicly he supported the federalist ticket of John Adams for president and former Convention colleague Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina for vice president, he privately circulated a letter in which he criticized Adams. Then, when it was learned that there was an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, Hamilton was forced to make a choice between supporting either his former cabinet rival Jefferson or his long-time and bitter New York adversary Aaron Burr. To the surprise of many, Hamilton supported Jefferson, thus helping to ensure his former cabinet opponent's election as the country's third president. This open support for Jefferson against his political enemy Burr only intensified an already thriving rivalry between these two talented New Yorkers. This mutual antagonism became more intense when, in 1801, Hamilton's oldest son Philip was killed in a duel with a supporter of Vice President Burr. After Burr's election defeat in the New York gubernatorial race of 1804, this rivalry reached a crescendo, when the vice president challenged Hamilton to a duel for critical remarks made during the campaign. Specifically, Hamilton denounced his long-time enemy as "a man of irregular and insatiable ambition who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government." Hamilton, somewhat surprisingly, agreed to the challenge and the result was the most famous duel in American history. Details of the July 11, 1804, duel are not fully known, but Hamilton, who apparently wasted his one shot, was fatally wounded and died the following day (July 12). With his untimely death at the age of 49, Alexander Hamilton achieved a degree of martyrdom, whereas Burr (seemingly the "winner" of the bloody confrontation) was ruined politically and was eventually forced into a four-year exile in Europe. At his funeral, Hamilton was eulogized as a courageous warrior, financial genius, and political realist. Along with George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton deservedly should be considered a giant in an age of giants. Fittingly, he is buried in the Trinity Churchyard in New York City, near the symbolic center of America's financial capital—Wall Street.11

NOTES 1. Resolution of the Congress of the Confederation adopted February 21, 1787. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787((New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), l:xi. 2. Hamilton apparently believed, as a youth, that he had been born in 1757, but a 1768 probate document confirms 1755 as his birth year. Joanne B. Freeman, ed., Alexander Hamilton: Writings (New York: The Library of America, 2001), 1035. 3. Ibid., 10-43. 4. Ibid., 888. 5. Farrand, 3:234-235.

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6. Ibid., 1:15-16. 7. Madison's summary of Hamilton's speech is probably the most reliable. See Farrand, 1:282-293. 8. Farrand, 2:553. 9. The two most reliable sources consulted to substantiate the fact that Gouverneur Morris was probably the main draftsman of the Committee of Style and Arrangement's final report are two letters written long after the Convention. In a letter written to Timorthy Pickering in 1814, the never bashful, but usually honest and candid Morris stated categorically that the Constitution "was written by the fingers which write this letter." Madison, in an 1831 letter to historian Jared Sparks stated that "The finish given to the style and arrangement of the Constitution fairly belongs to the pen of Mr. Morris." Charles Warren, The Making of the Constitution (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1937), 687. 10. For September 17, Madison's notes contain a summary of Hamilton's concluding speech in which the New Yorker "expressed his anxiety that every member should sign. . . . No man's ideas were more remote from the plan than his own were known to be; but is it possible to deliberate between anarchy and Convulsion on one side, and the chance of good to be expected from the plan on the other." Farrand, 2:645-646. 11. Among the many recently published lengthy biographies of the enigmatic Hamilton, Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton is among the most readable and detailed. However, it contains an unverified inference regarding Hamilton's heritage and the suggestion, totally unsubstantiated, that the young Hamilton may have had homosexual relations with a close male friend.

WILLIAM CHURCHILL HOUSTON (1746>-1788) Born in either 1745 or 1746 in the Poplar Tent neighborhood of Cabarrus County, North Carolina, William Churchill Houston was expected to play an important, although not necessarily a major, role at the Constitutional Convention. He was well educated. He had also served in the military during the War of Independence and in both the New Jersey House of Assembly and the Continental Congress (as deputy secretary and as an elected member). Thus, he possessed the necessary attributes of an excellent education and valuable political and military experience that would have enabled him to contribute in a meaningful way to the drafting of a new constitution. Unfortunately, illness greatly limited his attendance in Philadelphia to only a couple of weeks. He was in attendance on Friday, May 25 (the first official session), but because of a severe case of tuberculosis was forced to leave June 6, never to return. There is little doubt that Houston would have been, if he had been able to "stay the course," an asset to the talented New Jersey delegation. He was, among the fifty-five attendees, one of the better educated. As a young man, he studied the classics thought necessary for admission to college. Around the age of 18, he entered the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton University) and was graduated in 1768. As a College of New Jersey graduate, Houston thus became one of the many future delegates to the Philadelphia Convention who was thoroughly conversant with Greek, Latin, history, moral philosophy, and theology. The studious Houston must have favorably impressed his tutors and the trustees of the college. Thus, immediately upon graduation, he was appointed as the head master of the college grammar school, and then, as its tutor. In 1771, Houston was appointed professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at his alma mater thus becoming, when chosen as a delegate, one of the few professors at the Convention. During the latter years

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of the Revolution, Houston also found time to study the law and was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1781. As a well-trained barrister and a college professor, Houston was well-prepared educationally to participate in the deliberations in Philadelphia. Also, Houston was well-prepared by dint of his military and legislative experience to be a constitution-maker. In 1775, he was appointed deputy secretary (to secretary Charles Thomson) of the Continental Congress. Soon after American independence was declared in July 1776, he was appointed captain in the Second Regiment of the Somerset County, New Jersey, militia. His militia unit saw significant action in the January 1777 battle of Princeton. Simultaneously, to his brief military career, he served a term as a member of the New Jersey Provincial Congress (1776) and then in the newly constituted New Jersey House of Assembly {1777-1779). In 1778, he additionally sat as a member of the New Jersey Council of Safety. Late in the war, he served as a New Jersey delegate to the Continental Congress (1779-1781). As a dedicated Patriot, Houston was indeed exceedingly and effectively active, both militarily and politically, in the struggle for American independence. In the early 1780s, having passed the New Jersey bar, Houston commenced the practice of law in Trenton, New Jersey. Like many of his fellow future Framers did, he not only practiced law, but also became ever more active politically in the post-war period. From 1782-1785, he served as the receiver of Continental taxes, from 1781-1788 as clerk of the supreme court of New Jersey, and from 1784-1785 again as a delegate to the Continental Congress. His selection as a New Jersey representative to the 1786 Annapolis Convention was an indication that Houston was at least a mild nationalist who saw the obvious need to give the national government additional powers, by either adding amendments to the Articles or drafting a completely new constitution. Like many of his compatriots, Houston's military experience and service in the Continental Congress had fostered in him a feeling of nationalism and the awareness that he was now an American citizen—not just a citizen of New Jersey. As one of the twelve representatives, which met in the Maryland capital in September 1786, Houston undoubtedly endorsed the Convention's call to meet the following spring in Philadelphia "to render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." As a small-state nationalist, Houston would have been a valuable ally at the Convention to John Dickinson, George Read, Oliver Ellsworth, and the others who favored the creation of a "true federal" system of government. His lamentable illness and early departure deprived the Convention of the services of an articulate and intelligent voice. Had he been in attendance on September 17, 1787, he would have undoubtedly joined his four fellow delegates from New Jersey in signing the finished document.

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At the tender age of 42 (or 43) Houston succumbed to tuberculosis on August 12, 1788, in Frankford, Pennsylvania, leaving to his wife Jane the formidable task of raising their two daughters and two sons. It can rightly be said of William Churchill Houston that his life was one of unfulfilled promise.

WILLIAM HOUSTOUN (1755-1813) As the son of Sir Patrick Houstoun, William enjoyed the prerogatives and advantages that many of the rich and well-born considered their birthright. As a young lad, he was sent to England to receive a liberal education. At age 21 in 1776, he was admitted to London's Inner Temple. However, he soon interrupted his legal studies to return to Savannah, Georgia, where he quickly became involved in the anti-British resistance movement. He became one of the first prominent Georgians to oppose, what he considered the illegal, the unconstitutional actions of George III, the Lord North Ministry, and the Parliament. During the Revolutionary War, William kept a relatively low profile since, for much of the time, Georgia was under the control of the British. He practiced law and helped the colonial cause in small, inconspicuous ways. His father had been a member of the British royal governor's council before the war, and when war broke out, many of his kinsmen remained loyal to the crown. However, William remained steadfast in quietly championing the colonial cause. With the coming of peace, Houstoun was elected, in 1784, to the Continental Congress where he served until 1787. During his time in Congress, he also was appointed one of the agents from Georgia to settle the boundary between his home state and the neighboring South Carolina. As an indication of the esteem in which he was held, and because of the notable success as a barrister, and an enviable educational background, he was appointed as one of the Georgia delegates to the Philadelphia Convention. Fellow delegate William Pierce portrayed Houstoun in less than flattering terms when he wrote: "Mr. Houstoun is an Attorney at Law, and has been Member of Congress for the State of Georgia. He is a Gentleman of Family, and was educated in England. As to his legal or political knowledge he has very little to boast of. Nature seems to have done more for his

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corporeal than mental powers. His Person is striking, but his mind very little improved with useful or elegant knowledge. He has none of the talents requisite for the Orator, but in public debate is confused and irregular. Mr. Houstoun is about 30 years of age of an amiable and sweet temper, and of good and honorable principles." 1 This appraisal of Houstoun's talents (or lack thereof) perhaps helps to explain his relative inactivity while attending the Convention. Houstoun was the first of the four Georgia delegates to take his seat at the Convention, arriving on June 1 in the midst of the acrimonious debate over the volatile issue of whether the chief executive for the proposed new government should be single or plural. Apparently, he did not participate in the sometimes-rancorous debates leading up to the narrow passage of the Great Compromise (i.e., the debate between small-state nationalists and large-state nationalists) on July 16, but seemingly, usually, deferred to his more experienced and better known Georgia colleagues to present the case for their state. However, he did cast a significant vote on July 2 when his "no" cancelled Abraham Baldwin's "yes" in the two-member Georgia delegation then in attendance, thereby negating the state's vote on the important issue of "allowing each State one vote in the Second branch" of the national legislature.2 Thus, this early Convention vote on the crucial motion of an equal voice for each state in at least one chamber of congress was defeated in a 5-5 vote. Houstoun apparently voted against the "Great Compromise" on July 16, thus helping to ensure that Georgia would be one of the four states that voted against that momentous compromise. Shortly after this large-state nationalist's defeat, Houstoun left the Convention for good. Probably, although it is not known for sure, Houstoun's early departure signaled his dissatisfaction with the growing dominance of the small states at the Convention. Although Georgia was, in 1787, relatively sparsely populated, it was one of the largest states geographically. It confidently looked forward to the time when it would join Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia as one of the larger, more populous states. The large states, throughout the summer, steadfastly favored proportional representation in both houses of Congress. Therefore, as a would-be large state, Georgia frequently voted for policies favorable to large states. However, the Georgia delegates, to a man, were always nationalistic. The major reason for this was that they wanted the creation of a national government strong enough to render military aid to this frontier state in case of Indian incursions or invasion from Spanish Florida. This probably explains, as well as anything, the sometimes quixotic votes of William Houstoun and his colleagues William Pierce and William Few (Abraham Baldwin was the one Georgia delegate who usually favored small-state nationalistic positions). Along with Pierce, who left the Convention on July 2, returned on August 6, and departed again for good on August 25, Houstoun did not sign (and therefore seemingly did not fully approve of) the Constitution.

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Houstoun spent the post-Convention years as a practicing attorney in Savannah, and as one of the original trustees for the establishment of what became the University of Georgia at Athens. He died March 17, 1813, in Savannah and was eulogized as a worthy public servant and educator. However, because of his inconspicuous role at the Constitutional Convention, he was not memorialized as one of the more influential or revered Framers. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:97. 2. Ibid., 1:510.

JARED INGERSOLL (1749-1822) Jared Ingersoll was first and foremost a lawyer of great renown. Born October 24, 1749, in New Haven, Connecticut, Jared received the best precollege classical education then available in colonial Connecticut. At an early age, he gained admission to Yale College and was graduated in 1766. As the son of Jared Ingersoll, Sr. (a high official in the British colonial service, and during the American Revolution an acknowledged Loyalist), the younger Ingersoll followed his father into the legal profession. In 1771, both father and son moved to Philadelphia, where young Jared helped his father to establish what became a thriving legal practice. No doubt, with the encouragement of his father, Jared took up the study of the law and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1773. With the approach of the War of Independence and his father's wellknown adherence to the British monarchy and to British colonial policies, both Jared and his father thought it would be prudent, if he would continue his legal studies in England. Therefore, in 1773, the 23-year-old colonial barrister set sail for London to study at the prestigious Middle Temple. After completing this advanced legal training in 1776, Jared embarked upon a two-year grand tour of western Europe, although spending much of the time in Paris. As a Middle Templar, Jared had received, what was probably, the best legal training available to a provincial American. With these credentials (practical legal training in Philadelphia followed by a more theoretical course at the Inns of Court in Great Britain), Jared Ingersoll would, upon his return to Philadelphia in 1778, quickly rise to first rank at the Philadelphia bar. In an informal partnership with the well-known and highly respected barrister and politician Joseph Reed, Jared almost inevitably entered the political arena. In 1780, he was elected to the Continental Congress, where he served for two years without notable distinction. Even during his most active years in politics, Ingersoll continued to prac-

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tice law. In 1781, he married Elizabeth Pettit with whom he would have at least three children. During the late 1760s through to the 1780s, Jared Ingersoll's political beliefs underwent a metamorphosis. Over the turbulent anti-British crisis period of the late 1760s and early 1770s, young Jared, no doubt greatly influenced by his father, whom he greatly admired, had Loyalist leanings. Especially during those exciting times that followed the Boston Massacre of 1770, the passage of the Tea Act, and Parliament's enactment of the Coercive Acts of 1774, he seemed to abhor the violence and illegal actions perpetrated by some radical American groups—especially those practiced against British colonial officials and proprietary officials in Pennsylvania. However, during his extended stay in Europe (1774-1778), his political thinking changed to such an extent that upon his return to America he enthusiastically embraced the Patriot cause. His growing renown as a legal practitioner and his wholehearted and obvious conversion to the American cause was no doubt responsible, at least in part, for his somewhat surprising election to Congress, just two years after his return to America. Also, most certainly during his brief congressional career, Ingersoll saw the deficiencies and weaknesses of the national government under the Articles of Confederation. Thus, he slowly became a nationalist philosophically. His prominence as a barrister and his increasingly well-known conviction that the Articles of Confederation were inadequate led to his selection, in late December 1786, as one of the original seven Pennsylvania delegates to the Constitutional Convention. 1 Ingersoll attended his first Convention session on Monday, May 28. During the summer, he apparently attended every scheduled Convention meeting, but spoke only infrequently. As far as can be ascertained, he usually voted with a majority of his Pennsylvania colleagues for measures favorable to large states and to the enhancement of national power, even if it had to be granted at the expense of individual state autonomy and independence. He wholeheartedly supported the Virginia Plan with its suggestions for proportional representation in both houses of the proposed national legislature; a measure favorable to the more populous states, like his own state of Pennsylvania. William Pierce, in his character sketch of Ingersoll, was obviously aware of his legal preeminence when he wrote: "Mr. Ingersoll is a very able Attorney, and possesses a clear legal understanding. He is well educated in the Classic's, and is a Man of very extensive reading. Mr. Ingersol speaks well, and comprehends his subject fully. There is a modesty in his character that keeps him back. He is about 36 years old." 2 Given his well-deserved reputation as a lawyer, as an effective speaker, and as a scholar well-versed in the classics, it is somewhat strange that he did not take a more prominent role at the Convention. Pierce hints at a possible reason for Ingersoll's seeming impassiveness when he noted "a modesty in his character." Ap-

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parently, Jared Ingersoll preferred to let his more extroverted colleagues— especially James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris—speak on behalf of the nationalistic measures that all eight Pennsylvania delegates usually favored. In his masterful Supplement to Max Farrand's The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, James H. Hutson has included a draft of a speech, perhaps delivered during the acrimonious debate of June 20 over the merits and demerits of the small-state New Jersey Plan and probably written by Jared Ingersoll, in which the nationalistic views Ingersoll is known to have had, or suspected of having, are delineated in some detail. If Ingersoll was indeed the author of this draft speech, his thoughts on the business before the Convention can now be more readily and accurately determined than was the case previous to the 1987 publication of this most useful supplemental volume. The draft speech opens with a sentence that sounds like, it might have been written by the "modest" Jared Ingersoll. "I have preserved a respectful silence during the debates of the Committee of the whole house; without flattery to others or meaness of spirit with respect to myself I can acknowledge my Inferiority, to Members of this honorable convention, in an acquaintance with the political history of this Country; . . . " Apparently written to be presented on June 20 (the day after the New Jersey Plan was voted down), the speech then asks the pertinent question: " . . . shall we delineate a Scheme of Government national or federal? . . . " There follows a lengthy discussion on how the weak confederation government had been unable to solve the financial crisis confronting the nation or to command the respect of foreign countries (especially Great Britain). Although the general tone of the entire speech is nationalistic, there are enough statements concerning the desirability of retaining the states as viable political entities to make plausible placing Ingersoll into what could be classified as the "true federalist" camp of some of his smallstate Convention colleagues. To phrase it simply, Jared Ingersoll was not as ardent, determined large-state nationalist as Madison, Wilson, Gourverneur Morris, Hamilton, or King.3 In the discussion on the last day of the Convention (September 17) concerning the mode and manner of signing the final draft, Ingersoll made what might have been his only Convention speech when he said, (according to Madison's notes) "I did not consider the signing, either as a mere attestation of the fact, or as pledging the signers to support the Constitution at all events; but as a recommendation, of what, all things considered, was the most eligible."4 Obviously, like many of his colleagues, Ingersoll believed the document drafted was the best attainable. Along with all seven of his Pennsylvania Convention colleagues, Ingersoll signed the Constitution. After ratification of the Constitution in 1788, Ingersoll held several legal positions within the state of Pennsylvania. However, even throughout his long periods of public service, Ingersoll continued to practice law and was in fact involved in numerous noteworthy court cases that set important

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precedents, especially in the field of constitutional law. Although on the losing side in both Chisholm v. Georgia (1792) and Hylton v. United States (1796), Ingersoll's cogent and reasoned arguments used in these cases are still worthwhile studying for their clarity and relevancy. He served as a member on the Philadelphia common council (1789), as the city solicitor of Philadelphia (1798-1800), as Pennsylvania's first attorney general (1790-1799 and again 1811-1817), and as U.S. district attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania. He declined appointment as a judge in the federal judiciary in 1801, apparently wishing to restrict his judicial duties to his home state. Later, in obvious recognition of his legal eminence, Jared Ingersoll was appointed presiding judge of the Philadelphia District Court; a position he held for the last two years of his life. His last brief foray into the political arena was as the Federalist Party's vice presidential candidate in 1812. However, this last run for elective political office was unsuccessful. The Federalist ticket of DeWitt Clinton-Jared Ingersoll was overwhelmingly defeated by incumbent and former Convention colleague James Madison and Elbridge Gerry (also a former member of the Philadelphia Convention). Thereafter, he remained active as a busy practicing lawyer up to the time of his appointment as Philadelphia County judge. He died October 31, 1822, just one week after his seventy-third birthday in Philadelphia. He was eulogized, primarily for his many attainments as an attorney and as a judge. Only briefly mentioned was his short and unheralded service as a delegate to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. NOTES 1. With the addition, in late March 1787, of the name of Dr. Benjamin Franklin to the seven originally appointed, the Pennsylvania representation, with eight members, was the largest state delegation at the Philadelphia Convention. 2. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:91. 3. James H. Hutson, ed., Supplement to Max Farrand's The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 100-105. 4. Farrand, 2:647.

DANIEL OF ST. THOMAS JENIFER (1723-1790) Born in 1723 at Coates Retirement estate in Charles County, Maryland, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer (the appellation "of St. Thomas" was apparently used to differentiate him from relatives who had the same first and last name) was, at age 63 or 64, one of the senior delegates at the Convention in terms of both age and political experience. As a young man, he inherited from a relative (perhaps his Swedish and English parents) a large estate (which was named "Stepney") in Anne Arundel County near the Chesapeake Bay port of Annapolis. Little is known about Jenifer's early life or his educational background. It is speculated that he probably, as a young man, lived the lifestyle expected of a wealthy, well-connected "country gentleman." As such, he would have worked diligently to make his farms profitable in the face of continually falling tobacco prices. Also he, no doubt, would have participated in the active social life of going to the elegant parties of fellow planters, of attending the occasional theater productions that came to Annapolis, and of attending the thorough-bred horse races in Maryland's bustling capital city. He was portrayed, by fellow-Constitutional Convention delegate William Pierce, as a gentleman who "is always in good humour, and never fails to make his company pleased with him." 1 With the apparent reputation for sociability, he probably had met, at least socially, and become friends with most of his fellow Maryland aristocrats and many of his nearby Virginia neighbors. It is known for example, that he had befriended George Washington before the Revolution, most likely at the Annapolis horse races, which the Virginian often attended. Aristocratic standing in colonial Maryland almost inevitably led to public service. In 1760, he was appointed as a member of the commission that eventually settled a long-standing boundary dispute between Delaware and Pennsylvania. As would be expected from a gentleman of his wealth and social standing, he also became a justice of the peace, first in Charles

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County and later for the western part of Maryland. It is also known that in 1766, the 36-year-old landed aristocrat was appointed to the provincial court of colonial Maryland, which suggests that he well may have had some legal training as a young man. Many plantation owners, while they would not actually go into the practice of law as a career, often found it useful, and even necessary, to know at least a smattering of property and testamentary law, since a vast majority of the legal actions in colonial Maryland courts, at all levels, involved inheritance law or land transactions. Whether trained in the law or not, Daniel served the last two lord proprietors of colonial Maryland as a member of the highest court in the colony. Probably in recognition of his faithful service on the provincial court, he was, in 1773, appointed as a member of the governor's council, a position he held until 1775, when he became involved in the pre-Revolutionary antiBritish movement. Understandably, he was reluctant at first to embrace, wholeheartedly and without any reservations, the growing anti-British revolutionary movement that was sweeping through the thirteen mainland colonies after Parliament's passage of the Tea Act in 1773. As a member of the ruling aristocracy in the hierarchical society that was colonial and revolutionary Maryland, he would have, of course, thought long and hard about supporting publicly a movement, which could well result with him and his fellow grandees losing their privileged positions at the top of the social, economic, and political ladder. Apparently, by 1775, he had made the decision to get involved, on the Patriot side, in the struggle against conservative proprietary and British rule. He was appointed as a member (soon chosen as president) of Maryland's revolutionary council of safety. This decision to get involved in the revolutionary movement may have been initially prompted by a desire to ensure that the Patriots did not carry out the complete overthrow of the existing economic and political structure. In other words, Jenifer might have originally been motivated by the wish to make sure the struggle against Great Britain proceeded along well-ordered, non-threatening, conservative lines. Regardless of what his original intentions might have been regarding his association with, and support of, the revolutionaries, by 1777, after serving two years as president of the council of safety, it became obvious that he had become an ardent American Patriot. After independence was declared in 1776, Jenifer served as the first president of the Maryland senate (1777-1780). This upper chamber of the newly created legislature was designed to be controlled by the planter aristocracy and to serve as a conservative check to the more revolutionary lower house of assembly. His long association with the state senate seems to confirm the notion that Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer was a political moderate—he would today be classified as either a conservative revolutionary or a revolutionary conservative. In 1778, he was elected to the Continental Congress serving in the moribund national legislature, with no notable

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distinction, until 1782, when he assumed the position of Maryland state revenue and financial officer, a position which he held for three years. In 1785, he was appointed as one of his state's four delegates to the Mount Vernon Conference. Meeting late in March, Jenifer and his three compatriots met with their Virginia counterparts (including future Convention delegates George Mason and James Madison) to consider the problems regarding fishing rights and navigation of the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. Jenifer's acceptance of this appointment is an indication of his growing nationalism. His participation in the Mount Vernon Conference (where he met with ardent nationalists Madison and Washington), his frustrating four years in the Continental Congress (where he saw firsthand the inability of the weak government, under the Articles of Confederation, to govern the country effectively), and his long-time friendship with the universally beloved nationalist Washington, no doubt, helped to convince Jenifer that drastic governmental change was called for, if the young American republic was to survive. The Mount Vernon Conference was, of course, the precursor to the Annapolis Convention of 1786 from which came the clarion call to meet "the second Monday of May next" in Philadelphia. Thus Jenifer, as a delegate to the Mount Vernon Conference (most of the meetings were actually held in the nearby Potomac River port of Alexandria) played a role, if only a minor one, in the nationalistic movement to amend drastically, or overthrow completely, the Articles of Confederation. Therefore, it is not surprising that in late May of 1787, Jenifer, along with James McHenry, Daniel Carroll, Luther Martin, and John Francis Mercer, was among the second group of delegates appointed to represent Maryland at the Philadelphia Convention. 2 William Pierce's characterization of Jenifer was obviously based on the Marylander's pre-Convention reputation and hearsay. After first noting that "Mr. Jenifer is a Gentleman of fortune in Maryland" and that he was affable, was always in good humor, and apparently worked to be pleasing and well-mannered to all he encountered, Pierce continued rather critically to write "He sits silent in the Senate, and seems to be conscious that he is no politician. From his long continuance in single life, no doubt but he has made the vow of celibacy. He speaks warmly of the Ladies notwithstanding. Mr. Jenifer is about 55 years of Age, and once served as an Aid de Camp to Major Genl. Lee." 3 At the Convention, to which he first attended on June 2, Jenifer spoke infrequently. Instead, he seems to have unobtrusively followed the lead of his Virginia neighbor James Madison in urging the creation of a strong national government. Seemingly, Jenifer's only serious difference with Madison and the Virginia Plan was the Marylander's quiet insistence that each individual state be given an equal voice in the upper legislative chamber thus, it was thought, making it possible for states to retain at least a modicum of the autonomy and independence enjoyed under the Articles of Confederation. He attended most, if not all, the summer sessions after his early

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June arrival, but was most often apparently content to do his speaking, arguing, and voting within the Maryland delegation rather than in the Committee of the Whole or before the full Convention. In the more informal atmosphere among his fellow Maryland delegates, the taciturn Jenifer was evidently more willing to express his views. Thus, the always good-natured Jenifer could avoid unwanted verbal confrontations with his more spirited, verbose, and argumentative Convention colleagues. In the Convention itself, Jenifer usually voted, with his mildly nationalistic colleague Daniel Carroll, for measures that favored a strong federal union and that gave the central government additional powers to tax and to regulate trade and commerce. As a dedicated nationalist, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer can be loosely classified as a small-state nationalist even though he apparently voted occasionally with Madison and his large-state nationalistic colleagues rather than with Ellsworth, Dickinson, Read, and their "true federalist" cohorts or with Paterson, Mason, and his states' rights Maryland colleagues Mercer and Luther Martin. After the ratification of the Constitution in which he had played a role, Jenifer, no doubt beset with the minor aches and pains usual for a man in his mid-sixties in the late eighteenth century, retired from public office. In the years just prior to the Convention, he had twice (1782 and 1785) been an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Maryland. No doubt, convinced that his public services were no longer needed or in demand, he happily resumed the comfortable life of a lifelong bachelor. Unfortunately, he was not to enjoy his retirement from active public life for long. He died, aged 66 or 67, November 16, 1790, in Annapolis. His legacy, like most of his Convention colleagues and certainly like all four of his Maryland Convention cohorts, is one of having served, conscientiously and honorably, both his state and country during the exciting and turbulent times of the second half of the eighteenth century. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:93. 2. Earlier on April 23, 1787, the Maryland legislature had voted to appoint Robert Hanson Harrison, Thomas Sims Lee, Thomas Stone, Gabriel Duvall, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton to represent the state at the upcoming Convention. Surprisingly, all five of these worthies declined to serve, thus making necessary the May appointments of the five who accepted appointment and did attend. 3. Farrand, 3:93. There is no concrete evidence that Jenifer ever served in the Continental army as an aide-de-camp to the vainglorious General Charles Lee.

WILLIAM SAMUEL JOHNSON (1727-1819) As one of the senior delegates of the Convention at age 59, Dr. Johnson (as he was invariably called) was expected to be a major contributor in the proceedings at the Pennsylvania State House. Although he was chosen chairman of the all-important Committee on Style and Arrangement that was appointed on September 8 to "revise the stile and arrange the articles" of the Constitution and did vigorously support the "Great Compromise," which saved the Convention from a possible mid-summer dissolution, Johnson did not take the leadership role many expected of him when he was elected by the legislature on May 12, 1787, to the three-member Connecticut delegation. In his lengthy biographical sketch of the eminent Dr. Johnson, William Pierce characterized him as being much celebrated for his legal knowledge; he is said to be one of the first classics in America, and certainly possesses a very strong and enlightened understanding. As an Orator in my opinion, there is nothing in him that warrants the high reputation which he has for public speaking. There is something in the tone of his voice not pleasing to the Ear,—but he is eloquent and clear,—always abounding with information and instruction. He was once employed as an Agent for the State of Connecticut to state her claims to certain landed territory before the British House of Commons; this Office he discharged with so much dignity, and made such an ingenious display of his powers, that he laid the foundation of a reputation which will probably last much longer than his own life. Dr. Johnson is about 60 years of age, possesses the manners of a Gentleman, and engages the Hearts of Men by the sweetness of his temper, and that affectionate style of address with which he accosts his acquaintance. 1

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The Connecticut trio of delegates was one of the most hardworking and influential state groups at the Convention. However, Dr. Johnson did not speak as often as his two colleagues and thus generally allowed Oliver Ellsworth and Roger Sherman to be the major voices for his state at the Convention. He arrived in Philadelphia on June 2 and thereafter did attend and participate regularly in the deliberations. He usually supported and voted with the small-state nationalist faction and therefore often opposed, especially during the early weeks of the Convention, the sometimes imperious machinations of large-state nationalists James Madison, James Wilson, and Gouverneur Morris. Clearly, his appointment as chairman of the five-member committee that actually wrote the final draft was an indication of the high esteem with which he was held by his fellow Framers. Gouverneur Morris is generally credited with being, and later claimed to be, the primary author, among the committee members, of what became the final Constitution. However, fellow committee members Alexander Hamilton, Rufus King, James Madison, and chairman Dr. Johnson were all known to be effective wordsmiths and therefore each undoubtedly had a significant hand in drafting the committee's final report, despite Gouverneur Morris' somewhat immodest claim to the contrary. Born October 7, 1727, in Stratford, Connecticut, into a distinguished academic family, Johnson received an excellent classic education. Tutored as a youth at home by his father (who was the first president of King's College—the present Columbia University), he was graduated from Yale in 1744 (at the age of 16) and from Harvard with a M.A. in 1747. Thereafter, he studied law, was admitted to the bar, practiced law in his home town of Stratford, and received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University. He first became involved politically in the anti-British agitation of the 1760s and 1770s, initially as a member of the Connecticut legislature and later as a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress of 1765. A four-year stint (1767-1771) as an agent from Connecticut to the court of St. James in London greatly enhanced his understanding of the legal and political world of eighteenth-century England. He also gained, during this sojourn in the mother country, an appreciation for the stability and essential conservatism of the British government. During the Revolutionary War, Dr. Johnson tried, with some success, to remain neutral. Although opposed to many of Great Britain's pre-war tax and coercive policies, Johnson hesitated to support openly the independence movement. However, at the end of the conflict, Johnson was able to resume his legal and political careers. He served as a member of the Continental Congress from 1784-1787 and was elected to head the Connecticut delegation to The Grand Convention. As a staunch nationalist, Dr. Johnson enthusiastically signed the Constitution on the Convention's final day. After ratification of the Constitution in 1789, Dr. Johnson served as a U.S. senator in the First Congress. In 1791, he resigned from the Senate to

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assume the presidency of Columbia College in New York City, a position once held by his father. Resigning the presidency in 1800, he enjoyed a long and honorable retirement in his beloved Stratford. His death, at age 92, on November 14, 1819, was widely heralded and greatly lamented. NOTE 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:88.

RUFUS KING (1755-1827) Rufus King was one of the leaders of the large-state nationalistic caucus at the Constitutional Convention. "Distinguished for his eloquence and great parliamentary talents," he utilized his impressive oratorical skills to speak often, and persuasively, in support of the Virginia Plan, which was highly favorable to the large states and to those delegates who favored the creation of a strong, almost omnipotent national government.1 French aristocrat and traveler T. P. Brissot de Warville in his insightful travelogue New Travels in the United States of America described King, as of August 1788, as "the most eloquent man of the United States. What struck me most in him was his modesty. He appears ignorant of his own worth." 2 Throughout what would be a long and distinguished political/diplomatic career, Rufus King would, with accustomed modesty, utilize his magnificent rhetorical abilities to gain high office and to exert considerable influence. Born March 24, 1755, at Dunstan Landing near the frontier village of Scarborough in what is today the state of Maine, but then was part of Massachusetts, Rufus was the oldest of nine children born to Richard King and his two wives (Isabella Bragdon, died 1759, and Mary Black). Rufus' father was a village politician and merchant who, by dint of close adherence to "strict Puritan morality" and to the "Puritan work ethic," had accumulated a modest fortune (mostly in land) by the time Rufus was born. Raised by his somewhat domineering, but loving stepmother Mary and a stern, but caring father, Rufus, as the eldest son, was educated with the expectation that he would, upon his father's death, be able to assume the mantle of patriarch of the growing and locally prominent King family. Young Rufus spent his first three years of schooling, learning his "three Rs," at a Scarborough grammar school under the stern guidance of a young Harvard graduate, Samuel Eaton. Then, in 1766 at the age of 12, Rufus was sent to Dummer Academy in Byfield, Massachusetts (located near

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Newburyport), where he studied the classics, for six years, under the demanding tutelage of Harvard graduate Samuel Moody. It was at Dummer that young Rufus mastered sufficient Latin, Greek, and French to gain admission to Harvard College and where he assiduously honed his oratorical skills. In the summer of 1773, Rufus entered Harvard, where he took a particular liking to the study of history, the law, and what would be called today, the political science. He also continued his intense interest in oratory, serving variously as secretary and president of the campus Speaking Club. It was, while a student, at Harvard that Rufus observed, with great interest, the exciting events in and around nearby Boston that preceded the outbreak of actual hostilities against Great Britain in April 1775. Along with most of his classmates, Rufus philosophically embraced, much to the chagrin of his Tory-leaning father, the American revolutionary cause. It was also during his student years in Cambridge that Rufus renounced the Congregational Church of his youth and became a lifelong supporter of the Anglican Church. Upon graduation from Harvard in 1777, with high honors in mathematics and oratory, King served briefly in the military as an aidede-camp to American General John Sullivan with whom he participated in the unsuccessful Franco/American siege of Newport, Rhode Island, in the summer of 1778. Even as a youth, Rufus had often expressed an interest in pursuing a legal career; a profession in which he could use to good advantage his impressive rhetorical skills and knowledge of history and political science. In 1777, he commenced a three-year legal apprenticeship (interrupted by his brief foray into the military in 1778) with Theophilus Parsons at Newburyport, Massachusetts. Parsons, who had preceded King as a student at Dummer Academy and Harvard College and would later gain distinction as a brilliant attorney and as the legal mentor to John Quincy Adams, was only five years older than Rufus. Under Parson's demanding guidance, Rufus mastered more than enough law to pass the bar in 1780. For the next eight years (1780-1788), Rufus King made Newburyport his home as a practicing lawyer and state and, later, national legislator. Service in the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1783-1785) was followed by his election to the Continental Congress (1784-1787). In Congress, King displayed his obvious talents as an orator to become a leader of the nationalistic movement, which eventually led to the calling of the Philadelphia Convention, and an articulate opponent of the institution of slavery. On March 10, 1787, in recognition of his growing eminence as a barrister and legislator, Rufus King, along with Francis Dana, who did not attend because of ill health, Elbridge Gerry, Nathaniel Gorham, and Caleb Strong, was appointed to the four-member Massachusetts delegation to the Constitutional Convention. He arrived in Philadelphia in time to be the only New England delegate in attendance at the first official session on Fri-

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day, May 25, 1787. Convention journalist William Pierce of Georgia was obviously familiar with King's well-deserved reputation as a public speaker and hardworking legislator. He characterized the impressive-looking, 32year-old King as Much distinguished for his eloquence and great parliamentary talents. He was educated in Massachusetts, and is said to have good classical as well as legal knowledge. He has served for three years in the Congress of the United States with great and deserved applause, and is at this time high in the confidence and approbation of his Countrymen. This Gentleman is about thirty three years of age, about five feet ten Inches high, well formed, an handsome face, with a strong expressive Eye, and a sweet high toned voice. In his public speaking there is something peculiarly strong and rich in his expression, clear, and convincing in his arguments, rapid and irresistible at times in his eloquence but he is not always equal. His action is natural, swimming, and graceful, but there is a rudeness of manner sometimes accompanying it. But take him tout en semble, he may with propriety be ranked among the Luminaries of the present age.3 At the Convention, King became a leading spokesman for the national caucus of Madison, Gouverneur Morris, Hamilton, and Wilson. Along with at least eight of his Convention colleagues and the official Secretary William Jackson, King took scattered and informal notes during the summer that were not, however, made public until 1894, when they appeared as an appendix to the multi-volume work entitled Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, which was edited by his adoring grandson Dr. Charles R. King. These notes have proved to be exceedingly informative, especially because they were all accurately dated and represented the views of one of the most active and influential delegates. As far as can be determined, King attended every session from May 25 to September 17. He came to Philadelphia fully convinced that the discredited Articles of Confederation did need major changes, but did not need to be totally discarded. However, he quickly abandoned this view and became an extreme nationalist who worked diligently to overthrow the first constitution with one that created a consolidated central authority. In this philosophical transformation, King was apparently influenced in part by the fact that the Virginia Plan was, on balance, exceedingly favorable to large states (and that would, of course, include his home state), and in part by the need he felt for a strong national authority that would be able to thwart popular uprisings like the recent Shays' Rebellion. Also there is ample evidence that Rufus King was greatly influenced by the logic of the nationalistic plan inherent in the Virginia Plan and by the learned political and economic commentary of Madison and Hamilton. In the years following the Convention, King, as a senator and

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diplomat, was to become a virtual disciple and political lieutenant of the transiently brilliant Alexander Hamilton. During the fateful mid-June debate on comparing the merits and demerits of the two basic plans then before the Convention (i.e., the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan), it was Rufus King who moved, on June 19, that the states' rights New Jersey Plan be "buried" and that the Virginia Plan become the sole concern of the Convention. The motion carried 7-3 and thus the small-state attempt to amend only and not replace the Articles of Confederation (with its provision for state equality) died an early and inglorious death. This vote, more than any other, represented a significant victory for the national caucus.4 The best that the small-state nationalists could manage thereafter was to gain approval for the Great Compromise, which gave individual states an equal voice in one chamber of the proposed national legislature. Although King opposed the Great Compromise, primarily because of its "undemocratic" concession to individual states in the matter of equality in the senate, he worked diligently after the July 16 compromise vote to "flesh out" the Virginia Plan "skeleton" in ways that would be beneficial to national/large-state/commercial/property-owning interests. The one area where King had little success was on the question of slavery. He spoke eloquently on several occasions in opposition to the institution of slavery and to the "nefarious" slave trade, but to no avail. The institution of slavery was implicitly recognized (and therefore tacitly sanctioned) in the final version of the Constitution, primarily because of the oft-stated threats of the South Carolina delegates and their Georgia colleagues to bolt the Convention if slavery was "tinkered" with. Clearly, political expediency triumphed over moral righteousness on the vexing issues of slavery and the slave trade. ^

^L

^

Rufus King served conscientiously on two seminal committees (Committee on Postponed Matters and Committee on Style and Arrangement). King's appointment to the all-important Committee on Style, along with Convention "workhorses" James Madison, Gourverneur Morris, and Alexander Hamilton and the scholarly Dr. William Samuel Johnson (who had the reputation of being an effective wordsmith), was obvious recognition that he was well thought of by his colleagues and that he had played a major role in the laborious crafting of the fundamental governing charter. Along with his nationalistic Massachusetts colleague Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King enthusiastically signed the Constitution on behalf of his state on September 17 and went home to work for ratification as a member of the state ratifying Convention. Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the Constitution in early February 1788, by the narrow vote of 187-168. Ratification was secured in the Bay State in large part because of the promises evidently made to Governor John Hancock—to convince

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this popular, vain merchant and prince-turned-politician to abandon his Anti-Federalism and approve the new organic law—and because of the learned, informative, and persuasive speeches King and his Federalist colleagues gave in the convention that apparently convinced enough of the originally Anti-Federalist, rural delegates to change their minds regarding the Constitution drafted by their "betters." Rufus King's post-Convention political and diplomatic careers were ones of solid accomplishment and dedicated service. In 1788, having moved permanently to New York City, he was elected to the state legislature, and the following year to the U.S. Senate, where he served for seven years as a staunch supporter of the Washington administration and especially of the Hamiltonian Financial Program. In 1791, he became one of the directors of the Hamilton-sponsored First Bank of the United States. This appointment signaled his complete adherence to the Federalist Party and policies. In part, one suspects, for his steadfast and valuable support of the administration, President Washington appointed King as American minister to the Court of St. James in London; a position he held with notable distinction for seven years (1796-1803). Even though King was an outspoken Federalist politically, Republican President Thomas Jefferson, upon his elevation to the presidency, refused to recall him. In 1803, King voluntarily relinquished his London post and came home to be put on the Federalist ticket in 1804 (and again in 1808) as the vice president candidate with his former Convention colleague Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. Unsuccessful in both of these electoral efforts, King purchased King Manor on Long Island, where he leisurely pursued a variety of agricultural experiments and lived as a wealthy "country gentleman." The War of 1812, which King initially opposed, enticed him back into active politics. Once again, he was elected to the Senate, serving during this second tenure from 1813-1825. However, after the British "sack" of Washington, D.C., in 1814, King became an ardent supporter of the war effort, much to the consternation of many of his Massachusetts political colleagues and constituents. Although he had been a director of Hamilton's First Bank of the United States in the 1790s, as a senator he opposed the chartering of the Second Bank in 1816. As an indication of the esteem, in which the 61-year-old King was held, he was nominated by the increasingly discredited Federalist Party as its presidential candidate in 1816. However, the popular James Monroe was overwhelmingly elected as the fifth president of the United States and King returned to his post as New England's most articulate, Federalist voice in the U.S. Senate. Throughout his long political career, King favored the abolition of slavery and was vehemently opposed to its extension into the federal territories. Thus he opposed, ineffectually as it turned out, Henry Clay's Missouri Compromise in 1820; a compromise that would sanction slavery south of the 36 degree 30 minute line. In 1825, King finally retired from the U.S. Senate because of failing health only to be appointed, by in-

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coming President John Quincy Adams, as American minister to Great Britain. King, somewhat reluctantly, one suspects, returned to London. After a year at his post in London, King was forced to come home because of failing health. Like his Convention colleague Elbridge Gerry and future president James Monroe, Rufus King had also married into a wealthy New York mercantile family. His 1786 marriage, at the age of 31, to the 16-year-old Mary Alsop (1770-1819) united the locally prominent, but provincial, King family with the socially and economically prominent John Alsop family. Like his close friend and future mentor Alexander Hamilton, who had six years earlier married into the prominent land-owning Philip Schuyler family, Rufus King and his well-connected bride became a part of the social and political elite of New York City. With Mary, Rufus had one daughter and at least four sons. At least two of his sons (John Alsop King and James Gore King) followed their father into public service as merchants, politicians, diplomats, and philanthropists. Rufus King died in Jamaica, New York, on April 29, 1827, after a lingering illness. His historical reputation has been, up to now, that of an early American politician and diplomat of no higher than second rank. However, any impartial re-appraisal of his long and distinguished public career should result in his being elevated to any list of the top dozen of America's most influential, most important, and most revered Framers. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:87. 2. Charles Warren, The Making of the Constitution (New York: Barnes 8c Noble, Ind., 1937), 60. 3. Farrand, 3:87. 4. Ibid., 1:313, 322.

JOHN LANGDON (1741-1819) John Langdon was one of the most active, most influential, but somewhat strangely unheralded, political leaders of the entire revolutionary period. In New Hampshire politics, Langdon and long-time rival John Sullivan were the two leading political figures during and after the War of Independence. For his part, Langdon was particularly active in the preRevolution anti-British movement. During the conflict, he served variously in the state militia, in the state legislature, and in the Continental Congress. His selection as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention was a deserved recognition of his stature as a highly respected political figure. William Pierce's brief description of New Hampshire's senior Convention delegate does not do Langdon justice. In writing "Mr. Langdon is a Man of considerable fortune, possesses a liberal mind, and a good plain understanding.—about 40 years old," Pierce was apparently uninformed as to Langdon's importance in New Hampshire politics and his significant military and financial services during the War of Independence. 1 On the other hand, Otto's lengthier description of the affable Langdon gave him his due as one of the most experienced and well-known American political leaders. Although the Frenchman's brief portrayals of the Convention delegates were obviously not always accurate and therefore must be viewed with a discerning eye, they do help to give a more complete picture of the individual commissioners, especially as they are being made by a contemporary, obviously observant foreign diplomat. In some cases, his comments demonstrate a rare discernment and shrewdness; in other cases unfortunately, they indicate a lack of personal knowledge and therefore are based on the reputation, sometimes inaccurate, that the subject has previously garnered. In the case of Langdon, Otto astutely declared him to be

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One of the most interesting and likeable men in the United States; formerly governor of New Hampshire and at the head of a very powerful party, who finds himself in opposition John Sullivan. This opposition is but personal and does not at all have any bearing on political sentiments. These two antagonists are equally attached to their native land, to the revolution and to France, but Sullivan is a man of the people and Langdon the patron of gentlemen. The one has for him the people of the country, the other the merchants. Whatever the success of their intrigues, the public thing can never be lost in it and the principals of government would stay the same. In society, Mr. Langdon often has the upper hand over his adversary. Yet one must see Sullivan in the bar (i.e., as a lawyer) or at the head of the militia. Mr. L. had made a great fortune in commerce, he is the Robert Morris of his State, making a great expenditure and making many citizens devoted to him due to his liberalities. He was one of the principal members of the Philadelphia Convention, but he was seated in Congress for only a short time, and although his colleagues had offered him the presidency, he had not wanted to stay there, because he had in view to have himself reelected Governor of New Hampshire, and because his business affairs do not permit him to have a long absence. He is sincerely devoted to France and is even biased towards our customs and manners. In order to spread the taste for our furniture, he has had the most beautiful of them brought from Paris. One claims that he is jealous of his wife, a rare thing in America. Several French officers have seen with chagrin that this jealousy was hardly founded.2 Born on June 25, 1741, into a family of prosperous farmers in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, John received an elementary education at a local grammar school and then served as an apprentice clerk in a mercantile firm. His business acumen became evident when he established his own mercantile firm, which soon prospered beyond his earlier expectations. During the war, Langdon engaged heavily in helping to finance lucrative privateer expeditions. By the end of the conflict, Langdon had amassed a considerable fortune through his various mercantile and privateer activities. As an ardent revolutionary, Langdon was exceedingly active politically and militarily during the war. In 1775, he served as speaker of the New Hampshire assembly. In 1776, he secured a commission as a colonel in the state militia and also became the state's agent for British prizes for the Continental Congress—a job he held throughout the war. Service in the Continental Congress (1775-1776) provided the heretofore provincial politician a nationalistic view. His military career, although brief, was noteworthy. He helped plan and finance General John Stark's notable victory, at the head of 2,600 New Hampshire militiamen, over the mixed British-

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Canadian-Hessian-Indian force sent by British General John "Johnny" Burgoyne to capture the military supplies that the Americans were said to have stored along the New York/Vermont border. Stark's decisive defeat of the British-led force in the battle of Bennington helped make possible the glorious American victory at Saratoga in October 1777. Fittingly, Langdon was present when Burgoyne surrendered his entire army to General Horatio Gates at Saratoga. Langdon's participation in the overall planning, financing, and execution of the Bennington campaign was crucial to the ultimate American success at Saratoga, New York. During the Confederation Period of the early 1780s, John Langdon served a term as a member of the Continental Congress (1783) and a oneyear term as president (Governor) of New Hampshire (1785). In 1787, when the Convention delegation was chosen, Langdon was serving as Speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives that made the Convention appointments. As Speaker, Langdon, along with state President John Sullivan, wrote the Convention delegates' instructions, which commissioned them, in somewhat ambiguous terms, "to meet such Deputies as may be appointed & authorized by other States in the Union, to assemble in Convention at Philadelphia on the second day of May next, and to join with them in devising & discussing all such alterations & further provisions as to render the federal Constitution adequate to the Exigencies of the Union." 3 In mid-January 1787, the New Hampshire legislature had voted to appoint Langdon along with Nicholas Gilman, Pierce Long, and John Sparhawk (then its delegates to the Continental Congress) as its representatives to the Philadelphia Convention. However, because New Hampshire was unwilling or unable to appropriate any money for their expenses, the delegates did not travel to Pennsylvania for the opening May session. Finally, in late June 1787, the state legislature again voted to appoint its congressional delegation as its Constitutional Convention representatives. Thus, the legislature re-appointed Langdon and Gilman and appointed Benjamin West and John Pickering to be the state's four-member delegation. For reasons unknown, but maybe financial, West and Pickering did not attend any of the Convention's sessions. Langdon and Gilman did attend the last half of the Convention after Langdon agreed to pay out of pocket the delegation's expenses. That meant New Hampshire was not represented at the Convention during the crucial debates leading up to the Great Compromise of July 16. Upon his arrival, along with colleague Nicholas Gilman, at the Convention on Monday, July 23, Langdon became an active delegate generally supporting the nationalistic views of other small-state nationalists, who were now willing to grant significant powers to the national government, since the individual states had an equal voice in the second chamber (Senate) of the legislature. Because of the eminence and esteem in which he was held

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by his fellow delegates, Langdon quickly became one of the acknowledged leaders of the true federalists group. He is recorded, in the various journals kept by colleagues, to have made over twenty speeches in which he spoke, usually as a dedicated small state "consolidationist" (nationalist), in favor of giving the national government the power "to make laws for the regulation and discipline of the Militia of the several States reserving to the States the appointment of the Officers" (August 18), of granting the national government the power to tax exports (August 21), of giving the national legislature the authority to veto state laws (August 23), and of putting some restrictions on the admission to the union of new western states (August 23). 4 During the protracted discussions concerning the precise powers to be granted to the "Legislature of the United States," Langdon was voted by ballot to the Special Grand Committee that was created to consider the two issues of assumption of state debts and regulation of the militia. The Committee, in its report to the full Convention submitted on August 2 1 , recommended granting the national authority the power to discharge the debts of the United States as well as the state debts incurred during the Revolutionary War "for the common defence and general welfare" and to "make laws for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia."5 Presumably Langdon, with state sovereignty and independence confirmed by the Great Compromise, supported the Committee's nationalistic recommendations. In fact, throughout the latter days of the Convention, Langdon invariably supported measures that enhanced the power and authority of the national government, even if they seemed detrimental to state authority. As a true federalist, Langdon supported the agreement between north and south that re-affirmed the compromise made earlier by Connecticut and South Carolina regarding slavery, the slave trade, and the navigation laws. The north, with Langdon the merchant's approval, benefited from the proposal that navigation laws could be passed by a simple congressional majority and that the national government could tax the importation of slaves and even prohibit their importation after a specified period of time. The south, for its part, got tacit approval of the institution of slavery, a prohibition of export taxes, and a provision for the return of fugitive slaves. At the insistence of the South Carolina delegation, the Constitution, when signed on September 17, did not contain the words "slaves" or "slavery." Langdon, throughout the debate over the August 29 compromise between north and south, favored giving the national government the power to regulate the importation of slaves. He was, he asserted, "strenuous for giving the power to the Genl. Govt. He cd. [sic] not with a good conscience leave it with the States who could then go on with the traffic, without being restrained by the opinions here given that they will themselves cease to import slaves."6

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John Langdon happily signed the final draft of the Constitution on September 17, 1787. As a nationalist, who also favored retention of the states as viable political entities, he considered the Constitution, as it emerged from the Convention, the best obtainable given the numerous and varied interests of his fellow delegates. Upon his return to New Hampshire after the Convention, Langdon worked to secure what turned out to be the deciding state ratification vote that completed the Constitutional Revolution of 1787. In the post-Convention period, Langdon embarked upon what can only be described as a distinguished political career. He served, with distinction, four terms as governor of his home state (1788, 1805, 1809-1811). In 1789, he was elected to the U.S. Senate (1789-1801) and as the first president, pro tempore, of the body, he supervised the first president and vice president electoral vote. Initially as a senator, Langdon usually supported the Washington administration and the Hamiltonian fiscal program. However, he slowly migrated politically into the opposition, the Jeffersonian party. In 1811, he rejected President Madison's offer of the post of secretary of the navy and the following year, the offer to be the vice presidential candidate. After serving his last term in 1811 as governor, Langdon retired with full honors and the esteem of his compatriots. At his death on September 19, 1819, Langdon was heralded as one of the great revolutionary Founders and Framers. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:87. 2. Ibid., 232-233. 3. Ibid., 571-572. 4. Ibid., 2:330, 331. 5. Ibid., 352-354. 6. Ibid., 373.

JOHN LANSING, JR. (1754-1829) Born January 30, 1754, in Albany, New York, John Lansing was one of the younger delegates to the Philadelphia Convention. His well-to-do parents did not encourage him to go to college, but instead secured a legal apprenticeship for him first in Albany and later in New York City. In 1775, John completed his legal studies and was duly admitted to the New York bar. Like many of his future Convention colleagues, young John reached adulthood at a propitious time. The outbreak of hostilities with Great Britain in April 1775 provided countless opportunities for a legally trained, ambitious man like John Lansing to make his mark. The legal practice, which he had begun to build soon after admission to the bar, was closed when, in 1776, the 22-year-old budding barrister joined the American army. For two years, he was to serve as an aide-de-camp to fellow New Yorker General Philip Schuyler, who, interestingly, would soon become the fatherin-law to John Lansing's bitter political rival Alexander Hamilton. In 1778, he resumed the practice of law in Albany and gravitated into politics. In 1781, Lansing married Cornelia Ray with whom he fathered ten children, five of whom, sadly, were to die in infancy. With the financial demands of a growing family, Lansing found it necessary to build up a prosperous legal practice that would enable him to provide for his wife and children and allow him to enter the political arena. Toward the end of the War of Independence, Lansing's legal practice was flourishing to such an extent that he was secure enough financially to become politically active. He was elected to the New York State Assembly serving there for six consecutive years (1780-1786) and as Speaker in 1786. Concurrent with his tenure in the state assembly, Lansing served as a member of the Continental Congress (1784-1785) before being selected, in midMarch of 1787, as a New York delegate to the Constitutional Convention. In addition, Lansing served as mayor of Albany, New York, from 1786-

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1790. Although the precise details are not readily known, Lansing's appointment as a member of the state's delegation to Philadelphia was apparently a part of a political deal, worked out between Governor George Clinton and his arch-political rival Philip Schuyler. Clinton was the longtime governor (1777-1795) of New York and as such was in a position to select a majority of the members of his state's delegation. As a dedicated states' rights proponent, the governor was suspicious of the upcoming Convention believing, correctly as it turned out, that the delegates gathering in Philadelphia were going to establish a strong national government that would either severely restrict the autonomy, independence, and sovereignty the individual states enjoyed under the Articles of Confederation, or even perhaps eliminate the states altogether as viable political entities. The political deal finally arrived at resulted in the appointment of a three-member delegation with the stipulation that any two members would constitute a quorum. The governor thereupon arranged the appointment of two of his political lieutenants (Robert Yates and John Lansing, Jr.) and Schuyler secured the selection of his precocious son-in-law Alexander Hamilton. With these appointments, Clinton gained firm control of the New York delegation. Yates and Lansing were expected to reflect, which they conscientiously did, the states' rights views of their mentor and Hamilton, the more nationalistic philosophy of his father-in-law. This meant of course that when Yates and Lansing both left the Convention for good on July 10, New York was essentially unrepresented at the Convention since Hamilton alone could not meet the quorum requirement engineered by Governor Clinton in the apparent bargain made with Philip Schuyler. In his mildly uncomplimentary assessment of John Lansing made in the early summer, Georgia delegate William Pierce described him as "a practicing Attorney at Albany, and Mayor of that Corporation. He has a hesitation in his speech, that will prevent his being an Orator of any eminence;—his legal knowledge I am told is not extensive, nor his education a good one. He is however a Man of good sense, plain in his manners, and sincere in his friendships. He is about 32 years of age." 1 Judging from a careful look at Lansing's political and judicial activities after the Convention, Pierce's observations seem too critical. However, during his six-week stay in Philadelphia (June 2-July 10), Lansing only spoke infrequently. When he did participate in the heated debates of late June and early July, it was usually to support fellow states' rights advocates (particularly Luther Martin, Robert Yates, and William Paterson) in their endeavors to garner support for the Paterson (New Jersey) Plan. The instructions given to the New York delegation at the time of its appointment, in the spring of 1787, reflected the states' rights philosophy of Governor Clinton. In a language largely copied from the, February 2 1 , 1787, resolution of the Continental Congress, which gave congressional approval for the calling of a Constitutional Convention, the three New

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York representatives were instructed "to meet such Delegates as may be appointed on the part of the other States respectively, on the second Monday in May next, at Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress, and to the several Legislatures, such alterations and provisions therein, as shall when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the several States, render the federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government, and the preservation of the Union." 2 As political lieutenants (opponents would call them henchmen) of the powerful New York governor, Lansing and his states' rights colleague Robert Yates would travel to Philadelphia with the firm intent of preventing the creation of a strong, central, national government. During the short time he attended the Convention, Lansing frequently reminded the assembled delegates that his instructions only allowed him to recommend amendments ("alterations") to the existing fundamental organic charter (Articles of Confederation). For example, in some scattered notes he took of the heated discussions of June 19, Lansing expressed his complete displeasure with the seven-state to three-state vote (one state Maryland divided), which in essence was to approve of the Large-State Virginia (Randolph) Plan and to reject the states' rights New Jersey (Paterson) Plan.3 This significant vote ensured that the Virginia Plan, with its emphasis on creating a powerful, almost omnipotent, national government, would form the basis of the new constitution being crafted. On that fateful (at least it was for states' rights advocates) June 19, Lansing and Yates had voted yea (therefore outvoting Hamilton) to John Dickinson's motion of June 18 that "the articles of confederation ought to be revised and amended, so as to render the Government of the United States adequate to the exigencies, the preservation and the prosperity of the union." That motion was defeated with only Connecticut, New Jersey, and Delaware joining New York in voting yea while six states voted nay (with one state Maryland divided). The overwhelming defeat of the Dickinson motion presaged the passage of the motion then offered "not to agree to the Jersey propositions but to report those offered by Mr. Randolph." 4 As ardent supporters of state autonomy and independence, Lansing and, no doubt, his colleague Robert Yates took the fateful 7-3 vote to be a devastating defeat. It is probably on this day, that both Lansing and Yates decided to leave the Convention (therefore denying New York a vote at the Convention). However, they did stay on through the often acrimonious debates of late June and early July in the hope that they, along with their states' rights colleagues, could devise a successful strategy for changing the direction toward the creation of a "consolidationist" national government that the Convention was obviously taking. However, Lansing slowly became convinced of the futility of the attempts to stop or even slow down, the nationalistic "steamroller" of Madison, Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and their nationalist cohorts. On July 10, Lansing, along

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with Yates, left the Convention for good. Upon their arrival back in New York, both Lansing and Yates jointly wrote a letter to Governor Clinton in which they described in some detail (therefore seemingly violating the Convention's secrecy rule) the contents of the debates and decisions that they had witnessed during their brief stay in Philadelphia.5 As a member of the New York Ratifying Convention, John Lansing helped lead the fight to prevent ratification of the document he had so vigorously and consistently opposed. That Lansing, his political mentor Clinton, his Convention colleague Yates, and their so-called Anti-Federalist supporters were not able to stave off ratification was not due to lack of effort or conviction. The good, but eventually losing, fight Lansing and others put up was probably a factor in convincing the nationalists in the First Congress to approve what is known as the Bill of Rights. Although New York finally did ratify the document on July 26, 1788, thus becoming the eleventh state to do so, the vote was a narrow 30-27 victory for Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and their nationalistic allies. After the establishment of the new American republic in 1789, Lansing confined his political and judicial activities to service in his home state. Seemingly belying Pierce's earlier observation that "his legal knowledge . . . is not extensive," Lansing embarked upon a long and distinguished judicial career; first as a justice of the supreme court of New York (1790-1798), then as chief justice (1798-1801), and finally as chancellor of New York (1801-1814). His long-time interest in education led to an appointment as regent of the University of the State of New York (a position he held from 1817 to the time of his mysterious death in 1829). In semi-retirement after 1814, Lansing lived comfortably on his large country estate in upstate Lansingburg. On December 12, 1829, while staying in a New York City hotel, Lansing evidently left the hotel early in the evening to mail a letter and disappeared entirely. It has been presumed ever since that John Lansing had met with some sort of foul play and indeed was probably murdered. At the time of his unexplained disappearance, Lansing was 75 and enjoying, in honorable quasi-retirement, the reputation as having been a competent, although not brilliant, judge and conscientious public servant. However, he is best remembered today for his states' rights advocacy during, and just after, the Philadelphia Convention. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:90. 2. Ibid., 3:579-581. 3. James H. Hutson, ed., Supplement to Max Farrand's The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 95. 4. Farrand, 1:313.

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5. In his extremely valuable supplemental volume to Farrand's majestic work, James H. Hutson described what he referred to as the Lansing Notes. They appear to be an abbreviated rehash of the more complete set of notes taken by Lansing's colleague Robert Yates. The Lansing Notes are of dubious value since they were probably a summary of the more extensive Yates Notes, which were loaned to John Lansing by Yates' wife sometime after her husband's death in September 1801. Also they only carry the story up to July 5. The integrity of Yates' notes was first questioned by James Madison in 1821, and later by Max Farrand and other scholars. See Hutson, xxv, 25; and Farrand, l:xiv-xv.

WILLIAM LIVINGSTON (1723-1790) At age 63, William Livingston was one of the oldest delegates at the Constitutional Convention. He was also one of the most politically experienced. He had served as a member of the New York provincial assembly from Livingston Manor (the aristocratic Livingston family estate in the Hudson River Valley) in the late 1750s and early 1760s. Having moved to Elizabethtown (present-day Elizabeth), New Jersey, in the early 1770s, he represented his newly adopted state in both the First Continental Congress (1774) and the Second Continental Congress (1775-1776). After a brief stint (1775-1776) as a brigadier general in the state militia, he was elected as the first governor of the state of New Jersey—a position he held continuously from August 31, 1776, until his death in 1790. Born into the distinguished, wealthy, landholding Livingston family on November 30, 1723, in Albany, New York, William enjoyed many of the advantages such an enviable heritage could bestow. Eschewing the career as a New York City merchant or as a fur trader, both suggested by his parents, young William decided on the twin careers of law and politics. His graduation from Yale College in 1741 (age 18) was followed by a legal apprenticeship, which led to his admission to the bar in 1748. He soon had established a thriving legal practice in New York City and Albany. In the 1750s, he became the unofficial, but acknowledged political leader of "Livingston party" in New York that opposed the Anglican DeLancey faction. When the "liberal" faction, led by Livingston, lost control of the colonial assembly in the early 1760s, he purchased land in New Jersey, retired from his law practice, and moved to the neighboring state, where he built a palatial country estate—Liberty Hall. For a few years in the early 1770s, Livingston lived the life of a wealthy country gentleman. It was during these years that he at last found the time to indulge more fully in a variety of literary pursuits. He wrote and published numerous poems, political broad-

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sides, religious tracts (invariably pro-Calvinist and anti-Anglican) and satirical verses.1 His political and religious writings were usually specific attacks against the Anglican Church (especially its control of King's College—present-day Columbia University) and British colonial policies. The outbreak of the Revolutionary War brought William Livingston out of his idyllic rural retirement. He was elected to the both the First and the Second Continental Congresses where he became a leader of the American Patriot cause. In 1776, he was elected governor of New Jersey. During his first few years as the state's chief executive, Livingston organized the state government and helped to defend New Jersey from the frequent incursions of the British Army and of Tory highwaymen. With his relative success in governing the state during the turbulent war years, and his championing of the politically democratic elements against their aristocratic adversaries, Livingston was a popular governor who, without any effort, was re-elected as the state's elected leader continuously for the rest of his life. During the early 1780s, Governor Livingston became ever more aware of the ineptitude and embarrassing weakness of the national government under the Articles of Confederation. In letters written during the mid1780s, he observed that the country's first organic law certainly needed to be amended, but any amendments adopted should not impinge on the sovereignty and independence of individual states. In a letter written to Elijah Clarke on February 17, 1787 (this is before his appointment as a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention), Livingston wrote pessimistically of his growing concern for the fate of the young American republic. "I am really more distressed by the posture of our public affairs than I ever was by the most gloomy appearances during the late war. We do not exhibit the virtue that is necessary to support a republican government; and without the utmost exertions of the more patriotic part of the community, and the blessing of God upon their exertions, I fear that we shall not be able, . . . to support that independence which has lost us so much blood and treasure to acquire. . . . Our situation is truly deplorable." 2 Although not elected initially as a member of the New Jersey delegation, Governor Livingston apparently voiced his growing concern over the state of the union and his willingness to serve as a delegate. As a result he was added to the New Jersey delegation on May 18, 1787. When he arrived in Philadelphia just before June 5, it was expected that he would become a leader of the mild nationalist/mild states' rights faction to which most of the middle states' delegates belonged. Strangely, however, Livingston did not take an active role at the Convention. His attendance at the Convention was sporadic, due in large part to the fact that he frequently had to return to New Jersey to tend to his duties as the sitting governor of the state. He evidently missed most of the month of July when the bundle of compromises (known collectively as the Great Compromise) was laboriously hammered out. He is known to have returned to Philadelphia by July

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19 and was regular in his Convention attendance thereafter, up to September 17 when he joined three of his New Jersey colleagues in signing the completed draft. In response to an inquiry as to how active William Livingston was at the Constitutional Convention, James Madison wrote years later that "Mr. Livingston did not take his seat in the Convention till some progress had been made in the task committed to it, and he did not take an active part in its debates; but he was placed on important Committees, where it may be presumed he had an agency and a due influence. He was personally unknown to many, perhaps most of the members, but there was a redisposition in all to manifest the respect due to the celebrity of his name." 3 Georgian journalist and fellow commissioner William Pierce wrote a generally glowing sketch of the New Jersey governor as "a Man of the first rate talents, but he appears to me rather to indulge a sportiveness of wit, than a strength of thinking. He is however equal to anything, from the extensiveness of his education and genius. His writings teem with satyr and a neatness of style. But he is no Orator, and seems little acquainted with the guiles of policy. He is about 60 years old, and remarkably healthy."4 In a similar vein, French charge d'affaires Otto, in his report on the Philadelphia Convention to his superior in Paris wrote that "William Livingston, Esquire, Governor since the beginning of the revolution, well instructed, firm, patriotic, preferring the public good to his own popularity and having often exposed his position in order to prevent the legislature from passing bad laws. Although he never ceases scoffing at the people, he is always reelected, since even his enemies agree that he is one of the most skillful and virtuous men on the continent. He is the father of Madam Jay and Mr. Broc. Livingston."5 Although Livingston participated sparingly in the Convention debates, his presence at the Pennsylvania State House contributed to its legitimacy. Acknowledged as one of "most skillful and virtuous men on the continent," his participation undoubtedly helped to prompt the many favorable comments made by contemporaries regarding what could be considered the extra-legal (or even ill-legal) gathering in Philadelphia.6 Because he did sign the final draft and because he represented a "small state," William Livingston can be classified, along with such other distinguished delegates like Roger Sherman, William Paterson, John Dickinson, George Read, and John Rutledge, as a "small-state nationalist." With the possible exception of Livingston, all of these men played active roles at the Convention in crafting a new constitution that would grant the national government needed additional powers, but at the same time, would not infringe on individual state sovereignty and independence. They favored and worked diligently for, and this would include William Livingston, a "true federal system" of government. Livingston had helped draft what was presented on June 15 as the New

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Jersey Plan; a plan which called for an essential retention of the Articles of Confederation. When this so-called "small-state" plan was voted down on June 19, Livingston then worked with other small-state nationalists to hammer out an acceptable compromise. When the "acceptable compromise" (i.e., the Great Compromise) was formulated in general outline, but before it was adopted, Livingston felt he had to leave the Convention to tend to his gubernatorial duties back in New Jersey. He departed Philadelphia on July 3, having been apparently assured by Paterson, Dickinson, Sherman, and other small-state nationalists that the states would be able, in the bundle of compromises being crafted, to retain equality in one branch of the proposed national legislature. He returned to Philadelphia on July 19 (three days after the Great Compromise was adopted) and regularly attended the sessions during the remainder of the Convention. Although Livingston did sign the Constitution and did work assiduously for ratification of the completed document in New Jersey, he had several minor objections to some of the features of the finished governing charter. He believed the chief justice ought to be appointed for life and be empowered to select the associate justices. He likewise believed that the Senate should not be given the power to "advise and consent" to treaties and executive appointments. Finally, he favored the creation of a national "council of revision" (that would be, apparently, similar to the Council of Censors created for the state of Pennsylvania in its Constitution of 1776), which would be empowered to pass on the constitutionality of acts of Congress. After the Convention and the quick unanimous New Jersey ratification vote (December 18, 1787, by a vote of 39-0), Livingston returned to fulltime duty as the state's chief executive. For his participation in the Convention and undoubtedly for his long and distinguished tenure as New Jersey's first governor, Livingston was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree by Yale in 1788. From all appearances, Livingston's private life was one of contentment and tranquility. In 1745 (age 23), he married Susanna French (the daughter of a wealthy New Jersey landowner) with whom he had thirteen children. One of their daughters, Sarah, married the young John Jay in 1774. As the patriarch of the powerful Livingston clan, William presided over its fortunes with compassion and grace. He not only served as an intellectual mentor to the younger members of his family (this would include his famous nephews Edward and Robert R. Livingston), but also to other young men of promise and ambition. Thus in 1772, Livingston became a mentor and friend to the young Alexander Hamilton, who had just migrated from the West Indies to further his education on the mainland. Hamilton actually lived with the Livingston family at Liberty Hall for a few months before embarking on his education. It was largely through Livingston's influence that the unknown and virtually penniless Hamilton was able to gain admission to Francis Barber's Presbyterian Academy in Elizabethtown,

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N e w Jersey, and later to King's College (present-day Columbia University) in N e w York City. The Livingston family patriarch died July 2 5 , 1790 (age 64). His death was widely heralded and greatly lamented. H e was eulogized as one of the revered Founders and Framers, w h o had dedicated his life to useful public service, intellectual pursuits, and noteworthy charitable enterprises. NOTES 1. Among Livingston's more famous earlier writings were the poem The Philosophic Solitute (1747), and the historical treatise, A Review of the Military Operations in North America, 1753-1756 (1757). 2. Charles Warren, The Making of the Constitution (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1937), 40. 3. James Madison to Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., February 12, 1831, as quoted in Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:496. 4. Ibid., 90. 5. Ibid., 235. 6. Thomas Jefferson's oft-quoted comment was that the Philadelphia Convention was "really an assembly of demi-gods." Virginian George Mason, himself an active delegate, wrote that "America has certainly, upon this occasion, drawn forth her first characters; there are upon this Convention many gentlemen of the most respectable abilities, and as far as I can discover, of the purest intentions." John Dickinson, likewise an influential participant, wrote "The Convention is very busy—of excellent temper—and for abilities, exceeds I believe any assembly that ever met upon this continent, except the first congress."

JAMES MADISON, JR. (1751-1836) James Madison has rightly been called "The Father of the Constitution." More than any other single individual, this frail, studious, self-conscious Virginia aristocrat was responsible for the calling of the Convention, for preparing a draft of a plan of government from which the Philadelphia Convention could work, for taking the most comprehensive notes at the Convention, for writing, along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the informative The Federalist Papers, and for securing ratification of the Constitution in Virginia. Recognized by his compeers for his incredible energy, his creative political mind, and his innate intelligence, Madison seemingly spent his young, formative years preparing for his role as the "Architect of the United States Constitution." Born March 16, 1751, at his maternal grandparents' estate in Port Conway, King George County, Virginia, to Eleanor ("Nellie") Rose Conway (1731-1829) and James Madison, Sr. (1723-1801), Jemmy, as he was invariably called by friends and family, was the oldest of ten children. As the oldest son of locally prominent, aristocratic parents, James was given every advantage to succeed in the patriarchal, hierarchical society that was eighteenth-century Virginia. He received his earliest education from his mother and private tutors. His formal education commenced in 1762 (age 11) when he was sent to Donald Robertson's private school. Late in life, after his retirement from the presidency, James Madison was to claim that "All that I have been in life I owe largely to that man." After studying five years with Robertson, the precocious Jemmy spent two years (1767-1769) at home studying the classics under the demanding tutelage of the rector of the local Anglican Church (the Reverend Thomas Martin), who lived with the Madisons at their Montpelier plantation. As a graduate of the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton University), Martin undoubtedly influenced Madison's decision to attend the recently founded Princeton,

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New Jersey, college. Like several of his future Convention colleagues, Madison fell under the political and theological influence of the irascible Scottish clergyman and educator, John Witherspoon. Witherspoon was later to describe James Madison as the perfect model of a serious-minded "grind." He further opined that the "whole time Jemmy was under my supervision, I never knew him to do, or to say, one improper thing." That James Madison was "a serious-minded grind" and a "model," "proper" student was obvious to all who knew him during these formative years. He was graduated with honors in 1771 after only two years of study. Eschewing the advice of his father who wanted his oldest son to return to Virginia to assume the role of a country gentleman planter, James elected instead to remain another year at the College of New Jersey to study theology and political "economy" (i.e., political theory and history) under the direct and exacting supervision of President John Witherspoon. At college, Madison was exposed to what may be termed "New Light Presbyterian thought," which was theologically and politically hostile to other religious establishments—especially New England Congregationalism and Virginia Anglicanism. Finally in 1772, he returned to Orange County, Virginia, and took up what will be a lifelong residence at Montpelier. Built by his father between 1755 and 1765, Montpelier was a spacious fifty-five-room mansion located just 27 miles from James Madison's close friend and political partner Thomas Jefferson's mountain-top Monticello estate. Upon his return to Montpelier, Madison took up the study of the law and passed the Virginia bar sometime before 1774. Although licensed to practice law, he never did pursue law as a career. His passion from his earliest years was the study of political theory, history, and practical politics. Following in the footsteps of his academic mentor, John Witherspoon (who as a congressman in 1776 would later sign the Declaration of Independence), young James embraced the American Patriot cause. In 1774, he served on the radical Orange County committee of safety and the following year as a member of the Virginia Convention that drafted that state's first constitution. Two years later, he was elected to the first Virginia House of Delegates and in 1778 to the Virginia Council of State. Unlike many of his future Constitutional Convention colleagues, Madison never served in the military. Ill-health (real and imagined) evidently precluded even nominal, non-combat service in the Continental army or in the state militia.1 In 1780, Madison embarked upon on what would be a long and distinguished political career at the national level. His election to the increasingly moribund Continental Congress enabled him to witness, firsthand, the ineptitude of the central government under the Articles of Confederation. As a congressman (1780-1783 and 1786-1788), Madison initially worked hard to amend the Articles so as to give the national authority the power to enable it to grapple successfully with the manifold problems (largely financial) confronting the new American republic. He supported

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the Impost of 1781, which would have given the national government the power to tax imports. This attempt to enhance national power was, however, thwarted by the vote of a single state (Rhode Island). He was apparently the primary sponsor of a 1783 congressional act that counted individual slaves as three-fifths of a white person for purposes of taxation and representation. This, of course became the prototype of the controversial three-fifths provision of the Great Compromise, which was incorporated into the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 2, Clause 3). With the failure to amend the Articles of Confederation, Madison soon became an advocate for calling a new convention that would be empowered to change, alter, or even overthrow the country's first fundamental government charter. In the period 1783-1787, along with George Washington, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton (all future delegates to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention), and John Jay, Madison worked unobtrusively to bring about the calling of the Constitutional Convention. Serving briefly in the Virginia House of Delegates (1784-1786), Madison was the principal instigator in the calling of the 1785 Mount Vernon Conference, which led in turn to the calling of the 1786 Annapolis Convention. It was, it should be remembered, the five-state meeting (twelve commissioners) at Maryland's capital city that issued the clarion call (made official by the February 2 1 , 1787, motion of the Continental Congress) for the calling of the Philadelphia Convention. As the prime mover and Virginia delegate to both of these pre-Convention conferences, Madison was able to meet, discuss, and plan (some would say "conspire") with other like-minded nationalists to bring about the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention to which most of them were later appointed as delegates. In the forefront of the nationalistic movement that culminated in the Philadelphia Convention, Virginia was among the first states to select its delegation. On December 4, 1786, the state legislature voted to appoint nine of its more prominent political leaders to its delegation. When three (Thomas Nelson, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee) of the nine declined to serve, the governor appointed Dr. James McClurg as Virginia's seventh delegate. Except for the political novice James McClurg, the six remaining members represented the creme de la creme of Virginia's talented political and judicial leadership. George Washington, of course, headed the star-studded group and would become the obvious choice to be elected president of the Convention. However, the reserved and self-effacing James Madison, in his own unassuming way, would exert more influence at the Convention than all, with the possible exception of the universally revered Washington, of his older better-known Virginia colleagues. Madison arrived in Philadelphia several days before the May 14 scheduled opening day of what his close confidant Jefferson called an "assembly of demi-gods." He secured lodgings at the Indian Queen Tavern (located conveniently near the Pennsylvania State House). This popular inn and tav-

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ern was the Convention home of a number of delegates. Besides Madison, it is known that Caleb Strong, Nathaniel Gorham, George Mason, Alexander Martin, Hugh Williamson, John Rutledge, Charles Pinckney, and Alexander Hamilton also found accommodations at this elegant Third Street rooming house. Madison undoubtedly took full advantage of the time these fellow boarders spent in the days following his early arrival until a Convention quorum was finally reached on May 25 in unofficial, informal afternoon and evening meetings over dinner and "a convivial glass" to push and hone his own political views and to gain specifically support for his large-state plan, which with slight modifications evolved into the Virginia Plan. Even though at the age of 36 he was one of the younger delegates, Madison had already, by 1787, gained an enviable national reputation for his scholarly political acumen, for his abilities as an effective political polemicist, and for his noteworthy accomplishments—both as a state and national legislator. Moreover, even before the Convention officially convened, Madison was exerting the influence that would ever thereafter entitle him to be labeled "The Father of the Constitution." The observant William Pierce noted correctly that the mild-mannered and diminutive Mr. Maddison is a character who has long been in public life; and what is very remarkable every Person seems to acknowledge his greatness. He blends together the profound politician, with the Scholar. In the management of every great question he evidently took the lead in the Convention, and tho' he cannot be called an Orator, he is a most agreeable, eloquent, and convincing Speaker. From a spirit of industry and application which he possesses in a most eminent degree, he always comes forward the best informed Man of any point in debate. The affairs of the United States, he perhaps, has the most correct knowledge of, of any Man in the Union. He has been twice a Member of Congress, and was always thought one of the ablest Members that ever sat in that Council. Mr. Maddison is about 37 years of age, a Gentleman of great modesty,—with a remarkable sweet temper. He is easy and unreserved among his acquaintance, and has a most agreeable style of conversation.2 The French charge d'affaires was likewise overly complimentary of Madison in his report to his superiors in Paris. James Madison was "educated, wise, moderate, docile, studious; perhaps more profound than Mr. Hamilton, but less brilliant; close friend of Mr. Jefferson and sincerely attached to France. He was in Congress exceedingly junior (or young) and he seemed to be particularly dedicated to public affairs. He may be governor of his state one day, if his modesty permits him to accept this position. He re-

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fused to be president of Congress. This is a man which one must study for a long time in order to form an accurate idea of him." 3 It was during the few days prior to May 25 when he met, almost daily, in informal sessions with his Virginia colleagues, who had already made the several-day trip to Philadelphia, and with several of the Pennsylvania commissioners (who all lived in or near the City) and during the first few weeks of the Convention that Madison unobtrusively assumed the role as leader of what is usually referred to as the large-state nationalist faction. Not only was he well-prepared by dint of having acquired, primarily through many years of study, extensive knowledge of political theory, political history, and political practice, but he also came to Philadelphia with a well-reasoned preliminary outline of a plan of government, which would soon emerge, with slight modifications, as the Virginia Plan presented to the Convention by Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph on May 29. In addition, Madison voluntarily assumed what turned out to be the arduous and time-consuming role of "unofficial" secretary or note-taker of the Convention. Madison's extensive notes were the most complete ones taken, exceeding in completeness even the Journallof the official Secretary Williamm m Jackson. Although Madison spent years, after his retirement from political office in early 1817, revising his notes, they remain the most accurate and therefore the most valuable account of what probably actually transpired during the official sessions of the Philadelphia Convention. As editor Max Farrand noted correctly in the introduction to his majestic The Records of the Federal Conventionnof1787,7,""Madison's notes of the Debates have remained the standard authority for the proceedings of the Convention." 4 As Madison stated in the preface to the his notes, written shortly before his death, "I chose a seat in front of the presiding member, with other members, on my right and left hand. In this favorable position for hearing all that passed I noted in terms legible and in abbreviations and marks intelligible to myself what was read from the Chair or spoken by the members; and losing not a moment unnecessarily between the adjournment and reassembling of the Convention I was enabled to write out my daily notes during the session or within a few finishing days after its close." 5 Madison had stipulated that his Convention notes were not to be published until after his death. They were finally purchased by the U.S. government and published in 1840. For having prepared and presented, by his governor, a plan of government, which, in modified form, became the basis of the Constitution and for having taken the most complete set of Convention notes, Madison could, for those two reasons alone, be rightly considered the "Father of the Constitution." However, he went on to be one of the most active, influential participants in the actual Convention deliberations. During the first few crucial weeks, Madison led the small group of determined large-state nationalists in their largely successful attempt to have the Randolph (Virginia) Plan adopted as the basis for the Constitution. This

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was in fact achieved on June 19. By a 7-3 state vote, the Convention agreed to consider only the Virginia Plan thereby effectively rejecting the smallstate New Jersey Plan and rendering the Articles of Confederation a dead letter document. Especially during the weeks following Randolph's presentation of his fifteen resolutions on Tuesday, May 29 (i.e., the Virginia Plan) until passage of the Great Compromise on July 16, Madison busily and boldly led the talented coterie of extreme nationalists who first sought (successfully as it turned out) to have Randolph's resolutions adopted as the basis for the new constitution and then secondly attempted (unsuccessfully) to gain Convention approval for proportional representation in both houses of the proposed national legislature. This latter proposal, of course, would have created an almost omnipotent large-state controlled national government and would have impinged greatly on individual state sovereignty and independence. Despite the valiant efforts of the Madison-led large-state faction, the majority small-state national group, under the leadership of John Dickinson, George Read, Oliver Ellsworth, and Roger Sherman, was able to secure state equality in the proposed upper legislative chamber. However, Madison's many speeches in favor of proportional representation were among the most thoughtful, most learned, and most reasonable ones heard at the Convention.6 For example, on May 30, "Mr. Madison observed that whatever reason might have existed for the equality of suffrage when the Union was a federal one among sovereign States, It must cease when a national Governt. Should be put into the place. In the former case, the acts of Cong. Depended so much for their efficacy on the cooperation of the States, that these had a weight both within &c without Congress, nearly in proportion to their extent and importance." 7 The next day, in the increasingly heated debate over the issue of who should elect the national legislators, Madison quietly opined that "the appointment of the Members to the first branch of the national Legislature ought to be made by the people for two reasons,—one was that it would inspire confidence, and the other that it would induce the Government to sympathize with the people." 8 His belief that the legislators in the House of Representatives should be elected by the people was consistent with his firm conviction that representation in that House (and also in the Senate) should be proportional to population rather than each state having an equal vote. In both cases, Madison advocated what might be termed the more "democratic" approach to these vexing and controversial issues. Philosophically opposed to the Great Compromise largely because he believed an equal vote, regardless of population or wealth, in either house of congress was undemocratic, Madison did not support the arrangement contained in the elaborately crafted July 16 Compromise. After passage of the Great Compromise, control of the Convention seemed to have shifted from Madison's small, but capable group of extreme nationalists to the larger,

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but equally talented, faction of small-state nationalistic "compromisers." Having secured the desired protection of state sovereignty with the provision of an equal voice in at least one branch of the legislature, the majority group willingly joined Madison and his cohorts in adding "flesh" to the constitutional skeleton created by the Virginia Plan as amended by the Great Compromise. In late July, August, and early September, Madison worked feverishly, in the spirit of compromise, to draft a constitution that would create the "semi-consolidated" national government, which a majority of delegates apparently favored. In other words, Madison believed that "half a loaf" was eminently preferable to "no loaf" at all; especially if acceptance of "half a loaf" would result in the drafting of an organic fundamental governing charter that could gain wide approval both from the various interest groups represented at the Convention and from the American people in general. Failure to defeat the idea of an equal vote in the proposed national Senate was only one of two major setbacks Madison experienced at the Convention. He came to Philadelphia with the conviction that it was absolutely imperative that the national government have the authority to veto state laws. On May 31, the Convention passed, without much debate or even realizing the significance of what it was approving, a clause that would have enabled the national legislature "To negative all laws, passed by the several States, contravening, in the opinion of the national legislature, the articles of union." Then on a motion made by Dr. Franklin, the phrase "or any Treaties subsisting under the authority of the union" was added.9 A week later, the small-state nationalists and arch states' rights proponents, having finally come to the realization that the Madison-led arch nationalists had cleverly and quietly "pulled a fast one" in getting approval of the "negative" clause on May 31, united to defeat a motion actually made by Charles Pinckney (but clearly authored and seconded by Madison) that would have confirmed the central government's power "to negative all laws which to them shall appear improper." It was, however, decisively defeated by a vote of 3-7 with only the three largest states (i.e., Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) voting yea.10 Thus, by the end of July, two of Madison's "pet" ideas (i.e., proportional representation in at least one branch of the legislature and the veto of state legislation) had been rejected. Even so, "in the spirit of compromise" and in the hope to savage the other core provisions of his pre-Convention draft of what became the Virginia Plan, Madison continued to work diligently to write a fundamental charter of government that would establish "a firm national government" and that then would be, in compliance with the February 21, 1787, congressional resolution calling for a convention, "adequate to the exigencies of Government &: the preservation of the Union." 11 Despite these early Convention setbacks, the final version of the Constitution contained most of Madison's ideas regarding the establishment of a strong, potentially almost-

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omnipotent national government based on what he considered sound "republican" principles. During the latter half of the Convention, he served actively and meaningfully on most of the more important committees. Most notably, in obvious recognition of the high regard in which he was held and of his herculean efforts to craft the new frame of government, Madison was appointed, on September 8 along with Dr. William Samuel Johnson, Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton, and Edmund Randolph, to the all-important Committee on Style and Arrangement. There is ample evidence that he played a significant role within the Committee to draft its final report, which constituted, with minor alternations, the finished document. On September 17, James Madison signed the Constitution with the belief, shared by many of his colleagues, that it was indeed the best fundamental charter obtainable given the divergent philosophical, regional, and economic views of the Convention delegates. After the Convention, but before his return to Virginia, Madison, as a sitting member of the Continental Congress, traveled to New York City to work for passage of the congressional motion to send the signed Constitution to the states for ratification and then to write a series of essays, in collaboration with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, that urged ratification in New York. The eighty-five essays (as far as can be determined, Hamilton wrote fifty-one essays, Jay five, and Madison twenty-nine) have become the classic oft-quoted learned commentary on the theoretical republican principles on which the Constitution was largely based. The essay most often quoted and of particular merit and cogency, was Madison's Federalist Number Ten. In it the scholarly Madison ably and convincingly argued against the classic notion, widely held at the time, that republics could not survive in large areas especially if they contain diverse populations. To the contrary, he claimed that the possibility of both anarchy and tyranny was lessened as the number of interest groups and geographic regions were increased in any given society. Upon his return to Montpelier, Madison worked tirelessly for ratification in Virginia. Elected to the state's ratifying convention, he effectively led the pro-ratification forces against the daunting opposition of the wellentrenched Virginia Anti-Federalists. Led by the ever popular Patrick Henry and ably supported by the scholarly George Mason (one of the three Convention delegates, though in attendance on September 17 who refused to sign the Constitution), Richard Henry Lee, and James Monroe, the AntiFederalists initially hoped to defeat ratification outright. Failing in that endeavor, they then worked to make the state's approval contingent upon either the calling of a second constitutional convention or the adding of amendments (i.e., some form of a "bill of rights"). It was fully realized by Federalists and Anti-Federalists alike, that without Virginia's ratification of the Constitution, there would be little chance of success for the new na-

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tional government. The Virginia Ratifying Convention came down to a titanic struggle between two talented, but totally different, political "giants." It pitted the sometimes bombastic, but always eloquent Patrick Henry ("a host onto himself") against the always logical, mild-mannered, James Madison, who was aided by Henry ("Light Horse Harry") Lee and the young John Marshall. Working primarily behind the scenes, Madison was finally able to secure ratification on June 25, 1788, by the less-thanoverwhelming vote of 89-79. Thus, Virginia became the tenth state to ratify the Constitution. However, to secure this ratification, the Federalists apparently had to promise that they would propose a bill of rights of twenty articles as well as twenty other minor alterations. As the new national government was being established, Madison sought election to the U.S. Senate. Thwarted in this endeavor by the AntiFederalists in the Virginia legislature (primarily by the efforts of Patrick Henry and James Monroe), Madison ran for and was elected to the first national House of Representatives, where he served with distinction from 1789 to 1797. As a congressman, he honored the unofficial pledge made at the Virginia Ratifying Convention to work for passage of what became the celebrated Bill of Rights, which was added to the Constitution in 1791. He also sponsored legislation that established the departments of state, war, and the treasury. In opposition to the highly nationalistic and controversial Hamiltonian Financial Program and the overly pro-British stance assumed by the Washington administration, Madison broke politically with both the president and his meteoric treasury secretary and joined with his close friend and Virginia neighbor Thomas Jefferson in founding the Republican (or Democrat/Republican) Party. He retired briefly from public life in 1797 only to reappear in 1799 as the author of the so-called Virginia Resolutions. Written in opposition to the highly partisan (and probably unconstitutional) Alien and Sedition Acts, Madison invoked what is generally referred to as the extreme states' rights doctrine of interposition, which would give individual states the power to interpose state authority between its citizens and illegal or unconstitutional national laws, court decisions, and actions. Although purposefully vague as to just what "state interposition" actually meant, these anonymously authored resolutions represented Madison at his most extreme states' rights position. When the Jefferson/Madison party gained control of the national government in 1800 and Madison became President Jefferson's right-hand man as his secretary of state, he discarded the "localism" inherent in the Virginia Resolutions and once again became the nationalist of former years. As secretary of state, Madison formulated, along with the president, and put into practice the policy of "peaceable coercion"; a policy that culminated in the ill-advised and totally ineffectual Embargo of 1807-1809. Not surprisingly, in 1808 the outgoing Jefferson anointed his close friend and confidant as his successor, and Madison was duly elected as the country's

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fourth president against the almost nominal opposition of former Convention colleague Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. Madison's two terms as president (1808-1816) were eventful and largely unsuccessful. With the failure of "peaceable coercion" to prevent the British seizure of U.S. ships and cargoes and the impressment of American sailors, President Madison was virtually forced, by the so-called War Hawks such as Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, to ask Congress for a declaration of war. The ensuing War of 1812, which the young American republic was almost totally ill-prepared to wage, luckily ended in a virtual stalemate. During the war, Madison demonstrated that he was a more effective constitution-maker (as "The Father of the Constitution") and legislator (as a member of the House of Representatives, 1789-1797) than he was as a wartime leader. As the war dragged inconclusively on into 1814, Madison was even unable to mount a successful defense of the nation's capital. Fleeing to the nearby Virginia woods, President Madison witnessed, from a short distance, the humiliating August 1814 burning of Washington by British troops. The Treaty of Ghent (signed December 24, 1814) mercifully ended the hostilities and ushered in what is usually, but somewhat misleadingly, referred to as "The Era of Good Feeling." During the waning days of his presidency, Madison supported several nationalistic measures including the chartering of the Second Bank of the United States and the country's first "protective" tariff. His retirement years (1817-1836) were spent at Montpelier. Rarely venturing out of Orange County, he painstakingly revised his Constitutional Convention notes for posthumous publication, served as a member of the Virginia state constitutional convention in 1829, and with his friend and neighbor Jefferson served on the board of trustees of what has become the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. Seemingly a confirmed bachelor, Madison had surprised friends and family alike when he married in 1794, at the age of 43, the vivacious widow Dolley Payne Todd. The 27-year-old Quaker brought to this union a son and a well-deserved reputation as a gracious hostess and a lively personality. Not only did Dolley serve hospitably as her president husband's hostess at the President's Mansion, but on occasions had also assumed earlier hostess duties for widower Thomas Jefferson during his eight-year tenure as chief executive. From all reports, the Madisons' marriage was a happy one. The spirited and fun-loving Dolley appeared to have been the perfect "antidote" to her usually overly somber, serious, mild-mannered husband. James Madison died June 28, 1836, at Montpelier and was buried there in the private family cemetery. His many praiseful eulogies invariably mentioned that he had outlived all of his Philadelphia Convention colleagues. He was deservedly acclaimed as "The Father of the Constitution," as a profound political theorist, as an effective legislator, as Jefferson's effective and only secretary of state, and as president of the United States during a tumultuous time for the young American republic. Most historians today

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place the name of James Madison, Jr., in the highest pantheon of revered American Founders and Framers. NOTES 1. Although he lived to the ripe, old age of eighty-five, Madison never enjoyed what might be considered robust good health. Small of stature (5' 6") and physically sick during most of his youthful years, he became a confirmed hypochondriac frequently fearing the worst regarding his health and physical well-being. His propensity for usually wearing only black apparel and his seemingly delicate, fragile-looking physical appearance all added to his projecting the image, at least in public, of a somber, staid, sober, solemn, serious, scholarly, and sickly person. 2. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:94-95. 3. Ibid., 3:237. 4. Ibid., l:xvi. 5. Ibid., l:xvi. 6. Madison's 161 recorded speeches put him in third place just behind Gouverneur Morris' 173 and James Wilson's 168. Not coincidentally, these three most frequent Convention speakers were all ardent large-state nationalists who opposed the Convention-saving Great Compromise. 7. Farrand, 1:37. 8. Ibid., 57. 9. Ibid., 46-47. 10. Ibid., 162-163. 11. Ibid., 3:13-14.

ALEXANDER MARTIN (1740-1807) At the time of his appointment to the North Carolina delegation to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention in early January 1787, Alexander Martin was one of the most popular, most experienced political figures in his adopted state. Born in Amwell Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, in 1740 to Hugh and Jane Martin, Alexander attended the local common schools. While still a youth, he moved with his family southward first to Virginia and then to Rowan (present-day Guilford) County, North Carolina. As a young teenager, Alexander returned to his birth state to attend the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton University) from which he was graduated in 1756 (age 16). Upon his return to North Carolina, he settled in Salisbury where he embarked upon a mercantile career. He soon entered the judicial arena first as a justice of the peace, then as a judge in the Salisbury District, and finally as deputy king's attorney in 1774 and 1775. During the 1770 frontier uprising (known popularly as the Regulator Movement), Judge Martin's court, in Hillsboro, was attacked by some 150 armed Regulators who were angry over what they perceived was unfair and even illegal treatment in the court system. Specifically, the frontiersmen claimed they were under-represented in the state legislature and court system, were not given fair trials in court, were unfairly taxed, and were not provided with much-sought-after military aid by the eastern—tidewatercontrolled—state government to meet the constant attacks of hostile Native Americans on the Carolina frontier. In the violent melee that followed the Regulators' invasion of his courtroom, Judge Alexander Martin was severely beaten. In what must be considered a concession to the rioters, Martin signed an agreement, in 1771, to acquiesce in some of the demands of the malcontents regarding the appointment of unprejudiced juries and proper public accounting of taxes by sheriffs. This apparent leniency might

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well have saved his judicial career and also might have prompted him to undertake the serious study of the law. Admitted to the bar in 1772, Martin began to practice law in Guilford County. In 1774, he commenced his political career with election to the colonial House of Commons. With the overthrow of the British Royal Government in North Carolina, Martin embraced the Patriotic cause serving in both the second and third provincial state congresses in 1775. In September 1775, the 35-year-old barrister began what turned out to be only a brief two-year stint in the Continental army. In recognition of his growing eminence as a lawyer and public servant, he was appointed lieutenant colonel of the Second North Carolina Regiment. Promoted to colonel in 1776, Martin saw military action in several of the bloody guerrilla-like battles, which characterized much of the fighting in the Carolinas. In early 1777, Colonel Alexander Martin joined General Washington's northern Continental army and participated in the September battle of Brandywine Creek and in the October battle of Germantown. Accused of cowardice for his actions in the battle of Germantown, Martin was arrested and made to endure the discomfiture of a military court-martial, which, happily for his future political, judicial, and mercantile careers, acquitted him of all wrong-doing. However, the humiliation and embarrassment of this unseemly incident was probably the reason he resigned his commission in late November 1777. Returning to his legal practice, mercantile pursuits, and state political career, Martin began an eight-year career (1778-1782, 1785, and 17871788) in the North Carolina State Senate. In seven of the years as a senator, he served as Speaker. In addition to his senatorial duties, he sat on the state Board of War (1780-1781). In 1781, he was chosen acting governor of North Carolina and in 1782 was elected in his own right as the state's chief executive, serving until 1785. Then, a brief return to the state legislature was followed by a two-year stint in the Continental Congress. Resignation from Congress was followed by his selection to the state delegation to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. Convention diarist William Pierce described Alexander Martin as "lately Governor of North Carolina, which office he filled with credit. He is a Man of sense, and undoubtedly is a good politician, but he is not formed to shine in public debate, being no Speaker. Mr. Martin was once a Colonel in the American Army, but proved unfit for the field. He is about 40 years of age." 1 Martin was present at the first Convention meeting on Friday, May 25 and apparently was regular in his attendance thereafter until he departed in late August. However, he did not return to sign the Constitution. Fellow North Carolina delegate Hugh Williamson apparently predicted Martin's early departure from the Convention, when he wrote in a letter to James Iredell dated July 8, 1787, that his colleague would be leaving the Convention soon because "our late Governor Martin, while he sat at the

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helm of our State, have so exhausted his fund, that time must be required to enable him again to exert his abilities to the advantage of the nation." 2 However, physical and possible emotional exhaustion does not fully explain Martin's early departure. Probably, the more accurate reason Martin left the Convention early was his dissatisfaction with the proceedings. He was the least nationalistic of the five North Carolina delegates and therefore inclined to oppose the creation of a strong national government. By the middle of August when Martin did finally depart for home, it was obvious that what was being crafted was a fundamental governing charter that created an almost omnipotent central government. There was considerable "Anti-Federalist," pro-states' rights sentiment in North Carolina and Martin, as an astute politician, reflected, and indeed represented, this point of view in his brief tenure as a member of the Continental Congress and as a deputy at the Constitutional Convention.3 In his infrequent speeches at the Convention, Martin rarely agreed with Madison, Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and King in their attempts to create a strong central government. Instead, he supported measures favorable to individual states (especially his own state) and also those that would restrain, if sometimes only mildly, the large-state nationalists in what many considered their ill-disguised power grab. Thus, he seconded a July 10 motion "passed in the negative" that would have given North Carolina six representatives, instead of the five allotted in an earlier vote, in the national House of Representatives. Later in July, Martin seconded yet another motion (which was, after considerable debate, withdrawn) made by states' rights advocate George Mason that would have prevented "the seat of the Natl. Govt. being (in the same City or town with) the seat of (the Govt. of) any State." 4 At about the time he left Philadelphia in late August, Martin wrote a letter to North Carolina governor Richard Caswell in which he informed the chief executive that he could not tell him just what the delegates were doing, but could tell him "negatively what they have not [been] doing. They are not about to create a King as hath been represented unfavourably in some of the Eastern States, so that you are not to expect the Bishop Osnaburg or any prince or great man of the world to rule in this country." 5 On balance, Alexander Martin can be classified as a mild states' rights advocate, who was leery of a strong president and of giving the national government dominance over the states. Martin's post-Convention political career was both at the state and national levels. Having already served four years as his state's chief executive, he was elected again as governor of North Carolina in 1789 serving in that position until 1792. In 1793, he was elected as an Anti-Federalist U.S. Senator. His adherence to the emerging Republican party of Madison and Jefferson is not surprising given his anti-big-government predilections and his unwillingness to sign the Constitution and fight for its ratification. As a one-term senator, Martin usually opposed the nationalistic proposals and

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programs of the Federalists. However, he voted with the Federalists for the highly partisan Alien and Seditions Act. This apostasy cost him re-election. H e returned to N o r t h Carolina to serve t w o terms as a state senator from Rockingham County. In 1790, he was appointed trustee of the recently chartered University of N o r t h Carolina; a position he held until his death. H e died on his plantation, " D a n b u r y , " on the Dan River in Stokes County on N o v e m b e r 10, 1807. His legacy is that of a conscientious public servant w h o reflected well the mildly Anti-Federalist views of his largely provincial N o r t h Carolina constituents. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:96. Pierce's comment that he was "unfit for the field" undoubtedly referred to Martin's court-martial for alleged cowardice during the battle of Germantown. Since Colonel Martin was acquitted in this court action, Pierce's comment was unfair and inaccurate. 2. Ibid., 55. 3. The Regulator Movement in 1770 was an early indication of what could be characterized as anti-government sentiment among many North Carolinians. In the vote on the Great Compromise in the Convention, North Carolina voted with the small-state majority and against the large-state nationalistic minority, which also suggested an anti-government (or least anti-nationalistic) viewpoint in the state. Still another manifestation of an anti-nationalistic mentality was the fact that North Carolina did not ratify the Constitution until November 2 1 , 1789 (some six months after George Washington's inauguration as president), because it was thought by many that the powerful national government created had the potential to be tyrannical and destructive of states' rights. Finally, with the rise of political parties in the early 1790s, North Carolina embraced the Republican (Jeffersonian) philosophy and party, which was mildly pro-states' rights and anti-nationalistic. Thus, Alexander Martin's apparent but mild opposition to the Constitution was indicative that he perhaps more accurately reflected the views of his North Carolina constituents than did his three colleagues who did sign the document on September 17. 4. Farrand, 2:127. 5. Ibid., 3:72-73.

aUTHER MARTIN (1744-1826) Luther Martin was the leader of the small-state extreme—states' rights faction at the Philadelphia Convention. Born the third of nine children on February 9, 1744, in New Brunswick, Middlesex County, New Jersey, Luther had to work hard to obtain an education. He attended and, in 1766, was graduated (with honors) from the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton University). He thereupon moved to Queenstown on Maryland's Eastern Shore where he taught school for three years. While still teaching, he began to consider a legal career. He soon resigned his teaching position and moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, to pursue legal studies full time. In 1771, he was admitted to the Virginia bar and began the practice of law in Accomac County, Virginia. Sometime between 1772 and 1774, the young ambitious lawyer had moved to Maryland where he established what soon became a prosperous legal practice and where he became an early advocate of American independence. As a known Patriot, he was appointed to serve on several radical extralegal committees, first at the local level in Somerset County, Maryland, and then at the state level in the capital city of Annapolis. In 1778, the 34-year-old barrister was appointed as Maryland's attorney general—a position he was to hold off and on for over thirty years (17781805 and 1818-1822). In his early years as attorney general, Martin vigorously prosecuted Loyalists (Tories). Also, he gained the reputation of being a legal advocate for the down-and-out (especially debtors who were demanding relief in the form of paper money) emissions and suspension, at least temporarily, of state bankruptcy laws. While still serving as the state's chief legal officer, Martin joined the military as an officer in the Baltimore Light Dragoons. In the summer of 1781, his military unit joined Lafayette's Franco-American Army, which was preparing to lay siege to Lord Cornwallis' beleaguered British army at Yorktown, Virginia. How-

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ever, Maryland's governor recalled the attorney general to resume his legal duties. Thus, Luther Martin was denied the experience of witnessing the humiliating British defeat at Yorktown, which was the last major battle of the Revolutionary War. After the end of fighting in 1781, Martin continued on as Maryland's attorney general and also continued in the private practice of law. His legal reputation was such that he was usually able to pick and choose his clients. He became one of the leading barristers not only in the thriving port city of Baltimore and in the state of Maryland, but also at the national level. His service as Maryland's chief prosecutor and his success in private practice led, perhaps inevitably, to his election in 1783 (re-elected in 1784) to the Continental Congress. During his two-year stint in the national congress, Martin remained the champion of debtors and of states' rights. His May 26, 1787, appointment (the day after the official opening of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia) as one of Maryland's five delegates meant he was in attendance during the important opening days when the large-state nationalists presented and tried to ram through their highly nationalistic Virginia Plan. When Luther Martin arrived in Philadelphia on June 9, he had already earned the reputation as one of the country's leading barristers and as a poor public speaker. William Pierce in his rather critical appraisal of his southern colleague noted correctly that "Mr. Martin was educated for the Bar, and is Attorney general for the State of Maryland. This Gentleman possesses a good deal of information, but he has a very bad delivery, and so extremely prolix, that he never speaks without tiring the patience of all who hear him. He is about 34 years of age." 1 The French diplomat Otto described Martin as a "Distinguished lawyer" and then noted that the Marylander "has written a lot against the resolutions of the Philadelphia Convention, of which he was a member."2 When Martin arrived at the Convention on June 9, the Convention was in the midst of the lengthy, and often heated, debate on the merits and demerits of the pro-large-state (and seemingly anti-states' rights) plan (i.e., the Virginia Plan) as contained in the twenty-three resolutions presented by Governor Edmund Randolph on May 29. Martin quickly assumed the leadership (along with William Paterson of New Jersey) of the small, but determined, group of states' rights advocates who vehemently opposed the direction the Convention seemed to be going. Correctly claiming that he and his Maryland colleagues had been instructed only "to meet such Deputies as may be appointed and authorized by any other of the United States to assemble in Convention at Philadelphia for the purpose of revising the Federal System, and to join with them in considering such Alterations and further Provisions as may be necessary to render the Federal Constitution adequate to the Exigencies of the Union." 3 He reiterated that they had not been instructed to overthrow the existing constitution and

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draft an entirely new, nationalistic, frame of government. Martin was largely responsible for calling together what can be called the initial states' rights coalition, which consisted of most of the Connecticut delegates, Robert Yates and John Lansing, Jr., of New York, most of the New Jersey and Delaware commissioners, and his Maryland colleagues Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer and James McHenry. As a response to the Virginia Plan, this highly talented group quickly formulated what was presented, on June 15 by William Paterson of New Jersey, as the small-state, states' rights' answer to the Randolph, large-state, nationalistic plan. This so-called New Jersey Plan (probably actually drafted by William Paterson, Roger Sherman, and Luther Martin) proposed the essential retention of the Articles of Confederation. These states' rights advocates did, however, concede the need to amend the Articles of Confederation. Their plan called for granting the national government the power to tax and to regulate trade and commerce. It also provided for a plural executive (with no veto power) and a national supreme court. It should be noticed that under the Paterson (New Jersey) Plan, each state would hold on to its equal vote in the national congress and therefore retain its complete sovereignty and independence. With the presentation of the Paterson Plan, the battle lines were clearly drawn between small and large states, between nationalists and states' righters, and between the Virginia and New Jersey plans. In the often acrimonious June and early July debates between these factions, Madison, Gouverneur Morris, Wilson, and King seemed to have the best of it. For example, they were able to maneuver the Convention into the June 19 7-3 vote to scrape the New Jersey Plan and adopt the Virginia Plan as the basis of the new constitution. 4 After June 19 the battle lines shifted somewhat. Now, the major conflict was one of proportional versus equal representation in the proposed national congress. In the discussions, both in the Convention and in the Committee of the Whole, that took place between the June 19 adoption of the Virginia Plan and the July 16 passage of the Great Compromise (with its provision of proportional representation in the lower house and equal representation in the upper chamber), Luther Martin spoke often against what he considered to be the "conspiratorial scheme" of Madison and his nationalistic cohorts to grant almost omnipotent power to the national government and of eliminating the states as viable political entities. On June 20, Martin declared that he would always "support the state government at the expense of the union." 5 One week later (Wednesday, June 27), in one of the most passionate, lengthy, and prolix speeches of the entire summer, Martin harangued for several hours on the twin themes that the national government of the United States was meant to represent states, not people and that the Articles of Confederation should be retained. In Madison's notes for that day, is Martin's statement, apparently repeated several times during the three-hour-plus exhortation, that "Mr. L. Martin contended at great length

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and with great eagerness that the General Govt. was meant merely to preserve the State Governts: Not to govern individuals; that its powers ought to be kept within narrow limits." After several hours of what some would consider disjointed prattling, Madison noted that Martin "was too much exhausted . . . to finish his remarks, and reminded the House" (one suspects much to the dismay of many of Martin's Convention colleagues) "that he should tomorrow, resume them." The next day, Martin continued his diatribe in defense of the Articles of Confederation and his advocacy of the retention of state equality in the proposed national legislature. Madison concluded his summary of Martin's lengthy speech with the notation that his rambling two-day speech "was delivered with much diffuseness & considerable vehemence."6 With the passage of the Great Compromise on July 16, Martin became increasingly disenchanted with what he considered to be the almost illegal proceedings that clearly, to his mind at least, constituted a violation of the instructions originally given to most of the delegates at the time of their appointment. Martin's best-remembered contribution to the drafting of the Constitution is his authorship of a motion, on July 17, which evolved in final form into the so-called supremacy clause (Article VI, Clause 2). 7 His sponsorship of this highly nationalistic motion was probably due to his mistaken belief that it would actually restrict or curtail national authority and therefore enhance individual state sovereignty and independence. To no one's surprise, Luther Martin (who evidently left the Convention on September 4) and his Maryland compatriot John Francis Mercer (who appeared to have departed Philadelphia on August 17) left the Convention early and therefore were not able or inclined to join the three non-signing delegates (i.e., Elbridge Gerry, George Mason, and Edmund Randolph) who did remain until the last day. Not only did Luther Martin not sign the Constitution but he also worked feverishly, though ineffectually as it turned out, to prevent ratification of the Constitution in Maryland. Despite the heroic efforts of both Martin and Mercer, Maryland became (on April 28, 1788) the seventh state to ratify the Constitution; by the overwhelming vote of 63-11. Even after his state had ratified the Constitution, Martin continued, at least until 1791, with his public opposition to the Constitution. However, by slow stages, he appeared to have migrated philosophically from being an ardent Anti-Federalist to being a Federalist supporter of the Washington administration and of the Hamiltonian Financial Program. The reason for Luther Martin's political transformation is largely unknown, although there is speculation that it might have been caused at least in part by his growing dislike of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and his emerging Democratic/Republican opposition faction. Martin continued serving as Maryland's attorney general until 1805 and practicing law primarily in and around the Chesapeake Bay port of Balti-

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more. In the early 1800s, Luther Martin was involved, as a counsel for the defense, in two of the most significant and interesting legal battles in early American history. In 1805, he successfully defended his close friend and Maryland compatriot Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, who had been impeached for his somewhat bizarre and certainly politically biased conduct in the trials of John Fries and James Thomas Callender, and for a politically provocative charge to a Baltimore grand jury. Martin was able to convince the jury that although Chase's behavior in the trials under investigation was certainly politically motivated and therefore inappropriate, it did meet the Constitution grounds for removal from office. Chase's acquittal, which was due in part to Martin's brilliant defense strategy, ended President Jefferson's partisan attack on the Federalist judiciary and has discouraged future administrations from using the impeachment process to remove obnoxious and unpopular judges. In 1807, Martin served as one of former Vice President Aaron Burr's defense lawyers when the quixotic New Yorker was charged with treason by the vindictive President Thomas Jefferson. Burr was found not guilty both because of the resourceful efforts of Luther Martin and his legal defense team colleagues, and because of Chief Justice John Marshall's strict interpretation of the U.S. law of treason. Well into his senior years, Martin remained active in his legal and judicial careers. In 1813, he was appointed chief judge of the court of oyer and terminer for the City and County of Baltimore and in 1818 was reappointed attorney general of Maryland. While serving his second stint as the state's chief legal officer, Martin headed the legal team that argued Maryland's cause in the landmark supreme court case McCulloch v. Maryland. In this epoch decision, Maryland was denied the authority to tax the Baltimore branch of the Second Bank of the United States. The legal team for the national bank (headed by William Pinkney, William Wirt, and Daniel Webster) was able to convince the high court that the act chartering the national bank was constitutional. In what was perhaps his most noteworthy decision, Chief Justice Marshall went on to state as a legal precedence the doctrine of "loose construction" of the Constitution. Luther Martin, in this far-reaching judicial case, opposed the supreme court's unanimous decision on two levels. On the public level, he lost the case for his home state when the court upheld the constitutionality of the bank. More importantly Marshall's landmark decision constituted a forthright assertion of nationalist authority, which Martin had opposed at the Philadelphia Convention. Martin's last few years were unhappy ones. He had married, on Christmas Day 1783, Maria Cresap with whom he had five children, of which three daughters lived to adulthood. However, by the time of his 1822 retirement from public service, he was alone, somewhat strangely destitute considering his many years as a well-known and prosperous lawyer, and suffering from severe alcoholism.8 In 1819, he suffered a paralyzing stroke,

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which finally prompted him to retire as Maryland's attorney general in 1822. N o w his fortunes plummeted! Having befriended his former client Aaron Burr, he moved to N e w York City and took up residence with the former vice president. Because of his k n o w n destitution, his friends in M a r y l a n d were responsible for the passage of an act by the state legislature, which required every lawyer in the state of Maryland to pay an annual license tax of $5 to be paid to trustees w h o were to use the funds thus collected for Luther Martin's upkeep. H e died July 10, 1826, in virtual obscurity and was buried in the churchyard of the historic Trinity Church in N e w York City. Luther Martin's historical reputation has suffered mainly because he is remembered as the champion of "lost causes": he steadfastly favored state sovereignty and the retention of the Articles of Confederation and he opposed, and therefore did not sign, the Constitution of 1787. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:93. 2. Ibid., 237. 3. Ibid., 586. 4. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia voted yea on the crucial measure, which essentially meant adopting the Virginia Plan as the basis of the constitution whereas New York, New Jersey, and Delaware voted nay. The two-member Maryland delegation then present was divided, which indicated that Luther Martin was unable to persuade his colleague Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer to join him in opposing the Virginia Plan. Farrand, 1:313. 5. Farrand, 1:347. 6. Ibid., 437-438, 444-445. 7. Ibid., 2:28-29. 8. Luther Martin had long had the reputation of being a heavy consumer of "ardent spirits." It was even rumored that his legal brilliance in notable trials was due at least in part to his having been at least tipsy or maybe even intoxicated. These assertions of inebriation, of course, cannot be verified, but the vast number of them from many different sources strongly suggests that there may be some truth to some of them.

GEORGE MASON (1725-1792) George Mason was born near Pasbytanzy, on the Northern Neck of Virginia (in 1725) in Fairfax County, into one of the First Families of Virginia (FFV). His father George Mason III and mother Ann Thomson Mason both came from aristocratic plantation and slave-owning families and thus were able to provide the young George Mason IV with a heritage of respectability and wealth, and with opportunities for education and public service not readily available to most Virginians in the first half of the eighteenth century. His father having died when George was ten, the unassuming future statesman was raised by his uncle—the well-known barrister John Mercer. Well educated at home by private tutors and the scholarly Mercer, George read widely and deeply in his uncle's well-stocked 1,500-volume private library. Thus, the studious young George was able to obtain, without benefit of any formal schooling, a classical and legal education that was probably equal to, or perhaps even exceeded that of, many of his future, college-trained Constitutional Convention colleagues. George Mason was always first and foremost a wealthy landowner, slaveowner, and land speculator. When he reached his maturity in the 1740s, he inherited a sizable landed estate that included the magnificent Potomac River mansion, Gunston Hall, which enabled him to assume the leisurely lifestyle of a wealthy "country gentleman." In 1750, he married Anne Eilbeck (a daughter of a prominent Maryland merchant) with whom in 23 years of marriage, he had twelve children of which five sons (including George Mason, Jr.—the fifth to be given the first name of George) and four daughters survived to at least young adulthood. In 1780, George married his second wife Sarah Brent with whom he lived in rural opulence until his death in 1792. Mason was always looking to add to his landholdings. His ample landed inheritance, the "dowries" that two marriages brought him,

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and his often financially rewarding land speculations made George Mason one of the largest landowners in all of Virginia. In the early 1750s, he acquired a financial interest in the Ohio Company. When the British crown in essence revoked the Ohio Company's charter in 1773, Mason gravitated into the Patriot camp. As one of the wealthiest of Virginia landowners, it was almost inevitable that George Mason would become involved politically. In 1759, he was elected, along with his Potomac River neighbor and close friend George Washington, to that "nursery of statesmen"—the Virginia House of Burgesses. Angered by the passage of the Sugar Act (1764) and the Stamp Act (1765) and by the revocation of the Ohio Company charter, the usually taciturn Mason moved to the forefront in opposition to what he considered the "unconstitutional" acts of both the British crown and Parliament. In 1774, he was the primary author of the Fairfax Resolves, a well-reasoned, scholarly document that delineated the colonists' constitutional objections to the hated Coercive Acts of 1774 (especially the Boston Port Act). With the writing of the Fairfax Resolves, Mason joined John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson as a leading propagandist or polemicist for the increasingly outraged American colonists. In 1776, it was George Mason who drafted the famous Virginia Bill of Rights, which, as the first official document devoted to delineating basic, fundamental rights, became the model for much of Jefferson's more famous Declaration of Independence, for portions of the Virginia state constitution of 1776, and for the Bill of Rights added in 1791 to the national Constitution of 1787. With his authorship of the first American Bill of Rights, George Mason established himself as one of the leading and most erudite political theorists of the entire revolutionary and early national period. During the War of Independence, Mason served sporadically, but effectively, in the Virginia legislature. In the late 1770s, in collaboration with future Convention colleague George Wythe, Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton, Thomas Ludwell Lee, and Thomas Jefferson, Mason served on the committee that completely revised the Virginia legal code. As a state legislator, Mason was largely responsible for securing Virginia's cession of her western lands that led finally to the delayed ratification, by Maryland, of the Articles of Confederation. Also he staunchly supported the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Virginia. During the early 1780s, Mason spent most of the time in "retirement" from the "hustle and bustle" of political life, which he found increasingly tiresome and unrewarding. However, when the Virginia legislature, on December 4, 1786, chose the state delegation to the Philadelphia Convention, Mason's name was included with those of several of his more famous compeers. As the senior delegate, in terms of age, from Virginia, George Mason was expected to play a vital role in the crafting of a new constitution. This expectation was amply realized when he became unobtrusively one of the

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busiest (he was recorded to have given 136 speeches at the Convention), most influential, and most articulate of the fifty-five delegates who attended the Convention at one time or another. He arrived in Philadelphia on May 17 and took up lodgings at what he termed "the old Indian Queen in Fourth Street." During the Convention, Mason took a few notes, which were not published until 1892. They are useful primarily for revealing his growing disenchantment with the proceedings during the latter two month of the four-month Convention. In a May 20 letter to his son George, Jr., Mason noted: The expectations and hopes of all the Union centre in this Convention. God grant that we may be able to concert effectual means of preserving our country from the evils which threaten us. . . . The most prevalent idea in the principal States seems to be a total alteration of the present federal system, and substituting a great National Council or Parliament, consisting of two branches of the Legislature, founded upon the principles of equal proportionate representation, with full legislative powers upon all the subjects of the Union; and an Executive; and to make the several State Legislatures subordinate to the National, by giving the latter the power of a negative upon all such laws as they shall judge contrary to the interest of the Federal Union. It is easy to foresee that there will be much difficulty in organizing a government upon this great scale, and at the same time reserving to the State Legislatures a sufficient portion of power for promoting and securing the prosperity and happiness of their respective citizens; yet with a proper degree of coolness, liberality, and candor (very rare commodities, by the bye), I doubt not but it may be effected.1 Thus, five days before the Convention officially opened, Mason, as a member of the Virginia delegation that had refined Madison's draft of a plan of government that would be presented on May 29 as the Virginia Plan, accurately foresaw what would be the major, potentially divisive issue at the upcoming Convention; should the delegates create a "federal" or "national" government? As a large landowning delegate from the largest, most populous state, George Mason supported Governor Randolph's resolutions (i.e., the Virginia Plan) with its provisions that were clearly favorable to large states. Along with most of his Virginia colleagues, Mason supported the June 19 motion that "buried" the states' rights New Jersey Plan and adopted the Virginia Plan as the "sole concern of the Convention." He also opposed, along with most of the delegates from Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia, the Great Compromise mainly because it obliquely recognized (and therefore seemingly gave its approval to) the institution of slavery and also because it gave each individual state an equal vote in the upper chamber of the proposed national legislature.

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However, after the Compromise was narrowly passed on July 16, Mason worked with his large-state colleagues and the "victorious" small-state nationalists to "refine" and "flesh out" the basic "Virginia with 'Great Compromise' plan." In his exceedingly fulsome portrayal of the senior Virginia delegate, William Pierce observed that "Mr. Mason is a Gentleman of remarkable strong powers, and possesses a clear and copious understanding. He is able and convincing in debate, steady and firm in his principles, and undoubtedly one of the best politicians in America. Mr. Mason is about 60 years old, with a fine strong constitution." 2 Somewhat strangely, because he was one of the largest slave owners in Virginia, Mason spoke several times in support of including a provision in the Constitution that would prohibit or at least restrict the slave trade. In fact, in late August, he gave what amounted to an anti-slavery tirade. "This infernal traffic originated in the avarice of British Merchants. The British Govt. constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it. . . . Slavery discourages arts & manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the immigration of Whites, who really enrich & strengthen a County. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a Country." 3 Mason's numerous anti-slavery and anti-slave trade speeches at the Convention clearly indicated that he shared the views of many of his slave owning colleagues, within and without the Convention, that slavery was a "nefarious" institution that was detrimental to both whites and blacks. However, he was, like most of his southern cohorts, not willing to champion immediate emancipation or to free his own slaves. As a large-land and slave owner, George Mason benefited economically and politically from the "blood, sweat, and tears" of his large bonded labor force. The labor of his "people" not only enabled this Potomac River nabob to live the leisurely life of an aristocratic "country gentleman," but it also gave his state, with its large slave population, undue, undemocratic political advantages because of the 3/s provision regarding representation in the House of Representatives. Was George Mason IV a hypocrite, or was he merely "a man of his time and class" who was caughtup in an immoral system from which he did not know how to extricate himself without producing dire social and economic consequences for the whole society? He was probably a little of both and therefore should not be criticized more severely than other revered Founders and/or Framers (e.g., Thomas Jefferson and George Washington) who were confronted with a similar moral and economic dilemma. On the other hand, Mason should not be completely absolved from any blame or criticism. Although he was apparently a benevolent slave master, he remained one of the largest slaveowners in Virginia's Northern Neck and therefore should be legitimately

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censured for his active support of an immoral institution and his "hypocrisy." By late August, Mason began to express doubts as to the efficacy of the constitution being drafted. His general objections were presented on the last working day of Convention (i.e., Saturday, September 15). They amounted to the fear that "the dangerous power and structure" of the proposed government "would end either in monarchy or a tyrannical aristocracy." Specifically, Mason claimed that "This Constitution had been formed without the knowledge or idea of the people. A second Convention will know more of the sense of the people, and be able to provide a system more consonant to it. It was improper to say to the people, take this or nothing. As the Constitution now stands, he could neither give it his support or vote in Virginia; and he could not sign here what he could not support there. With the expedient of another Convention as proposed, he could sign."4 He also lamented the lack of a bill of rights in the drafted charter and claimed specifically that the proposed House of Representatives was not truly representative of the American people and that the Senate, which he thought would be dominated by the small states, was given too much power. Thus George Mason was one of the three delegates present (the other two were the quixotic Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts and his Virginia colleague and governor Edmund Randolph) on signing day (September 17) who did not affix his name to the Constitution. After his return to Virginia, Mason worked diligently to prevent ratification in the state ratifying convention. Along with the everpopular Patrick Henry, Mason led the opposition to the Federalist attempt to secure a quick and unconditional ratification. Despite their heroic efforts, Virginia became the tenth state to ratify the Constitution on June 21, 1788, by the uncomfortably close vote of 89-79. Mason's vehement opposition to ratification in Virginia caused a mild breach in the long-time friendship with his Potomac River neighbor George Washington, and with James Madison. Mason retired to Gunston Hall, where he lived the last four years as a somewhat disillusioned political outcast. He did, however, live long enough to have the satisfaction of seeing the first ten amendments (i.e., the Bill of Rights) added to the Constitution in 1791. Because of his authorship of the country's first Bill of Rights (i.e., the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776) and his long advocacy of incorporating a bill of rights in the Constitution, George Mason can rightly be called, along with his fellow Convention colleague and ratifying convention opponent James Madison, the "Father (or least the co-father) of the universally revered Bill of Rights." Mason died October 7, 1792, at home and was buried in the family cemetery near his beloved Gunston Hall. He will always be remembered as the author of the famed Virginia Bill of Rights, as one of the leaders at the

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Constitutional Convention, and as a man of the Enlightenment who usually solved vexing problems with a detachment not usually found in active politicians and even statesmen. He properly belongs on any list of the top dozen Founders and Framers. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:22-24. 2. Ibid., 94. 3. Ibid., 2:370. 4. Ibid., 2:632.

JAMES McCLURG (1746-1823) James McClurg was the least politically experienced delegate at the Philadelphia Convention. Added to the Virginia delegation only after the popular Patrick Henry and the influential Richard Henry Lee had both declined to attend, McClurg, at the time of his late appointment, had earned the reputation as one of Virginia's most renowned physicians.1 Born in 1746 near Hampton, Virginia, McClurg received enough of the classical education his colonial colleges required for admission, to gain acceptance at the young age of 12 or 13 to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. Upon his graduation in 1762, he traveled to Europe to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. After years of intense study, he received his medicine degree in 1770. This was followed by his postgraduate medical studies first in Paris and then in London. During his London postgraduate stint, McClurg published a well-received medical treatise entitled Experiments upon the Human Bile and Reflections on the Biliary Secretions (1772). This article gained for McClurg an enviable reputation in the British medical community. It was translated into several languages. He returned to Virginia in 1773 with a growing international reputation as a respected medical scholar and practitioner and set up what would soon become a profitable medical practice. When the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, McClurg volunteered to serve as a surgeon in the Virginia militia. He apparently served in the militia conscientiously but without noticeable distinction. In 1779, his alma mater, the College of William and Mary appointed the now greatly esteemed physician as its professor of anatomy and medicine. Also in that year, James McClurg married Elizabeth Seldon. By the early 1780s, McClurg had gained the reputation as the most widely known and eminent physician in Virginia. His success and renown as a professor and medical practitioner perhaps made inevitable his growing interest in pursuing a po-

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litical career. Virginia congressman James Madison advocated McClurg's appointment as secretary of foreign affairs at the end of the war, but the position was given to Robert R. Livingston of New York. However, Madison was more successful in securing a political appointment for his good friend in 1787. He was able to secure McClurg's appointment to the Virginia delegation to the Constitutional Convention after Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Nelson had all declined to serve. Madison obviously believed that his friend James McClurg would prove to be a dependable and valuable ally at the Convention. As it turned out, McClurg's faithful support of his fellow delegate was sometimes needed to enable Madison to control the Virginia delegation in several crucial Convention votes.2 Until his early departure from the Convention (July 20 was apparently his last day in Philadelphia), Dr. McClurg almost blindly followed the lead of Madison in favoring the creation of a strong national government. Pierce's characterization of McClurg seemed accurate and probably represented the views of most of the delegates, who only knew the doctor by reputation as an eminent professor and physician. He is, the Georgian wrote, "a learned physician, but having never appeared before in public life his character as a politician is not sufficiently known. He attempted once or twice to speak, but with no great success. It is certain that he has a foundation of learning, of which, if he pleases, he may erect a character of high renown. The Doctor is about 38 years of age, a Gentleman of great respectability, and of a fair and unblemished character." 3 During his ten-week stay at the Convention, Dr. McClurg unswervingly favored measures that would enhance the power and authority of the central government. On June 4, he voted yea with Washington and Madison (Randolph and Blair voted no) on the question for a single, and therefore potentially strong, executive. The day after the passage of the Great Compromise McClurg offered the only motion he was recorded to have made when he moved to make the tenure of the single executive "during good behavior." This motion, which did not pass, would have made the single executive virtually independent of legislative authority. Although Madison did not support McClurg's motion, he did write favorably of his good friend in his notes for that day that "J.M. had a particular regard" for the doctor. "The Doer, though possessing talents of the highest order, was modest &c unaccustomed to exert them in public debate." 4 On July 20 (the last day any of the Convention journalists record him as having been in attendance), McClurg spoke in favor of giving the executive the power to enforce the laws.5 McClurg's nationalism was most evident when he repeatedly supported the idea of giving the national legislature the power to veto any laws of the thirteen states that were considered in conflict with the Constitution or with

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national treaties. Even after his departure from the Convention, McClurg remained adamant in his wish to give the national Congress what would have almost eliminated the individual states as viable political entities. In a letter dated August 22, 1787, to Madison, McClurg stated his hope "that I shall hear from you of ye reinstatement of ye Negative—as it is certainly ye only mean by which the several Legislatures can be restrain'd from disturbing ye order & harmony of ye whole, & ye Governmt. render'd properly national, & one." 6 In the final draft of the Constitution, the congress was not given the authority to veto state laws. This highly nationalistic proposal was successfully thwarted by Dickinson and his small-state nationalist allies, who perceived that its passage would have prevented the creation of the "true federal" system that they favored and that was finally created. McClurg stated his reason for not returning to Philadelphia, after having left in mid-July, in a letter, written August 5, 1787, from Richmond, to his close friend and colleague James Madison. "If I thought that my return could contribute in the smallest degree to it's Improvement, nothing should keep me away. But as I know that the talents, knowledge, and wellestablish'd character, of our present delegates, have justly inspired this country with ye most entire confidence in their determinations; &ctthat my vote could only operate to produce a division, & so destroy ye vote of ye State, I think that my attendance now would certainly be useless, perhaps injurious." 7 Probably, more to the point, McClurg left the Convention early because he felt out of place among his more politically experienced, more talented colleagues and because Madison no longer needed his vote. The large-state nationalists (i.e., Madison, Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, King, and their extreme nationalist allies) had essentially been thwarted in their attempt to forge an omnipotent central government when the Great Compromise was narrowly passed on July 16. McClurg undoubtedly felt thereafter that his efforts, in support of Madison and his cohorts, were not needed or, if used, would be totally ineffectual. Obviously, McClurg did not sign the completed document because he was one of the thirteen delegates who had left the Convention early. It is almost certain, however, that he would have affixed his name to the charter he generally favored, had he been in attendance on September 17. McClurg's ten weeks at the Philadelphia Convention and his service in the 1790s as a member of Virginia's executive council constituted the sum total of his political activities. After 1787, he returned full-time to his medical practice and part-time to his professorial duties. In recognition of his eminence as a medical doctor, McClurg served two years as president of the Virginia medical society (1820-1821). At the time of his death (July 9, 1823), James McClurg was eulogized primarily as a prominent, wellregarded medical doctor, not for his brief foray into the political arena as

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a delegate to the Constitution Convention and as a member of his state's executive council. NOTES 1. When Patrick Henry was elected as a delegate, he refused to attend, allegedly stating—probably apocryphally—"he smelt a rat." As a strong advocate of states' rights, Henry probably considered the "rat" to be the obvious nationalism of the vast majority of the delegates already selected in Virginia and in many of the other states. When he refused his appointment to the Virginia delegation, Richard Henry Lee, also a fervent states' rights advocate, claimed his duties in New York City, as a Virginia congressman, would prevent his devoting adequate time and effort to the deliberations in Philadelphia. 2. Although the Virginia legislature had originally (in early December 1786) appointed a nine-member delegation, three (Henry, Lee, and Thomas Nelson) refused to serve. Madison then asked Governor Edmund Randolph to appoint his friend James McClurg as the seventh member of what would be the second largest (to Pennsylvania) delegation. The governor complied and on May 2, 1787, the name of James McClurg was added to the illustrious six who had already accepted their appointments. However, since George Wythe left the Convention on June 4 to tend to a sick wife and George Washington was frequently not available, as the Convention's presiding officer, to vote within the Virginia delegation, Madison often needed McClurg's support to outvote the sometimes states' rights-leaning George Mason and the unpredictable Edmund Randolph. John Blair usually voted with Madison and McClurg thus giving the dedicated nationalists a majority within the often five-voting-member Virginia delegation. 3. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:95. 4. Farrand, 2:34. 5. Ibid., 69. 6. Farrand, 3:73. 7. Ibid., 67.

JAMES McHENRY (1753-1816) As journalist William Pierce aptly phrased it, "Mr. McHenry was bred a physician." 1 Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland, on November 16, 1753, James was given a classical education, which helped prepare him for his multifaceted later career as a physician, soldier, and politician. At age 18, he migrated to America and settled in Philadelphia. The following year, his father, brother, and possibly other members of his family came to America where they established a mercantile firm in Baltimore, Maryland. As for James, probably at this time he joined his family in Maryland and continued his classical education, spending a year at the Newark Academy in Newark, Delaware. He then moved temporarily back to Philadelphia to study medicine, for two years, under the renowned, radical Philadelphia doctor Benjamin Rush. With the outbreak of hostilities against Great Britain in the spring of 1775, James McHenry became identified with the Patriot cause. In 1776, he offered his services as a physician to the military and was duly appointed assistant surgeon (later surgeon) in the Fifth Pennsylvania Battalion. While serving in this capacity, he was captured by the British at Fort Washington, New York, in late 1776. Happily, a year later he was paroled and, in 1778, exchanged. He quickly returned to active military duty and was assigned to Valley Forge, where he resumed duties as a surgeon and additionally became a member of Commander General George Washington's personal staff (a position he shared with his future Convention colleague Alexander Hamilton). After a two-year stint on Washington's staff (1778-1780), he was assigned to the military staff of General Marquis de Lafayette, a position in which he served until the cessation of hostilities in 1781. Apparently during James' close association with General George Washington at Valley Forge, the Commander had suggested that the young physician forgo the practice of medicine to pursue a political career. Evidently,

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his Commander's suggestion appealed to the ambitious young man. In 1781, he ran for and was duly elected to the Maryland State Senate, where he served, without notable distinction, until 1786. He concurrently served in the Continental Congress (1783-1786), where he saw, firsthand, the obvious need to overhaul the government under the Articles of Confederation, or replace the outdated Articles with a new constitution that would establish a truly strong national government. Thus by 1786, James McHenry had become a nationalist. Selected May 26, 1787 (actually a day after the Convention had officially opened), as one of Maryland's five delegates to the Convention, McHenry hurried off to Philadelphia arriving there on Monday, May 28. His attendance at the Convention was sporadic, since he evidently made frequent trips home to Baltimore during the almost four-month meeting to tend to an ailing brother. When he was in attendance, he spoke infrequently, usually preferring to defer to his more politically experienced and speechmaking inclined colleagues. Observing McHenry during the first few weeks of the Convention, Pierce wrote rather disparagingly of James McHenry as an individual who "was bred a physician, but afterwards turned Soldier and acted as Aid to Genl. Washington and the Marquis de la Fayette. He is a Man of specious talents, with nothing of genious to improve them. As a politician there is nothing remarkable in him, nor has he any of the graces of the Orator. He is however, a very respectable young Gentleman, and deserves the honor which his Country has bestowed on him. Mr. McHenry is about 32 years of age." 2 Although somewhat degrading, the Georgian's description of McHenry seems fairly accurate. As one of the younger delegates at age 33, he seemed reluctant to engage in the hurly-burly of intense, often heated, debate that occupied much of the Convention's time and effort. His major contribution at the Convention seemed to have been his unwavering support, within the Maryland delegation, of the mild nationalism (described as wanting to strengthen the national government, but not at the expense of an individual state's autonomy and independence) of Daniel Carroll and Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer against the intense and often overly stated, in numerous long and boring speeches to which few listened, states' rights philosophy of Luther Martin and the equally p r o states' rights publicly stated views of the mercurial John Francis Mercer. The philosophical split in the Maryland delegation meant that frequently the state vote was evenly divided and therefore negated. On the few times, when all five delegates were present, McHenry's vote was often the swing vote making possible in the end Maryland's general support of the Constitution, despite the persistent, oft-stated opposition of Martin and Mercer. James McHenry joined fellow Marylanders Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer and Daniel Carroll in signing the document on September 17. McHenry's other noteworthy contribution to the Constitution (or at least to our understanding of what occurred in Philadelphia during part of the

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summer of 1787) is the set of notes he took. These notes add greatly to our knowledge of what took place during the first couple of days at the Convention (he left for home June 1 not to return until early August) and during the last month or so when the document was put into final form. Of particular merit are his notes taken of the May 29 session, when Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph presented his controversial Large-State Plan to the full Convention. His critique of Randolph's plan is as complete and useful as that of the Convention's "unofficial secretary," James Madison, who is usually considered to be the best individual source for information on the proceedings. McHenry's rather extensive notes for May 29, May 30, and May 31 suggest that it was his intention to record in some detail the speeches, debates, and votes of the Convention. However, his brief notation for Friday, June 1, explains the first (of several) of his hurried departures: "Reed an express from home that my brother lay dangerously sick in consequence of which I set out immediately for Baltimore." 3 He returned to Philadelphia on August 4, whereupon he resumed his notetaking much to the benefit of scholars ever since. His record of the proceedings from early August straight through to September 17 has greatly aided in our understanding of the latter part of the Convention's work as it is, to quote Max Farrand, "almost the only material we have besides the Journal and Madison's Debates." 4 Although, on specific issues when McHenry was present and his vote or views are known, he seemed to have voted somewhat inconsistently sometimes supporting Madison, Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and Hamilton and the large-state nationalist coalition, but more often favoring what is termed the small-state nationalist (or "true federalist") faction. McHenry's moderate (but always practical and pragmatic) approach of seeking a workable, mutually agreeable compromise between the large- and small-state nationalists (especially over the issue of representation in the national congress) was best summarized in his own notes penned on the Convention's final day. Reading much like Benjamin Franklin's more famous closing speech, McHenry wrote: Being opposed to many parts of the system I make a remark why I signed it and mean to support it. lsly I distrust my own judgement, especially as it is opposite to the opinion of a majority of gentlemen whose abilities and patriotism are of the first cast; and as I have had already frequent occasions to be convinced that I have not always judged rights. 2dly Alterations may obtained, it being provided that the concurrence of % of the Congress may at any time introduce them. 3dly Comparing the inconveniences and the evils which we labor under and may experience from the present confederation, and the little good we can expect from it—with the possible evils and prob-

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able benefits and advantages promised us by the new system, I am clear that I ought to give it all the support in my power."5 However, the 33-year-old physician-turned-politician's most prominent and best-remembered service in the political arena was to take place after the Constitution's promulgation in 1789. During the ratification struggle in Maryland, McHenry's known support, and indeed his active campaigning, for ratification, although he was not a member of the ratifying convention, undoubtedly helped to secure the favorable April 23 63-11 Maryland vote as the state became the seventh state to approve of the handiwork of the Convention's labors. Toward the end of his second term as president, George Washington appointed his former staff officer as secretary of war (1796-1800). McHenry served in this important position during the remainder of Washington's second term and through most of John Adams' one-term tenure as chief executive. However, on May 18, 1800, McHenry was unceremoniously asked (actually, almost forced) to resign by his provoked chief executive. President Adams had finally, albeit slowly, come to the realization that his secretary of war had, for some years, been working behind his back in collaboration with his arch political rival, Alexander Hamilton, to undermine his administration and thereby threaten the possibility of his reelection in 1800. In semi-retirement at "Fayetteville" (his country estate located just outside of Baltimore), McHenry became ever more bitter as his philosophical political opponents (i.e., the Jeffersonian Democratic/Republicans) increased their political hold on the national government and on the political mind-sets of most Americans. To the end, he remained a dedicated Federalist. As such, he vehemently opposed the War of 1812 ("Mr. Madison's War"). In his latter years, he was active in a Bible society, becoming its president shortly before he died. He died May 3, 1816, at home and was interred in the Westminster Presbyterian Churchyard in Baltimore. He was survived by two of his three children and his wife of 32 years, Mary Allison Caldwell. His legacy is one of long, but not notably distinguished, service to his state and nation. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966 ), 3:93. 2. Ibid., 93. 3. Ibid., 1:75. 4. Ibid., l:xx-xxi. 5. Ibid., 2:649-650.

JOHN FRANCIS MERCER (1759-1821) Although he did not arrive in Philadelphia until early August, John Francis Mercer soon became one of the most ardent opponents (along with Maryland colleague Luther Martin) of drafting a constitution that would give significant additional powers to the national government at the expense of state sovereignty and independence. He quickly discerned that what had been decided prior to his late arrival would result, in his somewhat biased view, with what he feared the most: an all-powerful national government lording over the greatly diminished autonomy of the individual states. He stated his reason for his tardiness in a letter to the governor of Maryland (William Smallwood). "I am led to be explicit with your Excellency . . . that private circumstances do not permit my sparing any part of my own resources for any length of time, &c that unless I could receive assurance of a speedy restitution of my expences . . . it will be wholly out of my power to attend. . . . l Evidently, he eventually obtained the necessary "resources" to attend and took his seat with his four Maryland colleagues on Monday, August 6. However, he appeared to have only attended the proceedings for less than two weeks (August 6-August 17). In that brief time, he did speak several times in opposition to the unwanted, in his "localist" point of view, centralization of political power that he perceived to be under way. He did not attend any of the sessions after August 17 and did not return to Philadelphia to sign the final draft of the Constitution, thus becoming one of the sixteen attendees who, for one reason or another, did not choose to affix their signatures to the document so laboriously drafted. Because of Mercer's late arrival, the Convention's gossipy scribe William Pierce apparently did not have sufficient opportunity to observe him or the time to pen his written characterization. Thus we do not have the colorful description of the 2 8-year-old Marylander that Pierce did write for most of the other delegates.

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Born May 17, 1759, at "Marlborough," Stafford County, Virginia, John was the fifth of nine children born to John and Ann Mercer. Like many other Virginians of his class, he was educated at home by private tutors in preparation for admission to college. He studied the classical curriculum (primarily moral philosophy, mathematics, and history) deemed necessary for admission to one of the few colonial colleges. In 1771, he entered, at age 12, the nearby College of William and Mary in Williamsburg from which he was graduated four years later. With the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in April 1775, the young Mercer soon obtained a commission as a lieutenant in the Third Virginia Regiment. Like many of his future Convention colleagues, he saw considerable combat and was wounded, although not seriously, at the American defeat at the battle of Brandywine Creek. Promoted to captain in 1777, he gained appointment, in the following year, as an aide-de-camp to fellow Virginian, the mercurial General Charles Lee. Later, after Lee's courtmartial (for misbehavior before the enemy, disobedience of direct orders, and disrespect for the commander in chief at the indecisive battle of Monmouth Courthouse), he went back to a field command as a lieutenant colonel of Virginia Cavalry. After the battle of Yorktown, Mercer resigned his commission and was elected a Virginian delegate to the Continental Congress, serving in the increasingly moribund national Congress from 1782 to 1785. In 1785, he married Sophia Sprigg of the political, prominent, and wealthy Sprigg family of Anne Arundel, Maryland, and moved permanently to what became his plantation, "Cedar Park" near the bustling Maryland Chesapeake Bay port and capital at Annapolis. Rather surprisingly, because of his brief residence in his new state, the Maryland legislature, in late May of 1787, voted to appoint the recent Virginia immigrant as one of its five delegates to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. Because of an apparent "cash-flow problem" as indicated in his June 29, 1787, letter to the Maryland governor as quoted in part above, he did not join his four Convention colleagues in Philadelphia until early August. During his abbreviated stay at the Convention, Mercer quickly became allied with the group, which most vociferously championed states' rights and opposed giving the proposed national government more real power and authority than it possessed under the Articles of Confederation. Because Mercer and Luther Martin were both vocal and even vehement in their defense of states' rights, and their Maryland colleagues Daniel Carroll and Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer were usually as determined in their desire to give the central government what they considered to be necessary additional powers to those it possessed under the Articles of Confederation, the five-member Maryland delegation was often split 2-2 (caused in large part by the fact that James McHenry or Mercer himself was frequently absent) therefore nullifying the state's vote in many of the more crucial

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votes taken when the Convention met in official sessions.2 Mercer's growing dissatisfaction with the direction the Convention was obviously taken toward the creation of a "consolidated" national government and, what he might well have considered, the excessive financial burden of remaining in Philadelphia until the Convention adjourned on September 17, prompted him to leave for home probably after his last vote was recorded on Friday, August 17. Back home, he served as a delegate to the Maryland Ratifying Convention, which ratified, by a vote of 63-11 on April 28, 1788, the document Mercer had worked during his brief tenure in Philadelphia to alter in favor of states' rights. After the Convention, John Francis Mercer served continuously as a member of the Maryland house of delegates from 1788 to 1792 and from 1803 to 1806. Between these two stints in the house of delegates, Mercer was elected to the Second Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of William Pinkney. Re-elected in 1792, he resigned his congressional seat, for reasons not now fully known, on April 13, 1794. Interestingly, he was originally elected as a Republican (i.e., a follower of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison), but after Jefferson became president in the disputed election of 1800, he publicly bolted the Republican ranks and joined the Federalist Party. In recognition of, and perhaps as a reward for, his faithful public service in representing—at the Philadelphia Convention, in the state legislature, and in the national House of Representatives—the states' rights philosophy of many Marylanders, Mercer was elected governor—an office which he filled, without notable distinction, for two terms (1801-1803). He retired in 1806 after his second tenure as a state assemblyman to his country estate, "Cedar Park" located on the West River, in Anne Arundel County near Annapolis. His remaining 20 years were spent as a gentleman farmer who was, at least locally, esteemed as a public servant who had served faithfully and honorably both his birth state of Virginia and his adopted state of Maryland. He died August 30, 1821, while on a trip to Philadelphia seeking medical help for the various illnesses, which had plagued him during the latter years of his retirement. NOTES 1. James H. Hutson, ed., Supplemental to Max Farrand's The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 130. 2. During much of the summer, the delegates met as the Committee of the Whole, which was chaired by Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts. In the more informal setting of this committee (e.g., no official notes were taken), the delegates could be, it was felt, more honest, frank, and free-wheeling in their discussions without having to cast votes and make decisions that would be virtually irrevocable and possibly even made public if rendered in the more formal setting of an official meeting of the Convention at which Secretary William Jackson, James Madison, and others were busy trying to record the proceedings.

THOMAS MIFFLIN (1744-1800) Born January 10, 1744, to a wealthy Pennsylvania Quaker merchant, Thomas Mifflin was given educational and cultural opportunities not available to most boys growing up in mid-eighteenth-century Philadelphia. His early education at a local Philadelphia Quaker common school was followed by his admission to what was then the College of Philadelphia (present-day University of Pennsylvania). As a college student, he became a serious student of classical Greece and Rome. Upon graduation in 1760, at age 16, his father introduced him to the world of business by placing him in the mercantile firm of William Coleman, one of Philadelphia's most prominent merchants. During the four years spent with Coleman, he acquired the practical knowledge and the valuable mercantile connections needed for success in the business world. In early 1765, he left Coleman's firm to venture out into the business world on his own, in partnership with a brother. Also in 1765, Thomas was inducted into the American Philosophical Society; a membership in which he actively maintained until the year before his death. However, before embarking upon his newly formed partnership in earnest, Thomas, now age 2 1 , spent a year traveling on what later would be considered a grand tour of western Europe where he visited historical sites, museums, and established new trade contacts, which would be helpful in his new business venture. This fraternal business partnership continued for many years enabling Thomas to pursue careers in the military, in local philanthropic and educational endeavors, and in politics. His major educational endeavor would come when he was appointed, in 1778, as a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania—a position he proudly and actively held until 1791. The growing financial success of the Mifflin brothers' counting house led almost inevitably to his entrance into local politics at first and later into the national legislature. In 1770, age 26, Thomas was elected to the colonial Pennsylvania legis-

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lature. In the four years he served as a colonial assemblyman, he slowly became increasingly disenchanted with British taxing and imperial policies. By 1775, he had become a champion, in the state legislature, of the radical American cause. Elected to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and then to the Second Congress in 1775, Mifflin played an active role in Congress as it prepared for the upcoming military struggle with the mother country. While still a member of Congress, the eager, young Thomas helped to recruit troops for what many saw as the upcoming armed conflict with Great Britain and won appointment, in May 1775 (a month after fighting had commenced at Lexington and Concord), as a major in, what became in June of 1775, General Washington's Continental army. Even though Thomas was "disowned" by the local pacifist Society of Friends meeting for joining the military, he continued to maintain a lifelong essential adherence to Quaker philosophy and values. Soon after his congressional appointment as commander in chief of the newly established Continental army, Washington appointed Thomas Mifflin as an aide-de-camp. Then, almost immediately, he was appointed quartermaster general of the Continental army. In that most important post, Major Mifflin quickly won promotions: to colonel (December 1775), to brigadier general (May 1776), and finally to major general (February 1777). In November 1777, he was appointed to serve on the highly influential and important congressionally appointed Board of War (a commission that was charged with coordinating the war effort). As a member of this three-member board, Mifflin, in theory if not in fact, became General Washington's boss. Serving simultaneously as the army's chief supply officer and as a member of the Board of War, Mifflin became dissatisfied with his administrative duties as the army's quartermaster general. He wanted to command troops in the field. He had earlier, it is true, taken part in the battles of Long Island (August 1776), Trenton (December 1776), and Princeton (January 1777). However, he was becoming increasingly and noticeably dissatisfied with his non-combat military role. This discontentment was probably the main reason that Mifflin evidently became involved in the somewhat sordid, but still murky, episode known to history as the Conway Cabal (or Conspiracy). It involved an apparent attempt on the part of several high ranking army officers and disgruntled congressmen (Mifflin included) to replace Washington as commander in chief with General Horatio Gates—universally acclaimed as the victorious American commander at the pivotal Battle of Saratoga (October 1777). Mifflin's apparent (or at least at the time perceived) involvement in this unseemly affair temporarily resulted in a strained relationship with Washington. However, the friendship between these two, which had been earlier manifested when Mifflin served on Washington's personal staff, was resumed after the war, but at a different level. By 1787, when both were serving as delegates to the Constitutional Convention, their relationship had settled into one of mutual respect, but not one of the closeness that had formerly existed.

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Mifflin resigned his commission as major general in early February 1779, having just previously been elected as a member of the Pennsylvania unicameral legislature. His two-year service in the state assembly was followed by his election to the Continental Congress. His two-year, post-war tenure as a national legislator (1782-1784) was highlighted by his selection as the president of Congress in 1783. Thereafter, he was re-elected to the state legislature serving as speaker (1785-1788) and as an influential member (1799-1800). Confirming his status as a leading Pennsylvania politician, he was chosen, in late 1786, as one of the Pennsylvania delegates to the Convention. In his portrayal of "General Mifflin," William Pierce described him as being "well known for the activity of his mind, and the brilliancy of his parts. He is well informed and a graceful Speaker. The General is about 40 years of age, and a very hand-some man." 1 Otto, in his brief characterization of Mifflin, noted that he was "formerly President of the Congress, orator of the assembly, etc. Declared and proven friend of France. Very popular and handling with a surprising ease the hundred headed monster called the people." He then went on to state, mistakenly, that Mifflin was a "Good lawyer." He concluded his portrayal by saying Mifflin was a "good officer, good patriot, and of a pleasant society. Doing well all that he undertakes, because he takes after nature and he can only win in showing himself as he is." 2 Somewhat strangely given his growing status as a leading state and national political leader, Mifflin, although regular in his attendance, did not play a significant role at the Convention. In fact, he appears in Madison's notes only once and that was when he seconded a motion regarding members of Congress being eligible for other federal offices. He apparently deferred, at least in open Convention, to his more articulate (verbose?) large-state colleagues to draft the constitution. Along with all seven of his Pennsylvania cohorts, Thomas Mifflin did sign the Constitution on September 17. This certainly indicated that he approved of the true federal system of government the fundamental organic document created. His well-known support for the Constitution no doubt aided the cause of ratification in Pennsylvania. It became the second state (first large state) to ratify the Constitution (December 12, 1787) and that was accomplished with the overwhelming vote of 46-23. In the years following the Constitutional Convention, Mifflin remained politically active. In 1788, he succeeded Benjamin Franklin as President of the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council, serving in that largely honorific position for two one-year terms. In 1790, he served as chairman of the state constitutional convention, which drafted the somewhat conservative constitution that replaced the democratic state constitution of 1776. Also in 1790, he was elected the first Pennsylvania governor to serve under the newly promulgated constitution of 1790. He served in that important

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post for the entire tumultuous decade of the 1790s. During his tenure as governor, he became disenchanted with the extreme nationalism of the secretary of the treasury (Alexander Hamilton) and of President George Washington (especially during his second term) and slowly gravitated into the emerging Republican (Democratic/republican) Party of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Although his mercantile pursuits still earned him a financial competency, he was hounded (during his later years) by creditors, because he lived lavishly, often beyond his means. In fact, in 1799, he was forced to flee from Philadelphia by creditors and he ended up in nearby Lancaster where he died on January 19, 1800. His historical reputation, although somewhat tarnished by his perceived involvement in the anti-Washington Conway Cabal, is that of a dedicated patriot and public servant who served both his state and nation with notable honor and distinction. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:91. 2. Ibid., 236.

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS (1752-1816) Gouverneur Morris was one of the most dynamic, most colorful, most accomplished of all the revered Founders and Framers. Born January 31, 1752, to Sarah Gouverneur and Lewis Morris at the family estate at Morrisania, Westchester County (now part of New York City), young Gouverneur took full advantage of the opportunities his birth into a prominent, wealthy aristocratic family provided, to rise to the forefront as a successful politician, banker, and merchant. His ancestors had a long and distinguished record as wealthy and public-spirited politicians, lawyers, merchants, and large landowners. He was expected, as his mother's oldest son, but only his father's fourth and youngest son, to follow his three stepbrothers, and father and grandfathers, into public service as a lawyer and a politician. Gouverneur's father was determined that his youngest son, evidently his favorite, be given the best education then available in Europe or America.1 Gouverneur's earliest education was provided by tutors at home and later by a Swiss Huguenot minister at an academy in New Rochelle, New York. In 1761, age 9, Gouverneur was sent to Philadelphia to attend the famous Academy of Philadelphia, founded in the early 1750s by Benjamin Franklin. Gouverneur was apparently a precocious student. By the time he was admitted in 1764, at the young age of 12, to King's College (present-day Columbia University), he had not only become fluent in French, but he had also mastered the requisite classical curriculum (primarily Greek and Latin) required for admission at all nine of the colonial colleges then in existence. He was graduated from King's College in 1768, even though he had taken a year off to recuperate from a bad burn on his right arm sustained when he was 14. He had successfully completed the four-year course of study in three years. His commencement address entitled "Wit and Beauty" was an early example of Morris's willingness and even predilection to be intellectually honest, candid, and controversial (in

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modern parlance: to say what is on his mind regardless of the consequences or "let the chips fall where they may") in both his public speeches as well as his published writings.2 Like many of his future Convention colleagues, young Gouverneur took up the study of the law. In a three-year legal apprenticeship with the wellknown New York City barrister William Smith, Jr., Morris mastered enough law to gain admission, at age 19, to the New York bar in 1771. He then began the practice of law in New York City and simultaneously embarked upon a part-time career as a merchant. The early 1770s were exciting times for a well-educated, well-connected, ambitious young man. Although many in his family supported the British policies of taxation and coercion and in fact became Loyalists during the War of Independence, Gouverneur, for reasons not entirely known today, embraced the Patriot cause as what can be termed a conservative revolutionary. He served as an active member of the New York Provincial Congress (1775-1777), of the committee (with John Jay and Robert R. Livingston) that drafted the first New York state constitution (1776), of the first state Council of Safety (1777), and of the first state assembly (1777-1778). As if he was not busy enough with service on these various state councils, he sought and obtained a commission, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, in the New York militia (1776). In 1778, he was elected to the Continental Congress. In the national congress, Gouverneur, as one of the youngest delegates, quickly established himself as one of the most influential members of what was evolving into nothing more than a moribund debating society. His brief military career and his congressional service undoubtedly helped to convince him that the Articles of Confederation, which he had signed as a congressman from New York, needed drastic amendment or, more likely, replacement. Like many of his future Philadelphia Convention colleagues, Morris became more nationalistic (and less parochial and provincial) as a result of service in the military and in the national legislature. Especially as a congressman, Gouverneur witnessed firsthand the ineptitude and ineffectiveness of the Continental Congress to deal with the manifold problems and challenges of waging a war and establishing the new American republic. In 1779, he was defeated for re-election to Congress primarily because of his vocal and oft-stated opposition to the politically powerful New York Governor George Clinton. Now temporarily out of politics in New York, Morris moved to Philadelphia where he established a law practice and participated in several lucrative commercial ventures (often with his close friend Robert Morris). In recognition of his many talents as a writer, orator, and intellectual and with the support of Robert Morris, Gouverneur was appointed assistant minister of finance in 1781. In his four-year stint as the right-hand man to the Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris (no relation), Gouverneur honed his skills, under the watchful eye of his superior and mentor, as a

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financier, banker, and merchant. The two Morrises were able to bring a measure of financial stability to what had been fiscal chaos, insolvency, and quasi-bankruptcy. Many of the nationalistic ideas and concepts implemented by Alexander Hamilton as the first secretary of the treasury in the early 1790s were first thought of, and some even tried, by Robert Morris and his brilliant assistant Gouverneur Morris in the early 1780s. For example, these two financiers were largely responsible for the chartering, in 1781, of the country's first bank—The Bank of North America. This bank became the prototype of Hamilton's First Bank of the United States, which was chartered ten years later. While working together as the country's financial ministers, Gouverneur and Robert became partners in a number of commercial ventures. They were both later accused of mixing, inappropriately and perhaps even illegally, public and private business. However, a congressional investigation was not able to discover any impropriety in their manifold financial and commercial activities. By late 1786, Gouverneur Morris had established himself as one of the leading lawyers, merchants, and bon vivants in Philadelphia. Therefore, his appointment as one of Pennsylvania's eight delegates to the Constitutional Convention was not unexpected. His well-known and oft-stated nationalistic views, his frequent criticisms of the Articles of Confederation and the feeble government it had established, and his growing reputation as an effective writer, a persuasive speaker, and a brilliant political and economic theorist all make his appointment to the Pennsylvania delegation understandable, even though he was considered by some to be really a New Yorker who was only residing temporarily in Philadelphia. At the Convention, Gouverneur Morris played a major role as the leading spokesman for political conservatism and for large-state interests. He was recorded, by the Convention's numerous diarists, to have spoken more often than any other delegate. In his 173 recorded Convention speeches, he invariably displayed the wit, charm, and grace for which he was becoming well-known. He was in attendance at the first official session on May 25 and except for a month-long absence in June, he regularly attended and participated meaningfully and often in the debates and discussions. In recognition of his obvious talents and abilities, he was appointed to three important Convention committees: on July 6, having just returned from his month-long stay in New York City, he was selected as a member of the Committee on Apportionment, on August 31 he was appointed to the Committee on Remaining Matters, and on September 8, he was appointed to the all-important five-member Committee on Style and Arrangement. Both William Pierce and the French charge d'affaires Otto were evidently familiar with Gouverneur Morris's reputation as a brilliant, well-spoken, well-educated, refined, cultured bon vivant when they wrote their pithy biographical sketches of the meteoric New York/Pennsylvania aristocrat. Pierce, in his generally laudatory appraisal characterized Morris as:

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one of those Genius's in whom every species of talents combine to render him conspicuous and flourishing in public debate:—He winds through all the mazes of rhetoric, and throws around him such a glare that he charms, captivates, and leads away the senses of all who hear him. With an infinite streach [sic] of fancy he brings to view things when he is engaged in deep argumentation, that render all the labor of reasoning easy and pleasing. But with all these powers he is fickle and inconstant,—never pursuing one train of thinking,—nor ever regular. He has gone through a very extensive course of reading, and is acquainted with all the sciences. No Man has more wit,—nor can any one engage the attention more than Mr. Morris. He was bred to the Law, but I am told he disliked the profession, and turned merchant. He is engaged in some great mercantile matters with his namesake Mr. Robt. Morris. This Gentleman is about 38 years old, he has been unfortunate in losing one of his Legs, and getting all the flesh taken off his right army [sic] by a scald, when a youth. 3 Otto, in his equally revealing portrayal, described Morris as a "Citizen of the State of New York, but always in touch with Mr. Rob. Morris and having represented Pennsylvania several times. Famous lawyer; one of the most organized heads on the continent, but without morals, and, if one believes his enemies, without principals; infinitely interesting in conversation and having studied with particular care the specialty of finance. He works constantly with Mr. Rob. Morris. One fears him more than admires him, but few people esteem him." 4 As a large-state nationalist, Morris strongly supported Madison, Wilson, King, and Hamilton in their endeavor to ram through the Virginia Plan, which would have given almost omnipotent power to the central government and to the three most populous states (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia). As an articulate political conservative, Morris favored lifelong tenure for the president and for members of the proposed Senate. He is reported to have stated that his friend Alexander Hamilton's lengthy June 18 speech, in which the New Yorker presented his extremely conservative plan, was "the most able and impressive he had ever heard." 5 Like most of his large-state cohorts, Gouverneur opposed the Great Compromise, which gave each state an equal vote in the proposed upper legislative chamber and the "three-fifths" provision that gave the South what many northern delegates considered to be unwarranted political clout in the national House of Representatives. Although considered to be one of the most politically conservative Convention delegates both by his contemporaries and by historians ever since, Morris was the most vocal anti-slave trade and anti-slavery spokesman at the Convention. On July 11, in what turned out to be an acrimonious debate on the counting of an individual slave as threefifths of a white person for the purpose of representation, Gouverneur "was

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compelled to declare himself reduced to the dilemma of doing injustice to the Southern States or to human nature, and he must therefore do it to the former. For he could never agree to give such encouragement as would be given by allowing them a representation for their negroes." The next day, he stated somewhat grandiosely "that it is high time to speak out. As one member, he would candidly do so. He came here to form a compact for the good of America." However, "he verily belived the people of Pena. will never agree to a representation of Negroes." During this controversial and potentially convention-destroying debate, Gouverneur Morris reiterated his strong opposition to the "three-fifths" clause for representation. "If Negroes were to be viewed as inhabitants, and the revision was to proceed on the principle of numbers of inhabts. They ought to be added in their entire number, and not in the proportion of %."6 In August, in what was his most vehement and lengthy anti-slavery speech, Morris stated emphatically that "He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious institution—It was the curse of heaven on the States where it prevailed." 7 In the spirit of compromise on the issue of prohibiting the slave trade after either 1800 or 1808, Morris did agree to the non-use in the Constitution of the words "slave," "slavery," and "the slave trade." This was an obvious concession to the sensibilities of southern delegates (especially the four South Carolinians). Although he fervently opposed the Great Compromise with its tacit approval of the institution of slavery, he did join his seven Pennsylvania Convention colleagues in signing the finished draft on September 17. In what was his last speech at the Convention, Morris conceded that he, along with Edmund Randolph, Elbridge Gerry, and George Mason, "had objections, but considering the present plan as the best that was to be attained, he should take it with all its faults. The majority had determined in its favor and by that determination he should abide. The moment this plan goes forth all other considerations will be laid aside—and the great question will be, shall there be a national Government or not?" 8 Gouverneur Morris' most-remembered and significant contribution to the crafting of the U.S. Constitution was his writing of the final draft of the organic charter as a member of the Committee of Style and Arrangement. This important Committee was elected on September 8 and charged with writing a final draft and presenting it to the whole Convention as soon as possible. Dr. William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut, in apparent recognition of his well-known talents and abilities as a scholar and educator, was "appointed by ballot" to this committee along with Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Rufus King, and Gouverneur Morris. The last four named committee members had been among the most active and influential delegates and were thus given the opportunity to revise and refine the constitution they had so laboriously crafted. Although Dr. Johnson was made committee chairman, there is overwhelming evidence that Gouverneur

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Morris was the primary author of the draft presented to the Convention on September 12. Undoubtedly, Morris had the help of his talented colleagues, each of whom was capable of writing the final draft, in polishing and revising the summer's work. The one part of the Constitution that was written solely by Morris was the Preamble, which made it clear that it was "We the people of the United States," not the states, that established "this Constitution for the United States of America." As Gouverneur wrote in 1814 in a letter to Timothy Pickering, the Constitution "was written by the fingers, which write this letter"9 Madison seemingly verified Morris's claim to authorship of the final draft when he noted that "The finish given to the style and arrangement of the Constitution fairly belongs to the pen of Mr. Morris; the task having, probably been handed over to him by the chairman of the Committee, himself a highly respectable member, and with the ready concurrence of the others. A better choice could not have been made, as the performance of the task proved." 10 With the ratification of the Constitution, which he wholeheartedly favored, Gouverneur returned full-time to his mercantile pursuits. Having purchased the family estate at Morrisania from his stepbrother Lewis, he moved back to New York City where he resumed full-time, at least for a brief time, his career as a merchant and financier. In 1789, he traveled to Europe on a business trip in partnership with his close friend, former Convention colleague, and Philadelphia merchant titan Robert Morris. In the period 1789-1792, Morris also served as President George Washington's unofficial observer and representative in France. As such, Morris witnessed firsthand the beginnings of the French Revolution. Gourverneur's diary for these exciting years remains one of the most informative eyewitness accounts, written in English, of the earthshaking events of the earlier years of the French Revolution; a Revolution that profoundly influenced the lives of people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In early 1792, Gourverneur Morris was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to France replacing Thomas Jefferson who had come home to assume the duties as the first secretary of state. With his fluency in French and keen intellect, he would have appeared to have been the ideal choice as the American minister to the former ally. However, in the two years he served as minister to France, perhaps because of his oft-stated political conservatism and his well-known pro-British and anti-French biases, he frequently ran afoul of the radical, revolutionary government in Paris. Several times, he was even in apparent danger of being declared persona non grata or even imprisoned or executed. He was in fact officially recalled in 1794, but remained in Europe to pursue manifold commercial enterprises and to travel extensively through western Europe. He returned to America in 1798 to resume his mercantile career and to support, vocally and publicly, the Federalist administration of President John Adams. Because of his frequently expressed distrust of democracy (what he often characterized as "mob

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rule," which would lead invariably to anarchy) and advocacy that government, at all levels, should be by the "rich and well-born," Morris favored the passage of the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts. As one of the early architects (along with Robert Morris) of the nationalistic financial system that evolved into the highly successful fiscal program implemented by his good friend Alexander Hamilton in the period 1790-1791, Gouverneur Morris continued his public support of Federalist policies generally, and of the First Bank of the United States specifically. In early 1800, the New York state legislature elected Gouverneur Morris to the U.S. Senate to replace James Watson, who had resigned after serving less than two years of his elected term. In his three years as a Federalist senator, Morris usually supported the policies and candidates of what was becoming ever more the fading Federalist Party and opposed ever more vehemently the Democrat/Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson. However, in his frequent senatorial speeches, published broadsides, and congressional votes, he continued to display the political independence, which had in the past, and would in the present and future, always characterized the public career of this talented, free-spirited New York aristocrat. Defeated in his re-election bid in 1802, Morris returned to New York City to engage in a variety of commercial undertakings and to write and publish numerous, invariably well-researched, and well-written treatises on a variety of cultural, scientific, and political subjects. As a prominent merchant, former diplomat, politician, and bon vivant, Morris took the lead, along with De Witt Clinton and several other prominent city merchants and politicians, in advocating the construction of what became the Erie Canal. When completed, it was hoped that this waterway, by linking the growing city of Buffalo on the Great Lakes with Albany on the Hudson River, would enable New York City to become the chief entrepot of western commerce and to supplant Boston as the country's foremost commercial and banking center. Largely because of his well-publicized advocacy of this ambitious undertaking, Gouverneur was appointed chairman of the New York Canal Commission, serving in this important position for three years (1810-1813). As a well-known bon vivant and womanizer, Morris, even in middle age, continued with his numerous sexual peccadilloes usually with "ladies of flexible morals." At the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Morris was rumored to have lost his left leg in a bloody confrontation with an enraged husband after he had supposedly been caught seducing the man's wife. In reality, Morris lost his leg in an unfortunate carriage accident in 1780, while visiting in Maryland, in which he was thrown out the moving vehicle and had his leg mangled by the spokes of one of the moving wheels. As it turned out, the ensuing leg amputation was probably unnecessary, since upon his return to Philadelphia his physician gave as his opinion that the damaged leg could have been saved. Morris evidently bore the loss, according to his close friend Robert R. Livingston, "with becom-

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ing fortitude." It is known for sure, that this handicap did not hamper noticeably with his "having commerce" with numerous comely, usually young women. In the early 1790s, as a visitor and diplomat in Europe, Morris kept a diary in which he wrote, often in unnecessary detail, of his thoughts and activities. These entries sometimes included the time, place, and cost of what appeared to be his frequent visits with "ladies of the night" and with various mistresses he acquired during his stay in Europe. Interestingly, one of his Paris mistress's had apparently played that role earlier with the renowned, but crafty, French Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand. In 1809, at the age of 58, Gouverneur Morris finally abandoned his long tenure as a wild and uninhibited bachelor to marry the wellconnected Anne Cary Randolph of Virginia with whom he had one son— Gouverneur Morris II. His last few years were ones of debilitating infirmities. He had long suffered from frequent bouts with the gout. To these were now added periods of extreme pain, apparently caused by the partial blockage of his urinary tract. The end came painfully on November 6, 1816, in the same room at Morrisania in which he had been born some sixty four years earlier. At his death, he was eulogized, by friend and foe alike, as a patrician of great intellect, charm, refinement, and courage. Gouverneur Morris' achievements as a revolutionary, as a financier, and perhaps most importantly as a constitution-maker were such as to consider that he properly belongs in any pantheon with such better-known, publicspirited, revolutionary and early national period political figures as Samuel Adams Patrick Henry, John Jay, and James Madison. Perhaps it would even be appropriate and fitting to place his name on a list of the most significant and most revered of America's Founders and Framers—for example, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington. All of these revolutionary heroes, whether friend or foe, recognized Gouverneur Morris as a man of astounding intellect, enviable discernment, prodigious learning, immense influence, and a candor and honesty, which could at times alienate both his allies and adversaries.

NOTES 1. All three of Gouverneur's stepbrothers carried on the family tradition of noblesse oblige. Lewis, as the oldest, became the politically active third lord of Morrisania, Staats Long pursued a military career as an officer in the British Army, and Richard became a prominent New York barrister and local New York politician. 2. Indicative of the reputation Gouverneur Morris has been given, by many of his contemporaries and since his death by a few historians and biographers, as a controversial, somewhat arrogant, always self-assured, sometimes egotistical, "devil may care" aristocrat is the oft-related, but probably apocryphal story, which allegedly took place one evening during his stay in Philadelphia in 1787. As related

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by Convention journalist Dr. James McHenry in his notes written during the latter stages of the Convention, Alexander Hamilton and the two Morrises (Robert and Gouverneur) were enjoying an evening of conviviality when Hamilton made the claim that the seemingly always austere and straitlaced George Washington "allowed no one to be familiar with him." Gouverneur is reported then to have replied "that was a mere fancy, and he could be as familiar with Washington as with any of his other friends. Hamilton replied, "If you will, at the next reception evenings, gently slap him on the shoulder and say, 'My dear General, how happy I am to see you look so well!' a supper and wine shall be provided for you and a dozen of your friends.' The challenge was accepted. On the evening appointed, a large number attended; and at an early hour Gouverneur Morris entered, bowed, shook hands, laid his left hand on Washington's shoulder, and said, 'My dear General, I am very happy to see you look so well!' Washington withdrew his hand, stepped suddenly back, fixed his eye on Morris for several minutes with an angry frown, until the latter retreated abashed, and sought refuge in the crowd." Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:85. 3. Ibid, 92. 4. Ibid,,236. 5. Ibid,, 1:293. 6. Ibid,. 588, 593, 603-605. 7. Ibid,, 2:221-223. 8. Ibid,, 645. 9. Ibid,, 3:419-420. 10. Ibid.., 498-500.

ROBERT MORRIS (1734-1806) Robert Morris was one of the most influential, but least well known, of all the major Revolutionary War leaders and Framers. Born in Liverpool, England, in 1734, he migrated, with his father, to Maryland's Eastern Shore in 1747. The following year, he moved to Philadelphia, where he joined the mercantile firm of Charles Willing as an apprentice. By 1754, the 20-year-old had become a partner with Charles Willing's son Thomas in what became the shipping firm of Willing & Morris. By the 1760s, Willing &c Morris had become one of the leading mercantile trading companies in British America's largest city. Robert Morris was thereafter always, first and foremost, a merchant and a banker. His subsequent career as an influential politician always played second fiddle to his primary one as a businessman. Even during the times he served as a Pennsylvania state legislator, as a member of the Continental Congress, and as superintendent of finance, he devoted most of his considerable talents and energies to mercantile pursuits. It is primarily for his business and financial accomplishments that Robert Morris (who was not related to his close friend and fellow Pennsylvania delegate Gouverneur Morris) should be remembered and honored. His career as a merchant and financier was, up to and during the American War of Independence (1775-1783), conspicuously successful and lucrative. During the conflict with Great Britain, Willing & Morris prospered by becoming one of the main mercantile firms supplying the Continental army with badly needed supplies and monies. It was during the war, however, that Morris often mixed public and private business transactions. These practices, although probably not illegal, were considered by many to be at least unethical, and led to accusations, which have never been substantiated, of financial impropriety and profiteering. Although Congress, after a thorough investigation of his financial records and accounts, offi-

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daily cleared Morris of any illegal or dishonest behavior, his reputation for financial honesty and integrity suffered irreparably. The zenith of Morris' financial career was reached when the Continental Congress appointed him superintendent of finance in 1781, over the concerted opposition of many who believed he had engaged in unethical or even illegal profiteering during the Revolutionary War. Assuming almost dictatorial powers, Morris put in place a financial plan, which probably saved the young, struggling American republic from total financial collapse. He quickly instituted several much-needed, but controversial, economic reforms. He revamped the ailing currency system, established new procedures for supplying the army, and founded the country's first bank—the Bank of North America. Particularly, his timely introduction of new, and as it turned out effective, procedures for equipping the army greatly helped Washington's army on the eve of the war's last major military campaign— the victorious battle of Yorktown. His one notable failure as superintendent of finance was his inability to get ratified the Impost of 1781—a 5 percent import tax, which would have strengthened the national government, under the Articles of Confederation, financially and thus would have perhaps thwarted the incipient nationalistic movement that grew steadily in the period 1781-1787. The calling of the Constitutional Convention, of course, was the culmination of this nationalistic movement: a movement that initially aimed only to amend the Articles of Confederation, but later became a concerted effort, eventually successful, to overthrow the Articles of Confederation completely and create a new, strong national government. In his perceptive characterization of the controversial Philadelphia merchant and financier, the French diplomat Louis Otto noted: Rob. Morris, Superintendent of Finance during the war, very powerful negotiator in his State. Owing all to his good head and to his experience, little to his study. He ceded a little on the account of France since Monsieur de Marbois had taken with such warmth the side of Monsieur Hotker and he had disapproved of his contract with the firm. He will be however easy to win by good procedures. He is a man of great weight and whose friendship would not be indifferent to us.1 In his more laudatory portrayal of the portly Robert Morris, William Pierce described him as a merchant of great eminence and wealth, an able Financier, and a worthy Patriot. He has an understanding equal to any public object, and possesses an energy of mind that few Men can boast of. Although he is not learned, yet he is as great as those who are. I am told that when he speaks in the Assembly of Pennsylvania, that he bears down

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all before him. What could have been his reason for not Speaking in the Convention I know not—but he never once spoke on any point. This Gentleman is about 50 years old.2 Morris' distinguished political career spanned the exciting, eventful period from the mid-1760s to the mid-1790s. As a leading merchant in Philadelphia, he opposed Britain's attempts, made after 1763, to tighten her control over colonial commerce and to tax the relatively under-taxed provincials. His opposition, though, initially took the mild form of only signing non-importation agreements. It was not until 1775, on the eve of actual military hostilities, that the wealthy Morris finally embraced the independence movement. He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1776, in time to participate in the discussions that led to Richard Henry Lee's famous motion of June 7, calling for the creation of a committee to draft a declaration justifying American independence. He initially opposed the actual Declaration of Independence thinking that it was premature. However, after the vote for independence was passed, Robert Morris became an active American patriot. He later did sign the Declaration of Independence. During his two-year stint in Congress, he utilized his vast commercial connections to procure military supplies and equipment, and to obtain loans. At crucial times, he actually used his own personal connections, credit, and money to obtain the needed aid. In 1778, he began a two-year term as a member of Pennsylvania's unicameral legislature, working as an anti-constitutionalist to overthrow the democratic Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776. In 1781, in recognition of his business acumen and political influence, he was appointed superintendent of finance. His resignation in 1784 from this important post was caused by several factors. The failure to get the Impost of 1781 ratified (initially, the lone vote of one state—Rhode Island—prevented the ratification) convinced the financier of the futility of trying to prop up half-heartedly the weak Articles of Confederation. He became convinced that a new governmental system was needed. He thus joined the increasing number of prominent men (such as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Gouverneur Morris) in the growing nationalistic movement. Also, at this time, he was under heavy attack both from Pennsylvania Constitutionalists (supporters of state constitution of 1776) and from members and friends of the Adams-Lee faction in Congress who objected to his active support of Silas Deane of Connecticut and of Deane's major patron Dr. Benjamin Franklin, in the divisive and unseemly Silas Deane-Arthur Lee controversy. In addition, particularly disturbing to the always proud Morris was Thomas Paine's vitriolic accusations that he had used his public office for private gain. All these personal attacks made retirement to business ever more appealing. Finally, his resignation was caused by a desire to devote more time and effort to expand his commercial activities and connections, to build up

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his personal fortune, and to become involved more deeply in several seemingly promising land-speculation schemes. However, despite his obvious disgust with political life, at least at the national level, he did accept his election to the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives in 1785 and served actively and influentially in that body until his late 1786 appointment as a member of what was originally the seven-man Pennsylvania delegation to the Constitutional Convention. The name of Benjamin Franklin was added in March 1787, when it was learned that the venerable doctor's health would permit his inclusion and that he actually wanted to participate in the deliberations, and thus Pennsylvania ended up with the largest (with eight members) state delegation at the Grand Convention. At the head (at least until Franklin's addition in late March of 1787) of the distinguished Pennsylvania delegation, Robert Morris was expected to take a leading role in the debates and voting at the Convention. Interestingly, he appeared to have spoken in the Convention only twice. He did not, at least officially, play the influential role many expected of him. Unofficially, however, he may have had significant influence. He was one of the three Philadelphia merchants in the Pennsylvania delegation (the other two—Thomas Fitzsimmons and George Clymer—contributed very little to the actual debates, but did apparently follow Robert Morris' lead in voting within the Pennsylvania delegation on matters particularly pertaining to trade and commerce) and as such was, no doubt, assiduous in supporting measures beneficial to mercantile interests. Morris also, undoubtedly, voted with his nationalistic colleagues within the Pennsylvania group, headed by James Wilson, that supported the Virginia Plan specifically and other proposals favorable to large states. Thus, Morris should be placed in the large-state nationalist interest group along with his Pennsylvania colleagues Gouverneur Morris and James Wilson, and with Alexander Hamilton of New York and James Madison and George Washington of Virginia. That he had influence, albeit unofficial, can however be inferred first by the fact that the final draft of the Constitution contained most of the measures he had championed as superintendent of finance and as a member of the conservative anti-constitutionalist faction in Pennsylvania. He was known to support the creation of a potentially strong national executive, of a powerful legislative upper house, and of an independent national judiciary. Although Dr. Benjamin Franklin, president of the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council (governor), was considered the official host of the convention, Morris served as the unofficial host. Washington had accepted Morris' invitation to stay at his palatial mansion on High Street, just a few blocks from the State House, and therefore frequently dined with Mr. and Mrs. Morris. Morris not only hosted numerous dinner parties and afternoon teas for his fellow delegates, but also joined other delegates frequently in libations at the many nearby taverns. On several occasions, Robert Morris invited a few of his fellow delegates (most notably, Washington)

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to the Hills (his country estate just outside of Philadelphia) for rest and relaxation on Sundays and during the Convention's infrequent recesses. Although we have no exact record of the conversations and discussions that undoubtedly took place during these periods of rest, relaxation, and jollification, it would be naive to think that Convention matters were not discussed or that significant decisions were not made in the convivial atmosphere of the Hills, the High Street mansion, the Indian Queen Tavern, the City Tavern, or one of the other nearby "watering holes." Sumptuous food and ardent spirits often induce frank, meaningful discussions. Morris' influence as the congenial but unofficial host of the Convention cannot be discounted, especially since the Constitution, as it emerged in mid-September, was a document much to his liking. Following his signing, on September 17, of the finished document, Morris worked assiduously for ratification. After his election as the country's first president under the Constitution, George Washington offered his close friend Robert Morris the important post as the first secretary of the treasury. Morris declined the cabinet appointment to accept his election as a Pennsylvania senator to the First Congress. As a senator and a nationalist, he supported most of the Washington administration initiatives. He was especially supportive of the controversial Hamiltonian Fiscal Program. In fact, this far-reaching program could rightly be called the Robert Morris Fiscal Program because it was similar in many respects to the one first introduced by him during his tenure as superintendent of finance in the early 1780s. He retired from the senate in 1795 to pursue various commercial and land speculation ventures. Unfortunately, most of these get-rich-quick schemes were failures, with the result that the "financier of the Revolution" ended up being imprisoned for debt in 1798. At the time of his death, on May 8, 1806, Robert Morris was bankrupt and forgotten. He was buried, without fanfare, in his wife's family vault in the churchyard of Christ Church in Philadelphia. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:236. 2. Ibid, 91.

WILLIAM PATERSON (1745-1806) Born December 24, 1745, in Antrim, Ireland, William Paterson migrated with his family to New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1747. Soon thereafter, his father, apparently a traveling tinsmith peddler, moved the family to New London, Connecticut, then to Trenton, New Jersey, and finally in 1750 to Princeton, New Jersey. His father's growing affluence made it possible for him to send young William to local private schools where the precocious son took a pre-college preparatory course with an emphasis on the classics. At the age of fourteen, William enrolled in the nearby College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton University) from where he graduated with a B.A. degree in 1763 and a M.A. degree three years later. Interestingly, of the ten Convention delegates who attended the College of New Jersey (nine were graduated), two (William Churchill Houston of New Jersey and Luther Martin of Maryland) were Paterson's classmates. Martin, who graduated the same year that Paterson received his M.A. degree, was one of the coauthors with Paterson of the small-state New Jersey Plan. Although it would be impossible to determine with any degree of accuracy the extent that the New Jersey Presbyterian-related college influenced philosophically, theologically, or politically, of the almost-20 percent of the Convention commissioners who studied at Nassau Hall and were therefore undoubtedly exposed to, if not indoctrinated with, the stern Calvinistic doctrines taught there, most, in their later careers, seemed to adhere to some of the basic tenets of theoretical Calvinism (most notably the demanding work ethic preached by "frigid Calvin"). During his college years, Paterson also seemed to have studied law as a legal apprentice to the well-known Princeton lawyer Richard Stockton (later a signer of the Declaration of Independence). William was admitted to the bar in 1768 and commenced the practice of law the following year in New Bromly, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. Like many of his compeers, William Paterson reached adulthood at an

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auspicious time for the well-educated and ambitious. Growing prosperity in his legal practice led him almost inevitably to a political career. After Parliament's passage of the hated Tea Act in 1773, Paterson wholeheartedly embraced the radical Patriot cause. After the overthrow of Royal Governor William Franklin and British rule in New Jersey, Paterson served as secretary and delegate to the state Provincial Congress (1775-1776) and then, after the establishment of New Jersey as an independent state, as a delegate to the state senate (1776-1777).).e also served as a member of of the New Jersey Constitutional Convention, which drafted the state constitution that was promulgated on July 2, 1776. Under the new constitution, Paterson was appointed, in September 1776, as New Jersey's first attorney general: a position he held with distinction until 1783 when his first wife of four years (Cornelia Bell, with whom he had three children) died. He resigned as attorney general and moved to New Brunswick, New Jersey, to pursue a full-time legal practice. In 1785 he took a new bride, Euphemia White. His appointment, in November 1786, as a member of the New Jersey delegation to the Philadelphia Convention was indicative of the high standing he enjoyed as a dedicated public servant. Also, his excellent educational and legal background and his experience as an active member of the 1776 state Constitutional Convention undoubtedly made Paterson an attractive, if not obvious, choice to represent the views of New Jersey's largely rural and states' rights citizenry. Paterson is recorded as being in attendance at the Convention's official opening session on Friday, May 25, 1787. He seemed to have attended regularly up to July 23 when he departed not to return until mid-September to sign the completed draft. With the July 16 passage of the Great Compromise, with its built-in protections for small-state sovereignty and independence (particularly an equal state vote in the proposed national Senate), Paterson felt he could rely on his small-state nationalist colleagues to flesh out the decisions already made into a coherent constitution, which coincided generally with his own views, and returned to his family and law practice. During his two-month tenure at the Convention, Paterson spoke frequently and articulately, supporting the rights of small states against the large. Although modest and self-effacing, the diminutive Paterson (at 5 feet 2 inches he was undoubtedly the shortest delegate at the Convention) played an important role as one of the leading spokesman for states' rights. He was called upon to speak, often on behalf of more ardent states' rights advocates, primarily because of his known oratorical abilities and his willingness to compromise. William Pierce described the always mildmannered, popular, and soft-spoken Paterson as one of those kind of Men whose powers break in upon you, and create wonder and astonishment. He is a Man of great modesty, with

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looks that bespeak talents of no great extent—but he is a Classic, a Lawyer, and an Orator;—and of a disposition so favorable to his advancement that every one seemed ready to exalt him with their praises. He is very happy in the choice of time and manner of engaging in a debate, and never speaks but when he understands his subject well. This Gentleman is about 34 ys. of age, of a very low stature. 1 His main contribution to the deliberations was the presentation, on June 15, of the so-called Paterson (New Jersey) Plan, which called for an essential retention of the Articles of Confederation. However, as a delegate from New Jersey (a state "sandwiched" between two large, and to many in New Jersey, overbearing neighboring states, i.e., New York and Pennsylvania), he supported granting the new national government the power to regulate trade and commerce, for the good of all the states, and limited power to tax. The plan of government presented by Paterson on Friday, June 15 was the hastily contrived small states' answer to the large states' carefully constructed plan presented by Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph two weeks earlier. In a lengthy but well-reasoned speech delivered on June 9, Paterson had spoken persuasively against the twenty-three Randolph resolutions (i.e., the Virginia Plan). He particularly took issue with the large states' attempt to secure proportional representation in both houses of Congress. He "considered the proposition for a proportional representation as striking at the existence of the lesser States." He went on to state "that the articles of the confederation were therefore the proper basis of all the proceedings of the Convention. We ought to keep within its limits, or we should be charged by our constituents with usurpation. . . . We have no power to go beyond the federal scheme, and if we had the people are not ripe for any other. We must follow the people; the people will not follow us. . . . N. Jersey will never confederate on the plan before the Committee." 2 The New Jersey Plan ably presented by Paterson in the late morning of Friday, June 15 was the joint endeavor of several small-state commissioners who vehemently opposed the overly nationalistic and large-state provisions of the Virginia Plan. William Livingston (New Jersey), Roger Sherman (Connecticut), Luther Martin (Maryland), and of course, William Paterson all appear to have played a part in drafting this small-state answer to Virginia Governor Randolph's early and audacious attempt to push through the large-state agenda before the more numerous small-state delegates could organize and present their own proposal. Paterson was undoubtedly selected to present the small-state plan because of his well-known rhetorical and debating abilities, and his well-deserved reputation as a scholar/politician. In his lengthy notes of June 15, Madison noted that "Mr. Patterson, laid before the Convention the plan which he said several of the deputations

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wished to be substituted in place of that proposed by Mr. Randolp." Madison then recorded, in some detail, the nine resolutions that constituted the New Jersey Plan. The essence of the New Jersey Plan was contained in the first resolution: "Resd. that the articles of Confederation ought to be so revised, corrected &ceenlarged, as to render the federal Constitution adequat to the exigencies of Government, & the preservation of the Union." 3 In other words, the small states wanted to retain the Articles of Confederation, which, with its provisions for state equality, gave real political supremacy to the states rather than to a central, national authority. However, even the arch-states' rights advocates such as Luther Martin realized that it was necessary to grant the national government certain limited additional powers if the American republican experiment was to survive. Thus, they proposed to grant the central authority the power to tax and the power to regulate trade and commerce. In addition, the New Jersey Plan called for a plural (and therefore weak) executive branch of government and a national judiciary to be appointed by the executive. Emphatically, it did not propose any alteration in the one state—one vote provision of the Articles of Confederation. At the time of Paterson's able presentation of the New Jersey Plan, most delegates probably believed that it represented what they supposed they were instructed to do. Because there were more delegates from small states than large states, it would seem as though the New Jersey Plan should have been adopted as the basis of the constitution to be drafted. However, the large-state nationalists adroitly manipulated the discussions, usually behind the closed doors of the Committee of the Whole, in such a manner that the Convention voted on Tuesday, June 19, by a vote of 7-3, "not to agree to the Jersey propositions but to report those offered by Mr. Randolph." 4 Especially effective was James Wilson's learned and detailed comparison of the two plans under consideration. The scholarly Scotsman from Pennsylvania was evidently able to convince many of his wavering colleagues that the Paterson Plan would not be able "to render the federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government & the preservation of the Union." The June 19 vote in favor of the Virginia Plan over Paterson's New Jersey Plan represented the highpoint reached by the large-state nationalists; they had successfully seized control of the Convention and beaten down, at least temporarily, the small states' attempt to set the Convention's agenda. Paterson and his small-state colleagues were undoubtedly unhappy with this adverse vote, but were not willing to admit defeat or to give up in their attempt to draft a constitution that would both grant the national government the obvious, much-needed powers to tax and regulate trade and commerce, and preserve the powers and rights of the individual states. Slowly but persuasively, Paterson and his small-state nationalist colleagues (especially Sherman, Ellsworth, Read, Dickinson, and Rutledge) were able to convince many of their irresolute fellow confreres that the states ought to be retained

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as independent, viable political entities. This faction gradually took control of the Convention. The narrow July 16 vote in favor of the Great Compromise represented their high point. Having secured for all states, large and small, an equal vote in the upper chamber of the proposed national legislature, Paterson felt that the small states had achieved all that they could considering the wide divergence of opinions among the attending delegates. Paterson left the Convention on July 23, but returned in mid-September, in time to add his signature to that of three of his New Jersey colleagues to the final draft. Although not completely happy with some of the more nationalistic provisions of the Constitution as finally drafted, Paterson worked diligently to secure New Jersey's unanimous vote for ratification. With the establishment of the new American republic under the newly ratified Constitution, Paterson became a steadfast supporter of the Washington administration. The New Jersey legislature elected Paterson, in 1789, to the U.S. Senate where he served only until 1790 when he resigned having been elected Governor of New Jersey. He served as governor until 1793 when he resigned to accept President Washington's offer as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court—a position he held up to the time of his death on September 9, 1806. In failing health, Paterson was on his way to Ballston Spa, New York, for rest and cure when he died (age 60) in the Albany home of his daughter, who had married into the aristocratic Van Rensselaer family. Despite distinguished careers as New Jersey's attorney general and governor, William Paterson is best remembered today for his co-authorship and masterful and articulate presentation of the New Jersey Plan at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:90. 2. Ibid, 1:177-179. 3. Ibid, 242-245. 4. In the heated debates of June 16-19, the delegates primarily from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and Alexander Hamilton of New York were able to convince a majority of their colleagues (especially those from Connecticut, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia) that the Virginia Plan (with its proposal for proportional representation in Congress) should form the basis of any new fundamental governing charter. Massachusetts, (somewhat surprisingly) Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia voted for the Randolph Plan. New York, New Jersey, and Delaware voted for the Paterson Plan. New Hampshire was not yet represented, Rhode Island was of course unrepresented, and Maryland's delegation was evenly divided, therefore, depriving the Old Line State of its vote on this all-important motion of June 19.

WILLIAM LEIGH PIERCE (1740-1789) Today, William Pierce is known primarily as the author of the brief biographical sketches he wrote of his fellow delegates during the first weeks of the Convention. First published in 1828 in the Savannah Georgian, these sketches were sometimes seemingly based on hearsay only, were often inaccurate especially as to trivial details, were unduly censorious to some and undeservedly complimentary to others, but were always interesting and informative. However, they do not tell the readers much about what actually took place during the eighty-eight days the Convention formally met. Instead, they provide often little-known information about some of the lesser known Framers and present word pictures of the delegates that help make them appear more human than the depictions of legendary and scholarly biographies. Little is known about Pierce's early life. Born in Georgia, but apparently raised in Virginia, he reached manhood during an auspicious time for a man of talent and ambition. During the War of Independence, William Pierce reached the rank of brevet major in the Continental army and served with notable distinction as an aide-de-camp to General Nathanael Greene, the American commander in the southern theater during the latter stages of the conflict. For brave and meritorious conduct during the September 1781 battle of Eutaw Springs, Congress presented the young and apparently courageous Pierce with a ceremonial sword. In 1783, he left the army, married Charlotte Fenwick of South Carolina with whom he had two sons, and started an import-export business in Savannah, Georgia. Initial failure in business was followed in 1784 with the establishment of the mercantile firm, William Pierce and Company. This endeavor was initially financially successful. With success in business, it was perhaps inevitable that the 43-year-old merchant gravitated into a political career. In 1786, he was elected to the Georgia State House of Rep-

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resentatives and to the Continental Congress. It was, therefore, as a member of the Confederation Congress, that he was appointed in February 1787 to the six-man Georgia delegation to the Constitutional Convention (only four of the six men appointed actually ended up attending the Philadelphia gathering). At the Convention Pierce played an insignificant role. He first took his seat on Thursday, May 31 and spent the first few weeks observing the proceedings and writing down his impressions of his Convention colleagues. He is recorded to have made only three speeches of any length. As a moderate nationalist who saw the obvious need to strengthen the central government, but not at the expense of state sovereignty or independence, William Pierce can be classified broadly as a small-state nationalist. He supported having the lower house of the proposed national legislature elected by the people, and the upper house by the states. He displayed a democratic tendency by supporting a three-year rather than a seven-year term, as proposed by some large-state delegates, for members of the upper legislative chamber (this is reflective, of course, of the eighteenth-century belief that frequent rotation in office would ensure a more democratic, responsive assembly). In most Convention votes, he apparently followed his mildly nationalistic Georgia colleagues (especially Abraham Baldwin) in supporting measures that would enhance national power, but not at the expense of state autonomy. Although supportive of the Constitution, he did not sign the completed document because of an early departure to tend to some urgent business crisis at home. A drastic decline in the European rice market had brought him to the brink of bankruptcy and he returned to Georgia to deal, unsuccessfully as it turned out, with the financial emergency. Pierce's autobiographical sketch is revealing, in that it is perhaps overly complimentary and almost totally devoid of meaningful and critical analysis. However, it is always instructive and interesting to read selfexaminations even if they are sometimes superficial and inordinately immodest. My own character I shall not attempt to draw, but leave those who may choose to speculate on it, to consider it in any light that their fancy or imagination may depict. I am conscious of having discharged my duty as a Soldier through the course of the late revolution with honor and propriety; and my services in Congress and the Convention were bestowed with the best intention toward the interest of Georgia, and toward the general welfare of the Confederacy. I possess ambition, and it was that, and the flattering opinion which some of my Friends had of me, that gave me a seat in the wisest Council in the World, and furnished me with an opportunity of giving these short Sketches of the Characters who composed it.1

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He was an original member and vice president of the Society of the Cincinnati (a hereditary, military organization founded in 1783 by officers who had served in the Continental army). His post-Convention career was cut short by his untimely death, at age 49, on December 10, 1789, in Savannah. William Pierce should be remembered as a patriotic Framer of second rank who served his state and his country faithfully and honorably. NOTE 1. Max Farrand, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:97.

CHARLES PINCKNEY (1757-1824) Born October 26, 1757, into one of the most distinguished South Carolina aristocratic families, Charles Pinckney took full advantage of the many opportunities for achieving fame and fortune that the hierarchical society of eighteenth-century South Carolina provided for the ambitious and talented sons of the "rich and well born." His father (Colonel Charles Pinckney), a prominent Charleston lawyer and large landowner, made sure his precocious son was given the proper education and training thought necessary to enable him to follow in his footsteps as a member of the plantationowning, slave-owning, politically, culturally, and socially dominant aristocratic class. Largely educated in his home city, first by private tutors and later in a private Charleston school for sons of the wealthy and wellconnected, the young aristocrat became well-schooled in the classics—a course of study thought necessary for a future member of the ruling class. In 1779, age 22, after several years of intense study, Charles was admitted to the bar. He was to practice law primarily in Charleston for the rest of his life between, often lengthy, stints in the military, in the diplomatic service, and in both the state and national political arenas. Although his father was a luke-warm American Patriot during the Revolutionary War, his son Charles eagerly but somewhat belatedly embraced the American cause. When large-scale fighting finally came to the Carolinas in the late 1770s, Charles enlisted in the state militia soon obtaining the rank of lieutenant. As such he served, without noticeable distinction, in the siege of Savannah in the fall of 1779. The following year, he was unfortunately at home in Charleston serving as a member of General Benjamin Lincoln's ill-fated garrison, which was forced to surrender, on May 12, 1780, to the British in what turned out to be the most devastating and demoralizing American defeat of the entire war. Taken prisoner along with the entire American garrison of some 5,000 men, Charles Pinckney spent

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the next year in tolerable confinement. Exchanged in June 1781, he quickly resumed his career as an active state legislator. Even before the commencement of his legal practice in 1779, Charles embarked upon what would become a lifelong, but intermittent, involvement in politics. He was first elected to the Continental Congress serving in that increasingly morbid body for four years (1777-1778 and 1784-1787). In 1779, he embarked upon his state legislative career as an elected member, from Charleston, to the South Carolina House of Representatives. He served in that legislative body, altogether, for some eighteen years (17791784, 1786-1789, 1792-1796, 1805, 1806, and 1810-1814). Membership in the state assembly did not, however, prevent him from serving sometimes concurrently as a delegate to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention in 1787, as a member of the South Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1788, and as president of the 1790 state Constitutional Convention. It was as a member of the Continental Congress, in the late spring of 1786 that Charles Pinckney first came to national prominence. In May of that year, he manifested his awareness of the irreparable weaknesses of the frail national government established by the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union by introducing in Congress a motion to reorganize completely the structure of the central governing body. In doing this, Charles Pinckney joined more widely known nationalists (e.g., George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison) in their increasingly vocal and vehement criticisms of the Confederation government and in their attempts to amend the demonstratively inept Articles of Confederation. Pinckney's motion led to the creation of a special congressional committee that was charged with the task of debating and honing the specific recommendations originally made and then reporting back to Congress. The committee's August 7, 1786, report to the legislature, among other things, recommended the creation of a seven-judge national court that would have appeal jurisdiction from state courts in cases involving foreign countries, and the granting to Congress the authority to regulate both domestic and foreign commerce. Finally, the committee recommended a strengthening of the existing requisition system to expedite the payment of state quotas to the national treasury. However, despairing of securing the unanimous approval needed under the Articles of Confederation for the adoption of amendments, Pinckney and his nationalistically minded colleagues in Congress never submitted these proposals to the states for possible ratification. Instead, they supported the September 14 call of the Annapolis Convention to the states to send commissioners to a new convention to discuss all matters necessary "to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union" and then voted for the February 21, 1787, congressional resolution: "Resolved, That in the opinion of Congress, it is expedient, that on the second Monday in May next, a convention of delegates, who shall have been appointed by the several states, be

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held at Philadelphia." 1 Because of his valiant but futile efforts in the Confederation Congress to strengthen the national government with amendments to the Articles of Confederation and his well-known nationalistic predilections, it is not surprising that Charles Pinckney was appointed by the state legislature on March 8, 1787, to the four-member South Carolina delegation to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. Arriving in Philadelphia in the company of the acknowledged leader of his state's delegation—John Rutledge—on May 17, Charles Pinckney was described by fellow delegate William Pierce as a young gentleman "of the most promising talents. He is, altho' ony 24 ys. Of age, in possession of a very great variety of knowledge. Government, Law, History and Phylosophy are his favorite studies, but he is intimately acquainted with every species of polite learning, and has a spirit of application and industry beyond most Men. He speaks with great neatness and perspicuity, and treats every subject as fully, without running into prolixity, as it requires. He has been a Member of Congress, and served in that Body with ability and eclat."2 With the enviable reputation described by Pierce, it would be expected that the 29-year-old Carolinian would play a significant role at the Convention. He did, in fact, play an important role. He attended most of the sessions and spoke frequently and persuasively, usually in support of the perceived interests of the south generally and of South Carolina in particular. As one of the youngest delegates at the Convention, he sometimes seemed to defer to his more famous, senior South Carolina colleagues (especially his second cousin General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and "dictator" John Rutledge) as they endeavored to craft a national constitution, which would be protective of the institution of slavery, which would ensure the right of Americans to full use of the Mississippi River, which would prohibit export taxes, and which would strengthen the national government, but not at the expense of state sovereignty and independence. Specifically, the younger Charles Pinckney favored the creation of a "true federal" system of government in which there would be an appropriate, mutuallyagreed-upon division of governmental powers between the national authority and the individual states. Thus, he can be classified generally, along with at least two of his South Carolina Convention colleagues, as a supporter of Governor Edmund Randolph's large-state Virginia Plan, which was presented on Tuesday, May 29 and which thereafter served as the basis of what became the final draft of the U.S. Constitution. Following Governor Randolph's formal presentation of the Virginia Plan, Pinckney submitted on the same day his own plan for a constitution. Although a full copy of Pinckney's plan has never been found, Secretary William Jackson, in the official journal, and James Madison, in his usually more fulsome notes, recorded in almost identical language that "Mr. Charles Pinckney," had indeed "laid before the House for their consideration, the draught of a federal government to be agreed upon between the free and independent

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States of America." 3 In slightly different words, Robert Yates of New York wrote for May 29 that "Mr. C. Pinkney, a member from South-Carolina . . . had reduced his ideas of a new government to a system, which he read, and confessed that it was grounded on the same principle as of the above resolutions" (i.e., the Virginia Plan).4 There is speculation that what Charles Pinckney submitted to the Convention, as his plan of government, may have been nothing more than a re-hash and possible embellishment of the proposals he introduced in Congress in May 1786 to grant to the national government the power to regulate commerce and to establish a national panel of judges to hear appeals from state courts. At any rate, from the evidence at hand, Charles Pinckney can reasonably be classified, along with at least two of his South Carolina colleagues, as a large-state nationalist. As such, he no doubt supported the majority within the South Carolina delegation in voting against the Great Compromise. South Carolina, although not a large state geographically, usually voted with the large states of Virginia and Pennsylvania in their futile attempts to gain proportional representation in both legislative chambers of the proposed national legislature. Thus, South Carolina, with Pinckney's apparent blessing, voted "no" on July 16, with Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, to the motion "To agree to the whole of the report from the grand Committee" (i.e., what has come to be referred to as the Great or Connecticut Compromise). 5 In his most statesman-like speech of the entire summer, Pinckney, on June 25 during an increasingly heated debate on the issues of proportional versus equal representation and of the composition of the proposed upper chamber (Senate) of the national legislature successfully calmed the troubled waters by reminding his colleagues that, "The people of the U. States are perhaps the most singular of any we are acquainted with. Among them there are fewer distinctions of fortune &Celess of rank, than among the in habitants of any other nation." He continued his plea for allowing the people in the various states some say-so in the selection of members to the second legislative chamber and for respecting the sovereignty and independence of the individual states by noting that in America "Every member of Society almost, will enjoy an equal power of arriving at the supreme offices & consequently of directing the strength & sentiments of the whole Community. None will be excluded by birth, 8c and few by fortune, from voting for proper persons to fill the offices of Government—the whole community will enjoy in the fullest sense that kind of political liberty which consists in the power the members of the State reserve to themselves, of arriving at the public offices, or at least, of having votes in the nomination of those who fill them." He ended what must have appeared to many of his colleagues as a lengthy lecture on the nature and theory of government by stating his belief that "No position appears to me more true than this; that the General Govt. can not effectually exist without reserving to the States the possession of their local rights. They are the instruments upon

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which the Union must frequently depend for the support £c execution of their powers, however immediately operating upon the people, and not upon the States." This speech, which was given at an extremely critical time when the Convention was on the verge of dissolution over the large issue of nationalism versus states' rights, was, in convoluted eighteenth-century language to be sure, an appeal for compromise, an appeal to strengthen the national government, to retain the states as viable political entities, and give the people in the states a voice in the selection of their legislators.6 Despite South Carolina's negative vote on the Great Compromise, Pinckney, along with all three of his South Carolina colleagues, signed the finished draft of the Constitution on September 17, 1787, thus indicating that the South Carolinians were not irreconcilable large-state nationalists. 7 In the months after the Convention, Charles Pinckney worked assiduously to secure ratification in his home state of the Constitution he worked so diligently to draft. In support of the Constitution, he claimed, in an address to the South Carolina legislature that "This is the best Government that has ever yet been offered to the world and instead of being alarmed at its consequences we should be astonishingly pleased that one so perfect have been formed." 8 In his public support, however, he sometimes exaggerated the importance of his role at the Convention by insinuating that the final draft of the Constitution was essentially the plan, slightly modified, that he had submitted during first week of the meeting. Despite this somewhat arrogant braggadocio, it can be said with certitude that Charles Pinckney did play an important role at the Constitutional Convention first as a steadfast supporter of the large-state Virginia Plan, which in fact, was the basis of the final fundamental governing charter, and secondly by his advocacy of compromise to save the Convention from threatened dissolution. His post-convention years were ones of solid accomplishment and noteworthy public service. In 1788, he married Mary Eleanor Laurens, daughter of a well-connected, wealthy Charleston merchant, with whom he had at least three children. One of their children, Henry Laurens Pinckney, achieved a measure of fame as a member of the national House of Representatives (1833-1837) and as mayor of Charleston (1837-1840). Along with his various political commissions, the father Charles continued to practice law in Charleston. In 1789, he was elected governor of South Carolina, an office he held on three separate occasions: 1789-1792, 17961798, and 1806-1808. While a governor he increasingly championed the interests of the Democratic/Republican Carolina backcountry. Still during the early 1790s, he remained a firm supporter, at the national level, of President George Washington, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, and the emerging politically conservative Federalist Party. However, he broke ranks with the Federalists over the controversial Jay's Treaty, which he vigorously opposed. At the end of his second term as the state's chief executive in 1798, Pinckney was elected, as a Democratic/Republican sup-

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porter of Jefferson and Madison, to the U.S. Senate. During his brief senate tenure, he served as Thomas Jefferson's campaign manager in South Carolina in the highly controversial election of 1800. He resigned his senate seat in 1801 to accept President Thomas Jefferson's appointment as U.S. Minister to Spain (1801-1805). In Madrid, he unsuccessfully negotiated to win cession of the Floridas to the United States and successfully laid the groundwork for Spanish acquiescence in the transfer of Louisiana to the United States in 1803. Following his return to the United States, he was again elected governor of South Carolina (1806-1808). In 1819, he was elected and served one two-year term as a Democratic/Republican member of the national House of Representatives where he voted against the Missouri Compromise of 1820. He died October 29, 1824, in his Charleston home and was buried with the solemnity due a statesman in the churchyard of Charleston's historic St. Phillip's Church. His legacy is that he served his state and his country with honor and distinction in a variety of challenging political and diplomatic positions during the tumultuous years of the early American Republic. He is also now revered for his service as one of the Framers of the U.S. Constitution. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), l:xi.

2. Ibid, 3:96.

3. Ibid, 1:16, 23. 4. Ibid, 1:24. 5. Ibid, 2:15. Georgia invariably followed the lead of her neighbor, South Carolina, in voting on issues involving nationalism versus states' rights, large states versus small states, and the institution of slavery. 6. Ibid, 1:397-404. 7. James Madison of Virginia, the acknowledged leader of the large-state nationalists, not only did not vote for the Great Compromise with its core provision that granted each state an equal vote in the proposed national upper legislative chamber, but he also frequently and vehemently stated his opposition, in postconvention letters, to what he considered to be a totally undemocratic, unfair, and unnecessary concession to small states. He did, however, sign the document in September and thereafter wrote twenty-nine of the eighty-five Federalists' essays urging ratification. That certainly confirms Madison's general support of the Constitution as a whole, but not his acceptance of the concept of equality in the Senate. 8. Charles Warren, The Making of the Constitution (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1937), 739-740.

CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY (1746-1825) Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was one of the most influential and welleducated delegates at the Grand Convention. Born the eldest of three children, on February 25, 1746, into one of the wealthiest and most politically prominent colonial South Carolina families, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney enjoyed, and indeed took full advantage of, the opportunities such a birth could bestow. His father, Charles Pinckney, was a large landowner and slave-owner, who served for years as a leader in the House of Commons (lower chamber of the colonial legislature), and from 1752 to his death in 1758 as chief justice of the South Carolina provincial court. His mother, Elizabeth (Eliza) Lucas Pinckney gained everlasting fame as the agriculturist who introduced and promoted indigo culture in America. As a result of Eliza's experiments in successfully growing indigo in the climate and soil of her adopted South Carolina, it became valuable as a supplemental staple crop to rice. The elder Charles married Eliza, his second wife, in 1744. This union produced three children: Charles Cotesworth (1746), Harriott (1748-1830), and Thomas (1750-1828). In 1753, at the age of seven, Charles Cotesworth accompanied his father, who had been appointed colonial agent to London, and family to England. In their determination to give their children (especially the two boys) the best education possible, Charles and Eliza enrolled their two sons initially, in an academy in Camberwell and then, in an exclusive private school in Kensington Borough, London. In anticipation of applying for admission to one of England's two universities, Charles was asked by his mother, who had returned to South Carolina with sister Harriott in early 1758, to select a public (private) school where he would complete the necessary preuniversity training in the classics. He wrote to his mother (his father having died in late 1758) that Warrington was his first choice and Harrow, his second. Eliza vetoed both of these choices. She suggested Westminster, run by

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the renowned educator Dr. William Markham, and that was where Charles Cotesworth was enrolled. The curriculum at Westminster, in the eighteenth century, was entirely in two areas: the classics and religion. It was at Westminster that young Charles became well-grounded in Latin and Greek. After Westminster, Charles was readily accepted into Christ Church College, Oxford, where the 18-year-old matriculated in January 1764. Upon graduation from Oxford, Charles was admitted to the Middle Temple where he received what was possibly the best legal training in the English-speaking world. His admission to the English bar in early 1769 was followed by a several-month grand tour of western Europe. While on the continent, he spent part of his time studying chemistry, botany, and military science in Paris. By the time he sailed home to South Carolina in late 1769, he had been the recipient of the best classical and legal training then available to a provincial from North America. He was now well-prepared to assume the mantle of his father as the head of the aristocratic Pinckney family. Soon after his arrival in America, he began to practice law. He also took over management of the family's extensive landholdings and Charleston town properties. Although already well-off financially, he was able to add to his considerable wealth by careful management of his plantations and diligence in his law practice. He soon became one of the leading and busiest barristers in Charleston. Success in the law and his family's cultural, social, and political prominence also made almost inevitable his entrance into local and later state and national politics. In 1769, he was elected to the South Carolina provincial legislature and joined the colonial militia. With the approach of the Revolutionary War, Charles Cotesworth embraced wholeheartedly the Patriot cause. He joined the First South Carolina Regiment as a captain and fought in the successful defense of Charleston in 1776. Promoted to colonel, he then took an active part in the battles of Brandywine Creek and Germantown, both in Pennsylvania in the fall of 1777. In 1778, Charles commanded a regiment in the largely unsuccessful campaign against the British in Florida and in the thwarted Franco-American siege of Savannah in 1779. After the failed siege of Savannah, Colonel Pinckney accompanied his regiment to Charleston where it joined General Benjamin Lincoln's troops in the defense of this important and, as it turned out, extremely vulnerable garrison to siege southern port. When Lincoln ineptly allowed his garrison to be trapped on the Charleston peninsula, British success was ensured. Late in the morning of May 12, 1780, General Henry Clinton's British Army captured Charleston and its entire garrison of almost 5,000 soldiers and militiamen. Thus, Colonel Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, as well as his second cousin and future fellow Constitutional Convention colleague Lieutenant Charles Pinckney, was taken prisoner. Charles Cotesworth was held in endurable confinement until 1782. The following year, Pinckney resigned from the army with the rank of brevet brigadier general.

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With the coming of peace, General Pinckney (as he was thereafter invariably called) resumed his law practice, the management of his vast real estate holdings, and his political career. Brief stints in both the state senate and lower house of the legislature in the late 1770s and early 1780s, during which he was not always able to participate actively because of his military obligations, was followed by his almost-expected appointment as the well-known patriarch of the aristocratic Pinckney family, as an active leader of what was usually referred to as the Pinckney-Rutledge political faction, in March 1787, and as a delegate to the upcoming Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. Fellow delegate William Pierce's portrayal of the courtly Charles Cotesworth echoes the generally favorable reputation the General enjoyed in the summer of 1787. He reported that "Mr. Chs. Cotesworth Pinckney is a Gentleman of Family and fortune in his own State. He has received the advantage of a liberal education, and possesses a very extensive degree of legal knowledge. When warm in a debate he sometimes speaks well,—but he is generally considered an indifferent Orator. Mr. Pinckney was an Officer of high rank in the American army, and served with great reputation through the War. He is now about 40 years of age." 1 In the spring of 1787, the elder Pinckney traveled to Philadelphia by boat with his second wife Mary Stead. His first wife Sarah Middleton, with whom he had four children—three daughters and a son who had died prematurely, had herself died in early May of 1784. Charles and Mary Stead were married in mid-1786 and were considering their trip to the Convention as their honeymoon. Unfortunately, the newlyweds of ten months both got "horribly sea sick" on the journey northward. However, when they finally arrived in the City of Brotherly Love, the wearied couple was happily surprised to be greeted in "a very civil and friendly manner" by none other than Pinckney's former commander in chief, General George Washington. Washington's civility toward Pinckney on his arrival in Philadelphia was indicative of the high regard in which the aristocratic South Carolinian was universally held. Because of his long and well-known advocacy of the need to strengthen the national government and his status as a leading southern barrister and political leader, General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was expected to play an important role at the Convention. As anticipated, he did, in fact, assume a leadership role as a frequent speaker and advocate of establishing a powerful central government. He was present at the May 25 opening meeting and apparently attended every session thereafter, right up to the signing on September 17. In his frequent speeches in the Convention and in the meetings of the Committee of the Whole, Pinckney not only championed the interests of his state and of the south, but also supported measures that would strengthen the national authority. Therefore, he often spoke in favor of measures introduced by the large-state nationalists (i.e., James Madison,

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James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and Rufus King); especially, he supported those proposals that would give the central government the power to tax and to enforce its laws, and to have the national government assume all state debts. Initially, however, Pinckney had believed that the delegates had not been authorized to draft an entirely new constitution, but rather were charged with energizing the existing one. He reminded his nationalist colleagues that his instructions, signed by his brother Thomas (the sitting governor of South Carolina) authorized him only to join the commissioners from the other states "in devising and discussing all such Alterations, Clauses, Articles, and Provisions, as may be thought necessary to render the Federal Constitution" (i.e., the Articles of Confederation) "entirely adequate to the actual Situation and future good Government of the confederated States."2 However, he soon became convinced, during the early summer debates on the Virginia Plan, that the Articles of Confederation could not be meaningfully amended because of its requirement that amendments needed the unanimous approval of all thirteen states. He steadfastly believed that there was a need to compromise on most of the issues separating the numerous interest groups. He must be classified on balance as a nationalist, for he supported, but not as vehemently as the extreme nationalists Madison, Wilson, G. Morris, and King, the provision in the highly nationalistic Virginia Plan, which called for proportional representation in both houses of the proposed national legislature. However, as a delegate from South Carolina (ranked seventh in total population), he apparently felt that undiluted proportional representation could be detrimental to state sovereignty and independence.3 He was firmly convinced that the individual states should be retained, in any new governmental system the Convention might devise, as viable political entities. For example, in the acrimonious debate of June 6 over the issue of what part the people should play in electing the members to the national House of Representatives, "General Pinkney," according to Madison's notes, was heard to say that he "wished to have a good national Govt. &c at the same time to leave a considerable share of power in the States."4 Along with his South Carolina friend, political ally, and Convention colleague John Rutledge, Pinckney was the leading Convention spokesman for the slave-owning, plantation-owning, and aristocratic interests of his beloved agricultural south. As such, he favored the prohibition of export taxes, usually supported measures that would require more than a mere majority vote in Congress to enact navigation acts (which potentially could be passed for the benefit of northern shipping interests at the expense of southern exporters), opposed repeatedly and vehemently any proposal that even hinted at the emancipation of slaves, and opposed with equal vehemence any attempt to regulate the slave trade. However, he soon came to realize that most of his Convention colleagues believed that the proposed national government should be authorized, sometime in, he hoped, the far

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distant future, to stop the importation of slaves. He therefore offered, on August 25, in the spirit of compromise, the motion, which was passed and eventually incorporated into the Constitution, that stipulated that the importation of slaves could not be stopped until the year 1808. (Article I, Section 9, Clause l) 5 Charles Cotesworth Pinckney's major contribution to the drafting of the Constitution was his willingness to compromise. At all costs, he wanted to be able to return to South Carolina with a draft of the Constitution that created an energetic national government, but was at the same time protective of the interests of his constituents (especially the ruling aristocratic component). With that always in mind, in the days leading up to the July 16 Great Compromise, it was Pinckney who broke the impasse over the vexing issue of proportional versus equal representation by moving, on July 2, "that a Committee consisting of a member from each State should be appointed to devise &Cereport some compromise."6AAlthoughnnotlchose tto serve on ths important committee, Pinckney did begrudgingly accept most of the features of the committee's report that were later incorporated into the Constitution with the narrow passage of the Great Compromise. The one feature of the Great Compromise that Pinckney never became fully reconciled to was the granting of equality for the states in the second branch of the national legislature. However, when the Great Compromise was narrowly passed 5-4 (South Carolina with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney's apparent approval, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Virginia all voted in the negative), Pinckney thereafter reluctantly accepted what he considered this necessary compromise if the Convention was to avoid dissolution. On the last day of the Convention (September 17, 1787) when Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts and Edmund Randolph of Virginia both reiterated their reasons for not signing the final document, Pinckney affirmed his wholehearted support for the fundamental governing charter he so painstakingly helped to draft when he stated that he would, despite the few minor objections he still had, "sign the Constitution with a view to support it with all his influence."7 Support it he did. Soon after his return to Charleston, he publicly stated his support indicating that the Constitution drafted was the best obtainable, given the diverse interests and expectations of the Convention delegates and the state and regional differences of the areas represented. Not wanting to have a repeat of the harrowing sea voyage of the trip to Philadelphia, the Pinckneys traveled home by coach, stopping by Mount Vernon to visit with Charles' former commander and his wife Martha. During the overnight stay with the Washingtons, Charles assured George that he would use his considerable influence with the low-country South Carolina aristocracy to garner sufficient support for ratification. The primary, but not final, battle over the adoption of the Constitution in South Carolina was fought in the legislature. With the active help of his cousin Charles and of John and Edward Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth led the fight in the state House of Represen-

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tatives for ratification against the backcountry Anti-Federalists, led by the Charleston lawyer and former governor Rawlins Lowndes. Due in part to Pinckney's persuasive and measured rebuttals to the objections voiced by the Anti-Federalists and in part to the fact that the low country (overwhelming for ratification) had 143 members in the lower chamber to 93 for the more populous backcountry (overwhelmingly opposed to adoption), the Federalists were able to secure a favorable vote to have the ratifying Convention in Charleston, where the not-always-subtle influence of the proratification nabobs could more effectively be exerted. Charles Cotesworth no doubt felt a sense of relief and joy when South Carolina, on May 23, 1787, became the eighth state, by the substantial margin of 149-73, to ratify the U.S. Constitution. He had played a major role in the drafting of the document and then in securing ratification in his home state. Pinckney's political career took off nationally with the promulgation of the country's second fundamental governing charter. He became a firm and well-known supporter of the nationalistic policies of President George Washington and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. He refused offers by the president to serve on the Supreme Court and in his cabinet as either secretary of state or secretary of war. With the emergence of distinct political factions during Washington's second term, Pinckney became closely identified with the Federalists. In 1796, he finally accepted a presidential appointment, this time as minister to France, but the revolutionary Directory refused to receive him. The following year, he was appointed by the new president John Adams to be a member of a three-man commission (along with fellow-Convention colleague Elbridge Gerry and John Marshall of Virginia) sent to Paris to restore amiable relations with the former ally. During the ensuing so-called XYZ Affair, the Americans refused to pay a bribe demanded by the French or to authorize a sizable loan (which undoubtedly would have never been repaid) to the French before meaningful negotiations could take place. Arriving back in the United States in 1798, Pinckney and Marshall (Gerry had stayed in France in the vain hope that he alone would be able to negotiate a new treaty of commerce and amity) reported to the President of their mistreatment and humiliation. The antiFrench hysteria that resulted from President Adams' public disclosure of the sordid XYZ Affair led to a little-remembered naval war between the United States and France (1798-1800). During this so-called quasi-war, Pinckney re-entered the army as a major general. Because of his standing as a leader of the Federalist Party in the south, his reputation as a high-ranking army officer, and the favorable publicity he received as a member of the XYZ commission, Pinckney was placed on the Federalist Party ticket as the vice presidential candidate in the controversial, contested election of 1800. Defeat in 1800 was followed by expected defeats in 1804 to Thomas Jefferson and in 1808, to James Madison as the increasingly discredited Federalist Party candidate for president.

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After his third presidential election defeat, Pinckney retired from active politics to practice law, to manage his ever-growing real estate holdings, and to engage in a variety of philanthropic, educational, cultural, and social activities. He served, as a charter member, on the board of trustees of South Carolina College (present-day University of South Carolina), as the first president of the Charleston Bible Society, as one of the directors of the Charleston Library Society, and as a national officer in the Society of the Cincinnati. During his productive retirement years, he divided his time between his Belmont estate and Charleston town house. He died August 16, 1825, age 80, and was buried in the cemetery adjacent to Charleston's historic St. Michael's Church. One of the most praiseworthy and moving eulogies of Charleston's leading citizen and honored Founder and Framer can be found on a commemorative plaque inside the church: TO THE MEMORY OF GENERAL CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY, ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. IN WAR HE WAS THE COMPANION IN ARMS AND THE FRIEND OF WASHINGTON. IN PEACE HE ENJOYED HIS UNCHANGING CONFIDENCE AND MAINTAINED WITH ENLIGHTENED ZEAL THE PRINCIPLES OF HIS ADMINISTRATION AND OF THE CONSTITUTION. AS A STATESMAN HE BEQUEATHED TO HIS COUNTRY THE SENTIMENT, MILLIONS FOR DEFENCE NOT A CENT FOR TRIBUTE. AS A LAWYER HIS LEARNING WAS VARIOUS AND PROFOUND HIS PRINCIPLES PURE HIS PRACTICE LIBERAL. WITH ALL THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE GENTLEMAN HE COMBINED THE VIRTUES OF THE PATRIOT AND THE PIETY OF THE CHRISTIAN. HIS NAME IS RECORDED IN THE HISTORY OF HIS COUNTRY INSCRIBED ON THE CHARTER OF HER LIBERTIES, AND CHERISHED IN THE AFFECTIONS OF HER CITIZENS.8 NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:96. 2. Ibid, 582. 3. According to the First Federal Census of 1790, South Carolina was the seventh most populous state with a population of 249,073. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Farrand, 1:137. Ibid, 2:415. Ibid, 1:510-511. Ibid, 2:647.

8. Marvin R. Zahniser, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney: Founding Father (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1967), 281.

EDMUND RANDOLPH (1753-1813) As governor of the largest and most populous state and therefore the titular head of its illustrious seven-member delegation, Virginia aristocrat Edmund Randolph played a major role at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. It was perhaps to be expected that Virginia and its governor would assume a leadership role at the Convention, for it should be remembered that it was Virginia that provided the impetus for the Declaration of Independence in 1776, for the Mount Vernon Conference of 1785, and for the Annapolis Convention of 1786. Therefore, it was also almost to be expected that it would be a Virginian who would be elected president of the Convention and who would formally present the first wellthought-out plan of government to the talented assembly. Described by the observant French charge d'affaires Otto as "one of the most distinguished men in America due to his talents and influence," the proud, urbane, and self-confident Randolph was the logical choice to present the Large State Virginia Plan. It was this plan, which became, with numerous modifications, the basis for the Constitution reported out of the Committee of Style and Arrangement in early September.1 Born August 10, 1753, at Tazewell Hall, Williamsburg, Virginia, to Ariana Jenings and John Randolph, Edmund Jenings Randolph was raised to follow his distinguished family's tradition of noblesse oblige and eminence at the bar. As the son of the prominent barrister John Randolph and nephew of the even more prominent barrister/politician Peyton Randolph, young Edmund was given every advantage and opportunity that would prepare him to follow them as a legal and political leader in Virginia and in the newly created American republic. As a youth who was being groomed to assume a leadership role, Edmund was educated largely at home by private tutors. Under their guidance, the young aristocrat learned enough of the classics to gain admission to the local College of William and Mary. At

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W8cM he was subjected to essentially the same classical curriculum as the other twenty-six college-trained future Convention colleagues encountered at the College of Philadelphia (present-day University of Pennsylvania), Harvard, Yale, College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton), King's College (present-day Columbia), Oxford (England), and St. Andrews (Scotland). Thus, upon graduation, Randolph was reasonably well versed in the classics (especially Greek and Latin), history, and what was referred to as moral philosophy. This commonality in college education meant that almost half of the fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional Convention had a similar knowledge base from which to draw as they drafted the country's second constitution. After graduation, Edmund studied law under his illustrious father John, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Williamsburg. Like many of his fellow Founders and Framers, Edmund was well prepared, by dint of being born into an aristocratic family, of his classical education, and of his excellent legal training, to assume a legal and political career in the exciting years just prior to and during the War of Independence; years, which provided numerous opportunities for ambitious young men of talent and high birth. During the Revolution, Randolph served for a brief time in the Continental army as an aide-de-camp to General Washington. In 1776, although only 23 years old, he was appointed attorney general of Virginia and elected mayor of Williamsburg. From 1779 to 1782, he also served as a member of the increasingly ineffective Continental Congress. It was probably in Congress that Randolph became convinced of the necessity of amending drastically or even replacing the moribund Articles of Confederation. In the period 1786-1788, he served as the governor of Virginia and thus was the state's chief executive at the time of the Philadelphia Convention. In his glowing portrayal of Randolph, William Pierce noted that "Mr. Randolph is Governor of Virginia,—a young Gentleman in whom unite all the accomplishments of the Scholar, and the States-man. He came forward with the postulate, or first principles, on which the Convention acted, and he supported them with a force of eloquence and reasoning that did him great honor. He has a most harmonious voice, a fine person and striking manners. Mr. Randolph is about 32 years of age." 2 The French observer Otto was not as fulsome when, after calling the young Virginia governor "one of the most distinguished men in America due to his talents and influence," he went on to note that "he has however lost a part of his consideration in opposing with too much violence the ratification of the new Constitution." 3 As the popular governor, Randolph was an obvious choice to be appointed as a member of the talented seven-man Virginia delegation. He arrived in Philadelphia on May 17, in time to caucus informally with Madison and his other Virginia colleagues as they "polished" and refined the rough draft of a constitution Madison had written previously and that

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became, after minor revisions, the Virginia Plan. Randolph had planned to bring his wife with him, but she was apparently "indisposed" and did not join him in Philadelphia until some weeks later. Undoubtedly because of his statesman-like commanding presence, his position as governor of the most influential state, and his recognized oratorical talents, Randolph was chosen, probably by Madison, to present formally to the Convention the plan of government the scholarly Madison had laboriously crafted in the months just prior to May. On Tuesday, May 29, the tall and physically handsome Governor Randolph "expressed his regret, that it should fall to him, rather than those, who were of longer standing in life and political experience, to open the great subject of their mission. But, as the Convention had originated from Virginia, and his colleagues supposed, that some proposition was expected from them, they had imposed this task on him." 4 He then listed what he and the other largestate nationalists considered to be the most obvious defects of the present confederation under the Articles of Confederation. Finally, in one of the most eloquent speeches of the entire Convention, Randolph presented fifteen resolutions, which have ever after been referred to as either the Virginia or Randolph or Large-State Plan. In the days after May 29, it fell primarily to Randolph to explain and defend these resolutions. He did so brilliantly. His engaging presentation and well-reasoned defense of the Virginia Plan were Randolph's major contributions to the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. Briefly stated, the Virginia Plan was highly favorable to large states and to those who favored the creation of a strong national government. The resolutions called for the creation of a bicameral legislature representing the states proportionally, with the lower house elected by the people and the upper house by the lower house from nominees proposed by state legislatures, an executive chosen by the legislature, a national judiciary including a supreme court and various inferior courts, and a council of revision consisting of the executive and several members of the judiciary with a veto over legislative acts. With modifications (most notably, the elimination of the council of revision and the inclusion of the state "equality" provision in the Great Compromise), this became the constitutional "skeleton" or basis of the final version of the Constitution. Randolph, when he presented and ably defended his fifteen resolutions in late May and early June, was a thoroughgoing large-state nationalist, but as the summer progressed, he began to have doubts as to the efficacy of the document being crafted. However, these doubts and concerns were not made public until after the all-important Committee of Detail had made its report in early September. There is a great deal of evidence that Randolph, as a member of this distinguished committee (the other members were John Rutledge—chairman, Nathaniel Gorham, Oliver Ellsworth, and James Wilson) contributed meaningfully to the committee's final re-

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port and thus could be considered, even at this late date, at least a moderate large-state nationalist. However, somewhat strangely, on September 15 (the last working day of the Convention), Randolph joined Elbridge Gerry and George Mason in announcing that he could not, in good conscience, affix his name to the document to be presented on September 17 for formal approval. He then went on to express "the pain he felt at differing from the body of the Convention, on the great and awful subject of their labors." 5 Actually, he had hinted at his intention to not sign the final version on September 10 when he listed his objections to the final report of the Committee of Detail (of which he paradoxically was one of the prime authors). In summary, Randolph felt that the drafted constitution was not sufficiently "republican." Specifically, he objected to giving the Senate the power to try impeachment of the president, to the large vote required to override the president's veto, to the absence of a more definitive delineation of powers between Congress and the states and between the national and state courts, and to the lack of any restraint on a potentially oppressive standing army.6 He indicated, in his September 15 announcement that he would not be signing the completed draft as it was being presented, that if "another general Convention" could be called that would propose "amendments to the plan" submitted by "State Conventions," he might re-consider his decision not to sign. However, since a motion to call another convention was never seriously considered, Randolph left Philadelphia as an Anti-Federalist.7 Upon his return to Virginia, Randolph resigned as governor to be elected to the State House of Delegates in order that he might participate in a twoyear project to codify the state's laws. Also somewhat inexplicitly, Randolph slowly shed his anti-federalism and became a vocal proponent of ratification. Thus, by the time the Virginia ratifying convention met in early June 1788, Randolph was firmly in the Federalist camp. He explained this dramatic switch from anti-federalism to Federalism by noting that, "The accession of eight states reduced our deliberations to the single question of Union or no Union." With the support of the popular former governor and the learned arguments of James Madison in the state ratifying convention, Virginia became the tenth state to ratify the Constitution, on June 25, 1788, only by the uncomfortably close vote of 89-79. It had taken the best efforts of Randolph, Madison, and newcomer John Marshall to overcome the talented Anti-Federalist opposition of the "Trumpet of the Revolution" Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and James Monroe. Mighty Virginia's ratification probably ensured that obstreperous New York would soon follow (it did on July 26, 1788, but only by the narrow vote of 30-27). With Virginia and New York in the fold, the Constitution could become operational with a good chance of success. Edmund Randolph's support of ratification in Virginia was an important factor in securing that state's approval. Without Virginia, the American Union, under the fundamental

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governing charter drafted in Philadelphia, might never have been established. Thus, despite his refusal to sign the document in Philadelphia, Edmund Randolph's significant contributions in the Convention in ably presenting the Virginia Plan, his valuable service as a member of the Committee of Detail, and finally his heroic efforts to secure ratification in Virginia justify placing him on any short list of the most venerated Framers of the U.S. Constitution. In 1789, Randolph was rewarded for his well-known legal acumen and, one suspects, for his timely conversion to Federalism by being appointed the first attorney general of the United States. In the five years he held the office as the president's legal counsel, Randolph once again, at least in the first year or so, became a confidant and advisor (as he had been briefly during the War as an aide-de-camp) to George Washington. However, by 1791, it was apparent that the attorney general was slowly slipping into the opposition camp of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. For example, when President Washington asked his four "cabinet" members for their written opinions regarding the desirability and constitutionality of the controversial bank chartering bill, Randolph joined Secretary of State Jefferson in urging the president not to sign the chartering bill into law. Despite his growing opposition to Federalist policies (especially to some aspects of the Hamiltonian Financial Program), Randolph retained the respects and even the friendship of the president. When Jefferson resigned as secretary of state in late 1793, Washington was quick to appoint Randolph as his replacement. As the country's second secretary of state, Randolph quickly ran into trouble. Initially he voiced mild opposition to the highly controversial Jay Treaty of 1794, which the president whole-heartedly supported. That opposition marked him as a possible convert to the anti-Washington, Jeffersonian faction. However, it was the so-called "Fauchet Affair" that brought about the irrevocable political break with the president and thus the end of Randolph's public career. In 1795, a letter, written by the French minister to the United States' Joseph Fauchet and made public, contained inferences that, as secretary of state, Edmund Randolph had been involved in an unspecified scheme of bribery and possible treason. Despite a vehement denial by the beleaguered Randolph, Washington, believing him guilty, asked for and received his resignation.8 In 1795, Randolph returned to the full-time practice of law in Williamsburg. During his forced retirement from politics, he found time to write an informative history of Virginia, which can still be read with profit for anyone wishing to learn the views of an articulate early American aristocrat and slave-owner. Considered one of the leading barristers in a state that boosted an array of legal talent, Randolph was involved in several notable legal and political trials. For example, in 1807 when former Vice President Aaron Burr was put on trial for treason, Randolph acted as his senior legal

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counsel and as such helped to get an acquittal before Chief Justice John Marshall. Edmund Randolph died on September 12, 1813, aged 60, while visiting fellow aristocrat Nathaniel Burwell at Carter Hall. His legacy should be that of a dedicated public servant who served the legal profession, the City of Williamsburg, the State of Virginia, and the United States of America with honor and distinction. That this is not his legacy with many is probably because of his initial refusal to endorse the Constitution and because of the inappropriate, clumsy, and ineffectual defense of his actions in the "Fauchet Affair" that led to his estrangement with the universally revered "Father of his Country." In a brief eulogy published five days after his death, the Richmond Enquirer observed correctly that Edmund Randolph's "history is blended with that of his country." NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:237. 2. Ibid, 95. 3. Ibid, 3237. 4. Ibid, 1:18-23. 5. Ibid, 2:631-632. 6. Ibid, 563-564. 7. Ibid, 631-632. 8. Randolph's publication of a rambling, unconvincing, intemperate 500-page Vindication of his alleged bribery and treasonous activities only confirmed, in the minds of many, his complicity in some sort of illegal or at least unsavory activity.

GEORGE READ (1733-1798) Born, one of six sons, to a Welsh mother and Irish father on September 18, 1733, in Cecil County, Maryland, George Read received an excellent education first attending a boarding school in Chester, Pennsylvania, and then the Reverend Francis Alison's academy in New London, Pennsylvania. Shortly after George's birth, his father, a wealthy landowner, had moved the family to New Castle, Delaware, where the young George grew up in relatively comfortable circumstances. At the age of 15 he was sent to Philadelphia to study law. Upon completion of his legal studies, George, at the age of 20, was admitted to the bar. He then moved back to New Castle where he established a lucrative legal practice with a growing clientele in Delaware and nearby Maryland. In 1763, the 30-year-old George married the widowed sister of Pennsylvania lawyer and politician George Ross. Read and his bride, Gertrude Ross Till, were to have four sons and one daughter. With success in his legal practice came a judicial appointment, in the year of his marriage, as the British crown's attorney general for what was then known as the Lower Three Countries (present-day Delaware). In protest against the universally detested Stamp Act of 1765, George Read resigned his royal judicial position and became ever more involved in the growing colonial protest movement as a member of the Delaware legislature. Like his close friend and Delaware colleague John Dickinson, Read became a moderate Whig advocating non-violent, legal opposition to what he considered the ill-advised, even illegal governing and taxing policies of the British Parliament and Ministry. Again, like Dickinson, George Read, as a member of the Second Continental Congress (1774-1777), voted against the Declaration of Independence in early July 1776. However, after he perceived that independence was the apparent wish of a majority of his colleagues and after a last concerted congressional attempt at reconciliation had been summarily re-

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buffed by the British, Read, unlike his more cautious cohort Dickinson, eventually added his signature to America's famous Charter of Liberty. Interestingly, George Read was the only signer of the Declaration of Independence who had voted against independence on July 2. After independence was formally declared, Read somewhat hesitantly embraced the Patriot cause, but continued to hope and work for a reconciliation with Great Britain; a reconciliation which would allow Americans to win back and enjoy all the rights and privileges that they believed were rightly theirs as English subjects. However, as the War of Independence progressed, Read slowly realized the futility of bringing about a meaningful reconciliation with the former mother country and became an enthusiastic advocate of complete independence. In 1776, in recognition of his legal talents and political prominence, Read was made chairman of the Delaware state Constitutional Convention, which drafted that state's first constitution. In the years 1776-1788, Read served intermittently on Delaware's legislative council between periods of illness and indisposition. His selection as a delegate to, and attendance at, the Annapolis Convention in 1786 was recognition that he was growing increasingly dissatisfied with what he considered to be the inept government under the Articles of Confederation. By 1787, when he was chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Read, like his close friend John Dickinson, had become a confirmed nationalist. However, he was a nationalist who would insist on the retention of the states as viable, independent political entities. He was particularly adamant in his insistence that each state should retain its equal voice, as it had under the Articles of Confederation, in the national legislature. To that end, George Read, along with the help of John Dickinson, was responsible for the drafting of the official instructions given to the five Delaware delegates at the time of their selection by the state legislature on February 3, 1787. Reflecting the known nationalistic but conservative views of the two senior members of the Delaware delegation (i.e., Read and Dickinson), the instructions confirmed the obvious need for constitutional revision with the following: "Whereas the General Assembly of this State are fully convinced of the Necessity of revising the Federal Constitution, and adding thereto such further Provisions, as may render the same more adequate to the Exigencies of the Union," do appoint "Deputies from this State to meet in the Convention of the Deputies of other States, to be held at the City of Philadelphia on the Second day of May next." Then, significantly, the instructions went on to direct the five delegates to join with the deputies from the other states "in devising, deliberating on, and discussing, such Alterations and further Provisions as may be necessary to render the Foederal [sic] Constitution adequate to the Exigencies of the Union . . . Provided, that such Alterations or further Provisions, or any of them, do not extend to that part of the Fifth Article of the Confederation of the said States . . . which declares that 'In determining Questions in the

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United States in Congress Assembled each State shall have one Vote.' " ! During the Convention debates on proportional versus equal representation, George Read frequently reminded his Convention colleagues that the Delaware delegation could only consider "alterations" to the Articles of Confederation that did not violate the equal provision inherent in the country's first Constitution. The insistence on the part of Read and his Delaware colleagues for equality in at least one branch of the legislature became the core provision of the Great Compromise. After passage of the Compromise, George Read, John Dickinson, and many of the other states' rights advocates became determined nationalists. During the latter part of the summer after the Compromise, which seemingly guaranteed equality in the second branch of the legislature, had been narrowly enacted, Read and his small-state nationalist colleagues favored measures to create a strong, central government. Earlier, Read and Dickinson had voted in favor of a motion to give the national legislature the power to veto state laws, thus revealing to their fellow delegates that they (and indeed the entire Delaware delegation) were nationalists (or "consolidationists" as the nationalists were sometimes contemptuously called) despite their early, and eventually successful, insistence that each state have an equal voice in at least one chamber of the national legislature.2 In late July and August, Read voted with other small-state nationalists to create a strong national executive that would be independent of the legislature, to create an independent national judiciary, and to give the significant appointive and ratification powers to the second legislative branch (senate) where the small states felt they would dominate. In his often critical, but frequently informative word sketches of his Convention colleagues, William Pierce of Georgia gave a somewhat unfavorable portrayal of the diminutive George Read when he wrote: "Mr. Read is a Lawyer and a Judge;—his legal abilities are said to be very great, but his powers of Oratory are fatiguing and tiresome to the last degree;—his voice is feeble, and his articulation so bad that few can have patience to attend to him. He is a very good Man, and bears an amiable character with those who know him. Mr. Read is about 50, of a low stature, and a weak constitution." 3 A careful reading of the extant journals of the delegates and many of their letters written during and after the Convention seems to confirm the obvious fact that the large-state nationalists (especially Madison, Wilson, and Gouverneur Morris) controlled the proceedings up to mid-July. However, with the passage, on July 16 (by the narrow vote of five to four), of the Great Compromise, power shifted to the small-state nationalists. As an active member of this small-state group of "consolidationists," George Read should be memorialized as one of the workhorses of the Convention. The final draft of the Constitution contained most of the provisions he spoke for and voted for. He favored the creation of a "true federal" sys-

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tern of government in which political power was distributed between a relatively strong central government and the individual states. Read signed the Constitution on September 17 for himself and for his ailing good friend and colleague John Dickinson, who had departed a few days earlier. In the immediate post-convention period, Read led the fight in Delaware for ratification of the charter he had worked so diligently to draft. These efforts were rewarded when Delaware became the first state (memorialized today on Delaware automobile license plates) to ratify, by a 30-0 ratification convention vote, the U.S. Constitution. Despite his "weak constitution" (Pierce's characterization), Read, amid periods of "indisposition," served ably, with fellow delegate Richard Bassett, in the first U.S. Senate from 1789-1793. As a Senator, Read supported Alexander Hamilton's highly nationalistic financial plan and measures that enhanced the power and authority of the nation's chief executive. He resigned from the senate in September 1793 to accept appointment as chief justice of Delaware. With his death on September 21, 1798, Delaware and the nation lost a devout, hardworking Patriot. He rightly belongs on any list of significant Founders/Framers of the American Republic. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:574-575. 2. Ibid, 1:168. 3. Ibid, 3:93.

JOHN RUTLEDGE (1739-1800) John Rutledge was one of the most active and most influential delegates at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. He is often, and accurately, credited with being one of the primary authors, even though he initially opposed its passage, of what finally emerged, on July 16, as the Great Compromise. He served on five committees and as chairman of the all-important Committee of Detail, which was appointed on July 24 "to report a Constitution conformable to the Resolutions passed by the Convention." 1 Born into a large Irish immigrant family in September 1739 in Charleston, South Carolina, John received an excellent classical education first from his father and later from an Anglican minister. His father, a prosperous Charleston medical doctor, who had emigrated from Ireland to South Carolina in 1735, saw to it that his precocious son John received the best legal training (then available in the English-speaking world) by sending him to London to study at the prestigious Middle Temple. In 1760, the studious 21-year-old South Carolinian was admitted to the English bar. Thus, John Rutledge joined the small select group of American colonists who had the opportunity to study for the bar at one of the distinguished London Inns of Court. 2 Although licensed to practice law in England, John left England in 1761 to return home to Charleston where he established what soon became an exceedingly lucrative legal practice. Success in the law led almost inevitably to a political career. In 1762, while continuing to practice law, Rutledge was elected to represent Christ Church Parish in the provincial assembly. For two years (1764-1765), evidently because of his growing eminence as a barrister, he served as South Carolina's attorney general pro tempore. During the tumultuous 1760s and early 1770s, Rutledge moved slowly but surely into that conservative "revolutionary" faction, which was working for peaceful reconciliation with Great Britain. However, not until after the beginning of actual hostilities

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in April of 1775 did John Rutledge embrace, without any reservation, the radical American cause. Because of his prominence as a practicing lawyer and as a member of a well-connected aristocratic family, but not because he had become at this early date a political "radical," John was chosen to attend the so-called Stamp Act Congress in New York City in 1765. At this gathering of notable colonists at which Rutledge was the youngest member, he took a leading role, along with future Convention cohorts Dr. William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut and John Dickinson of Delaware, in steering the proceedings along conservative lines. The Congress' "Declaration of Rights and Grievances" and the petitions sent to the British House of Commons and to House of Lords were conservative in that they stated unequivocally that their intention was not to infringe upon the longaccepted traditional powers of Parliament and the Crown, but was rather to reaffirm that the English colonists in America were entitled to all the rights and privileges enjoyed by British subjects in the mother country. Throughout his long and distinguished political and legal career, Rutledge invariably espoused moderation, conciliation, and compromise. He was, however, distrustful of "democracy." Rather, he favored a mixed government (aristocracy and democracy) to a simple democratic one. He believed that although, at first glance, unbridled democracy would appear attractive and desirable to the masses, it would inevitably end up being "arbitrary, severe, and destructive." His well-known and oft-stated political conservatism as president and as governor of South Carolina during the American Revolution gained for him, somewhat unfairly, the nom de plume of "dictator." However, by 1774, Rutledge had become enough of a "rebel" to be selected as a member of the First Continental Congress, where he cautioned moderation and reconciliation in the growing struggle with King George III, the Lord of North Ministry, and the British Parliament. Election to the more radical Second Continental Congress in 1775 confirmed John Rutledge's status as a moderate revolutionary. In early 1776, he resigned his congressional seat to return to Charleston where he was instrumental in helping to establish the new South Carolina state government. He served on the state committee of safety and as one of the leaders on the committee that drafted South Carolina's first state Constitution. He was then elected president of the lower house of the state legislature and commander in chief of the South Carolina militia under the organic governing charter he had helped draft. It was during the years 1776-1778 that Rutledge was first given, at least by political rivals, the pseudonym of "dictator" for what some considered the autocratic, arbitrary measures he introduced and carried out to ensure the survival of the newly created state government and to keep South Carolina from being over-run by the British. In 1778, Rutledge, disapproving of the democratic revisions made to the state constitution, resigned as president of the lower house of assembly and as commander in chief of state's military only to be elected governor under

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the newly revised constitution. As the state's chief executive, Rutledge was confronted, in 1779-1780, with a desperate military situation. The British were mounting a full-scale invasion of South Carolina. In what was to be the most devastating and humiliating American defeat of the entire Revolutionary War, the British, with naval superiority and a large, well-equipped army under General Sir Henry Clinton, skillfully laid siege to Charleston and then forced the surrender of the entire American garrison (of over 5,000 Continental soldiers and militiamen). Luckily, John Rutledge was able to escape to North Carolina, thus avoiding the captivity endured by future South Carolina Convention colleagues—General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Lieutenant Charles Pinckney. Before their departure from Charleston in 1781, British troops wantonly destroyed much of the city and confiscated the town houses and nearby plantations of most of the low-country nabobs, who had taken up arms against Great Britain. Thus, John Rutledge suffered major financial losses in valuable Charleston town lots and houses, in adjacent plantations, and in slaves. Despite resumption, after his return from exile, of his legal practice and subsequent public service in several important, but not high paying, political and judicial positions, Rutledge was never able to recoup fully the financial losses suffered as a result of Britain's embarrassing capture and partial destruction of Charleston. Rutledge's two-year tenure as governor was followed by his election to the Continental Congress (1782-1784) where he undoubtedly experienced the frustration shared by several of his future Convention colleagues, who also served in Congress during the immediate post-war period, and caused by the ineptitude and sometimes even by bungling of the Confederation government in its feeble attempts to deal effectively with the manifold problems inherent in the establishment of the new American republic. Service during the War of Independence in the Continental Congress and/or in the Continental army was convincing many state leaders of the absolute need either to revise drastically the demonstrably inept Articles of Confederation or to replace them with an organic charter that would create a "continental," consolidated national government capable of bringing together and governing the thirteen still largely provincially minded American states. In obvious recognition of his prominence as a practicing attorney, as a well-regarded politician, and as a large landowner, John Rutledge was appointed on March 8, 1787, along with fellow aristocratic, political conservatives Pierce Butler, Charles Pinckney, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, to head the four-member South Carolina delegation to the Philadelphia Convention. At the time of his appointment, John Rutledge enjoyed the enviable reputation as one of South Carolina's most highly respected, most influential, and most politically and socially powerful planters and politicians.

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In his brief 1787 characterization of the 47-year-old former governor, French charge d'affaires Otto noted that John Rutledge had been "Governor during the war, member of Congress, of the Convention and in general employed in all these great occasions. The most eloquent man, but the most proud and the most imperious in the United States. He draws part of his great influence and his knowledge as a Lawyer to not pay his debts, which greatly exceed his fortune." 3 In his more fulsome portrayal of the South Carolina aristocrat, fellow southern delegate William Pierce was overwhelmingly praiseful in the extreme regarding Rutledge's reputation and abilities. "Mr. Rutledge is," he wrote admiringly, one of those characters who was highly mounted at the commencement of the late revolution;—his reputation in the first Congress gave him a distinguished rank among the American Worthies. He was bred to the Law, and now acts as one of the Chancellors of South Carolina. This Gentleman is much famed in his own State as an Orator, but in my opinion he is too rapid in his public speaking to be denominated an agreeable Orator. He is undoubtedly a man of abilities, and a Gentleman of distinction and fortune. Mr. Rutledge was once Governor of South Carolina. He is about 48 years of age.4 Rutledge arrived in Philadelphia in mid-May in plenty of time to get wellsituated in his lodgings at the Indian Queen Tavern and to be in attendance at the first official session on Friday, May 25. He was regular in his Convention attendance thereafter (in fact, he apparently attended every session) and was, according to all reports now available, a frequent participant in the formal Convention sessions (of which there is a record), in the more informal meetings of the Committee of the Whole, and in the exceedingly informal evening gatherings at the Indian Queen and other nearby taverns over dinner and the "convivial" glass or glasses of ardent spirits. At all the meetings, whether formal or informal, Rutledge, as a southern, plantation/slave-owning, politically conservative aristocrat, was a consistent supporter of what he deemed to be southern interests and politically conservative measures. Thus, he fervently favored property qualifications for members of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the proposed national government, which would have almost ensured that the U.S. government would be of the "rich and wellborn" people, by the "rich and wellborn" people, and for the "rich and wellborn" people rather than of, by, and for ordinary Americans as envisioned by President Abraham Lincoln in his famous November 19, 1863, Gettysburg Address. Likewise, Rutledge opposed paying senators believing that since they would represent the aristocratic and propertied (and therefore wealthy) interests in the individual states, it would not be necessary or even advisable to make it possible for men from the "middling sort" to be elected to what he hoped would

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be an aristocratic, politically conservative, states' rights-oriented upper house of the national legislature. Rutledge also favored apportionment of representatives to the proposed national House of Representatives on the basis of wealth and the whole population. During the acrimonious debate of July 11, on the issue of proportional versus equal representation, he "contended for the admission of wealth in the estimate by which Representation should be regulated." As a slave owner himself, and therefore understandably an ardent defender of the South's "peculiar institution" specifically and of southern interests generally, Rutledge repeatedly spoke in favor of the controversial proposition that the "Legislature shall proportion the Representation according to the principles of wealth &c population." 5 He therefore initially opposed the three-fifths compromise, which was the core of the Great Compromise. Along with a majority of his South Carolina colleagues, he evidently voted against the July 16 Compromise. However, after this Convention-saving compromise was narrowly passed, Rutledge, in the spirit of compromise and conciliation, supported the drafted Constitution that was finally presented to the forty-two delegates still in attendance on September 17. Most of his efforts at the Convention were, however, directed toward defending the nefarious institution of slavery and the slave trade. In his most oft-quoted speech, given August 2 1 , during a heated debate on possible prohibition of the slave trade, Rutledge gave as his view that "Interest along is the governing principle with Nations—The true question at present is whether the Southn. States shall or shall not be parties to the Union. If the Northern States consult their interests, they will not oppose" (i.e., they will not insist on the prohibition, now or at any future date, of the slave trade) "the increase of Slaves which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers." 6 As chairman of the Committee of Detail, Rutledge has to be considered one of the primary drafters of the U.S. Constitution. Appointed to this important committee along with four of the other most active, compromiseminded delegates (i.e., Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, and Edmund Randolph of Virginia), Rutledge was in a position to make sure that, in the main, southern interests regarding navigation laws, the continued existence of slavery and the slave trade, and the counting of three-fifths of the slaves for the purpose of determining representation in the national House of Representatives were protected. He came to accept the Great Compromise as the best option obtainable. His influence as the acknowledged head of the South Carolina delegation and as the leading southern spokesman at the Convention undoubtedly swayed several of his southern colleagues to accept the many compromises that had to be made to prevent a break-up of the entire enterprise. John Rutledge's post-Convention public career was one of continued dedicated service. At the state ratifying Convention, he led the fight, along with

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the two Pinckneys, for ratification. On May 23, 1788, South Carolina, by the substantial margin of 149-73, became the eighth state to approve of the Constitution Rutledge had worked so diligently to craft during his fourmonth stay in Philadelphia. As an indication of the esteem in which he was held in South Carolina, Rutledge received the electoral vote of his state for vice president in 1789. No doubt, in part for his efforts at the Convention and for his active support of ratification, President George Washington appointed John Rutledge associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; a position he held for two years, until he resigned in 1791 to assume the elected post of chief justice of South Carolina. In 1795, President Washington again appointed Rutledge to the U.S. Supreme Court, this time as chief justice. He served in this important position during the August 1795 court session, but had to step down as the country's leading judge when he failed to received senate confirmation. The Federalist-controlled Senate opposed Rutledge's confirmation because of his oft-publicly stated opposition to the highly partisan, pro-Federalist Jay Treaty of 1794 and because of his growing, but thankfully temporary, mental instability evidently caused by the death of his wife in 1792. In 1763, three years after he had returned to Charleston from Great Britain, John married Elizabeth Grimke with whom he had ten children. At least one of their offspring (John Rutledge, Jr.) gained a measure of distinction as a successful Charleston lawyer, as a member of the state House of Representatives (1788-1794 and 1811), and as a Federalist member of the national House of Representatives (1797-1803). John Rutledge died, age 60, on July 23, 1800, and was buried, with deserved full honors, in the cemetery adjacent to Charleston's historic St. Michael's Church. He was eulogized as one of South Carolina's leading barristers, as one of the south's most distinguished political and judicial figures, as a leader at the Constitutional Convention, and as one of the country's acclaimed Founders. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 2:106. 2. There were probably no more than thirty-five colonists who studied law at one of the renowned London Inns of Court. Among the small number who were so privileged and favored besides John Rutledge, would be future Convention colleagues John Dickinson of Delaware, Jared Ingersoll of Pennsylvania, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina. 3. Farrand, 3:238. 4. Ibid, 96. 5. Ibid, 1:582. 6. Ibid, 364.

ROGER SHERMAN (1721-1793) Roger Sherman was the second oldest (to Benjamin Franklin) and one of the most politically and judicially experienced of the fifty-five delegates who attended the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. He was also to be one of the hardest working and most deceivingly shrewd of the talented group, which gathered in the Pennsylvania State House to construct what is today the oldest written constitution. Born April 19, 1721, in Newton, Massachusetts, to William Sherman (1692-1741) and his second wife Mehetabel Wellington, Roger was the third of seven children. When Roger was two, his hardworking but financially challenged father moved the family to Dorchester (present-day Stoughton, Massachusetts) where he set up shop as a shoemaker and raised his growing family. By the time of his death in 1741, William had prospered to such an extent that he was able to bequeath a modest inheritance to his two oldest sons (William, Jr. and Roger), which enabled them to move to New Milford, Connecticut, where they purchased and ran a general store. During his formative years in Stoughton, Roger apparently attended the local common school only sporadically, as he was needed to help his father with farm chores and to help him in his cobbler shop as an apprentice. Like the other "senior" Convention delegate Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, not through formal schooling but through diligent reading and self-study, became reasonably well-educated, particularly in the "practical" subjects of commerce, trade, and the law. While working in his father's shop, Roger worked part-time as the official surveyor of New Haven. He was becoming the epitome of the "yankee jack of all trades." With little formal schooling and no college training, Roger, through voracious reading and self-study, was able to learn enough law to pass the bar in Connecticut in 1754 (at the age of twenty-nine). In 1755, Roger embarked upon the twin careers of law and public service. While establishing what would become a moderately successful law

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practice and continuing with his brother William to run the jointly owned general store, he served as a Justice of the Peace for Litchfield County (1755-1761) and as a member in the Connecticut colonial assembly almost continuously from 1755 to 1766. In addition, he found time to publish a scholarly essay on monetary theory and a series of almanacs, which contained some of his own astronomical observations, and literary poems and stories. The almanacs also contained numerous pithy maxims that were, like Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard Saunders' aphormisms probably, at least in part, plagiarized from other almanacs. These epigrams dispensed both practical information and pious morals, which were designed to educate and amuse. The following few examples will perhaps demonstrate their practicality and possible moral worth. "All men desire happiness but 'tis only the virtuous that attain it" (1753), "Envious persons punish themselves" (1757), and "He that would be happy, must be Virtuous" (1760).1 For reasons not now fully known, Roger abandoned his law practice in June 1761 and moved to New Haven where he purchased and managed a general store, which catered to Yale College students.2 He became a benefactor to the college and served for many years as its treasurer. In New Haven, he resumed his career as a justice of the peace and as a legislator with membership in lower colonial assembly (1761-1765), in the colonial upper chamber (1765-1776), and in the state senate (1776-1785). Concurrent with his legislative duties, Roger served as a judge of the superior court in Connecticut, almost continuously, from 1766 through 1788. Even after 1766 Roger was usually referred to as "Judge" Sherman. By the early 1770s, Roger Sherman had joined, at first reluctantly because of his abhorrence to violence and "mob rule," in the anti-British movement that led, almost inevitably, to armed hostilities and the War of Independence. In 1774, as an elected member of the First Continental Congress, he began his long and notably distinguished career in the national legislature serving ably in both the First and Second Congresses almost continuously to 1784. As one of the more politically experienced legislators in the famous Second Continental Congress, Sherman was thrust into a leadership role during the Revolutionary War serving on most of the more important congressional committees that dealt with military and financial matters. Along with Robert R. Livingston, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, Sherman was appointed to the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, and to the committee that wrote the preliminary draft of the Articles of Confederation, both of which he signed. In 1784, he was elected mayor of New Haven; a position he was to hold with distinction until his death nine years later. When the Connecticut legislature appointed, on May 12, 1787, its delegation to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, the name of Roger Sherman was not originally included. Initially, the eminent scholar Dr. William Samuel Johnson, Judge Oliver Ellsworth, and politico Erastus Wol-

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cott were chosen, but when Wolcott declined because of ill-health, Roger Sherman was added thus making Connecticut's three-member delegation one of most illustrious, and politically and judicially most experienced of the twelve-state legations at the Convention. Sherman took his Convention seat on Wednesday, May 30, and was regular in his Convention attendance thereafter. In his portrayal of the senior deputy from Connecticut, William Pierce wrote that Mr. Sherman exhibits the oddest shaped character I ever remember to have met with. He is awkward, un-meaning, and unaccountably strange in his manner. But in his train of thinking there is something regular, deep and comprehensive; yet the oddity of his address, the vulgarisms that accompany his public speaking, and that strange New England cant which runs through his public as well as his private speaking make everything that is connected with him grotesque and laughable;—and yet he deserves infinite praise,—no Man has a better Heart or a clearer Head. If he cannot embellish he can furnish thoughts that are wise and useful. He is an able politician, and extremely artful in accomplishing any particular object;—it is remarked that he seldom fails. I am told he sits on the Bench in Connecticut, and is very correct in the discharge of his Judicial functions. In the early part of his life he was a Shoe-maker;—but despising the lowness of his condition, he turned Almanack maker, and so progressed upwards to a Judge. He has been several years a Member of Congress, and discharged the duties of his Office with honor and credit to himself, and advantage to the State he represented. He is about 60. 3 Speaking at least 138 times in the formal sessions of the Convention, Sherman became an acknowledged leader of the small group of delegates (along with fellow Connecticut cohort Ellsworth and Dickinson of Delaware) who initially, according to his learned colleague Dr. Johnson, were "disposed to patch up the old scheme of Government" (i.e., to maintain a "true federal" system of government similar in principle with the one created by the Articles of Confederation). However, after Governor Randolph's presentation of the Virginia Plan on May 29, Sherman quickly caucused with Luther Martin, William Paterson, Oliver Ellsworth, John Dickinson, and perhaps a few other delegates from the mid-Atlantic states, to draft a plan that would offer an alternative to the plans inherent in Randolph's resolutions to create a "national, consolidated" government that would be detrimental if not fatal to the sovereignty and independence of the individual states. There is a great deal of evidence that Roger Sherman was in fact the primary draftsman of what was presented by William Paterson, on June 15, as the New Jersey Plan. When, on June 19, the Convention voted "not to agree to the Jersey propositions but to report those

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offered by Mr. Randolph," Sherman joined Dickinson, Read, and Ellsworth in demanding an equal vote for each state in at least one chamber of the proposed bicameral national legislature.4 Thus Roger Sherman became one of the primary draftsmen, along with Ellsworth and Dickinson, of what emerged on July 16 as the "Great or Connecticut Compromise." The passage of this Convention-saving compromise marked a Convention watershed. Up to mid-July, the large-state nationalists, under the able leadership of Madison, Gouverneur Morris, and Wilson, essentially controlled the Convention. After mid-July, however, control of the Convention passed to the more numerous small-state nationalists, who having secured the protection of state sovereignty with an equal voice in the proposed Senate, then worked, generally harmoniously, with the delegates from Pennsylvania and Virginia, with arch-nationalist Hamilton, and with Massachusetts nationalists Gorham and King to "flesh" out the Virginia Plan/Great Compromise "skeleton" into "the buddle of compromises" presented by the Committee of Style and Arrangement to the Convention as the final version of the Constitution. In the spirit of compromise, Sherman served diligently on the important Committee of Postponed Matters along with other Convention "workhorses" King, G. Morris, Dickinson, and Madison to consider "such parts of the Constitution as have been postponed, and such parts of reports as have not been acted on." 5 Convinced that the small states got all that could be hoped for, Roger Sherman, along with colleague Dr. Johnson, signed the Constitution on September 17 and returned to Connecticut to work for ratification, which was secured on January 9, 1788, by the comfortable margin of 128-40. The talented and experienced Connecticut delegation, under the acknowledged leadership of Roger Sherman, played a major role in thwarting the precipitous attempts by Madison and his large-state colleagues to create a "consolidated" national government and essentially eliminate the states as viable, political entities. Thus, Sherman should be considered one of the leaders at the Convention; perhaps even as one of the Fathers, along with Madison, of the now universally admired U.S. Constitution. In the new government created by the fundamental charter he worked so diligently to draft, Sherman served in the First Congress as a member of the House of Representatives (1789-1791) and in the Second Congress as a Senator (1791-1793). In both chambers of the national legislature, Sherman was a staunch supporter of President Washington and of the Hamiltonian Financial Program. He died, age 72, on July 23, 1793. For his Herculean efforts at the Constitutional Convention alone, Roger Sherman belongs on any pantheon of revered Framers. NOTES 1. Robert Sherman Boardman, Roger Sherman: Signer and Statesman (New York: DaCapo Press, 1971), 339.

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2. The reason Roger moved "lock, stock, and barrel" from New Milford to New Haven might have been because of the desire to leave behind the scenes shared with, and the memories of, his first wife who died, probably in childbirth, in 1760. At the age of 28, Roger had married the 23-year-old Elizabeth Hartwell with whom he had seven children between 1749 and 1760. The move also might have been prompted, at least in part, by a desire to strike out on his own from under the shadow of his older brother and business partner William. Three years after the death of his first wife, Roger married Rebecca Prescott with whom he had eight children. As the father of fifteen children, Roger Sherman was certainly one of the more prolific Founding Fathers. 3. Max Farrand, e d . The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:88. 4. Sherman had, as early as 1776, suggested the creation of a federal system of government in which there would be both proportional and equal representation in the national Congress. It was rejected when the Continental Congress drafted the Articles of Confederation with its provision for equal representation only. 5. Farrand, 2:473.

RICHARD DOBBS SPAIGHT (1758-1802) Richard Dobbs Spaight, at age 29, was one of the youngest delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Born March 25, 1758, into an aristocratic English-Irish plantation-owning family in New Bern, North Carolina, Spaight was tragically orphaned at the age of 8. Thus he early on inherited a large estate, which financially enabled his guardians to send him to the British Isles for the classical education not then available in colonial North Carolina. He attended the University of Glasgow, although it is not known if he earned a degree from that venerable institution. It was almost foreordained that the young Spaight would become a politician. His father had been secretary of the royal colony of North Carolina and, before his untimely death in 1766, was apparently hoping to prepare his son Richard for a career in the British imperial service. His mother came from a political family, in that she was the sister of North Carolina Governor Arthur Dobbs. After completing what was, for that day and age, an excellent education, Spaight, age 20, returned to North Carolina in 1778 and immediately was given a commission in the Continental army. Initially, he served as an aide-de-camp to the North Carolina state militia commander, General Richard Caswell. Later, he saw combat in the August 1780 battle of Camden, South Carolina, but soon thereafter resigned his commission to enter the political arena. As a representative in the North Carolina House of Commons, he was elected to represent New Bern and Craven counties in the years 1781-1783 and 1785-1787, and to serve as speaker of the lower legislative chamber in 1785. Between his two stints in the state legislature, he served as a member of the Continental Congress (1782-1785). Thus, by the time he was selected, in January 1787, as a delegate to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, Richard Dobbs Spaight, although only 29 years old, was well prepared by dint of education and political experience to represent his state

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at the Grand Convention. In the opening weeks of the Convention, Convention journalist William Pierce described Spaight as "a worthy Man, of some abilities, and fortune. Without possessing a Genius to render him brilliant, he is able to discharge any public trust that his Country may repose in him. He is about 31 years of age." 1 At the Convention, Spaight, as a large plantation owner and slave owner, usually spoke for and voted for measures beneficial to his southern landowning compeers. He arrived in Philadelphia on May 19 after what must have been a difficult several-hundred-mile trip on poor roads and across numerous bridgeless rivers. As the first of the five North Carolina deputies to reach Philadelphia, Spaight spent the days until the official opening of the Convention on Friday, May 25 in caucus with other southern delegates. As the youngest of his state's representatives, Spaight most often, but not always, deferred to his senior colleagues within the North Carolina delegation. Although he spoke infrequently in the formal sessions, he was, as far as can be determined, one of the dozen or so delegates who attended every Convention meeting. He gave his first short speech on the first working day of the Convention (Monday, May 28). He moved "to provide, that, on the one hand, the house, may not be precluded, by a vote upon any question from revising the subject matter of it, when they see cause, not, on the other hand, be led too hastily to rescind a decision, which was the result of mature discussion."2 Later adopted by the full Convention, this rule enabled the delegates to reconsider any and all votes thus allowing, without retribution from constituents and the general public, for freer, more open debate of the myriad topics under discussion and for the changing of delegates' minds. On the day after Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph had presented the Virginia Plan with its proposal that representation in both houses of the national congress be proportional to the quotas of contribution or to the number of free inhabitants, Spaight seconded Alexander Hamilton's motion, which passed 7-3, that "Resolved that the rights of suffrage in the national legislature ought to be proportioned to the number of free inhabitants." 3 Spaight's support of Hamilton's motion would indicate an early adherence, on his part, to the large-state nationalistic faction headed by James Madison, James Wilson, and Gouverneur Morris. This support was probably prompted by the belief, held by many southern political leaders, that the southern states of Virginia, Georgia, and the two Carolinas would, in the future, be the fastest growing states of the country in terms of population. However, this motion does not incorporate into the equation for representation of the vast number of slaves in the four southernmost states (i.e., the three-fifths provision later made part of the Great Compromise). Thus, Spaight's early views on the crucial question who or what should be counted in determining the proportional representation in the proposed national Congress were seemingly at variance with many of his fellow south-

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ern delegates, most of whom favored the counting of all slaves and free inhabitants in determining suffrage. In the July 16 critical vote on the Great Compromise, North Carolina's vote for the compromise probably saved the Convention from possible dissolution. Although it is not known for sure which way Spaight voted within the North Carolina delegation, he apparently voted yea. His probable "yes" vote would seem to indicate that the Compromise, as passed, had enough concessions to the south to warrant his approval. There is little doubt that the North Carolina vote (with Spaight's likely support) meant that Richard Dobbs Spaight had moved from the large-state nationalistic faction to the small-state nationalistic camp. This, plus his enthusiastic support of the finished document, strongly supports placing him with the rather large number of delegates who were flexible (i.e., seeing the need for, and therefore willing to, compromise). Unlike James Madison, for example, who never really was reconciled to the granting of state equality in the upper legislative chamber, Spaight supported "the bundle of compromises" (i.e., the drafted Constitution) as being the best attainable. Along with two of his state colleagues (William Blount and Hugh Williamson), Spaight signed the Constitution and then went home to urge ratification, which, interestingly, was not secured until late November of 1789 (some six months after Washington's inauguration as president). Spaight's post-convention political career had its ups and downs. Returning to New Bern in the fall of 1787, he first ran for governor of North Carolina and was defeated probably because of his well-known, but mild, nationalistic philosophy, which did not coincide with the views of the many Anti-Federalist voters in the largely rural state. He then worked to secure ratification of the carefully crafted fundamental governing charter. Despite a well-entrenched, ably led Anti-Federalist faction, ratification was finally secured in late 1789, in part, because of Spaight's fervent campaigning, and North Carolina became the twelfth state to enter the American union. Also in 1789, Spaight ran for election to the U.S. Senate, but lost out in this effort to Benjamin Hawkins and Samuel Johnson. After these two political defeats, Richard Dobbs Spaight (still a young man at age 31) retired (temporarily, as it turned out) from politics supposedly because of illness, but also maybe because of depression caused by his apparent political unpopularity. During what would be a three-year political hiatus, Spaight visited the West Indies allegedly for health reasons. With the apparent recovery of his health, he ran for a second time for governor and was, this time, successful. He served conscientiously and ably, as the state's chief executive for three years (1792-1795) during which time he worked to convince his largely Anti-Federalist constituents of the benefits North Carolinians would derive from the "true federal" system of government he had helped draft in Philadelphia. In 1795, age 37, Spaight married Mary Leach with whom he had three children (among whom was

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Richard Dobbs Spaight, Jr., who would follow his father as a state legislator, as a member of the national House of Representatives, and as governor of North Carolina). In late 1798, Richard was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the national House of Representatives to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Nathan Bryan. Now as a follower of Jefferson and Madison, Spaight advocated repeal of the severely partisan Alien and Sedition Acts pushed through Congress by the Hamiltonian Federalists. In the disputed presidential election of 1800 (the first of only two presidential elections decided in the House of Representatives), Spaight voted for Thomas Jefferson. In 1801, Spaight was elected to the state assembly and the following year to the upper house. Tragically, in 1802, Richard Dobbs Spaight was fatally wounded in an ill-advised duel with his Federalist successor, John Stanly, and died September 6. Thus, at age 44, Richard Dobbs Spaight's promising political career was cut short. His legacy is one of conscientious service as a public servant to both his state and country. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:95. 2. Ibid, 1:31. 3. Ibid.

CALEB STRONG (1745-1819) Born January 9, 1745, to Caleb and Phebe Strong in Northampton, Massachusetts, young Caleb, like many of his fellow Convention delegates, received a classical education that prepared him for admission to Harvard College. He was graduated from the Cambridge, Massachusetts school in 1764 with high honors and, like many college graduates of the day went, after graduation, into the study of the law. After eight years as a legal apprentice, he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar and soon had established a lucrative law practice in Northampton. Thus, like most of his fellow Founders and Framers, Caleb Strong reached manhood at a propitious time. In the early 1770s, the growing agitation in Massachusetts against alleged British tyranny and oppression, and the ensuing War of Independence provided ample opportunities for well-educated, ambitious young men to make their mark. By 1774, Caleb had become an active and enthusiastic Patriot. He served as a member of Northampton's revolutionary committee of safety—a post he held for two years. This was followed by a two-year stint (1776-1778) as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and eight years (1780-1788) as a state senator. He also served as county attorney for Hampshire County for twenty-four years. Thus at the time of his appointment as a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention, he was concurrently a county attorney and a member of the Massachusetts legislature. At the Convention, Caleb Strong was a consistent supporter of Madison, Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, Hamilton, and fellow Massachusetts delegate Rufus King in their efforts to create a strong, virtually omnipotent, central government. However, he did not favor elimination of the individual states as viable, political entities. Rather, he supported measures that would enhance the power and authority of the national government, but would at the same time allow the state governments to function as sub-

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ordinate political structures. He can, therefore, be classified as a mild nationalist who favored, with some reservations, the creation of a "true federal" system—a system in which political power is allocated, unevenly as it turned out, between the states and the national government. With his Massachusetts colleagues, Caleb arrived in Philadelphia in late May just in time to hear Virginia Governor Randolph's presentation of the Large-State Plan, which, with notable modifications, became the cornerstone of the Constitution. He appeared to have attended the sessions regularly and in his numerous, usually brief, speeches generally supported measures favorable to the large states. His last recorded day at the Convention was August 15. He was called home shortly thereafter, on account of a serious illness in his immediate family. Thus, Strong was the only Massachusetts delegate who did not sign the Constitution on September 17. However, had he been in attendance on the Convention's last day, there is no doubt he would have affixed his signature to the final draft. He was elected to the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention in which he played a major role in securing the favorable, albeit narrow, ratification vote making his home state the second large state, and sixth overall, to approve formally the fundamental governing charter drafted in Philadelphia. His major contribution to the establishment of the federal system, which was eventually created, was his motion that the national House of Representatives should originate all money bills (an obvious concession to the large states, like Massachusetts, which, it was thought, would dominate the lower house). This minor concession was thought necessary to offset the more significant concession made to the small states of granting each state, regardless of size, population, or wealth, an equal vote in the proposed national senate. During his three month stay in Philadelphia, Strong had secured lodgings at the Indian Queen Tavern (conveniently located near the State House on Third Street between Chestnut Street and Market Street). Undoubtedly, because a large number of fellow delegates (e.g., Gorham, Madison, Mason, Alexander Martin, Williamson, Rutledge, and maybe others) were fellow lodgers at the Indian Queen, there would have been ample opportunities for nightly discussions in the informal atmosphere offered by this popular tavern. In his not-altogether-complimentary characterization of Caleb Strong, Pierce wrote that "Mr. Strong is a Lawyer of some eminence,—he has received a liberal education, and has good connections to recommend him. As a Speaker he is feeble, and without confidence. This Gentn. Is about thirty five years of age, and greatly in the esteem of his Colleagues." 1 Strong's most noteworthy political service, outside of his valuable, but largely unheralded, endeavors at the Constitutional Convention, was first as a U.S. Senator and later, eleven years as governor of Massachusetts. First elected to the Senate in 1789 (re-elected in 1793), Caleb supported most

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of the initiatives of President Washington and Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. Thus, he voted for the various proposals of the treasury secretary (known collectively as the Hamiltonian Fiscal Program) and the controversial Jay's Treaty with Great Britain. He also supported the President's pro-British foreign policy and the policy of neutrality. In 1796, he resigned from the Senate to assume a political career at the state level. He was first elected governor as a Federalist in 1800, defeating fellow Convention delegate Elbridge Gerry. He was annually re-elected until 1807. In 1812, he was elected to the governorship, again defeating his long-time political rival Elbridge Gerry. He served as his state's chief executive through the War of 1812 up to 1816. Like most New England Federalists, Strong opposed "Mr. Madison's War" and approved most of the measures adopted at the Hartford Convention—measures, it should be remembered, that hinted at secession. He retired from active politics in 1816 (age 71). He lost his wife Sarah (the mother of his nine children) in 1817. Caleb died on November 7, 1819. His legacy was the four children who survived him and a reputation of a conscientious public servant of second rank. NOTE 1. Max Farrand, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:88.

GEORGE WASHINGTON (1732-1799) George Washington was the undisputed "giant" of his age. Most Americans believed that his attendance at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention was absolutely necessary if it was to succeed at all in rendering "the federal Constitution" (i.e., the Articles of Confederation) "adequate to the exigencies of Government &c the preservation of the Union." 1 Washington had earlier been regarded as "the indispensable man" as commander in chief of the American army during the War of Independence and would later be deemed "the indispendable man" so as the newly established American republic's first president. In between these two important periods of perceived indispensability, the future "Father of his Country" was additionally and most certainly "the indispensable man" at the Constitutional Convention.2 His attendance at the Philadelphia Convention gave it a degree of legitimacy and credibility no other person (not even the worldrenowned Dr. Benjamin Franklin) could have provided for what many considered at the time to be an extra-legal (if not ill-legal) gathering. Respected, if not always beloved, even by his political adversaries, Washington's active participation in the Convention's deliberations ensured that the organic governing charter, drafted during the summer of 1787, would at least receive the careful consideration of all of his fellow Americans, and would probably be readily accepted by most just because it was sanctioned by the universally admired master of Mount Vernon. Like many of the revered Founders and Framers, George Washington was born to an assured position in the patriarchal, hierarchical society of eighteenth-century colonial Virginia. Born February 22, 1732 (February 11, Old Style), on his father's plantation on the Potomac River, between Bridges Creek and Popes Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia, George took full advantage of the opportunities then available to white males of the ruling gentry, but denied or not open to most. During his early childhood,

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George's parents moved frequently. In 1735, his father Augustine moved his growing family to Epsewasson Plantation (later named Mount Vernon in honor of his brother's commander Admiral Edward Vernon) on the Potomac River near Little Hunting Creek in Stafford County. Four years later, the family moved to Ferry Farm on the Rappahannock River in King George County near Fredericksburg. His few years of formal education were first spent in a local parish school in Fredericksburg where he learned his "three Rs." His formal education, although spotty, was more than most Virginians could even aspire to. After his father's death in 1743, George returned to Popes Creek to live with his elder half brother Augustine and to attend a private school. Between his two brief stints at formal education, George was taught at home by tutors and by his half brothers Augustine and Lawrence. Although he never formally studied the classics and never attended college, Washington was as reasonably well-educated as many of his landowning aristocratic compatriots. His letters and state papers demonstrated at least a competency in writing, and his early career as a land surveyor indicated that he had mastered basic mathematics. In 1749, age 17, Washington moved to Mount Vernon to live with his brother Lawrence and to embark upon his career as the official surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia. His work as a surveyor took him frequently to the western parts of Virginia (present-day West Virginia) and into the eastern part of, what is today, the state of Ohio. Much of his earlier surveying work had been done for the Fairfax family in Virginia's beautiful Shenandoah Valley. This is where he first gained an interest in, and knowledge of, the western frontier. Having been born into and reared in an agrarian society where political, social, and economic status was determined, in large part, by the amount of land owned, George began, as a young surveyor, what became a lifelong obsession to acquire land. To that end, he often took, as his surveyor's fee, a percentage of the land he surveyed. Like many of his fellow plantation owners, and military and political compeers, Washington became a determined land speculator. At the time of his death in late 1799, he reportedly owned some 30,000 acres of largely undeveloped, uninhabited land mostly in the western reaches of Virginia but also in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York. In addition, he owned several working plantations (most notably Mount Vernon, which he inherited from Lawrence's widow in 1761) in Virginia and numerous town lots in Alexandra and Winchester, Virginia, and in Washington City. In 1751, George took his one and only overseas trip. He sailed to Barbados with his half brother and benefactor Lawrence who, suffering from tuberculosis, hoped the salubrious Caribbean climate would help him with at least a partial recovery to good health. While in Barbados, the 19-yearold Virginian was stricken with smallpox. Fortunately, he quickly recovered and thereby gained an enviable immunity to that dreadful disease. This youthful bout with smallpox also gained for him several prominent facial

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pox marks, which, interestingly, are rarely depicted in the numerous portraits made of the adult Washington. As a youth, George had aspired to a military career. Because he was a member of the ruling gentry, was highly recommended by his wellconnected Fairfax neighbors, and, as a surveyor of western lands, was an experienced woodsman, George was able to obtain a military commission in the Virginia militia with the rank of major in 1751. Thus, he embarked upon what would eventually be an off-and-on thirty-year military career. In 1753, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddle dispatched Washington to the forks of the Ohio River (present-day Pittsburgh) to demand that the French withdraw from the area claimed by Virginia. The French field commander refused to comply, and Washington returned to Williamsburg to prepare for what was then deemed to be the all-but-inevitable upcoming war with France. As a Virginian militia officer, George played a prominent role in the ensuing French and Indian War (1754-1763). In 1754, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, Washington led a force of 160 Virginia militiamen to the forks of the Ohio River to challenge French control of the vast Ohio River Valley. He discovered that the French had seized and were building a fort (Fort Duquesne) at the forks of the Ohio River. On his return trip to Williamsburg, he surprised and defeated a small French reconnaissance group near present-day Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in what became the opening skirmish of the fourth and most decisive intercolonial war between France and Great Britain. In this brief encounter, the French commander, Ensign de Jumonville was killed (the French would later refer to Jumonville's death as an assassination). Angered by Washington's alleged assassination and unprovoked attack on what the French insisted was a diplomatic mission to deliver an ultimatum demanding that the Virginians and British to withdraw from the Ohio country, a French and Indian force pursued Washington's detachment. George was forced to construct a small wooden fort (named Fort Necessity because it was necessary for the Virginians to thwart the French advance from a tenable defensive position). However, Washington's choice of the Great Meadow as the site of his hastily constructed fort almost ensured a French victory. The low-lying Great Meadow was surrounded by tree-covered hills, which enabled the French/Indian force to shoot down upon the beleaguered Virginians. After a few hours of steady bombardment and steady rain (which flooded the small fort), Washington was forced to surrender his entire force on July 3, 1754, on terms that allowed the Virginians to return to Williamsburg. Soon after his return home, Washington resigned his military commission being unwilling to accept Governor Dinwiddle's stated wish to reduce him in rank from colonel to captain. In the spring of 1755, Washington volunteered to serve, without rank or pay, as an aide-de-camp to British General Edward Braddock. Appointed

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commander of the colonial forces that accompanied Braddock's ill-fated expedition dispatched to capture Fort Duquesne, Washington again experienced military defeat at the hands of an outnumbered enemy. Braddock's entire force was decisively trounced in the battle of the Monongahela some 7 miles from the French fort, General Braddock was mortally wounded, and Washington courageously led the humiliating British retreat back to Fort Cumberland, Maryland. Washington's surrender of Fort Necessity in 1754 and his involvement in Braddock's mortifying defeat the following year were inauspicious beginnings to what would become a long and distinguished military career. Even in these early military setbacks, however, Washington displayed a fortitude and a courage that enhanced his growing reputation as an experienced, if not always successful, military commander. Upon his return to Williamsburg from the Braddock debacle, Washington was appointed commander, with the rank of colonel, of the Virginia Regiment with orders to defend the colony's western frontier from French and Indian incursions. For two frustrating years he worked valiantly with inadequate troops and supplies to defend the lengthy Virginia western frontier. During this period, he made two trips northward to secure a commission as an officer in the British Army. In 1756, he traveled to Boston to confer with Massachusetts Governor William Shirley, who was then serving as the acting British commander in chief. Rebuffed in this first attempt to obtain the long-sought-after commission, he tried again the next year by traveling to Philadelphia to request a commission from the new British commander in North America—John Campbell, the Earl of Loudoun. Rebuffed a second time, the disappointed Washington returned to Virginia to resume his career as a militia officer. In 1758, the ambitious young officer accompanied, as commander of the Virginia troops, the John Forbes expedition, which finally captured the French fort at the forks of the Ohio River. Also in 1758, he began his political career as an elected member of the Virginia Houses of Burgesses ("the nursery of statesmen"), serving almost continuously until 1775 as a colonial legislator, as an Anglican vestryman, and as a Justice of the Peace for Fairfax County. In early January of 1759, Washington married the eminently wealthy Martha Dandridge Custis. A widow with two children, Martha brought to this union, thousands of acres of Virginia farmland and hundreds of slaves. With the addition of Martha's vast wealth to his already sizable estate, George Washington became one of the wealthiest planters in all of Virginia. During his years as a Burgess, Washington slowly moved into the "radical" camp, which was demanding the complete repeal of the odious British tax laws and, after 1773, the Tea Act and the Coercive (Intolerable) Acts. His election to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and then to the Second in 1775 confirmed his status as a "radical" colonial leader. Although never as philosophically radical as his legislative colleagues Thomas Jeffer-

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son, Richard Henry Lee, and Patrick Henry, Washington had become convinced, by the early summer of 1775, that the colonists should resort to arms to defend their liberties and rights as English subjects against royal and parliamentary encroachments. On June 15, 1775, George Washington was unanimously selected as commander in chief of the almost non-existent Continental army. When he assumed active command of the New England militiamen at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 3, 1775, Washington was dismayed by the obvious lack of discipline and military decor among the ill-trained and ill-equipped troops he was to lead. To his credit, however, Washington was able, in the eight-plus years as commander in chief, to mold, with the help of "Baron" Wilhelm von Steuben and other largely European-trained professional soldiers, this ragamuffin army into a reasonably efficient fighting force, which, by the latter years of the war, was able to match its British and Hessian adversaries in fighting capability. In most of the early Revolutionary War battles and skirmishes, Washington was clearly and often decisively outmaneuvered and outfought by his more experienced opponents. Especially during the battle of Brooklyn Heights and his doomed-to-fail defense of Manhattan Island in 1776, Washington frequently demonstrated poor judgment in the deployment of his troops. However, with a large dose of good luck and the reluctance of British General William Howe to press his early hard-won advantages, Washington was able to avoid annihilation of his tattered army and retreat across New Jersey to the relative safety of eastern Pennsylvania. In late 1776 and early 1777, Washington temporarily took the initiative and audaciously captured two small Hessian and British detachments in Trenton and Princeton, New Jersey. Although of little military value, these two engagements greatly boosted American morale and the confidence of the American commander. Learning from earlier mistakes, Washington became an effective army commander who came to understand that he did not need to destroy his enemy to "win" the war. All he needed to do to "win" was not to "lose." If he could keep his army intact and avoid major battles in which he did not have a clear advantage, he could, in fact, "win" the contest by waging a war of attrition. With a few exceptions, this was what General Washington did. Although he lost more battles than he won, he did help plan and carry out, with the valuable help of French General Jean Baptiste Rochambeau and his army, and a French fleet, the glorious American victory at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781. After this devastating defeat, the British entered into diplomatic negotiations with the American commissioners in Paris, which led to the Treaty of Paris of 1783 and the confirmation of American independence. Washington had shown that he was, indeed, the indispensable military commander. Appointed in mid-June 1775 as commander of an ill-trained, ill-equipped, and ill-led ragtag army, he emerged in 1783 as the victorious general who had, frequently against over-

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whelming odds, managed not only to survive but also to succeed in bringing about American independence. In late December 1783, General George Washington (like the Roman General Cincinnatus) resigned his commission as commander in chief, in what was obviously a carefully orchestrated ceremony at the state capital building in Annapolis, Maryland, and returned to Mount Vernon to resume the life of an aristocratic Virginia plantation owner. While renovating and restoring his long-neglected Mount Vernon estate, Washington, in the immediate post-war period, became ever more convinced that the Articles of Confederation needed drastic amendment or even replacement. His earlier service as a national legislator (1774-1775) and as commander of a national army had made a nationalist of the former provincial Virginia farmer. In numerous letters, he called attention to what he considered the many defects of the government under the Articles of Confederation. Even before the signing of the peace treaty, he noted that "Our measures are not under the influence and direction of one Council, but thirteen, each of which is actuated by local views and politics. . . . We are attempting the impossible." 3 In 1782, he wrote that it was absolutely imperative to enlarge the powers of Congress to avoid "anarchy and confusion." By 1783, he had become convinced that to avert these twin evils of anarchy and confusion, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the country should "form a Constitution that will give consistency, stability, and dignity to the Union and sufficient powers to the great Council of the Nation for general purposes." It "is a duty which is incumbent upon every man who wishes well to his Country, and will meet with my aid as far as it can be rendered in the private walks of life. . . . There are four things, which, I humbly conceive are essential to the well-being, I may even venture to say, to the existence of the United States, as an independent power. . . . An indissoluble union of the States under one Federal head." 4 Thus Washington can be legitimately regarded as one of the leaders, along with Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and Robert Morris, of the nationalistic movement, which eventually would lead to the calling of the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. He hosted the so-called Mount Vernon Conference in 1785 that led to the Annapolis Convention of 1786, which in turn led directly to the calling of the Philadelphia Convention. As the most popular, most honored, and certainly the most revered American leader, Washington's advocacy of a constitutional convention, no doubt, swayed many of his admiring compatriots to acquiesce in its calling. Since Virginia was in the vanguard of those states wanting to amend or overthrow the moribund Articles of Confederation and would, therefore, be expected to take a leading, if not controlling, role at the Convention, it appointed its delegation early. This would give, it was hoped, the Virginia commission time to organize and prepare a plan of government that could

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be presented early and, therefore, set the tone for the entire Convention. On December 4, 1786, the Virginia legislature appointed a notable ninemember delegation to present and push its large-state agenda at the upcoming Pennsylvania State House gathering. Even after Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Nelson, and the ever-popular Patrick Henry declined to serve, forcing Governor Randolph to appoint political novice Dr. James McClurg as a replacement, Virginia sent an exceedingly talented group to Philadelphia.5 The seven-man delegation, finally settled on, included the well-known physician James McClurg, the popular governor Edmund Randolph, the eminent lawyer and judge John Blair, Washington's Potomac River neighbor George Mason, the legal scholar and professor George Wythe, and the scholarly James Madison. As distinguished as the above-mentioned six men were, the delegation from the largest and most populous state would be incomplete without the inclusion of America's leading citizen—George Washington. Although Washington's name did appear on the initial list of appointees, the sage of Mount Vernon did not immediately make known his acceptance. Always concerned about his historical reputation, Washington worried that the Convention might fail and, as a result, his stature would suffer. During the period of hesitancy, Washington received dozens of letters from friends urging acceptance. Among others, New Jersey Governor William Livingston, Gouverneur Morris, Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph, James Madison (all future delegates), John Jay, and Henry Knox all wrote to Washington that his attendance was imperative if the Convention was to have any chance of success. Most of these correspondents stressed their belief that his reputation would actually be enhanced by his presence in Philadelphia, and that it would give him the opportunity to assert his considerable influence to have implemented his oft-stated views on granting the national government additional needed powers. Particularly persuasive were Governor Randolph's repeated pleas. In the final analysis, however, Washington's March 28 letter to the Virginia governor, in which he agreed to attend, was prompted largely by his oft-stated opinion that a governmental change was imperative if the recently created American republic was to survive.6 Washington left Mount Vernon for the four-day trip to Philadelphia early on Wednesday, May 9. As he neared the City of Brotherly Love, he was surprised to be met and escorted into the town by the City Cavalry Troop. His arrival "was announced by a salute of the United States from the train artillery," and he "has taken apartments at Mrs. House's, one of the most genteel boarding houses in this city."7 The Convention had scheduled to open on Monday, May 14. However, because of the lack of a seven-state quorum, the official opening session did not take place until Friday, May 25. Washington spent the two weeks between his arrival and the opening session in visiting socially with fellow delegates (most of whom he had met and worked with during the American Revolution) and meeting informally

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with his fellow Virginia delegates as they put the finishing touches to what was formally presented, on May 29, as the Randolph Large-State Plan. For example, for the first week he noted in his diary that he had met with members of the Society of the Cincinnati on Tuesday, May 15, "Dined at the President Doctor Franklin's" on May 16, had dinner with Philadelphia Mayor Samuel Powell on May 17, "drank tea at Mr. Morris' " on May 18, and "Dined at Mr. Ingersoll's" (a Pennsylvania delegate and friend of longstanding) on May 19. Because of his well-known fame as the victorious American commander during the War of Independence, and his earned and therefore deserved reputation as a man of steady habits, integrity, and high principles, William Pierce's portrayal of Washington was particularly fulsome and laudatory. Genl. Washington is well known as the Commander in chief of the late American Army. Having conducted these states to independence and peace, he now appears to assist in framing a Government to make the People happy. Like Gustavus Vasa, he may be said to be the deliverer of his Country;—like Peter the great he appears as the politician and the States-man; and like Cincinnatus he returned to his farm perfectly contented with being only a plain Citizen, after enjoying the highest honor of the Confederacy,—and now only seeks for the approbation of his Country-men by being virtuous and useful. The General was conducted to the Chair as President of the Convention by the unanimous voice of its Members. He is in the 52d. year of his age." 8 Somewhat strangely, the French charge d'affaires Otto, in his detailed Convention notes to his superiors in Paris, did not include a sketch of the Convention's most famous delegate. This omission was perhaps because General George Washington was already well-known in official governmental circles in France. As Pierce reported in his flattering characterization, Washington was elected unanimously as the president of the Convention on the first day. From all reports, Washington presided over the Convention with fairness, integrity, and impartiality. When the delegates met informally as the Committee of the Whole, chaired by Massachusetts delegate Nathaniel Gorham, Washington would step down from president's chair and join his fellow Virginians at their table. Since almost half of the time at the Convention was spent in the casual surroundings of the Committee of the Whole, Washington had ample opportunity to deliberate and discuss the measures under consideration. However, since no records were kept in these informal meetings, it is not known, with any degree of certitude, just what Washington's precise contributions were to the actual crafting of the Constitution. Undoubtedly, since he was known to be a nationalist who supported granting

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the proposed central government additional powers, he voted, within the Virginia delegation, for measures that would bring about the changes he thought would be needed "to render the Federal Constitution adequate to the Exigencies of the Union." It will never be known what Washington's influence was or what he even said in the numerous informal, out-ofconvention "social" meetings with fellow delegates over a "convivial" glass or dinner at the Indian Queen Tavern, City Tavern, or any of the other numerous nearby "watering holes" and eateries. However, because of his enviable standing as the American "Cincinnatus" and his reputation as a man of high principles and integrity, even his off-the-cuff, informal comments and observations, made casually and informally, would have carried a great deal of weight with his sometimes overly deferential fellow Convention colleagues. He is recorded to have made few formal speeches during official Convention sessions. Therefore, he surprised everyone when, on the final day, he vocally supported a motion made by Nathaniel Gorham that the clause declaring "the number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every forty thousand" should be amended to read "the number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand." He modestly stated his view, as was his habit in public addresses, "that although his situation had hitherto restrained him from offering his sentiments on questions depending in the House, and it might be thought, ought now to impose silence on him, yet he could not forbear expressing his wish that the alteration proposed might take place." Thereupon, his astounded colleagues quickly acquiesced to Washington's request and passed Gorham's motion unanimously. Washington's main contributions to the drafting of the Constitution were his willingness to attend (thereby adding legitimacy and credibility to the enterprise) and his unbiased and evenhanded administration of the duties of president of the Convention. Moreover, he, along with four of his Virginia colleagues, enthusiastically signed the completed draft. This could have been a factor in convincing others who originally had mild reservations, like Washington did, to support or at least not oppose giving the new charter a chance. He further contributed positively to the formation of the U.S. Constitution by publicly urging ratification in Virginia. Although he was not a member of the Virginia Ratifying Convention, his known support of the fundamental governmental charter he had helped draft, undoubtedly, convinced many that it must be a "good" constitution and, therefore, should be ratified. In a letter written soon after his return to Mount Vernon, Washington noted that "The Constitution that is submitted is not free from imperfections, but there are as few radical defects in it as could well be expected, considering the heterogeneous mass of which the Convention was composed and the diversity of interests that are to be attended to. As a Constitutional door is opened for future amendments and alterations, I think it would be wise in the people to accept what is offered

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to them." 9 In addition, since there was at least a tacit understanding that Washington would be elected as the first president under this Constitution, many Virginians (and indeed many in other states) were willing to support ratification. Since the 1760s and early 1770s, Americans had been leery of strong, potentially tyrannical executives (i.e., kings, British ministers, and colonial governors). For example, most of the state constitutions promulgated during the American Revolution created weak governorships. Convinced that the American "Cincinnatus" would never abuse executive power, many Americans supported ratification of a document that would give to the proposed executive (president) enough power and authority that the position was able to evolve into today's "The Imperial Presidency." As expected, George Washington was elected in 1788, and re-elected in 1792, as the first president of the young American republic. Washington's unanimous vote, in the Electoral College, in both of these all-important elections confirmed that Americans overwhelmingly considered him to be the "indispensable man" for the job of carrying out, on sound republican principles, the American "experiment in democracy." In eight eventful, precedent-setting years, Washington not only established the national government, but also brought respect and legitimacy to the office of president, supported and helped implement Alexander Hamilton's far-reaching and eminently successful financial program, thwarted the first major challenge to national authority (the so-called Whiskey Insurrection of 1794), and initiated a foreign policy of neutrality, which might well have saved the American republic from involvement in potentially devastating wars with monarchical Great Britain and/or with revolutionary, and later, Napoleonic France. Unforeseen and unwanted by President Washington (and indeed by most of his fellow Framers at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention), political factions emerged during the latter years of his tenure as the first president. Opposition, specifically to Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton's fiscal policies and to the administration's pro-British predilections, and generally to the nationalistic, quasi-elitist, and politically conservative Federalist faction led to the formation of what was originally referred to as the Republican Party of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, which over the years has basically evolved into the present-day Democratic Party. By the time of his early 1797 retirement, Washington had become the brunt of more criticism and bad press than ever before and this undoubtedly prompted, at least in part, his decision not to stand for a third presidential term. Even so, at the time of his final retirement in 1797, Washington was overwhelmingly lionized, by most Americans, as the American "Cincinnatus," as the "indispensable man," as the "Father of his Country," as the one man who, against seemingly overwhelming odds, established the American republic on sound republican principles.

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Despite Washington's many accomplishments, especially as commander in chief during the War of Independence, as president of the Constitutional Convention, and as the founding president of the new American republic, there are those who believe that his most noteworthy contribution to his country was his willingness (some would consider his ardent wish) to give up military and political power when the task at hand was successfully completed and return to the relative tranquility of Mount Vernon. He did so in December 1783, when he resigned his commission as commander in chief of the Continental army at the happy conclusion of the Revolutionary War and in 1797, when he willingly and steadfastly refused a third term as president. It is now known that George Washington was not in the best of health when he retired to sit under his "fig" tree and manage his considerable Virginia landed estate. Years of "roughing it" as a surveyor on the western frontier, as a soldier in the French and Indian War, as the American commander during the war against Great Britain, and as the presiding officer at the Philadelphia Convention all took their toll on his health and psychological well-being. In 1797, aged 65, Washington looked forward to a peaceful retirement. His tranquil retreat to being a gentleman farmer was briefly interrupted when in 1798, he accepted President John Adams' appointment as commander of the U.S. Army during the so-called quasi war with France (1798-1800). Since it was well understood by all that the aging Washington would probably not be called upon to take field in case of actual land hostilities, this title was primarily an honorary one and the real work of leading the army would fall to his erstwhile aide-de-camp Alexander Hamilton, who had wrangled the appointment as inspector general of the army with the rank of major general. In the summer of 1799, he wrote his last will and testament in which he distributed an estate estimated to be worth approximately $530,000. Like many, if not most of his fellow Virginia slave owners, Washington was in a quandary over the issue of slavery. Although mildly opposed to the institution of slavery on moral grounds, he nevertheless could not bring himself to free his own slaves or actively join the incipient but growing anti-slavery movement of the late eighteenth century. In his lengthy, detailed will, he did stipulate that his slaves were to be emancipated after Martha's death and that his heirs were to provide pensions for freed adult slaves who were aged or infirm and that freed slave children were to be taught to read and write, and "be brought up to some useful occupation." Despite being a "benevolent" slave owner, Washington was one of the largest slave owners in Virginia and, therefore, as such greatly aided and abetted the perpetuation of what would soon after his death be termed the South's "Peculiar Institution." Washington died late in the evening of December 14, 1799, probably as a result of catching a suffocating respiratory infection (possibly pneumo-

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nia) and then receiving inappropriate and even fatally harmful medical treatment. H e was universally eulogized as the "giant" of his age. H e was buried in the family cemetery at M o u n t Vernon. His death was m o u r n e d by all Americans. NOTES 1. The official call for the convening of the Constitutional Convention "on the second Monday in May next" came out of a resolution passed on February 2 1 , 1787, by the increasingly lifeless and ineffectual Confederation Congress. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:13-14. 2. One of the best, most informative single-volume biographies of Washington argues persuasively that George Washington was indeed "The Indispensable Man" in three of the most significant events of the late eighteenth century: commander in chief of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, president of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and first president of the new American republic. James Thomas Flexner, Washington: The Indispensable Man (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969). 3. Charles Warren, The Making of the Constitution (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc. 1967), 12. 4. Ibid., 12-13. 5. Thomas Nelson declined primarily for health reasons while Richard Henry Lee claimed that as a member of the Confederation Congress, he could not, in good conscience, devote the time and effort needed to be an active, contributing member in Philadelphia. Patrick Henry, an ardent states' rights proponent, "smelt a rat" (i.e., he vehemently opposed the nationalistic plan he knew would be pushed by his colleague Madison) and therefore refused to attend the Convention as a minority member of his own state delegation. 6. Washington claimed that his original reluctance to accept appointment to the Virginia delegation was due to ill-health and to the fact that he had already declined an invitation to attend the meeting of the General Society of the Cincinnati (a Revolutionary War veterans' organization), of which he was president and which was also meeting in Philadelphia the same month as the Constitutional Convention. 7. Washington's stay at Mrs. House's "genteel boarding" house was brief, because he soon accepted the Robert Morris family's invitation to take lodging at its luxurious, well-appointed "mansion" located conveniently within walking distance of the state house. See Warren, 99-103, for details of Washington's triumphant entrance into the city and his reception on Sunday, May 13, 1787. 8. Farrand, 3:94. 9. Warren, 735-736.

HUGH WILLIAMSON (1735-1819) The multi-talented Hugh Williamson was one of the best-educated delegates at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. During a long and productive life, Williamson was trained and educated for and pursued careers as a clergyman, professor, scientist, merchant, land speculator, and medical doctor. Born December 5, 1735, to Scotch-Irish Presbyterian parents on Oterara Creek, in West Nottingham Township, Pennsylvania, Hugh was given every educational opportunity then available for a precocious, ambitious, young colonist. As the eldest son in a large family, he was encouraged to prepare for a career as a Presbyterian minister. After a few years' attendance at local common schools, Hugh was sent away to college preparatory schools first at New London Cross Roads, Delaware, and then at Newark, Delaware. Having mastered the classical curriculum required for admission to college, Hugh entered the first class of the College of Philadelphia (present-day University of Pennsylvania) from which he was graduated in 1757 (at age 21). He then spent a year in Connecticut studying for the ministry. In 1758, he was licensed as a Presbyterian preacher (however, he was never formally ordained). In 1760, he resigned his pastoral position, apparently because of ill health. However, he evidently regained his health soon thereafter and accepted an appointment as professor of mathematics at his alma mater, the College of Philadelphia. In 1764, Hugh seemed to have resigned his professorship and traveled to Europe to study medicine first in Edinburgh, Scotland, then London, and finally at the University of Utrecht (present-day Belgium). With a medical degree from the prestigious University of Utrecht, Williamson returned to Philadelphia where he began to practice medicine. However, he apparently found the practice of medicine in Philadelphia emotionally and psychologically enervating. He abandoned his medical practice and embarked upon yet another career. He decided that he would found an academy in Newark,

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Delaware. In pursuit of this laudable enterprise, Williamson made fundraising trips first to the West Indies and then to Europe. Sailing from Boston to England in mid-December 1773, Hugh witnessed firsthand the December 16 "Boston Tea Party." While in London, he was asked by the British Privy Council to testify as to just what had happened on that fateful December evening. He warned the privy councilors that the colonists were overwhelmingly opposed to British policies and if Britain did not change, the colonists might well rebel. His prophetic 1774 warning before the Privy Council was a sure indication that Williamson had already joined those colonists who were questioning the desirability of continued colonial membership in the British Empire and would become, when hostilities finally did break out in 1775, an ardent American Patriot. Throughout his adult life, Williamson maintained an intense interest in science. In 1768, he became a member of the American Philosophical Society. He authored a number of well-received scientific treatises. In 1771, he published a widely distributed pamphlet entitled An Essay on Comets. For this pioneering monograph, which contained several insightful observations regarding the transits of Venus and Mercury, Hugh Williamson was awarded an LL.D. degree by the University of Leyden. While in London (1774-1776), he befriended fellow scientist and future Convention colleague Dr. Benjamin Franklin. Also while still in England, he published, in 1775, a tract entitled The Plea of the Colonies in which he appealed for the support of English Whigs in the impending conflict between colonies and the mother country. With the publication of this pamphlet, Williamson had obviously taken the final step in becoming a radical American Patriot. Returning to America late in 1776, Hugh settled first in Charleston, South Carolina, and then in Edenton, North Carolina, where he embarked upon yet another career. He established what soon became a prosperous mercantile company, which traded primarily with the French West Indies. He also resumed the practice of medicine. While continuing to pursue mercantile interests and his medical practice, Williamson applied for a medical position in the Continental Army. Apparently, none were available at the national level. However, the Governor of North Carolina found a post for which Williamson's abilities could be used at the state level. He was appointed surgeon-general of the North Carolina militia. As such he was a participant, as a medical doctor, in several of the bloody battles (most notably the battle of Camden, South Carolina) in the Carolinas, late in the war. After war, Williamson entered the political arena first as a member of North Carolina state House of Commons and then, as an elected member of the increasingly morbid Continental Congress (1782-1785 and 17871788). This service in the Continental Congress, where he witnessed firsthand the ineptitude of the weak central government, no doubt, convinced him of the need to either amend drastically the Articles of Confederation

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or draft a completely new national constitution. His appointment, in 1786, as a delegate to the Annapolis Convention (he arrived late and thus did not actually participate in the four-day meeting) confirmed that he had become a thoroughgoing nationalist. His April 3, 1787, appointment by Governor Richard Caswell as a member of the North Carolina delegation to the Constitutional Convention (actually as a replacement for the Governor himself who had been elected by the state legislature in January, but chose not to attend) indicated the esteem in which he was held by his adopted state political colleagues. The versatile Williamson arrived in Philadelphia and took up lodging at the Indian Queen inn.1 He attended the first official meeting on Friday, May 25 and seemed to have attended regularly thereafter right up to September 17 when he joined fellow North Carolina delegates William Blount and Richard Dobbs Spaight in signing the Constitution. At the Convention, Williamson was one of the most active commissioners: he was a frequent speaker and was appointed or elected to at least five major committees (including the important Committee on Remaining Matters). In his characterization, William Pierce portrayed Hugh Williamson as "a Gentleman of education and talents. He enters freely into public debate from his close attention to most subjects, but he is no Orator. There is a great degree of good humour and pleasantry in his character; and in his manners there is a strong trait of the Gentleman. He is about 48 years of age." 2 French charge d'affaires Louis Guillaume Otto, in his report to his superior in Paris, correctly described Williamson as a "Doctor and formerly Professor of astronomy." Then, he went on to characterize him somewhat confusingly and inaccurately as being "Bizarre to the excess, liking to hold forth, but speaking with spirit. It is difficult to know his character well; it is even possible that he does not have one; but his activity has given him for sometime a lot of influence in Congress." 3 In his frequent speeches at the Convention, Williamson usually espoused a nationalism, which usually but not always, put him squarely in the largestate nationalistic camp of Madison, Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, Hamilton, and King. In the early and often heated debates over the issue of proportional versus equal representation in the proposed national congress, Williamson indicated support for proportional representation when he stated, on June 9, that he "illustrated the cases by a comparison of the different States, to Counties of different sizes within the same State; observing that proportional representation was admitted to be just in the latter case, and could not therefore be fairly contested in the former."4 Although philosophically in favor of the concept of proportional representation, he apparently did vote in the spirit of compromise, within the North Carolina delegation, for the Great Compromise, which gave each state an equal vote in the proposed national senate.5 In an apparent violation of the Convention's secrecy rule, Williamson, six days after the nar-

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row passage of the Great Compromise, wrote home to James Iredell that "the Convention have nearly agreed on the principles and outlines of a system which we hope may fairly be called an amendment of the Federal Government. This system we expect will, in three or four days, be referred to a small committee to be properly dressed; and if we like it, when clothed and equipped, we shall submit it to Congress, and advise them to recommend it to the hospitable reception of the States. I expect that some time in September we may put the last hand to this work." 6 This letter, if read carefully, indicated that Williamson had become reconciled to state equality in the senate and therefore had moved from Madison's shrinking phalanx of large-state nationalists to that of the small-state nationalists who supported, in the dual hope that the central government could be strengthened and individual state sovereignty and independence could be retained, the bundle of compromises (i.e., the Great Compromise) that probably saved the Convention from breaking up. Upon his return to North Carolina after the Convention, Williamson worked diligently to convince his constituents (he was still serving as a member of the soon-to-be defunct Continental Congress) that the new Constitution would bring benefits to North Carolina and therefore should be ratified. Elected to the ratifying Convention, Williamson led the federalist forces, which finally obtained ratification on November 21, 1789 (some seven months after President Washington's inauguration), by a vote of 195-77. Although Williamson was philosophically a nationalist, who truly believed that the inept confederation government should have been replaced with a strong national government that would be able to pay its debts, protect its borders, command respect from foreign countries, and provide for frontier defense against what he would consider savage Native Americans, his commitment to nationalism was not entirely altruistic and disinterested. On June 2, 1788, in a letter written from New York to James Madison, Williamson admitted to "having claims to a considerable quantity of land in the Western Country, I am fully persuaded that the value of those lands must be increased by an efficient federal government." 7 Like many of his Convention colleagues, Hugh Williamson favored the Constitution he helped to draft because he thought it would be beneficial to the country as a whole, to the south, to his state, to the retention of the institution of slavery, and to his own financial interests. Thus, he was happily able to support the Constitution on the basis of lofty principles as well as private interest. Also like many of his fellow Convention commissioners, Williamson secured a job in the national government he helped create. He was elected to the first House of Representatives in 1789 (re-elected in 1791) where he generally supported the nationalistic policies of President Washington. Declining to run for re-election in 1793, he moved to New York City to pur-

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sue full-time his manifold literary and philanthropic interests. H e had long manifested an interest in education and served, while still living in N o r t h Carolina, on the original board of trustees of the University of N o r t h Carolina at Chapel Hill. After his move to N e w York, he was appointed to the board of trustees of the state College of Physicians and Surgeons, and of the University of the State of N e w York. H e also helped found the Literary and Philosophical Society of N e w York and was an active member of the N e w York Historical Society. In his latter years, Williamson published a number of educational, scientific, political, and historical tracts, which were all well-received and which marked him as a late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century "Renaissance M a n " — a m a n of culture, refinement, manifold talents, many interests, and enviable abilities. H e remained active in N e w York literary and cultural circles almost until the day he died. A bachelor until the age of 5 3 , in 1789 he married M a r i a Apthorpe with w h o m he had at least t w o sons. His death on M a y 2 2 , 1819, was noted as the loss of yet another revered Framer of the U.S. Constitution. Along with many other notable Founders and Framers, he was buried in N e w York City's historic Trinity Churchyard. NOTES 1. At the Indian Queen inn and tavern, located conveniently near the Pennsylvania State House (present-day Independence Hall) on Third Street, between Market Street and Chestnut Street, Williamson would be lodging with a number of fellow Convention delegates including, among others, Caleb Strong and Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts, James Madison and George Mason of Virginia, John Rutledge and Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, Alexander Hamilton of New York, and fellow North Carolinian Alexander Martin. Of course, it will never be known to what extent Convention business was discussed, compromises were made, and decisions were arrived at during the evening hours when the hungry and thirsty delegates ate and drank together in the friendly environment of a tavern or inn. There are, however, numerous subtle indications that many of the more important negotiations and meaningful discussions might well have taken place in the convivial atmosphere provided by taverns like the Indian Queen and the City Tavern. 2. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:95. 3. Ibid., 237-238. 4. Ibid., 1:180. 5. Williamson's oft-stated support of proportional representation in both chambers of the proposed national legislature was probably due to two factors. For one thing, North Carolina was geographically one of the larger states in 1787 (although fourth in total population). It was believed, at least by hopeful North Carolinians, that their state would eventually be among the most populous states and therefore would benefit politically with proportional representation. Secondly, Williamson, as a large holder of public securities and western lands, was well aware of the pos-

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sible benefits a strong national government, disproportionately controlled by the large states as a result of proportional representation, could bring to him and his fellow North Carolina security holders and land speculators. 6. Farrand, 3:61. 7. Ibid., 306-307.

JAMES WILSON (1742-1798) James Wilson was one of the most vocal and most influential delegates at the Philadelphia Convention. 1 Respected, if not always beloved, as a leading barrister, political theorist, and erudite scholar, Wilson was a leading proponent of the large-state nationalistic system proposed in the Virginia (Randolph) Plan and adroitly pushed by James Madison. Like many of his Convention colleagues, James Wilson was well prepared by dint of education and political experience to play an important role in the crafting of the U.S. Constitution. Born September 14, 1742, in Carskerdo, near St. Andrews, Scotland, the gifted James received an excellent classical education that culminated in brief periods of study at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and graduation from the highly regarded University of St. Andrews (17571763). Soon after graduation, Wilson emigrated to America where he first lived for a year in New York City. In 1766, in the midst of the turbulence over the Stamp Act, he moved to Philadelphia to accept an appointment as a Latin tutor and a lecturer on English literature at the College of Philadelphia (present-day University of Pennsylvania). For his academic attainments and scholarly endeavors, he was awarded, at the end of his first year of tutoring and lecturing, an honorary master of arts degree by the College of Philadelphia. It was during this early stay in Philadelphia that Wilson first became involved, at least philosophically, in the anti-British agitation caused by parliament's passage of the universally despised Stamp Act. Apparently, finding the daily grind of "doing battle with the forces of ignorance" to be financially unrewarding or perhaps too challenging or at least not to his liking, the scholarly James abandoned teaching to enter into a year-long legal apprenticeship with the eminent Philadelphia lawyer and future Convention colleague John Dickinson. In 1768, he was admitted to the Philadelphia bar and established a law practice in nearby Reading,

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Pennsylvania. Two years later (1770), he moved west to the Scotch-Irish settlement at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he practiced law with an emphasis on property law. He soon had established a prosperous legal practice. Success in the law led to political involvement. Influenced in part by his Whiggish, fervently anti-British, Presbyterian, Scotch-Irish neighbors and clients, and by his scholarly study of ancient and European autocratic and tyrannical political systems, Wilson slowly moved wholeheartedly into the Whig camp, which was waging an increasingly active campaign (mostly vocal, but at times violent) against alleged British tyranny and oppression. In 1774, he chaired the revolutionary Carlisle Committee of Correspondence, and was elected to the first Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly. Also in that fateful year, Wilson published one of the most widely read and influential anti-British pamphlets entitled Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament. In this widely distributed political treatise, Wilson denied that Parliament had any authority over the British North American colonies. Americans, he claimed, only owed allegiance to the British monarch. Throughout the revolutionary period, he was intermittently elected to the Continental Congress usually serving one-year terms (1775, 1776, 1782, 1783, and 17851787). Thus he was an active member of the historic Second Continental Congress, which organized the American Continental army, appointed George Washington as commander in chief, and waged war against Great Britain. His congressional assignments were usually to serve on the military and Indian affairs committees. Concurrent with his congressional duties, Wilson served briefly and intermittently in the military. In 1775, he was appointed colonel of the Fourth Battalion of Associators and later, brigadier general of the Pennsylvania State Militia (both in reality largely honorary positions). At the national level, Wilson was a moderate revolutionary. He reluctantly and somewhat belatedly endorsed the idea of American independence, but only after urging, along with other congressional moderates such as former legal mentor John Dickinson, a three-week delay in considering Richard Henry Lee's revolutionary June 7, 1776, motion, which called for an immediate official congressional declaration of independence. In the often acrimonious July 1-July 3 debates over Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence, Wilson did, however, support political separation from the mother country and on July 4 the final draft of the country's Charter of Liberty. Unlike Dickinson, Wilson did also join the fifty congressmen present on August 2, 1776, in signing the Declaration of Independence (one—John Hancock—had signed on July 4 and six were to affix their names sometime after August 2). In 1779, Wilson assumed the position as advocate general for France in America; a post in which he dealt with Franco-American commercial, legal, and maritime matters. Also in the immediate post-war period, Wilson, while continuing to serve sporadically as

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a member of the "do nothing" Continental Congress and practicing law, became a staunch supporter of his close friend and legal client Robert Morris who had devised a nationalistic financial system that, with modifications, evolved into the famous Hamiltonian Financial Program, largely implemented in the early 1790s. In addition, when the Bank of North America was chartered in 1781, Congress appointed Wilson to its board of directors. At the state level, however, Wilson emerged as a political conservative. Vehemently opposed to the extremely democratic Pennsylvania state Constitution of 1776, he joined with other conservatives (most notably, future Convention colleague Robert Morris) in the anti-constitutionalist political faction, which worked tirelessly to overthrow the "democratical" state constitution that favored politically the more democratic western part of the state at the expense of the more conservative east. Wilson's growing political conservatism finally made him persona non grata with many of his western neighbors and frontier constituents. After a particular potentially violent confrontation with a "radical" mob, Wilson found it prudent to move temporarily, in 1777, to Annapolis, Maryland, and then in 1778, permanently to Philadelphia. In late fall of 1779, in a more bloody confrontation Wilson and some thirty-five of his conservative allies were besieged by an angry mob of "radical" Constitutionalists in Wilson's Philadelphia home, located at Third and Walnut Streets, just a few blocks away from the Pennsylvania State House (the future Independence Hall). After a brief clash of arms, during which several people were either killed or wounded on both sides, relative peace was, at least temporarily, restored. However, the state constitutional conflict between Constitutionalists and anti-constitutionalists was not finally resolved until 1790 when Pennsylvania, under the leadership of Wilson and westerner William Findley of Westmoreland County, adopted a more politically mainstream organic charter. Not surprisingly, because of his prominence as a legal practitioner and as a relatively conservative but erudite and experienced political figure, James Wilson was appointed to the seven-member Pennsylvania delegation to the Constitutional Convention in late December 1786 (Dr. Benjamin Franklin was added in March 1788 making the eight-man Pennsylvania commission the largest at the Convention). Wilson was in his seat on Friday, May 25 (the first official session) and was regular in his attendance thereafter right up to the last day on September 17. In his report to his Paris superiors, the observant French charge d'affaires Otto described James Wilson as a "Distinguished legal consultant. He's the one who was designated by Mr. Gerard as lawyer of the French nation, position of which one has recognized since the uselessness. Haughty man, intrepid aristocrat, active, eloquent, profound, secretive, known under the name of James the Caledonian, which his enemies have given him. Having disturbed his fortune by great enterprises which public affairs did not permit him to follow.

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Not very attached to France." 2 William Pierce, in his notes first published in 1828, was more fulsome in his portrayal of the scholarly Wilson. "Mr. Wilson," Pierce claimed, ranks among the foremost in legal and political knowledge. He has joined to a fine genius all that can set him off and show him to advantage. He is well acquainted with Man, and understands all the passions that influence him. Government seems to have been his peculiar Study, all the political institutions of the World he knows in detail, and can trace the causes and effects of every revolution from the earliest stages of the Greecian commonwealth down to the present time. No man is more clear, copious, and comprehensive than Mr. Wilson, yet he is no great Orator. He draws the attention not by the charm of his eloquence, but by the force of his reasoning. He is about 45 years old.3 As a leader, along with James Madison, Gouverneur Morris, and Rufus King, of the large-state nationalistic faction that controlled the Convention during its early weeks, Wilson generally favored the Virginia Plan as presented by Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia on May 29. Thus, he supported the idea of proportional representation in both houses of the proposed national legislature. He therefore voted, with most of the other large-state delegates, against the Great Compromise of July 16. He endorsed the idea of utilizing the federal judiciary as a "brake" to "dangerously democratical" state legislatures who, Wilson thought, might be proned to pass laws detrimental to land-owning and land speculative interests in which he had, by 1787, become detrimentally financially involved. However, he appeared less the political conservative when he championed several democratic measures. For example, he favored the annual election of House of Representatives members and popular election, as opposed to election by the state legislatures, of U.S. senators. He also can be considered one of the "authors" of the Electoral College when he effectively argued against the election of the president by the states. Although he initially advocated at least "in theory" that the president be elected directly "by the people" claiming "that an election of the first magistrate by the people at large, was both a convenient & successful mode," he ended up, in the spirit of compromise, supporting, in several thoughtful speeches, the idea of the people electing electors who would in turn elect the country's president and vice president.4 However, Wilson's most significant contributions to the drafting of the Constitution occurred as a member of the Committee of Detail. Appointed to this all-important five-member committee, along with John Rutledge (chairman), Edmund Randolph, Nathaniel Gorham, and Oliver Ellsworth, on July 24, there is ample evidence that many of Wilson's ideas and actual

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verbiage were incorporated into the lengthy report that Chairman Rutledge presented to the Convention on August 6.5 Wilson signed, along with all seven of his Pennsylvania colleagues, the final draft of the Constitution on September 17 with the caveat that the document the delegates had so laboriously crafted was the best possible, given the divergent regional differences and interest groups that had to be taken into consideration and, at least, at times partially appeased. Much to the dismay of many of his Convention colleagues because they found it difficult to comprehend his speeches, which were of course delivered in the heavy hard-to-understand Scottish brogue that he never lost, Wilson spoke often and frequently at length and even delivered most of his colleague Benjamin Franklin's speeches that the venerable Dr. wrote out for Wilson to deliver on his behalf. His many vocal recitations perhaps caused a problem for some of his colleagues who might well have missed, or at least misunderstood, some of the subtle nuances that Wilson sometimes resorted to in his often lengthy, scholarly discourses on political theory and practice. In the Pennsylvania ratifying Convention, which was scheduled to convene on November 20, 1787, Wilson led the majority faction, which included such notables as Thomas McKean (Philadelphia), Frederick A. C. Muhlenberg (the future first Speaker of the national House of Representatives from Montgomery County), and Timothy Pickering (Luzerne County) that favored immediate ratification. In a speech to the Convention delivered on November 24 and immediately published and widely distributed nationally, Wilson brilliantly described the many difficulties that the Constitutional Convention delegates had encountered and had, through exhaustive debate and compromise, overcome. The main accomplishment of the Convention, according to Wilson, was that it drafted a fundamental charter of government, which thoughtfully and carefully took into consideration the absolute necessity of fashioning a new government that could legitimately be supported by all of the divergent economic, political, and regional interest groups of the young American republic. To gain the favorable December 12 vote for ratification, Wilson and his Federalist/antiConstitutionalist cohorts adroitly countered every move by the so-called Radicals (Anti-Federalists) to delay ratification until such time as certain amendments, which would have made the Constitution more palatable, were agreed to. Under Wilson's able leadership, the Pennsylvania ratifying Convention voted 46 to 23 to ratify, without any amendments, changes, or official calls for a second convention, the U.S. Constitution as it emerged from the Philadelphia Convention. Thus Pennsylvania became the second state, to Delaware, and the first large state to ratify the organic governmental charter, crafted so assiduously during the summer of 1787. As an acknowledged leader of the state anti-constitutionalist party, Wilson was one of the primary authors, somewhat incongruously in collaboration with westerner and former political adversary William Findley, of

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the conservative state Constitution of 1790. The promulgation of this second state constitution represented Pennsylvania's constitutional counterrevolution (i.e., the overthrow of the democratic state Constitution of 1776), which seemed to many to parallel the national constitutional counter-revolution in which the "democratic," states' rights Articles of Confederation was replaced by the more nationalistic, and, some would claim, the more politically conservative, Constitution of 1787. For his highly touted reputation as a legal scholar and practitioner, for his valuable work in the Philadelphia Convention in drafting the Constitution, and for his effective leadership to secure ratification in the Pennsylvania ratifying Convention, James Wilson sought, and indeed expected, to be appointed chief justice of the United States. However, when President George Washington appointed New Yorker John Jay to head the new national judiciary, Wilson was not mollified with his appointment as a "mere" associate justice of the Supreme Court. However, he did serve, without notable distinction, on the country's highest court from 1789 right up to the day he died in 1798. Since membership on the U.S. Supreme Court was obviously not a full-time job, Wilson was able to accept appointment in 1790, while serving on the high court, as the first professor of the law at the College of Philadelphia and to engage ever more heavily in western land speculative ventures. Particularly in the mid-1790s, Wilson made several large but unwise speculative land investments in western Pennsylvania and upstate New York that, when they failed, rendered him always totally bankrupt. As a result of these imprudent and unsuccessful land schemes, the always proud James Wilson was reduced to spending the last few years of his life in poverty and in usually vain attempts to elude his numerous creditors. It was apparently during these last trying years that Wilson became ever more addicted to the "bottle" and to periods of extreme depression. The depression was caused in large part by his growing financial insolvency, but also in part by the death in infancy of the only child he and his second wife, Hannah Gray, had soon after their marriage in 1793. With his first wife, Rachel Bird, whom he had married back in 1771, Wilson had six children. In 1797, in an attempt to avoid arrest for debt, Wilson moved to Burlington, New Jersey. The following year, while on federal circuit court business in North Carolina, Wilson suffered a mental lapse caused apparently by extreme fatigue and stress. Kindly taken in by fellow Supreme Court Justice James Iredell who lived near Edenton, James Wilson lingered for several months in a state of extreme, often painful, uneasiness of mind and body. He died August 28, 1798 (age 55), at Judge Iredell's home and was initially buried on the Haynes plantation near Edenton, North Carolina. In 1906, he was reburied in the Christ Church yard in Philadelphia near the more-often-visited graves of the more famous Benjamin Franklin and his wife Deborah. The legacy of James "the Caledonian" Wilson remains

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that of a brilliant legal practitioner, of a leading pamphleteer during the American Revolution, and as one of the primary authors of the U.S. Constitution. However, his undistinguished nine years as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, his devastating financial woes, and the personal problems caused by apparent alcoholism have all tarnished his historical reputation to such an extent that today he is virtually unremembered and rarely viewed as a Founder and Framer of first rank; a position his manifold talents and accomplishments would seem to many to warrant. NOTES 1. Wilson is recorded to have made 168 speeches in the Convention; a number second only to fellow Pennsylvania delegate Gouverneur Morris' 173. 2. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966 ), 3:236-237. 3. Ibid., 91-92. 4. Ibid., 68. 5. In the James Wilson Papers in the Library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia is a rather lengthy document entitled "Proceedings of the Convention, June 19-July 2 3 " that gives the best readily available account of the work of the Committee of Detail. See Farrand, 2:129-192 for what appears to be Wilson's summary of the Committee's full report and the convention notes of Secretary William Jackson, James Madison, and James McHenry for August 6, 1787, when the Committee's final draft of the Constitution was officially presented to the Convention.

GEORGE WYTHE (1726-1806) Considered by admiring compatriots as "the Socrates of our State," George Wythe was expected to be a major player at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. 1 By the time of his appointment as a member of the talented Virginia delegation in December 1786, Judge Wythe had earned an enviable reputation as a statesman, as a highly esteemed jurist, and a well-regarded educator. He was noted for his self-acquired but profound scholarship and refinement. Always modest and self-effacing, Wythe unobtrusively exerted a positive influence over his colleagues during a lifetime of conspicuous achievements in the political, legal, and educational fields. Born the second of three children to Thomas and Margaret Wythe in 1726, near Back River, Elizabeth City, Virginia, George was orphaned at an early age. Raised by his older brother Thomas, George was intensely home schooled in Latin and Greek initially, until her untimely death, by his mother and later by home tutors. The sum total of his formal education consisted of attendance for an unknown number of months at a grammar school operated by the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. He was obviously an apt and diligent student. By his twentieth birthday, he had gained, without benefit of a college education, a local reputation as a classical scholar. Moreover, he was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1746 having served a legal apprenticeship with an uncle in Prince George County. He thereupon moved to Spotsylvania County where he and a partner established what soon became a thriving law practice. The following year, he married the sister of his partner, Ann Lewis, who unfortunately died, probably in child birth, in 1748. Local success at the bar led to his appointment, in 1754, as acting colonial attorney general of Virginia. Although he held this position for only a few months, his appointment, at the relatively young age of 28, in a colony noted for its renowned legal talent, is in-

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dicative of his growing reputation as a legal practitioner. His brother Thomas died in 1755 bequeathing his sizable estate to George. That same year he moved to Williamsburg with his newly acquired wealth and new bride (Elizabeth Taliaferro) into a house (still standing near the Governor's Palace in Colonial Williamsburg) designed and built for the newlyweds by his new father-in-law. George and his second wife were to have one child, who apparently died in infancy. Wythe's ample inheritance, and growing and increasingly lucrative legal practice gave him the leisure to continue his self-education in the classics and in his legal studies. Continued success as a barrister led almost inevitably to a political career. He was elected, in the mid-1750s, to the Virginia House of Burgesses (that nursery of statesmen) where he quietly gained the reputation as an effective penman and orator. Serving continuously as a burgess until 1775, Wythe unostentatiously became a legislative leader in an assembly that included such well-known patriots as George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Peyton Randolph, George Mason, Edmund Pendleton, and Speaker John Robinson. In 1768, he was chosen mayor of Williamsburg and the following year, a member of the board of visitors of the College of William and Mary. Also in the 1760s, he pursued in earnest his career as a legal educator and mentor. Among his many distinguished pupils was Thomas Jefferson, who under Wythe's direct supervision studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1767. After completion of his legal apprenticeship with George Wythe (1763-1767), Jefferson maintained a cordial and deferential relationship with the man he called "my most affectionate friend and beloved Mentor in youth, and my most affectionate friend in life."2 Like many of his House of Burgesses aristocratic colleagues, Wythe began to question and then criticize British taxing policies, especially after parliament passed the universally hated Stamp Act in 1765. By 1775 he had firmly embraced the Patriot cause. Elected a member of the celebrated Second Continental Congress in 1775, Wythe quietly supported the growing independence movement, which culminated in the Declaration of Independence. Although not appointed to the committee charged with drafting what became America's Charter of Liberty, Wythe's influence and many of his views were undoubtedly manifested in the words and ideals expressed in that famous document by his admiring pupil and primary draftsman Thomas Jefferson. Wythe and his former student Jefferson joined their five Virginia congressional colleagues in signing the Declaration of Independence beginning on August 2, 1776, and thereby pledging "to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." In that same year, Wythe was appointed, along with Edmund Pendleton and Thomas Jefferson, to a three-member committee that was instructed to revise Virginia's outdated legal code completely. Jefferson later wrote that his service with his mentor and the aging, and therefore not always active, Pendleton on this three-

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year project was one of his most noteworthy achievements in what was obviously an illustrious public career. Wythe served for only two brief years in the Continental Congress before returning to Virginia to serve, for one year, as Speaker of the House of Delegates. In 1778, George Wythe, appointed as one of the three judges of the newly created Virginia high court of chancery, began what would eventually become a lengthy and distinguished judicial career. For twentyeight years (1778-1796), Wythe served with great distinction on the Virginia high court of chancery (thirteen years of which he was the sole chancellor). In 1779, Wythe began formally a career he had previously followed informally and on an ad hoc basis. He was appointed, by the board of visitors at the College of William and Mary, to be the country's first law professor. As such, he continued his career as a law teacher and mentor to aspiring barristers. During his years as a law professor, he educated a host of young would-be lawyers in the intricacies and nuances of the English Common Law, and of Virginia and U.S. legal practices. Among his more famous law students were future chief justice John Marshall, future president James Monroe, and frequent presidential candidate Henry Clay. As the legal and ethically principled mentor of a number of revered Founding Fathers, George Wythe's influence, like that of fellow Declaration of Independence signer John Witherspoon (long-time professor and president of the College of New Jersey—present-day Princeton University), was manifested through his students, many of whom became leaders in the new American republic. George Wythe's appointment to Virginia's seven-man delegation to the Constitutional Convention was recognition of his stature as a renowned judge and educator in a state that boosted a galaxy of talented politicians, judges, and educators. In his highly favorable portrayal of Virginia's chancellor, William Pierce noted that Mr. Wythe is the famous Professor of Law at the University of William and Mary. He is confessedly one of the most learned legal Characters of the present age. From his close attention to the study of general learning he has acquired a compleat knowledge of the dead languages and all the sciences. He is remarked for his exemplary life, and universally esteemed for his good principles. No Man it is said understands the history of Government better than Mr. Wythe,—nor any one who understands the fluctuating condition to which all societies are liable better than he does, yet from his too favorable opinion of Men, he is no great politician. He is a neat and pleasing Speaker, and a most correct and able Writer. Mr. Wythe is about 55 years of age.3

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Having obviously earned the enviable reputation recorded by Pierce, it was fully expected that Chancellor George Wythe, with his vast knowledge of classical civilizations and of political and legal theories and practices, and with his well-known nationalistic predilections, would be a leader at the Convention in the drafting of the country's second constitution. However, he became, instead, one of the few well-known, highly respected, universally esteemed delegates who, for a variety of reasons, did not live up to the high expectations of their home-state constituents or of their Convention colleagues.4 On the first week of the Convention, however, Wythe's presence and talents were recognized and used. On the first day (Friday, May 25), Wythe was appointed chairman of the important three-member committee charged with drafting a set of "standing rules &c orders." Working over the weekend with committee members Alexander Hamilton of New York and Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, Wythe drafted a set of rules and regulations, which, with a few minor modifications, were adopted by the Convention. Appointed chairman of the first committee established, it was obvious that Wythe intended to play a leading role in the proceedings. On the Convention's fourth day (Wednesday, May 30), Wythe called for a vote on Governor Edmund Randolph's earlier motion "That a union of the States merely federal will not accomplish the object proposed by the articles of confederation, namely, 'common defence, security of liberty, and general welfare' " 5 Thus, Wythe early on indicated his strong support for drafting a new national constitution rather than merely amending or modifying the existing Articles of Confederation. Rather unexpectedly, on June 4, Wythe left the Convention for Williamsburg never to return. His stated reason (apparently legitimate) for his early departure was that he went home to care for his seriously sick wife Elizabeth. Thus the Convention, at the outset, was deprived of one of its most experienced, most qualified, and most esteemed members. Although he was not present to sign the final draft of the Constitution on September 17, he worked diligently in Virginia for ratification. Elected to the state ratifying Convention, he chaired its Committee of the Whole and formally offered the resolution that resulted in Virginia's June 25, 1788, 89-79 vote that made Virginia the tenth state to ratify the document so laboriously drafted by his Convention colleagues. In his latter years, Wythe joined the growing number of Virginia slave owners who became ever more mindful of the hypocrisy of opposing alleged British tyranny while tyrannizing their Black slaves. He freed most of his slaves and made financial arrangements for their upkeep sometime before his death. In his last will and testament, he freed the remainder of his chattels. In his last years as a honored and revered senior citizen of the new state capital in Richmond, he continued his mentoring of young law students by establishing what could be considered a private law school. In-

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terestingly, one of the last law students mentored by Chancellor Wythe was the ambitious, Virginia-born Henry Clay. George Wythe died June 8, 1806, at age 80, under mysterious circumstances. H e and a servant were apparently poisoned, for u n k n o w n reasons, by his grandnephew and heir George Wythe Sweeney. His death was widely noticed and greatly lamented. In his many eulogies, George Wythe was remembered for his obvious erudition, personal rectitude, extreme modesty, and urbane and agreeable manners. NOTES 1. William Short to James Madison, August 1, 1787, as quoted in Charles Warren, The Making of the Constitution (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1937), 376. 2. Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: Writings (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1984), 4-5. 3. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:94. 4. A short list of other delegates who did not play the important roles expected of them would include the former Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris of Pennsylvania and Dr. William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut. 5. Farrand, 1:41.

ROBERT YATES (1738-1801) Robert Yates was born January 27, 1738, in Schenectady, New York, to Joseph and Maria Yates. The young Robert took full advantage of the classical education his parents helped provide, which was followed by a legal apprenticeship with his eminent future Convention colleague William Livingston. In 1760, at age 22, he completed his legal studies and was admitted to the New York bar. He moved to Albany where he steadily established what would soon become a lucrative law practice. Success in the law almost inevitably led to a political career. Except for his service as a delegate to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, Yates confined his political and judicial activities to the state of New York. During the late 1760s and early 1770s agitation against alleged British oppression and tyranny, Yates established himself as an enthusiastic and active Patriot. His first foray into political life was as a member of the Albany Board of Aldermen (1771-1775). With the outbreak of fighting in the spring of 1775, Robert Yates served on the radical Albany committee of safety and additionally represented his home county in four consecutive New York provincial congresses. These congresses assumed the governance of the state when many of the royal officials, including the governor, ignominiously fled to the relative safety of British warships when faced with the prospect of being tarred and feathered, or otherwise harassed by the increasingly rowdy, radical Sons of Liberty. In the revolutionary state Convention of 1775-1777, Yates played a significant role in the drafting of New York's first state constitution, thus getting early experience in the business of drafting fundamental governing charters. In May of 1777, Yates was appointed as a justice to the New York state Supreme Court after which he was always referred to as Judge Yates. In 1790, he was elevated to the chief justice post and served in that important judicial position until 1798 when he was replaced by his fellow Anti-

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Federalist Convention colleague John Lansing, Jr. During his long stint on the state's highest court, Yates gained a reputation as an impartial, fairminded judge especially for his unprejudiced treatment of Loyalists. After the Treaty of Paris of 1783 was signed and ratified ending the bloody War of Independence, Judge Yates became a staunch supporter of the Articles of Confederation. In the period leading up to the calling of the Philadelphia Convention, to which he would be appointed, he opposed every attempt to give the Continental Congress additional powers. Especially he did oppose the 1781 proposed amendment, which was defeated primarily by the intransigence of tiny Rhode Island, to grant Congress the power to impose a 5 percent tax on imports. He thought that the imposition of taxes of any sort by the national government would impinge upon the sovereignty of the states. This early adherence to the philosophy of states' rights presaged his strong advocacy for the rights of individual states that he would later display at the Constitutional Convention. Judge Yates arrived in Philadelphia a week before the official Convention opening on May 25. He soon met informally with other known states' rights proponents (at first with William Paterson of New Jersey, after June 2, with his fellow New York Anti-Federalist John Lansing, Jr., after June 5, with his former legal mentor William Livingston, also of New Jersey, and finally after June 9, with the long-winded Luther Martin of Maryland). Although there were no records kept of the subjects discussed at these informal gatherings, there is speculation that the so-called New Jersey Plan may have been at least partially hatched at these meetings, leading up to Paterson's formal presentation of the Small-State Plan on June 15. Yates' early association with the other known opponents of the Large-State (Virginia) Plan clearly marked him as one of the early leaders of the smallstates' rights faction at the Convention. Yates' brief six-week tenure at the Convention gave William Pierce little opportunity to assess accurately his talents and abilities. Rather the Georgian apparently depended primarily upon hearsay and prior reputation. He noted that "Mr. Yates is said to be an able Judge. He is a Man of great legal abilities, but not distinguished as an Orator. Some of his Enemies say he is an anti-federal Man, but I discovered no such disposition in him. He is about 45 year old, and enjoys a great share of health." 1 During his short stay in Philadelphia, Yates took rather extensive notes on the Convention proceedings, which were published in 1821 under the imposing title Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Convention Assembled at Philadelphia, in the year 1787, for the Purpose of Forming the Constitution of the United States of the United States. From Notes taken by the late Robert Yates, Esq. Chief Justice of New York, and copied by John Lansing, Jun, Esq. Along with the Madison notes (published in 1840) and the official minutes kept by the Convention Secretary Major William Jackson (revised and published under the supervision of the Secretary of State

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John Quincy Adams in 1819), Yates' notes are the chief source of information on the debates and deliberations of the official sessions of the Convention. However, before their publication, these notes were apparently edited, or revised, at least twice and that has somewhat diminished their worth as to what really transpired during the period (May 25-July 5). The first possible editor was his Anti-Federalist Convention colleague John Lansing, Jr., who was first given the scattered memoranda compiled by Yates by his widow shortly after her husband's death in 1801. The second editor seemed to have been the colorful former minister to the United States Edmond Charles Genet, who, according to Alexander Hamilton's son John C. Hamilton, was responsible for their initial publication in 1821. Since the author and both of the subsequent probable editors were either dedicated Anti-Federalists and/or political rivals of the other major journalist James Madison, the Yates notes are considered, by many scholars to be more of a political polemic rather than an accurate summary of what actually was debated and decided upon. Madison, in old age, condemned Yates' notes as being a "a very erroneous edition of the matter." 2 Earlier, in a letter written to the editor Joseph Gales, Madison denounced the value of the notes written by Yates (and possibly edited by Lansing) by noting that "it cannot be unknown that they represented the strong prejudices in N.Y. agst. the object of the Convention which was among other things to take from that State the important power over its commerce and that they manifested, until they withdrew from the Convention, the strongest feelings of dissatisfaction agst. the contemplated change in the federal system and as may be supposed, agst. those most active in promoting it." 3 Although Yates' notes were apparently written (or at least edited) as partisan political tracts, they were more complete than either the Madison notes or the Official Journal for the critical brief period in late June and early July when the issue of representation in the national legislature (proportional representation in both houses of congress versus equal representation in at least one legislative chamber) threatened to take the Convention to the brink of dissolution. Therefore, if read with a discerning eye, they can be of some value in supplementing Madison's notes and the Official Journal for learning the attitude of individual delegates regarding this most crucial issue to confront the Convention. Robert Yates (and to a lesser extent John Lansing, Jr.) participated in the heated debates leading up to the July 5 recommendation of the committee appointed three days earlier that there should be proportional representation in the lower house and equal representation in the upper house. Although many delegates, including most notably John Dickinson, Oliver Ellsworth, and Roger Sherman, considered this recommendation a victory for the small states and state sovereignty, Yates and Lansing saw it as a violation of their instructions, which were "confined to the sole and express purpose of revising the articles of confederation" 4 and therefore a victory

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for the "consolidationists" (large-state nationalists) who seemed determined to create an all-powerful national government at the expense of state autonomy, independence, and sovereignty. Yates, with his partner Lansing, left Philadelphia on July 10 never to return. Their early departure deprived the state of New York of its voting quorum and therefore of having any real influence in subsequent Convention debates and votes. Obviously, both these Anti-Federalist New Yorkers were among the sixteen Convention attendees who, for a variety of reasons, did not sign the Constitution on September 17. Upon their return to New York, Yates and Lansing jointly wrote a letter to Governor George Clinton in which they explained their reasons for leaving the Convention early. "We have been reduced," they reported, "to the disagreeable alternative, of either exceeding the powers delegated to us, and giving our assent to measures which we conceive destructive to the political happiness of the citizens of the United States, or opposing our opinions to that of a body of respectable men, to whom those citizens had given the most unequivocal proofs of confidence.—Thus circumstanced, under these impressions, to have hesitated, would have been to be culpable; we, therefore, gave the principles of the constitution, which has received the sanction of a majority of the convention, our decided and unreserved dissent; but we must candidly confess, that we should have been equally opposed to any system, however modified, which had in object, the consolidation of the United States into one government." 5 At the Poughkeepsie ratifying Convention, Yates (along with Governor Clinton and John Lansing, Jr.) unsuccessfully, but only narrowly so, led the fight against and voted against ratification of the document he and his AntiFederalist colleagues felt created an almost omnipotent national government. Yates also authored a series of letters signed with the pseudonyms of "Brutus" and "Sydney" in which he vehemently attacked what he considered the "consolidationist" Constitution. He insinuated that its ratification would, in essence, constitute a gross violation both of the Congressional Resolution of February 2 1 , 1787, that called for the convening of the Philadelphia Convention and of his instructions from the New York legislature at the time of his appointment as a delegate. In 1789, Judge Yates, still a member of the state supreme court, ran unsuccessfully for governor of New York. The following year, he was elevated to the post of chief justice of the state highest court; a position he held with notable distinction until his retirement eight years later. However, the longawaited retirement was to last for only three years. On September 9, 1801, Judge Yates died, leaving his wife Jannetje Van Ness Yates to raise the four surviving children. Unfortunately, Robert Yates is best remembered for his Anti-Federalism and his persistent advocacy of states' rights. Rather, his legacy should be that of a distinguished state judge whose political views (while probably similar to a majority of the American voters) ran counter

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to those of a majority of the political leaders at the time who favored the strengthening of the national government, even if it had to be at the expense of diminished state autonomy and sovereignty. NOTES 1. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 3:90. 2. Ibid., l:xviii. 3. James Madison to Joseph Gale, August 26, 1821; ibid., 3:446-447. 4. Ibid., 445. 5. Ibid., 444-445.

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APPENDIX A: THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION AND PERPETUAL UNION As the United States' first constitution, the Articles of Confederation established the weak national government Americans thought they wanted as they waged the War for Independence against perceived British monarchical tyranny, parliamentary oppression, and a strong, corrupt, central, imperial government in London. Initially written in 1776, revised in the months following, and finally approved by Congress on November 15, 1777, the Articles were finally promulgated March 1, 1781. PREAMBLE To all to whom these Presents shall come, we the undersigned Delegates of the States affixed to our Names send greeting. Whereas the Delegates of the United States of America in Congress assembled did on the fifteenth day of November in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-seven, and in the Second Year of the Independence of America agree to certain articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia in the Words following, viz. ARTICLE I The stile of this confederation shall be "The United States of America."

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ARTICLE II Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and rights, which is not by the confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled. ARTICLE III The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friend-ship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade or any other pretence whatever. ARTICLE IV The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall by laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them. If any person guilty of, or charged with treason, felony, or other high misdemeanor in any State, shall flee from justice, and be found in any of the United States, he shall upon demand of the Governor or Executive power, of the State from which he fled, be delivered up and removed to the State having jurisdiction of his offence. Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these States to the records, acts and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other State. ARTICLE V For the more convenient management of the general interests of the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed in such manner as the legislature of each State shall direct, to meet in Congress on the first Monday in November, in every year, with a power reserved to each State, to recall its delegates, or any of them, at any time within the year, and to send others in their stead, for the remainder of the year. No State shall be repre-

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sented in Congress by less than two, nor by more than seven members; and no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years; nor shall any person, being a delegate, be capable of holding any office under the United States, for which he, or another for his benefit receives any salary, fees or emolument of any kind. Each State shall maintain its own delegates in a meeting of the States, and while they act as members of the committee of the States. In determining questions in the United States, in Congress assembled, each State shall have one vote. Freedom of speech and debate in Congress shall not be impeached or questioned in any court, or place out of Congress, and the members of Congress shall be protected in their persons from arrests and imprisonments, during the time of their going to and from, and attendance in Congress, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. ARTICLE VI No State without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, shall send any embassy to, or receive any embassy from, or enter into any conference, agreement, alliance or treaty with any king, prince or state; nor shall any person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States, or any of them, accept of any present, emolument, office, nor title of any kind whatever from any king, prince or foreign state; nor shall the United States in Congress assembled, nor any of them, grant any title of nobility. No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confederation or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into, and how long it shall continue. No State shall lay any imposts or duties, which may interfere with any stipulations in treaties, entered into by the United States in Congress assembled, with any king, prince or state, in pursuance of any treaties already proposed by Congress, to the Courts of France and Spain. No vessels of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any State, except such number only, as shall be deemed necessary by the United States in Congress assembled, for the defence of such State, or its trade; nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any State, in time of peace, except such number only, as in the judgment of the United States in Congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defence of such State, but every State shall always keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutred, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage. No State shall engage in any war without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, unless such State be actually invaded by enemies, or shall have received certain advice of a resolution being formed by some nation of In-

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dians to invade such State, and the danger is so imminent as not to admit of a delay, till the United States in Congress can be consulted: nor shall any State grant commissions to any ships or vessels of war, nor letters of marque or reprisal, except it be after a declaration of war by the United States in Congress assembled, and then only against the kingdom or state and the subjects thereof, against which war has been so declared, and under such regulations as shall be established by the United States in Congress assembled, unless such State be infested by pirates, in which case vessels of war may be fitted out for that occasion, and kept so long as the danger shall continue, or until the United States in Congress assembled shall determine otherwise. ARTICLE VII When land-forces are raised by any State of the common defence, all officers of or under the rank of colonel, shall be appointed by the Legislature of each State respectively by whom such forces shall be raised, or in such manner as such State shall direct, and all vacancies shall be filled up by the State which first made the appointment. ARTICLE VIII All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defence or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States, in proportion to the value of all land within each State, granted or surveyed for any person, as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as the United States in Congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint. The taxes for paying that proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the Legislatures of the several States within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled. ARTICLE IX The United States in Congress assembled, shall have the sole and exclusive right and power of determining on peace and war, except in the cases mentioned in the sixth article—of sending and receiving ambassadors—entering into treaties and alliances, provided that no treaty of commerce shall be made whereby the legislative power of the respective States shall be restrained from imposing such imposts and duties on foreigners, as their own people are subjected to, or from prohibiting the exportation or importation of and species of goods or commodities whatsoever—establishing rules for deciding in all cases, what captures on land or water shall be legal, and

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in what manner prizes taken by land or naval forces in the service of the United States shall be divided or appropriated—of granting letters of marque and reprisal in times of peace—appointing courts for the trial of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and establishing courts for receiving and determining finally appeals in all cases of captures, provided that no member of Congress shall be appointed a judge of any of the said courts. The United States in Congress assembled shall also be the last resort on appeal in all disputes and differences now subsisting or that hereafter may arise between two or more States concerning boundary, jurisdiction or any other cause whatever; which authority shall always be exercised in the manner following. Whenever the legislative or executive authority or lawful agent of any State in controversy with another shall present a petition to Congress, stating the matter in question, and praying for a hearing notice thereof shall be given by order of Congress to the legislative or executive authority of the other State in controversy, and a day assigned for the appearance of the parties by their lawful agents, who shall then be directed to appoint, by joint consent, commissioners or judges to constitute a court for hearing and determining matter in question; but, if they cannot agree, Congress shall name three persons out of each of the United States, and from the list of such persons each party shall alternately strike out one, the petitioners beginning, until the number shall be reduced to thirteen; and from that number not less than seven, nor more than nine names, as Congress shall direct, shall, in the presence of Congress, be drawn out by lot; and the persons whose names shall be so drawn, or any five of them, shall be commissioners or judges, to hear and finally determine the controversy, so always as a major part of judges who shall hear the cause shall agree in the determination; and if either party shall neglect to attend at the day appointed, without shewing reasons which Congress shall judge sufficient, or being present, shall refuse to strike, the Congress shall proceed to nominate three persons out of each State, and the secretary of Congress shall strike in behalf of such party absent or refusing; and the judgment and sentence of the court to be appointed, in the manner before prescribed, shall be final and conclusive; and if any of the parties shall refuse to submit to the authority of such court, or to appear or defend their claim or cause, the court shall nevertheless proceed to pronounce sentence or judgment, which shall, in like manner, be final and decisive, the judgment or sentence and other proceedings being, in either case, transmitted to Congress, and lodged among the acts of Congress for the security of the parties concerned: provided, that every commissioner, before he sits in judgment, shall take an oath, to be administered by one of the judges of the supreme or superior court of the State where the cause shall be tried, "well and truly to hear and determine the matter in question, according to the best of his judgment, without favour, affection, or hope of reward:" provided, also, that no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States. All controversies concerning the private right of soil,

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claimed under different grants of two or more states, whose jurisdictions, as they may respect such lands and the states which passed such grants, are adjusted, the said grants, or either of them, being at the same time claimed to have originated antecedent to such settlement of jurisdiction, shall, on the petition of either party to the Congress of the United States, be finally determined, as near as may be, in the same manner as is before prescribed for deciding disputes respecting territorial jurisdiction between different states. The United States, in Congress assembled, shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the respective states; fixing the standard of weights and measures throughout the United States; regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians not members of any of the states; provided that the legislative right of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated; establishing and regulating post offices from one State to another throughout all the United States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to defray the expences of the said office; appointing all officers of the land forces in the service of the United States, excepting regimental officers; appointing all the officers of the naval forces, and commissioning all officers whatever in the service of the United States; making rules for the government and regulation of the said land and naval forces, and directing their operations. The United States, in Congress assembled, shall have authority to appoint a committee to sit in the recess of Congress, to be denominated "a committee of the States," and to consist of one delegate from each state, and to appoint such other committees and civil officers as may be necessary for managing the general affairs of the United States, under their direction; to appoint one of their number to preside; provided that no person be allowed to serve in the office of president more than one year in any term of three years; to ascertain the necessary sums of money to be raised for the service of the United States and to appropriate and apply the same for defraying the public expences; to borrow money or emit bills on the credit of the United States, transmitting, every half year, to the respective states, an account of the sums of money so borrowed or emitted; to build and equip a navy; to agree upon the number of land forces, and to make requisitions from each State for its quota, in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such State; which requisition shall be binding; and thereupon, the legislature of each state shall appoint the regimental officers, raise the men, and cloathe, arm, and equip them in a soldier-like manner, at the expence of the United States; and the officers and men so cloathed, armed, and equipped, shall march to the place appointed and within the time agreed on by the United States, in Congress assembled; but if the United States, in Congress assembled, shall, on consideration of circumstances, judge proper that any State should not raise men, or should raise a smaller number than its quota, and that any other State should raise a greater number of men than the quota thereof, such extra number shall

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be raised, officered, cloathed, armed, and equipped in the same manner as the quota of such State, unless the legislature of such State shall judge that such extra number cannot be safely spared out of the same, in which case they shall raise, officer, cloathe, arm, and equip as many of such extra number as they judge can be safely spared. And the officers and men so cloathed, armed, and equipped, shall march to the place appointed and within the time agreed on by the United States, in Congress assembled. The United States, in Congress assembled, shall never engage in a war, nor grant letters of marque and reprisal in time of peace, nor enter into any treaties or alliances, nor coin money, nor regulate the value thereof, nor ascertain the sums and expences necessary for the defence and welfare of the United States, or any of them: nor emit bills, nor borrow money on the credit of the United States, nor appropriate money, nor agree upon the number of vessels of war to be built or purchased, or the number of land or sea forces to be raised, nor appoint a commander in chief of the army or navy, unless nine states assent to the same; nor shall a question on any other point, except for adjourning from day to day, be determined, unless by the votes of a majority of the United States, in Congress assembled. The Congress of the United States shall have power to adjourn to any time within the year, and to any place within the United States, so that no period of adjournment be for a longer duration than the space of six months, and shall publish the journal of their proceedings monthly except such parts thereof, relating to treaties, alliances or military operations, as, in their judgment, require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the delegates of each State on any question shall be entered on the journal, when it is desired by any delegate; and the delegates of a State, or any of them, at his, or their request, shall be furnished with a transcript of the said journal, except such parts as are above excepted, to lay before the legislatures of the several states. ARTICLE X The committee of the states, or any nine of them, shall be authorized to execute, in the recess of Congress, such of the powers of Congress as the United States, in Congress assembled, by the consent of nine states, shall, from time to time, think expedient to vest them with, provided, that no power be delegated to the said committee, for the exercise of which, by the articles of confederation, the voice of nine states, in the Congress of the United States assembled, is requisite. ARTICLE XI Canada acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into and entitled to all the advantages of this union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine states.

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ARTICLE XII All bills of credit emitted, monies borrowed and debts contracted by, or under the authority of Congress before the assembling of the United States, in pursuance of the present confederation, shall be deemed and considered as a charge against the United States, for payment and satisfaction whereof the said United States and public faith are hereby solemnly pledged.

ARTICLE XIII Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States, in Congress assembled, on all questions which, by this confederation, are submitted to them. And the articles of confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them, unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State. And Whereas it hath pleased the Great Governor of the World to incline the hearts of the legislatures we respectively represent in congress, to approve of, and to authorize us to ratify the said articles of confederation and perpetual union. Know Ye that we the under-signed delegates, by virtue of the power and authority to us given for that purpose, do by these presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said articles of confederation and perpetual union, and all and singular the matters and things therein contained: And we do further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by the determinations of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions, which by the said confederation are submitted to them. And that the articles thereof shall be inviolably observed by the states we respectively represent, and that the union shall be perpetual. In Witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands in Congress. Done at Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania the ninth Day of July in the Year of our Lord one Thousand seven Hundred and Seventy-eight, and in the third year of the independence of America. On the part and behalf of the State of New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett

On the part and behalf of the State of Massachusetts Bay: John Hancock

John Wentworth, Jr.

Francis Dana

(August 8, 1778)

Samuel Adams

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Appendix A James Lovell Elbridge Gerry Samuel Holten On the part and behalf of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations: William Ellery John Collins Henry Marchant On the part and behalf of the State of Connecticut: Roger Sherman Titus Hosmer Samuel Huntington Andrew Adams Oliver Wolcott On the part and behalf of the State of New York: James Duane William Duer Francis Lewis Gouverneur Morris On the part and behalf of the State of New Jersey: John Witherspoon Nathaniel Scudder (November 26, 1778) On the part and behalf of the State of Pennsylvania: Robert Morris William Clingan Daniel Roberdeau Joseph Reed John Bayard Smith (July 22, 1778)

On the part and behalf of the State of Delaware: Thomas McKean (February 12, 1779) John Dickinson (May 5, 1779) Nicholas Van Dyke On the part and behalf of the State of Maryland: John Hanson Daniel Carroll (March 1, 1781) On the part and behalf of the State of Virginia: Richard Henry Lee John Harvie John Banister Francis Lightfoot Lee Thomas Adams On the part and behalf of the State of North Carolina: John Penn (July 21, 1778) Corns Harnett John Williams On the part and behalf of the State of South Carolina: Henry Laurens Richard Hutson William Henry Drayton Thomas Heyward, Jr. John Mathews On the part and behalf of the State of Georgia: John Walton (July 24, 1778) Edward Telfair Edward Langworthy

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APPENDIX B: THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES PREAMBLE We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ARTICLE I Section 1: All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives. Section 2: Clause 1: The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

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Clause 2: No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty-five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. Clause 3: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three. Clause 4: When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies. Clause 5: The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment. Section 3: Clause 1: The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote. Clause 2: Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of

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the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one-third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies. Clause 3: No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen. Clause 4: The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided. Clause 5: The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States. Clause 6: The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. Clause 7: Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment according to Law. Section 4: Clause 1: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of Chusing Senators.

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Clause 2: The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day. Section 5: Clause 1: Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties, as each House may provide. Clause 2: Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member. Clause 3: Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one-fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal. Clause 4: Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting. Section 6: Clause 1: The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

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Clause 2: No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased, during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office. Section 7: Clause 1: All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. Clause 2: Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law. Clause 3: Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and the House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

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Section 8: Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; Clause 2: To borrow money on the credit of the United States; Clause 3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States and with the Indian Tribes; Clause 4: To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; Clause 5: To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; Clause 6: To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States; Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads; Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; Clause 9: To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court; Clause 10: To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations; Clause 11: To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

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Clause 12: To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; Clause 13: To provide and maintain a Navy; Clause 14: To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; Clause 15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; Clause 16: To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; Clause 17: To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And Clause 18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof. Section 9: Clause 1: The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight but a tax or

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duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person. Clause 2: The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. Clause 3: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. Clause 4: No capitation, or other direct Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken. Clause 5: No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State. Clause 6: No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another. Clause 7: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by law; and a regular Statement and Accounts of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time. Clause 8: No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever from any King, Prince, or foreign State. Section 10: Clause 1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

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Clause 2: No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Control of the Congress. Clause 3: No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay. ARTICLE II Section 1: Clause 1: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows: Clause 2: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. Clause 3: The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more

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than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; a quorum for the Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of Electors shall be Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President. Clause 4: The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States. Clause 5: No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. Clause 6: 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, and the Congress may be Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation, or Inability both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected. Clause 7: The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them. Clause 8: Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the

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best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Section 2: Clause 1: The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. Clause 2: He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. Clause 3: The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Section 3: He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

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Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

ARTICLE III Section 1: The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation, which shall not diminished during their Continuance in Office.

Section 2: Clause 1: The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State;—between Citizens of different States;—between a State, of the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects. Clause 2: In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. Clause 3: The trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.

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Section 3: Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on; the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. Clause 2: The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted. ARTICLE TV Section 1: Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and Judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof. Section 2: Clause 1: The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. Clause 2: A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on demand of the executive Authority of the State from Which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime. Clause 3: No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due. Section 3: Clause 1: New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other

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State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress. Clause 2: The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State. Section 4: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence. ARTICLE V The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. ARTICLE VI Clause 1: All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation. Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;

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and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. Clause 3: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

ARTICLE VII The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same. Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have Hereunto subscribed our Names. George Washington—President and deputy from Virginia Delaware George Read Gunning Bedford, Jr. John Dickinson* Richard Bassett Jacob Broom Maryland James McHenry Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer Daniel Carroll Virginia John Blair James Madison, Jr. North Carolina William Blount

344 Richard Dobbs Spaight Hugh Williamson South Carolina John Rutledge Charles Cotesworth Pinckney Charles Pinckney Pierce Butler Georgia William Few Abraham Baldwin New Hampshire John Langdon Nicholas Gilman Massachusetts Nathaniel Gorham Rufus King Connecticut William Samuel Johnson Roger Sherman New York Alexander Hamilton New Jersey William Livingston David Brearley William Paterson Jonathan Dayton Pennsylvania Benjamin Franklin Thomas Mifflin Robert Morris George Clymer

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Thomas Fitzsimons Jared Ingersoll James Wilson Gouverneur Morris Attest: William Jackson, Secretary * Since the sickly John Dickinson had left the Convention before September 17th; fellow Delaware delegate George Read signed his name. AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION Amendment I (1791) Congress shall make no law respect an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Amendment II (1791) A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed. Amendment III (1791) No Soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. Amendment TV (1791) The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Amendment V (1791) No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for

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the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. Amendment VI (1791) In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. Amendment VII (1791) In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the Rules of the common law. Amendment VIII (1791) Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. Amendment IX (1791) The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Amendment X (1791) The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Amendment XI (1798) The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or subjects of any foreign state.

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Amendment XII (1804) The Electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists Of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;—the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;—The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the VicePresident shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.—The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if not person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of VicePresident of the United States.

Amendment XIII (1865) Section 1 Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

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Section 2 Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Amendment XTV (1868) Section 1 All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Section 2 Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representation in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. Section 3 No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability. Section 4 The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But nei-

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ther the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. Section 5 The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Amendment XV (1870) Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XVI (1913) The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Amendment XVII (1913) The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures. When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct. This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

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Amendment XVIII (1919) Section 1 After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction hereof for beverage purposes hereby prohibited. Section 2 The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Section 3 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided by the Constitution, within seven years from the date of submission hereof to the States by the Congress. Amendment XIX (1919) The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Amendment XX (1933) Section 1 The terms of the President and Vice-President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin. Section 2 The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day. Section 3 If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice-President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify,

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then the Vice-President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice-President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice-President shall have qualified. Section 4 The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice-President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them. Section 5 Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article. Section 6 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission. Amendment XXI (1933) Section 1 The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. Section 2 The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited. Section 3 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

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Amendment XXII (1951) Section 1 No person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of the President or acting as President during the remainder of such term. Section 2 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress. Amendment XXIII (1961) Section 1 The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice-President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if lit were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice-President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment. Section 2 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Amendment XXTV (1964) Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice-President, for electors for President or Vice-

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President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. Section 2 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Amendment XXV (1967) Section 1 In case of the removal of the President from office or his death or resignation, the Vice-President shall become President. Section 2 Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice-President, the President shall nominate a Vice-President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both houses of Congress. Section 3 Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice-President as Acting President. Section 4 Whenever the Vice-President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice-President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice-President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not

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in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice-President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office. Amendment XXVI (1971) Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of age. Section 2 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Amendment XXVII (1992) No law varying the compensation for services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

SELECTED ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Beard, Charles A. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913, 1935. A highly controversial interpretation, which has sparked spirited debate ever since its initial publication in 1913 and, which has been largely refuted by subsequent scholarship. Berkin, Carol. A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2002. A well-written, informative, concise narrative on the writing and ratification of the Constitution. Billias, George Athan. Elbridge Gerry: Founding Father and Republican Statesman. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1976. The standard, thoroughly well-researched, single-volume biography of the "consistently inconsistent," controversial, quixotic Marblehead merchant. Boardman, Robert Sherman. Roger Sherman: Signer and Statesman..New York: Da-Capo Press, 1971. The standard, "modern" biography of the deceivingly clever and influential leader of the important Connecticut delegation. Bowen, Catherine Drinker. Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention May to September 1787. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1966. An engagingly written, authoritative study of the day-to-day debates at the Convention. Narrative history at its best. Brookhiser, Richard. Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution. New York: The Free Press, 2003. An engagingly written biography of the colorful, politically conservative New York aristocrat who served as a delegate from Pennsylvania. Brown, Robert E. Charles Beard and the Constitution: A Critical Analysis of "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution." Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956. In this brief, but persuasive analysis, Professor Brown calls into question some of Beard's research methods. He asserts that many of Beard's conclusions were based on faulty or non-existent sources. This is a plausible indictment of the controversial Beard interpretation.

356

Selected Annotated Bibliography

Carr, William G. The Oldest Delegate: Franklin in the ConstitutionallConvention.n.. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990. An informative analysis of Franklin's conciliatory role at the Convention. This study goes a long way in successfully refuting Charles A. Beard's contention that Franklin, "at the time of the Convention, was so advanced in years as to be of little real weight in the formation of the Constitution." Charleton, James H., Robert G. Ferris, and Mary C. Ryan, eds. Framers of the Constitution. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1986. A popularly written survey of the historical background and drafting of the Constitution. It includes brief biographical sketches of all fifty-five delegates. Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton..New York: Penguin Press, 2004. A highlyy readable, almost exhaustive biography that incorporates most of the most recent scholarship on the enigmatic West Indian immigrant. Conley, Patrick T , and John P. Kaminski, eds. The Constitution and the States: The Role of The Original Thirteen in the Framing and Adoption of the Federal Constitution..Madison, Wisconsin: Madison House, 1988. An authoritativee survey of each of the thirteen states during the period of the Convention and the ratification controversy. Many of the state surveys contain worthwhile biographical sketches of some of the more prominent men involved in the framing and ratification of our country's second Constitution. Cooke, Jacob E. Alexander Hamilton..New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 19822.. The best single-volume biography of the often cryptic New Yorker. Crosskey, William Winslow. Politics and the Constitution in the History of the United States. 3 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953, 1980. Although intended to be a scholarly study into the original intent of the framers, this exhaustive three-volume work is known primarily for its vitriolic attack on James Madison as a recorder of the Convention debates. Professor Crosskey states that Madison, in retirement, revised, sometimes drastically, his original Convention notes. Therefore he concludes that Madison's notes, published in 1840, are not at all an accurate account of the Convention's debates. Ernst, Robert. Rufus King: American Federalist. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968. The well-researched, definitive biography of the largely unheralded Federalist stalwart and last Federalist candidate for president. Fairfield, Roy P., ed. The Federalist Papers. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1961. One of many readily available paperback editions of this classic commentary on the Constitution. Written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to promote ratification of the Constitution primarily in New York, these eighty-five essays remain the most useful contemporary commentary on the work of the Grand Convention. Farrand, Max. The Framing of the Constitution of the United States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1913. A somewhat outdated but still useful survey of the framing of the Constitution by the editor of the extremely valuable The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Farrand, Max. ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Rev. ed. 4 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966, 1987. This is the indispensable primary source for any serious research on the Constitutional Con-

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357

vention. It contains most of the extant journals kept by the delegates including the rather extensive notes of James Madison and Robert Yates as well as the notes taken by the Convention secretary Major William Jackson of South Carolina. Volume 4 of this valuable series is a supplement ably edited by James H. Hutson (at the time of publication, Dr. Hutson was the Chief of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress) which summarizes newly discovered manuscripts not earlier available to Max Farrand and also numerous letters written to and from the delegates. Dr. Hutson also included, in his 1987 supplement, an exceedingly useful and complete index. Flexner, James Thomas. Washington: The Indispensable Man. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969. The most informative, authoritative, single-volume biography of "The Father of His Country." Narrative biography at its best. Flower, Milton E. John Dickinson: Conservative Revolutionary. Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1983. This is the long-needed definitive biography of Dickinson that should go far to gain for the Framer the historical esteem that has so far eluded him. Freeman, Joanne B., ed. Alexander Hamilton: Writings. New York: The Library of America, 2001. A well-edited, recently published collection of Hamilton letters, writings, and state papers in the extremely useful The Library of America series, which is making readily available the writings of prominent American statesmen, politicians, and literary figures. Hutson, James H. "John Dickinson at the Federal Constitutional Convention." William and Mary Quarterlyy3, no. 40 (1983): 256-282. An informative article that summarizes newly discovered journals and memoranda of Convention delegates not available to Max Farrand when he first published his classic The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Jensen, Merrill. The New Nation: A History of the United States during the Confederation, 1781-1789. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950. An excellent, informative survey of the confederation period leading up to the Constitutional Convention. Jillson, Calvin C. Constitution Making: Conflict and Consensus in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Agathon Press, Inc., 1988. After a careful analysis of the roll-call voting record of the Philadelphia Convention, the author takes the middle ground between the two major historical interpretations by concluding that the delegates were motivated by high ideals and economic, social, and political self-interest. Lemay, J. A. Leo, ed. Benjamin Franklin: Writings. New York: The Library of America, 1987. An indispensable collection of the more important writings of the prolific Franklin. Includes hundreds of letters, Poor Richard's Almanack, and The Autobiography. McDonald, Forrest. We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958. In this re-examination of Charles A. Beard's economic interpretation of the Constitution, Professor McDonald challenges some of Beard's assertions. McLaughlin, Andrew C. The Confederation and the Constitution, 1783-17899.Neww York: Collier Books, 1962. A brief introduction to the Confederation Period and the making of the U.S. Constitution by a leading historian and constitutional scholar.

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Mee, Charles L., Jr. The Genius of the People. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. An informative account of the drafting of the Constitution by a popular writer to celebrate the two-hundredth anniversary of that momentous undertaking. Mitchell, Broadus, and Louise Mitchell. A Biography of the Constitution of the United States: Its Origin, Formation, Adoption, Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964. An informative review of the making and ratifying of the Constitution and its subsequent interpretation in statutes and court decisions. Morgan, Edmund S. Benjamin Franklin. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. The most authoritative short biography among the plethora of recently published biographies of the remarkable Franklin. Morris, Richard B. Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries..New York: Harper &c Row, 1973. Concise, informative biog-raphical sketches of seven of the leading revolutionary leaders, four of whom (Franklin, Washington, Madison, and Hamilton) played significant roles at the Philadelphia Convention. Peters, William. A More Perfect Union: The Making of the United States Constitution. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1987. A popularly written chronicle of the momentous constitutional undertaking in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787. Peterson, Merrill D., ed. Thomas Jefferson: Writings. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1984. An invaluable collection of letters and most important writings of the erudite Jefferson, edited by a leading Jeffersonian biographer and scholar. Rakove, Jack N. Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. The best scholarly analysis of the concept of "originalism," which is defined as discovering the original intent of the framers so as to reaffirm the Constitution's founding principles. Rossiter, Clinton. 1787: The Grand Convention. New York: W W Norton & Company, 1966. A masterful account of the crafting of the constitution. Contains, in the extremely useful Appendix, copies of the Articles of Confederation, the Virginia Plan, the Report of the Committee of the Whole of June 13, 1787, the New Jersey Plan, Resolutions Referred to the Committee of Detail of July 26, 1787, and the Constitution as Reported by the Committee of Detail of August 6, 1787, as well as the final draft of the Constitution as signed on September 17, 1787. Van Doren, Carl. Benjamin Franklin. New York: The Viking Press, 1938. Van Doren, Carl. The Great Rehearsal: The Story of the Making and Ratifying of the Constitution of the United States. New York: The Viking Press, 1948. Although somewhat outdated, Van Doren has written a highly readable account of both the drafting and ratifying of the fundamental charter of liberty. Warren, Charles. The Making of the Constitution. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1967. The classic, but somewhat outdated, study of the Constitutional Convention by a leading early twentieth-century constitutional scholar. Zahniser, Marvin R. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney: Founding Father. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1967. An informative, well-researched, and well-written biography of the well-educated South Carolina nabob.

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ELECTRONIC RESOURCES Charter of Freedom, http://www.archives.gov/nationalarchivesexperience/charters/ Charters.html. This site contains numerous facsimiles, transcripts, and background information on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Includes brief biographical sketches of the delegates. Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787. http://www.constitution.org/dfc/dfc OOOO.htm. Provides an excellent annotated version of James Madison's Convention journal. Founders' Constitution, http://press-pus.uchicago.edu/founders/. Contains a plethora of useful information on the drafting of the Constitution. Historical Text Archive. http://www.msstate.edu/Archives/History. Useful collection of significant primary documents including sections on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. History Channel, http://www.historychannel.org. Excellent introduction to a variety of links dealing with all aspects of the discipline of history. Index of Resources for Historians, http://www.ukans.edu/history. Over a thousand links to historical sites, conveniently arranged alphabetically by general topic. Internet Archive of Texts and Documents, http://www.history.hanover.edu/texts. html. Listing of primary sources arranged chronologically, geographically, and by subject. Library of Congress, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/. Contains a rich documentary history of the founding of the nation. Includes Max Farrand's The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). http://www.nara.gov/. The official depository for U.S. government documents. Teaching American History, http://www.teachingamerlicanhistory.org/convention. This site provides a variety of useful tools for teachers.

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INDEX Adams, John, 8-9, 15, 19, 75 Adams, John Quincy, 17, 315 Adams, Samuel, 15, 66, 73, 108 "Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress," 95 Agricultural interests at Convention, 4 Alien and Sedition Acts, 186, 192, 226, 279 American Revenue Act. See Sugar Act (1764) Annapolis Convention (1786), 12-13, 122, 131 Armstrong, John, Jr., 12 Baldwin, Abraham, 22-25; at Constitutional Convention, 23; early life, 22; early political life, 23; education, 22-23; and Electoral College, 24; Franklin College (later University of Georgia), 25; military service, 23; as Republican, 24; supports small states, 23 Bank of New York, 137 Bank of North America, 55, 222, 230 Bank of the United States. See First Bank of the United States; Second Bank of the United States Banking interests at Convention, 4 Bassett, Richard, 12, 26-28; early life, 26; early political life, 26, 27-28;

education, 26; James Madison on, 27; marriage, 28; William Pierce on, 27; during Revolutionary War, 26; voting record, 27 Bedford, Gunning, Jr., 4, 29-32; at Constitutional Convention, 32; education, 31; favors small states, 2 9 30; Great Compromise, 31; marriage, 31; William Pierce on, 31; political life, 31; Robert Yates on, 30 Benson, Egbert, 12 Berlin and Milan Degrees, 93 Blair, John, 33-34; early life, 33; education, 33; James Madison on, 34; William Pierce on, 33-34; political life, 33-34; protests Townshend Taxes, 33 Blount, William, 35-38; early life, 35; education, 35; marriage, 37; military service, 35; Native Americans, 37; William Pierce on, 36; political life, 34-35; slavery, 36 Boston Massacre (1770), 147 Boston Port Act (1774), 200 Boston Tea Party (1773), 296 Brearley, David, 17, 39-41; early life, 39; education, 39, 40; marriage, 41; William Pierce on, 40; political life, 39-40; Revolutionary War, 39; supports small states, 40

362 Britain, U.S. relations with: British West Indies, 7; Northwest Territories, 8 British East India Company, 54 British West Indies, 7 Broom, Jacob, 42-44; early life, 42; Electoral College, 44; Great Compromise, 43; marriage, 42; William Pierce on, 42; political life, 42; supports small states, 43 Burr, Aaron, 64, 65, 197, 198, 2 5 9 260 Butler, Pierce, 19, 45-49; early life, 45; Great Compromise, 47; marriage, 45; military service—British army, 45; military service—Revolutionary War, 45-46; William Pierce on, 46; political life, 48; slavery, 46, 47 Caribbean trade, 7 Carroll, Charles (of Carrollton), 15 Carroll, Daniel, 16, 50-53; on committee for location of the District of Columbia, 53; early life, 50; education, 50-51; marriage, 51; William Pierce on, 50, 52-53; political life, 51, 53; during Revolutionary War, 51; supports small states, 52 Caswell, Richard, 15, 35, 59, 191, 276 Charter of Liberty, 55, 108, 262, 302, 309 Chase, Samuel, 11, 197 Cherokee Indians, 37, 57 Chickasaw Indians, 8 Choctaw Indians, 8 City Tavern, 2 1 , 233, 291 Clarke, Abraham, 12, 15 Clymer, George, 12, 54-57; business, 54, 55; early life, 54; first president of the Philadelphia Bank, 57; founds Bank of North America, 55; marriage, 54; military service, 55; Native Americans, 57; William Pierce on, 56; political life, 55-56;:aand Tea Act of 1773, 54-55; Virginia Plan, 56

Index Coercive Acts (1774), 147, 200, 286 Commercial interests at Convention, 4 Connecticut Compromise. See Great Compromise (1787) Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament, 302 Constitution of 1787, 14, 16 Constitutional Convention (1787): general description of delegates, 14-19; invitations issued, 13; official journal, 17-19, 314-315; stepping stones to, 10 Coxe, Tench, 12 Creek Indians, 37, 57, 89 Currency Act (1764), 70 Dana, Francis, 15, 108-109, 158 Davie, William Richardson, 58-61; early life, 58; education, 58; Great Compromise, 59-60; marriage, 59; military service, 58-59; William Pierce on, 58; political life, 59; University of North Carolina, 60-61; war with France, 60 Dayton, Jonathan, 15, 62-65; Aaron Burr, 64, 65; early life, 62; and Hamiltonian Fiscal Program, 64; Jay Treaty, 64; marriage, 65; military service, 62; William Pierce on, 63; political life, 63, 64; supports Louisiana Purchase, 64; supports New Jersey Plan, 63-64; Whiskey Rebellion, 64 Delegates to Constitutional Convention, general description, 14-19 Dickinson, John, 12-13, 19, 66-82; John Adams on, 75; drafts Articles of Confederation, 74; early life, 66; education, 67; "Fabius Letters," 79, 80-81; Farmer Letters, 71, 72, 73; favors three-branch government, 7 7 78; and King George III, 74; Great Compromise, 80-81; health, 80; marriage, 68, 75; New Jersey Plan, 77; Louis Otto on, 76; William Pierce on, 75-76; political life, 6669, 75, 81; portrait, 68; supports

Index small states, 74; and taxation, 6 9 72; Townshend Acts, 71-72, 73 Dickinson Plan, 79 District of Columbia, location of, 53 Divisions at the Convention, 2-6 Electoral College, 24, 115-116; and Jacob Broom, 44; and Daniel Carroll, 52 Ellsworth, Oliver, 83-87; early life, 83; education, 83; Letters of a Landholder,,86-87; William Pierce on, 84; political life, 83-84, 87; slavery, 85-86; supports small states, 84; urges phrase "United States" be used in Constitution, 86 Embargo of 1807-1809, 93, 186 English Common Law, 68 Erie Canal, 226 Essay on Comets, An, 296 Experiments upon the Human Bile and Reflections on the Biliary Secretions, 205 "Fabius Letters" (1788), 79, 80 Fairfax Resolves, 200 Farmer Refuted, The, 125 Farrand, Max, 182, 211 Fauchet Affair, 259, 260 Federalist Papers, The, 136, 178, 185 Few, William, 88-90; early life, 88, 89; education, 89; William Pierce on, 88; political life, 89-90 First Bank of the United States, 161, 222, 226 Fitzsimons, Thomas, 12, 16, 91-93; banking, 93; business, 91, 93; early life, 91; Great Compromise, 92; marriage, 91; military service, 91; William Pierce on, 92; political life, 91-93; Virginia Plan, 92 France, U.S. relations with, 9, 87, 93 Franklin, Benjamin, 15, 69, 94-106; business, 95, 96-98; Declaration of Independence, 100; early life, 9 4 95; education, 94; in England, 96, 98-99; in France, 100-101; Great Compromise, 103; health, 105;

363 "Hutchinson Letters" affair, 99-100; inventions, 97-98; marriage, 97; William Pierce on, 102; political life, 97-101; publications, 95-96; slavery, 105; and Treaty of Paris, 101 Free Thoughts on Congress, 125 French and Indian War, 74, 98, 285 French Revolution, 225 Full Vindication of the Measures of the Continental Congress, A, 125 Fur trade, 8 George III: and diplomatic snub to John Adams, 8; and Olive Branch Petition, 74 Gerry, Elbridge, 19, 107-113; business, 108, 111; early life, 108; education, 108; in France, 112; Great Compromise, 110-111; Louis Otto on, 109; William Pierce on, 109; political life, 108, 111, 112, 113; Revolutionary War, 108; Shays' Rebellion, 108 Gilman, Nicholas, 114-116; early life, 114; William Pierce on, 114-115; political life, 114, 116 Gorham, Nathaniel, 117-121; business, 117, 120; early life, 117; Great Compromise, 119; William Pierce on, 118; political life, 117; Revolutionary War, 118 Grand Convention. See Constitutional Convention (1787) Great Compromise (1787), 5, 6, 14, 20-21, 80; and Gunning Bedford, Jr., 31; and William Richardson Davie, 60; and John Dickinson, 7879, 80; and Benjamin Franklin, 103; and Elbridge Gerry, 110-111; and Nicholas Gilman, 114; and William Houstoun, 144; and William Samuel Johnson, 154; and William Livingston, 174, 176; and James Madison, Jr., 183-184; and Luther Martin, 196; and Gouverneur Morris, 223; and Charles Pinckney, 245; and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 252; and John Rutledge, 269; and Roger Sherman, 274; and Hugh

364 Williamson, 297, 298; and James Wilson, 304 Great Debate (large state vs. small state), 5, 14; dates, 20 Hamilton, Alexander, 10, 12, 13, 19, 122-139, 176, 185; appointed Secretary of the Treasury, 127, 137; and Aaron Burr, 138; business, 124; draft of U.S. Constitution, 135-136; early life, 123; education, 124-125, 126, 176-177; journal notes of, 18; marriage, 129, 130; military service, 126-129, 137; William Pierce on, 132; political life, 122, 130-131; proposes Hamiltonian Plan, 135; publications, 124, 125, 130, 136; and Maria Reynolds, 129-130 Hamiltonian Fiscal Program, 64, 135, 186, 259, 274, 282 Henry, Patrick, 15 House of Commons, 68 House of Lords, 68 Houston, William Churchill, 12, 140142; early life, 140; education, 140; military service, 141; political life, 141 Houstoun, William, 143-145; early life, 143; Great Compromise, 144; William Pierce on, 143-144; political life, 143 "Hurricane Letter," 124 "Hutchinson Letters" affair, 99-100 Impost of 1781, 7, 122, 180, 230 Impost of 1783, 122 Indian Queen Tavern, 2 1 , 180-181, 201, 233, 268, 281, 291, 297 Indians. See Native Americans (Indians) "Information to Those Who Would Remove to America," 95 Ingersoll, Jared, 146-149; early life, 146; education, 146; marriage, 147; New Jersey Plan, 148; William Pierce on, 147; political life, 146147, 149 Interest groups at Convention, 2-6

Index Intolerable Acts. See Coercive Acts (1774) Iroquois Indians, 98 Jackson, William, 21; journal notes of, 17, 19, 314-315 Jay, John, 9, 10, 176, 185 Jay Treaty (1794), 48, 64, 111, 259, 282 Jay-Gardoqui Agreement, (1786), 9 Jefferson, Thomas, 14, 15, 17 Jenifer, Daniel of St. Thomas, 150153; early life, 150; William Pierce on, 150, 152; political life, 150-152, 153 Johnson, William Samuel, 154-156; early life, 155; education, 155; Great Compromise, 154; William Pierce on, 154; political life, 155-156 Jones, Willie, 15 Journal, Acts and Proceedings of the Convention, 18 King, Charles R., 18 King, Rufus, 157-162; early life, 157; education, 157-158; Great Compromise, 160; journal notes of, 18, 157-162; Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, 159; in London, 161, 162; marriage, 162; William Pierce on, 159; political life, 158, 161; slavery, 160; Virginia Plan, 159-160; T. P. Brissot de Warville on, 157 Knox, Henry, 14 Land Ordinance (1785), 10 Langdon, John, 163-167; business, 164; early life, 164; education, 164; Louis Otto on, 163-164; William Pierce on, 163; political life, 164, 165, 167; Revolutionary War, 164165; slavery, 166 Lansing, John, Jr., 18, 168-172; early life, 168; marriage, 168; military service, 168; New Jersey Plan, 169; William Pierce on, 169; political life, 168-169, 171 Large-state plan. See Virginia Plan

Index Large states split at Convention, 4 Late Regulations Respecting the British Colonies . . . Considered, 70 Lee, Richard Henry, 15, 55 Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies, 71 Letters of a Landholder, 86-87 "Letters of Fabius" (1788), 79 Liberty (ship), 45 "Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," 95 Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, 159 Lincoln, Benjamin, 14 , 242, 249 Livingston, William, 173-177; early life, 173; education, 173; Alexander Hamilton, 176-177; James Madison on, 175; marriage, 176; New Jersey Plan, 175-176; Louis Otto on, 175; William Pierce on, 175; political life, 173; publications, 173-174 Louisiana Purchase, 64 Madison, James, Jr., 5, 10, 11, 12, 2 1 , 178-188; Convention notes, 18, 19, 182, 187, 314-315; early life, 178; education, 178-179; Federalist Papers, 178, 185; Great Compromise, 183; marriage, 187; Louis Otto on, 181-182; William Pierce on, 181; political life, 179-180, 186-187; as president, 187; slavery, 180; Virginia Plan, 182-183; War of 1812, 187 Martin, Alexander, 189-192; early life, 189; education, 189; military service, 190; William Pierce on, 190; political life, 189-190, 191-192 Martin, Luther, 5, 193-198; and Aaron Burr, 197, 198; early life, 193; education, 193; Great Compromise, 196; James Madison on, 195196; marriage, 197; military service, 193-194; New Jersey Plan, 194195; Louis Otto on, 194; William Pierce on, 194; political life, 193, 194, 196-197 Mason, George, 11, 199-204; drafts

365 Virginia Declaration of Rights, 200, 203; early life, 199; education, 199; and Fairfax Resolves, 200; journal notes of, 18; marriages, 199; political life, 200; slavery, 202; Virginia Plan, 201 McClurg, James, 205-208; education, 205; James Madison on, 206; marriage, 205; medical career, 205, 207; William Pierce on, 206; political life, 206; Revolutionary War, 205 McHenry, James, 209-212; early life, 209; education, 209; journal notes, 18, 209-212; William Pierce on, 209; political life, 210, 212; Revolutionary War, 209 Mercer, John Francis, 213-215; early life, 214; education, 214; marriage, 214; military service, 214; political life, 215 Mifflin, Thomas, 216-219; business, 216; early life, 216; James Madison on, 218; military service, 217; William Pierce on, 218; political life, 216-217, 218-219 Mississippi River, 8, 9, 244 Missouri Compromise (1820), 161, 247 Monroe, James, 17, 161, 258 Morris, Gouverneur, 10, 19, 220-228; accident, 226; business, 222, 2 2 5 226; drafts U.S. Constitution, 2 2 4 225; early life, 220; education, 220; Erie Canal, 226; in France, 225; Great Compromise, 223, 224; health, 227; marriage, 227; military service, 221; Louis Otto on, 223; William Pierce on, 222-223; political life, 221-222, 226; slavery, 2 2 3 224; Virginia Plan, 223 Morris, Robert, 7, 10, 12, 229-233; business, 229, 231, 233; early life, 229; Louis Otto on, 230; and Thomas Paine, 231; William Pierce on, 230-231; political life, 229-230, 232, 233; Virginia Plan, 232 Mount Vernon Conference (1785), 11, 122, 152; and George Washington, 288

366 National Excise Tax, 93, 137 Nationalist split at Convention, 4 Native Americans (Indians), 8; and William Blount, 37; and Spain, 9. See also names of individual tribes Nelson, Thomas, 15 New Jersey Plan, 76-77; and David Brearley, 40; and Jacob Broom, 43; and Daniel Carroll, 52; and Jonathan Dayton, 63; and John Dickinson, 73-74, 78, 79; and Alexander Hamilton, 134, 135; and Jared Ingersoll, 148; and Rufus King, 160; and John Lansing, Jr., 169; and William Livingston, 175176; and Luther Martin, 195; and William Paterson, 237, 238; and Robert Yates, 314 New Travels in the United States of America, 157 North-South split, 2; and Pierce Butler, 46. See also Slavery and slave trade Northwest Ordinance (1787), 10 Northwest Territories, 8 Old London Coffeehouse, 21 Olive Branch Petition (1775), 74 Otto, Louis, on: Jonathan Dayton, 63; Oliver Ellsworth, 84; William Few, 88; Elbridge Gerry, 109; Alexander Hamilton, 132-133; John Langdon, 163-164; William Livingston, 175; James Madison, Jr., 181-182; Luther Martin, 194; Gouverneur Morris, 223; Robert Morris, 230; Edmund Randolph, 255; John Rutledge, 268; George Washington, 290; Hugh Williamson, 297; James Wilson, 303-304 Paine, Thomas, 231 Paterson, William, 19, 234-238; early life, 234; education, 234; journal notes, 18; James Madison on, 2 3 6 237; William Pierce on, 235-236; political life, 235, 238; presents New Jersey Plan, 76-77, 236, 237 Paterson Plan. See New Jersey Plan

Index Peale, Charles Willson, 68 Pennsylvania Gazette, 97 Philadelphia Convention. See Constitutional Convention (1787) Philadelphia Police Force, 97 Pierce, William Leigh, 144, 239-241; autobiographical sketch, 240; business, 239; early life, 239; journal of, 18, 239; marriage, 239; military service, 239; political life, 239-240; supports small states, 240 Pierce, William Leigh, on: Abraham Baldwin, 23; Richard Bassett, 27; Gunning Bedford, Jr., 31; John Blair, 33-34; William Blount, 36; David Brearley, 40; Jacob Broom, 42; Pierce Butler, 46; Daniel Carroll, 50, 52-53; George Clymer, 56; William Richardson Davie, 58; Jonathan Dayton, 63; John Dickinson, 75; Oliver Ellsworth, 84; William Few, 88; Thomas Fitzsimons, 92; Benjamin Franklin, 102; Elbridge Gerry, 109; Nicholas Gilman, 114-115; Nathaniel Gorham, 118; Alexander Hamilton, 132; William Houstoun, 143; Jared Ingersoll, 147; Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, 150, 152; William Samuel Johnson, 154; Rufus King, 159; John Langdon, 163; John Lansing, Jr., 169; William Livingston, 175; James Madison, Jr., 181; Alexander Martin, 190; Luther Martin, 194; James McClurg, 206; James McHenry, 209; Thomas Mifflin, 218; Gouverneur Morris, 2 2 2 223; Robert Morris, 230-231; William Paterson, 235; Charles Pinckney, 244; Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 250; Edmund Randolph, 256; George Read, 263; Roger Sherman, 273; Richard Dobbs Spaight, 277; Caleb Strong, 281; George Washington, 290; Hugh Williamson, 297; James Wilson, 304; George Wythe, 310; Robert Yates, 314 Pinckney, Charles, 11, 242-247; early life, 242; education, 242; Great

Index Compromise, 245-246; marriage, 246; military service, 242-243; William Pierce on, 244; political life, 243, 246-247; Virginia Plan, 244245 Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 16, 19, 248-254; early life, 248; education, 248-249; in France, 253; Great Compromise, 252; marriage, 250; military service, 249, 253; William Pierce on, 250; political life, 249, 250, 253; slavery, 251-252; Virginia Plan, 250-251 Plea of the Colonies, The, 196 Poor Richard's Almanack, 95 Post-Revolutionary War: depression, 8; inflation, 7 Practical Proceedings in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, 130 Proprietary Party, 69 Quartering Act (1765), 71 Randolph, Edmund, 12, 19, 255-260; Aaron Burr, 259-260; early life, 255; education, 255-256; Fauchet Affair, 259; military service, 256; Louis Otto on, 255; William Pierce on, 256; political life, 258, 259; Virginia Plan, 257 Randolph plan. See Virginia Plan Read, George, 12, 261-264; early life, 261; education, 261; marriage, 261; New Jersey plan, 263; William Pierce on, 263; political life, 264 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, The, 182 Regulator Movement (1770), 189 Restraining Act (1775), 71 Revolutionary War, French aid during, 9 Revolutionary War debts, 7 Reynolds Pamphlet,,1299 Robertson, Donald, 178 "Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One," 95 Rutledge, John, 19, 265-270; early life, 265; education, 265; Great

367 Compromise, 269; marriage, 270; Louis Otto on, 268; political life, 265-266, 267, 270; slavery, 269 Savannah Georgian, 239 Schuarman, James, 12 Second Bank of the United States, 161 Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Convention Assembled at Philadelphia, 314 Shays' Rebellion (1786-1787), 13-14, 108 Sherman, Roger, 19, 271-275; business, 272; early life, 271; education, 271; Great Compromise, 274; New Jersey Plan, 273-274; William Pierce on, 273; political life, 271-272, 274; publications, 272 "Silence Dogood" (essays), 95 Slavery and slave trade, 3, 166; and William Blount, 36; and British, 8; and Pierce Butler, 46, 47; and William Richardson Davie, 59-60; and Oliver Ellsworth, 85-86; and Benjamin Franklin, 105; and Rufus King, 160; and James Madison, Jr., 180; and George Mason, 202-203; and Gouverneur Morris, 223, 224; and Charles Pinckney, 248; and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 252; and Edmund Randolph, 259; and John Rutledge, 269; and Richard Dobbs Spaight, 277-278; and Threefifths compromise, 47; and George Washington, 286, 293; and George Wythe, 311 Small states split at Convention, 4 Small-State Plan. See New Jersey Plan Spaight, Richard Dobbs, 276-279; early life, 276; education, 276; Great Compromise, 278; marriage, 278; William Pierce on, 277; political life, 276-277, 278, 279; slavery, 277-278 Spain, U.S. relations with, 9, 64, 89 Stamp Act (1765), 70, 71, 72, 200; and Benjamin Franklin, 99; and John Rutledge, 266; and George Wythe, 309

368 States' rights split at convention, 4 Stay Laws, 8 Strong, Caleb, 280-282; early life, 280; education, 280; William Pierce on, 281; political life, 280, 281-282; supports large states, 281; wife, 282 Sugar Act (1764), 70, 71, 72, 200 Supplement to Max Farrand's The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 148 Tea Act (1773), 54-55, 147, 235, 286 Three-fifths compromise, 47, 180, 223-224, 269 Townshend Act (1767): and John Blair, 33; and Pierce Butler, 45; and John Dickinson, 71-73 Trade, post-war, 7 Treaty of Ghent (1814), 187 Treaty of Mortefontaine (1800), 87 Treaty of Paris (1893), 8, 287; and Benjamin Franklin, 101; and western lands, 10 Tucker, Saint George, 12 Union Fire Company, 97 Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), 200, 203 Virginia Plan, 19; and Gunning Bedford, Jr., 4, 29, 30; and John Blair, 34; and David Brearley, 40; and George Clymer, 56; and John Dickinson, 79; and Thomas Fitzsimons, 92; and Elbridge Gerry, 107; and Nathaniel Gorham, 119; and Alexander Hamilton, 131; and Rufus King, 159-160; and James Madison, Jr., 182-184; and George Mason, 201; and James McHenry, 211; and William Paterson, 236, 237; and Charles Pinckney, 244; and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 251; Edmund Randolph's explanation, 257; and Roger Sherman, 274; and Richard Dobbs Spaight, 277; and George Washington, 290; and James Wilson, 304; and Robert Yates, 314

Index War debts, 7 War of 1812, 161, 187, 212, 282 War of Independence. See Revolutionary War Warville, T. P. Brissot de, on Rufus King, 157 Washington, George, 10, 283-294; in Barbados, 284-285; early career, 284; early life, 283; education, 284; election to Presidency, 292; health, 293; marriage, 286; military service, 285-286, 287, 293; and Louis Otto, 290; William Pierce on, 290; political life, 286; Revolutionary War, 287-288; slavery, 293; supports Large-State Plan, 290 Whiskey Rebellion, 57, 64, 292 Williamson, Hugh, 295-300; business, 296; career, 295-296; early life, 295; education, 295; Great Compromise, 297-298; marriage, 299; military service, 296; Louis Otto on, 297; William Pierce on, 297; political life, 296-297, 298-299; publications, 297 Wilson, James, 10, 16, 19, 301-307; early life, 301; education, 301; Great Compromise, 304; health, 306; marriage, 306; military service, 302, 303; Louis Otto on, 303-304; William Pierce on, 304; political life, 301, 306; Virginia Plan, 304 Witherspoon, John, 31, 58, 62, 124, 310; on James Madison, Jr., 179 Wolcott, Erastus, 15 Wythe, George, 308-312; career, 309, 310; early life, 308; education, 308; William Pierce on, 310; political life, 308, 309, 310; slavery, 311 XYZ Affair, 112, 113,253 Yates, Robert, 313-317; Convention notes, 18, 314-315; early life, 313; education, 313; New Jersey Plan, 314; William Pierce on, 314; political life, 313-314, 316

About the Author JOSEPH C. MORTON is Professor Emeritus, Department of History, at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago where he taught early American history and biography for thirty-four years. Previous teaching assignments were at Waynesburg College, Waynesburg, Pennsylvania and, as a Visiting Professor, at Nanjing University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China. He is the author of twelve articles, forty-two book reviews and/or review articles, and The American Revolution (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003). With his wife Deanne, he lives in Arlington Heights, Illinois near their four children and grandchildren.