by Ron Carter
For a brief moment there was surprised silence, followed by open mutterings at the subtle attempt to appease those who did not want a national government ruled by the big states. Washington called them back to order, and Gorham declared from his desk, “I second the motion of Mr. Ellsworth.”
Edmund Randolph from Virginia rose and Washington recognized him.
“I do not object to the change of the expression ‘national,’” Randolph announced, “but I do give notice that I do not support it for the reasons given by Mr. Ellsworth, particularly that of getting rid of a reference to the people for ratification.”
A voice said, “Call for the vote.”
Jackson polled the delegates in turn, and the motion passed easily. The word “national” was deleted from all resolutions in the work done thus far by the committee of the whole.
Washington studied the daily agenda for a moment and continued. “We’ll take up the next resolution. That the legislature ought to consist of two branches.”
John Lansing of New York sat in his chair squirming, agitated, and then came to his feet. “The true question here is whether the convention will adhere to, or depart from, the foundation of the present confederacy. In short, our present government is founded on the Articles of Confederation, which provide for a congress that is of one, not two, houses. I repeat the two questions that have previously been before us. Does this convention have competent powers to eliminate the Articles of Confederation and the Congress which now serves as the basis for our government? And, is the mind of the people such that they will tolerate the abandonment of the government we now have and with which they are familiar?”
Lansing paused, drew a deep breath, and continued his now all-too-familiar disgorging of every conceivable reason that neither the convention nor the committee of the whole, had power to obliterate the Articles of Confederation, nor entertain any notions of a new legislature with two separate chambers—a senate and a house of representatives. Hot, irritated delegates bit down on their need to stand and shout: “We’ve heard all this before—let’s move on!” but the rules of the convention and the strict control exercised by Washington would not allow it. They sat and suffered as Lansing rambled on for half an hour, finally bringing his harangue to a close.
“Will anyone say the states will ever agree to abolishing the only government they have ever known and supporting a new one that is without precedent in the history of the world? I am absolutely convinced that the new government now under consideration is utterly unattainable. It is obvious that no one can foresee what will come to pass between the general government and the state governments. One, or the other, must fall, and be absorbed in the whole.”
He was in the act of sitting down when George Mason of Virginia rose, jaw firmly set, eyes blazing, and Washington recognized him.
Mason wasted no time. His voice rang echoing. “I did not expect this point would have to be reagitated!”
Washington raised a hand high and Mason clamped his mouth closed, waiting while Washington took a moment to let tempers cool in the hot room. A few eyes wandered to the windows, closed, drapes drawn, wishing fervently they could be flung open to catch any breath of air, regardless of the fact that with any fresh air would come swarms of Philadelphia’s infamous and notorious stinging flies. On the balance, there were some days that stinging flies were preferred to the insufferable heat and the tedium of the debate. Washington spoke with finality. “Be it remembered, gentlemen, that the Committee of the Whole is a parliamentary device which provides opportunity for discussions that are not final nor binding on anyone. The work of the committee is advisory only, subject to proper action of the convention. Debate on any issue is not closed until the committee is dissolved. Matters considered by the committee and voted on yesterday may be reopened by any delegate tomorrow, for any purpose. Let us continue. Mr. Mason, you have the floor.”
Mason, a fellow Virginian to Washington, brought himself under control and proceeded, hot, voice ringing as he piled argument upon argument against those just delivered by Lansing.
“Is it not true that this convention has met at a time in history when all the ordinary cautions must yield to the overpowering public need? Have we forgotten that the commissioners sent by the Confederation Congress to Great Britain to forge the peace treaty signed in 1783 had boldly cast aside the limitations given them by Congress, and attained an honorable and happy peace, and by so doing had raised to themselves a monument more durable than brass? Can it be thought that the people will ever grant power of both the purse and the sword to one single institution?—one congress with one chamber only? Will the people ever consent to a marching army coming to collect taxes?”
He paused to compose himself and then finished. “To make myself clear beyond any possibility of being misunderstood, I absolutely do not suggest that the states relinquish their sovereignty. Nor do I suggest that there is less a need to establish a general government to deal with all matters beyond the authority of any single state. To create a government that recognizes both is not an insurmountable thing.”
Mason sat down, breathing hard, and Luther Martin of Maryland rose and plowed into his discourse.
“I take this occasion to agree with Mr. Mason as to the importance of state governments. I will support them at the expense of the national government . . . there is no necessity for two branches in Congress, but should such necessity exist, the congress we now have can be divided into two branches. . . . When the thirteen states separated from Great Britain they chose to establish their new government under the Articles of Confederation, with one congress and thirteen separate sovereign states, and the thirteen states cannot now grant part of their sovereignty to a new national government without dissolving their own governments—and further, any system of a national court system would be inconsistent with state sovereignty.”
Martin quieted, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut rose to support John Lansing’s fervent speech against the creation of a congress composed of a house of representatives and a senate.
Sherman finished his lengthy statement, and James Wilson of Pennsylvania shoved his spectacles back up his nose and stood to deliver his all-too-familiar, rambling remarks that once again reached back into the long-forgotten histories of Amphyctyonic and Achaean, Swiss, German, and Austrian history to absolutely prove the necessity of a congress with a house and senate.
Sweating, growing visibly irritable, weary of the harangues that were now before them for the third time, the convention postponed further proceedings to vote on the proposition of John Lansing. Did the convention want the new congress to be a single chamber institution as it was under the Articles of Confederation?
Ayes. Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware.
Nays. Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia.
Four in favor, six against, one state divided. The new congress would not be a single chamber institution. Lansing’s dissertation and the five hours of repeat debates he had triggered had failed for the third time, and there were many who dearly hoped it was the last.
The Delaware delegation requested that the remaining issues of the day be postponed until tomorrow, June twenty-first, and a weary convention gratefully rose when Washington adjourned for the day.
* * * * *
The following morning, the delegates took their seats, Washington called the convention to order, and the delegates took a deep breath before they bit into the gritty and widely scattered details that danced around the issue they all knew was at the core of their debate. The stand-or-fall battle was going to be between those who doggedly hung with the Articles of Confederation and those who had forsaken them for a new government, and that issue was inexorably, one day at a time, coming to the surface. Until it finally did, they continued with the lesser issues.
What was the true nature of federalism? Johnson, Wilson, and Madison discoursed on the subject for hours.
On what foundations shoul
d the house of representatives be based? General Pinckney, Hamilton, Mason, Rutledge, Wilson, and King were kind enough, and long-winded enough, to leave no doubt on the subject.
Thursday blended into Friday, then Saturday, while the delegates hammered at the peripheral issues one at a time. Sunday brought a day of blessed relief from the grinding debates, and Monday and Tuesday, June twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh brought the delegates back to the East Room to endure more heat from both Philadelphia and the debates that addressed more fringe issues while carefully avoiding the explosive one in the center of it all. They gathered their strength and took the small issues one at a time.
What is the true nature of representation? Randolph, Dickinson, Ellsworth, Wilson, Madison, Hamilton, Sherman, and Mason each obligingly shared their wisdom on the question, which left the convention a bit more muddled and divided than when they started.
More critically, what are the causes, and the cures, of corruption in legislatures? Madison, Rutledge, Mason, King, Wilson, Sherman, and Gerry offered their views, covering every temptation known to mankind and the general fallibility of the human race.
What is the use, structure, and tenure of the senate to be? Both General Pinckney and his cousin Charles Pinckney, with Gorham, Wilson, Ellsworth, Williamson, Mason, Read, Madison, Sherman, Hamilton, and Gerry felt inspired to enlighten the convention with their well-considered thoughts, notwithstanding the sour and dour glares of those who disagreed.
How much compensation should a congressman be paid? And who should pay them, the new national government, or the states? Ellsworth declared that the states should decide that for themselves, while Gorham stoutly took issue, claiming that the compensation should be equal throughout, and that Congress should set their own wages. Madison defined the dilemma but did not resolve it when he argued that if congressional salaries are paid by the states, the congressmen will become dependent on, and obliged to, the states; however, allowing Congress to pay itself might be even worse! So, Madison concluded, let Congress set its own base amount for wages, and then index it against a dependable commodity, like wheat, so that the wage could rise or fall with the general fortunes of the country. Almost no one agreed and it was only concluded that the wages of congressmen should be “adequate.”
How old should a man be to serve as a congressman? Wilson argued against any age limitation. Mason reasoned that they ought to be at least twenty-five, since he could recall that his own political opinions at age twenty-one were both naïve and dangerous. Wilson lost, and Mason won. The minimum age for congressmen became twenty-five.
Young Charles Pinckney, the twenty-nine-year-old dandy from the prominent South Carolina Pinckneys, dressed in his silks and satins and lace, found occasion to blast a sizeable hole in Alexander Hamilton’s recommendations that the new constitution and government should follow the pattern of England. “Never!” declared young Pinckney. “The people of the United States are perhaps the most singular of any we are acquainted with. . . . A system must be suited to the habits and genius of the people it governs. What makes Americans so different from the rest of the world is their spirit of equality. Among Americans, there are fewer distinctions of fortune and less of rank than among the inhabitants of any other nation. Every freeman has a right to the same protection and security, and a very moderate share of property entitles them to the possession of all the honors and privileges the public can bestow.”
Pinckney’s pronouncements caught many by surprise, coming as they did from a man not yet thirty years of age. But Pinckney’s credentials included the fact he had voluntarily left wealth and leisure to fight in the ranks during the shooting war and, notwithstanding the wealth of his family, had served and survived in South Carolina politics to become a champion of the common man. He had paid his dues, and when he spoke, the delegates listened.
Through all the verbiage and dramatics and the heat and the frayed nerves, with Washington on the dais conducting the business with the delegates sitting as a convention, decisions were made that were fast becoming final.
The new congress would be two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Members of the House of Representatives would be elected by the people.
Members of the Senate would be elected by the state legislatures.
Members of the House of Representatives would have a two-year term.
Members of the Senate would have a six-year term, with one-third of the members to be replaced at two-year intervals.
The morning of Wednesday, June twenty-seventh dawned as sweltering as the previous few days had been, and the traffic in the prim streets of Philadelphia was no more nor less than the day before. The large hallway in the Statehouse saw the same judges and lawyers disappear into the Supreme Court chambers, and those conducting the affairs of the State of Pennsylvania hurrying from one office to another with papers in their hands.
Yet, there was a sense in the depressing heat that something was to happen in the East Room that day that none would forget as long as they lived. The delegates were all seated and Washington was stepping onto the dais before it hit them. They were through with the prologue, finished with all the peripheral details. They could no longer continue the dance around the ugly question that they had pushed into the background. Ominous, deadly, it would no longer remain buried. Today was the day the monster demanded to be unshackled and turned loose on the floor of the convention for the debate and the vote that could, and likely would, rip the entire convention into two irreconcilable factions and forever end the dream of a united America. Washington called the convention into session and within seconds after he opened the floor for issues and debate, John Rutledge of South Carolina laid it open.
“I move that the resolution of the committee of the whole which involved the most fundamental points, that is to say, the rules of selecting members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, be reopened for further consideration.”
He peered about, gauging the reaction of the delegates. Their eyes were bright, faces set; they were ready, even anxious for the battle that would for all time end this unbearable waiting. A few picked up papers and were in the act of rising when the voice of Luther Martin brought all heads around to stare at him in surprise.
Luther Martin of Maryland was seen by every other delegate as an unending surprise, often brilliant, articulate, but with thought sequences that were disconnected, confusing, often baffling. None could feel a close kinship to the man, since they never knew what to expect of him. Born on a small New Jersey farm in approximately 1748, he managed to make his way to Princeton College and graduated with honors in 1766. He taught school in Maryland for several years before entering the practice of law, to become a brilliant, although at times radical, lawyer. Along the way he had become addicted to strong drink, which had caused his face to take on a permanent ruddy cast. Stories were legendary and rampant of his appearances in court, obviously under the influence of liquor, to argue his cases brilliantly, and most often with resounding success. Some doubted that he could have done half so well had he been stone sober. Through political connections and his considerable reputation as a lawyer, he was appointed Attorney General of Maryland, then sent to Congress in 1784 and 1785, where he impressed his colleagues with two things: his astounding capacity to absorb strong drink and his powerful oratory. When appointed to attend the Grand Convention in Philadelphia, at least two of his fellow Maryland delegates, Daniel Carroll and Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, were less than happy to learn he would be with them.
Surprised, Washington straightened in his chair for a moment before he spoke. “Mr. Martin of Maryland has the floor.”
Within minutes it was obvious that Martin had braced himself with a healthy dose of medicinal brandy before arriving at the East Room. In the first half hour, his thoughts were disconnected, rambling, irrelevant. In the next half hour the other delegates could not relate what he was saying to the issue before the convention. Nor did the rules allow any
delegate to interrupt when another had been given the floor and was speaking. One hour became two, then three, as Martin rambled on. The other delegates, who in the previous days had at least shown a modicum of respect for others no matter how violently they might disagree with them, could no longer bear Martin’s oration. They turned stony eyes toward him, both unable and unwilling to hide their disgust.
More than three hours had passed before Martin, fatigued by the heat and his own fervent disgorging, concluded, and then brought open groans from almost every man in the room when he announced he sought leave to continue his sermon in the morning.
Washington took note of the request and adjourned for the day.
The following morning, Thursday, June twenty-eighth, Washington reluctantly gave the floor once again to Luther Martin. Emanating the scent of fine brandy, Martin resumed his ramblings where he had left them, and for more than three more hours again held forth. The other delegates were close to revolt when he finally exhausted his random thoughts and his voice, and sat down.
The essence of his six-hour diatribe, spread over most of two days, could have been delivered in five minutes: It was his opinion “ . . . that the general government ought to protect and secure the state governments. The cornerstone of a federal government is equality of votes. States may surrender this right, but if they do their liberties are lost. If I err on this point,” he declared, “it is the error of the head, not of the heart.”
