Legacy: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  So, in what might be called the most important vote in the history of our nation, only nine states took part, and in the counting I felt sick when the first three votes were negative. Then it was tied, then it was four against and one more negative would doom us, but the last two votes were yeas. The nation was saved by a vote of five of the little states out of thirteen, and that night I got drunk.

  After he sobered up, Simon reflected first on the great moral victory of that day, when delegates submerged their regional prejudices to form a union, and then on the moral cowardice of those same delegates, including himself:

  We have refused like cravens to even mention the word that haunts our nation. We delay and avoid and postpone, and if we continue to ignore our reponsibilities, this problem will stay with us and worsen until it destroys this nation.

  He was speaking, of course, of slavery, that dark and brooding presence which haunted all discussion and lurked in each meeting corner. Cudjoe the slave emerged everywhere, and the sullen problems he represented were discussed, solved, rejected, and discussed again, the second or third solution being little better than the first in technical terms and usually worse where the moral posture of a great nation was concerned.

  Of the original fifty-five delegates, some eighteen owned slaves, and of the signers, a dozen did. Some had only a few; others like George Mason, who abhorred slavery and favored manumission, had many. Washington was a slave owner, as were the two Pinckneys, Charles and Charles Cotesworth, and John Rutledge of South Carolina. Starr, whose family had always owned slaves and who had inherited seventeen prime hands, had inherited also a strong Virginia prejudice in favor of the institution, but his experiences at Princeton as a student and now in Philadelphia as a delegate had begun to make him insecure as to the future. Also, he found it both fascinating and perplexing that Washington had freed some of his slaves and that Mason looked upon slavery as a curse, despite his many slaves.

  ‘I’d be ready to free my slaves,’ he told his Southern friends at the Indian Queen, ‘if only some way could be worked out to have them keep tending the fields,’ but as soon as he said this, his friends started to argue. One said, in sharp comment: ‘There are really three Americas; our problem is to keep them all happy. The North, without slaves; the Deep South, which needs them for cotton and sugar; and lucky states like North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, which have them but whose climates are so kind, they could manage without them.’

  A clever man from Georgia pointed out something Simon had not considered before: ‘In Georgia and the hot lands west we must continue to import slaves. We’d be strangled if their importation was ended, as you suggested last night. But in Virginia? You’d make money if the importation was halted, because then you could ship the slaves you no longer need down to Georgia and sell them at great profit. As far as we’re concerned, you Virginians are as bad as the New Englanders.’

  As the debate, formal and informal, continued, Simon learned that the Convention could not escape dealing with four difficult slavery problems: Should it be outlawed altogther? If it was allowed to continue, should further importation from Africa be permitted? If a slave ran away from a plantation in the South to freedom in the North, would the federal government be obligated to return him to his rightful owner? And, most perplexing of all, should the slave be counted as the equal of the white man in allocating taxes and awarding seats in Congress? Debate on these inflammable questions produced some appalling statements.

  John Rutledge argued that religion and humanity had nothing to do with the importation of slaves. Financial interest alone was the governing principle with nations. And if the Northern states considered this carefully, they would not oppose the bringing in of more slaves, because the more slaves in the South, the more goods Northern traders would sell.

  Pierce Butler of South Carolina wanted the Constitution to state that fugitive slaves who sought freedom in the North were to be delivered like criminals to their owners in the South.

  And speaker after speaker hammered home the point that slaves were property, just like other material found on a plantation, and the South required assurance that their owners would be protected in their ownership and use of said property.

  Roger Sherman voiced the question that perplexed many Northerners: ‘Why should slaves, who are considered property in the South, be counted, when seats are being allocated, any more than cattle and horses in the North?’

  General Charles C. Pinckney had an inventive answer: ‘To include blacks equally with whites in determining representation is nothing more than justice. For the blacks are the peasants of the Southern states and are as productive of wealth as the laborers of the North. They add equally to the wealth of the nation, and, if you consider money as the sinews of war, to the strength of the nation. It would also be advantageous to the North, since the more representation the Southern states have, the more taxation they will pay.’

  Gouverneur Morris came out vigorously against slavery: ‘It is a nefarious institution. It is the curse of heaven on the states where it prevails.’ He said he would rather pay a tax to free all the Negroes in the United States than to see pro-slavery articles in the Constitution.

  Such tirades infuriated William Richardson Davie of North Carolina, who said it was high time to speak out. If the delegates refused to count blacks as at least three-fifths, the business of the Convention was at an end, and he intimated that North Carolina would withdraw.

  Of course, it was Gouverneur Morris who leaped up to challenge this threat of dissolution: ‘It has been said that it is high time to speak out. I will candidly do so. I came here to form a compact for the good of America. I am ready to do so with all the states. I hope, and believe, that all will enter into such a compact. If they will not, I am ready to join with any states that will.’ This was as grave a threat as Davie’s, but now Morris, in his ingratiating way, doubled back on all he had said previously, providing an image of urbane sweetness and conciliation. He said that since the compact was to be voluntary, it was vain for the Northern states to insist on demands that the Southern states would never agree to, and it was equally vain for the Southern states to require what the others could never admit, and so on, and so on.

  His bland efforts at conciliation proved fruitless, and when Starr met with his cabal at the Indian Queen, he found both the Southerners and the Northerners ready to break apart if their prejudices were not honored. Realizing that the Convention was in peril, he sought out Madison, and found, to his surprise, that this Virginia stalwart was in favor of naming a time limit after which the importation of slaves would be outlawed, suggesting 1800 as an acceptable date. Starr hurried back to his friends: ‘I think a compromise is possible,’ and a negative one was worked out: Congress could not ban importation prior to 1808 for those states existing in 1787, but it would be under no obligation to do so then.

  On the question of capturing runaway slaves who had gained their freedom and returning them to their bondage, the South won. The Constitution required this shameful act to be done.

  And then came the crucial question, the one involving morality, political power, tax money and the sanctity of private property. Division of opinion was clear-cut and regional. In allocating seats in the lower house of Congress, the South wanted each slave to be counted as one citizen, but the North argued: ‘If the slave has no political rights, he can’t be a citizen.’ Before this extremely emotional issue was solved, the South argued: ‘Since slaves are not citizens, they should not be counted when assessing federal taxes’ but the North reasoned: ‘We allocate taxes according to the count of the population, and whether a man is a citizen or not is beside the point.’

  As Simon explained one night to the other silent members of the Convention: ‘The South wants votes but no taxes. The North wants us to pay taxes but have no votes. We may break up on this one.’ The debate was prolonged and brilliant, with men of deep conviction wrestling with this most complex of problems. In the end, a subtle c
ompromise was reached, one with the gravest moral flaws but one which allowed the two sections of the nation to remain together for the time being.

  When up-to-date census figures were provided for the giving of seats and the collection of taxes, five black slaves would count as three white persons. There was no sensible justification for such a deal, but it was the best that could be worked out in 1787, and it would preserve the nation until 1861, when a civil war would rectify the matter—in blood.

  And now a most curious thing happened. Throughout a long summer, these fifty-five delegates had debated the slavery issue, using the word slave thousands of times, but when they were required to put their conclusions in writing, all of them, North and South alike, shied away from placing the word slave in what they were beginning to consider a sacred document. Men spoke urgently against using the word, but none gave the honest reason: that it would be totally improper to defile a document dedicated to freedom with a word which demonstrated that a large portion of the persons covered were not free.

  On the night it was decided, Simon Starr wrote in his notes:

  How shameful the circumlocutions we resorted to. Imported blacks from Africa are not slaves. They are ‘such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit.’ We were afraid to say simply ‘Fugitive slaves shall be returned to bondage,’ for the words were too ugly. Instead, we devised this beautiful evasion: ‘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.’ What in the world do such words mean? What crimes do they mask?

  Simon was not proud of himself or his colleagues that night.

  These informal evening discussions were never attended by three of the outstanding delegates: General Washington was too busy with the social leaders of Philadelphia; Benjamin Franklin was too infirm; and James Madison, the aloof scholar, remained in his room, mysteriously occupied. But one night Madison suddenly appeared at the edge of the group, a small unimpressive fellow in his late thirties, with a penetrating eye and a manner which indicated that he did not suffer fools easily.

  ‘Starr,’ he said in a voice so low that few could hear, and when Simon joined him he said nothing but indicated that they should move to his room. When the door was closed behind them, Starr saw a jumble of papers on and beside a low writing desk. Unable to imagine why Madison had summoned him, he turned to ask, when Madison said with the warmest interest: ‘I wasn’t aware you had attended the college in Princeton,’ and the friendly manner in which the words were spoken encouraged Simon to ask: ‘You, too?’

  Yes, some eight years before Simon attended that fine Presbyterian school to which so many Southern boys migrated, Madison had gained distinction there by his exceptional work; but now, as he and Simon talked about their college years, Madison said modestly: ‘Studies were easy. I went back for an extra year to take Hebrew and ethics.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A man must know many things … many different things.’ He reflected on this, then added: ‘When I was a member of the Continental Congress, and now here, I do believe I used each single item of history and philosophy and ethics I learned at college.’

  ‘And Hebrew?’

  ‘Studies like Hebrew toughen the mind.’

  ‘I’ve noticed in debate that you have a very organized mind.’

  ‘Why don’t you speak up? I’m told you’re effective in the night debates.’

  Starr bowed and asked an impertinent question: ‘When were you born, Mr. Madison?’

  ‘In 1751.’

  ‘You’re only eight years older than me. It seems impossible.’

  ‘Ah, Mr. Starr. Don’t despair. Those years were spent in constant study. And now I seek your help as a very bright young gentleman. On something I wrote some nights ago.’ With that, he lifted from his table a hefty stack of sheets containing meticulously written paragraphs and dated Monday, June 18. The entry began: ‘MR. HAMILTON had hitherto been silent on the business before the Convention, partly from respect to others whose superior abilities, age and experience rendered him unwilling to bring forward ideas dissimilar to theirs …’

  ‘You’re a friend of the colonel’s, are you not?’ Madison asked, and Simon replied without hesitating: ‘I revere him.’

  ‘Good! And you heard the long speech he delivered before he returned to New York?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You have my notes summarizing what I thought he said. I want you to read them carefully and point out any spots at which my memory might be doing him an injustice.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I was appalled at the strong monarchical nature of his recommendations—his obsequious respect for all things British.’

  ‘Sometimes there is that cast to his thought,’ Simon confessed, remembering his discussions with Hamilton. ‘But I didn’t think his remarks in the Convention …’

  ‘Good! As a friend of his, please show me where I might have introduced error.’

  Simon often told acquaintances of that extraordinary night of editorial work, but what they remembered most were his concluding remarks:

  So, long into the night, as I read Mr. Madison’s careful report of what Colonel Hamilton had said, I sat on one side of the lamp, he on the other, me reading intently, him writing furiously, and when I finished I asked: ‘What are you writing, Mr. Madison?’ and he said: ‘Each afternoon when the debate ends, I come here and try to report it faithfully speech by speech,’ and when I asked why he did this, since we had Major William Jackson as our paid secretary, he said: ‘In years to come the Republic may need an honest account of what really transpired.’

  So each day Mr. Madison rises early, has a frugal breakfast, reports to the Convention, engages vigorously in debate, speaks far more than most and with better effect, then comes home, dines sparingly, and drafts his account of what happened. He is not required to do this, and when I handed him back the Hamilton pages with the monarchical passages marked either yes or no, I asked him how many pages his journal covered, and he said with that great precision of mind which marked all he did: ‘I calculate there will be about a quarter of a million words.’ And all of this completed at night while the rest of us are arguing and drinking beer.

  In the latest stages of the long session, Simon added another portrait, which would be widely circulated after the death of both him and his subject:

  There was another delegate from Pennsylvania whom I came to know late and unfavorably. I seemed unable to apprehend him, for although he was only seven or eight years older than me, he had acquired such a suave manner, which he displayed at every opportunity, that I both loathed and envied him. He was Gouverneur Morris, big and plump and almost oily, with the habit of reaching out to touch anyone whom he was striving to best in an argument. He spoke far more than anyone else in the Convention, but when I listened closely to what he said, he seemed to come down on all sides of every argument, but he had the effective tactic of admitting at the beginning of one of his amusing speeches that yes, he did yesterday say that he was against this motion but that overnight conversation with those who knew more about it than he had convinced him that he was wrong, and then he would launch into a vigorous defense of his new position. I stopped listening to his first four speeches on any topic, waiting until he reached his fifth position, which sometimes made great sense, for he was not stupid, just lacking in character.

  What astounded me about Morris as I followed his wavering career was his effect upon women, for whenever a wife or daughter visited Philadelphia to stay with one of the delegates, there he was, like a gallant from the palace of Louis XIV paying court and kissing fingertips and uttering compliments that would make an ordinary man blush. He was reputed to be a dashing man with the ladies, and I noticed that when a tavern maid brought him a mug of ale, he treated he
r with the same exalted courtesy and courtship that he paid the wife of a wealthy businessman, and the tavern maid accepted his graciousness as if it were her right.

  All this, mind you, with a withered right arm damaged by boiling water when he was a child and a big, clanking wooden left leg, the consequence of a riding accident in his youth. He was Caliban, and I did not like him.

  But Simon penned a second report on Morris, and it has been this one which immortalizes the pompous ladies’ man:

  By late Saturday afternoon, 8 September 1787, we delegates felt that we had made all the decisions necessary to launch our young nation on a bold new course, but the various papers reporting our conclusions were a sad jumble. So General Washington instructed us to vote in secret for five of our members who would bring order into this chaos. When the votes were counted, five of our ablest men had been chosen, Hamilton and Madison among them, and they were handed the impossible task of setting our new government in order. They were to work Saturday night, all day Sunday, and submit their finished job on Monday—and it did indeed prove to be an impossible task. For on Monday they reported sleepily that they would require one extra day, and it was granted.

  To my surprise, Gouverneur Morris had been elected to this august body which would make all the final decisions, but when I asked my friends why, they reminded me: ‘He does have a way with words.’

  No written account exists of how the committee spent their three nights and two days, but word circulated that the members were aghast when they looked at the jumble of papers before them and realized that they faced twenty-three rambling, disorganized and sometimes contradictory articles which they must fashion into a coherent document. I believe, and so do others, that Morris stepped forward, gathered the mass into his arms, one good, one withered, and sat down to rewrite the whole. The other four, awed by the complexity of the task, were glad to have him try his hand.