by Ray Raphael
3. Politics
1.Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, August 30, 1787, Jefferson, Papers, 12:69, or Lester J. Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1959), 1:196. Also at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1887.
2.John Robert Irelan, The Republic, or, A History of the United States of America (Chicago: Fairbanks and Palmer, 1888), 15:164.
3.Joseph Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York: Knopf, 2000), 13.
4.Madison, Notes of Debates, May 29.
5.Madison to Thomas Ritchie, Sept 15, 1821, Kurland and Lerner, Founders’ Constitution, 1:74, document 28.
6.Jefferson to John Adams, August 30, 1787, Jefferson, Papers, 12:69, or Cappon, Adams-Jefferson Letters, 1:196. On general ideas of secrecy and what we call “the public’s right to know” in this period, see Daniel N. Hoffman, Governmental Secrecy and the Founding Fathers: A Study in Constitutional Controls (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981).
7.Paterson’s quote is from Robert Yates’s notes, not Madison’s, for June 16 (Farrand, Records of Federal Convention, 1:258). Ellsworth’s quote is from Madison, Notes of Debates, June 29.
8.The instructions for each state appear in Farrand, Records of Federal Convention, 3:559–86.
9.Farrand, Records of Federal Convention, 3:575. See also the notes of Madison and Yates, ibid., 1:4 and 1:6; Mason to George Mason Jr., May 27, 1783, ibid., 3:28; Luther Martin, “The Genuine Information, delivered to the Legislature of the State of Maryland, relative to the Proceedings of the General Convention, held at Philadelphia, in 1787,” ibid., 3:173. Census figures from Thomas L. Purvis, Revolutionary America, 1763 to 1800, Almanacs of American Life Series (New York: Facts on File, 1995), 124.
10.Madison, Notes of Debates, May 30.
11.Ibid., June 29. For the political challenge, see Clinton Rossiter, 1787: The Grand Convention (New York: Macmillan, 1966), 182–96.
12.Madison, Notes of Debates, June 25.
13.Ibid., June 27.
14.Ibid., June 30. Five days later, on July 5, Bedford offered a nonapology apology that did nothing to lessen the small-state, large-state divide: “He found that what he had said as to the small States being taken by the hand, had been misunderstood; and he rose to explain. He did not mean that the small States would court the aid & interposition of foreign powers. He meant that they would not consider the federal compact as dissolved untill it should be so by the Acts of the large States. In this case the consequence of the breach of faith on their part, and the readiness of the small States to fulfill their engagements, would be that foreign Nations having demands on this Country would find it their interest to take the small States by the hand, in order to do themselves justice. This was what he meant. But no man can foresee to what extremities the small States may be driven by oppression. He observed also in apology that some allowance ought to be made for the habits of his profession [Bedford was a lawyer] in which warmth was natural & sometimes necessary. But is there not an apology in what was said by [Mr. Govr. Morris] that the sword is to unite: by Mr. Ghorum that Delaware must be annexed to Penna. and N. Jersey divided between Pena. and N. York. To hear such language without emotion, would be to renounce the feelings of a man and the duty of a Citizen.”
15.Ibid., July 5.
16.Ibid., June 29.
17.Many commentators suggest that Franklin was using the ploy to bring his colleagues to their senses. For a thoroughly researched discussion, see William G. Carr, The Oldest Delegate: Franklin in the Constitutional Convention (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1990), 96–101.
18.Madison, Notes of Debates, June 29.
19.Membership on the committee predetermined the results. Leading advocates of proportional representation in both houses—James Madison, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and Rufus King—were not included; instead, delegations from the three largest states appointed delegates who had already expressed a desire to compromise—George Mason, Benjamin Franklin, and Elbridge Gerry. Meanwhile, Maryland sent Luther Martin, Delaware sent Gunning Bedford, New Jersey sent William Paterson, and New York sent Robert Yates—all firm opponents of proportional representation. Connecticut sent Oliver Ellsworth, who had offered the motion for equal representation in the second house, and Georgia sent Abraham Baldwin, whose vote for Ellsworth’s motion had divided his state’s delegation and deadlocked the Convention. These delegates were not going to opt for proportional representation in the upper house, nor could they deny proportional representation in the lower house, an indispensable feature of the overall plan (see chapter 4). Whereas the committee’s compromise was politically dictated, it was handy philosophically as well. “Dual sovereignty” was a difficult concept to grasp: how could citizens owe allegiance to two governments at once, the state and the national? Put another way, was the United States to have a truly national government, with all parts subservient to the whole; a confederation, with the whole subservient to the parts; or a new form of confederated government, in which state governments retained some representation? The compromise implied a solution to this matrix of problems: one house of the legislature represented people directly and was therefore apportioned by population, while the other house represented states, which would each receive an equal vote. It would be a hybrid government, simultaneously national and federal.
20.Madison, Notes of Debates, July 5.
21.Ibid.
22.Ibid.
23.Ibid., July 10.
24.Washington to Hamilton, July 10, 1787, Washington, Papers (CS), 5:257. Hamilton left the Convention because he was consistently outvoted by his New York colleagues Robert Yates and John Lansing Jr.
25.Journals of Continental Congress, 24:223, Madison, Notes of Debates, July 11. In 1783 Congress cleverly used only euphemisms to denote slaves. Funds for the federal treasury were to be “supplied by the several states in proportion to the whole number of white and other free citizens and inhabitants of every age, sex and condition, including those bound to servitude for a term of years, and three-fifths of all other persons not comprehended in the foregoing description, except Indians, not paying taxes, in each state.” Delegates to the Federal Convention followed this precedent.
26.Only Delaware joined South Carolina and Georgia in voting to consider slaves on a par with free people; other delegations remained content with three-fifths. Delaware’s vote was curious. Although 18 percent of its population was enslaved, it did not normally side with South Carolina and Georgia on issues involving slavery. Possibly, it voted to count slaves on a par with free citizens to undermine the general concept of proportional representation.
27.Madison, Notes of Debates, July 13.
28.Ibid., July 14 (Martin) and July 12 (Davie).
29.As with any vote on multiple issues, it is difficult to dissect the returns, but judging from previous and subsequent positions, it appears that a bloc of small states was happy to achieve equal representation in the second branch, whereas Virginia and Pennsylvania, not ready to compromise, refused to concede and voted against the measure. South Carolina and perhaps Georgia also resisted compromise, with at least some delegates holding out for full slave representation. Delegates from Massachusetts divided over the slavery compromise, while three of the four North Carolina delegates thought compromise on all issues was in order. At first glance the five-to-four tally might have seemed inconclusive, subject to being overturned in the future. But two states were not present, and both likely would have approved: New Hampshire because it was a small state and New York because it appeared to give the states legal representation in Congress. Tiny Rhode Island, not present at the Convention, would also have favored equal representation for small states, and Georgia, had all its delegates been present, might well have voted yes rather than no. The vote was not as close as it might appear.
Richard Beeman, Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution (New York: Random House, 2010), 219–22.
30.On August 22, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts noted that “we had nothing to do with the conduct of the States as to Slaves, but ought to be careful not to give any sanction to it.” This was the most forthright explanation of the delegates’ decision to avoid use of the terms “slavery” and “slaves” in the Constitution’s text.
31.Martin owned six slaves at the time, and he also represented the state of Maryland, with approximately one hundred thousand slaves (one-third of its population), but he was clearly disturbed by the institution, and he would soon help found the Maryland Society for the Abolition of Slavery. Even so, he did not speak out against the three-fifths compromise, which increased Maryland’s representation in Congress, and he seems to have gone along with the rest of his delegation in voting for it. Was that also “inconsistent with the principles of the revolution” and a “dishonorable” feature of the Constitution? (Beeman, Plain, Honest Men, 320.) Mason, while denouncing slavery, refused to take any responsibility for it. Slavery, he argued, was not caused by people like himself or Washington or any of the nineteen framers whose livelihoods depended on slave labor, nor the nine other delegates, like Martin, known to have owned slaves. Instead, Mason looked to cast the blame for slavery onto slave traders: “This infernal trafic originated in the avarice of British Merchants. The British Govt. constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it.” Those antislavery Virginians were also thwarted in their attempts by “some of our Eastern brethren,” New England merchants who “from a lust of gain embarked in this nefarious traffic.” Only by cutting off further importation, Mason argued, could the spread of slavery be curtailed. Mason’s argument paralleled Thomas Jefferson’s argument in the famous passage of his draft of the Declaration of Independence attacking slavery, which blamed George III for foisting slavery on the helpless colonies. For a listing of slaveholders at the Federal Convention, see Ray Raphael, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Founding Fathers and the Birth of Our Nation (New York: Alpha Books, 2011), 146–47.
32.C.C. Pinckney’s words are from McHenry’s notes, Farrand, Records of Federal Convention, 2:378, and from Madison, Notes of Debates, August 22.
33.Ibid., August 21 and 22. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, too, predicted that his state would never assent to a document that left slave importation vulnerable. “S. Carolina & Georgia cannot do without slaves,” he stated, so a failure to protect slave importation would amount to “an exclusion of S. Carola. from the Union.” John Rutledge delivered the same message: “The true question at present is whether the Southn. States shall or shall not be parties to the Union.”
34.Ibid., August 21 and 22. Likewise, Roger Sherman, also of Connecticut, said that “no public good” would be achieved by taking away “the right to import slaves,” even though he personally “disapproved of the slave trade.” Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, “thought we had nothing to do with the conduct of the States as to Slaves.”
35.In 1785, John Jay had sought authorization from the Confederation Congress to negotiate a treaty with Spain that would have signed away American shipping rights on the Mississippi River in return for privileged trading status. The deal was welcomed in the commercial North but detested in the South, since it would inhibit westward expansion. Fortunately for the South, the Articles of Confederation required nine of the thirteen states to approve an act that affected commerce, and five southern states (Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia) declared that they would reject any treaty negotiated on that basis. Jay’s proposed treaty was one of the hot-button issues of the day, and it explains why the framers paid such attention to whether enacting navigation acts should require a simple majority or a supermajority.
36.Ibid., August 22.
37.Not all small-state delegates agreed with Dayton. Delegates from New Hampshire and Delaware, thinking that separate ballots would prove too cumbersome, broke ranks with their small-state brethren.
38.For Morris’s opposition to legislative selection of the president, see Ray Raphael, Mr. President: How and Why the Founders Created a Chief Executive (New York: Knopf, 2012), 78–120 and 281–85, and for and the devious methods used by Morris and the New Jersey delegation to get the matter into committee, see ibid., 101–6.
39.Madison, Notes of Debates, September 4 and 5. In the floor debates on the committee report, several delegates disapproved of the Senate’s playing such a significant role and suggested that the runoff occur in the House instead, but small states rebuffed that idea because they would lose their influence. Finally, the Convention transferred the runoff to the House but with each state delegation, whether large or small, having one vote, thereby preserving the small-state advantage. For a more complete discussion of issues and committee negotiations, see Raphael, Mr. President, 107–12.
40.On September 5, committee member Rufus King “observed that the influence of the small States in the Senate was somewhat balanced by the influence of the large States in bringing forward the candidates; and also by the concurrence of the small States in the Committee in the clause vesting the exclusive origination of money bills in the House of Representatives.” To this observation Madison appended a footnote: “This explains the compromise mentioned above by Mr. Govr. Morris. Col. Masson Mr. Gerry & other members from large States set great value on this privilege of originating money bills. Of this the members from the small States, with some from the large States who wished a high mounted Govt endeavored to avail themselves, by making that privilege, the price of arrangements in the constitution favorable to the small States, and to the elevation of the Government.”
41.Samuel Tilden in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and Albert Gore in 2000 won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College. Andrew Jackson won a plurality of votes in 1824, but since no candidate received a majority of electoral votes, the presidency was decided in the House of Representatives, which chose John Quincy Adams over Jackson.
42.Mason to Jefferson, May 26, 1788, George Mason, The Papers of George Mason, ed. Robert A. Rutland, 3 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960), 3:1045.
43.Mason’s “Objections,” in DHRC, 8:45 or 13:350; Washington to Stuart, November 30, 1787, DHRC, 8:193.
44.Madison, Notes of Debates, August 29.
45.Ibid., September 17. Morris’s and Franklin’s comments in the succeeding paragraphs are also from that date.
46.Washington to Patrick Henry, Benjamin Harrison, and Thomas Nelson (former governors of Virginia), September 24, 1787, DHRC, 8:15.
47.Farrand, Records of Federal Convention, 2:677. Toward the end of the ratification controversy, John Jay turned the framers’ ability to compromise into his closing argument for the proposed Constitution. In April 1788, although eight states had already ratified the Constitution, one state shy of the required minimum, opponents of the Constitution in New York wanted several changes before ratifying, and they pushed for a second constitutional convention (see chapter 7). That was a terrible idea, Jay argued in an influential pamphlet, An Address to the People of the State of New York, on the Subject of the Constitution, which he published under the pseudonym “A Citizen of New-York.” Delegates to the Federal Convention, Jay said, did not present their proposed Constitution “as the best of all possible ones, but only as the best which they could unite in and agree to.” Perhaps, after seven months of public discussion, a second convention could come up with some better ideas, but it did not follow that delegates to that convention “would be equally disposed to agree” (Jay’s emphasis). In fact, because of the intensity of the ratification debates, the spirit of compromise that not only permeated but in a sense defined the Federal Convention had been abandoned; without that spirit, Americans would not be able to agree on a different plan, even if they chose to shun the proposed Constitution and try to start again from scratch. In an emotive passage with an eerie resonance
for today, Jay described precisely how the partisanship of the ratification debates precluded constructive solutions that opposing parties “could unite in and agree to”: “You must have observed that the same temper and equanimity which prevailed among the people on former occasions, no longer exist. We have unhappily become divided into parties; and this important subject has been handled with such indiscreet and offensive acrimony, and with so many little, unhandsome artifices and misrepresentations, that pernicious heats and animosities have been kindled, and spread their flames far and wide among us. When, therefore, it becomes a question who shall be deputed to the new convention, we cannot flatter ourselves that the talents and integrity of the candidates will determine who shall be elected. Federal electors will vote for federal deputies, and anti-federal electors for anti-federal ones. Nor will either party prefer the most moderate of their adherents; for, as the most stanch and active partisans will be the most popular, so the men most willing and able to carry points, to oppose and divide, and embarrass their opponents, will be chosen.
“A convention formed at such a season, and of such men, would be but too exact an epitome of the great body that named them. The same party views, the same propensity to opposition, the same distrusts and jealousies, and the same unaccommodating spirit, which prevail without, would be concentred and ferment with still greater violence within. Each deputy would recollect who sent him, and why he was sent, and be too apt to consider himself bound in honor to contend and act vigorously under the standard of his party, and not hazard their displeasure by preferring compromise to victory. As vice does not sow the seed of virtue, so neither does passion cultivate the fruits of reason. Suspicions and resentments create no disposition to conciliate; nor do they infuse a desire of making partial and personal objects bend to general union and the common good.” (DHRC, 20:936).
