Both men, having taken center stage at the Convention, chose to operate behind the curtain in the ratifying process. As his state’s president, Franklin declined to serve at Pennsylvania’s ratifying convention even though partisans put his name forward. As the presumptive first president of the United States—a post he did not seek but everyone assumed he would take—Washington might have seemed self-serving at his state’s convention. In addition, while able legislators, neither was a gifted public speaker and both favored the role of brokering compromises over facing down critics. Given their preeminence in Philadelphia, neither could hope to maintain a low profile at a heated state ratifying convention.
Their decision to keep above the fray made sense. Franklin and Washington were thin-skinned and recoiled from ad hominem attacks. Neither was particularly adept at defending a proposal in a contentious up-or-down vote, especially a proposition they helped to craft. Franklin might begin fiddling with the text and Washington might lose his temper. Each could be baited by opponents, and the Constitution would surely face fierce opposition at the ratifying conventions in Philadelphia and Richmond. Federalists left the heavy lifting to James Wilson in the former and James Madison in the latter, who could counter critics point for point while winning over undecided delegates by their visionary national outlook.
Late in 1787, Pennsylvania became the first state to take up the Constitution and the first big state to ratify it. On September 17, the very day that delegates to the Convention had signed the Constitution, those from Pennsylvania notified their state’s assembly (meeting upstairs in the State House while the Convention used its normal chamber) that they “were ready to report” on the proposed new federal government.5 The assembly agreed to hear their report on the eighteenth.
As senior delegate and state president, Franklin delivered the opening remarks, which began with the expression of his hope and belief that the new Constitution “will produce happy effects to this commonwealth, as well as to every other of the United States.”6 Sitting in seats that Convention delegates had occupied only a day earlier, members of the assembly then heard the Constitution and Washington’s transmittal letter read publicly for the first time. With this, the race was on to ratify, with the assembly scheduling Pennsylvania’s ratifying convention to begin in late November and the legislatures of neighboring Delaware and New Jersey setting theirs to convene in early December.
Even though a federal Constitution was at stake, state constitutional issues inflamed the battle over ratification in Pennsylvania. Those issues already split state politics into two distinct parties that would morph into national ones. One party, rooted in rural central Pennsylvania, supported the existing state constitution, which concentrated power in a one-house legislature. Another party, led by Robert Morris and tied to Philadelphia’s commercial interests, sought a balanced government with a two-house legislature and an independent executive. Of course, that very difference had animated the Constitutional Convention, with the latter view (favored by Washington) prevailing over the former. The reformers held a majority in the assembly and stacked the state’s federal Convention delegation with its partisans.7
An artful politician, Franklin had friends in both state parties but Pennsylvania’s other Convention delegates stood foursquare in the reform camp. Their thinking on state constitutional issues informed their contributions at the federal Convention. In contrast, backers of the old state constitution, excluded from the Convention, brought skeptical eyes to the proposed federal government, with its two-house legislature, strong executive, and elite Senate. The lack of a bill of rights heightened their concerns. In the election for delegates to the state ratifying convention, federalists secured two-thirds of the seats, which assured them of victory. They won all the seats in neighboring Delaware and New Jersey, which at the time circled within the economic orbit of Philadelphia and voted unanimously to ratify.
From start to finish, the federalist case for ratification in these three states relied on public trust in Washington and Franklin. “Remember, a WASHINGTON, a FRANKLIN, a MORRIS, with other illustrious, enlightened patriots composed it,” an early federalist essay in Philadelphia’s Independent Gazetteer said of the Constitution.8 An antifederalist using the pseudonym “Centinel” countered by portraying Washington and Franklin as unwitting tools of partisan interests led by Robert Morris. “I would be very far from insinuating that the two illustrious personages alluded to, have not the welfare of their country at heart,” he wrote, “but that the unsuspecting goodness and zeal of the one, has been imposed on; . . . and that the weakness and indecision attendant on old age, has been practiced on in the other.”9
The federalist response came fast and furious. Within days of Centinel’s blast, a letter to the Gazetteer denounced the antifederalists: “They do not reason, but abuse—General Washington, they (in effect) say, is a dupe, and Doctor Franklin, an old fool—vide the Centinel.”10 Many like it appeared.11 “However respectable their names may be,” one Philadelphia federalist essayist said of the antifederalists, “they cannot certainly be placed in competition with those of a Washington, a Livingston, a Franklin.”12
In Washington’s case, it mattered to many not only that he supported the Constitution but also that he would lead the government under it. “Should the Idea prevail that you would not accept the Presidency,” Gouverneur Morris warned Washington about the Constitution’s chances in the middle states, “it would prove fatal in many Parts.”13 Washington complied by modestly discounting the prospect rather than flatly dismissing it.
Having a solid majority, federalists at Pennsylvania’s convention pushed through ratification without giving opponents an opportunity to offer amendments. This provoked a bitter reaction. Soon after the convention, a mob of unreconstructed antifederalists disrupted a federalist victory rally in Carlisle and burned James Wilson in effigy.14 Dissenters then published their amendments, circulated petitions asking the assembly to rescind ratification, and began working with antifederalists in other states to defeat the Constitution.
Word of these developments reached Washington early in 1788 and persuaded him that victory alone was not enough. He would have to rule these people, and he knew from the Revolutionary era that a disaffected minority could disrupt public order. When the local militia from nearby counties freed the imprisoned rioters in Carlisle to prevent their prosecution, the lesson should have become clear to all, yet some federalists wanted the rioters punished as an example.
Washington knew better. For the government to function, he reasoned, antifederalists would need to accept the ratification process as fundamentally fair. After having initially hailed the results in Pennsylvania despite the strong-arm tactics, Washington changed his tune. Offering advice to federalists in Massachusetts, where patriot warhorse Samuel Adams and Convention dissenter Elbridge Gerry were raising objections, Washington cautioned conciliation. “The business of the Convention should be conducted with moderation, candor & fairness,” he advised Bay State federalists, “for altho’ as you justly observe, the friends of the New system may bear down the opposition, yet they would never be able, by precipitate or violent measures, to sooth and reconcile their minds to the exercise of the Government.” This reconciliation, Washington stressed, “is a matter that ought as much as possible to be kept in view.”15 Winning at all costs would not serve the public interest, he concluded. Whatever he thought of antifederalists, and various private letters betrayed his antipathy toward them, Washington knew better than to show it. He wanted to form an American nation by uniting its people, not dividing them.
WITH THREE MIDDLE states having ratified the Constitution by the end of 1787 but opposition rising elsewhere, the Massachusetts Convention played out as the pivotal act within the larger drama of federal ratification. It featured plot twists, intrigue, and a cliffhanger ending. From Mount Vernon, Washington followed the story in newspapers and private letters. At first, the prospects in Massachusetts looked rosy, with Washington
receiving ever more upbeat reports over the course of the fall as federalists swept the Boston-area seats.16 Estimating that nine-tenths of the people favored ratification, Boston’s archfederalist Massachusetts Centinel asked in October, “Let it but appear that a HANCOCK, a WASHINGTON, and a FRANKLIN approve the new government, and who will not embrace it?” even though, at the time, federalists could not yet count on support from Governor John Hancock.17
Election returns from western Massachusetts and Maine in November suggested that the legacy of Shays’s Rebellion was energizing the opposition.18 Among antifederalists elected to the conclave, one former Constitutional Convention delegate lamented to Washington, there were “18 or 20 who were actually in Shay’s army.”19 Now the Centinel asked, “Are the gentlemen who have withheld their assent to the Federal Constitution, superiour to Washington or Franklin, either in abilities or patriotism—men whose names, born on the wings of fame, are known throughout the world?”20 Indeed, pro-ratification forces so often invoked Washington’s support for the Constitution that the Massachusetts Gazette soon observed, “The Federalists should be distinguished hereafter by the name of Washingtonians, and the Antifederalists, by the name of Shayites.”21 The sides were closely matched. With a foot in each camp and influence matching his legendary ego, Hancock—who would serve as the convention’s president—still had not tipped his hand.
When the convention opened on January 9, 1788, Hancock was bedridden with gout. Uncertain if they had the votes to prevail, federalists opted to stall by agreeing to discuss the Constitution clause by clause before voting. This approach comported with Washington’s advice. With practiced speakers on their side, including three returning delegates from the Constitutional Convention, federalists hoped to win over some undecided delegates, mollify the opposition, and play for time. They also received welcome help from Washington when, in the midst of the deliberations, a strident letter from him endorsing the Constitution appeared in nine Massachusetts newspapers. “There is no alternative between the adoption of it and anarchy,” he declared in much underlined prose. “I am fully persuaded that it is the best that can be obtained at this time . . . and that it or disunion is before us.”22
Federalists got all the delay they wanted. The discussion of Article I alone consumed two weeks as members wrangled over the authority of Congress, particularly its expansive taxing power. “In giving this power we give up everything,” one antifederalist thundered. It is “as much power as was ever given to a despotic prince,” another added. Federalists replied that since Congress would represent the people, any authority it held would serve the public.23 Shaysites had objected to the concentration of power in the urban, moneyed elite under the state’s 1780 constitution and feared a similar result under the new federal one. Many demanded amendments prior to ratification, even though no means existed to add those amendments without a second convention. By the last week of January, everyone knew the vote would be close, yet letters to Washington from leading Boston federalists sounded oddly confident—even smug.24
Their confidence rested on a secret deal with Hancock who, in exchange for support from federalists in the next governor’s race, agreed to rise from his sickbed, endorse ratification, and propose postratification amendments to the Constitution.25 The amendments would not be added “as a condition of our assent & ratification,” a letter to Washington explained, “but as the Opinion of the Convention subjoined to their ratification.”26 In short, the convention would recommend that the first Congress consider them.
Federalists attached little importance to these “recommendatory” amendments, as Washington termed them, beyond their role in bringing aboard Hancock and perhaps winning over a few moderates.27 Letters to and from Washington referred to them in dismissive terms.28 Taken together, however, they offered outlines for the eventual bill of rights. Hancock deserves credit for advancing this key contribution to American democracy. He played his part to perfection by making a grand entrance at the convention swaddled in sick clothes and borne on a daybed just in time to carry the Constitution with his compromise proposal for recommendatory amendments. Wealthy beyond the dreams of most Americans of his day, Hancock always had a flair for the dramatic but never displayed it with greater effect than on this occasion.29
The margin was close—a 10-vote swing in the 370-member convention would have defeated the Constitution. Yet it passed by a whisker on February 6. Word of the results spawned the first widespread celebrations for ratification throughout the commonwealth of Massachusetts, which then included the district of Maine. In Berwick on February 11, the first of thirteen public toasts was raised to Washington; in Boston on the eighth, the second of thirteen; in Westminster on March 3, the fourth. The happenstance of these festivities coinciding or nearly coinciding with Washington’s birthday on February 11 (under the old calendar, which many used to celebrate birthdays of persons born before the shift to the new calendar in 1752) likely played a role in the notice given to the Virginian, yet it was surely heartfelt. Boston’s Independent Chronicle reported about the celebrations in Berwick, “The joy of the evening was heightened, by the pleasing reflection, that it was no less than the anniversary of that auspicious day that gave America, the most distinguished character in the world.”30 When the news reached New York, the last of thirteen toasts at a celebratory dinner attended by the mayor and members of Congress looked forward and back: to “General Washington—may his Wisdom and Virtue preside in the Councils of his Country.”31
The victory cheered Washington as well, particularly how it was won. “The minority,” a leading Boston federalist informed Washington on the day of the vote, “publickly declare that the Discussion has been fair & candid, and that the majority having decided in favor of the constitution, they will devote their Lives & Fortunes to support the Government.”32 Washington welcomed this result. “Happy, I am, to see the favorable decision of your Convention,” he wrote back. “The candid, and open behaviour of the minority, is noble and commendable.”33
Given the closeness of the final vote in Massachusetts, Washington’s endorsement likely played a key role. The fact that the Constitution “comes authenticated” by Washington, one member told the state convention, “is a reason why we should examine it with care.”34 Just such careful examination led Massachusetts to become the second of four indispensable big states to ratify. Four smaller states ratified during the first five months of 1788, with the last of these, South Carolina, following the Massachusetts model of recommending amendments.35
These ratifications left the Constitution only one state shy of the needed nine by June, when New Hampshire and the two remaining big states, Virginia and New York, began their conventions. New Hampshire had tried and failed to ratify already, however, and antifederalists held the upper hand in New York. Only Virginia seemed in play, but far from certain.
Franklin reentered the fray at this point with a satirical letter to the nation’s leading federalist newspaper comparing resistance to the Constitution with opposition to the Ten Commandments by the ancient Hebrews who received them from God by way of Moses—a story most Americans then knew. “I may not be understood to infer, that our general Convention was divinely inspired when it form’d the new federal Constitution, merely because that Constitution has been unreasonably and vehemently opposed,” Franklin observed, “yet I must own I have so much Faith in the general Government of the World by PROVIDENCE, that I can hardly conceive a Transaction of such momentous Importance . . . should be suffered to pass without being in some degree influenc’d, guided and governed by” it.36
Believing that Virginia would decide the issue, Washington did all in his power to win its assent.37 Ratification hung in the balance.
WARTIME EXPERIENCES HAD MADE WASHINGTON an American but he always remained a Virginian. In addition to being his home, Virginia was America’s largest, wealthiest, most populous, and longest-settled state. Washington could not imagine a United States without it and worked hard to keep
it in the fold.38 On September 24, 1787, two days after returning to Mount Vernon from the Convention, he had sent copies of the Constitution to three former Virginia governors along with identical letters urging them to support it. Ratification, he wrote to the states-rights-minded Patrick Henry, Benjamin Harrison, and Thomas Nelson, “is in my opinion desirable.”39 With returning convention delegate George Mason breathing fire and Henry inclined to join him, Washington feared the Constitution faced strong headwinds in Virginia.40 Over the ensuing months, he regularly hosted Virginia federalists at Mount Vernon and lobbied current governor Edmund Randolph and former governor Thomas Jefferson in letters designed to bring or keep them on board, leading to rumors that he promised them posts in the first presidential administration. Both later joined Washington’s first cabinet.
Some 170 members strong, Virginia’s ratifying convention opened on June 2 in Richmond, the first contested convention not held in a federalist-friendly port city. After having tried to win him over early, Washington worried more about Henry’s opposition than about that of any other Virginian, to the point of fearing that the former governor might seek to lead the state into a separate southern confederacy with himself at the helm.41 While not a disciplined debater, Henry had a gift for stirring audiences with impassioned speeches that played on emotion.42 He employed this approach at the convention to transform what was supposed to be a clause-by-clause consideration of the Constitution into a free-for-all in which federalists scrambled to refute his scattered charges.
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