Franklin & Washington

by Edward J. Larson

7.Benjamin Franklin to George Washington, April 3, 1787, PGW-CfS, 5:122.

  8.Robert Morris to George Washington, April 23, 1787, ibid., 5:153.

  9.Charles Biddle to Benjamin Franklin, May 1787, PBF, 46:---.

  10.George Washington to Edmund Randolph, December 21, 1786, PGW-CfS, 4:472.

  11.Edmund Randolph to George Washington, January 4, 1787, ibid., 4:501.

  12.James Madison to George Washington, December 24, 1786, PJM, 9:224.

  13.George Washington to James Madison, March 31, 1787, PGW-CfS, 5:116.

  14.Resolution, February 21, 1787, JCC, 32:74.

  15.Henry Knox to George Washington, April 9, 1787, PGW-CfS, 5:133–34.

  16.Henry Knox to George Washington, January 14, 1787, ibid., 4:522. Knox went on to explain, “The laws passed by the general governmt to be obeyed by the local governments, and if necessary to be enforced by a body of armed men to be kept for the purposes which should be designated—All national objects, to be designed and executed by the general government, without any reference to the local governments. This rude sketch is considered as the government of the least possible powers, to preserve the confederated government—To attempt to establish less, will be to hazard the existence of republicanism, and to subject us, either to a division of the European powers, or to a despotism arising from highhanded commotions.”

  17.John Jay to George Washington, January 7, 1787, ibid., 4:503. Jay preceded this comment with the observation about the general government, “What Powers should be granted to the Government so constituted is a Question which deserves much Thought—I think the more the better.”

  18.James Madison to George Washington, April 16, 1787, ibid., 5:145. In this letter, Madison added, “I would propose next that in addition to the present federal powers, the national Government should be armed with positive and compleat authority in all cases which require uniformity; such as the regulation of trade, including the right of taxing both exports & imports, the fixing the terms and forms of naturalization &c. &c.”

  19.George Washington to Edmund Randolph, March 28, 1787, ibid., 5:113. In particular, Washington wrote, “As my friends, with a degree of sollicitude which is unusual, seem to wish my attendance on this occasion, I have come to a resolution to go if my health will permit.”

  20.George Washington to John Jay, March 10, 1787, ibid., 5:79–80.

  21.Henry Knox to George Washington, April 19, 1787, ibid., 5:96. Knox here wrote, “Were the convention to propose only amendments, and patch work to the present defective confederation, your reputation would in a degree suffer—But were an energetic, and judicious system to be proposed with Your signature, it would be a circumstance highly honorable to your fame, in the judgement of the present and future ages.”

  22.B. Franklin to G. Washington, April 3, 1787, 5:122.

  23.Henry Knox to George Washington, October 23, 1786, PGW-CfS, 4:300–301.

  24.George Washington to Henry Knox, December 26, 1786, ibid., 4:481.

  25.Ibid.

  26.George Washington to Henry Knox, February 3, 1787, ibid., 5:7–8.

  27.Benjamin Franklin to James Bowdoin, March 6, 1787, PBF, 46:---.

  28.George Washington to Marquis de Lafayette, March 25, 1787, PGW-CfS, 5:106.

  29.George Washington, “Journal,” May 9, 1787, in DGW, 5:153.

  30.George Washington to Robert Morris, May 5, 1787, PGW-CfS, 5:171.

  31.For a discussion of Franklin’s self-expressed “middling” status, see Gordon S. Wood, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 46–49.

  32.George Washington, “Journal,” May 13, 1787, in DGW, 5:155.

  33.Ibid. Washington depicted his visit to Franklin as occurring “as soon as I got to Town.”

  34.Richard Beeman, Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution (New York: Random House, 2009), 35–36.

  35.Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Jordan, May 18, 1787, PBF, 46:---.

  36.Benjamin Franklin to Louis-Guillaume Le Veillard, April 15, 1787, ibid., 46:---.

  37.William Pierce, “Character Sketches of Delegates to the Federal Convention,” in Farrand, 3:91.

  38.Benjamin Franklin to Abbés Chalut and Arnoux, April 17, 1787, PBF, 46:---.

  39.Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Jefferson, April 19, 1787, ibid., 46:---.

  40.John Adams to Benjamin Franklin, January 27, 1787, ibid., 46:--- (in which Adams seemed to anticipate Franklin’s response to the book by stating, “It contains my Confession of political Faith and if it be Heresy, I shall I Suppose be cast out of Communion. But it is the only Sense, in which I am or ever was a Republican”); Benjamin Franklin to John Adams, May 18, 1787, ibid., 46:---.

  41.Beeman, Plain, Honest Men, 53.

  42.Catherine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September, 1787 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966), 18.

  43.George Mason to George Mason Jr., May 20, 1787, PGM, 3:880.

  44.George Mason to Arthur Lee, May 21, 1787, ibid., 3:882.

  45.Farrand, May 31, 1787, 1:48, 546.

  46.Farrand, May 25, 1787, 1:3–5.

  47.See Farrand, May 25, 1787, 1:4 (Madison), 6 (Yates); Luther Martin, “Genuine Information,” in ibid., 3:173.

  48.George Mason to George Mason Jr., May 27, 1787, PGM, 3:884.

  49.Pierce, “Character Sketches,” in Farrand, 3:91.

  50.Farrand, May 28, 1787, 1:15.

  51.Jared Sparks, “Journal,” April 19, 1830, in Farrand 3:479 (Sparks’s notes on visit to James Madison).

  52.Various delegates did jot down some firsthand notes about the Convention in private journals or letters that became public later but the “Notes” taken by Madison provide the closest thing to a comprehensive account of the closed-door sessions. He vowed to keep them confidential until the last delegate died, which turned out to be him. For an analysis of the accuracy of Madison’s Notes, see Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015). Among other delegates at the Convention taking notes, New York antifederalist Robert Yates kept the second most detailed ones. Maryland antifederalist Luther Martin also compiled his own account of key events. Some of these notes and accounts, most notably those by Yates and Martin, became public after the Convention ended.

  53.George Washington, “Journal,” May 28, 1787, in DGW, 3:220.

  54.William Pierce, “Anecdote,” in Farrand, 3:86–87.

  55.Farrand, May 29, 1787, 1:23–24.

  56.Journals of the American Congress: From 1774 to 1788 (Washington, D.C.: Way & Gideon, 1823), 4:A39 (credentials of the members from Georgia).

  57.Farrand, May 29, 1787, 1:20–21 (text of Randolph’s resolutions).

  58.George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, May 30, 1787, PGW-CfS, 5:208. Evidencing his support for the Virginia Plan, at the Convention Franklin praised “Mr. Randolph for having brought forth the plan in the first instance.” Farrand, September 17, 1787, 2:646.

  59.Benjamin Franklin to Pierre-Samuel du Pont de Nemours, June 9, 1788, PBF, 47:---.

  60.Ibid. Regarding Franklin as a chess player, Jefferson recalled a time during a game Franklin played with the Duchess of Bourbon in France during the American Revolution: “Happening once to put her king into prise, the Doctr took it. ‘ah, says she, we do not take kings so.’ ‘we do in America,’ says the Doctor.” Thomas Jefferson, “Anecdotes of Benjamin Franklin,” December 4, 1818, in PTJ-RS, 13:463.

  61.In terms of population, Connecticut at the time tied for seventh among the thirteen states, or exactly in the middle.

  62.Farrand, June 30, 1787, 1:483.

  63.Ibid., 1:490.

  64.Ibid., 1:488, 499.

  65.Ibid., 1:482, 494.

  66.Ibid., 1:499.

  67.George Washington to George Augustine Washington, June 3, 1787, PGW-CfS, 5:219.

  68.Jared Sparks, The Life of Gouverneur Morris, with Selections from His Correspondence (Boston: Gray & Bowen, 1832), 1:283.<
br />
  69.Farrand, July 2, 1787, 1:510–16, 519.

  70.Ibid., July 5, 1787, 1:526. Franklin accepted the compromise only as a whole and objected to the Convention’s considering it in parts. See ibid., July 6, 1787, 1:453.

  71.Ibid., August 8, 1787, 2:224. For Mason’s vehemence on this issue, see also ibid., August 13, 1787, 2:274 (“the pursestrings should be in the hands of the Representatives of the people”).

  72.Ibid., July 6, 1787, 1:546 (Madison reported Franklin as saying, “It was a maxim that those who feel can best judge. This end would, he thought, be best attained, if money affairs were to be confined to the immediate representatives of the people”).

  73.For the first vote, see ibid., August 8, 1787, 2:225; for the second vote and Madison’s comment, see ibid., August 13, 1787, 2:280.

  74.Ibid., September 10, 1787, 2:568.

  75.Ibid., June 11, 1787, 1:192.

  76.Ibid., 1:205, quotes Franklin as saying, “Representation ought to be in proportion to the importance of numbers or wealth in each state.”

  77.Ibid., 1:201.

  78.Ibid., 1:193. They borrowed this formula from a 1783 proposal passed by Congress but never ratified by the states for equitably allocating requisitions among the states.

  79.Ibid., 1:208.

  80.For a clear expression of this distinction by Morris, see his comments in ibid., July 13, 1787, 1:604.

  81.Ibid., July 9, 1787, 1:561.

  82.Ibid., July 13, 1787, 1:605.

  83.Ibid., July 9, 1787, 1:560.

  84.Beeman, Plain, Honest Men, 207.

  85.In the critical exchange on the second issue, South Carolina’s Rutledge declared, “If the Convention thinks that N.C; S.C. & Georgia will ever agree to the plan, unless their right to import slaves be untouched, the expectation is in vain,” to which Connecticut’s Sherman conceded, “It was better to let the S. States import slaves than to part with them, if they made that a sine qua non.” Farrand, August 22, 1787, 2:373–74. As for the first issue, the North Carolina delegation reported to its governor regarding the Constitution, “The Southern States have also a much better Security for the Return of Slaves who might endeavor to Escape than they had under the original Confederation.” William Blount et al. to Richard Caswell, September 28, 1787, in Farrand, 3:84.

  86.Ibid., August 7, 1787, 2:204–5. In a similar vein, Franklin constantly argued for shorter residency requirements for immigrants to serve in Congress. “When foreigners after looking about for some other Country in which they can obtain more happiness, give a preference to ours, it is proof of an attachment which ought to excite our confidence & affection,” he explained. Ibid., August 9, 1787, 2:249.

  87.Ibid., August 10, 1787, 2:249.

  88.United States Constitution, Art. I, sect. 2.

  89.Farrand, September 17, 1787, 2:644. In his analysis of Washington’s decision to speak on this relatively minor point after he had refrained from speaking substantively on other matters, Glenn Phelps agrees that it “reveals the pragmatic side of [Washington’s] constitutional thinking.” Phelps paints the amendment as a minor concession to small-scale republicans calculated to help secure ratification. Glenn A. Phelps, George Washington and American Constitutionalism (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 101.

  90.Farrand, May 29 and June 1–2, 1787, 1:21, 63, 94 (quote on 21).

  91.Ibid., June 1, 1787, 1:65.

  92.See Max Farrand, The Fathers of the Constitution: A Chronicle of the Establishment of the Union (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921), 111.

  93.W.P., “An Ode,” Virginia Gazette (Dixon and Hunter), August 24, 1776, 8.

  94.George Washington to Josiah Quincy, March 24, 1776, PGW-RWS, 3:528.

  95.“Anecdote,” in Farrand, 3:85.

  96.Farrand, June 1, 1787, 1:65.

  97.Ibid., June 4, 1787, 1:103.

  98.Ibid., July 26, 1787, 2:120.

  99.Ibid., June 2, 1787, 1:83. Introducing this argument, Franklin depicted the love of power and the love of money as two passions that influence human affairs: “Separately each of these has great force in promoting men to action; but when united in view of the same object, they have in many minds the most violent effect,” he warned (ibid., 1:82).

  100.E.g., after Mason decried Morris’s effort to eliminate impeachment with the rhetorical question “Shall any man be above Justice?” Franklin agreed and added with his well-known biting wit that, without impeachment, the only “recourse was . . . assassination in wch. [case the president] was deprived not only of his life but of the opportunity of vindicating his character.” Ibid., July 20, 1787, 2:65.

  101.Ibid., June 1, 1787, 1:66. Randolph repeated this warning the next day. Ibid., June 2, 1787, 1:72 (”A single Person may be considered the foetus of a Monarchy”).

  102.Ibid., June 2, 1787, 1:83.

  103.Ibid., June 4, 1787, 1:102n14. Franklin went on to warn, “Foreign governments can never have that Confidence, in the Treaties or Friendship of such a Government as that which is conducted by a Number.” He then asked, “The Single Head may be Sick. Who is to conduct the Public Affairs in that Case?”

  104.Pierce Butler to Weedon Butler, May 5, 1788, ibid., 3:302.

  105.Ibid., June 4, 1787, 1:97.

  106.Benjamin Franklin Bache to Benjamin Franklin, August 1, 1787, PBF, 46:---.

  107.Benjamin Franklin to Jane Mecom, September 20, 1787, ibid., 46:---.

  108.Farrand, August 6, 1787, 2:185.

  109.From the Convention’s outset, there was a clear sense that Congress should hold power over war and peace. See ibid., June 1, 1787, 1:66–70. The Committee of Detail’s draft Constitution assigned Congress the power to make war and the Senate the power to draft treaties, including peace treaties. On August 17, with little debate, the Convention changed the wording of this congressional power: “To make war” became “To declare war.” Apparently the delegates saw this as a clarifying amendment. Madison and Gerry proposed it in response to Charles Pinckney’s concern that vesting the power of making war in Congress might cause too much delay in repelling a sudden attack. Sherman then added, “The Executive should be able to repel and not to commence war.” In support of the change, Mason said that he “was against giving the power of war to the Executive, because [he was] not safely to be trusted with it.” In a similar vein, Rufus King noted “that ‘make’ war might be understood to ‘conduct’ it which was an Executive function.” Ibid., August 17, 1787, 2:318–19.

  110.The phrase “three fifths of all other Persons” comes from Article I, section 2, clause 3 of the final draft Constitution but, although agreed to, was not set forth in the Committee of Detail draft.

  111.In addition to the shift of duties from the Senate to the presidency, which are discussed below, during the final deliberations, the power to adjudicate disputes between states passed from the Senate to the Supreme Court while the duty to try impeachments passed from the Supreme Court to the Senate. See Farrand, August 24, 1787, 2:401; ibid, August 27, 1787, 2:427; ibid., September 4, 1787, 2:493; and ibid., September 8, 1787, 2:554.

  112.Ibid., September 7, 1787, 2:542.

  113.Ibid., August 8, 1787, 2:224.

  114.On June 30, for example, Madison complained, “The plan in its present shape makes the Senate absolutely dependent on the States. The Senate therefore is only another edition of [the Confederation] Cong[res]s. [I know] the faults of that Body & ha[ve] used a bold language ag[ain]st it.” Ibid., June 30, 1787, 1:491.

  115.Ibid., September 4, 1787, 2:493–95. For early advocacy of this approach, see ibid., July 18, 1787, 2:41–44. The key vote “for Appointing the President by electors” passed the Convention by a margin of nine to two. Ibid., September 6, 1787, 2:525.

  116.During the final weeks of the Convention “a growing reaction against the Senate worked in favor of the presidency,” historian of the Constitution Jack Rakove notes. “The growth of the presidency owed more to doubts about the Senate than to the enthusiasm with which Hamilton, Morris, and Wilson endor
sed the virtues of an energetic administration.” Jack N. Rakove, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (New York: Knopf, 1997), 163, 167. The widely regarded republican virtues and national-mindedness of Washington (the presumptive first president) surely contributed to the attraction of the presidency over the potentially aristocratic and state-minded Senate as a repository of power. With respect to Washington, South Carolina’s Pierce Butler stated that his fellow delegates “shaped their Ideas and Powers to be given to the President, by their opinions of his Virtue.” P. Butler to W. Butler, May 5, 1788, 3:302.

  117.The committee’s recommendations authorizing the president to make treaties and nominate judges and officers with the advice and consent of the Senate passed the Convention without dissent. Farrand, September 7, 1787, 2:538–39. Rather than entrust either the executive or legislature with complete power to name judges, Franklin offered the pragmatic alternative of letting lawyers nominate judges, as done in Scotland. There, he noted, they “always select the ablest of the profession to get rid of him, and share his practice.” Ibid., June 5, 1787, 1:120.

  118.For example, at one point, Hamilton painted the single-term president as a “Monster” who would “consider his 7 years as 7 years of lawful plunder.” Ibid., September 6, 1787, 2:524, 530.

  119.Ibid., September 15, 1787, 2:632. Expanding on his objections to the presidency, Mason noted (1) the lack of an executive council, which he feared would leave the president “directed by minions and favorites,” and (2) the unrestrained pardon power, “which may be sometimes exercised to screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt.” Ibid., 2:638–39.

  120.James McHenry, “Anecdotes,” in Farrand, 3:85.

  121.The text of the Virginia Plan is in ibid., May 29, 1787, 1:20–21.

  122.George Washington to Edmund Randolph, January 8, 1788, PGW-CfS, 6:18. Washington expressed almost identical sentiments to an antifederalist former Virginia governor less than a week after the Convention ended: “I sincerely believe it is the best that could be obtained at this time.” George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, September 24, 1787, ibid., 5:339.