by Ron Carter
The descriptions of the individual delegates, such as Nathaniel Gorham, Luther Martin, Abraham Baldwin, and others, including photographs of paintings of most of them, are found in Rossiter, 1787: The Grand Convention, pp. 79–159, as well as in other texts too numerous to list.
The reader is again reminded that the lengthy speeches given by Madison and Franklin on the subject of prayer, and others, are much abbreviated, since the full text would be far beyond the limits of this book. However, this writer has attempted to preserve the essence of those speeches, and any inaccuracies or failures are mine.
Philadelphia
July 5, 1787
CHAPTER XXI
* * *
Something in the Grand Convention had changed in the two days since its adjournment on July second. It was in the air like the first faint scent of blossoms in the spring, or of fresh rain coming when there are yet no clouds in the sky. It was in the eyes and the faces of the delegates as they came steadily to the Statehouse on Thursday, July fifth.
It was true they had taken the two days to turn their backs on the insufferable heat of the closed room and the hostile standoff between the large and small states that had all but wrecked the convention. They had joined the Philadelphians in their raucous celebration commemorating the creation of the Declaration of Independence. The delegates had vented their pent up anger and frustration by mixing in the great parades and the demonstrations and spending the evenings at outdoor restaurants and taverns that abundantly flourished in the cool breeze of the Delaware River waterfront. The Indian Queen Hotel and the City Hotel were jammed with guests dressed in costumes, and the din and merriment reached far into the night with fireworks that lit up the entire city and brought exclamations from its citizens as they danced in the lighted streets. On July fourth, the churches had been filled, and the clergy had thumped the pulpit soundly as they assured their enthusiastic congregations that the Almighty himself had raised up this nation for his own divine purposes, and had smiled most graciously upon Philadelphia, his favorite city.
But with all the patriotic hubbub behind, a concerned George Washington felt the subtle shift in the East Room as he walked first to his table on the floor of the convention, and then on to the dais to take his chair as president. Whatever was in the air had not yet taken form and shape and definition, but it was there. Something was different.
For a moment Washington remained standing, silently studying those who had polarized the large states from the small to the brink of destroying America. Madison and Morris, leaders of the large states, were both at their tables, passive, saying little, gesturing not at all. Bedford, outspoken champion of the small states, wore the expression of a man devoid of concerns as he set his table in order. Franklin had his chair somewhat back from his desk, moving his feet, face drawn in discomfort.
Washington knew, as did nearly everyone on the floor, that some time during the two-day hiatus, the committee appointed late in the afternoon of July second to invent a compromise—slanted as the committee was in favor of the small states—had found time to meet and thrash out a proposal to be presented on the floor as the first order of business. Strong rumor had it that it was Franklin who had finally laid it out to the committee, plain and simple. Neither side was going to get all it wanted. Both had to give something. Compromise or fail. Then he had set out three very simple propositions that would fit within those boundaries. What they were remained unknown to the delegates.
Washington sat down, the room quieted, and he gestured to Secretary Jackson to call roll. There was mild surprise when it was discovered that Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut was absent with illness, and that his place on the eleven-man committee had been filled by his Connecticut colleague, Roger Sherman.
Washington continued, “Is the committee prepared to make its report?”
Elbridge Gerry, thin, sharp features cast in an habitual frown that suggested indigestion, rose. “I have been appointed to speak for the committee.”
Washington nodded. “Proceed.”
“The committee recommends three propositions.”
The room quieted, and men leaned forward, listening intently.
“In the House of Representatives there should be one representative for every forty thousand inhabitants in each state.”
There was a rustle as men moved, and Gerry continued.
“The House of Representatives shall have the power to originate all bills for raising or appropriating money and for fixing salaries, not to be altered or amended by the second branch.”
There was quiet murmuring, then silence as the convention waited for the committee’s solution to the final and most critical issue. How was the Senate to be selected? It was the Gordian knot that until that moment had confounded them.
Gerry concluded. “That in the Senate, each state shall have an equal vote.”
For one brief moment no one spoke or stirred, and then chairs creaked as men straightened and stared down at their tables while they struggled to grasp the meaning of what they had heard.
Selecting the House of Representatives according to population would favor states with larger numbers, clearly a blow to smaller states with less.
Selecting the Senate on the basis of one from each state would give the small states equal footing with the larger—a major blow to the large states.
Each, the large states and the small, had gained something, and each had lost something.
Washington glanced at Franklin, sitting back, fingers laced across his considerable paunch, mouth puckered thoughtfully, eyes squinted as he looked and listened to those around him.
Gerry paused to let the murmuring subside, and the blank look to disappear from the eyes of the delegates, then spoke again.
“As for myself, I urge you to accept the compromise, but I must frankly state that many of us on the committee—myself included—have objections to some particular parts of it. My reasons for urging its acceptance are simple. Unless a compromise takes place, a secession will occur. The small states will disassociate from the union. If we do not come to some agreement among ourselves, some foreign sword will probably do the work for us.”
Gerry stopped and sat down while his sobering words hit home.
George Mason of the large state of Virginia came to his feet. All eyes were on this man whose gifted judgment and model history carried the respect of every delegate present. There was not a sound as his voice rose with unprecedented passion, and he delivered the statement that reached to the core of every man.
“Accommodation is the object. It could not be more inconvenient to any gentleman in this convention to remain absent from his private affairs than it is for me.” He paused and leaned forward, finger thumping his table as his voice rang off the walls. “But I would bury my bones in this city rather than expose this country to the consequences of a dissolution of this convention without anything being done!”
George Mason! Owner of the great estate of Gunston Hall, state of Virginia! One of the richest and most powerful. In his own right and in his own circles, almost as impressive as Washington. A key figure in the drafting of the Virginia Constitution and the Virginia Bill of Rights! A leader of the cause of the large states, now placing higher value on preserving the union than on winning the struggle against the small states!
Mason sat down, and for a moment no one moved.
Then Paterson rose and declared the proposal took too much from the small states and sat down. Instantly Madison was on his feet, blue eyes alive, words spaced for emphasis.
“If I must have the option between justice and gratifying the majority of the people, or of conciliating the smaller states, I must choose justice and the majority! It is vain to purchase accord in this convention on terms which would perpetuate discord among our constituents. This convention ought to pursue a plan which will bear the test of examination, and which will be espoused and supported by the enlightened and impartial part of America.”
He paused, ordere
d his thoughts, and went on.
“I do not believe that Delaware and other smaller states will bid defiance to the remainder of the union.”
The arguments wore on into the day with the snarl of opinions becoming worse as the summer heat inside the room increased. But from the dais, Washington sensed it. That “something” that was changing was the delegates. They had somehow grasped the place they were carving out in history. They could remain obdurate and wreck the union, or they could compromise and save it. Give. Take. Be satisfied. Move on. They were learning, but they were learning slowly and with great pain.
He adjourned for the night, and the following morning, July sixth, saw a glimmer of hope when the first motion placed on the floor was for the appointment of a special committee to address the question of fixing the ratio of votes for members in the House of Representatives to one seat for each forty thousand inhabitants. A ballot was taken, and five men took on the thorny problem: Gouverneur Morris, Gorham, Randolph, Rutledge, and King.
The next issue before them was the wisdom of granting the power over the money to the House of Representatives, and to them only.
The battle-weary delegates took a deep breath and launched into it, and the arguments piled on top of each other.
Gerry insisted the House of Representatives must hold the purse strings of the country because they were most responsible to the people. After all, in the states of Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Virginia, the state constitutions vested the money power in the House of Representatives, and they were doing well.
Butler of South Carolina stoutly declared that giving the sole power of the purse strings to the House of Representatives was a form of discrimination against the Senate that decent men would not tolerate. If the Senate was to be degraded by lack of trust in their ability to handle the purse strings, or at least their share of it, then good men would not run for the Senate, but for the House instead.
King and Madison were adamant. Since the Senate would be generally a more capable set of men, it would be wrong to disable them from giving their wisdom to the handling of the money of the new nation.
With weariness riding the delegation, the issue of which chamber of the Congress would control the money came to a vote in the late afternoon. The East Room fell silent as the results were posted.
Ayes, five: North Carolina, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. Nays, three: Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. Massachusetts, New York, and Georgia, all divided—no vote.
It had been decided. The purse strings of the new nation would be exclusively in the hands of the House of Representatives. Washington adjourned the convention for the night.
Saturday morning, July seventh, the delegation once more plunged into the morass of conflicting opinions from which they seemed unable to retreat. As the day wore on, they tested the waters by proposing that they take a preliminary vote to determine whether the proposition of one vote for each state in the Senate should even remain as part of the report of the eleven-man committee.
“This is the critical question,” Gerry declared, “and while I am opposed to the provision as a separate question, I would rather agree to finding out now if we are at an impasse, or finding out later after we have squandered more time. A government short of a proper national plan would be preferable to one with such a plan that would cause discontent among some states.”
Sherman rose in support, and Wilson rose in opposition.
The vote was called, and Jackson recorded the results.
Ayes, six.
Nays, three.
Two states divided, with no vote.
The issue would remain in the report for further debate and final vote. The small-state delegates began to breathe once again.
The convention adjourned until Monday morning, July ninth, to gather and fall silent as they listened intently to the report of the committee of five who had been assigned the delicate problem of proposing the number of representatives each state should have in the new House of Representatives. Gouverneur Morris rose to represent the committee, and with a sheet of paper in hand delivered the results. The other delegates sat at their tables, quills in hand, scratching out the names and the numbers as they were announced.
New Hampshire, two.
Massachusetts, seven.
Rhode Island, one.
Connecticut, four.
New York, five.
New Jersey, three.
Pennsylvania, eight.
Delaware, one.
Maryland, four.
Virginia, nine.
North Carolina, five.
South Carolina, five.
Georgia, two.
By this proposal, there would be fifty-six men in the new House of Representatives.
“However,” Morris continued, “as the present situation of the states may probably alter in both wealth and the number of inhabitants, the legislature should be authorized from time to time to augment the number of representatives.”
Sherman rose. “On what principles or calculations are these numbers based? It does not appear to correspond to any rule, or any plan previously adopted by congress.”
Gorham responded. “Some provision of this sort was necessary in the outset. The number of blacks and whites with some regard to supposed wealth was the general guide. Fractions of numbers were not considered. We did not follow the rule of one representative for every 40,000 inhabitants for two reasons. First, that with growth, there would soon be too many representatives, and second, if western states are admitted to the union in sizeable numbers, they would soon outvote the Atlantic states.”
Gouverneur Morris rose. “This report is little more than a guess. We attempted to create it in light of the realities now existing, as we saw them.”
Then William Paterson of New Jersey stood, and both Washington and Franklin focused on him. It was Paterson who had in previous debate at the convention made it known that he could not abide considering the slaves in any calculations dealing with electing members of the new congress.
“I consider the report of the committee, which is based on estimates of what the future will bring, to be too vague. New Jersey is against it. I can regard Negro slaves in no light other than property. They are not free agents, have no personal liberty, no means to acquire property, and in fact are themselves nothing more than property.”
He paused in the dead silence, aware he had reopened one of the most delicate issues of the entire convention, and then he went on.
“What is the true principle of representation? It is a process accepted by all to send a few men to a forum where their political business can be handled, because the people themselves are either too numerous, or too widely scattered, to meet themselves. And, if such a meeting of the people were actually to take place, would the slaves be allowed to vote? No! Why then should they be represented in the new national congress?”
He stopped to consider his last remarks before he delivered them. “I am against counting the slaves in any manner when determining the voting power for seats in the new congress because it will encourage more slave trade. May I remind you, that the Confederation Congress, which has failed us, were admittedly ashamed to use the term slaves in their business, and to avoid it, used a description. Other persons.”
The arguments would not cease.
Once again, the motion was made to deliver the whole conflicted matter to another committee, one man from each state in the East Room, for them to reconsider the report from the first committee that was now under fire, and to report their findings based on the arguments heard that day.
The new committee was appointed, and the convention adjourned for the day.
Tuesday morning, July tenth, Rufus King of Massachusetts stood when Washington called for the report of the new committee. King read the report, then laid the copy on the desk of Secretary Jackson, and Jackson read it again, loud, slow.
The House of Representati
ves shall consist of sixty-five members, as follows:
Rhode Island and Delaware, one each.
New Hampshire and Georgia, three each.
New Jersey, four.
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Connecticut, five each.
Maryland and New York, six each.
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, eight each.
Virginia, ten.
There was no letup in the disputes, and motions ran rampant. Half the states moved to get a larger number of representatives than the report gave them, and to take them from other states if necessary. None could understand the basis on which this new proposal was made. Yesterday it was fifty-six members in the House of Representatives, and today it is sixty-five! What accounted for the gain of nine new members?
In the late afternoon, with frustration coming close to anger, it was finally proposed that the whole mess be given back to the original committee of eleven, with the request that they furnish the convention with an explanation of the principles on which the latest set of numbers came to rest.
The motion was defeated, ten votes to one.
Paterson prepared a chart showing the total population of each state, and the proportion of slaves in each, to prove the number sixty-five was based on fact. It was ignored.
Brearly prepared his own chart, which resulted in a total of ninety delegates being the correct number. His chart was discarded.
Madison insisted the number of representatives ought to be doubled.
Sherman recommended the total should not exceed fifty.
All proposals became lost in a hopeless muddle of populations, wealth, slaves, conflicting claims, and rising tempers.
It was then made known that the two remaining delegates from New York, Robert Yates and John Lansing were leaving the convention with no intention of returning. Alexander Hamilton, the third member of the New York delegation had left weeks earlier. The reasons Yates and Lansing were leaving, which left no one representing New York? They thought the convention was exceeding its authority; that it was not practical to establish a government intended to reach all parts of the United States; and that any such government could only destroy the civil liberties of its citizens.