by Ron Carter
Kathleen said, “That was beautiful. Just beautiful.”
Margaret sighed. “It was. Beautiful.” Suddenly her face clouded, and she could not hold herself in, and she covered her face with both hands and sobbed. Matthew stared at her in wonder, then looked at Kathleen, inquiring.
Kathleen threw her arms about Margaret and held her close, like a child. “It’s all right. It’s all right. He knows. He was there.”
Matthew stared, unable to fathom his mother’s tears, and Kathleen repeated, “John was there. He saw. He was there.”
John! His father!
Kathleen stepped back and Matthew wrapped his trembling mother inside his arms and murmured, “He was there, mother. He was there. He saw it. I promise.”
For a little time Margaret buried her face in his shoulder and shook with sobs. Then she stopped and stepped back and looked up at him, eyes red.
“I thought he was. I thought I felt him there.”
“You did.”
“Well,” Margaret said, “we didn’t even think about supper. Matthew, you and Kathleen will stay while we put something on the table, won’t you?”
Twenty minutes later none noticed when Caleb slipped out the back door into the night. It was an hour later, when Matthew and Kathleen took John by the hand and started to leave that Margaret asked, “Where did Caleb go? That boy! Comes and goes just whenever he takes a notion. Won’t tell a body—just disappears.”
“Don’t worry about him,” Matthew said. “He can take care of himself.”
“That may be so, but it still worries a mother.”
It was just past midnight when Margaret heard the front gate open and close. She had been sitting alone for more than an hour in her rocking chair in the light of a single lamp, with Adam and Prissy asleep in their beds, lost in memories of Brigitte. The baby, the child, the adolescent, the grown woman, the married woman. She rose and walked to the front door to wait for the soft rap, and it came. She opened the door and stepped back to let Caleb enter. He went to the kitchen to dip water from the bucket, and drink, with her following.
“Are you all right?” she asked softly.
He nodded and put the dipper back into the wooden bucket.
“Where were you? I worried.”
He shrugged, said nothing, and started toward the parlor, when she reached to take his arm.
“Can’t you tell me where you were?”
For a few moments he looked into her eyes before he spoke.
“I was at the Cutler house. In the shadows of the yard. I waited until the windows were dark, and then I stayed for a time after. I didn’t want anyone disturbing Billy and Brigitte on their wedding night.”
He paused for a moment before he turned and walked toward his bedroom, leaving Margaret to stand in the dim light, stunned, and suddenly weeping again.
Notes
The persons and events in this chapter are fictional.
However, for an excellent map showing the open grassy area known as the “Common,” as well as the street grid of the city of Boston and the wharves and docks of the Boston waterfront, in the 1780 time frame, see Freeman, Washington, the map facing page 229.
The essence of the rather strange Massachusetts law, passed June 22, 1786, requiring public notice either by announcement or posting in writing in a public place of the intent of a couple to marry, followed by a certificate that such notice has been made, appears in Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale, p. 139.
Philadelphia
August 6, 1787
CHAPTER XXVI
* * *
The Monday morning sun had cleared the eastern rim of the world far enough to promise another sweltering hot Philadelphia day, but not far enough for the banks and investment houses and law offices in the vital business district just west of the Statehouse to have unlocked their doors to morning traffic. The neat cobblestone-paved streets between the Delaware River waterfront to the east and Twelfth Street to the west echoed with the rumble of carts and wagons loaded heavy with fresh produce and cheeses from the thrifty Dutch farms surrounding the city.
In his room on the second floor of the Hartman boardinghouse, John Rutledge, one of the four delegates from South Carolina to the Grand Convention—white-haired, high, rounded forehead, solid chin and jaw—shrugged into his coat, tugged the sleeves straight, glanced at himself one last time in the mirror, walked out the door, down the stairs, and out into the bright sun. Born in 1739 to a middle-class family, by 1776, Rutledge’s dedication and brilliance in the world of planting, law, and politics had gained him five plantations, a solid law practice, and established him as one of the first citizens in his home state. His record as a dedicated leader for the American patriot cause against English monarchy was unparalleled in the south, and the British repaid his efforts by confiscating and partially destroying all five of his plantations. At the close of the war he had been appointed presiding judge of the South Carolina Supreme Court. When the call came for service in the Grand Convention in Philadelphia, South Carolina turned to him.
As he walked east toward the business district, he nodded a morning greeting to the few who acknowledged him in passing; his stellar life in South Carolina had done little to promote his recognition in Philadelphia. He stopped in the luxury of the Indian Queen Hotel foyer where James Wilson of Pennsylvania was waiting for him, and the two walked back into the street, and south the few blocks to a shop on Fruit Street with a small, neat sign in the window, DUNLAP & CLAYPOOLE, PRINTERS.
In the ten-day recess that was to end that morning, most of the other delegates had either journeyed home to resurrect their business affairs or to renew family ties or both, or they had remained in Philadelphia, trying to forget the sweltering East Room of the Statehouse and the tangled mass of confusion they had created in the two months of hot debate in that locked room, which at times seemed more akin to a prison than the hall in which the Grand Convention was convened. But the Committee of Detail, appointed on July twenty-sixth, and which included John Rutledge as chairman, with members Edmund Randolph of Virginia, James Wilson from Pennsylvania, Oliver Ellsworth from Connecticut, and Nathaniel Gorham from Massachusetts, enjoyed no such reprieve. As regards the qualifications of these five men, the consensus of the convention was that it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to put together five men whose wisdom, clarity of thought, and dedication to purpose would rise to their level.
In the ten-day reprieve, John Rutledge skillfully kept them together, rapidly and systematically going over every document that might offer a part of the solution to the quandary that had brought the convention to a grinding halt. The committee had picked the Articles of Confederation to pieces, examined the discarded Pinckney plan and the Paterson plan, then half the constitutions of the various states, collecting a thought here, a principle there, a phrase, a word, that would fit somewhere in the puzzle.
Then they had piled the bundle on the desk of Edmund Randolph with the instruction: make sense of it and write the rough draft of a new constitution. With the other four looking over his shoulders, Randolph delivered.
John Rutledge had taken the Randolph rough draft with the ink scarcely dry and made a few recommendations in the margins, then passed the document to James Wilson, probably the most experienced, learned, and dedicated member of the committee. Wilson had risen above weariness and fatigue to create a new and corrected draft, which the committee dissected one line at a time, examined from every conceivable angle, approved it, and handed it back to Wilson. Thereupon Wilson had made the necessary corrections to create a smooth-flowing, simple, legally sound, and comprehensive document.
With John Rutledge at his shoulder, Wilson had approached the partnership of Dunlap & Claypoole, on Friday, August third, two businessmen who owned the Philadelphia newspaper the Pennsylvania Packet, which had most recently been made famous because of their article that dubbed the East Room of the Statehouse “Unanimity Hall.” It was this company that had been previously selected to print othe
r documents for Congress and had earned the trust of most men in the convention.
As Wilson and Rutledge entered the printing office, David Claypoole greeted them. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, “may I be of service?” He glanced at the sealed document in Wilson’s hands.
Wilson was amiable. “Good morning. Is Mr. Dunlap away?”
“New York. Attending congress.”
Wilson laid the packet on the counter. “We are delivering to you a copy of a draft of a proposed constitution for the United States. This represents what has been accomplished by the Grand Convention since May twenty-fifth. We must have sixty copies of this by eight o’clock on Monday morning, August sixth. Three days from now.”
Claypoole nodded but remained silent as Wilson continued.
“We trust you can do this with absolute secrecy. No one except you and your staff is to know what is written here. Can you agree to that?”
Claypoole nodded his head. “None. I’ll handle it myself. I’ll have it ready Monday morning.”
Wilson looked at Rutledge, who nodded, and Wilson said, “Good. We’ll want large margins on both sides for notes and corrections. I can’t promise when you’ll get paid, but one thing I can promise. If you are successful in this, we will notify your newspaper before anyone else, and you will have first release of this information to the public at large.”
Claypoole nodded. “Agreed. I’ll be waiting for you Monday morning.”
Monday morning, August sixth, eight o’clock a.m., had arrived. Wilson stopped at the front door of the print shop, turned the handle, and walked in. David Claypoole was seated at his desk, waiting, and he stepped rapidly to the front counter to greet them. He still wore his large, dark, gray printer’s apron, with heavy black gauntlets from his wrists to his elbows to protect his white shirt. His thin face showed a hint of pride. He laid a sealed box on the desk nearest the door.
“Here they are. Sixty copies. Seven pages each. Large margins. The billing is inside.” He drew a document from inside his apron. “This is a copy for your examination.”
For two minutes both Wilson and Rutledge studied the detail of the document. It was all there, just as Wilson’s final draft had it. Wilson raised his eyes to Claypoole.
“Excellent. No one else knows of this?”
“No one. I did most of it myself. My father helped a little, but no one will ever learn of it from him.”
Wilson offered the copy back to Claypoole, and Claypoole shook his head.
“You keep it. That is the only other copy, and we don’t want the responsibility. Do with it as you wish. Oh, one more thing. We have sealed the printing plates in another box and have them in the vault. They will remain there until you either call for them, or tell us you no longer need them, and we’ll disassemble them.”
Wilson thrust out his hand. “Keep them safe for now. The day we finish, we will report to you here. Thank you.”
With the box clutched under one arm, Wilson followed Rutledge back into the street, and the two hurried to the Statehouse, down the large, vacuous hall to the East Room, and Fry swung the door open for them to enter. They set the box on Wilson’s desk, opened it, placed the sixty copies to one side, discarded the box, and waited for the other delegates to arrive. They came noisily after their ten-day reprieve and crowded around Wilson’s desk, pointing, gesturing, inquiring about the stack of papers. At ten o’clock George Washington took his chair on the dais and the room quieted.
“The convention will come to order. Secretary Jackson will call the roll.”
Jackson’s roll call was perfunctory, and he turned to Washington. “A quorum is present, Mr. President.”
“Thank you.” Washington looked directly at John Rutledge. “Our first order of business is a report from the Committee of Detail. Mr. Chairman . . . ”
Rutledge stood. “Mr. President, the Committee has reduced its efforts to a seven-page, printed draft of a proposal. I have sixty printed copies and I respectfully request permission to distribute them to the delegates.”
Washington nodded. “Deliver the copies to Mr. Jackson’s desk.” He turned to look down at Jackson. “Carefully distribute the copies, one per delegate, and keep a record. All undistributed copies are to be delivered to this desk. Every copy must be accounted for.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
The delegates quickly formed a line down the aisle, and Jackson systematically called their names and made a check mark on a paper as he handed out the documents. The remaining few copies were placed on the corner of Washington’s desk on the dais, and within three minutes the only sounds in the room were pages being turned and the occasional scratch of a quill as notations were made in the generous margins on the printed pages.
Within ten minutes, the sound of the quills had ceased as the delegates began to grasp the reach and the depth of the twenty-three articles in the document. They recognized phrases and words and principles from the Articles of Confederation, the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan, Pinckney’s work, Paterson’s documents, the debates, some state constitutions, and a few from sources unknown. In even-handed, plain style, it was all there, simple, clear, uncluttered. Terms and designations that identified offices and governmental entities appeared—President, Speaker, Congress, Senate, House of Representatives, Supreme Court. Phrases that were at once simple yet comprehensive caught their eye—We the people—state of the union—privileges and immunities, necessary and proper—vacancies—disabilities. The internal workings of both houses of the new Congress were defined, with the procedures of the qualified veto power and the jurisdiction of the courts. The power of impeachment was granted to the House of Representatives, and the power to convict to the Supreme Court. The procedure by which new states would be admitted to the union was carefully described. The provisions went on and on.
Within half an hour the delegates understood that the Committee of Detail had produced a document that moved the entire convention a gigantic step forward on the long and twisted road of creating a new government. They had created a detailed, defined list of eighteen powers vested in the new national government, beyond which it could not go. Further, the document had denied certain powers to the states. States could not coin money, issue letters of marque and reprisal, make treaties, or grant titles of nobility. They could not print paper money, lay duties on imports, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, declare war singly or in combination with any other state or states.
The result was that some of the hazy, ill-defined lines between the new national government and the state governments were clarified, but others remained, still fuzzy, yet to be resolved.
Further, the committee had intentionally left to the convention the issue of how many states would be required to ratify the new constitution, by leaving an open blank in the language of Article XXI:
“The ratification of the conventions of _______ states shall be sufficient for organizing this constitution.”
The number that would eventually fill the blank was a matter of great speculation among the delegates, and it ranged from seven, a bare majority, to all thirteen states, although most reckoned that they would never require all thirteen states to ratify. Too well did they remember the infuriating roadblocks that the belligerent, stubborn Rhode Island had thrown in the way of progress under the Articles of Confederation, which required the agreement of all thirteen states on many of the critical votes.
But most significant, the Committee had attempted to neutralize the naked threat of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, issued on July twenty-third. With eyes blazing, in a soft, steady voice, he had made it known that if the convention intended meddling with the issue of slavery, he and his delegation were prepared to walk out, and the business of nation-making would crash.
The Committee of Detail had addressed Pinckney’s deadly pronouncement, and realized they could find no middle ground. The issue had to fall one way or the other—for or against slavery. They gambled.
“No tax or duty shall be laid by the legislature on articles exported from any state; nor on the migration or importation of such persons as the several states shall think proper to admit; nor shall such migration or importation be prohibited. No navigation act shall be passed without the assent of two thirds of the members present in each house.”
The words were polite, innocuous, inoffensive in and of themselves. They were also transparent to every delegate. “Such persons” were the slaves. “Navigation act” was the tax to be paid upon the sale of “such persons.” Slavery would be left as it was. The fuse was lit. The issue of slavery was yet to explode between most northern and southern states, and no one would know the outcome of the gamble taken by the Committee of Detail until the smoke had cleared and the wreckage was in view.
The delegates accepted it and moved on.
It was past eleven o’clock when the general consensus was voiced by one delegate who stood and was recognized.
“Mr. President, I respectfully move that we adjourn until tomorrow morning for purposes of having time to study the detail of this proposal.”
Washington nodded his agreement. “We are adjourned until tomorrow morning, eleven o’clock. Punctuality is required.”
The following morning brought a heat wave that held for days. The delegates were already perspiring when Washington called them to order.
“The first order of business is consideration of the report of the Committee of Detail. I presume each of you has acquainted himself with the provisions.”
Pinckney stood. “I move that we adjourn into the committee of the whole for further debate.” He had not anticipated the vitriolic response that came hot and loud.
Gorham was on his feet. “Some could not agree to the form of the government before the powers were defined, while others could not agree to the powers till it was seen how the government was formed. If we do not get past such things, I fear there will be no end to the delays and postponements.”