First Founding Father

by Harlow Giles Unger

  As Henry’s eyes bulged red with rage, Randolph shocked the convention by abruptly switching political allegiance:

  In the whole of this business, I have acted in the strictest obedience to my conscience, in discharging what I conceive to be my duty to my country. I refused my signature… I would still refuse; but as I think that those eight states which have adopted the constitution will not recede, I am a friend to the Union.44

  Randolph’s speech left the entire hall in stunned silence—Federalists as well as Antifederalists. It left Henry and Mason irate. When Richard Henry Lee learned of the governor’s defection, he urged Patrick Henry to respond forcefully.

  Henry shot to his feet to do just that, crying out that the existing Confederation of American States deserved “the highest encomium: It carried us through a long and dangerous war: It rendered us victorious in that bloody conflict with a powerful nation: It has secured us territory greater than any European monarch possesses.

  “Consider what you are about to do before you part with this Government,” he thundered.45

  In arguing for perpetuation of the Confederation, Henry cited Switzerland as proof that “we might be in amicable alliance with those states without adopting this constitution. Switzerland is a confederacy… of dissimilar governments… that has stood upwards of four hundred years.… They have braved all the power of France and Germany.… In this vicinity of powerful and ambitious monarchs, they have retained their independence, republican simplicity, and valor.”46

  He went on to cite Richard Henry Lee’s warning in Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican that the proposed constitution would give the American government power to send troops into any state to enforce federal laws. The same power in the hands of Parliament, he reminded the convention, had created the Intolerable Acts, with the cruel Boston Port Bill, the Quebec Act, and the Quartering Act, which together had provoked the Revolutionary War.

  Henry predicted the constitution would create “a great and mighty president with… the powers of a king” and give Congress the power of “unlimited… direct taxation” and powers “to counteract and suspend” state laws. “I am not well versed in history,” he argued, “but I will submit to your recollection whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people or by the tyranny of rulers? I imagine, sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny.”

  Henry repeated Richard Henry Lee’s demands for a bill of rights and other amendments to the constitution prior to ratification.

  By the time he closed his speech, Henry had held the floor for seven hours.

  James Madison, meanwhile, had sidled between convention members, approaching the most moderate of the Antifederalists and pledging that with the help of George Washington he would win passage of Richard Henry Lee’s bill of rights in the First Congress if they would now switch their votes in favor of ratification. They did, and before the convention ended, Madison succeeded in organizing an eighty-nine to seventy-nine vote in favor of ratification, allowing Virginia to become what delegates believed was the decisive ninth state to ratify the Constitution. In fact, New Hampshire had ratified the Constitution several days earlier, making Virginia the tenth state to ratify.

  Although Patrick Henry made a show of publicly accepting the decision of the convention, George Mason and his “Republicans” stormed out of the hall, intent on upsetting the convention’s decision by force if necessary. When Richard Henry Lee learned of the ratification vote, he expressed disbelief, predicting that the result—“a majority of ten only out of near two hundred”—had determined the fate of the nation and doomed it to failure.

  “’Tis really astonishing,” Richard Henry Lee sighed in disbelief, “that the same people who have just emerged from a long and cruel war in the defense of liberty should now agree to fix an elective despotism upon themselves and their posterity.… Nor does it augur well for the prosperity of the new government unless the wisdom and goodness of those who first act under this system shall take effective measures for introducing the requisite amendments.”47

  The Virginia convention’s vote for ratification elated George Washington. “It is with great satisfaction,” he told a group of supporters gathered in celebration at “a sumptuous dinner” at Wise Tavern in Alexandria, “I have it now in my power to inform you… that the delegates of Virginia adopted the Constitution.… In consequence of some conciliatory conduct and recommendatory amendments, a happy acquiescence… is likely to terminate the business in as favorable a manner as could possibly be expected.”48

  In Richmond, however, George Mason and his Antifederalist delegates continued shouting Patrick Henry slogans of ’76—“Liberty or Death” and “We must fight!” Armed and angry, they gathered at a nearby tavern and prepared to return to the convention site and burn all records of the ratification vote.

  * Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Gordon Wood contends that Richard Henry Lee was not the author of the Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican, and a number of respected historians agree, attributing them to Melancton Smith, a New York delegate at the Continental Congress. On the other hand, the highly respected historians Jean Edward Smith and Professor Walter Hartwell Bennett, editor of the Letters, among others, are adamant that Richard Henry Lee was The Federal Farmer, and I agree—to an extent. Few American political leaders of the 1780s had the formal education, erudition, and command of the English (as opposed to the “American”) language to have produced the brilliantly written Letters—and the home-schooled Smith was certainly not one of them. Smith did speak and write profound essays on some of the topics covered by the Letters, but not until the spring and summer of 1788, almost a year after Lee’s Letters appeared in print. After studying the vocabulary, syntax, and other elements of the writing in the Letters—including punctuation and rare but consistent punctuation and grammatical errors—and after comparing them with the writings of Lee’s political contemporaries, including Melancton Smith, I believe Richard Henry Lee was the primary author of Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican but that he collaborated with Antifederalist contemporaries—probably Smith among them—and incorporated parts or all of their thoughts in the finished pamphlets. For more on this dispute, see the “Editor’s Introduction,” xiii–xx, in Walter Hartwell Bennett, ed., Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1978).

  * George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and Andrew Jackson each served two terms, and all owned slaves while in office. Only John Adams and John Quincy Adams, the second and fifth presidents from Massachusetts, did not. Each lost his bid for election to a second term.

  * A total of eighty-five Federalist essays appeared over six months extending into 1788, with Hamilton writing fifty-one, Madison twenty-nine, and Jay five, according to most authorities.

  CHAPTER 12

  His Majesty the President

  TWELVE YEARS HAD ELAPSED SINCE PATRICK HENRY HAD STOOD in St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, to cry out for liberty or death and inspire Washington, Lee, and other Founding Fathers to take up arms against Britain. In 1775 he had inspired his countrymen to go to war by crying out “We must fight!” Now he found himself in the incongruous position of trying to inspire them to accept peace.

  “I will be a peaceable citizen!” he told the Antifederalists. “My head, my hand, my heart shall be at liberty to retrieve the loss of liberty and remove the defects of that system in a constitutional way. I wish not to go to violence, but will wait… patiently… in expectation of seeing this government changed so as to be compatible with the safety, liberty, and happiness of the people.”1

  Richard Henry Lee felt much the same way, but rather than stand aside as he had during the writing and ratification of the Constitution, he determined to act by capturing a seat in the new Congress and working to implement Article V:

  The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary
, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes.2

  Lee decided to forego a grueling campaign for popular election to the House of Representatives, where one vote among fifty-nine would count for little. Instead, he chose to ask the state legislature to appoint him to the US Senate, where his vote—and voice—would have more impact as one of twenty-six members (twenty-seven in the event of a tie).

  Washington grew alarmed at Lee’s appointment, fearing that he and Patrick Henry were at least discussing—if not plotting—to overthrow the new government.

  “That some of the leading characters among the opponents of the proposed government have not laid aside their ideas of obtaining great and essential changes… may be collected from their public speeches,” Washington warned James McHenry, a courageous Revolutionary War physician and a Maryland signer of the Constitution. “A considerable effort will be made to procure the election of Antifederalists in order to… undo all that has been done.… I earnestly pray that the Omnipotent Being who hath not deserted the cause of America in the hour of its extremest hazard will never yield so fair a heritage of freedom a prey to Anarchy or Despotism.”3

  Although George Washington was unquestionably a national hero and a vast majority of the people would have voted for him to be their first President, the vast majority did not get the chance. As Patrick Henry had charged, “we, the people” had not given the framers of the Constitution authorization to use their name; the framers had simply proclaimed themselves “We, the people” and repeated the charade in electing the first President. In fact, the framers had made certain that the people had as little say in the final tally for President as they had had in the writing of the Constitution.

  Of 2.4 million free men and women in America, only 1.65 percent actually voted—43,782 white men. Indeed, only six states allowed any popular voting—all of it limited to property owners. Three states did not participate in the presidential election. New York’s legislature had deadlocked over ratification of the Constitution and held no vote. North Carolina had not yet ratified the Constitution and, therefore, held no vote. And Rhode Island had rejected the Constitution and remained an independent state. Four states—Connecticut, Georgia, New Jersey, and South Carolina—allowed no popular vote, leaving the voting for electors to state legislatures.

  In the end only the propertied citizens of Delaware (685), Maryland (7,732), Massachusetts (17,740), New Hampshire (5,909), Pennsylvania (7,383), and Virginia (4,333) voted for the President—a total of 43,782 people in a population of 3.0 million, or, stated another way, a population of 2.4 million free people and 600,000 slaves. The election results outraged Richard Henry Lee and other Virginia antifederalists, who called in vain for another constitutional convention.

  On October 20 Virginia’s legislature elected Richard Henry Lee and a second Antifederalist, William Grayson, to the powerful US Senate and crushed the senatorial ambitions of Federalist James Madison.

  The first Senate was divided into three groups, each with different terms of service: one-third would serve two years, a second one-third four years, and the remainder six years, thus beginning the process of staggered elections that would allow the states to elect one-third of the Senate every two years. Lee won appointment for four years and rode to New York determined to amend the Constitution with a bill of rights and to reshape the new government to ensure individual liberties and state control of internal affairs. As written, the Constitution gave him ample opportunity to do both.

  Meanwhile James Madison, having lost his bid for a Senate seat, declared for the House of Representatives instead and won a seat by a large majority in the district including and surrounding his father’s huge plantation—a pocket borough of sorts. He joined ten other Virginia representatives in the House, most of them Antifederalist supporters of Richard Henry Lee. A former member of the Confederation Congress and a key figure at the Constitutional Convention, the Princeton-educated Madison was a small man, five-feet-two by some estimates, and so thin and shy at times that he all but disappeared into his suit in a crowded room. It was easy to ignore him. Although Virginians constituted the largest delegation in the new House of Representatives, irate Federalists from other states shunned Madison as a turncoat for pledging to work for passage of a bill of rights. Even some moderates thought him disingenuous.

  28. Virginia’s James Madison stunned George Washington after yielding to antifederalist demands for a bill of rights in exchange for their agreement to ratify the Constitution.

  Those who knew him well, however, saw Madison’s shift as a courageous political gesture aimed at reconciling legitimate differences between two groups of patriotic Americans. Although Antifederalists led by Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry represented a popular majority, they had had almost no support in the overwhelmingly Federalist Confederation Congress when they called for a second constitutional convention to rewrite—or scrap—the existing document and prevent a new government from taking office.

  By supporting Richard Henry Lee’s most important demands for a bill of rights, however, Madison had extended a hand of compromise to Lee and other moderate Antifederalists and effectively separated them from radicals who sought to emasculate the new federal government. With Washington’s reluctant approval, Madison predicted that “amendments… may serve the double purpose of satisfying the minds of well-meaning opponents, and of providing additional guards in favor of liberty.”4

  When Richard Henry Lee had first entered the Senate he expected to step into the same leadership role he had held in the Continental Congress—more so when he saw John Adams in the president’s chair. Together they had elevated Washington to prominence as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. Both Lee and Adams now looked forward to working together again.

  In shaping a new government and giving definition to the vaguely defined executive and judiciary branches, the First Congress divided along the same fault lines as had delegates at the Constitutional Convention. Lee and the Antifederalist minority fought to preserve as much state sovereignty as possible, and Washington’s Federalist majority was as intent on empowering the federal government and preventing the congressional stalemates that had almost cost them the war.

  Twenty members of the First Congress—nine of fifty-nine in the House and eleven of twenty-two senators—had attended the Constitutional Convention and intended maintaining their positions in Congress. As they had at the Constitutional Convention, America’s wealthiest white males made up almost the entirety of Congress, with the owners of the largest southern plantations representing the South.

  Although pro-ratification Federalists had won a significant majority of seats in both houses—fifty of the fifty-nine House seats and eighteen of the twenty-two Senate seats—they represented but a minority of the American people—namely, those who met each state’s property qualifications for voting—sometimes as much as $1 million in today’s currency. In their effort to ensure majority rule, they had actually created rule by minority—the very oligarchy Richard Henry Lee predicted the Constitution would produce.

  Although most Americans who could not vote had opposed ratification of the Constitution because of its failure to guarantee individual rights and popular voting, Lee recognized the futility of moving for a second constitutional convention in a Senate dominated by Federalists.

  It was not until April 20—six weeks after the scheduled opening of Congress—that John Adams completed a week-long journey from his Massachusetts home and crossed the Harlem River to the northern end of Manhattan Island.

  The next morning the Senate’s president pro tempore greeted him at the door of Federal Hall, led him up the flight of stairs, and escorted him into the Senate chamber to his chair, where he assumed the presidency of that body without ceremony. Although the Constitution required the incoming Presi
dent to take a specific oath, it required no comparable commitment by the vice president. His election automatically installed him in office.

  After calling the Senate to order, Adams, as presiding officer, immediately threw off conventional procedural restraints and pressed the Senate to consider as one of its first orders of business what he deemed the momentous question of how to address the President. Infatuated by the pomp and ceremony of European courts he had visited as an American minister during the Revolutionary War, he suggested “Your Highness” or “Your Most Benign Highness” as appropriate titles for the President. A few senators protested Adams’s blatant violation of customary procedures by initiating and even intruding in a debate instead of remaining an impartial moderator. To restore their bond of Revolutionary War days, Richard Henry Lee immediately came to Adams’s support.

  29. French architect Pierre Charles l’Enfant transformed New York’s City Hall into Federal Hall, the nation’s most stunning public building at the time. Standing on Wall Street at the end of Broad Street, it featured a two-tiered portico that hosted the inauguration of George Washington as the nation’s first President.

  Although the debate that followed seemed ridiculous to some, Lee’s enemies—Robert Morris and Oliver Ellsworth—charged that Lee was flattering Adams to gain control of the Senate. Whatever his motives, Lee nonetheless agreed that throughout history “all the world, civilized and savage, called for the use of titles,” while Adams argued that “the principles of government are to be seen in every scene of human life. There is no person and no society to whom forms and titles are indifferent.… Family titles are necessary to family government; colonial titles were indispensable to colonial government, and we shall find national titles essential to national government.”5