Gift of the PulDlisliers

COLLECTIONS

Virginia Historical Society.
New Series.

VOL. IX.

WM. ELLIS JONES,
PRINTER,
RICHMOND, VA.

THE HISTORY

Virginia Federal Convention

1788,
WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE EMINENT VIRGINIANS OF
THAT ERA WHO WERE MEMBERS OF THE BODY

HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY, LL.D.
.». WITH A
Biographical Sketch of the Author

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES
EDITED BY
R. A. BROCK,
Corresponding Secretary and Librarian of the Society.

VOL. I.

Richmond, Virginia.
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY.
MDCCCXC.

IS-?!^

EMENDATION.
The message referred to on p. ix, line 12, may have been one of Jef
ferson Davis', President of the Confederate States of America.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

OF

Hon. Hugh Blair Grigsby, LL.D.

The pure, devoted and earnest life of Hugh Blair Grigsby
was a beneficent one, and signal in its incitations. Few, if any,
among his contemporaries exerted a more inspiring influence in
the cause of education and in behalf of virtuous resolve in Vir
ginia than he ; not one, certainly, in glowing utterance, and in
appealing picture, sounded more surely the key-note of State
grandeur and the common weal.
Justly remarked the late venerable and admirable Marshall
P. Wilder,* in his last penned effort, on his couch, in his last
days — an address to be delivered before the New England His
toric Genealogical Society, upon the completion of nineteen
years' service as the president of that learned body, at its annual
meeting in 1887 : " Recall the traditions of men ; each genera
tion in its day bears testimony to the character of the preceding.
He who worships the past believes we are connected not only
with those that came before us, but with those who are to
come after. What means those hieroglyphic inscriptions on the
Egyptian monuments ? Says one of them : ' I speak to you
who shall come a million of years after my death.' Another
says, ' Grant that my words may live for hundreds and thousands
of years.' The writers were evidently thinking, not only of
their own time, but of the distant future of the human race, and
hoped, themselves, never to be forgotten."
a Hon. Marshall Pinckney Wilder was born September 28, 1798, and
died at Boston, Mass., March 16, 1886.

vi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF
Hugh Blair Grigsby was born in the city of Norfolk, Virginia,
November 22d, 1806, and died at his seat, "Edgehill," Char
lotte county, Virginia, April 28, 1881. He was the son of Ben
jamin Grigsby, who was born in Orange county, September 18,
1770, and was a pupil of Rev. William Graham, at old Liberty
Hall Academy, the precursor of the present Washington and Lee
University. Among his fellow-students was Archibald Alexan
der, the subsequently eminent divine, and who was his companion
when in early manhood they sought their life-work in a horse
back journey to Southside Virginia. Leaving his companion in
Petersburg, Grigsby, ' ' with his sole personal possessions in a
pair of saddle-bags," continued his solitary ride to Norfolk,
where he located, and was the first pastor of the first Pres
byterian church in that then borough. Here he married Eliza
beth, daughter of Hugh and Lilias (Blair) McPherson, and
providentially and faithfully labored until, as is recorded on
the handsome marble obelisk erected to his memory in Trinity
churchyard, Portsmouth, Virginia, "in the faithful discharge
of his calling, he fell a martyr to yellow-fever on the 6th of
October, 1810.'"' His widow married, secondly, January i6th,
b The paternal ancestor of Hugh Blair Grigsby is said to have emi
grated from England to Virginia in 1660. His grandfather, the imme
diate progenitor of the Grigsbys of Rockingham county, John Grigsby,
was born in Stafford county in 1720; accompanied, in 1740, Lawrence
Washington in the forces of Admiral Vernon in the expedition against
Carthagena ; married first, in 1746, a Miss Etchison and settled on the
Rapid Anne river in Culpeper county. His wife dying in 1762, he
married secondly in 1764, Elizabeth, daughter of Benjamin and Ann
(Campbell) Porter, of Orange county, Virginia. The issue by the first
marriage was five children, the eldest of whom was James Grigsby,
born November loth, 1748. The issue of the second marriage was nine
children, the youngest of whom was Captain Reuben Grigsby, born
June 6th, 1780, in Rockbridge county; educated at Washington Col
lege; teacher; farmer; member of the House of Delegates of Virginia;
Captain United States Army in the war of 1812 ; sheriff of Rockbridge
county ; trustee of Washington College 1830-43 ; died February 6th,
1863. (See obituary, Rictimond Enquirer, February loth, 1863). An
interesting incident in the boyhood of James Grigsby has been trans
mitted. Whilst hunting with a pack of hounds near the Natural Bridge
in 1781, he encountered the French tourist, the Marquis de Chastellux,
and was his guide to the Bridge, and prevailed upon him to become
the guest of his father. These attentions the Marquis records in his

HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY. Vll
1817, Dr. Nathan Colgate Whitehead" (born in Southampton
county, Virginia, April 8th, 1792,) who, although educated as
a physician, relinquished practice and was for twenty-seven years
the honored president of the Farmers Bank of Virginia, in Nor
folk. He died in 1856. Hon. John B. Whitehead, ex-mayor of
Norfolk is the issue of this marriage. In connection with the
prime service of Rev. Benjamin Grigsby as founder of the first
Presbyterian church in Norfolk, it may be .pleasing to add a
singular exemplification of pious constancy and fealty, as recently
communicated to the writer by Mr. Whitehead. He writes :
" From the completion of the building of the first and only
Presbyterian church in the borough of Norfolk, in 1802, to the
present time, the elements for the communion service in our
church have been presented by the mother and grandmother of
Mr. Grigsby and the writer ; by our grandmother until 1822,
and by our mother up to December, i860 ; and by my wife to the
present time, and, with the exception of three years (during the
period of the late war) have been furnished from our old home
(in which I reside) from ,the year 1808. I would also state that
the Wednesday evening prayer-meetings were held in our parlors
from 1808 to 1827, in which last year the late distinguished
scholar and jurist, William Maxwell, LL.D. (long the efifi-
" Travels," of which he presented a handsomely bound copy to his
youthful guide and entertainer. James Grigsby married twice, first, in
1768, Frances Porter, the sister of the second wife of his father, and
settled at "Fancy Hill," Rockbridge county. Their eldest son, the
father of Hugh Blair Grigsby, was christened Benjamin Porter Grigsby,
but appears to have omitted the use of the second name. He was a
trustee of Washington College 1796-1807.
Among the descendants of John Grigsby were the following officers
in the Confederate States Army :
Generals E. Frank Paxton, Albert Gallatin Jenkins and J. ^yarren
Grigsby, Colonel Andrew Jackson Grigsby, and Major Andrew Jackson
Paxton. The editor is indebted to Miss Mary Davidson, Lexington, Va., of
the Grigsby lineage, for the facts embraced in this note.
cThe Whitehead is a family of early seating in Virginia. Thomas
Whitehead was granted 162 acres of land in Hampton parish, York
county, March 6, 1653. Book No. 3, page 9. Robert Whitehead, John
Bowles and Charles Edmond were granted 3,000 acres in New Kent
county, March 25, 1667. Book No. 6, page 45.

viii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF
cient Corresponding Secretary and Librarian of the Virginia
Historical Society), one of the elders, built for the use of the
increased congregation a beautiful edifice for the purpose."
Hugh Blair Grigsby in youth was of delicate constitution, and
it was feared that he would be an early victim to pulmonary dis
ease, but prudence and systematic physical exercise on his part
happily surmounted the dread tendency, and ensured to a green
old age a life of abounding usefulness. He was a studious lad.
Among his early tutors were Mr. William Lacy, of Prince Ed
ward county, and the Rev. W. W. Duncan, the father of the late
eloquent divine and honored president of Randolph-Macon Col
lege, Rev. James A. Duncan, D. D. He subsequently entered
Yale College, remained two years, and gained creditable distinc
tion in his studies and in versification. He took here, among
other studies, the law course, with the view of making it his pro
fession. This design he was constrained to relinquish because
of an increasing infirmity — deafness — which continued through
life. His bias for biography was early evinced. There is pre
served by his family a volume in MS., written in his eighteenth
year, giving sketches of the character, personal appearance
and social traits of the distinguished of Virginian statesmen
and clergy with whose careers he had become most familiar.
Through special predilection, as was markedly evinced, he em
barked in journalism, and became the editor and owner of the
Norfolk Beacon, upon which he was wont often to say he did the
work of two or three persons much of the time during the six
years that he conducted the newspaper. His editorials were all
written in a standing posture at his desk, and his dailv hours of
labor were often a majority of the twenty-four. Such earnest ap
plication met its reward in a comfortable competency of $60,000,
with which he retired from the paper, a step, indeed, which his
physical condition indicated as judicious, as his lungs seemed to
be seriously threatened. He now devoted himself to athletic
exercises, and acquired quite a proficiency as a boxer and a
pedestrian. It is noteworthy that he accomplished a journey on foot to
Massachusetts, through several of the New England States and
the lower portions of Canada, and back to Virginia.
In the midst of his arduous editorial labors, he found variation
in service in the legislative halls ofhis State. He was a member

HUGH Bi.AIR GRIGSBY. IX
of the House of Delegates from Norfolk in 1829 and 1830, and
during the term served also as a member of that constellation of
talent, the Virginia Convention of 1 829-' 30, succeeding in that
eminent body General Robert Barraud Taylor, who resigned his
seat. That his selection for this responsible representation was
judicious, his subsequent manifestations gave just evidence. It
is narrated of him that " an argument advanced by him, and
published in the Richmond Enquirer under the signature of
' Virginiensis,' in reply to Sir William Harcourt in an article on
international law, under the signature of 'Hortensius,' in the
London Times, was afterwards substantially incorporated in a
message of President Buchanan."
Mr. Grigsby married, November 19th, 1840, Miss Mary Ven-
able, daughter of Colonel Clement Carrington, of "Edgehill,"
Charlotte county, who was the son of the distinguished jurist,
Paul Carrington the elder, and a battle-scarred veteran of the
Revolutionary War. Colonel Carrington, after having served first,
at an early age, in several expeditions of the State line in Vir
ginia, joined as a cadet the legion of Light-Horse Harry Lee of
Greene's army. At the age of nineteen he fought bravely at the
bloody battle of Eutaw, where he was struck down by a severe
and dangerous wound in the thigh. He faithfully served as a
just and impartial magistrate of his county for more than fifty
years. He died November 28th, 1847, aged eighty-five years.
From the period of his marriage until the death of Colonel Car
rington, Mr. Grigsby made his home in Charlotte county. After
that event he removed temporarily to Norfolk, but returned to
"Edgehill," the patrimonial estate of Mr. Grigsby, upon which
he henceforth resided until his death. Here, in the bosom of his
loving family and in the midst of constant and admiring friends,
he led a peaceful and contentful life, and yet with a marked ex
emplification of varied usefulness and moral and intellectual influ
ence. The habits of systematic application, enforced and stimu
lated by necessity in youth, together with impelling predisposition
and acute mental gifts, eminently fitted him for historical re
search, the results of which was an extensive mass of informa
tion which made him not only the select medium of voicing the
consensus of chaste and reverential sentiment on momentous oc
casions, but quickened him alike in mental and physical action
in the requirements of everyday life. Not only did his active

X BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF
being find time for an extensive correspondence with scholars
of varied culture, historical students, statesmen, and the votaries
of science ; the frequent delivery of chaste and eloquent ora
tions, but he found time withal to conduct with singular sagacity
and providence the operations of a large plantation. As a friend
and neighbor narrates": "In planning and executing improve
ments, constructing a dyke of some three miles in length, arrang
ing the ditches of his extensive low-grounds, so that a heavy
rain fall could be easily disposed of, and bringing all into a high
state of cultivation, he set an example of industry and energy
which every farmer would do well to emulate. He had ample
means, and we have sometimes heard his efforts characterized as
fanciful or Utopian. But the result shows method, skill and in
dustry ; the process was necessarily laborious, but the result was
grand." Of his prided engineering achievements in behalf of
agriculture, a venerable and revered friend has taken pleasing
cognizance, as will be subsequently noted. The simplicity of
character of Mr. Grigsby rendered him averse to any appearance
of ostentation. He was considerate and careful in his ordinary
expenditures, but amply provident in every circumstance of hos
pitality. His welcome was as spontaneous as his nature was
genial, and his mind far-reaching and comprehensive. With the
tenderest of instincts and with sympathies immediately respon
sive to truth, socially it was not otherwise than for him to be
delightsome. His just economy gave his nobility of character
ampler scope for beneficent exemplification. It allowed the
means for the purchase of books and the encouragement of the
arts, and thus, too, in collected treasures was afforded a warming
and directing impetus towards the intellectual development of
his neighbors and his kind. With heart and mind acutely sen
sitive to impressions of merit and conceptions of worth, his being
was an expanding treasure-house of all and aught of value and
virtue of which it had or might have cognizance.
Lingering reverently in the glorious walks of the past, with an
instinct born of purity, and a mental grasp only possible in emu
lous affection, he proudly held in mirrored brightness to the
contemplation of his fellows of this generation the moral worth

^Leonard Cox, Esq., editor and proprietor of The Charlotte Gazette,
in the issue of his paper of May 12, 1S81.

HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY. XI
and glory ofthe past, as he conjured, to our mind's eye, in ten
derness and reverence, in vivid reality, the forms of our fathers,
whose deeds gave it value. Such a man, such a master-mind,
systematically trained to the requirements of the present, con
stantly alive to enlightened progress, mental and material, could
but invoke ennobling and healthful impulse — incarnation as he
was of the Christian, the scholar and the patriot.
His whole being seemed a sensitive cluster of clinging tendrils,
which ever sought to grasp and twine themselves about some ob
ject or action of the past to be cherished. Ennobling as he was
in his warming conceptions, stimulating as he was in his glowingly
pictured lessons, his being found vent also in exemplification, if
less brilliant, yet scarcely less enduringly useful. " Man is a natu
rally acquisitive animal." Scarce one of us with an object or
aim in life, it has been urged, but who is in some sense a "collec
tor." The value of the collector is patent in the only satisfac
tory elucidation of the past yielded by its records, its monuments,
and specially by the familiar belongings — the concomitants and
appliances of every-day life — of our kind who have preceded us.
Mr. Grigsby was possessed with an insatiable fondness for and
enthusiastic eagerness to possess, to hold as his own, not only
the works of the great, the good, and the gifted — books, works
of art, and objects of curious interest and beauty — but also
souvenirs of possession, objects that had been loved and used by
those worthy of his love. His library, for which he had con
structed a separate building peculiarly adapted to the purpose,
numbered some six thousand volumes in the varied branches of
literature, in which probably the ancient classics and history and
biography predominated. Many of the volumes were singularly
endeared to him because they had belonged to and been lov
ingly conned by predecessors of worth and learning. It con
tained many volumes from the choice library of the erratic John
Randolph, of Roanoke, to the auction sale of which Mr. Grigsby,
with much self-satisfaction, liked to tell that he trudged on foot.
The relics treasured by him were many and varied. Perhaps as
endeared as any, approaching the claim to a collection, was that
of canes which had belonged to great men and cherished asso
ciates, or had grown in spot historic and sacred. These sup
porting staffs he was, with jealous impartiality to the memory of
the donor or departed friend, in the habit of using in turn, thus

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF

one day he was assisted in his walks with the cane of a loved
uncle, Reuben Grigsby, another with that of his revered friend
Governor Tazewell, another with a staff from the Mount of
Olives, and so on through more than a score of reverential ex-
crciscs. Every available space of the walls of his dwelling and library
were covered with beautiful and choice paintings, and every
nook and appropriate niche was graced with a piece of statuary
—busts of the great and good, or idealic creations.
He did much, if not more than any other man. to foster the
genius of our lamented Virginia artist, Alexander Galt,= and
e His ancestry is said to have been of Norman origin, and the name
originally Fitz Gaultier. They were brought with other Normans to
Scotland in the twelfth century to instruct the natives in military tactics,
and lands were granted them at Galston (quasi Galtstown) in Ayreshire.
The immediate ancestor ofthe Gaits of Tidewater Virginia was a Cove
nanter. Two of them were banished as Presbyterians to Virginia by
the Scotch Privy Council with Lord Cardross, about 1680. One married
the daughter of a wealthy planter, the other returned to Scotland after
the Revolution of 1688 and was the ancestor of the well-known writer,
John Gait. Alexander, the second son and fourth child of Dr. Alex
ander and Mary Sylvester (Jeffery) Gait, was born in Norfolk, Virginia,
January 26, 1827. His talent first exhibited itself at fifteen years of age
when he began to draw pencil portraits. His next advance was in
carving in alabaster and conchilia, and he executed many faithful por
traits in cameo. In 1848, he went to Florence, Italy, for Instruction in
art, and in a short time was awarded the highest prize then offered for
drawing. He returned to Virginia, bringing several pieces of his work.
The "Virginia" was his first ideal bust. He remained in America
several years, visiting in the while the Southern States and executing
a number of orders. At the State Fair held in Charleston, S. C, he
received prizes for work exhibited there. He returned to Florence in
1856, with many orders, among them one from the State of Virginia
for a statue of Thomas Jefferson, which preceded him on his return to
Virginia in i860, and now adorns the Library Hall of the University of
Virginia. A Virginian in every pulse and instinct, he naturally tendered
his service to the mother State in the rupture of the Union, and was
first connected with the Engineer Corps near Norfolk in planning forti
fications. Later he served on the staff" of Governor Letcher. In the
winter of 1862 he visited the camp of General T. J. Jackson in execu
tion of some commission — but with the design also of studying the
features of the great chieftain to prepare him for the making of a
statue. He unfortunately contracted, during this visit, small-pox, from
which he died in Richmond, January 19, 1863. His remains rest in

HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY. Xlll
possessed a number of his choicest works, among them being
"Columbus," "Sappjio," "Psyche," and " Bacchante."
The gentle, loving heart of Mr. Grigsby went out to all things
animate, and with a keen sense of the beauties of nature his ad
miration found grateful expression in pen and converse. " His
loving nature," as his fondly cherished wife writes, " made pets
of animals and birds," and was especially demonstrative "to
little children, whose clear infantile voices reached his impaired
hearing more distinctly than did the tones of adults." "A
scholar, and a ripe and good one," his commune with his books
was daily, with every moment to be spared from active demands
and social claims. " He was a rapid reader, and read with pen
in hand. With French and Latin authors he was in as constant
communion as with the writers of his own tongue.'" Although
his infirmity rendered conversation with him difficult, yet his
own discourse, in its easy dignity and range of digested informa
tion, was singularly entertaining, lightened, too, as it was with
frequent ripples of playful fancy, and made piquant with a vein
of quiet humor which often found striking expression.
Mr. Grigsby was a devout and earnest Christian, and a wor
shipper in the forms of his Presbyterian ancestors, and for years
had been in the habit of leading the regular devotions of his
household. "Although his name was not on the church book,"
he " was a punctual and large contributor to his minister's salary."
He possessed the faculty of chaste versification in a striking de
gree, and some of his productions are as impressive as were the
powers of his gift of oratory. His absolute trust in his Maker
is touchingly exemplified in the following :
Hollywood Cemetery. A number of his ideal works were stored in
the warehouse of a friend in Richmond, and were destroyed in the con
flagration of April 3, 1865, incident on the evacuation of the city. His
meritorious works which are extant probably number two-score or
more, and include, with the statue of Jefferson, busts of eminent men
and chaste and beautiful ideal creations. Representative ancestors of
Alexander Gait in several generations have reflected lustre on the
medical profession in Virginia, and been most beneficently connected
with her asylums for the unfortunate insane. The editor is indebted to
Miss Mary Jeffery Gait, the niece and heir of the subject of this note,
for the details embodied.
/" In Memoriam," by Rev. H. C. Alexander, D. D., LL.D., Hampden-
Sydney College, Va., Central Presbyterian, Dec. 14, 1881.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF

HYMN.
Written on the morning of the 22d of November, 1877, when I entered
my seventy-second year. "• '^- '^^
I.
Lord of the flaming orbs of space !
Lord of the Ages that are gone !
Lord of the teeming years to come —
Who sitt'st on Thy Sovereign Throne :
II.
Look down in Mercy and in Grace
On a poor creature of a Day,
Whose mortal course is nearly run,
Who looks to Thee, his only stay.
III.
In Thee, in Thee alone, O Lord !
Thine aged Servant puts his Trust
Thro' the blest passion of Thy Son,
Ere his frail frame returns to dust.
IV.
Uphold him thro' Earth's devious ways —
Sustain him by Thy gracious Power ;
And may the Glory of Thy Praise
Break from his lips in Life's last Hour.
V.
Grant the dear Pledges of Thy Love,
Thy mercy has vouchsaf 'd to him —
Peace in the shadow of Thine Ark —
Rest 'neath Thy shelt'ring Cherubim.
VI.
Lord, heed Thy servant's grateful praise
For all the mercies Thou hast given : —
For Health and Friends and length of Days—
Thy bleeding Son — a promised Heaven.
VII.
Oh ! may he live in fear of Thee —
Oh ! may he rest upon Thy Love,
When he shall cross that stormy Sea
That keeps him from his Home above.

HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY. XV
VIIL
Oh! bless those lov'd ones of his Heart,
While ling'ring on Earth's lonely Shore,
'Till we shall meet no more to part.
And chant Thy Praises evermore.
What a triumphant refrain is this :
I CANNOT DIE.
John xi, 26,
By Forth Winthrop. g
Time may glide by —
My pale wan face may show the waste of years ;
My failing eyes fill with unbidden tears ; —
But I'll ne'er die !
Fierce agony,
That racks, by night and day, the mortal frame.
May leave of life aught but the empty name ;
But I'll ne'er die !
The Sea's hoarse cry
May shake the shore ; and the wild toppling waves
May open wide for me their welt'ring graves —
But I'll ne'er die !
g Mr. Grigsby, in reading the " Life and Letters of John Winthrop,"
the first Governor of Massachusetts, by the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop,
LL.D., was particularly attracted by the sketch of Forth Winthrop's
brief career, and has affixed his name to these verses in memoriam,
and in token, it may also be taken, to the admirable friend who had
piously perpetuated the memory of his young relative of so many pre
ceding generations.
Forth Winthrop, was the third son of Governor John Winthrop. He
was born on the 30th of December, 1609, at Great Stambridge, in Essex
county, England, where his mother's family — the Forths — resided. He
was prepared for college at the somewhat celebrated school founded by
Edward VI, at Bury St. Edmunds, and entered Emanuel College, Cam
bridge, in 1627. After finishing his course at the University, he had
engaged himself to his cousin, Ursula Sherman, and was contemplating
marriage before following his father to New England. But a sudden
illness terminated fatally, and the parish register at Groton records his
burial on the 23d day of November, 1630. He was a young man of
great promise, and his letters, while he was at school and at college,
betoken him as one of the most affectionate of sons and brothers.

xvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF
True Chivalry,
That bathes with patriot blood th' embattled plain.
May count my mangled corse among the slain —
But I'll ne'er die!
Around may lie,
In grassy mound, or 'neath the sculptured stone,
The dear fresh dead, and those that long have gone-
But I'll ne'er die!
Love's moisten'd eye
May watch the falling lip — the gasp for breath —
And all the sad investiture of Death —
But I'll ne'er die!
My friends may sigh,
As the house fills ; and as with sable plume
The Hearse leads forth the cavalcade of gloom —
But I'll ne'er die!
All silently
Around the new-made grave my friends may crowd.
And my dear young and precious old be bow'd —
But I'll ne'er die!
As Ages ply
Their round, my shape may vanish from the land.
With those that felt the pressure of my hand —
But I'll ne'er die!
I soon must lie
Beneath the lid ; and the triumphant worm
May revel on my frail and prostrate form —
But I'll ne'er die !
Full solemnly
Kind friends may place me in the narrow cell.
And in soft tones utter the last farewell —
But I'll ne'er die!
Unconsciously
My name my dearest friends will cease to call,
And the loud laugh ring in my own old hall—
But I'll ne'er die!
Life's Victory
Is mine ! I wear the Conqu'ror's wreath.
Thro' Him who drew the fatal sting of Death-
How can I die?

HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY. Xvii
In upper sky,
Clothed in the shining robes of Sov'reign Grace,
As 'mid Heav'n's hosts I hail my Saviour's face —
O ! who can die?
That symphony.
Sounding from Earth to Heav'n responsively,
Exalts me here; "He that believes in Me
Can never die."
November, 1876.
Among the many of the poetic compositions of Mr. Grigsby,
printed and in MS., an ode to Horace Binney, the " Nestor ofthe
American Bar," on the completion of the ninety-third year of
his age, and " Lines to my Daughter on her Fourteenth Birth
day," may be noted. The latter, a pamphlet of sixteen Svo
pages, breathes a spirit of tender affection, of lofty patriotism,
and of fervent piety.
Mr. Grigsby became the President of the Virginia Historical
Society January 3d, 1870," succeeding that profound scholar and
eminent statesman, William Cabell Rives. Mr. Grigsby had for
many years given essential and earnest service in support of the
Society, and was, in truth, one of the vital springs of its con
tinued existence.
He it was to first propose a hall, a safe repository of its own
for the preservation of its treasures, and this hope and object he
fondly cherished and fostered assiduously to his latest moment.
Of his invaluable contributions to its mission, those herein listed,
with others of his historical productions, are permanent memo
rials in the annals of American literature.
Of the inestimable value of his services in behalf of the ven
erable institution of learning, William and Mary College, the
second in foundation in America, the action of its Board of Visi
tors and Governors will bear best attestation. Of this object of
his fervent and constant regard, in the fullness of his heart he
said: " The names of her sons have become national property,
and their fame illustrates the brightest pages of our country's
history. ' '
h He had at a previous period been proffered the post of Correspond
ing Secretary and Librarian, to succeed William Maxwell, LL.D.,
but the demands of a large plantation and domestic claims properly
forbade his acceptance of the trust.

xviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF
Two features of the college to which he contributed survive in
their offices for good.
He contributed, in 1870, $1,000 to the Library Fund, and in 1871
founded with a gift of a like sum the " Chancellor Scholarship."
In an address delivered by the Rev. William Stoddert, D. D.,i
in the Chapel of William and Mary College, on the 3d of July,
1876, he made this touching mention :
" The speaker of last night gave some instances of men who had
"won success in spite of obstacles apparently insurmountable — he
mentioned the blind professor of optics at Oxford ; Ziska, the
Bohemian general, and Milton, both blind ; Prescott, nearly so ;
Byron and Scott, both lame ; Beethoven, deaf; and, continuing,
said : I might, in this connection, allude to one still nearer, even
within these walls, although my words do not reach him. I might
speak of his style, with its exquisite attractiveness ; of his his
toric research, which has divined the hidden springs of human
movement ; of his mind, moulded by classic models until, even
in ordinary conversation, his sentences are replete with elegance
and strength ; of the charm of his narration, beautified by the
graces which have given immortahty to Herodotus and Zenophon,
to Livy and Tacitus; whose intellect seems still to brighten as
i Rev. William Stoddert, D. D. (whose paternal name was legally
changed in early manhood); born 1824; died 1886; was the son of
Dr. Thomas Ewell, of Prince William County, Va., a loved and distin
guished practitioner of medicine ; the brother of Richard S. Ewell. Lieu
tenant-General C. S. Army, and of Colonel Benjamin S. Ewell, LL.D.,
President Emeritus of William and Mary College after quite two-score
years of devoted service as instructor and President. Dr. Stoddert was
graduated from Hampden-Sidney College and the Union Theological
Seminary, ordained in the Presbyterian Church, and became a most
successful preacher, popular lecturer, and esteemed teacher in Tennes
see. William and Mary College conferred on him, on the occasion
above, the degree of D. D.
After a period of suspension it is most gratifying to note that the
grand old college of William and Mary has resumed its useful functions
under the able and energetic presidency ofthe Hon. Lyon G Tyler son
of a former Chanceller, John Tyler, President of the United States The
number of students in attendance was last reported as 120 with the
prospect of increase. With its proud prestige, advantages in healthful
and central location, it maybe hoped that its expanding usefulness may
be even greater and more influential than in any period of its glorious
past. °

HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY. XIX
years roll on; whose learning still increases, whose memory still
improves, and who is cut off from the sweet converse of friends,
so that these words can be uttered as though he were absent, be
fore the Chancellor of William and Mary College, Doctor Hugh
Blair Grigsby."
With the studious devotion and generous spirit of Mr. Grigsby
it may be inferred that membership in learned institutions was
numerously and gladly conferred on him. The writer has been
informed that among such distinctions he was a member of the
American Philosophical Society. Circumstances have impelled
haste in the preparation of this notice, and the writer has thus
been debarred from the desired requisite reference.
Mr. Grigsby's happy and inspiring connection with the Mas
sachusetts Historical Society is with just appreciation attested
in the warm utterances of its venerated president as herewith
embodied. It is embarrassing to attempt, without accessible record, an
enumeration of the literary contributions of Mr. Grigsby. Mr.
Winthrop admiringly alludes to his grace and merit as a volu
minous correspondent.
In his own newspaper, in others of his-native city and State,
and doubtless in other sections of our Union appeared many
instructive articles from his pen.
The Virginia Historical Register, the organ of the Virginia
Historical Society, and the Southern Literary Messenger, were
frequently contributed to. An article in the latter may be re
ferred to in connection with the library of Mr. Grigsby, that on
"The Library of John Randolph of Roanoke." (Vol. XX,
1853, page 76).
Among his public addresses, those most often referred to are
the following :
Address on the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence,
delivered in the Athenseum, Richmond, Va., in 1848.
Discourse on the Virginia Convention of 1829-30, before the
Virginia Historical Society, December 15, 1853.
Discourse on the Virginia Convention of 1 776, delivered before
the College of William and Mary at Williamsburg, July 3, 1855.
Discourse on the Virginia Convention of 1788, before the Vir
ginia Historical Society, February 23, 1858.

XX BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF
Discourse on the Character of Jefferson, at the unveiUng of
his statue in the library of the University of Virginia 1860^
Address on the Life and Character of Littleton Waller Taze
well, before the bar of the city of New York, June 29, i860.
Address before the Literary Societies of Vvashington and
Lee University, in 1869.
Address, " Some of our Past Historic Periods bearing on the
Present," dehvered before the Virginia Historical Society, March
10, 1870.
Address before Hampden-Sidney College, on the centenary
of its founding, June 14, 1876.
Of this, the last of such pubhc appearances of Mr. Grigsby, it
may be well that the following account should be here given :
" Mr. Grigsby, who had passed beyond the age of three-score
and ten, was so pale and appeared so feeble that the audience
was not surprised when he asked the indulgence of being per
mitted, if necessary, to sit while he dehvered his address. But
his strength seemed to increase as he advanced, and he remained
on his feet during the whole two hours occupied in the dehvery.
His historical sketch displayed a familiarity with the persons and
events connected with the College sixty years ago, and pre
viously, and was clothed in language so graphic and elegant,
and illustrated with anecdote and narrative so apposite, as to
render the performance, in the whole, acceptable and delightful
in a high degree to his hearers. The enthusiasm kindled by his
theme evinced the warmth of his affection for his native State
and all that belongs to her glory in the past, and gave the charm
of impressive eloquence to his discourse. His plan embraced
personal sketches of the six earlier presidents of the College and
of the first trustees ; but he had not time nor strength to deliver
all that he had prepared, and was compelled to withhold a part."
The disease which precipitated the death of Mr. Grigsby was
incurred in the performance of an affectionate office. In making
a visit of condolence to his cousin, Colonel John B. McPhail,
who had been bereft of his wife, and who lived some distance
from the home of Mr. Grigsby, the latter contracted a deep cold
which developed into pneumonia. " During a protracted and
painful illness of several weeks' duration, he exhibited an unfalter
ing patience and resignation to the will of God. When he sup-

HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY. XXl
posed himself to be dying he summoned his immediate family
to his bedside, and bade them adieu, telling them at the same
time that he had made his preparation for the other world while
he was in health. Three days before the final stroke, which fell
April 28th, 1 88 1, he was heard to say : " I desire to live ; yet I
feel submissive to the Divine will." An offering from his friend,
Mr. Winthrop, a box of exquisite white flowers, reached him in
his last moments and served to decorate his grave.
His remains rest beneath a chaste and stately marble obelisk,
erected by his widow, in Elmwood Cemetery, Norfolk, Va. It
bears the following inscription :
Hugh Blair Grigsby, LL.D.
Born in Norfolk, Va., November 26th, 1806.
Died at "Edgehill," Chariotte county, Va.,
April 28th, 1881.
President of the Virginia Historical Society.
Member of the Virginia Convention, 1829-30.
Chancellor of the College of William and Mary.
Mr. Grigsby left issue two children : i. Hugh Carrington, born
in Philadelphia, Pa., February 13, 1857. ii. Mary Blair, born
in Norfolk, Va., July 9, 1861 ; married December i, 1882, W.
W. Gait, Paymaster United States Navy, son of Prof W. R.
Gait (an esteemed educator of Norfolk, Va.,) and nephew of Alex
ander Gait, the sculptor. Issue : four children : Hugh Blair
Grigsby, William R. , Robert Waca and Mary Carrington Gait.

At a called meeting of the Executive Committee of the Vir
ginia Historical Society, held at one o'clock P. M. April 30th,
1 88 1 — Vice-President William Wirt Henry presiding — the fol
lowing action in tribute to the late President of the Society, the
Hon. Hugh Blair Grigsby, LL. D. , was taken :
Whereas, This Committee has just learned of the death of the Hon.
Hugh Blair Grigsby, LL.D., the late President of this Society, which
occurred at "Edgehill," his residence, in the county of Charlotte, on
Thursday the 28th instant; be it
Resolved, That we cannot too deeply deplore the heavy loss which
we have sustained in the death of one whose devotion to the interests
of the Society, united to his great learning and accomplishments, have
B

xxii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF
been so eff-ective in forwarding the objects for which this Society was
formed. Resolved, That the Hon. Hugh Blair Grigsby, LL.D. , by his natural
endowments, by his passionate devotion to learning in all its forms, by
his conspicuous purity oi life, and by his invaluable contributions to
the literature of his native State, has deserved, as he has enjoyed, the
admiration, the love, and the gratitude of his fellow-citizens, and has
been recognized beyond the borders of his State as a fitting type of the
men who have shed so great a lustre around the name of Virginia.
Resolved, That Dr. Charles G. Barney and George A. Barksdale,
'Esq., be appointed on behalf of this Society to attend the funeral ob
sequies of the deceased in the city of Norfolk, and that a copy of these
resolutions be forwarded to his widow and children, with the assurance
of our deep sympathy with thera in their heavy affliction.
William Wirt Henry,
Chairman.

At the monthly meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Soci
ety, held in the Dowse Library, Boston, May 12th, 1 881, the Presi
dent, the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, occupied the chair. In an
announcement of the deaths of members of the Society and of other
distinguished men, he remarked : ^ " An absence from home of
only three weeks, just ended, has been marked for us, gendemen,
by the loss of several distinguished and valued friends, at least
two of whom were connected in different relations with this So-
cietv- I had been at Washington less than a week when I was
summoned as far back as Philadelphia to serve as a pall-bearer at
the funeral ofthe revered and lamented Dr. Alexander Hamilton
Vinton. Returning to Washington from that service, I was met
by a telegram announcing the death of an honorary member,
who was endeared to more than one of us by long friendship and
frequent correspondence — the Hon. Hugh Blair Grigsby, LL.D.,
of Virgima. A day or two only had elapsed before the news
papers informed me that the venerable Dr. John Gorham Palfrey
had passed away at Cambridge. The papers of a very few days
later apprised me that the excellent Charles Hudson had also
been released from the burdens of the flesh. Much more time
would have been required than the few hours I have had at my
command since I reached home on Thursday evening for prepar-

j Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1880-81, Vol.
XVIII, pp. 419-422.

HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY. XXlll
ing any adequate notice of such names ; but I should not be for
given for not dwelhng for a moment on those which have had
a place on our rolls. ' '
After a warm tribute to the worth of Mr. Hudson, Mr. Win
throp continued : " Of the remarkable qu dities and accomplish
ments of our deceased honorary member, Mr. Grigsby, of Virginia,
I hardly dare to speak with the little preparation which it has been
in my power to make in the single day since my return home.
I trust that our friend. Dr. Deane, who knew him as well and
valued him as highly as I did, will now, or hereafter, supply all
my deficiencies, and place him on our records as he deserves to be
placed. Indeed, he has placed himself there with no mistakable
impress. " No one of our honorary members on either side of the At
lantic has ever exhibited so warm a personal interest in our pro
ceedings, or has so often favored us with interesting letters, which
have been gladly printed in our successive serials or volumes.
' ' A Virginian of the Virginians — President of their Historical
Society, and Chancellor of their oldest college ; bound to the Old
Dominion by every tie of blood and of affection ; proud of her
history, with which he was so familiar ; proud of her great men,
with so many of whom he had been personally associated in
public as well as private life ; sympathizing deeply in all of her
political views and with all her recent trials and reverses — he was
never blind to the great men and great deeds of New England,
never indifferent to our own Massachusetts history in particular ;
on the contrary, he was always eager to cultivate the regard and
friendship of our scholars and public men. No work from our
press seemed to escape his attention. There was no poem of
Longfellow, or Whittier, or Holmes, or Lowell, no history of
Prescott, or Bancroft, or Palfrey, or Motley, or Frothingham, or
Parkman, which he did not read with lively interest and discuss
with discrimination and candor.
' ' In the little visit which he made us ten years ago, he formed
personal friendships with not a few of those whom he had known
only by their works, and they were a constant source of pleasure
and pride to him. For myself, I look back on more than twenty
years of familiar and friendly correspondence with him — inter
rupted by the war, but renewed with the earliest return of peace —
which was full of entertainment and instruction, and which I

xxiv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF
shall miss greatly as the years roll on, and as the habit and art
of letter-writing is more and more lost in telegraphic and tele
phonic and postal-card communication.
"There is hardly anything more interesting in all our seven
teen volumes of Proceedings than his letter to me of March 30,
1866, beginning : ' Five years and fourteen days have elapsed
since I received a letter from you '—giving a vivid description of
some of his personal experiences during the Civil War— asking
whether it was true that one whom he ' so much esteemed and
honored as President Felton was no more,' adding: 'Is Mr.
Deane living?'— and abounding in the kindest allusions to those
from whom the war had so sadly separated him.
"I may not forget to mention that Horace Binney, of Phila
delphia, though thirty years older than Mr. Grigsby, was a spe
cial correspondent of his, and that the last letter which Mr. Bin
ney wrote before his death, at ninety-four, was to our lamented
friend. " Mr. Grigsby, from an early period of his life, suffered severely
from imperfect hearing— an infirmity which grew upon him year
by year, until knowledge at one entrance seemed quite shut
out. But he bore it patiently and heroically, and his books and
his pen were an unfailing source of consolation and satisfaction.
" Educated for several years at Yale, and admitted to the bar of
Norfolk, with every acquisition to fit him for a distinguished ca
reer in the law and in public life, he was constrained to abandon
it all and confine himself to his family, his friends and his librarj'.
"As a very young man, however — hardly twenty-one — he
had a seat in the great Constitutional Convention of Virginia in
1829-30, and was associated with all the conspicuous men of that
period. Meantime, he was studying the characters and careers
of the great Virginians of earlier periods, not a few of whom were
still living. His ' Discourse on the Virginia Convention of 1776,'
extended in print to a volume of more than two hundred pages,
with its elaborate notes and appendix, is indeed as perfect a sum
mary of the history of some of the great men of his native
State — ^Jefferson and Madison and Patrick Henry and George
Mason and others — as can easily be found ; while his discourses on
the men with whom he was associated in the Convention of 1830,
and on Littleton Waller Tazewell, the Senator and Governor
and eminent lawyer of Virginia, are worthy supplements to that

HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY. XXV
which had preceded them. Many other publications, both in
prose and verse, have manifested the fertility of his mind and the
extent of his culture and research, while his letters alone would
have occupied more than the leisure of any common man.
" Meantime, he was devoted to agricultural pursuits, planting
and hoeing and ditching with his own hands, and prouder of his
dike, his 'JuUus Ceesar Bridge," and his crops than of any other
of his productions. His very last letter to me, dated not long
before his illness, concludes by saying : ' My employments for
the past two weeks have been the reading of Justin, Suetonius,
Tom Moore's Diary, and the building of a rail zigzag fence,
nearly a mile long, to keep my neighbors' cattle off my prem
ises.' In a previous paragraph he said that he had just promised
an invaUd friend, who was anxious on the subject, to call soon
and read to him ' the admirable sermon of Paley on the Recog
nition of Friends in Another World.' That may, perchance,
have been his last neighborly office before he was caUed to the
verification and enjoyment, as we trust, of those Christian hopes
and anticipations in which he ever delighted.
"But I forbear from any further attempt to do justice, in this
off-hand, extempore manner, to one of whom I would gladly
have spoken with more deliberation and with greater fullness.
He had promised to meet me and stand by my side at Yorktown
next October, and I shall sorely miss his friendly counsel and
assistance for that occasion should I be spared to take part in it.
The son of a Presbyterian clergyman, he was to the last warmly
attached to the faith and forms of the Church in which he was
brought up. While tolerant toward all, ' The Westminster Con
fession ' and 'The Shorter Catechism' were his cherished man
uals of religion and theology."
Continuing with warm words of acknowledgment of the merits
and services of Dr. Palfrey, Mr. Winthrop offered, with resolu
tions in his memory and that of Mr. Hudson, the following :
Resolved, That the Massachusetts Historical Society offer their sin
cere sympathy to the Historical Society of Virginia on the death of
their distinguished and accomplished President, the Hon. Hugh Blair
Grigsby, LL.D., whom we had long counted it a privilege to include
among our own honorary members, and for whom we entertained the
highest regard and respect; and that the Secretary communicate a copy
of this resolution to our sister Society of Virginia.

xxvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF
At a Convocation of the Board of Visitors and Governors
of the College of William and Mary, held the 8th of July,
1881, the following preamble and resolutions were unanimously
adopted :
" Since the last meeting of the Board of the College, its officers and
friends have been afHicted by the removal from their midst of Hugh
Blair Grigsby, LL.D., Chancellor of the College of William and Mary.
In the death of this noble man, the Board, the College, and the com
munity at large have sustained an irreparable loss. A man of the
highest character, the most uncommon cultivation, with a mind to grasp
the truth, and a heart to love, defend and live it, he was among us a
leader in everything true and noble, a guide in everything wise and.
judicious. His devotion to the College and its interests was unvary
ing, and by his generous, self-sacrificing spirit, by his undying faith
and enthusiastic anticipation of the final success and triumph of tbe
College that was so dear to him, he stood forth its champion in the
darkest days and encouraged every fainting spirit to continue faithful
in its support. The College and this Board owe him a debt of grati
tude which only a loving remembrance can but partially repay, and are
moved to pass as their first official act at their annual meeting, the fol
lowing resolutions :
"Resolved, That in the death of Hugh Blair Grigsby, we mourn
the loss of a friend and fellow- laborer, whose wisdom and lofty char
acter have reflected honor on our Board, and that we feel constrained
to record on our minutes this tribute of admiration and affection to his
memory, which in his life-time delicacy prevented us to do, and that
through coming ages the friends of this College and of all sound edu
cation will reverently recall his memory, and on the tablets of the
annals of William and Mary will forever be engraved the name of
Hugh Blair Grigsby — ' Clarum et venerable nomen.'
'^Resolved, That we tender to the family of the widowed wife and
orphaned children of our deceased friend our heartfelt sympathies for
the loss of one who, so lovely to his friends, must have been to his own
family unspeakably dear ; and we claim our share in the sorrow over
his loss, as those who are proud to know that they were reckoned
among his friends.
"W. H. E. Morecock,
"Secretary 0/ the Board."
The following is an extract from the report of Benjamin S.
Ewell, LL.D., President of the College, to the Board of Visitors
and Governors, made July Sth, 1881 :
"The death of Hugh Blair Grigsby, LL.D., the Chancellor and

HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY. XXVll
honored Visitor, on the 28th of April, 1881, has deprived the College,
the Visitors and the Faculty, of a true and constant friend.
" Mr. Grigsby's connection with the College began in 1855, when he
delivered an address at the commencement, received the degree of
Doctor of Laws, and was elected Visitor and Governor.
" He was elected Chancellor in 1871. k George Washington and John
Tyler, Presidents of the United States, and Hugh Blair Grigsby are
the only Americans who have held that office. From 1855 until the day
of his death Mr. Grigsby was the earnest advocate of every measure
tending to increase the efficiency, or promote the prosperity ofthe Col
lege. He was ever ready to espouse its cause with all his extraordi
nary powers of eloquence, logic and learning. With the exception
of his kinsman, Dr. James Blair, the reverend and revered founder of
the College, he was its most liberal private benefactor.
" His affectionate friendship and loving kindness are familiar to you.
They extended to Visitors, Faculty and students. To the latter he never
failed to say words showing interest and giving encouragement. The
Faculty mourn his loss as that of their dearest official, and personal
friend." k Upon the nomination of General Henry A. Wise.

XHE HISTORY OF THE
Virginia F'ederal Convention
OK 1788.

CHAPTER I.

I have undertaken, at the request of the Historical Society of
Virginia, to write the history of the Convention which began its
sessions in the Public Buildings' in the town of Richmond on
the second day of June, 1788, and which ratified, in the name and
behalf of the good people of that Commonwealth, the present
1 The Convention met the first day of its sitting'^ in whnt \v7f« I'nmvn
as the old Capitol, situated at the northwest corner i^f Carv gind ^"Mr
teenth streets. It was a wooden building about fifty feet square and
three stories high, with a sharply ridged roof The Act of the Assem
bly for the removal of the Capital of the State from Williamsburg to
Richmond was passed in May, 1779, and the ' ' public buildings " known
in later years as the "the Old Capitol," were erected in 1780 for the
temporary use of the government until the permanent buildings, pro
vided for by an act passed the same year, could be completed. About
1855, the old buildings, which had become much dilapidated and re
duced in height, were torn down, and upon its site and lots adjoining on
Fourteenth street several fine stores, known as the Pearl Block, were
erected by Mr. Hugh W. Fry, the corner of which was occupied by
himself and sons under the firm name of Hugh W. Fry & Sons, Whole
sale Grocery and Commission Merchants.

2 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
^ Federal Constitution.^ Our theme, both in its moral and poUti-
cal aspect, has a significancy which the present generation may
, well heed, and which posterity will delight to contemplate. But
it receives an added grandeur at this moment when the people
r of Virginia, from the Potomac to the Roanoke, and from Ohio
to the sea, have come hither on one of the most patriotic mis
sions recorded in our annals, and under the auspices ofthe legis
lative and executive departments of their government, and in
the presence of many honorable and iUustrious guests from dis-
I tant States, bave inaugurated, with the peaceful pageantry of war,
^ with the mystic rites of Masonry, with eloquence and song, and
with the august sanctions of our common Christianity, a lasting
and stately monument' which, with the eternal voice of sculpture,
proclaims now, and will proclaim to generations and ages to
come, that Virginia holds, and will ever hold, the names and ser
vices of all her soldiers and statesmen who aided in achieving
her independence, in grateful and affectionate veneration, and
that the spirit which inspired the Revolution stiU burns, with
unabated fervor in the breasts of her children.
To trace those discussions of the great principles which under
lie the social compact, to observe the modifications of those
maxims which human wisdom in a wide survey of the rights,
interests and passions of men had solemnly set apart for the
guidance of human affairs, and their application to the pecuUar
necessities of a people engaged in forming a Federal Union, is an
important office, which assumes a deeper interest and a higher
dignity when we reflect that those who were engaged on that
^ A discourse delivered before the Virginia Historical Society in the
Hall of the House of Delegates at Richmond, on the evening of Feb
ruary 23, 1858, and subsequently enlarged to the present History.
" The Washington Monument, inaugurated February 22d, 1S5S ; sub
scriptions towards the erection of which were authorized by an Act of
Assembly passed February 22d, 1817. The sum of 513,063 was collected,
but it lay dormant until February 22d, 1828, when, by Act of Assem
bly, it was placed at interest. Thus it remained until 184S, when it had
accumulated to $41,833 with the aid of a new grand subscription. On
the 22d of February, the Virginia Historical Society stimulated the
Legislature to augment the fund to j(ioo,ooo for the erection of the
monument, the corner-stone of which was laid February 22d, 1850, in
the presence of General Zachary Taylor, President ofthe United States,
his Cabinet, and a host of other distinguished persons.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 3
great occasion were our fathers, whose ashes repose in the soil
beneath our feet, whose names we bear, whose blood yet flows
in our veins, and whose glory is our richest inheritance. And
the transaction is hardly less interesting from the contemplation
of our fathers at such a conjunction to a minute survey of their
lives and characters, of the stock from which they sprung,
of their early education, of their training for the memorable
events in which they were to engage, and of the general scope
of their actions.
The time has gone by when the materials adequate to a full
elucidation of my theme could be gathered from the living voice,
and but little can be gleaned from the periodical press of the
. day. The last survivor of the Convention died at the advanced
age of ninety-nine, twelve years ago.* There is no file extant
of the papers published in Richmond during the session of the
• body. The Journal of the Convention, which, as its delibera
tions were held mostly in committee of the whole, consists of a
few pages only, and a stenographic report of some of its debates,
are its only existing records! With the exception of a memoir 1
of Henry, which Virginia owes to the patriotism of an adopted .
son now no more, and which treats our subject in a cursory man
ner, there is no separate memoir of any one of the one hundred
and seventy members who composed the House.^ I am thrown
altogether upon the sources of intelligence scattered through our
whole literature, upon those letters, which, written by the actors
when the contest was at the highest and instantly forgotten, have
been saved in old repositories, and upon those recollections,
gathered at various times during a quarter of a century past,
from persons who were either members of the body, or were
* James Johnson, one of the delegates from Isle of Wight, died at his
residence in that county August i6th, 1845, having survived the adjourn
ment more than fifty-seven years.
° Of the younger members of the body who have lived in our times,
Chief Justice Marshall has been commemorated in "an admirable eulo
gium by Mr. Binney, and by Judge Story in the National Portrait Gal
lery, His Memoir by Mr. Flanders, in the Lives of the Chief Justices,
has appeared since the above paragraph was written, as well as the full
and most valuable life of Madison by Mr. Rives. To these may be added
the chaste and eloquent oration of William flenry Rawie, LL.D. at the un
veiling of the statue of Marshall at Washington, D. C, May 10, 1884, and
the Memoir by A. B. Magruder in "The American Statesmen Series."

4 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
present at its deliberations, or who knew the members at a sub
sequent period, and which were made with no view to ulterior use.
There is not living a single person who was a spectator of the
scene. A boy of fifteen, who had seen Mason and Henry* walk
ing arm in arm from the Swan' or Pendleton, as, assisted by a
friend, he descended the steps of the same inn to his phaeton,
on their way to the Convention, would, if he were now living,
have reached his eighty-filth year. The actors and the specta
tors, and those who spoke and those who heard, are buried in a
common grave.
Still I indulge the hope that it will not be found impracticable,
out of the materials rescued from the wreck of the past, to
present a picture which shall reflect in some faint degree not
only the position Virginia then held among her sister States,
but the personal as weU as the political relations which existed
between the leading actors in the Convention, and are proper
to be known in order to appreciate the conduct of those who
bore a conspicuous part in what we were taught from our in
fancy to consider the most animated parliamentary tournament
of the eighteenth century, at least on this side of the Atlan
tic, and in those animated contests which, during twenty-five
^ I learned this incident from my friend John Henry, Esq., who,
though only two years old at the death of his celebrated father, is now
over seventy, and resides on the patrimonial estate. Red Hill ; and he
heard it from the Rev. Charles Clay, a member ofthe Convention from
Bedford, who told him that George Mason was dressed in a full suit of
black, and was remarkable for the urbanity and dignity with which he
received and returned the courtesies of those who passed him.
[John Henry, the youngest child of Patrick Henry that survived him,
was born 14th February, 1796, and died 7th January, 1868. He was
educated at Hampden-Sidney and Washington colleges. He lived the
life of a planter on the " Red Hill " estate, the last homestead of his
father, which he inherited, and which has descended to his son, Hon.
Wm. Wirt Henry. His memory was exceptionally good, and was well
stored with information concerning his father, gathered from his con
temporaries, especially his mother, who lived till 14th February, 1831.
Most of the information concerning Patrick Henry, contained in Howe's
Historical Collections of Virginia, was furnished by him. — Ed.]
' A tavern famous in former years, a long wooden building— base
ment, one story and attic, with wooden porch along its front, still stand
ing, divided into small rooms, about midway ofthe square on the north
side of Broad, between Eighth and Ninth streets.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 5
eventful days, never flagged, and on several occasions, and
especially on the Mississippi debate, were wrought to a pitch of
excitement which, whether we consider the actors or the sub
ject, was hardly exceeded by the most brilliant theatrical
exhibitions. And I may venture to add that, since Death has
set his seal on all the actors, and their whole lives are before
us, if a more accurate and faithful delineation of their motives
and actions, of their persons even — of their dress, manners, and
attainments — than could have been possessed by the bulk of their
contemporaries, separated by miles of forest from one another,
at a time when there was not in the State a mail-coach, a post,
or a press worthy of the name, and when there could be but
little personal communion between individuals, be not fairly
placed before the present generation, it will be owing somewhat
indeed to the difficulties of the theme itself but more to the inca
pacity or negligence of the historian who attempts to record it.
Since the adjournment of the Convention, seventy years have
nearly elapsed ; and in that interval two entire generations have
been born, lived, and passed away. Nor has the change been felt
in human life alone. This populous city, which now surrounds
us with its laboratories of the arts, with its miles of railways and
canals, with its immense basin and capacious docks, with its
river bristling with masts and alive with those gay steamers that
skirt our streams as well as those dark and statelier ones that
assail the sea, with its riches collected from every clime, with its
superb dwellings, with its structures reared to education, litera
ture, and religion, with those electric wires which hold it in in
stantaneous rapport with Boston and New Orleans — places which,
at the time of the Convention, could only be reached by weeks
and even months of tedious travel — and which are destined to
connect it, ere another lustrum be past, with London and Paris,
with St. Petersburg and Vienna, and with its numerous lamps
which diffuse, at the setting of the sun, a splendor compared
with which the lights kindled by our fathers in honor of Sara
toga and York, or of Bridgewater and New Orleans, would be
faint and dim, was a straggling hamlet, its humble tenements
scattered over the sister hills, and its muddy and ungraded streets
trenched upon by the shadows of an unbroken forest.* This
* Morse describes Richmond in 1789, one year later, as having three
hundred houses.

G VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
venerable building in which we are now assembled, which was
originally modelled after one of the most graceful temples of the
Old World, and which overiooks one of the loveliest landscapes
of the New, was yet unfinished ; and the marble image of Wash
ington, which for more than two thirds of a century has guarded
its portals, which has been recently invested with a new immor
taHty by the genius of Hubard,' and which, we fondly hope, wiU
s William James Hubard (pronounced Ha-bard), the son of an artist
of ability, was born in Warwick, England, August 20th, 1807. He early
exhibited a proclivity for art. and " pursued his studies in France, Ger
many, and Italy."
There is evidence of the progress made by him in a testimonial pre
served by his family— a silver palette which bears the inscription:
"Awarded to Master James Hubard by the admirers of his genius in
the city of Glasgow, Scotland. February 14, 1824."
He came to America in this year, and was for some time a resident
of Philadelphia. Later he made Virginia his home, marrying, in 1838,
Miss Maria Mason Tabb, of Gloucester county, a lady of means and a
member of an influential family. In the same year he revisited Europe,
returning after an absence of more than three years to Virginia, and
settling finally in Richmond. His art life was an active one, as is
evinced in numerous works from his easel— original conceptions, por
traits, and copies from the masters— all marked by his characteristic
boldness and beauty of color A little while before the period of the
text (1856), he fixed his residence in the western suburbs of Richmond,
near that of an erratic brother artist, Edward Peticolas. This last
building, coming into his possession upon the death of his friend, he
converted into a foundry, specially for the reproduction in bronze of
Houdon's matchless Washington which graces the rotunda of our Capi
tol. There were six of these admirable casts— each a single piece of
metal — an accomplishment not often attempted. Of these, one is at
the Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, two in North Carolina — one
at Raleigh and the other at Charlotte — a fourth in Central Park, New
York city, a fifth in St. Louis, Missouri, and a sixth in the grounds of
the University of Missouri at Columbia Early in the late war between
the States, Hubard converted part of his studio into a laboratory and
engaged in the filling of shrapnel shells with a compound of his own
invention. These shells, it is said, served the famous Merrimac. Hu-
bard's foundry is said also to have supplied light and powerful field
pieces to many of the early artillery companies of the Confederate
Army. On the morning of the 14th of February, 1S62, whilst Hubard was
engaged in filling a shell, a spark ignited the compound. The explo
sion inflicted fatal injuries, from which he died on the following day-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 7
transmit to distant ages the life-like semblance of the great origi
nal, had indeed received the last touches of the chisel of Hou-
don, but had not been lifted to its pedestal. Our territory, though
not as large as it had been, was larger than it is now. Virginia
had added to the Federal Government, four years before the
meeting of the Convention, her northwestern lands, which now
constitute several States of the Union ;" but still held the soil
from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. For Kentucky, who, if not
matre filia pulchrior, was worthy of the stock from which she
sprung, though destined soon to leave her happy home, yet
clung to the bosom of her mother."

Hubard was a gifted man, and it was claimed would have attained greater
distinction in modeling than in limning. An early work of his, exe
cuted at Florence, is said to have enthusiastically stirred the Sculptor
Greenough — an Indian chief, with his horse in full strain, to whom a
flash of lightning reveals a precipice immediately before him. This
conception Hubard afterwards committed to canvass.
Nor was the pen of Hubard idle. He left in MS. a critical work on
Art in America, and a novel, both of which were pronounced by com
petent critics productions of merit. They were unfortunately de
stroyed in the pillage of his residence April 3, 1865. Two children of
Hubard survive — Wm. James Hubard and Mrs. Eliza Gordon, wife of
Rev. John Jaraes Lloyd, Abingdon, Va. The editor is indebted to Mrs.
Lloyd, through the mediation of Mann S. Valentine, Esq., of Rich
mond, who was an intimate friend of the lamented Hubard, for the
preceding details. Mr. Valentine includes in his numerous art posses
sions many of the best examples of Hubard's genius.
10 Virginia made the cession in January, 1781, but "it was not
finally completed and accepted until 'March, 1789." Curtis's Hisi,
Con,, I, 137.
" As the delegates from Kentucky played an important role in the
Convention, it may be proper to state that the District, as it was then
called, was divided into seven counties, which, with their delegates, are
as follows : Bourbon : Henry Lee, Notlay Conn ; Fayette : Humphrey
Marshall, John Fowler ; Jefferson : Robert Breckenridge, Rice Bul
lock ; Lincoln: John Logan, Henry Pawling; Madison: John Miller,
Green Clay ; Nelson: Matthew Walton, John Steele; Mercer: Thomas
Allen, Alexander Robertson. Mann Butler, in his history of Kentucky,
has fallen into one or two errors in the names of the delegates, which
he probably learned from hearsay. The above list is copied from the
Journal. Kentucky, soon after the adjournment of the Convention,
formed a constitution for herself, and was duly admitted as one of the

8 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
"~rhe population of the State demands a deliberate notice. In
spite of the numbers that had perished from disease and expo
sure during the war, that had been abstracted by the British,
that had sought the flat lands of Ohio, or that had married and
setded abroad, it had, since that great day on which the people
of Virginia, in convention assembled, had declared their inde
pendence of the British Crown, been steadily advancing, and
' from five hundred and sixty thousand at the date of the August
Convention of 1774, had now reached over eight hundred thou
sand. Of this number, five hundred and three thousand two
hundred and forty-eight were whites, twelve thousand eight hun
dred and eighty were free colored, and three hundred and five
thousand two hundred and fifty-seven were slaves." Her num
bers might well inspire tbe respect of her sisters and the pride
of her sons, and sufficiendy explain the position which she held
in the Confederation. Her population was over three-fourths of
all that of New England. It was not far from double that of
Pennsylvania. It was not far from three times that of New
York. It was over three-fourths of all the population of the
Southern States. It exceeded by sixty thousand that of North
Carolina and what was afterwards called Tennessee, of South
Carolina, and of Georgia ; and it was more than a fifth of the
population of the whole Union.
But the topic which claims the most serious attention, not only
of the general reader but of the political economists and of the
States of the Union at the same time with Vermont — one on the gth,
the other on the 18th of February, 1791. It is to the presence of the
Kentucky delegation that we owe the exciting drama of the Mississippi
debate. '2 Mr. Jefferson estimated the number of negroes taken off in a single
campaign at one-fifth of the entire black population of the State, and
the seaboard suffered severely throughout the war.
'" Professor Tucker, bringing the lights of the modern census to bear
upon our Colonial population, estimates that of Virginia in 1774 to
have been 500,000. (History U. S,, I, 96.) The census of 1790 puts it
down at 738,308, nearly sixty-two thousand less than the number stated
in the text, which, from a careful examination made some years ago, I
believe to be the true one. Indeed, the extent of Virginia at that
period, which reached from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, the unset
tled state of the country, the scattered population, made the taking of
a correct census impossible.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 9
statesmen, and in comparison with which the questions of the
extent of our territory and the number ofthe population appear
almost unimportant, is the condition ofthe commerce of Virginia
when the Federal Constitution was presented for ratification. It
was under her own control. Her trade was free ; the duties levied
upon foreign commerce were laid by herself, and were collected
by her officers. She had her own custom houses, her own ma
rine hospitals, and her own revenue cutters bearing her own flag.
Her imposts were light, because it was then deemed upwise to
lay burdens upon trade, and partly from an apprehension not
unfounded that a heavy duty laid upon a particular article of
merchandise might direct the whole of an assorted cargo from
her ports to the ports of a more liberal neighbor.'* Yet the
amount of duties collected for several years previous to the Con
vention constituted one of the largest items received into the
treasury, and at the low rate of duty ranging from one to five
per cent., represented an import trade of several millions.
Or, to speak with greater precision, the net amount of money
in round numbers received into the treasury of Virginia from
customs accruing during the three-quarters of the year ending
the 31st of May, 1788, was sixty thousand pounds, which in our
present currency are equivalent to two hundred thousand dol
lars.'^ The customs of the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, end
ing the thirty-first of August, are not given ; and, as during that
interval the customs on the cargoes brought back in return for
the tobacco crop carried out in the spring were received, it prob
ably exceeded two-fold the product of either of the two preced-
\ing quarters ; but we will place it in common with the other
! quarters at sixty-six thousand dollars. This sum of two hundred
and sixty-six thousand dollars would represent, under an aver
age tariff of five per centum, an import trade of over five mil
lions of doUars. And from the present value of money, five
millions at that time would be nearly equal to ten millions at the
present day. And farther, as credit then was comparatively
"John Randolph used to allude to the tradition that duties laid by
Virginia on certain articles, which were admitted free of duty into Mary
land, was the main cause of the rise of Baltimore.
^° For the receipts from custom see the annual report of the Treas
urer in the Journals of the Senate and House of Delegates of each
year from 1783 to 1788.

10 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
unknown, the imports were almost wholly based upon exports,
which must have reached five millions of dollars.'* Thus the
import and export trade of Virginia during the year ending the
thirty-first of August, 1788, was, at the present value of money,
not far from twenty millions of dollars ; an amount which it had
never reached before, and which, with the exception hereinafter
to be mentioned and explained, it has never reached since.
But the average rale of the tariff of 1788, instead of being
five per. centum as above estimated, was in fact less than two and
a half per centum ;" and the duties collected under it would, on
the grounds already stated, represent a commerce of forty mil
lions of dollars. Enormous as this sum appears, it may be
nearly reached by another process. The year 1769 was regarded
an ordinary year, yet the imports of Virginia during that year are
ascertained to have been over four millions and a quarter.'* At
that time our trade was almost wholly with Great Britain and
possessions ; and our great and only staple which she would re
ceive was tobacco. In the interval of nineteen years, the popu
lation had from natural increase and immigration nearly doubled,
and brisk trade in all the products of the soil and the forest was
prosecuted with almost every foreign power. It is not unfair to
presume that a laborer in 1788 was as successful as a laborer in

'^ A shrewd traveller, Captain J. F. D Smyth, ofthe British army, who
visited Virginia just before the Revolution and was present during the
war, states that Virginia then exported " at least one hundred thou
sand hogsheads of tobacco of about one thousand pounds each, of
which between ten and fifteen thousand might be the produce of North
Carolina." He adds that Virginia exported, '-besides Indian corn,
provisions, skins, lumber, hemp, and some iron, large quantities of
wheat and flour"; and he estimated the wheat at " five hundred thou
sand bushels," and the flour "at fifteen thousand barrels." Smyth's
Tour in the United States, Vol. II, 140. In 1775. there were exported
101,828,617 pounds of tobacco, 27,623,451 pounds remaining on hand
in Great Britain, and 74,205,166 pounds in other countries of Europe.
Tobacco Culture in the United States, Tenth Census, \'ol. IV; '• Suc
cinct Account of Tobacco in K;r^/«za— 1607-1790," by R A. Brock p
223. " I handed the Tariff Acts of \'irginia, in force in 1788,10 a mercantile
friend, with a request that he would furnish me with a correct average
of all the duties, and he made it rather under than over two per cent.
" f 4,255,000. Forrest 's History of Norfolk, 7 ,\

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. II
1769, and that the imports and exports of 1788 must have nearly
doubled what they were nineteen years before ; and they would
thus reach over thirty millions of dollars.
Indeed, the commercial prosperity of Virginia, from the date
of the treaty of peace to the meeting of the Convention, was
amazing. Her accessibiUty by sea at all seasons, her unequalled
roadstead, the safe navigation of her bays and rivers, the extent,
the convenience, and the security of her great seaport, the bulk,
variety and value of her agricultural produce, invited the enter
prise of foreign capital. Many of the buildings of Norfolk had
been burned at the beginning of the war by the British ; and those
that remained had been burned by the order of the Committee of
Safety or of the Convention ; and in that once flourishing town,
whose pleasant dwellings and capacious warehouses attracted the
attention of the European visitor, and whose rental in the year
preceding their destruction amounted to fifty thousand dollars,"
not a building wag aUowed to remain. The whole population
had been withdrawn and billeted upon families in the interior,
whose claims for remuneration are strewed over our early Jour
nals. Even the wharves, which were made of pine logs, were
destroyed by the burning of the houses that rested upon them.
Nought was left of a scene once so fair but the land on which
the town was built, and the noble river that laved its smoulder
ing ruins. But in less than eight years from the date of the con
flagration, and less than five from the date of the treaty of peace,
new and more commodious houses, destined to be destroyed
by another some years later and to rise with renovated splendor,
had risen, and warehouses ample enough to hold large cargoes
had been erected. We had not many merchants of our own,
for the habits and prejudices of the people were in another direc
tion ; but merchants from England, Scotland and Holland, and
from the Northern States, well skiUed in trade, sought our ports,
settled themselves permanently among us, founded families which
are still proud of the worth of their progenitors, and, it may be
19 Forrest's History of Norfolk, 85. The burning of Norfolk by our
own people was an act little short of madness. A population of six
thousand men were thrown at once upon the interior to consume the
provisions needful for the prosecution of the war; and Portsmouth,
directly opposite, was as good a place for the military purposes of the
enemy as Norfolk.

12 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
remarked, became, without exception, the most strenuous advo
cates of the adoption of the Federal Constitution. There were
no banks in those days in Virginia, nor was there any public
depository of coin, which was emptied on the upper floor of
warehouses and tossed about with shovels and spades.^" Ships
of every nation filled our seaport. Their curious streamers,
waving every Sabbath from the masthead and glittering in the
sun, presented a scene that was long and keenly remembered by
the inhabitants of Norfolk. An officer of the Revolution, who
had served in the Southern army, and who visited Norfolk two
years before the meeting of the present Convention, was struck
at seeing ships not only crowded three or four deep at the wharves,
but moored so thickly in the stream that a ferry boat passing
from Norfolk to Portsraouth could advance only by cautiously
working her zigzag course among them. Some of the ships at
anchor awaited their chances to discharge and receive their car
goes at the wharves, while others preferred to discharge and re
ceive their freight in those vast and gloomy lighters, that may
still be seen, freighted with fuel, entering or departing from the
modern city. This observing traveller happened to be present
on a gala day, when the ships were dressed, and when their
salutes were heard through the town, and he was reminded of
that briUiant spectacle exhibited at the departure of the British
men-of-war and numerous transports with flags flying, with
drums beating, and amid the roar of artillery, from the harbor of
Charleston on the evacuation of that city by the enemy."
This trade with foreign powers was strictly legitimate. We
were at peace with all nations, and the leading States of Europe
were at peace with themselves. It was not the result of political
regulation or of distracted times. It was not the offspring of
war between the carrying nations of the globe, and certain to
terminate at the close of the war ; a species of trade which some
years later feU to our lot, which involved us in fruitless negotia
tions, perplexed us with interminable controversies, led to the
impressment of our sailors and to the sequestration of our ships,
dishonored our flag in our own waters, and finally brought on a

'" I heard this fact from a venerable merchant of Norfolk, who is yet
living (1866) ; and who saw it in his childhood.
" Colonel Edward Carrington.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 13
war with one of the belligerents. The trade enjoyed by our
fathers was strictly legitimate. It was stimulated by no passion,
it was not the offspring of cunning or favor. It was the result
of common interests. It was the exchange of commodities be
tween nations who believed themselves benefited by the opera
tion ; and as it was the result of common interests, so it was
likely to be lasting. Indeed, nothing short of war or political
regulation could affect it.
Nor was this trade whoUy fed by the commodities of Virginia.
The waters of the Chesapeake bore to our seaport not only the
product of our own countries on its shores, but the products of
Maryland and Pennsylvania. New England, New York, New
Jersey, North Carolina, and South Carolina contributed their
aid. And although no modern facilities for the transportation
of produce from the interior then existed, our own exports ex
ceeded the anticipations ofthe merchants. The embarrassments
which many planters had to encounter at the close of the war
were numerous and severe. When they looked around on their
once thrifty plantations, a scene of devastation met their eyes.
Their fences had been burned by the British or by our own
soldiers during a seven years' war. Most of their live stock had
long disappeared. Their cattle had either been seized by our
own commissaries to sustain the army in the field, and was paid
for in worthless paper, or had been taken by the British and not
paid for at all. A favorite measure, both of the Americans and
the British, was to lay waste the country on the track which
either might be required to pass. Not only were fences burned,
fruit trees destroyed, houses demolished or sacked, but beasts,
whether fit for use or not, were seized upon. The throats cf
young colts were cut by the British, lest from this source the
cavalry of the Americans should thereafter be recruited. One-
fifth of the black population had been carried off- by the British
or died on their hands ; and, in the face of the treaty of Paris,
few or none were returned. Money might have lessened the
troubles of the planters to a certa,in extent, and in a desolate
country to a certain extent only, but money was not to be had.
The country was as bankrujjt as the citizen. Debt, like a cloud,
rested alike over the State Government, over the Federal Gov
ernment, and over a great number of people. But, what sensi-

14 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
bly affected many persons, debts due the British merchants, some
of which had been paid into the treasury under the sanction of
an Act of Assembly, were now to be paid, and to be paid in
coin. Hence some heads of families, which for more than a cen
tury had commanded respect, quitted their patrimonial hearths
and sought, with sad hearts, new homes in the wilderness.
Others sunk down broken-hearted, and left their members in
hopeless penury.
But, touching as is frequendy the fate of individuals in civil
convulsions, nothing is more certain that an active, industrious,
and free people cannot long remain in a forlorn condition. The
population, as has already been observed, had, even amid the
havoc of war, been steadily increasing ; and a population of eight
hundred thousand, living upon fair lands and intent on retriev
ing bad fortune, cannot fail, in a space of time incredibly short
in the eyes of superficial observers, to accomplish great and, to
those who confound individual with general suffering, most un
expected results.^^ Thus it was that, in spite of innumerable
obstacles to success, the country rapidly prospered. With each
succeeding year the crops increased in quantity ; and in five years
of peace our tobacco, grain, and other productions of the soU
and the forest, maintained the grandest commerce that had ever
spread its wings from an Anglo-Saxon settlement in the New
World towards the shores of the Old, and such as was never
seen in the Colony, and such as, with the exception of a short
period, has never been seen in Virginia since. It is an instruc
tive fact, not unworthy the attention of the statesman as well as
the political economist, that the period from the death of Charles
the First in 1641 to the restoration of Charles the Second — a
space of nineteen years" — and that the period between the peace
of 1783 and the adoption of the Federal Constitution of 1788 —
a space of five years — have been the most prosperous in our
history ; and that of the two centuries and a half of Virginia,
it was during those two periods only she enjoyed the benefits of
^'The doctrine of capital reproducing itself in a very short time was
first distinctly shown by Dr. Chalmers. Lord Brougham availed him
self of the doctrine without stating the source from which he obtained it.
*' Campbell's History of Virginia, edition of i86o, p. 242.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 15
a trade regulated by her own authority, unrestricted and un
taxed.'* It is our duty to record the mistakes of our fathers as well as
those deeds which justly entitle them to our respect and venera
tion. And in no instance did they commit a greater error than
in the false estimate which the leading advocates of the Federal
Constitution had formed of the general condition and of the
commerce of Virginia, when the Federal Constitution was pre
sented for adoption. There were, indeed, grave and grievous
embarrassments in our domestic and in our Federal relations that
were calculated to excite apprehension in the breasts of our calmest
and wisest men. But these embarrassments had been brought
about in a period of revolution, when all trade was suspended,
and were the result of causes which had ceased to operate, and
which could never recur. They were the effect of time and cir
cumstances, and were likely to be relieved by the removal of the
causes which produced them. An old and established nation,
emerging from a long and disastrous war waged within its terri
tory, must be viewed in a very different light from the same
nation in a long period of peace, when its resources were devel
oped and the arts cultivated under favorable auspices. But
more especially does this observation apply to a purely agricul
tural people, occupying a wide territory, and harassed during
eight years by a powerful enemy, when for the first time they
take their position in the family of nations. And in the over
sight of this palpable truth may be traced an error of our fathers,
the effects ot which we feel to this day, and will continue to feel
for generations to come. The wonderful increase of our popu
lation they had not the means of knowing, and did not know ;
for up to that period of the eighteenth century no census had
'*I have sought in the Norfolk Custom House in vain for the full sta
tistics of the trade and commerce of Virginia with our own and foreign
States during the interval between 1783 and 1790. The books were
probably handed over to the new Government, and have been destroyed
in the lapse of time as rubbish. Doubtless full reports were made to
the treasury department in Richmond, and there may be found in some
obscure place in the Capitol. If a committee were appointed by the
Assembly to examine the public papers now on file, and publish in a
cheap form the valuable ones amongst them, the full history of that
period may yet be written. '

16 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
been taken ; nor had the custom then been introduced of calling
upon the treasurer and the auditor for approximating statements
of the population of the State. One of the most eloquent friends
of the Constitution, who had served in Congress, and who at the
time held a high office in the Commonwealth, made a mistake of
212,000 in his estimate of the people of Virginia ; or, supposing
he had excluded the seven Kentucky counties, which were as
much a part of Virginia as Accomac and Henrico, and are enu
merated as such in the census of 1790, and which he did not
exclude, his mistake would still underrate the population more
than 129,000, or more than one-fifth of the whole number. And
when the trade and business of the country were represented in
Convention as sunk to the lowest ebb, one of the opponents of
the Constitution could only affirm that several American vessels
had recendy doubled the Cape of Good Hope.
But there were signs of prosperity obvious to the most care
less observer The increased production of agriculture, the
immense quantities of lumber which employed a heavy tonnage,
the vast commerce which fiUed our ports and rivers, and which
was growing with every year, could hardly fail to attract obser
vation The imposing picture of a single seaport of Virginia,
which had in the space of four years risen from ashes to a promi
nence which it had not attained during a century and a half of
colonial rule, was a living witness of developed wealth, of suc
cessful enterprise, and of good government, and afforded a cheer
ful omen of the future. Such indications of prosperity, if not
unheeded, were wrongly interpreted. Eminent statesmen, for
getting what a short time before was the condition of a country
in which nearly all regular agricultural labor had for a series of
years been suspended, which was girt by independent States,
whose interests, if not positively hostile, were, as must always be
the case with independent powers not identical with its own, and
which was called for the first time to arrange and settle a gen
eral policy of trade and business with commodities beyond its
borders, were annoyed and perplexed by a state of things that
frequendy exists in the oldest country, that time and experience
would insensibly adjust, and which domestic legislation might at
any moment remove. It is one of the pregnant lessons of his
tory, that public men on the stage often overlook or slight in
great emergencies the salient facts of their generation, and in the

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 17
haste of the hour take refuge from pressing difficulties in a sys
tem of measures which seem plausible at the time, which offer
the chances of a favorable change, and which posterity is left to
deplore. Overawed by those outward aspects of affairs which
assail the common eye, they do not reflect that the common eye,
even if it saw clearly, sees but a small part of a great empire ;
that what it does see it sees often through a distorted medium,
and that it can embrace, at the farthest, only a few, and those
lying on the surface of those innumerable elements which com
pose the prosperity of a Commonwealth. No people rising sud
denly from a state of control which their fathers and themselves
had endured for almost two centuries into a new complicated
sphere, and capable of taking the full measure of their own
stature, or the true dimensions of their own era. Of all the
sciences which act on the business of life, the science of politi
cal economy was least studied by the statesmen of that age.
Every question of law and politics relating to men and communi
ties, every question that pertained directly to the rights of per
son and property, had been critically studied by our fathers, and
were discussed with an ability that made the dialectics of the
Revolution as distinctive as the wisdom which declared inde
pendence, or the valor which achieved it. But the problems of
political economy had never engaged their dehberate attention.
That science had but recently taken its separate station in Eng
lish literature, for the Wealth of Nations was its text-book, and
Adam Smith had not published the Wealth of Nations three
years before the meeting of the first Congress. Nor were the
doctrines of the new science readily received. Practical men,
then as now, viewed them with disgust, and some of the British
politicians of that day never read them at all. If, many years
later, when its theories were expounded in Parliament and from
the chairs of the schools, Charles James Fox was not ashamed
to say that he had never read the Wealth of Nations, \\ is no
reflection upon our fathers that they had not studied a science
which they had no opportunity of knowing, and which had a
slight bearing only on colonial legislation. But the science of
political economy is only the philosophy drawn from the expe
rience of men in their commercial relations with one another ;
and with some of those relations our fathers had an intimate ac
quaintance. It is creditable to Virginia that, though some of

18 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
her famed sons did not comprehend or disregarded the teachings
ofthe new science, others who had for a quarter of a century, in
peace and war, mainly guided her destinies, had read them wisely.
The unfortunate delusion in respect of the commerce of Vir
ginia, which then prevailed, led to disastrous results. It kept
alive in our eariy councils those dissensions which existed before
the war began, which raged fiercely during its continuance,
which, coming down to our own times, had nearly kindled the
flames of civil war, but which otherwise might have ended wilh
the eighteenth century. It led, in the vain hope of sudden im
provement, to the hasty adoption of the present Federal Consti
tution without previous amendments, and to the surrender ofthe
right of regulating its commerce by the greatest State of the
Confederation to an authority beyond its control. It led to a
state of things of which our fathers did not dream, and which,
if they could behold, would make them turn in their graves. It
destroyed our direct trade with foreign powers. It banished the
flag of Virginia from the seas. Instead of building and manning
the ships which carried the product of our labor to foreign pons,
and which brought back the product of the labor of others to
our own ports, as some were persuaded to believe would be the
result of the change, it compelled us thenceforth to commit our
produce to the ships of other States, and to receive our foreign
supplies through other ports than our own. It brought about
the strange result that, instead of a large part of the cost of de
fraying the expenses of the Government of Virginia being de
rived from the duties levied upon foreign commerce, those duties,
though levied upon a scale unknown in that age,^ will not suffice,
in this sixty-ninth year of the new system, to pay the expenses
of collection by other hands than our own.
It is due to the memory of our fathers to inquire, and it is the
province of history to record, how far such a result could have
been foreseen at the time ; for the decision of the question has
no unimportant bearing upon the reputation of the men who up
held or opposed the system from which such a revolution was

=* In a manuscript letter of Edmund Pendleton, dated December 4,
1792, in my possession, that illustrious jurist says: "Five per cent.
seemed to have been fixed on, as a standard of moderation, by the
general consent of America." This entire letter is devoted to the sub
ject of the tariff.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 19
destined to proceed ; and we fitly pause in our narrative to say
a few words on the subject. It is singular that, when the Fede
ral Constitution was presented for their consideration, our fathers
had already been more familiar with the theory of Federal sys
tems than any public men of that generation. Of the ablest
men, who, more than ten years before, either aided in framing
the Articles of Confederation in Congress, who discussed them
in the General Assembly, who ratified them in behalf of Vir
ginia in Congress, and who watched their operation in Congress
and in the Assembly, nearly all were then living. One of them,
whose immortal name is appended to those Articles, had pub
lished his opinions on the new system.''' Several members of
Congress were members of the present Convention. When
those Articles were maturing in Congress, and were afterwards
discussed in the General Assembly, the distinctive merits of the
Federal schemes recorded in history were freely canvassed. It
was soon seen that history, in its long roll of nations which have
coalesced from motives of gain, ambition, or self-defense, afforded
no model of a Federal aUiance which was suited to the existing
emergency, and that the problem was to be solved for the occa
sion. It was only from general reasoning, drawn from the nature
of independent States, that our fathers could arrive at their con
clusions. And that reasoning was this : The right to regulate
the trade and commerce of a State is, in fact, the right to con
trol its industry, to direct its labor, and to wield its capital at
will. It was one of those exclusive rights of sovereignty that
are inseparable from its being, and that no State can commit to
the discretion of another ; for no State whose industry is con
trolled by another, can be said to be free. To raise what pro
ducts we please, to send them, in our own way, to those who are
wilUng to take them, and to receive in exchange such commodi
ties as we please, and those commodities to be free from all bur
dens, except such as we choose to put upon them, is a right
which no people should voluntarUy relinquish, and which no
people ever relinquished but to a conquerer. A small State may,
indeed, coalesce with a larger, and on certain conditions may
'^^ Letter of R. H. Lee to Governor Randolph, Elliott's Debates, Vol.
I, 502, edition of 1859 ; objections of George Mason, Ibid,, 494; Edmund
Randolph's letter to the Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates,
Ibid., 482.

20 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
derive benefit from so intimate an alliance. The gain from an
equal participation in the trade of the buyer, and a sense of se
curity from their united strength, may be deemed a fair equiva
lent for the risks which it runs. But it is plain that the benefits
of such a coalition depend wholly on the good faith of the
stronger party ; and the rights of the weaker are enjoyed by the
courtesy of the stronger. To hold the most precious rights at
the discretion of another was a dangerous experiment ; and ex
perience has shown that no such union has ever been voluntarily
made. No confederacy, in ancient or in modern times, was ever
formed on so intimate a union of its several parts, and the un
usual experience of mankind should seem to forbid it.
But if it be dangerous for a small State to form so intimate an
aUiance with a greater, it follows that it is equaUy dangerous for
a large State to coalesce, not with a smaller, or a series of smaller
ones, whose combined strength is inferior to its own, but with a
series of States whose strength exceeds its own, whose voices
can control the common counsels, and whose interests can apply
the common resources at discretion. In such a case, the large
State sinks its independent position, and has no more conclusive
control of its own affairs than the humblest member of the asso
ciation. Hence, the record of civilized States affords no instance
of such an alliance. Guided by these principles, our fathers
determined to form a Federal alliance more intimate, indeed, than
any which has come down to us, but to reserve a conclusive con
trol over the trade and the commerce of Virginia. They were
willing to surrender the sword, but they retained the purse in
their own keeping.
Of all alliances between independent States in ancient or in
modern times, the Articles of Confederation presented the fair
est model of a Federal system. It raised the admiration of
Europe, strangely mingled with surprise. For a single province,
or more provinces than one, to cast off aUegiance to a distant
power, was no uncommon incident in modern times. But to
form a Federal alliance, which bestowed with a liberal hand upon
the central execuUve all the powers which the general interests
demanded, and yet guarded with consummate skill the integrity
and independence of the component parts, was a brilliant achieve
ment. Its reception by the people was joyous. At a later
period, when its workings had been observed more closely, the

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 21
Congress which it created but echoed the general voice in pro
nouncing it " a glorious compact." It was destined to a short
life of eight years ; and its brightness has paled before the more
dazzling scheme which succeeded it ; but it still remains the most
perfect model of a confederation which the world has ever seen.
The future historian will record its worth with becoming pride,
and rescue the glory of its founders from the eclipse which the
ambition and passions of men have combined to darken it.
What heightened the admiration of the Federal system was the
circumstances under which it was formed. It was at the darkest
period of the Revolution. It was formed at a time when the
greatest military and naval power which the world had ever seen
was marshalling all its forces against a feeble country, and was
pushing them forward with certain hopes of conquest ; when
some of the statesmen most active in the public councils, shrink
ing from the odds arrayed against them, were ready, it is alleged,
to create a dictator in the State and a dictator in the Federal
Government; when the punishment of treason, denounced against
our fathers by a king, whose predecessor and ancestor had,
within the memory of men then on the stage, converted the
fields of a kingdom, whose -crown he inherited, into a blackened
waste, and decimated a brave though rude population, was sus
pended over their heads ; and when every motive that could
sway the bosoms of men, impelled the people of the revolted
Colonies to form the strongest bulwark against the invading hosts.
And it is one of the wonders of history that a State which would
not surrender its purse in the midst of a crisis that invoked its
existence, should, in a time of profound peace and of general
prosperity, have consented to such a sacrifice.
But the deed was done, and it is our duty to inquire whether
the tendency ofthe Federal Constitution to produce such an effect
on the commerce of the State as has since been apparent, could
have been foreseen at the time of its adoption. A single glance
will show that it contains no provision respecting one State more
than another ; and that all the States stand on the same level.
It is in its general scope that we must seek the cause ofthe com
mercial decline of this Commonwealth. Immemorial experience
has shown that in every single and undivided political com
munity — and such would be the States of the Union, so far as
commerce is concerned, under the proposed Constitution — there

22 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
must be a controlling centre of trade, of business and of money.
It might not have been safe to foretell the exact spot where that
centre would be, but it was very easy to foretell where it would
not be. It would not be in the ports of a people whose entire
capital and labor were invested in agriculture, and who had not,
during the period that elapsed from the settlement at James
Town to the peace of 1783, built and manned a single merchant
ship of three hundred tons. But let that centre be established
anywhere, and the result would not be a matter of surprise but
of mathematical certainty. Its influence would be universal. It
would extend to the remotest limits of the widest empire. It
would be equally stringent in regulating a commercial transac
tion in the waters of the Bay of Fundy and at St. Mary's, which
was then the southern boundary of the Union. No Southern
merchant could build, equip, and load a ship, despatch her to a
foreign port, and order her to return with an assorted cargo to
a Virginia port, without being governed by the rates prevailing
at the controlling centre of the capital and labor of the country.
Bankruptcy, immediale and irretrievable, would certainly fol
low the neglect of such a precaution. It would be as wild to
buUd, load, and sail a ship in opposition to the law of trade
emanating from the central power, as it would be to attempt to
place a planet in the skies irrespective of the law of gravitadon.
The consequence would ultimately be that the money centre
would increase in population and resources with an accelerated
rapidity, while those parts distant from the centre, probably in
some proportion to their distance from that centre, and especially
those which, engaged in agriculture, were less able to change the
nature of their investments, must relatively decline. It is not
contended that this central power is absolutely immovable; for,
as it is not the creature of law, nor derives its power from ordinary
legislation, it is possible to move it at any moment ; but it can
only be removed by a kindred power greater than itself We
have no right to wonder that our fathers overiooked the obvious
course of business and exchanges, when we see what has been
done in our time by their descendants. Year after year we have
denounced the Federal tariff as the cause of the commercial de
cline of the South, and one of the Southern States went so far
in opposing it as to threaten a disruption of the Union. Yet it
is plain, from what has been said, that the tariff, which, by the

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 23
way, acted on the navigation of the North precisely as it acted
on the navigation of the South, however odious, as laying upon
the South what was deemed a high and unequal tax, had no more
effect on our navigation than it had on the rise and fall of the
tides, or on the course of our winds. If the Federal revenue
had been derived from direct taxation, or from the sales of the
public lands ; if not a dollar from the origin of the Federal Gov
ernment to the present hour had been levied upon imports ; nay,
further, if not a solitary slave had existed for the last seventy
years in that vast realm stretching from the Potomac to the Rio
Grande; the result complained of in the South would have been
essentially the tame. The evil which the Southern States felt,
and it is an existing evil, the effects of which on population, arts,
and manufactures, are formidable, the acts of Congress did not
cause, and the acts of Congress cannot cure. It follows, and
must follow indefinitely, from the silent operation of that organic
Federal bond which makes the people of the several States, so
far as commerce is concerned, one people. It is in the various
advantages resulting from the Federal compact, that we must
seek a compensation for the loss of our direct trade with foreign
powers. The problem which should engage the attention of
Southern statesmen is not to seek a restoration of the state of
things that existed, when seventy years ago the Federal Consti
tution was adopted, by a dissolution ofthe Union, an event which
would not only fail from obvious considerations to effect the
desired end, but would open a hundred new questions of peace
and war more perplexing and more difficult of solution than the
one which now annoys us ; but acknowledging at once the bind
ing obligation ol a law of trade, which the experience of seventy
years has shown our inabiUty to resist in the absence of the right
to regulate our own commerce, and adapting ourselves to the
new figure of the times, to ascertain the best means of making
it available in the highest degree to the prosperity of the South
ern States."
The basis of the Convention, a topic of so much strife in re
spect of the Conventions of our own times, did not much engage
the attention of our fathers. It was the basis of the House of
Delegates, which was then composed of two members from each
" It will be kept in mind that this was read before the Historical
Society in February, 1858, and, I may add, written a year or two before.

24 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
of the eighty-four counties, of one member from the city of Wil
liamsburg, and of one member from the borough of Norfolk.'*
Some time was to elapse before Richmond and Petersburg were
to send delegates to the Assembly. Richmond, named by Byrd
after that beautiful vUlage which looks grandly down on the
waters of the Thames, and which has been commemorated by
the muse of Denham, was then known in public proceedings as
Richmond Town, in order to distinguish it from the county of
the same name. Since the organization of the State Govern
ment in 1776 — a. period of twelve years — no less than twenty-
eight counties had been formed ; and the naming of the new
counties offered a graceful opportunity of honoring individual
worth.'* Posterity beholds in those names no uninstructive me-
^The curious eye will miss, with tender regret, the name of Williara
and Mary College, which had sent delegates to the House of Burgesses
for eighty-four years, but was disfranchised by the Convention of 1776.
The delegates from this institution were always of the highest order of
talents and moral worth. The amiable and excellent Blair represented
the College in the Convention of 1776, its last representative.
2'' The names of the counties laid off in the interval between July,
1776, and June, 1788, were Fluvanna, Rockingham, Rockbridge, Green
brier, Henry, Kentucky, Washington, Montgomery, Ohio, Vohoganey,
Monongalia, Powhatan, Illinois, Jefferson, Fayette, Lincoln, Harrison,
Greensville, Campbell, Nelson, Franklin, Randolph, Hardy, Bourbon,
Russell, Mercer, Madison, and Pendleton. The reader may wish to
know on which of the patriots of the Revolution the honor of having a
county called by his name was conferred. Patrick Henry received that
honor. He was the first Governor of the State, and the old Colonial
rule of naming a county after the existing Governor was applied with
peculiar propriety in his case. But, at the same session, the county of
Fincastle was divided into Kentucky, Washington, and Montgomery,
and the name of Fincastle dropped, as was also, at the same session,
the name of Dunmore, and Shenandoah substituted in its stead. At
the session of the Assembly immediately after the adjournment of the
present Convention, a county was called after George Mason, and
another after the gallant Woodford. Mason and Woodford counties
were in the district of Kentucky, and were lost to us when the district
became a State. So that at this time we have no county named after
the author of the Declaration of Rights, and the General who gained
the first victory of the Revolution. The present Mason county was laid
off in 1804— the year after the death of Stevens Thomson Mason, a dis
tinguished patriot, long a member of both Houses of Assembly and of
the Senate of the United States ; and, I have understood, was called in
honor of his name.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 25
morial of the estimation in which the originals were held by their
contemporaries. Indeed, from such materials, one skilled in the
anatomy of history, might, in the absence of other sources of
inteUigence, reconstruct no inaccurate record of that age. Not
one of those names had hitherto received any such expression of
the public regard ; for, up to this period, the name of no Vir
ginian had been given to a county ; and in the number and
character of the new names, it is plainly seen that some remark
able public epoch had occurred. The history of Henry, Wash
ington, Jefferson, Harrison, Campbell, Nelson, Randolph, Hardy,
Russell, Woodford, Mercer, Madison, and Pendleton, is the his
tory of their times. The names of Montgomery, Franklin, Lin
coln, and Greene, show that in the great event which had trans
pired, and which had called forth so many of our own citizens,
we had received the succor of our sister States ; while the name
of Fayette evokes the name of that chivalrous youth who, turn
ing his back on the endearments of domestic life and the fasci
nations of the gayest metropolis in Europe, hastened to share
with our fathers the toils and dangers of war, who attained to
the rank of Major-General in the armies of the United States, and
held high command in our midst, and who won on the field oi
York his greenest laurel ; and the name of Bourbon renews the
recollection of that beneficent but unfortunate prince, without
whose assistance the war of the Revolution might have lasted
thirty years, and whose fleets and armies aided in gaining, in our
behalf and within the limits of this Commonwealth, one of the
most glorious of those innumerable battles in which the banner
of St. Louis had, during many centuries, been borne in triumph.
Near the close of Sunday, the first day of June, 1788, Rich
mond Town was in an unusual bustle. The day had been bright
and warm, and was among the last days of a drought, which had
killed nearly all the young tobacco plants in the hiU uncovered
by clods, and had filled the roads fetlock-deep with dust, but which
fortunately made the rivers and creeks fordable on horseback.
Indeed, a rainy spell at that time would have been a grave an
noyance. It would have detained half of the members of the
Convention on the road. It might have decided the fate of the
Federal Constitution. A heavy rain at nightfall would have kept
the member for Henrico, who lived on Church Hill, from taking
his seat next morning in the old Capitol or in the new Academy.

26 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
Bridges were then rare ; and a fresh rendered the clumsy ferry
boat of litde avail. None of the appliances against the inclem
ency of the weather were then introduced. Oil skin and India
rubber had not yet been heard of; even the umbrella, which now
makes a part of the Sunday rigging of the negroes on the to
bacco estates of the Staunton and the Dan, was then unknown.
Rumors had reached the State that saUow men, from the remote
East, might be occasionally seen on the steps ofthe India House,
or sauntering in Piccadilly, having in their hands a curious in
strument, which was used ordinarily as a cane, but which, when
hoisted and held overhead, protected the body from the rays of
the fiercest sun, and also from the rain, though it should descend
in torrents.
People in greater numbers than had ever been known before
were coming into town from every quarter. Our modes of travel
are widely different from what they then were. Not only were
the can^l, the railway, and the steamer then unknown, but coaches
were rarely seen. There were thousands of respectable men in
the Commonwealth who had never seen any other four-wheeled
vehicle than a wagon, and there were thousands who had never
seen a wagon. Nothing shows more plainly the difference be
tween the past and the present than the modes of conveyance
used then and now. To pass from Richmond to the Valley of
Virginia in a carriage and pair was seldom attempted ; and, if
attempted, was seldom successful. The roads, which, now wind
ing their way graduaUy around the hills and mountains, make a
jaunt across the AUeghany safe and pleasant, then, when there
were no roads at all, sought the top the nearest way. Thirty
years later, it was rare that the lowlander, who drove in his
coach to the mountains, brought back the same pair of horses
with which he set out on his journey. One of the pair had made
his final pause in Rockfish Gap, and had been exchanged for
another at the next settlement. The bones of the other had
been picked by the buzzards, which, circling low and drowsily
above the road of the Warm Springs mountain, had watched
with listless eyes their yet breathing prey. Now the traveller
may pass into the interior from the mouth of the James more
than three hundred miles in canal packets, or in capacious
steamers, the tonnage of one of which exceeds the combined ton
nage of the fleets in which Columbus and John Smith raade their

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 27
first voyage to the New World, and hardly miss the comforts
and quiet of home. Then, and until forty years later, when the
skUl of Crozet had taught the waters of the James to flow peace
fully in trenches excavated by the pickaxe or blasted from the
rock, the daring traveller who passed in a boat from the North
river into the James, and thence through the Balcony Falls, was
never tired of recounting the dangers which beset his course.
The swiftness of the river was frightful ; the loudest screams of
the boatman, who wielded the long oar at the helm, was lost
amid the roar of the waters dashing against the rocks ; the roar
of the waters smote the rugged sides of the cliffs that guarded
the pass, and the sullen cliffs gave back the roar. It was Scylla
and Charybdis, the whirlpool and the rock, in fearful juxtaposi
tion. Should the long and frail boat, flying with a rapidity un
known to steam or sail, and twisted by the torrent, deviate a few
feet from a tortuous channel known only to the initiated, it was
shipwrecked beyond the reach of human aid. At the time of
which we are treating, there was not only no mail coach running
west of Richmond, but no mail coach running to Richmond
itself The planter, his legs sheathed in wrappers, his spare
clothes stowed in saddle-bags, and his cloak strapped behind his
saddle, left his home on his own horse.
Cavalcades of horsemen, to be traced from an elevated posi
tion by the clouds of dust that rose above them, were now seen
along the highways leading into town. Just before sunset might
have been observed from this hilP" the approach of two men,
whose names will be held in honor by generations to come.
Though not personal enemies, they rarely thought alike on the
greatest questions of that age, and tbey came aptly enough by
different roads. One was seen advancing from the south side of
the James, driving a plain and topless suck gig. He was tall,
and seemed capable of enduring fatigue, but was bending for
ward as if worn with travel. His dress was the product of his
own loom, and was cove.red with dust. He was to be the master
spirit of the Convention. The other approached from the north
side of the river in an elegant vehicle then known as a phaeton,"
'"This was read in the hall of the House of Delegates in the Capitol.
" This phaeton Pendleton afterwards gave to his relative, the mother
of Jaquelin P. Taylor, Esq., the treasurer of the Virginia Historical So
ciety, who distinctly remembers it.

28 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
which was driven so slowly that its occupant was seen at a glance
to be pressed by age or infirmity. He had been thrown some
years before from his horse and had dislocated his hip, and was
never afterwards able to stand or walk without assistance. His
imposing stature, the elegance of his dress, the dignity of his
mien, his venerable age, bespoke no ordinary man. He was
called by a unanimous vote to preside in the body. Both of
these eminent men had been long distinguished in the Colony
and in the Commonwealth. Both had borne a prominent part on
every great occasion since the session of the House of Burgesses
of 1765. Both had been intimately connected with that memo
rable resolution which instructed the delegates of Virginia to
propose independence. One had sustained that resolution with
unrivaled eloquence on the floor ; the other had drawn it with
his own hand. They met on the steps of the Swan and ex
changed salutations. Public expectation was at its height when
it was known that Patrick Henry and Edmund Pendleton, who,
for a quarter of a century, had been at the head of the two great
parties of that day, were about to engage in another fierce con
flict in the councils of their country.
The occasion might well inspire the deepest interest. For
more than five years the amendment of the Articles of Confed
eration had engaged the public attention, but within two years
then past it had become an engrossing topic. On the 21st of
January, 1786, Virginia, by a formal resolution of her Assembly,
had invited a meeting of the States, which was ultimately held
at Annapolis.'" That body proposed the assembling of a Con
vention in Philadelphia on the second day of May, 1787. This
resolution received the sanction of the Congress of the Confed
eration, and was pressed by that body on the attention of the

'" For the resolution of Virginia inviting the meeting that was held
at Annapolis, see the Appendix ; for the Journal of the meeting at that
place, see Bioren's and Duane's edition U. S. Laics, I, 55; for the letter
to the States sent forth by those who met, and originally prepared by
Colonel Hamilton, see Elliot's Debates, V, 115; and for the resolution
appointing delegates to the General Convention in Philadelphia, see
Appendix. The resolution convoking the meeting at Annapolis, and
the preamble and resolution appointing delegates to the Convention,
was drawn by Mr. Madison. The preamble ofthe last deserves a care
ful perusal.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 29
States ; but even before Congress had acted upon it, the General
Assembly of this Commonwealth had complied with its object,
and had appointed a delegation to the proposed Convendon.
The number and character of the delegates selected for the ser
vice demonstrated the importance of the movement ; and Vir
ginia, when she had confided her trust to George Washington,
Patrick Henry, Edmund Randolph, John Blair, James Madison,
George Mason, and George Wythe, calmly awaited the result of
their labors. °'
The General Convention of the United States did not form a
quorum until the twenty-fourth day of May ; and, after a con
tinuous session of four months, adjourned on the seventeenth of
September following. The Constitution, the work of its hands,
was duly transmitted to Congress, and was recommended by that
body to the consideration of the States. Its first publication in
this State gave rise to various emotions. A dark cloud evidently
rested above its cradle. Most of the officers and many of the
soldiers of the Revolution, swayed by the opinions of Wash
ington, which were openly expressed in conversation, and in his
letters, and charmed by the beautiful outline of a great polity
presented by the instrument itself received it with admiration
and delight. But a formidable opposition was soon apparent
from another quarter. The leading statesmen of Virginia, men
who had sustained the resolutions of Henry against the Stamp
Act, and his resolutions for embodying the militia, who had been
eager for independence, and who had guided the public councils
during the war and in the interval between the close of the war
and the meeting of the General Convention, read the new plan
with far different feelings. They saw, or thought that they saw,
in its character and in its provisions, that the public liberties
were seriously menaced, and that a war for independence was to
be waged once more under most painful circumstances. Here
tofore the people had been united in the common cause; and

"' Colonel Henry declined the appointment, and R. H. Lee was ap
pointed by the Governor in his stead ; but he declined, doubtless for the
same reason which induced the Assembly to pass him by, which was
that he was President of Congress, which would hold its sessions simul
taneously with those of the Convention. On Lee's declension, Dr.
James McClurg was appointed, and took his seat at the beginning of
the session.

30 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
their union, in spite of many obstacles, had carried them success
fully through the late contest. But now one portion of the peo
ple was to be arrayed against another ; and the result of the new
contest, whatever it might be, would be fraught with peril. The
first general impression should seem to have been adverse to the
new system. It had taken the people by surprise. It should be
remembered that the deliberations of the General Convention
had been secret, and, that if they had been pubUc, the faciUties by
which we are now enabled to watch from its inception any meas
ure of public policy, did not then exist. The Constitution pro
posed an entirely new system of government, when the belief of
the people was universal that the powers of the General Con
vention were limited to an amendment of the existing system to
which they had become attached, and which they believed amply
sufficient, with certain modifications, to attain the end of its cre
ation. They felt at the moment that resentment which springs
from a sense of having been cajoled or deceived by those to
whom we have confided an important trust.^ Upon a nearer
view, they were led to believe that the new Constitution was in
opposition to the wishes of a majority of their representatives in
Convention. It bore indeed the name most dear to the hearts of
the people, but he may have signed it as an officer, and not as
'* If the reader wishes to see how far these suspicions were founded,
let him consult and compare the resolution appointing delegates to
Annapolis ; the resolution of the General Assembly of ihf third of
November, 1786, declaring that an act ought to pass to appoint dele
gates to the General Convention " with powers to devise such further
provision as shall to them appear necessary to render the Constitution
of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union ;
and to report such an act for that purpose to the United States in Con
gress assembled, as, when agreed to by them, and afterwards con
firmed by the legislatures of every State, will effectually provide for the
same " ; and especially the resolution appointing the delegates to the
Convention, which was drawn by Mr. Madison, under the instructions
of the foregoing resolution, marking the substitution of the word
" States " for legislatures ; and it will be seen that a strict and literal
amendment of the old, and not the introduction of a new one, was in
the view of the Assembly. From the state of parties in the House of
Delegates when these resolutions were passed, it may be safely affirmed
that not thirty votes could have been obtained for any other amend
ment than a specific one to pass through the forms required for an
amendment to the Articles of Confederation.

T f ^ r r

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 31
an individual; but with the exception of the names of Blair and
Madison, it bore no other., Patrick Henry had declined his seat
in the Convention ; but neither the name of McClurg, who suc
ceeded him, nor that of Mason, or Randolph, or Wythe were
attached to its roll. If the absence of these names meant any
thing, it meant that if the vote of Virginia could have controlled
the question of the adoption of the Constitution by the Conven
tion which framed it, it would not have seen the light. It was
the work then of a minority of the delegates of Virginia in Con
vention, and it had the hand of bastardy on its face. And it is
certain that upon an immediate direct vote upon it by the peo
ple, it would have been rejected by an overwhelming majority.
Fortunately, there was full time for the examination of the new
system. From the adjournment of the General Convention to
the time of the meeting of the Virginia Convention, which was
called to discuss it, eight months would elapse ; and never were
eight months spent in such animated disputation. Essays on
the new scheme filled the papers of the day, but the papers of
that day were small and had but a limited circulation ; and for
the first time in our recent history, the pamphlet became a fre
quent engine of political warfare. Beside those essays which
have come down to us in the garb of the Federalist, and which
are still fegarded with authority, there were others published
throughout the States of equal popularity. The solemn protest
of George Mason, the eloquent letter of Edmund Randolph, then
Governor, to the Speaker of the House of Delegates, and the
statesmanlike production of Richard Henry Lee addressed to
the Governor, aU demonstrating the defects of the proposed plan
of government, were in every hand.'^ The bibliographer still
points to the tracts of the period, bound in small volumes, as
among the sybil reUcs of our early political literature. But how
ever great was the influence of the press, its influence was ex
ceeded by oral discussions. Public addresses were made at every
gathering of the people. The court green, the race-course, and
'* Though the people in the vicinity of towns and villages could get
a glance at a paper, even prominent men in the interior were not
reached by the press. Humphrey Marshall, from Kentucky, had trav
elled into the densely populated parts of Virginia on his way to the
Convention, when he met with a number of the Federalist for the first
time. ^

32 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
the muster-field, resounded with disputations. The pulpit as
well as the rostrum uttered its voice, and the saint and the sin
ner mingled in the fierce m&lee}'' An incident which occurred in
Halifax will serve to show the excitement of the times. A
preacher on a Sunday morning had pronounced from the desk a
fervent prayer for the adoption of the Federal Constitution ; but
he had no sooner ended his prayer than a clever layman ascended
the pulpit, invited the people to join a second time in the supph
cation, and put forth an animated petition that the new scheme
be rejected by the Convention about to assemble by an over
whelming majority. ''
Great tact was shown by the friends of the new scheme in the
selection of candidates. The honest country gentlemen whose
fathers had been for years in the Assembly, and who had been
ior years in the Assembly themselves, and who thought that they
had a prescriptive title to public honors, were gently put aside,
and the judge was taken from the bench, and the soldier, who
was reposing beneath the laurels won in many a stricken field,
was summoned from his farm to fill a seat in the approaching
Convention. Such, indeed, was the zeal with which the elec
tions were pushed, that, for the first time in our history, personal
enmities were overlooked, and ancient political feuds, which
promised to descend for generations, were allowed to slumber.
One gentleman, who, in the beginning of the war, had been sus
pected of dealing with the enemy, who had been arrested and
held under heavy bonds in strict confinement, and had been
escorted by a mUitary guard into the interior of the State, was
returned to the Convention, his friendship for the Constitution

"" There was a passage at arms between the Rev. John Blair Smith,
president of Hampden-Sydney College in Prince Edward county, and
Patrick Henry, who represented that county in the Convention. Henry
had inveighed with great severity against the Constitution, and was
responded to by Dr. Smith, who pressed the question upon Henry, why
he had not taken his seat in the Convention and lent his aid in making
a good Constitution, instead of staying at home and abusing the work
of his patriotic compeers? Henry, with that magical power of acting
in which he excelled all his contemporaries, and which before a popu
lar assembly was irresistible, replied : " I smelt a rat."
" I could "name names," if necessary, but to do so might possibly
be unpleasant to the descendants of the actors.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 33
wiping out the sins of his earlier life. Another member, whose
father had by a formal decree of one of the early Conventions
been arrested, had also been placed under heavy bonds, and had
been confined within certain limits, and who had himself spent
the entire period of the Revolution abroad, expiated his guUt
patrimonial and personal by his attachment to the new system,
and took his seat by the side of men whose swords had hardly
ceased to drip with the blood of the common foe. Whether we
regard such results as flowing from high principles or from the
impulse of eager passion, it is equally our duty to record them.
Thus, when the time approached for the election of the members
who were to decide the fate of the Constitution, there was not
only an obvious Une drawn between its friends and its enemies,
but there were shrewd estirpates of its ultimate fate.
The assembUng of the Convention attracted attention through
out the State and throughout the Union. Few of the citizens of
Virginia had ever seen a Convention of the people. The Con
vention of August, 1774, sate in Williamsburg, and adjourned
after a session of five days. The Conventions of March, of July,
and of December, 1775, sate in Richmond ; bul the Convention
of March was in session but seven days, the Convention of July
only thirty-nine days, and that of December fifty days ; and the
Richmond of 1775 differed almost as much from the Richmond
of 1778, small as it was at the latter period, as the Richmond of
1788 differed from the Richmond of 1858. The Convention of
1776 sate in WUliamsburg, and, as the sessions embraced sixty
days, was together longer than any deliberative body in our pre
vious annals. Still, from the emergencies of war, from the uncer
tainty of the times, and from the sparseness of the population,
those only who lived in the vicinity of WUliamsburg and Rich
mond had then seen any of the prominent men of that generation.
Henry was the best known of our public men. He had not only
been Governor twice during the last twelve years, and occasion
ally a member of the Assembly, which he was ever the last to
reach and the first to quit, but he had frequently been called to
distant counties to defend culprits which no native talents were
likely to screen from the law ; yet few of the men then on the
stage had ever seen Henry. Pendleton, who, from his years,
-was more of a historical character than Henry, could for the last
ten years be seen only in term time on the bench, or in his snug

34 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
room at the Swan, or in vacation on his estate in Caroline.
Mason, though laborious on committees and in the House of
Delegates, had a horror of long sessions, and would not be per
suaded to remain long beyond the smoke of "Gunston Hall."
The person of Wythe was more familiar to persons from abroad ;
for, since the removal of the seat of government from WiUiams-
burg, he had taken up his abode in town,'* and might be seen in
his court or in his study, and not unfrequently of a bright frosty
morning, in loose array, taking an air-bath in the porch of his
humble residence on Shockoe Hill. Now all these eminent men,
and others who had grown into reputation during the war and
since, were to be seen together. In every point of view the Con
vention was an imposing body. It presented as proud a galaxy
of genius, worth, and public service as had ever shone in the
councils of a single State. The rule of its selection had been
without limit. The members were chosen without regard to the
offices which they held, or to their pursuits in life. The judge,
as was just observed, was called from the bench, and the soldier
from his home ; while the merchant, the planter, the lawyer, the
physician and the divine, made up the complement of its mem
bers. There was one feature conspicuous in the returns, and
shows not only the fluctuation of the public mind at that impor
tant crisis, but the force of individual worth. Sharply drawn as
were the lines of party, a county would send up one of its two
members friendly to the Constitution, and the other opposed to it.
As a type of the times, it may be noted that the successor of
Henry in the General Convention which framed the Federal Con
stitution, was one of the most distinguished physicians of that age.
¦ The body was very large, and consisted, as already stated, of one
hundred and seventy members, and exceeded by fifty two the
number of the members who composed the Convention of 1776.
It was more than four times greater than the Convention which
formed the Federal Constitution when that body was full, and it
^"^ exceeded it, as it ordinarily was, more than six times. It had a
trait discernible in all the great Conventions of Virginia. It con
sisted of the public men of three generations. Some of the
'^Judge Wythe's residence stood at the southeast corner of Grace
and Fifth streets, on the spot where stands the residence erected by the
late Abraham Warwick, and now owned and occupied by Major Legh
R. Page.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 35
eminent men who more than thirty years before had dared to
assail the usurpations of Dinwiddle, and to dispatch to England
to protest against the unconstitutional pistole tax levied by the
Governor;'" who, twenty-three years before, had voted on Henry's
resolutions against the Stamp Act, and had voted thirteen years
before on his resolutions for putting the Colony in a posture of
defence, and had voted for the resolution proposing indepen
dence; who had distinguished themselves in the Indian wars,
and who had borne a prominent part on the military and civil
theatre of the Revolution.
Several of the members of that great committee, under whose
wise guidance the country had passed from the Colony to the
Commonwealth, with their illustrious chief at their bead, were
members of the body ; and sitting by their side was that re
markable man, more iUustrious stUl, who, in a time of intense
excitement, had been deemed their victim.*"
The martial aspect of the Convention would alone have at
tracted observation. There was hardly a batdefield, from the
Monongahela and the Kanawha to the plains of Abraham, from
the Great Bridge to Monmouth, and from the bloody plains of
Eutaw to York, that was not illuminated by the valor of some
member then present. The names of Bland, Carrington of Hali
fax, Samuel Jordan Cabell, Clendenin, Darke, Fleming, Grayson,
Innes, Lawson, Henry Lee of the Legion, known in the Con
vention as Lee of Westmoreland, in distinction from his name
sake and relative, Henry Lee of Bourbon, Matthews, who, when

^" The conduct of the House of Burgesses on that occasion displayed
great spirit. They sent Peyton Randolph, then Attorney-General, to
England, who partly succeeded in his mission. His expenses were two
thousand five hundred pounds, which were paid by a bill which the
Governor refused to approve. The House of Burgesses then tacked
the sum of two thousand five hundred pounds to the appropriation bill
of twenty thousand pounds ; and the Governor sent back this bill also.
The House then ordered the treasurer to pay the money ; which he did.
Journals House of Biirgesses, Nov., 1753, and Sparks'' Washington, II,
59. Dinwiddie Papers, I, 44, et seq.; II, 3, 57.
*" After the adjournment of the Convention of 1776, Pendleton and
Henry never met in a public body. Henry was elected Governor by
that Convention ; and Pendleton, after a session or two in the House of
Delegates, was placed on the bench, where he remained nearly a quar
ter of a century. Henry was often a member of the House of Dele
gates in the interval between 1776 and 1788.

86 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
not engaged in the field, was a member of the House of Dele
gates, whose name is conspicuous in our early Journals as chair
man on Committee of the Whole and Speaker of the House,
and is still borne by one of those beautiful counties that over
look our great inland sea, Mason, of Loudoun, Marshall, who had
not attained the age of thirty-three, and little dreamed that in a
few short years he was to represent the young empire at the
most renowned court in Europe, and to preside, for an entire
generation, in the judiciary of the new system which he was
about to sustain, Monroe, the junior of Marshall by three years,
his playmate at school, his colleague in camp and in college, and
destined to fill the highest offices, at home and abroad, of the
new system which he was about to oppose, McKee, Moore of
Rockbridge, George and Wilson Cary Nicholas, Read, Riddick,
Steele, Adam Stephen, Stuart of Augusta, Stuart of Greenbrier,
Zane, and others, recall alike our hardest contest with the In
dians and the British. Well might Henry and George Mason
view that briUiant phalanx with doubt and fear.*' Pendleton, the
President of the Court of Appeals, and Wythe, a chanceUor and a
member of the same court, who had been pitted against each other
in the Senate and in the forum throughout their political lives, and
were now to act in unison, were not the only representatives of
the judiciary.*" BuUitt had not taken his seat on the bench ; but

*' A large majority of the officers of the army ofthe Revolution were
in favor of the new Constitution. The Cincinnau were mostly among
its warmest advocates ; and as they were organized and were, many of
them, of exalted private and public worth, and could act in concert
through all the States, their influence was foreseen and feared by its
opponents. Mason and Gerry often alluded to that influence in their
speeches in the General Convention (Madison Papers, II, 120S; Elliot's
Debates, V, 368); and although Judge Marshall aflSrms that "in Vir
ginia certainly a large number, perhaps a majority, of the Cincinnati
were opposed to it" (meaning the administration of Washington),
(II, Appendix 31, second edition) ; yet when he enumerated the various
classes who favored a change in the Articles of Confederation, he says,
"the officers of the army threw themselves almost universally in the
same scale." Life of Washington, II, 77. In the present Convention
there were several who were opposed to the Consdtution.
*" These two Venerable men, with George Mason and Patrick Henry,
were those first sought by the spectator, as in a convention, forty years
later, were Madison, Monroe, Marshall, and Fayette. If the reader
wishes to know the constitution of the courts in 1787, let him turn to
Mr. Minor's edition of Wythe's Reports, page 20 of the memoir.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 37
Blair, Cary of Warwick, Carrington of Charlotte, Jones, and
Tyler, were members of the body. Some of the prominent mem
bers of Congress were present. Harrison, Henry and Pendleton
stood up in the Carpenters' Hall, when the eloquent Duchd, then
firm in his country's cause, had invoked the guidance of Heaven
in the deliberations of the first Congress ; while Grayson, Henry
Lee of the Legion, Madison, Monroe, Edmund Randolph, and
Wythe, had been or were then in the councils of the Union. The
Attorney- General of the Commonwealth, the eloquent and ac
complished Innes, and the Governor, were included in that dis
tinguished group.
Yet the eye of the aged spectator, as it ranged along those
rows of heads, missed some familiar faces, which, until now, had
been seen on nearly all the great civil occasions of a third of the
century then past. The venerable Richard Bland, the unerring
oracle, whose responses had, for more than thirty years, been
eagerly sought and rarely made in vain, and whose tall form
had been so long conspicuous in the House of Burgesses and in
all the previous Conventions, had fallen dead in the street in Wil
liamsburg, twelve years before, while attending the session of the
first House of Delegates, and when, as chairnian of the commit
tee, he was about to report that memorable bill, drawn by Jeffer
son, abolishing entails. Benjamin Watkins, of Chesterfield, in
whose character were united in noble proportions the firmness of
the patriot, the charity of the philanthropist, and the wisdom of
the sage, and his name, revived in the Convention that met near
half a century after his death to revise the Constitution, which he
assisted in framing, was invested with fresh and imperishable
praise, had died three years before.*' The absence of the old
Treasurer, Robert Carter Nicholas, that grave and venerated
face, which had been seen for forty years in the House of Bur
gesses, and in all the Conventions, in one of which he presided,
and whose presence gave to the general heart a sense of safety,
was now observed for the first time in our great assemblies. He
had died, when the storm of the Revolution raged fiercest, at his
^'He was the maternal grandfather of Benjamin Watkins Leigh and
Judge William Leigh, who were members of the Convention of 1829-30.
For further details of Mr. Watkins, consult the Watkins' genealogy, by
Francis N. Watkins, Esq., page 46.

38 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
viUa in Hanover, and his corpse, borne by his weeping neigh
bors, had been laid in its humble grave. Archibald Cary, too,
was gone. He had been intimately connected for the third of a
century with very great measures of our colonial policy, had, as
chairman of the Committee of the Whole, reported to the Con
vendon of 1776 the resolution instructing our delegates in Con
gress to propose independence, and had been at the head of the
committee which reported the Declaration of Rights and the
Constitution. His unconquerable spirit was an element of force
in every body of which he was a member. Two years had
barely elapsed since his stalwart form had been committed to the
grave, at Ampthill.*' He had lived to behold the triumph ofhis
country, and to preside, until his death, in the Senate under that
Constitution at whose baptism he had been the fearless and cor
dial sponsor.*' The person of another still more beloved was
wanting. On him the honors of every deliberative assembly of
which he was a member seemed, by common consent, to devolve.
In the warm conflict between the House of Burgesses and a royal
Governor, who sought to tax the people without the consent of
their representatives, which had occurred in his early manhood,
he had taken an honorable part, and had been sent abroad to
seek redress at the foot of the throne. His fine person and dig
nified demeanor had made an impression even within the pre
cincts of St. James. He had filled the office of Attorney-Gen
eral with acknowledged skill, and had volunteered, at a time of
danger, to march at the head of his company against the Indians.
He had presided ten years in the House of Burgesses, and had
won the affection of its members. He was hated by those only
who hated his country. He had presided in the August Con
vention of 1774, and in the Conventions of March and July,
1775, and was the first president of Congress. He had died,
** Cary died at '¦Ampthill," his seat in Chesterfield county, but was
buried in the ancestral grounds at "Ceeleys," in Warwick county. — Ed.
^'In the discourse on the Convention of 1776, page 90, I allude to
Colonel Cary as rather small than large in stature, though compact and
muscular. Subsequent investigations have led me to believe that he
was a large man of great physical strength. His corporeal powers
have been celebrated in poetry as well as in prose. [He was known
by the sobriquet "Old Iron." — Ed.]

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 39
almost instantaneously, while attending to his duties in Congress ;
but his remains had been brought to Virginia ; and persons then
present remembered that melancholy morning on which the
coffin of Peyton Randolph, wrapped in lead, had, twelve years
before, been borne from his late residence, along the high street
of Williamsburg, followed by the first General Assembly of the
Commonwealth, with their speakers at their head, by the Ma
sonic body, and by a large concourse of citizens, to the threshold
of William and Mary College, the nurse of his early youth and
the object of his latest care, and had been consigned, with the
offices of religion and the rites of Masonry, amid the shrieks of
women and the audible sobs of wise and brave men, to the an
cestral vault beneath the pavement of the chapel. Other familiar
faces were also missing ; and old men shook their heads, shrugged
their shoulders, and muttered that it was iU for the country that
such men, at such a crisis, were in their graves ; and that public
bodies were not now what they once had been. A sounded
opinion would be that, in ability and capacity for effective public
service, the Convention of 1776 was surpassed by the Conven
tion of 1788, which was in its turn surpassed by the Convention
of 1829-30.**
^ It is the opinion of what may be called the illustrious second growth
of eminent Virginians — men who were born between 1773 and 1788 —
such as John Randolph, Tazewell, James Barbour, Leigh, Johnson, Philip
P. Barbour, Stanard, the late President Tyler, etc., who may be said
to have lived in the early shadows of the body itself, and mingled with
some of the members in their old age, that the present Convention
was, as a whole, the most able body which had then met in the United
States. It is creditable to the conservative character of Virginia that
in all her public bodies since the passage of the Starap Act each suc
cessive one has Deen largely made up from its predecessor. Thus in
the Convention of 1776 there was a large number of the leading mem
bers who voted, in 1765, on Henry's resolutions againstthe Starap Act,
such as Henry himself, Nicholas, Harrison, Pendleton, Wythe, Lewis,
and others ; and in the present Convention there were members who
had been in the House of Burgesses in 1765, as well as in the Conven
tions of 1774, 1775, and 1776. And in the Convention of 1829-30, the
Convention of 1776 was represented by Madison, the only surviving
member, and the present Convention by Madison, Marshall and Mon
roe. If we were to trace back the Journals from 1765 to 1688, the date
of the British Revolution, although I have never performed that office,
and state my impressions only, I believe that a continuous and con-

40 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
It has been said that the interest excited by the Convention was
not confined to the Commonwealth. It was well known, as
already stated, that, with the exception of Washington and Mc
Clurg, all the representatives of Virginia in the General Conven
tion were members of the present ; and it was feared by the
friends of the Constitution abroad that, as three only out of seven
had signed that instrument, and one of those in an official char
acter only, it would appear, as it were, under the protest of a
majority of those to whom Virginia had committed her interests
and her honor. But what enhanced the excitement beyond our
borders, as well as at home, was the knowledge of the fact that,
of the nine States necessary to the inauguration of the new sys
tem, eight had already ratified it, and the favorable vote of the
ninth, as the result soon proved, was certain. It was also believed
that Rhode Island, which was not represented in the General
Convention, and North Carolina would decline to accept it."
trolling representation of the House of Burgesses, which acknowledged
allegiance to William and Mary as their lawful sovereigns, could be
traced to the Burgesses of 1765, and, as I have just shown, to 1776, when
that allegiance was withdrawn, to 1788, and to 1829-30, a period of
nearly a century and a half And if we go back to the first House of
Burgesses held in the Colony, at James Town, July 30, 1619, a year be
fore the May Flower left England with the Pilgrim Fathers of New
England, and consisting of twenty-two members, we will find Mr. Jef
ferson, of Flowerdieu Hundred, represented by .Mr. Jefferson, of Albe
marle, inthe Convention of 1776; Captain William Powell, of James
City, represented in the present Convention by Colonel Levin Powell,
of Loudoun ; Mr. John Jackson, of Martin's plantation, by George Jack
son, of Harrison, in the same body, and Charles Jordan, of Charles
City, by Colonel Samuel Jordan Cabell, of Amherst.
'" The Convention of North Carolina met on the 21st of July, 1788,
when the Constitution was lost by one hundred votes. Wheeler's
North Carolina, II, 98. The States adopted the Constitution in the fol
lowing order : Delaware, December 7, 1787 ; Pennsylvania, December
12, 1787; New Jersey, December 18, 1787; Georgia, January 2, 1788;
Connecticut, January 9, 1788; Massachusetts, February 6, 1788; Mary
land, April 28, 1788 ; South Carolina, May 23, 178S ; New Hampshire,
June 21, 1788; Virginia, June 26, 1788; North Carolina, November 21,
1789; Rhode Island, May 29, 1790. Hence it appears that the Consti
tution was accepted by nine States five days before Virginia cast her
vote, a fact which, though alluded to in Convention, could not have
been known positively at the time.

VIP.GINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 41
The vote of Virginia, which was eagerly sought by the friends
of the Constitution not only as the vote of a State, but as the
vote of the largest of the States, was then, if not to decide its
fate, yet materially to affect its success; for, although the instru
ment should be radfied by New Hampshire, and the full comple
ment of States required to the organization of the Government
be attained, still there were fears that Virginia might, as was
afterwards suggested by Jefferson, and attempted in the body,
hold out until such amendments as she would propose as the
condition of her acceptance should be ratified by the States, and
become an integral part of the new system. Nor were these
apprehenSiions groundless. Her western boundary was the Mis
sissippi, and strange reports, which we know represented not
less than the truth, were rife that a deliberate effort had been
made by the Northern and Middle States to close the navigation
of that stream by the people of the South for thirty years ; nor
was it known that a scheme so fatal to the prosperity of Virginia
had been abandoned. The vote which was to decide these
doubts was to be given by the Convention about to assemble.
We have said that fears for the rejection of the Constitution
were not ill-founded. At no moment from its promulgation to
the meeting of the first Congress inthe foUowing year, would the
new system have received more than a third of the popular vote
of the State. It was ultimately carried in a house of one hun
dred and seventy members by a majority of ten only, and five
votes would have reversed the decision ; and it is certain that at
least ten members voted, either in disobedience of the positive
instructions of their constituents, or in defiance of their well-
known opinions.** Nor were those opinions the offspring of the

** See the proceedings of the Assembly which met three days before
the adjournment ofthe present Convention. Judge Marshall, who was
a member of the present Convention, and probably wrote from the
result of his observation in Virginia, says, " that in some of the adopt
ing States, a majority of the people were in the opposition"; he also
says, "that so small in many instances was the majority in its favor,
as to afford short ground for the opinion that had the influence of char
acter been removed, the intrinsic merits of the instruraent would not
have secured its adoption.'' Life of Washington, II, 127. Sympa
thizing as I do with the views of Henry, Mason, &c., who opposed the
Constitution, it might appear invidious to give the names of those who

42 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
moment. They had been held by their ancestors and themselves
for a century and a half; and as they reflected the highest credit
upon the patriotism of our fathers and that conservauve worth
which is the true safety of States, but which has fallen into dis
repute in more recent times, it is proper to recall their modes of
thinking on political subjects, as well as to take a passing glance
at the state of parties into which the public men of that day were
divided. A large portion of the people, even larger than at
present, were engaged in the cultivation of the earth, and were
in the main tobacco planters and slave-holders ; and a tobacco-
planting, slave-holding people are rarely eager for change. Like
their ancestors in England, they were not anxious for the alter
ation of laws to which they had long been accustomed. Even
during the contest with the mother country, no greater changes
were made than were deemed absolutely necessary to accomplish
the end in view. The Committee of Safety, which, in the inter
vals of the sessions of the Conventions, administered the govern
ment until the Constitution went into effect, was but a standing
committee of the Conventions, which were the House of Bur
gesses under another name. And when a declaration of inde
pendence, which was held back until it became impossible to
obtain foreign aid in men and means without such a measure,
was put forth, and a new form of government was rendered
imperative, no greater change was made in the existing system
than was required by the emergency. The law of primogeni
ture, the law of entails, the Church establishment, were not
touched by the Constitution. And when the Convention of May,
voted as charged in the text. As an illustration of "the influence of
character," it may be said that no four men excited more influence
in favor of the Constitution in Virginia, than George Washington,
Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, and James Madison, and four
purer names were probably never recorded in profane history ; yet to
those who look into the secret motives that unconsciously impel the
most candid minds on great occasions, which involve the destinies of
posterity, it may be said that they were all men of wealth, or held office
by a life tenure, and that, though married, neither of them ever had a
child. In the sarae spirit it may be mentioned that Mason and Henry
were men of large families, and that hundreds now living look back to
" Gunston Hall " and " Red Hill," In the case of Henry, the cradle
began to rock in his house in his eighteenth year, and was rocking
at his death in his sixty-third.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 7 88. 43
1776, which formed the Constitution, adjourned, the polity ofthe
Colony, with the exception of the executive department, was
essentially the polity of the Commonwealth. The House of
Delegates was the House of Burgesses under another name. The
Senate was the Council under a different organization. It was
to be chosen by the people instead of being nominated by the
king, and its judicial forces, separated from its legislative, were
assigned to officers who composed the new judiciary. Although
the new Constitution was assailed shortly after its birth by the
authority and eloquence of Jefferson, and at a later date by able
men, whose talents were hardly inferior to those of Jefferson, it
remained without amendment or revision for more than half a
century. Our fathers were as prompt and practical as well as
prudent ; and when it was necessary to form a bond of union
among the States, they accepted the Articles of Confederation
without delay. But when so great a change in the organic law
as was proposed by the Federal Constitution was presented for
their approval, they were filled with distrust and suspicion.
That instrument, under restrictions real or apparent, invested the
new Government with the purse and the sword of the Common
wealth. Alarming as this concession appeared to the people, it
was as unexpected as alarming. The colonists had brought to the
new world a just appreciation ofthe liberties which they enjoyed
in Great Britain; and the appreciation was enhanced by the repre
sentative system which was adopted here. There were times,
indeed, in the previous century, as in the then existing one,
when the rights and privileges of a British subject, here as well
as in England, were disregarded or lost sight of for a season ; but
there were no times when the great bulwarks of British freedom
were razed to their foundations. The governor was appointed
by the king, and appeared in the Colony either by proxy or by
deputy; and he had the power of proroguing the Assembly.
An ancient form, which had been borrowed from England, pre
scribed that the member who was elected Speaker of the House
of Burgesses should, before taking the chair, and before the mace
was laid upon the table of the clerk, be approved by the Gover
nor ; but should the Governor refuse to approve the choice of
the House, the House might proceed to elect another Speaker;
and should the Governor determine to reject a second choice of
the House, another election must follow, for none other than a

44 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
member could occupy the chair. The assent of the king was
necessary to a law ; but that assent was in extreme cases only
suspended, and so rarely withheld that a law took effect on its
passage ; and in the event of a refusal of the royal assent, the
worst consequence was that the people were thrown on the exist
ing laws which had been enacted by themselves. Every shUling
collected from the colonists for more than a century and a half
had been assessed by their own House of Burgesses, and was
received and disbursed by a Treasurer, who was elected by the
House, who was almost always a member of it, and was respon
sible to it for the performance of his duty.*' Our fathers were
always ready to give and grant their own money of their own
free will, but not upon compulsion or at the dictation of another.
They appropriated large sums for the Indian wars, when it was
known that the hostile attacks ofthe savages were excited by the
French, and were made upon the territory of the Colony, not
from any hatred to the colonists, but because they were the sub
jects of the British king. During the government of CromweU,
the colonists had not only exercised the functions of a free State,
but were substantially independent. They passed what laws
they pleased, and carried a free trade with foreign nations. In
the commercial control of the mother country, they were com
pelled to acquiesce ; but they denied the right of Parliament to
lay a shiUing in the shape of direct taxation. Hence the resist
ance to the Stamp Act, and the series of measures which led
*' The Speaker was almost invariably appointed Treasurer until a
separation of the offices was effected in 1766, on the death of Speaker
Robinson, when Peyton Randolph was elected Speaker, and Robert
Carter Nicholas, Treasurer. The Burgesses rarely changed their offi
cers, John Robinson, the predecessor of Randolph, having filled the
chair more than twenty years, and Randolph filled it from his first
appointment to 1775, when he withdrew to attend Congress. R. C.
Nicholas was re-elected Treasurer from 1766 to 1776, when he resigned
because the Constitution would not allow the Treasurer to hold a seat
in the Assembly. See Journal House of Delegates, November 29,
1776, where Nicholas is thanked by the House for his fidelity, and ex
presses his acknowledgments, closing his remarks with these words :
¦' That he would deliver up his office to his successor, he trusted, with
clean hands ; he would assure the House it would be with empty ones."
These words were often quoted by our fathers when the name of Nicho
las was mentioned.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 45
slowly but surely to independence. So jealous and so careful
were the people of Virginia on the subject of direct taxation that
under the pressure of the war, when the Articles of Confedera
tion were adopted, they would not part with the power of the
purse, and cautiously provided in those Articles that the quota of
each State in the general charge should be raised, not by taxa
tion at the discretion of Congress, but in the form of a requi
sition on the State alone. This principle was so firmly planted
in the general mind, that no speaker in public debate, no writer
from the press, dared to assail or call it in question. And lest a
delegate to Congress might prove faithless to his trust, though
his term of service lasted yet a single year, and he could serve
only three years out of six, he might be recalled at any moment
at the bidding of the Assembly.^" The Act of Assembly ap
pointing delegates to the General Convention, so far from con
templating a surrender of the principle of taxation, guarded it
with the greatest care, and instructed the members so appointed
"to join with the delegates from other States in devising and
discussing all such alterations and further provisions as may be
necessary to render the Federal Constitution adequate to the
exigencies of the Union, and in reporting such an act for that
purpose to the United States in Congress, as, when agreed to by
them, and duly confirmed by the several States, will effectually
provide for the same." It was evidently an ordinary amend
ment to the Articles of Confederation, to take the course pre
scribed in that instrument in the case of amendments, and not
the substitution of a different scheme of government, which they
sought to obtain."' They dearly loved the union of the States,
™ Articles of Confederation, Art. V.
^' Nothing can be clearer than the fact stated in the text. The Arti
cles of Confederation provide for theirownamendment in these words :
" unless such alterations be agreed to in a Congress of the United
States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State."
Art. XIII. Accordingly, when on the 3d of November, 1786, the House
of Delegates, after a deliberate discussion in committee of the whole,
adopted a resolution requiring a bill to be brought in appointing dele
gates to the General Convention, they conclude their instructions to
the committee in these words : "And to report such an act for the pur
pose to the United .States in Congress assembled, as, when agreed to
by them, and afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State,

46 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
and they felt that some decided measure was necessary to sus
tain the public faith. The debt of the Revolution was not only
unpaid, but the money to pay the interest upon h was impracti
cable to obtain. Requisitions were faithfuUy made by the Con
gress ; but, in the absence of pressure from without, and from
the extraordinary difficulties which beset the States just emerging
from a protracted civil war, were rarely complied with. To
amend the Articles of Confederation, therefore, was a measure
required alike by our relations with our confederate States, and
with the States of Europe to which we were so deeply indebted
for those loans that enabled us to prosecute the war, and was
demanded by every consideration of justice and of honor.
The Assembly, however, was careful and explicit in declaring
that it was an amendment to the existing form that they desired,
and not a change in the form itself With that form they were
satisfied. It had borne them through the war ; and under its

will effectually provide for the same." The committee so appointed
consisted of Mathews, George Nicholas, Madison, Nelson, Mann Page,
Bland and Corbin. Madison drew the bill concluding with the resolu
tion in the text, which conforms generally with the instructions, but
substitutes the word '-States" for legislatures, the word used in the
Articles of Confederation, and in the resolution of the House ordering
the bill to be brought in. Now, this may have been done inadvertently ;
but when we know the unpopularity of Madison in the House, which
he felt so keenly that when he drew his resolution inviting the meet
ing at Annapolis, he had it copied by the clerk of the House, lest his
handwriting should betray the authorship, and prevailed on Mr. Tyler
to offer it, and which prevented him from doing any act directly with
any hope of success, we hardly refrain from calling it a parliamentary
manoeuvre. And this view is strengthened when we recall a similar
manoeuvre by which that resolution was carried through the House.
It was called up on the last day of a session of more than three months'
duration, when it is probable that a large number of the members had
departed with the confident belief that, in their commercial Convention
with Maryland, in which all the States were invited to participate, they
had settled the subject of Federal relations, and was pressed through
both houses in a few hours. All these things may be legitimate in the
strategy of politics, but they excite distrust and work evil. But our
present purpose is only to show that it was an amendment, in the strict
sense of the word, of the Articles of Confederation, and not their
entire destruction, that the Assembly had in view in sending delegates
to Philadelphia.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 47
influence, since the peace, the trade and commerce of Virginia
had advanced with rapid strides. The State and the people had
been plunged, by a war of eight years, into difficulties and em
barrassments, which time only could remove ; but there was
every reason to believe that the time of deliverance was at hand.
The duties from commerce were pouring larger and larger sums
every year into the treasury of the Stale ; and the day was not
distant when, from this source alone, Virginia would be able not
only to meet all the requisitions of the Federal Government, but
to defray a large part of the ordinary expenses of government.
Such was the state of the public mind when the new systerri
was proposed for the adoption of the people. Its first appearance
was calculated to excite alarm. They beheld a total subversion
of the plan of government to which they were attached, and
which they had expressly instructed their delegates to amend,
not to destroy. They saw, or thought they saw, in the power of
laying taxes, which the new plan gave to Congress, their most
sacred privilege, which they and their fathers before them had so
long enjoyed, and in defense of which they had lately concluded
a fearful war, would be invaded, if not wholly alienated. It was
true that they would contribute a respectable delegation to Con
gress ; but, as the interests of the States were not only not iden
tical, but antagonistic, it might well happen, nay, it would fre
quently happen, that a tax would be levied upon them not only
without the consent of their representatives, but in spite of their
opposition. Direct taxes were unpleasant things, even when laid
by their own Assembly ; but when laid by men who had no com
mon interest with those who paid them, they might be oppres
sive ; and when they were oppressive, the State would have no
power of extending relief; for the Acts of Congress were not
only to prevail over Acts of Assembly, but over the Constitu-
"^ tion of the State. Heretofore, even in the Colony, they had
always looked to their House of Burgesses for relief, and had
rarely looked in vain. That body had ever been faithful to the
rights and franchises of British freedom. It had, ere this, de
posed a royal Governor, had held him in confinement, and had
transmitted him, by the first vessel from the James, to pay his
respects to the King. It had frequently sent agents to England,
who were in all things but the name the ministers plenipotentiary

48 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
of the Colony." But the power of the purse and the power of
the sword were not the only invaluable rights which were to be
surrendered to the new Government. The commerce and the
navigation of the country were to be placed under the exclusive
control of Congress. The State had expressed a willingness to
allow a certain percentage of her revenue, derived from imports,
for the benefit of the Federal Government, and was ever willing
and ever ready to bear her full proportion in the general charge;
but she had deliberately refused, three years before,^' when the
proposal was made in the Assembly, and was sustained by aU the
authority which argument and eloquence could exert, to part
with the right to regulate the entire trade and business of the
community, and was not disposed to go farther now than she was
then willing to go. Indeed, on this subject the people desired
no change. Their prosperity under the existing system was as
great as could have been anticipated ; nay, had surpassed their
most sanguine hopes ; and, as the North was a commercial peo
ple, it was probable that, whatever the South might lose, it was
likely to gain nothing by subjecting its interests to such a super
vision. To sum up the whole : They thought that, however im
portant a Federal alliance with the neighboring States would be
to the members who composed it, and however solicitous Vir
ginia was to form such a union on the most intimate and hberal
terms, there was a price she was not disposed to pay ; that such
a union was, at best, the mere machinery for conducting that
comparatively small portion of the affairs of any community
which is transacted beyond its borders more economically and
effectuaUy than could be done by the community itself; and that,
in effecting it, to surrender the right to lay its own taxes, to reg
ulate its own trade, to hold its own purse, and to wield its own
sword at once and forever, was a sacrifice which no large and
*'Sir John Randolph was sent to England more than once. In the
epitaph on Sir John, inscribed on the marble slab in the chapel of Wil
liam and Mary College, which was destroyed by fire in 1858, it is stated
that he was frequently sent to England : " Legati ad Anglos semet
atque iterum missi vices arduas sustinuit." His sons, Peyton and John,
were also sent over, besides others.
^'Journal of the House of Delegates, October session of 1785, pages
66-67.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 49
prosperous Commonwealth had ever made, and which no large
and prosperous Commonwealth could make without dishonor
and shame.
By a people whose minds had been excited to a high pitch by
fear and suspense, one aspect of the Convention, which ought
not to be overlooked in the review of a great historic period,
was regarded with absorbing interest. It was the peculiar rela
tion which the members held to the State and Federal politics of
the day. No error is more common than to refer the origin of
the party divisions of the Commonwealth to the present Federal
Constitution, and to the measures adopted by Congress under
that Constitution. Long before that time, parties had been
formed, not only on State topics, but on those connected with the
Federal Government. From the passage of the resolutions of
the House of Burgesses against the Stamp Act to the time when,
eleven years later, an independent Stale Government was formed,
there had been a palpable line drawn between the parties of the
country. In that interval some prominent names might occa
sionally be found on either side of the line ; but the line was at
all times distinctly visible." But, if it was visible in the Colony,
" If the critical reader will run over the names of the members of the
House of Burgesses of 1765, and the naraes of the members of the
early Conventions, he will think, with me, that a majority of the men
who opposed the resolutions of Henry against the Stamp Act, opposed
the resolutions of the sarae gentleman of March, 1775, which proposed
to put the Colony into military array, and the resolution, I am inclined
to think, instructing the Virginia delegates in Congress to propose in
dependence. The same members who opposed independence, we are
expressly told by Henry, in his letter to R. H. Lee, of December 8,
1777, also opposed the adoption of the Articles of Confederation. And
these members were, in the main, warm advocates for the adoption of
the new Federal Constitution. On the other hand, Henry, R. H. Lee,
George Mason, Williara Cabell, and others, who sustained the raea
sures above enumerated, were the fiercest opponents of that instru
ment. Heretofore the party, of which Henry was usually regarded the
head, had held almost undisputed sway in the Assembly ; but, though
it still included a large majority of the people, the skill and tact with
which the friends of the new Constitution selected their candidates
among the judges, and the military men, and the old tories, who, though
they opposed all the great measures of the Revolution, including the
Articles of Confederation, had become strangely enamored of the new
scheme, had shaken the established majority. This was one of the
i

50 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
it was StUl more boldly defined in the Commonwealth. The
great office of conforming our local legislation to the genius of a
republican system, would have called the two parties into life, if
they had not previously existed, and presented in the daily de
liberations of the Assembly innumerable themes of difference
and even of discord. The abolition of the laws of primogeni
ture and entails ; the separation of the Church from the State,
which was effected only after one of the longest and most ani
mated contests in our legislation ; the expediency of religious
assessments ; the perpetually recurring subject of Federal requi
sitions for men and money ; the policy of ceding to the Union
that magnificent principality extending from the Ohio to the
northern lakes, which, divided into four States, now sends to the
House of Representatives of the United States a delegation
equal to nearly two-thirds of the whole number of that House at
its first session under the Federal Constittnion, and a delegation
to the Senate which exceeds one third of the whole number of
the Senate at its first organization ; the mode of conducting the
war; the navigation of the Mississippi, which, even at the date of
the present Convention, bounded our territory on the west ; the
propriety of adopting the Articles of Confederation, and, at a
later date, the expediency of amending them. These, and simi
lar topics, were of the gravest moment, and might well produce
a clashing of opinions. On these questions the parties, which
had taken their shape as early as 1765, usually maintained their
relative positions toward each other. But, fierce as was the con
tention on State topics, it was mainly on questions bearing di
rectly or indirecdy on Federal politics that the greatest warmth
was elicited. It is known that, from the difficulties incident to a
state of war, and especially a war with a great naval force, there
could be but a slight interchange of commodities with foreign
countries, and no introduction of specie from abroad. The only
resort was the credit of the Commonwealth. While that resource
was made for a season more or less available at home, some
other means of meeting Federal requisitions were indispensable.
causes of the public alarm at the time. The Federalists well knew
that when such men as Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, John Blair,
and Paul Carrington, all of whom were on the bench, appeared at the
husdngs, nobody would vote against them.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 51
To lay taxes, payable in gold and silver only, when there was
neither gold nor silver in the State, was worse than useless.
The taxes must then be laid, payable in kind, and their proceeds
sold for what they would fetch in a market without outlet at
home or abroad. Hence the difficulty of a prompt and full
compliance with the requisitions of the Federal Government was
almost insuperable. But as that Governraent, which was alraost
wholly dependent on the immediate action of the States, if not
for its existence, at least for the effectual discharge of its appro
priate duties, suffered severely by the default, those who were
charged with its administration urged the necessity of relief upon
the raembers of the Assembly with a warmth which the occasion
justified, but which became at times embarrassing and even offen
sive. Nor was this state of things, the result of causes which it
seemed almost impossible entirely to remove, materially changed
in the years immediately succeeding the peace. There was also
a strong suspicion that the members of Congress, fascinated by
the allurements of a life abroad, and engaged in the considera
tion of questions affecting all the States, were disposed to view
their own State rather as one of a confederation than as an in
dependent sovereignty, and to regard the interests of the forraer
as subservient to the interests of the latter. From these and
other considerations equally cogent, some of the members of
Congress, however honest and able, became unpopular with the
majority at home, which was responsible for the conduct of the
State, and were regarded with distrust. Indeed, jealousy and
suspicion seem to have presided at the origin of our Federal
relations, and were exhibited frora the beginning partly toward
the Federal Governraent itself, and partly toward the raerabers
of Congress, personally and collectively. The term of the ser
vice of a member of Congress originally was for one year, \vith
the capacity of eligibility for an indefinite period. Two years
later the Assembly determined, by a solemn act, to curtail the
term of eligibility to the period of three successive years, when
the incumbent must withdraw for a year, and, as it was alleged
at the dme, from party motives made the rule retroactive in its
operation. ^^ Richard Henry Lee, who was the first to feel the
^ Hening's Statutes at Large, IX, 299. Mr. Jefferson drew the act
and affirmed that his object was to curtail the delegation on the ground
of economy.

52 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
effect of the act, complained bitteriy, in a letter to Henry, that it
was aimed at himself'" although one of the provisions of the
same act feU immediately on Harrison and Braxton. It should
seem that, whether from the jealousy entertained toward the
Government itself or hostility to certain members of Congress,
from considerations not yet fully made public, Congrets well-nigh
became the slaughter-house of the popularity of the delegates
who attended its sitUngs. Even in the days of the early Conven
tions the good name of Richard Bland was so blown upon that
he demanded an inquisidon into his conduct." The popularity of -
Richard Henry Lee suffered for a season a total eclipse in the
Asserably. From that memorable day, when in the first joint
convention of both Houses of Assembly he made his eloquent
defense against the charges which had led to his retirement from
Congress, to the twenty-first day of January, 1786, when the reso
lution convoking the meeting at Annapolis was adopted, some
of the warmest contentions of the Assembly were upon Federal
topics. Nor to the latest hour did that body ever regard, with
fuU faith, those who had borne a conspicuous part in the deUbe
rations of Congress. The distrust of those who had served in
that body was shown on a remarkable occasion. Madison, as
an individual, was not only without fault, and one of the purest
men of his times, but, in intellectual accomplishments, exceUed
almost all his contemporaries ; yet, when, in the House of Dele
gates at the October session of 1785, he sought to secure the
passage of a resolution investing Congress, for a terra of years,
with the power to regulate commerce, and made, in its defence,
a speech which, if we judge from the outlines and copious notes
that have come down to us, must have been one of the ablest
ever made in the House, he met with as terrible a defeat as the
annals of parliament afford.'^ Heretofore, both in the Colony
and in the Coramonwealth, that party, which, for the want of a
better name, we may style Democratic, though now and then
58 Letter of R. H. Lee in the " Red Hill " papers.
" Journal Virginia Convention of July, 1775, page 15.
5' For the outlines of the speech and the notes from which Madison
spoke, see Mr. Rives' History of thc Life and Times of James Madi
son, II, 48-51, and for the preamble and resolution, see Journal of the
House of Delegates, October session of 1785, pages 66, 67, where, after
his great speech, he was one of eighteen ayes to seventy-nine noes.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 53
defeated by the ability and tact of its opponents, had been, in
the main, triumphant, and had usually carried its measures by a
decisive majority. And the probability was that, as the ratify
ing Convention was called on the basis of the House of Dele
gates, that party would still maintain its predominance in that
body ; and it was with a full reliance on this calculation that the
resolutions convoking the General as well as the State Conven
tions, had received the assent of the Assembly. Nor can there
be a doubt that such would have been the case in ordinary times ;
but the large and unexpected infusion of new members had cre
ated alarm in the breasts of the majority of the Assembly and of
the people at large ; and one of the most exciting questions that
engaged public attention was how far the new element would
affect the balance of power. Thus, at so early a period did Fed
eral politics rage with a violence not inferior to that which
marked the close of the century. ''
Nothwithstanding the bickerings produced by Federal politics
in our councils, we should do great injustice to the men who for
nearly a quarter of a century wielded the will of the Assembly,
if we impute to thera a want of affection for the Union. The
Union was the daughter of their loins. They nursed her into
action. They were the men who called the litde meeting in
Williamsburg in the late summer of 1774, which we honor with
the title of the first Convention of Virginia, and who sent dele
gates to Carpenter's HaU. They were the first to advise Con
gress to adopt " a more intimate plan of union," and to form the
Articles of Confederation ; and when those Articles were re
ported for the consideration of Virginia, they approved them by
5' It cannot be disguised that personal and political animosities were
as freely indulged in from 1776 to 1790 as from 1790 to the election of
Mr. Jefferson to the Presidency. Henry, Jefferson, and Richard Henry
Lee, were among the best abused. Charles Carter, of " Sabine Hall,"
was a gentleman, a scholar, and a patriot, and far advanced in life in
1776 ; but, in a letter of that year addressed to Washington, see what
he says of Henry and Jefferson (American Archives, fifth series, 1776,
Vol. II, pages 1304-5) ; and see the letter of Theodoric Bland, Sr., to
Theodoric Bland, Jr., dated " Cawson's," January 8, 1871 {Bland Papers,
II, 50). It is necessary to know the personal friends of the men of that
era in order to judge of the weight of testimony ; but I will not touch
upon them unless it is indispensable to the truth of history, and espec
ially to the defence of private character.

54 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. .
a majority so overwhelming that the opponents of Union dared
not to oppose them openly."" When the Articles on] the ninth
day of July, 1778, were called up from the lable-ef^Congress to
be signed by the States as such, whUe some States signed in part
only, and some not at all, the delegates of this Commonwealth,
who had been recently elected by the Assembly, came forward
and signed them on the spot. Throughout the war the Assembly
held up the hands of Congress, and complied with its requi
sitions, if not to the letter, to the utmost of its abiUty. Since
the peace, the British debts, which the definidve treaty required
to be paid, excited warm feelings and produced acrimonious de
bates; but this was a topic on which parties divided. At the
date of the Revoludon, the indebtedness of individuals to Eng
land was estimated at ten millions of dollars, and the rainority
was far more interested in the question than the majority." In fine,
the cause of the Confederation was the cause ofthe majority. It
was the work of their hands. At the May session of 1784, they
assented to the amendment to the Articles of Confederation which
required the whole number of free white inhabitants and three-
fifths of all others to be substituted for the value of lands and
their improvements as the rule of apportioning taxes, and were
eager to provide Congress with such information as was needed
to fix the valuation of lands and their improvements in the sev
eral States required by the existing rule of apportionment under
the Articles of Confederation. At the same session they further
provided that until one or the other mode of assessing taxes be
ascertained, that any requisition made upon any basis by Con
gress on the States should be faithfully coraplied with. The
Assembly went yet farther, and passed a resolution, said to have
been drawn by Henry himself providing that when " a fair and
final settlement of the accounts subsisting between the United
States and individual States" shaU be made, the balance due by
any State " ought to be enforced, if necessary, by such distress
"° Henry to R. H. Lee, December 18, 1777. Grigsby's Discourse on
the Virginia Convention of 1776, 142, note.
"'To show how parties fluctuated on the subject of the payment of
British debts, I refer to a note in Mr. Rives' History of the Life and
Times of Madison, II, 538, which furnishes a remarkable instance in
point, and presents with graphic spirit the effect of Henry's eloquence
in a deliberative body.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 55
on the property of the defaulting States, or of their citizens, as,
by the United States, in Congress assembled, may be deemed
adequate and most eligible." They also resolved, at the same
session, to invest Congress, for the term of fifteen years, with
authority to prohibit the vessels of any nation, with which no
commercial treaty existed, from trading in any part ofthe United
States ; and to prevent foreigners, unless belonging to a nation
with which the States had formed a commercial treaty, from im
porting into the United States any merchandise not the produce
or manufacture of the country of which they are citizens or sub
jects ; thus sanctioning a policy which would have materially
impaired the prosperity of the Commonwealth."" When Con
gress determined to apply to the States for authority to levy, for
the term of twenty- five years, certain specific rates of duty on
certain articles, and a duty of five per cent, on all others — an
application which was made as eariy as April, 1783, when the
finances of Virginia were in great confusion, and her main de
pendence was upon customs— she, with that wise jealousy of
Federal action, bearing directly upon the people instead of the
State, declined for a time to accede to it, but ultimately was dis
posed to acquiesce in the measure."" But there was one thing
the Assembly persistently refused to grant— the entire surrender
of the right to regulate commerce. To regulate the trade of a
country was, in their opinion, to regulate its entire industry, and
control all its capital and labor, and that was a province, they
honestly believed, not only without the pale of a Federal alU
ance, but incorapatible with it. They had accordingly resisted
heretofore, with all their might, every effort to extort such a con
cession from them ; and at the October session of 1785, when a
proposition was offered to make that cessiofi for a term of twenty-
five years, and upheld by Madison and other able men, the ma
jority of the House of Delegates, impelled by their devotion to
the Union, went so far as to yield that invaluable boon for the
term of thirteen years ; but when a motion was made to continue
the grant beyond that limit, on certain conditions, it was rejected
"" For these acts, consult the Journals of the House of Delegates,
May session of 1784, pages 11-12 ; and Rives' Life and Times of Madi
son, I, 563-4-5. Tucker's History of the United States, I, 335.
^ Hening's Statutes at Large, XI, 350.

56 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
by a decisive vote, and on the foUowing day, believing that they
had gone too far in conceding the right for thirteen years, recon
sidered their vote and laid the bill upon the table, to be called
up no more."* Of that majority, Henry, when he happened to
have a seat in the Asserably, was always the leader, and for near
a twelveraonth later than the date of the passage of the resolu-
Uon convoking the meeting at AnnapoUs, was regarded as the
Federal champion."' But we have said enough to show that the
majority in our councils, who were opposed to the adopdon of
the new Federal Consdtution, had been the warm and consistent
friends of a Federal alliance.
A recent act of that majority had roused the fears of the
friends of the new institution. The general Federal Convention
adjourned on the seventh of September, 1787, but before ad
journing had adopted a resolution expressing " the opinion that
the new Constitudon should be submitted to the Convendon of
Delegates, chosen in each State by the people thereof, under the
recommendation of its legislature, for their assent and ratifica
tion." The following month the General Asserably of Virginia
held a session, and on the twenty-fifth of October passed a series
of resolutions setting forth that the Constitution " ought to be
submitted to a Convention of the people for their full and free
investigation and discussion"; that " every citizen being a free
holder should be eligible to a seat in the Convention"; that "it
be recommended to each county to elect two delegates, and to
each city, town, or corporation, entitled, or who may be entitled,
bylaw to representation in the legislature, to elect one delegate
to the said Convention"; that " the quaUfications of the electors
be the same with those now established by law ' ' ; that " the elec-
" Journal House of Delegates, October session of 17S5, pages 66, 67.
"^Madison, writing to Washington, December 7, 1786, says: "Mr.
Henry, who has been hitherto the champion of the Federal party, has
become a cold advocate, and, in the event of an actual sacrifice of the
Mississippi by Congress, will unquestionably go over tothe other side."
Rives' Life and Times of Madison, II, 142. When we remember that
the Mississippi was the western boundary of \'irginia, it would be
strange indeed that Mr. Henry could approve the conduct of Congress
in closing that river for thirty years, and in clothing the body with new
powers to carry such a scheme into effect. The cession of that river
to Spain by the Northern States has its prototype only in the partition
of Poland.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 57
tion of delegates be held at the usual place for holding elecdons
of raembers of the General Assembly, and be conducted by the
usual officers "; that " the election shall be held in the month of
March next on the first day of the court to be held lor each
county, city, or corporation respectively, and that the persons so
chosen shall assemble at the State House in Richmond on the
fourth Monday of May next," which was afterwards changed
for the first Monday in June. These resolutions should seem to
have been specific enough for the purpose in view. But it was
found out that they omitted an appropriation to defray the ex
penses of the proposed Convention ; and a bill was brought in
for that object, and received the unanimous consent of both
Houses. But this bill contained, likewise, a provision to defray
the expenses of delegates to another general Federal Conven
tion, should such a body be convened. If this provision raeant
anything, it meant that a new General Convention was possible ;
and, as the Assembly rarely looked to possibilities in its legis
lation, that it was probable. While the lovers of union saw in
this provision a deterraination to secure a Federal alliance on
the best terms and at every hazard, those who favored the new
scheme placed upon it a different interpretation.""
"" Journal House of Delegates, October session of 1787, p. 77, and the
Act in full in Hening's Statutes at Large, XII, 462. Bushrod Washington,
then under thirty years of age, wrote to his uncle at the beginning of this
session that he had met with in all his inquiries not one member opposed
to the Federal Constitution except Mr. Henry, and that other members
had heard of none either. When the provision for a new Convention
mentioned in the bill was approved by the House of Delegates, his
eyes were probably opened, for on the 7th of December, while the
Assembly was still in session, he writes to his uncle as follows : " I am
sorry to inform you that the Constitution has lost so con.siderably that
it is doubted whether it has any longer a majority in its favor. From
a vote that took place the other day, this would appear certain, though
I cannot think it so decisive as its enetnies consider it." Bushrod Wash
ington to George Washington, Dec. 7, 1787, copied from the Madison
Files by Mr. Rives, II, 537. It thus appears that the Constitution,
which had not an eneray at the opening of the session, had before its
close a good many, and that the scales were nearly turned against it.
. It is probable that a very considerable number of the delegates had
not seen the Constitution at the beginning of the session. Only four
days had elapsed since any body had seen it ; and when we know that
intelligence at that time took sixty days to travel a distance which may

58 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
be reached in six hours at the present day ; that some of the members
had to travel from three to six hundred miles on horseback to reach
Richmond ; that there were no mail facilities, and no newspapers save
one or two small sheets in Richmond and Norfolk, which, from the un
certainty of delivery, were rarely taken in the county, the probability is
that if the merabers had seen the Constitution, they had not read it
deliberately. But when they did read it, we know that the result was
a provision to defray the expenses of a Convention to revise, etc. This
raatter would hardly require the attention we have given it, if infer
ences in favor of the early popularity of the Constitution had not been
drawn from the state of things at the meeting of the Assembly. For
the letter of Bushrod Washington, written at the opening of the ses
sion, see Rives' Madison, II, 535.

CHAPTER II.
1- At ten o'clock on Monday, the second day of June, 1788, the
merabers began to assemble in the hall of the Old Capitol. It
was plain that different emotions were felt by the friends and by
the opponents of the Constitution. The friends of that instru
ment congratulated each other on the omens which they
drew from the year in which their meeting was to take place.
The year '88, they said, had ever been favorable to the liberties
of the Anglo-Saxon race. It was in 1588, two hundred years
before, when the invincible Spanish Armada, destined to subvert
the liberties of Protestant England, then ruled by that virgin
queen, the glory of her sex and name and race, who was the
patron of Raleigh and the patron of American colonization, and
from whom Virginia derived her name, was assailed by the winds
of Heaven, and scattered over the face ofthe deep."' It was the
recurrence of the year, the raonth, and almost the day, when, a
century before, the cause of civil liberty and Protestant Chris
tianity won a signal victory in the acquittal of the seven bishops
whose destruction had been decreed by a false and cruel king ; and
when the celebrated letter inviting the Prince of Orange to make a
descent on England, a letter which has been recently pronounced
to be as significant a landmark in British history as Magna
Charter itself had been despatched to the Hague. Of all the
kings who ever sate on the English throne, WiUiam Henry,
Prince of Orange was most beloved by our fathers. Their
attachraent was shown in every form in which public gratitude
seeks to exhibit its manifestations. The House of Burgesses
called a county after the king, and called a county after the king

"' See in Mr. Rush's memoranda of a residence at the Court of St.
James, the opinions of modern English statesmen on the probable suc
cess of the Armada.

60 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
and his queen. "° The raetropolis of the Colony still perpetuates
his name. Its great seminary, the charter of which was granted
by William, and which received his fostering care, bore, as it
bears still, his name and the name of his faithful consort. Inci
dents in his career were to be traced even in the noraenclature of
the plantadon. The light wherry bobbing on the waters of the
York or the James, was called the Brill in honor of the gallant
frigate in which the Deliverer sailed from Helvoetsluys to the
harbor of Torbay. The love of the people long survived his
natural life. A great county, created long after the death of
William, and stretching far beyond the blue wall which now
bounds it in the west to the shores of the Ohio, whether named
from the colour of its soU, which is also the symbol of Protest
ant Christianity wherever the British race extends, or in honor
of William, pleasingly recalls the name of the small principality
on the banks of the Rhone, from which the Prince derived his
familiar title."' An adjoining State has honored the name of
Bertie, the first peer of the realm who joined the standard of
WiUiam on the soil of Britain, and our own town of Abingdon
Ulustrates the same event.'" And the noble county of Halifax,
though called apparently in honor of a man who filled a secre
tary's office in England at a later day, reminds us of that bril
liant and accomplished statesman, the unfaltering enemy of the
House of Bourbon of that age when the sway of that House was
supreme at WhitehaU ; the friend of Protestant Christianity,
from whose hand Willia-m received the Declaration of Right.
"* Two years after the accession of William, a county was called after
the Princess Anne, in honor of her claim as the successor of William
and Mary, in the event of her surviving them, according to the parlia
raentary settlement of the crown.
"" In the Topographical Analysis of Virginia for the year 1790-' i, in
the Appendix of the last edition (published by J. W. Randolph, Rich
mond, 1853, 8vo. ) of the Notes on Virginia left for publication by Mr.
Jefferson, the county of Orange, which was cut off from Spotsylvania
in 1734, almost a third of a century after the death of WiUiam, is put
down without the expression of a doubt as called in honor of William.
" The North Carolinians may say, and justly, that Bertie county was
called in comraemoration of the two Berties, in whom the proprietary
rights of the Earl of Clarendon vested ; but as it was formed within
twenty years of the death of William, I always associate it with his
history.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 61
When the intelligence of Barclay's plot against the life of the
king, which had well-nigh proved successful, reached the Colony,
the exciteraent was great. The news flew from plantation to
plantation. The Burgesses instantly prepared an address in
which they denounced the plotters and congratulated the king
on his escape from the daggers of the Jacobite faction. Planters
spurred in haste from their homes to the capital, and, bespattered
with mud, hastened to the secretary's office, there to record their
horror of the assassins and their joy at the safety of the king.
The address, engrossed on parchment and duly incased, was
despatched to London by the first packet, and was immediately
placed in the hands of WiUiam. The fate of the address was
peculiar. When it had been read in common with kindred
memorials from all parts of the British empire, it was laid aside
and forgotten. Nor was it till William had been sleeping for
more than one hundred and sixty years in his ancestral torab at
the Hague, far from the dust of her on whose pure brow the
diadem of Elizabeth had pressed so queenly, and to whose de
voted love more than to his own consummate statesmanship he
owed his emperial crown, the venerable parchment was enrolled
once more, and brought to public notice by a historian whose
genius has invested the dim and distant past with the freshness
of current time, and who has taught how the sober events of
real life may be made as fascinating as the phantoms of romance
or the dreams of poetry. Even to this hour the curious eye
detects in the number of William Henrys that are still seen in
the advertisements of the daily press, or the sign boards of the
shops, and in our poUtical and ecclesiastical bodies, the iraage of
that strong affection with which our ancestors regarded the name
of William Henry, Prince of Orange. One of his Virginia
name-sakes has already received the honors of the Presidency
of the United States. Another Virginia name-sake, but for
extreme illness," might have reached the sarae exalted station.
Thus it was that any oraen derived from the life of William was
hailed by our fathers with delight. Nor did the friends of the
Constitution fail to perceive another coincidence which might
well happen. Should Virginia sustain the Constitution, that
instrument would certainly take effect, and the new government
" William Henry Crawford.

62 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
would be inaugurated on the fourth of March of the following
year, the centennial anniversary of the year, and almost the
month when, in the banquedng room at Whitehall, Halifax at
the head of the Lords, and Powle at the head of the Commons,
presented to William and Mary the Declaration of Right, and
when those sovereigns accepted that instrument which united for
the first time in a common bond the tide of the reigning dynasty
and the liberties of the people of England."
On the other hand, no cheering sign greeted the opponents of
the Constitution. Hitherto they had ever consdtuted a raajority
in the councils ofthe Coramonwealth. They now heard bruited
abroad the supposed majority by which that instrument would
be carried," and the names of the individuals who would fiU the
principal offices to be created by it. StUl they were sustained
by that steadfast courage which buoys up the patriot when he
wresdes in defence of his country. They saw, indeed, in that
stern gathering of railitary men, who composed more than one-
fourth of the body, and of the not less formidable corps of
judges, that their hopes of triuraph were faint. They regarded
the Constitution as the offspring of usurpation. They solemnly
believed that of all the merabers of the Asserably who voted for
the resolution convoking the Convention recently held in Phila
delphia, not a single individual, so far as they knew, looked be
yond a literal amendment of the Articles of Confederation ; and
that, if any radical change had been avowed in debate, the reso
lution would have been indignantly rejected. They felt that a
great wrong had been perpetrated upon the people. It had been
ingeniously contrived that the work of the Convention should
'^ I was told of these congratulations among the members by a gen
tleman who heard them. The public men of the Revolution were more
intimately acquainted with the minutest details of English history than
their successors in the public councils of the present day. One reason
may be that they had fewer books to read, and that, as colonists, it was
their interest to know critically the remarkable epochs of English his
tory. For an allusion to the address of the tobacco-planters of Virginia
to William on his escape from the assassin, see Macaulay's History of
England, IV, 478, Butler's octavo edidon, 1856.
" " The sanguine friends of the Constitution counted on a majority
of twenty at their first meeting, which number they imagine will be
gready increased." Washington to Jay. June 8, 1788. Washington's
Writings, IX, 374.

i VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 63
be referred to the action, not of the legislatures of the States, but
to a convention to be caUed for the purpose ; while a nominal
compliance with the act of Virginia was evinced by reporting
the new scheme to the Congress for its recommendation to the
States. This important innovation did not escape the sagacity
of Richard Henry Lee, who was at the time a raeraber of Con
gress, nor of the Congress as a body ; but, controlled by an ex
trinsic pressure, which, it did not deem prudent to resist, it
finally recommended the Constitution to the States, to be dis
cussed in the mode prescribed by the Convention that fraraed it.
Still, when the Constitution was laid before the General Assem
bly at its October session of 1787, victory was not wholly be
yond its grasp. One of two methods of redress was yet within
its reach. Either that body might refuse to receive the Consti
tution, and refer it back to the Congress as framed in palpable
violation of the resolution of Congress, and of the resolution of
Virginia instructing its delegates to the General Convention ;
or, overlooking the recommendation of a special Convention for
its ratification as surplusage, and regarding the Constitution as
a raere amendment of the Articles of Confederation, might have
rejected it forthwith ; but, unconscious of the crisis which im
pended over the country, or relying on its probable strength,
the majority of the Assembly assented to the proposition con
tained in the new scheme, and called a Convention to pass upon
it. The opponents of that scheme saw too late that this act was
fatal. It mended all defects of form, and gave the instrument a
legitimacy which it did not before possess. It not only took frora
the raajority a weapon which, wielded by efficient hands, would
have cloven down the defences of the rainority, but it transferred
the contest to a field in which the raighty influence of great
names, heretofore the common property, would be exerted
against it. That contest raged long and fiercely, and in whose
favor it ultimately turned we shall presently see. But let us re
cord the proceedings of the body in', the order in which they
occurred. When the House was called to order, a motion was made that
John Beckley '* be appointed secretary to the Convention, who
'* John Beckley was at various times Clerk of the House of Dele
gates and of the Senate of Virginia. On the organization of the House

64 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
was accordingly chosen, and took his place at the table in front
of the chair. Paul Carrington now rose, and in a short ad
dress nominated Edmund Pendleton as President.'^ A few
moments of anxious suspense followed. The opinions of Pen-
of Representatives of the United States, he was elected clerk, and
served from April i, 1789, to May 15, 1797, and from Deceraber 7, 1801,
to October 26, 1807. If not born in England, he was educated at Eton,
and I have heard Governor Tazewell say that he was a classmate of
Fox. [Beckley, or Bickley, was born in Virginia, and his full name
was John Jaraes, and he thus subscribed himself as a member of the
Phi-Beta-Kappa Society of William and Mary College, in 1776. He
was descended from the family of Bickley, or Bickleigh, anciently seated
at Bickleigh, upon the river Ex., in Devonshire. The elder branch
of this family removed into Sussex, and settled at Chidham. Other
branches settled in the counties of Cambridge, Warwick and Middle
sex. Arras : Arg. a chev. embattled between three griffins' heads,
erased gules. Henry Bickley of Chidham, county Essex, born 1503;
died 1570. Joseph Bickley, seventh in descent from Henry, of Chid
ham, patented, i6th June, 1727, 400 acres of land in King William county,
Virginia. John James Bickley was probably the son of Sir William
Bickley, Baronet, who died in Louisa county, Virginia, March 9th, 1771.
Bickley was not only the first Clerk of the House of Representatives,
but also the first Librarian of Congress, serving from 1802 to 1807. — Ed.]
'* Neither the Journal of the Convention nor Robertson reports the
name of the member who norainated Pendleton. I heard, from a gen
tleman who was present at the time, that Judge Carrington made the
modon ; but I am wholly at a loss for the name of the seconder, who,
I suppose, was Wythe, from the fact that he was the only member
likely to be brought out against Pendleton, and that Pendleton almost
invariably called him to the chair in Committee of the Whole. I do
not find that any of our eariy deliberative bodies have ever elected the
chairman of the Committee of the Whole, which was formeriy the
usual practice in the House of Commons. The nomination of Pendle
ton was fixed upon beforehand, beyond doubt, and there can be as
litde doubt that Wythe was party to it. In the Convendon of 1829-30
it was arranged with the privity of Madison, and doubdess at his sug
gestion, that Mr. Monroe should be made president of the body, and
he was so nominated by Mr. Madison himself; but the ablest members
of the Convention were not aware of the design ; and when Mr. Madi
son made the nomination, those who sate near John Randolph and
observed his countenance, say that he was on the eve of rising to op
pose it, not so rauch from hostility to Mr. Monroe as from a belief that
the honor of the presidency should first be conferred on Madison.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 65
dleton were well known to be in favor of the Constitution ; and
the election of president presented a fair opportunity of testing
the relative strength of parties. In the selection of their candi
date, the Federalists had chosen a name which, in the pure and
benevolent character of him who bore it, in his long and valua
ble service in the public councils, and in his venerable age, was
known and honored throughout the Commonwealth, and which,
with the exception of that of one who had long been his com
peer in the House of Burgesses, at the bar ofthe General Court,
in the Conventions of 1775 and 1776, in the Congress, and on
the bench, raay be said then to have stood alraost alone in the
civil service of his country.'" But George Wythe was now
known to approve the Constitution, and so far from opposing
Pendleton would sustain him by his vote. Had Wythe been of
the opposite party, the opponents of the Constitution would
doubtless have ventured a contest. Nor is it certain that the
contest would not have been successful. Wythe was, as a man,
raore popular than Pendleton ; raany of the members had been
his scholars, and loved him with an affection which neither time
nor distrust could weaken ; and he would certainly have carried
with him the votes of the smaUer counties on tide, which had
ever regarded him with warra attachraent, and had long counted
his fame among their most precious possessions. The contest,
too, raight have been waged without wounding the delicacy of
Pendleton, who was unable to perform the duties of the presi
ding officer unless allowed to sit in the chair ; and opposition
-may have taken the hue of respect for his physical infirmities.
But no name was brought forward by the opponents of the Con-
-stitution, and Pendleton was elected without a division.
Twelve years which had elapsed since the adjournment of the
Convention of 1776 had left their mark upon the President. He
was in his sixty-seventh year, and his intellectual powers, quick
ened by the discussions in the court in which he had presided
since its organizadon, were undiminished ; but there was a sad
'" President Pendleton, who was also president of the Court of Ap
peals, was now in his sixty-seventh year, but, from the breaking of a
thigh-bone ten or eleven years before, which prevented him from
taking exercise or moving without a crutch, looked much older than
he was.

66 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
change in his outward forra. Some individuals present remem
bered him as he was in the House of Burgesses raore than a
quarter of a century past ; one member had seen him in the
public councils more than the third of a century ago ; and not a
few of the raembers could recall hira as with a buoyant and
graceful step he walked frora the floor of the Convention of
Deceraber, 1775, and of May, 1776, to the chair, escorted in the
forraer body by Paul Carrington and James Mercer, and in the
latter by the venerable Richard Bland and the inflexible Archi
bald Cary. It was a touching sight to behold him, his eadier
and elder compeers long laid to rest, as, with his shrunken form
upheld by crutches, he now passed between Carrington and
Wythe to the chair. He made an acknowledgment of the honor
conferred upon him in a few plain words not otherwise remark
able than as being the first ever addressed to a deliberate Assem
bly of Virginia frora a sitting position."
The Rev. Abner Waugh was, on motion of Paul Carrington,
unanimously elected chaplain, and "was ordered to attend every
raorning to read prayers, immediately after the bell should be
rung for calling the Convention.'*
When the Convention had elected the other officers of the
body,'^ had appointed a Committee of Privileges and Elections,"
" There was no formal resolution but rather a general understanding
that Pendleton was to sit in addressing or putting a question to the
house. It is probable that Carrington, who was his associate on the
bench of the Court of Appeals, and who knew his physical infirmities,
may have alluded to the subject in his norainating speech. Robertson,
in his Debates, thus alludes to the election of Pendleton : " He was
unanimously elected president, who being seated in the chair, thanked
the Convention for the honor conferred upon him, and strongly recom
mended to the members to use the utmost moderation and temper in
their deliberations on the great and important subject now before
them." Pendleton, in the sketch of his own life, mentions gratefully
that he was allowed to sit while performing the dudes of the chair.
'"> The Rev. Abner Waugh, as early as 1774, had been the rector of
Saint Mary in the county of Caroline, and survived to the year 1806,
when he was chosen rector of St. George's parish, Fredericksburg,
but finding his health insufficient for the performance of his duty, he
soon resigned and died a short time after at "Hazlewood." His
valedictory to his parishioners breathes the devodon of a Chrisdan.
" The other officers were William Drinkard, Sr., and William Drink-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 67
and had chosen a printer of its proceedings, it adjourned, on the
modon of George Mason to the next day at eleven, then to
meet in the New Academy on Shockoe HiU.
On the morning of the next day it raet in the New Academy, a
large wooden structure reared by the Chevalier Quesnay, a cap
tain in the army of the Revolution, for the promotion of the
arts and literature of the rising Commonwealth. Its corner
stone had been laid two years before with great ceremony in
presence of the State and town authorities ; and the scheme of
the institution had received the sanction of the French Academy
of Sciences in a formal report endorsed by the famous Levoisier
a short time before he was led to the guillotine, and which was
designed to be the fountain from which the arts and sciences in
the New World would soon begin to flow, but which, like most of
the schemes of foreign proprietors in a new country, was des
tined to a speedy dissolution. The commodious hall of this
building was well adapted to the purposes of the Convention,
and was now filled to overflowing.*^
ard, Jr.. doorkeepers; Edmund Pendleton, Jr., clerk of the Committee
of Elections ; Augustine Davis, printer ; and on the following day
William Pierce was elected sergeant-at-arms, and Daniel Hicks, one of
the doorkeepers. Augustine Davis was the editor and proprietor of
the Virginia Gazette, and somewhat later postmaster of Richmond.
His printing office was in the basement of a house at the corner of Main
and Eleventh streets, which was' subsequently the office of the Whig,
founded by John Hampden Pleasants, (who first used a press purchased
from Davis) and successively of the Enquirer, influential organs in the
past respectively of the Whig and Democratic parties. — Ed.
'" The Committee of Privileges and Elections were so distinguished
a body that I annex their names, with the reraark that such an array
of genius, talents, and public and private worth had not been seen
before, nor has it been seen since, on such a committee in Virginia :
Benjamin Harrison, George Mason, His Excellency Governor Ran
dolph, Patrick Henry, George Nicholas, John Marshall, Paul Carring
ton, John Tyler, Alexander White, John Blair, Theodore Bland, Wil
liam Grayson, Daniel Fisher, Thomas Mathews, John Jones, George
Wythe, William Cabell, James Taylor of Caroline, Gabriel Jones, Fran
cis Corbin, James Innes, James Monroe, Henry Lee, and Cuthbert Bul
litt. The committee is appointed with great liberality, the friends of
the Constitution having a majoritj of two only.
*' The Academy grounds included the square bounded by Broad and
Marshall and Eleventh and Twelfth streets, on the lower portion of

68 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
After the transacdon of some ordinary business, Benjamin
Harrison moved that all the papers relative to the Constitudon

which stood the Monumental Church and the Medical College. The
Acaderay stood midway in the square fronting Broad street. " L' Acad
emic Des Elats—Unis De V Amerique" was an attempt, growing out
of the French alliance with the United States, to plant in Richmond a
kind of French Academy of the arts and sciences, with branch acad
emies in Baldmore, Philadelphia, and New York. The institution was
to be at once national and international. It was to be affiliated with
the royal societies of London, Paris, Bruxelles, and other learned bodies
in Europe. It was to be composed of a president, vice-president, six
counsellors, a treasurer-general, a secretary and a recorder, an agent
for taking European subscriptions, French professors, masters, artists-
in-chief attached to the Academy, twenty-five resident and one hun
dred and seventy-five non-resident associates, selected from the best
talent of the Old World and of the New. The Academy proposed to
publish yearly from its own press in Paris, an almanac. The Academy
was to show its zeal for science by communicating to France and other
European countries a knowledge of the natural products of North
America. The museums and cabinets of the Old World were to be
enriched by specimens of the flora and fauna of a country as yet undis
covered by men of science. The proprietor of the brilliant scheme
was the Chevalier Alexander Maria Quesnay de Beaurepaire, grand
son of the famous French philosopher and economist, Dr. Quesnay,
who was the court physician of Louis XV. Chevalier Quesnay had
served as a captain in Virginia in 1777-78 in the war of the Revolution.
The idea of founding the Academy was suggested to him in 1778 by
John Page, of " Rosewell," then Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, and
himself devoted to scientific investigation. Quesnay succeeded in
raising by subscription the sura of 60,000 francs, the subscribers in Vir
ginia embracing nearly one hundred prominent names. The corner
stone of the building, which was of wood, was laid with Masonic cere
monies July 8th, 1786. Having founded and organized his Academy
under the most distinguished auspices, Quesnay returned to Paris and
succeeded in enlisting in support of his plan many learned and dis
tinguished men of France and England. The French Revolution,
however, put an end to the scheme. The Academy building was eariy
converted into a theatre, which was destroyed by fire, but a new theatre
was erected in the rear of the old. This new building was also de
stroyed by fire on the night of December 26th, 1811, when seventy-two
persons perished in the flames. The Monumental church commemo
rates the disaster, and its portico covers the tomb and ashes of most of
its vicdms. A valuable sketch of Quesnay's enlightened projecdon,
chiefly drawn from his curious ''Mimoire concimant l' Academic des
Sciences et Beaux Arts des fyats—Unis d' Amerique, J^tablic 6. Ricti-

' VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 69
should be read. John Tyler observed that before any papers
were read, certain rules and regulations should be established to
govern the Convention in its deliberations. Edraund Randolph
fully concurred in the propriety of establishing rules; but, as
this was a subject which would invoke the Convention in debate,
he recommended that the rules of the House of Delegates, as
far as they were applicable, should be observed. Tyler had no
objection to the mode suggested by Randolph ; accordingly, the
rules of the House of Delegates, as far as they were applicable,
were adopted by the present, as they had been by all subsequent
Conventions. On motion, "the resolutions of Congress ofthe twenty-eighth
of Septeraber previous,*'' together with the report of the Federal
Convention, lately held in Philadelphia, the resolutions of the
General Assembly of the twenty-fifth of October last, and the
Act of the General Assembly, entitled an Act concerning the
Convention to be held in June next," were now read, when
George Mason arose to address the House. In an instant the
insensible hum ofthe body was hushed, and the eyes of all were
fixed upon him. How he appeared that day as he rose in that
large asserablage, his once raven hair white as snow, his stalwart
figure, attired in deep mourning, still erect, his black eyes fairly
flashing forth the flame that burned in his bosom, the tones of
his voice deliberate and full as when, in the first House of Dele
gates, he sought to sweep from the statute book those obliquities
which marred the beauty of the young republic, or uttered that
withering sarcasm which tinges his portrait by the hand of Jef
ferson, we have heard from the lips, and seen reflected from the
moistened eyes of trembling age. His reputation as the author
of the Declaration of Rights and of the first Constitution of a
free Commonwealth; as the responsible director of some of the
mond," was published in The Academy, Deceraber, 1887, Vol. II, No. 9,
pp. 403, 412, by Dr. Herbert B. Adams, of Johns-Hopkins University.
A copy of Quesnay's rare " Memoire " is in the library of the State of
Virginia. Quesnay coraplains bitterly that all his letters relating to his
service in the American army had been stolen from a pigeon-hole in
Governor Henry's desk, and his promotion thus prevented.
^' This resolution was merely formal, ordering the Constitution to be
transmitted to the legislatures of the States. It may be seen in Fo-
brell's edition of the Journals of the old Congress, IX, no.

70 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
leading measures of general legislation during the war and after
its close; his position as a prominent meraber of the general
•Convention that fraraed the Constitudon, which had been adopted
under his soleran protest, and his well-known resolve to oppose
the ratification with all his acknowledged abUities, were calcu
lated to arrest attention. He was sixty-two years old, and had
not been more than twelve years continuously in the public coun
cils,"" but from his entrance into public life he was confessedly
the first raan in every assembly of which he was a member,
though rarely seen on the floor except on great occasions. But
the interest with which he w.as now watched was heightened by
another cause. From his lips was anxiously awaited by aU par
ties the progrararae of the war which was to be waged against
the new system. He rose to a matter of form. " I hope and
trust," he said, "that this Convention, appointed by the people,
on this great occasion, for securing, as far as possible, to the
latest generations their happiness and liberty, wiU freely and
fuUy investigate this important subject. For this purpose I
humbly conceive the fullest and clearest investigation indispensa
bly necessary, and that we ought not to be bound by any general
rules whatsoever. The curse denounced by the Divine ven
geance will be small, compared with what will jusdy fall on us,
if from any sinister views we obstruct the fullest inquiry. This
subject ought, therefore, to obtain the fullest discussion, clause by
clause, before any general previous question be put, nor ought it
to be precluded by any other question." Tyler then raoved that
the Convention should resolve itself into a Comraittee of the
Whole to take into consideration the proposed plan of govern
ment, in order to have a fairer opportunity of examining its
merits. r4ason rose again, and after recapitulating his reasons
urging a full discussion, clause by clause, concluded by giving
his consent to the motion raade by Tyler. Madison concurred
with Mason in going into a full and free investigation of the sub
ject before them, and said that he had no objecdon to the plan
proposed. Mason then reduc<;d to wridng his motion, which
was adopted by the House.
*' Colonel Mason was a member of the House of Burgesses as early
as 1758, with Pendleton and Wythe ; but did not adopt the favorite cus
tom in the Colony of holding a seat for a series of years. Even during
the past twelve years he was not always a member.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 71
Tyler moved that the Convention resolve itself into a Com
mittee of the Whole the. next day to take the plan of government
under consideration, but was opposed by Henry Lee, of West
moreland, who urged the propriety of entering into the discus
sion at once. Mason rose to sustain the motiqn of Tyler, and
pressed the impolicy of running precipitately into the discussion
of a great raeasure, when the Convention was not in po.ssession
of the proper means. He was sustained by Benjamin Harrison,
and the debate was closed by a rejoinder from Lee. The motion
of Tyler prevailed, and it was resolved "that this Convention
will to-morrow resolve itself into a committee ofthe whole Con
vention, to take into consideration the proposed Constitution of
Government of the United States."**
But, if the motion of Mason was acceptable to his opponents,
it was especially distasteful to his friends. It had been foreseen
that there would be some confusion among the opponents of the
Constitution in respect of the Une of policy to be pursued in the
outset of the campaign. Mason had been a raember of the
General Convention, had met in conclave with the Virginia dele
gation in Philadelphia, and had not offered any opposition to the
resolutions which were approved by the delegation, which were
proposed by Randolph to the General Convention as its basis of
action, and which clearly looked to an overthrow of the existing
Federal systera. He could not consequently take the ground
which his coUeagues in opposition, Henry in particular, thought
most available, of protesting against the usurpation of a body,
which, charged with the office of proposing amendments to the
^ It is interesting to see how often history repeats itself The main
argument of Lee for hastening a discussion, was that the General
Assembly, in whose hall the Convention was sitting, would meet on the
23d of the month ; and as the Convention did not adjourn till the 27th,
the two bodies were in session at the same time. The Convention of
1829-30, also ran into the meeting of the General Assembly, and the
two bodies sate at the same time for a month and a half As in both
Conventions there were members who were also members of the
Assembly, and, as such, were entitled to double pay, it would be curious
to look over the old rolls and see who took and did not take double
allowance. Of the members of the Convention of 1829-30 who were
in the Assembly, though they really had double duty to perform in
earnest, I do not know that more than one member received double
pay, albeit it was unquestionably due.

72 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
existing government, had recoraraended an entirely new govern
raent in its stead. He may, however, have deemed the Act of
Assembly convoking the present Convention as a substandal
endorsement of the Act of the General Convention ; and with
his usual sagacity may have thought it prudent, apart from any
personal feeling in the case, to arrest a contest which he foresaw
would result in the defeat of his friends. At this late day, unin
fluenced by the excitement of the times, we are able to appreciate
the tactics of the divisions of the anti-Federal party at their
proper value. The raain object of Mason was to prevent a pre-
raature coramittal of the House by a vote on any separate part
of the Constitution; for he weU knew that an approval of one
part would be urged argumentatively to obtain the approval of
another part, and that, if the Constitution were approved in
detail, it would be approved as a whole; and so far as his modon
1^ postponed intermediate voting, it was wise and well-timed. But
in requiring the Constitution to be discussed clause by clause, he
went beyond his legitiraate purpose, and played into the hands
_ of his opponents. The Federal Constitution, to be opposed
successfully, must be discussed on the ground either of its unfit
ness as a whole to attain the end of its creation, or on the dan
gerous tendency of its various provisions. To preclude the
debate on the first head, and to narrow the debate on the second
to the consideration of a single clause, was almost to resign the
benefits of discussion to the friends of the system. The resolu
tion was capable of being wielded with fatal effect, and, if enforced
by a skillful and stern parliamentarian, would have effectually
prevented aU freedora of debate. The anti-Federalists believed
I that the Consdtution in its general scope was false to liberty; yet,
by the resolution, they were to be strictly confined to a discussion,
not of its general tendency, but of the tendency of a particular
clause. Now, it is barely possible that a single provision of a
vast system, when defended at length by an able hand, cannot be
made to assume a plausible shape in the eyes of a mixed assem
bly. Either its obvious meaning wnll be denied, or an equivocal
one will be attached to its terms. The Federalists were aware
. of the advantages of such a warfare, and hence the readiness
l^with which Madison rose to accept the proposal."* Indeed, it is

' Madison wrote on the 4th to Washington a letter, of which the

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 73
a topic of interest now to observe how often the dogged perti
nacity of George Nicholas and Madison, who acted the part of
whippers-in during the discussion, was rebuked by the indignant
eloquence of Mason and Henry.*" It is true that the tiraely
movement of Tyler in transferring the debate from the House to
the Coraraittee of the Whole in sorae measure counteracted the
ill effects of Mason's motion ; but its evil influence was sensibly
felt by his friends throughout the session.
The opening of the session on the third day"' was awaited by
a large assemblage. Every seat was filled, while hundreds of
respectable persons remained standing in the passages and at the
doors. Among the spectators from every part of the Common
wealth were young men of promise, eager to behold the states
men who had long served their country with distinction, whose
names were connected with every important civil and railitary
event of the Revolution; and some of whom were to be seen
now for the last time in a public body, and must in the order of
nature soon pass away. It is not unworthy of remark, as an
illustration of the effects wrought by the exhibition of genius
and talents on great occasions, that some of those young men
who were so intently watching the progress of the debates, as if
touched by the inspiration of the scene, were themselves to lead
the deliberations of public bodies and to control the councils of
the State and of the Union for more than the third of a century
to come.""
following is an extract: "I found, contrary to my expectations, that
not a very full House had been made on the first day, but that it had
proceeded to the appointment ofthe president and other officers. Mr.
Pendleton was put into the chair without opposition. Yesterday little
more was done than settling some forms, and resolving that no ques
tion, general or particular, should be propounded till the whole plan
should be considered and debated clause by clause. This was moved
by Colonel Mason, and, contrary to his expectations, concurred in by
the other side." Madison to General Washington, Writings of Wash
ington, IX, 370, note.
^ Robertson's Debates, page 36, et passim. I use Robertson' s Debates,
edition of 1805 ; the handsome edition of the Debates following the
entire third volume of Elliott, published in 1859 under the sanction of
Congress, not having then appeared.
"' Wednesday, June 4, 1788.
** No such thing as a published speech was then known in the coun-

74 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
It was the general expectation that Henry would open the
debate on the part of the opponents of the Constitution ; but
those who knew the conflicting posidons held by Mason and,
hiraself, and had watched him closely on the preceding day,
anticipated a skirmish before the regular debate began ; and in
this expectation they were not disappointed. When the House
had received and acted upon the reports of the Committee of
Elecdons, the order of the day was read, and the Convention
went into Committee of the Whole. Wythe was called to the
chair."' Next to Pendleton, his fame as a jurist and a statesman
had been more widely diffused at horae and abroad than that of
any other member. He had been longest in the public service;
had long been a member of the House of Burgesses, which he
entered as early as 1758 ; had been the intimate and confidential
try, and the only means of forming an opinion of the powers of a pub
lic man was to hear him speak. Brief and imperfect as Robertson' s
Debates are, they present the fullest report of speeches then known in
our annals. Hence, the clever young men of the State crowded to
Richmond, all of them on horseback. William B. Giles was among
the spectators.
*' I have never met with an instance in our parliamentary proceedings
of the election ofthe chairman of the Comraittee of the Whole by the
House. In the House of Burgesses the chairman, as the name implies,
literally sate in a chair, none but the Speaker, who had been approved
by the Governor, and was in sorae sense the representative of majesty,
occupying the Speaker's seat. In Committee of the Whole, the mace,
which was always placed on the clerk's table in regular session, was
put under the table. I confess that I have not been able to trace satis
factorily the fate of the mace of the House of Burgesses. I have been
told that it was melted at sorae date later than 1790. There was a
member of the Senate from one of the tidewater counties who made
great efforts to get a mace from the Senate. The city of Norfolk still
possesses its ancient silver mace presented to the corporadon by Gov
ernor Gooch in 1736 or thereabouts. This mace, of which a descripdon
and a cut is given in The Dinwiddie Papers, \q\. I (Virginia Historical
CoUecdons, Vol. Ill), pp. xiv, xv, was "The gift of Hon. Robert Din
widdie, Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, to the corporation of Nor
folk, 1753." For notice of further examples of the mace in Virginia
and other Bridsh-American colonies, see the same note. The mace of
the House of Burgesses, which was by purchase saved from the
".smelter's pot" by Colonel William Heth, who transformed it into a
drinking cup, is now in the possession of his grand nephew, Harry
Heth, late Major-General C. S. Army.— Ed.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 75
friend of Fauquier and Botetourt, and the associate of all the
royal governors of Virginia who in his time had any pretensions
as gentlemen and scholars ; had spoken in the great debate on the
Declaration of Independence in Congress ; had voted for the
DeclaraUon of Rights and the Constitution of Virginia ; had
filled the chair of the House of Delegates, when Pendleton, suf
fering frora his recent accident, was detained at home, and had
acquired in the performance of his various duties that knowl.
edge of the law of parliament and those habits of a presiding
officer, which were now indispensable to an occupant of the chair.
His position in one respect was unique. As a professor of Wil
liara and Mary, he had trained some of the ablest merabers of
the House, who regarded him with a veneration greater than
that, great as it was, which was shared by the public at large.'"
He had reached his sixty-second year; yet as he moved with a
brisk and graceful step from the floor to the chair, his small and
erect stature presented a pleasing image of a fresh and healthy
old man. In a front view, as he sate in the chair, he appeared to
be bald ; but his gray hair grew thick behind, and instead of
being wrapped with a ribbon, as was then and many years later
the universal custom, descended to his neck, and rose in a broad
curl He had not yet given way to that disarrangement of his
apparel which crept upon him in extreme age, and was arrayed
in the neat and simple dress that has come down to us in the
portrait engraved by Longacre." Though never robust, he was
now more able to bear, in a physical sense, the formidable ordeal
of the chair than Pendleton. He had been a member of the
General Convention which framed the Constitution, and had
assented to the Virginia platform presented to that body ; but,
as he was absent when that instrument was subscribed by the
members, his narae did not appear on its roll. He was, however,
in favor of its ratification.
When Wythe had taken his seat, before he had ordered the
clerk to read the first clause of the Constitution, Henry was on
the floor. It was observed that age had made itself felt in the
'" Among the numerous pupils of Wythe in the Convention were
Chief Justice Marshall, President Monroe, George and Wilson Cary
Nicholas, Read, Innes, Lewis, Samuel Jordan Cabell, &c.
" A single-breasted coat, with a standing collar, a single-breasted
vest, and a white cravat buckled behind.

76 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
appearance of this early and constant favorite of the people.
He should have been in the vigor of life, for he had just entered
his fifty-third year; but he had encountered many hardships in
his vagrant life as a practising attorney, and had endured much
trouble as a man and as a patriot. There was a perceptible stoop
in his shoulders, and he wore glasses. His hair he had lost in
early life, and its place was supplied by a brown wig, the adjust
ment of which, when under high excitement, was, as alleged by
his contemporaries, a frequent gesture.'^ He had doubtless
suffered at intervals from a painful organic disease which more
than any other racks the system, and which eleven years later
brought hira to the grave. But his voice had not yet lost its
wondrous magic,'' and his intellectual powers knew no decline.
He was to display before the adjournment an ability in debate
and a splendor of eloquence, which surpassed all his previous
efforts, and which have rarely been exhibited in a public assem
bly. Neither Mason nor Henry was skilled in the law of parlia
ment; but it is probable that Henry, in his solitary drive from
Prince Edward, had formed some outline of the course which he
intended to pursue. It was generally known that the Federal
ists believed that they made up a majority ofthe House; and he
well knew that if Pendleton were nominated, as he certainly
would be, for the chair, he would be elected above any com
petitor. Such a man carried with him not only the weight of
his party, but his weight as an individual. To oppose him, there
fore, was to risk a signal defeat ; and from a signal defeat in the
onset it might not be easy to recover. The election of president
was allowed accordingly to pass in silence. The next olausible
^^ I have heard Governor Tazewell say that he has seen Henry, in
animated debate, twirl his wig round his head several times in rapid
succession. Our fathers had better eyes than their descendants.
Glasses were rarely worn. Colonel Thomas Lewis was the only mem
ber of the Convention that wore them habitually. Patrick Henry and
Judge Wilson, of Pennsylvania, are the only two men of the Revolu
tionary era who are painted with glasses. Franklin wore them in the
Federal Convention, but he was over eighty at that time.
" He told his family that he lost his voice in pleading the British
Debts' cause in 1791 ; but that loss none who heard him speak at any
time afterwards could detect.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 77
ground of attack was to be sought in the various Acts of Assem
bly which had caUed the General Convention into existence.
"j The most iraportant of these acts had been plainly violated by
that body, and the new scheme was the offspring of usurpation ;
~ and Henry thought that, if this view was presented in all its
fearful extent by his friends, the result might yet be an immedi
ate rejection of the new government. But he had to deal with
one of the wariest parliamentarians of that age. When, therefore,
Henry moved, as he now proceeded to do, that the various Acts
of Assembly should be read by the clerk, evidently intending to
follow up the reading with a speech, Pendleton, who, foreseeing
the game, was on the watch, and who feared the effect of one of
Henry's speeches in the yet unfixed state of parties, was in
stantly helped on his crutches, and opposed the reading.'* He
did not speak more than fifteen minutes ; but the effect of his
speech was conclusive. It was an occasion of all others best
adapted to his talents. The discussion in his view involved no
great principle to be treated at large, but the interpretation of an
Act of Assembly. He occupied the ground at once on which
Henry would have sought to place hira by force. He boldly
assumed the position that, whatever raight be the raeaning of
the Act calling the General Convention, the Act of Assembly con
voking the present Convention for. the express purpose of dis-
'( cussing the paper on the table was paramount to all other Acts,
land was the rule of action prescribed by the people. Did this
(speech exist as spoken by Pendleton, posterity might read in the
/speech itself and in its circumstances the peculiarities of his
mind and character. Assign him the ground he was to occupy —
plant hira on the rampart of an Act of Assembly — and he was
invincible. Such was the effect of his speech that Henry made
no reply, and not caring to court a defeat, which he saw was
inevitable, withdrew his resolution.
But, if Henry had a favorite plan, the Federalists had one of
i their own ; and that plan was to discuss the Constitution, clause
1 by clause, in the House under the eye of a president to be elected
I by themselves ; a raode which had already been adopted on the
'* The general reader may perhaps not know that the president or
speaker of a House on the Committee ofthe Whole sits with the mem
bers in the body of the House, and is free to engage in the debates,
which he cannot do when in the chair.

78 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
raodon of Mason, who litde dreamed that he was treading in the
tracks of his foes. Fortunately for the opponents of the Con-
sdtudon, Tyler, who, as Speaker of the House of Delegates, had
been famiUar with the tactics of deliberative bodies, and who
was opposed to the new scheme, had, as if in anticipation of the
purposes of the Federalists, succeeded in transferring the dis
cussions to the Committee of the Whole.
The clerk proceeded to read the preamble of the Consdtudon
and the two first sections of the first article. When he had read
them, George Nicholas rose to explain and defend them. There
was a presdge in the name of Nicholas, and in the forensic repu-
tadon of the gentleman who now bore it, which placed him in
the front rank of what may be called the second growth of emi
nent men who attained to distincdon during the Revolution, and
the brightness of whose genius has been reflected even in our
own times. The eldest son of the venerable patriot who so long
held the keys of the treasury, and whose death, in the midst of
the Revolution in which he had freely embarked his great ser
vices and a reputation that in the eyes of his compatriots ap
proached to sanctity, had sealed his fame as a martyr in his
country's cause, George Nicholas entered public life under favor
able auspices. Born in the city of Williamsburg, and nurtured
in that institudon which has been for more than a century and a
half the gem of the ancient metropolis, he early engaged in the
study of the law, and soon rose to the highest distinction at
the bar. Nor was his professional skill his only passport to pub
lic attention. He had entered the array at the beginning of the
war, and displayed raore than once a capacity for mUitary ser
vice that received the approbation of his superiors. But it was
in the House of Delegates that he gained his highest distinction.
During the war, and until the meeting ofthe present Convention,
he held a prominent place in that body, which he almost entirely
controlled, now threatening with impeachment the first execu
tive officer of the Comraonwealth, now planning the laws which
were to constitute the titles to land in that immense principahty
which reached from the Alleghany to the Mississippi.'* His
'' Benjamin Watkins Leigh has been heard to say that George Mason
drafted the first land law ; but it is certain that George Nicholas ex
erted a greater influence in shaping the land laws than any other man.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. IV
appearance was far from prepossessing. His stature was low,
ungainly, and deformed with fat. His head was bald, his nose
curved ; a gray eye glanced from beneath his shaggy brows ;
and his voice, though strong and clear, was without modulation.
His address, which had been polished by long and intimate asso
ciation in the most refined circles bf the Colony, to which by
birth he belonged, and of the Coramonwealth ; his minute ac
quaintance with every topic of local legislation ; his ready com
mand of that historical knowledge within the range of a well-
educated lawyer of the old ri^^m^/ perfect self-possession, which
had been acquired in many a contest at the bar and in the House
of Delegates with most of the able men now opposed to him,
and which enabled him to wield at will a robust logic in debate
which few cared to encounter, made him one of the most prom
ising of that group of rising statesmen who had caught their
inspiration from the Ups of Wythe. Without one ray of fancy
gleaming throughout his discourse, without action, unless the use
of his right hand and forefinger, as if he were deraonstrating a
proposition on a black-board, be so called, by the force of argu
raent applied to his subject as if the sections of the Constitution
were sections of an Act of Assembly, he kept that audience, the
most intellectual, perhaps, ever gathered during that century
under a single roof in the Colony or in the Commonwealth,
anxious as it was for the appearance of the elder members in the
debate, for more than two hours in rapt attention. His speech
is one of the fullest reported by Robertson, and its strict and
masterly examination of the two sections before the House, ex
plains the interest which it awakened and which it sustained .'°
Henry, who probably saw his mistake in allowing one of the
°" See Robertson's Debates of the Virginia Convention of 1788, page
i8. I have alluded to the fatness of Nicholas. As he continued a
prominent politician to his death in Kentucky in 1799, and as it was
hard to meet his argument, his opponents resorted to caricature, and
pictured him as broad as he was long. A friend told me that he once
saw Mr. Madison laugh till the tears came into his eyes at a caricature
of George Nicholas, which represented him " as a plum pudding with
legs to it." He was probably one of the fattest lawyers since the days
of his namesake Sir Nicholas Bacon, the lord keeper, who was so blown
by the mere effort of taking his seat in the court of chancery that it
was understood that no lawyer should address him until he had sig
nified the recovery of his wind by three taps of his cane on the floor.

80 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
ablest friends of the Constitution to be the first to reach the ear
of the House, followed Nicholas on the debate. If Nicholas
adhered to the letter of the two sections, Henry did not follow
his example; nor did he allude to those sections or to the speech
of Nicholas, but spoke as if his resolution had been adopted, and
the desired information had been obtained by the committee.
He began by saying that the public raind as well as his own was
extremely weary at the proposed change of government. " Give
me leave," he said, "to form one of the number of those who
wish to be thoroughly acquainted with the reasons of this peril
ous and uneasy situation, and why we are brought hither to
decide on this great national question. I consider myself as the
servant of the people of this Commonwealth, as a sentinel over
their rights, liberty and happiness. I represent their feelings
when I say that they are exceedingly uneasy, being brought
from that state of full security which they enjoyed to the present
delusive appearance of things. A year ago the rainds of our
citizens were in perfect repose. Before the meeting of the late
Federal Convention at Philadelphia, a general peace and an uni
versal tranquility prevailed in this country ; but since that period,
the people are exceedingly uneasy and disquieted. When I
wished for an appointment to this Convention, my mind was
extremely agitated for the situation of public affairs. I conceive
the public to be in extreme danger. If our situadon be thus
uneasy, whence has arisen this fearful jeopardy ? It arises from
this fatal systera. It arises from a proposal to change our gov
ernment—a proposal that goes to the aiinihiladon of the most
sdlemn engagements of the States— a proposal of establishing
nine States into a confederacy, to the eventual exclusion of four
States. It goes to the annihilation of those solemn treades we
have formed with foreign nations. The present circumstances
of France— the good offices rendered us by that kingdom— re
quire our most faithful and most punctual adherence to our treaty
with her. We are in alliance with the Spaniards, the Dutch, the
Prussians ; those treaties bound us as thirteen States confederated
together. Yet here is a proposal to sever that confederacy. Is
it possible that we shall abandon all our treaties and nadonal
engagements? And for what? I expected to have heard the
reasons of an event so unexpected to my mind and the minds
of others. Was our civil polity or public justice endangered or

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 81
sapped? Was the real existence of the country threatened, or
was this preceded by a mournful progression of events ? This
proposal of altering the government is of a most alarming
nature. Make the best of the new government — say it is com
posed by anything but inspiration — you ought to be extremely
cautious, watchful, jealous of your liberty ; for instead of securing
your rights you may lose them forever. If a wrong step be
now made, the republic may be lost forever. If this new gov
¬ernraent will not come up to the expectation of the people,
I and they should be disappointed, their liberty wiU be lost,
and tyranny must and will arise. I repeat it again, and I beg
gentlemen to consider, that a wrong step now will plunge
us into raisery, and our republic will be lost. It will be
necessary for this Convention to have a faithful historical
detail of the facts that preceded the session of the Federal
Convention, and the reasons that actuated its members in pro
posing an entire alteration of Government, and to demonstrate
the dangers that awaited us. If they were of such awful mag
nitude as to warrant a proposal so extremely perilous as this, I
must assert that this Convention has an absolute right to a
thorough discovery of every circumstance relative to this great
event. And here I would make this inquiry of those worthy
characters who composed a part of the late Federal Convention.
I am sure they were fully impressed with the necessity of form
ing a great consolidated Government instead of a confederation.
That this is a consolidated Government is demonstrably clear ;
and the danger of such a Government is to ray mind very
; striking. I have the highest veneration for those gentlemen ;
I but, sir, give me leave to demand what right had they to say,
' We, the people ? My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious
solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorized
them to speak the language of ' We, the People ' instead of
' We, the States ' ? States are ihe characteristics and soul of a
confederation. If the States be not the agents of this compact,
it must be one great consolidated Governraent of the people of
aU the States. I have the highest respect for those gentlemen
who formed the Convention ; and were sorae of thera not here
I would express some testiraonial of esteem for them. America
had, on a forraer occasion, put the utmost confidence in them — a

82 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
confidence which was weU placed — and I ara sure, sir, I would
give up everything to them ; I would cheerfully confide in them
as my representatives. But on this great occasion I would de
mand the cause of their conduct. Even from that illustrious
man, who saved us by his valor, I would have a reason for his
conduct. That liberty which he has given us by his valor tells
me to ask this reason ; but there are other gendemen here who
can give us this information. The people gave them no power
to use their name. That they exceeded their power is perfectly
clear. It is not mere curiosity that actuates me. I wish to hear
the real actual existing danger, which should lead us to take
those steps so dangerous in my conception. Disorders have
arisen in other parts of America, but here, sir, no dangers, no
insurrection or tumult has happened ; everything has been calm
and tranquil." But, notwithstanding this, we are wandering in
the great ocean of human affairs. I see no landmark to guide
us. We are running we know not whither. Difference of
opinion has gone to a degree of inflammatory resentment in dif
ferent parts of the country, which has been occasioned by this
perilous innovation. The Federal Convention ought to have
amended the old system— for this purpose they were solely dele
gated — the object of their mission extended io no other considera
tion. You raust therefore forgive the solicitation of one unwor-
'" This remark is strictly true. There was no disorder of any kind
in Virginia. While Massachusetts was rent by intestine commotions
and by a formidable rebellion, Virginia was in a state of profound tran
quility. The want of profitable employment for the labor of the North,
and the low state of its marine, produced by the absence of the West
India trade which it enjoyed before the war, and by the abundance of
foreign shipping, are two great causes of northern troubles. Meantime
our agriculture was most prosperous, and our harbors and rivers were
filled with ships. The shipping interest of Norfolk was clamorous for
duties on foreign tonnage, but, as we have shown in another place, was
really advancing most rapidly to a degree of success never known in
the Colony. The immediate representadves of that part and its
vicinity were under the delusion that the new Government would en
able them to drive foreign ships away, and to fill their places with
home-built vessels — a delusion that was soon dispelled in a short sea
son by the sad reality of ports without either foreign or domesdc ship
ping.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. &3
thy meraber to know what danger could have arisen under the
present confederation, and what are the causes of this proposal
to change our Government." '*
This was the first blast from the trumpet of Henry, and hardly
had its echoes died on the ear, when Edmund Randolph, evi
dently from previous arrangement, sprang to the floor. If
Nicholas lacked that exterior which coraraends itself to the eye,
Randolph, who was his brother-in-law, was in that respect par
ticularly fortunate. He had attained his thirty-seventh year, and
was in the flower of his manhood. His portly figure ; his hand
some face and flowing hair ; his college course in the class-room
and especially in the chapel, in which, standing in the shadow of
the tomb of his titled ancestor, he was wont to pour the streams
of his youthful eloquence into ravished ears; his large family
connections, so important to a rising politician, and so convenient
to fall back upon in case of defeat ; the high honors which, from
his entrance on the stage in his twenty-third year, had been
showered upon him by the people and by the Asserably; the
eclat which he had elicited by his forensic exertions, and by the
imposing part which he had borne in the deliberations of the
Convention at Philadelphia ; his liberal acquaintance with EngUsh
literature; his stately periods, fashioned in imitation of that cele
brated orator who, in the earlier part of the century, had sought
to conceal, under the forms of exquisite drapery, the tenets of a
dangerous philosophy, and set off by a voice finely modulated,
the tones of which rolled grandly through the hall and were re
verberated from the gallery, constituted sorae ofthe titles to the
distinction universally accorded him of being the raost accora
plished statesraan of his age in the Comraonwealth. An inci
dent which occurred in his early Ufe, and which could not be
recalled by him at any time without painful emotions, tended
'^ This speech, imperfect as it is reported, will give the reader some
notion of the topics of the speakers ; but he must supply from his
imagination the influence which the voice, the action, and the character
of Henry, imparted to everything he said. Mr. Madison, in his latter
days, told Governor Coles that when he had made a most conclusive
argument in favor of the Constitution, Henry would rise to reply to
him, and by some significant action, such as a pause, a shake of the head,
or a striking gesture, before he uttered a word, would undo all that
Madison had been trying to do for an hour before.

84 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
uldmately to his advantage. His father, who had been at the
beginning of the Revolution Attorney General of the Colony,
had adhered to the standard of England. The son, undaunted
by the conduct of his father, who is said to have disinherited
hira for refusing to follow his example, and irapelled by that
spirit of chivalry which has ever been the heir-loom of his race,
hastened to the army then encamped on the heights of Boston,
that he might win an escutcheon of his own, undebased by the
act of his sire." On his return to Virginia the most flattering
honors awaited him — honors the more valuable from the preju
dices which distrusted the shoulders of youth. He was returned
to the Convention of May, 1776, by the city of Williamsburg
which had ever selected the ablest men of the Colony as its rep
resentatives. In that Convention he was placed on the coramit
tee which reported the resolution instrucdng the delegates of
Virginia in Congress to propose independence, the Declaration
of Rights, and a plan of government. He was elected by the
body Attorney-General of the new Commonwealth — an honor
which his grandfather, his uncle, and his father, in the meridian
of their fame, had been proud to possess. Three years later he
was elected by the General Assembly a member of Congress,
and was successively re-elected for the usual term. In 1786 he was
deputed one of the seven members dispatched frora Virginia to
the meeting of Annapolis ; and in 1787 he was sent to the Gen
eral Convention which framed the Federal Constitution. He was
now Governor of the Coraraonwealth.
But with all his advantages, he was involved at this critical
juncture in one of those distressing dilemmas into which impul
sive politicians are prone to fall, and which tend to unnerve the
strongest minds. The title of renegade, however falsely ap
plied, is apt to blast the fairest flowers of rhetoric, and to impair
or render unavailing the greatest powers of logic ; and by this
title he well knew he was regarded in the estimation of a large and
influential number of the members whom he was now to address.
In the Philadelphia Convention he had exerted great influence
in giving to the Constitution its main outline ; but, differing on

^ He passed through Philadelphia on his way to Boston, and was
strongly commended to Washington by a remarkable letter, for a copy
of which I am indebted to Mr. Connarroe, of the former city.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 85
some iraportant points from his three colleagues, who had ap
proved that instrument, he, sustained by Mason and Gerry
alone, decUned to vote in its favor. Nor did his opposition to
the new scheme halt at this stage of the proceeding. In a let
ter which he addressed to the Speaker of the House of Dele
gates,'" which was designed for publication, and which was pub
lished far and wide, he expressed his opinions at length, and led
the opponents of the Constitution to believe that they would
receive the aid of his talents and those of his family connection
in their favorite plan of withholding the asseat of Virginia to its
ratification until certain amendments, designed to reraedy the
defects enuraerated by hira, should become an integral part of
the new systera. The change of his views, which, though it
took place some time previous to the raeeting of the Conven
tion, was not universally known until that body asserabled, and
was received at a time when the public excitement was intense,
and when a single vote, or the influence of a single name, raight
decide the great question at issue, by his former opponents with
warm approbation, and by his former Iriends with indignant
scorn. How far he was justified in the course which he pursued,
will be discussed elsewhere, our present purpose being only to
explain the relation in which he stood when he rose to address
the House.""
Conscious of the delicacy of his position, and not indisposed
to throw off a weight that pressed heavily upon him ; or, per
haps, willing to deprive his opponents of the benefit likely to
accrue to them from that formal and fearful arraignment which

™ Elliot's Debates, I, 482.
^°' The letter which he prepared for the Assembly in the winter of
i787-'88, but which he did not transmit, and which was afterwards pub
lished, was the first conclusive indication that he would vote for
the ratification of the Constitution with or without amendments. The
letter may be found in Carey's Museum. Ill, 61. Madison, writing to
Jefferson as late as April 22, 1788, forty days before the meeting of the
present Convention, and in intimate correspondence with Randolph,
reports Randolph as " so temperate in his opposition, and goes so far
with the friends ofthe Constitution, that he cannot be properly classed
with its enemies." If Madison could not speak confidently on the sub
ject, no other person well could.

86 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
he knew would, sooner or later, inevitably follow, he resolved to
introduce the unpleasant topic at once. After a graceful allusion
to the philosophy of the passions which were apt to rage most
fiercely on those occasions which required the calmest delibera
tion, but excepdng the raembers of the Convendon from such
an influence, he continued : " Pardon me, sir, if I ara particularly
sanguine in ray expectations from the chair ; it well knows what
is order, how to command obedience^"'' and that political opinions
raay be as honest on one side as the other. Before I pass into
the body of the argument, I must take the liberty of mendoning
the part I have already borne in this great question; but let me
not here be raisunderstood. I come not to apologize to any mem
ber within these walls, to the Convention as a body, or even to
my fellow citizens at large. Having obeyed the irapulse of duty ;
having sadsfied my conscience, and, I trust, my God, I shaU
appeal to no other tribunal ; nor do I become a candidate for
popularity ; my raanner of life has never yet betrayed such a
desire. The highest honors and emoluments of the Common
wealth are a poor compensation for the surrender of personal
independence. The history of England from the revoludon (of
1688), and that of Virginia for more than twenty years past,
show the vanity of a hope that general favor should ever follow
the man, who without partiality or prejudice praises or disap
proves the opinions of friends or of foes ; nay, I might enlarge
the field, and declare, frora the great volume of human nature
itself that to be moderate in politics forbids an ascent to the
summit of political fame. But I come hither regardless of
allurements, to condnue as I have begun, to repeat my earnest
endeavors for a firm, energetic government, to enforce my objec
tions to the Constitution, and to concur in any practical scheme
of amendments; but I will never assent to any scheme that will
operate a dissolution of the Union, or any measure which may
lead to it. This conduct may probably be uphanded as injurious
to ray own views ; if it be so, it is at least the natural offspring
of ray judgment. I refused to sign, and if the same were to
'"' This very pointed intimation to Wythe to keep the discussion from
wandering from the sections under debate, shows very plainly the pro
gramrae of the Federalists. If such was their policy in committee of
tne whole, we can well judge what they designed it to be in the House.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 87
return, again would I refuse. WhoUy to adopt or wholly to
reject, as proposed by the Convention, seemed too hard an
alternative to the cidzens of America, whose servants we were,
and whose pretensions amply to discuss the means of their hap
piness were undeniable. Even if adopted under the tenor of
impending anarchy, the government must have been without
that safest bulwark, the hearts of the people ; and if rejected
because the chance of amendments was cut off, the Union would
have been irredeemably lost. This seeras to have been verified
by the event in Massachusetts ; but our Assembly have removed
these inconveniences by propounding the Constitudon to our
full and free inquiry. When I withheld my supscription, I had
not even the glimpse of the genius of America relative to the
principles of the new Constitution. Who, arguing from the
preceding history of Virginia, could have divined that she was
prepared for the important change? In former tiraes, indeed,
she transcended every Colony in professions and practices of
loyalty; but she opened a perilous war under a democracy almost
as pure as representation would admit. She supported it under
a Constitution which subjects all rule, authority, and power to
the legislature. Every attempt to alter it had been baffled ; the
increase of Congressional power had always excited alarra. I
therefore would not bind myself to uphold the new Constitution
before I had tried it by the true touchstone ; especially, too,
when I foresaw that even the members of the General Conven
tion might be instructed by the coraraents of those without doors.
But, raoreover, I had objections to the Constitution, the raost
material of which, too lengthy in detail, I have as yet barely
stated to the public, but will explain when we arrive at the proper
\ points. Amendments were consequently my wish ; these were
the grounds of ray repugnance to subscribe, and were perfectly
reconcilable with ray unalterable resolution to be regulated by
' the spirit of America, if after our best efforts for amendments,
they could not be removed. I freely indulge those who may
think this declaration too candid in believing that I hereby de
part from the concealment belonging to the character of a states
man. Their censure would be more reasonable were it not for
an unquestionable fact, that the spirit of America depends upon
a combination of circumstances which no individual can control,
and arises not from the prospect of advantages which may be

88 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
gained by the acts of negotiadon, but from deeper and more
honest causes. As with rae the only quesdon has ever been
I between previous and subsequent araendraents, so I wiU express
' my apprehensions, that the postponeraent of this Convendon to
so late a day has extinguished the probability of the former with
out inevitable ruin to the Union ; and the Union is the anchor
of our political salvadon ; and I will assent to the lopping of this
lirab (meaning his arm) before I assent to the dissoludou of the
Union " Then, turning to Henry, he said : " I shall now follow
the honorable gentleraan in his inquiry. Before the meeting of
the Federal Convention," says the honorable gentleman, "we
rested in peace. A miracle it was that we were so ; rairaculous
must it appear to those who consider the distresses of the war,
and the no less afflicting calaraities which we suffered in the suc
ceeding peace. Be so good as to recoUect how we fared under
the Confederation. I am ready to pour forth sentiments of the
fullest gratitude to those gentlemen who framed that system. I
beUeve they had the most enlightened heads in this western
hemisphere. Notwithstanding their intelligence and earnest
solicitude for the good of their country, this system has proved
totaUy inadequate to the purpose for which it was devised ; but,
sir, it was no disgrace to them. The subject of confederations
was then new, and the necessity of speedily forraing sorae gov
ernment for the States to defend them against the passing dan
gers prevented, perhaps, those able statesmen from making the
system as perfect as more leisure and deliberation would have
enabled thera to do. I cannot otherwise conceive how they
would have forraed a systera that provided no means of enforcing
the powers which were nominally given to it. Was it not a
political farce to pretend to vest powers without accompanying rt
them with the raeans of putting them into execution."" This -
™ The wonder is, not as Mr. Randolph thinks, that the Congress ^
made such a confederation, but that they succeeded in making any
confederation at all. Among other evidences in my possession of the
difficulties which environed the subject, I quote the annexed extract
from a letter of Edward Rutledge, a member of Congress, which I
received from an esteemed friend at the North, dated August, 1776,
and which will show that the work was nearly given up in despair :
" We have nothing with the confederadon for some days, and it is of
little consequence if we never see again ; for we have made such a

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 89
want of energy was not a greater solecism than the blending
together and vesting in one body all the branches of govern
ment. The utter inefficacy of this system was discovered the
raoment the danger was over by the introduction of peace. The
accumulated public misfortunes that resulted from its inefficacy
rendered an alteration necessary. This necessity was obvious to
all America. Attempts have accordingly been made for this pur
pose. I have been a witness to this business from its earliest
beginning. I was honored with a seat in the small Convention
held at Annapolis. The members of that Convention thought
unanimously that the control of commerce should be given to
Congress and recommended to their States to extend the im
proveraent to the whole system. The merabers of the General
Convention were particularly deputed to meliorate the Confed
eration. On a thorough contemplation of the subject, they
found it impossible to amend that system : what was to be done ?
The dangers of Araerica, which will be shown at another time by
particular enumeration, suggested the expedient of forming a
new plan. The Confederation has done a great deal for us we
all allow ; but it was the danger of a powerful enemy, and the
spirit of America, sir, and not any energy in that system, that
carried us through that perilous war ; for what were its best
aims ? The greatest exertions were made when the danger was
raost irarainent. This systera was not signed till March, 1781,
Maryland not having acceded to it before ; yet the railitary
achieveraents and other exertions of America, previous to that
period, were as brUliant, effectual, and successful as they could
have been under the most energetic governraent. This clearly
shows that our perilous situation was the cement of our Union.
How different the scene when this peril vanished and peace was
restored ! The demands of Congress were treated with neglect.
One State coraplained that another had not completed its quotas
as well as itself; public credit gone, for, I believe, were it not
for the private credit of individuals, we should have been ruined
(devil) of it already that the Colonies can never agree to it. If my
opinion was likely to be taken, I would propose that the States should
appoint a special Congress to be composed of new members for this
purpose ; and that no person should disclose any part of the present
plan. If that was done, we might then stand some chance of a Con
federation ; at present we stand none at all."

90 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
long before that time ; commerce languishing ; produce falling
in value ; and justice trampled under foot. We became con
temptible in the eyes of foreign nations ; they discarded us as
litde wanton bees who had played for liberty, but had no suf
ficient solidity or wisdora to secure it on a permanent basis, and
were therefore unworthy of their regard. It was found that
Congress could not even enforce the observance of treaties. The
treaty under which we enjoy our present tranquility was disre
garded. Making no difference between the justice of paying
debts due to people here, and that of paying those due to peo
ple on the other side of the Atiantic, I wished to see the treaty
complied with, by the payment ofthe British debts, but have not
be^n able to know why it has been neglected. What was the
reply to the demands and requisites of Congress ? You are too
contemptible ; we will despise and disregard you.
" I shall endeavor to satisfy the gentleman's political curiosity.
Did not our compliance with any demand of Congress depend
on our own free will ? If we refused, I know of no coercive
power to compel a compliance."* After meeting in Convention,
the deputies from the States communicated their information to
one another. On a review of our critical situation, and of the
impossibility of introducing any degree of improvement into the
old system, what ought they to have done? Would it not have
been treason to return without proposing some scheme to relieve
their distressed country ? The honorable gendeman asks why
we should adopt a system that shall annihilate and destroy our
treaties with France and other nations. I think the misfortune
^ is that these treaties are violated already under the honorable
gentleman's favorite systera. I conceive that our engagements
with foreign nations are not at all affected by this system ; for
the sixth article expressly provides that ' aU debts contracted,
and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Con
stitution, shall be as vaUd against the United States under this
Constitution as under the Confederation.' Does this system,
then, cancel debts due to or from the continent? Is it not a weU

">* The two first sentences of this paragraph have a personal bearing
upon Henry. The allusion is to Henry's proposition that the delin
quent States should be compelled by force to make full payment of
their quotas. This is only important to show that Randolph is the ag
gressor in the furious quarrel that was soon to take place.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 91
known maxim that no change of situation can alter an obliga
tion once rightly entered into ? He also objects because nine
States are sufficient to put the Government in motion. What
nuraber of States ought we to have said ? Ought we to have re
quired the concurrence of aU the thirteen ? Rhode Island — in
rebellion against integrity — Rhode Island plundered all the world
by her paper money ; and, notorious for her uniform opposition
to every Federal duty, would then have it in her power to defeat
the Union ; and may we not judge with absolute certainty, from
her past conduct, that she would do so? Therefore, to have re
quired the ratification of all the thirteen States would have been
tantamount to returning without having done anything. What
other number would have been proper ? Twelve ? The same
spirit that has actuated me in the whole progress of the business,
would have prevented me from leaving it in the power of any
one State to dissolve the Union ; for would it not be lamentable
that nothing could be done for the defection of one State ? A
majority of the whole would have been too few. Nine States,
therefore, seem to be a most proper number.
" The gentleman then proceeds, and inquired why we assumed
the language of ' We, the people.' I ask, why not ? The Gov
ernment is for the people ; and the misfortune was that the peo-
~pte had no agency in the Government before. The Congress
had power to raake peace and war under the old Confederation.
Granting passports, by the law of nations, is annexed to this
power ; yet Congress was reduced to the hurailiating condition
of being obUged to send deputies to Virginia to solicit a pass
port. Notwithstanding the exclusive power of war was given to
Congress, the second Article of the Confederation was inter
preted to forbid that body to grant a passport for tobacco, which,
during the war, and in pursuance of engagements raade at Little
York, was to have been sent into New York. What harm is
there in consulting the people on the construction of a Govern
ment by which they are to be bound ? Is it unfair? Is it un
just? If the Government is to be binding upon the people, are
not the people the proper persons to examine its raerits or de
fects ? I take this to be one of the least and most trivial objec
tions that will be made to the Constitution. In the whole of this
business I have acted in the strictest obedience to the dictates of
my conscience in discharging what I conceive to be ray duty to

92 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
my country. I refused my signature, and if the same reasons
operated on ray raind, I would still refuse ; but as I think that
those eight States, which have adopted the Constitution, wUl not
recede, I am a friend to the Union."
This speech, the report of which is meagre and evidently dis
connected, had considerable effect on the body. It placed the
speaker at once in the party of the Federalists, and put an end
to the favorable expectations in which the opponents of the Con
stitution had indulged. The bold and sarcastic tone in which
he answered the inquiries of Henry told that, instead of dread
ing, he defied the attacks of the orator of the people. At this
day we can see the ingenious sophisms with which the speech
abounds ; and it is obvious that Randolph did not fully see, or
purposely raade light of, the raost significant interrogatory of
Henry. He was followed by Mason, whose words were now watched
with an interest hardly exceeded by that which existed when he
first rose to address the House ; for he, too, had been a member
of the General Convention, and had declared in that body that,
on certain conditions, none of which included the words of the
preamble, he would approve the Constitution ; but, though no
parliamentarian, he saw the snare into which his opponents were
anxious that he should fall, and adroitly avoided it by taking
ground which placed him in instant communion with Henry.
He began by saying that, whether the Constitution be good or
bad, the present clause demonstrated that it is a national Gov
ernment, and no longer a confederation ; "^ ihat popular govern
ments could only exist in small territories ; that what would be a
proper tax in one State would not be a proper tax in another ;
that the mode of levying taxes was of the utraost consequence ;
that the subject of taxation differed in three- fourths of the States ;
that, if the national Governraent was enabled to raise what is
necessary, that was sufficient; but, he said, why yield this
dangerous power of unlimited taxation ? He objected to the
"^ The clause to which he alludes is as follows : " Representatives
and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States, which
may be included within this Union, according to their respective num
bers, which shall be determined by adding tothe whole number of free
persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and ex
cluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons."

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 93
rule apportioning the number of representatives — "the number
of representatives," the Constitution said, "shall not exceed one
for every thirty thousand ;" now, wiU not this be complied with,
although the present number should never be increased?
" When we come to the judiciary," he. said, " we shall be more
convinced that this Government will terminate in the annihila
tion of the State Government. The question then will be,
whether a consolidated Government can preserve the freedom
and secure the great rights of the people. If such amendments
be introduced as shaU exclude danger, I shall most gladly put
my hand to this Constitution. When such amendments as shall
secure the great essential rights of the people be agreed to by
gentlemen, I shall most heartily make the greatest concessions,
and concur in any reasonable measure to obtain the desirable
end of conciliation and unanimity; but an indispensable araend
raent is that Congress shall not exercise the power of raising
direct taxes till the States shall have refused to comply with the
requisitions of Congress. On this condition it raay be granted ;
but I see no reason to grant it unconditionally ; as the States
can raise the taxes with raore ease, and lay thera on the inhabi
tants with more propriety than it is possible for the general Gov
ernment to do. If Congress hath this power without control, the
taxes will be laid by those who have no fellow feeling or acquain
tance with the people. This is my objection to the article under
consideration. It is a very great and important one. I beg,
gentlemen, seriously to consider it. Should this power be re
strained, I shall withdraw my objections to this part of the Con
stitution ; but, as it stands, it is an objection so strong in my mind
that its amendment is with me a sine qua non of its adoption. I
wish for such amendments, and such only, as are necessary to
secure the dearest rights of the people."
Madison, who had kept himself in reserve to answer Mason,
then took the floor. We must not confound the Madison who
presided in the Federal Government, and who appeared in extreme
old age in the Convention of 1829, with the Madison who now
in his thirty-eighth year rose to address the House. Twelve
years before he had entered the Convention of 1776, a small, frail
youth, who, though he had reached his twenty-fifth year, looked
as if he had not attained his raajority. Diffident as he was on
that his first appearance in public life, his raerits did not even

94 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
then pass unobserved ; and he was placed on the grand com
mittee of that body which reported the resolution instructing
the delegates of Virginia in Congress to propose independence,
and which reported the declaration of rights and the Constitu
tion. After serving in the first House of Delegates to the close
of its session,'"" he was soon after chosen a member ofthe Coun
cil, and was in due time transferred thence to Congress, when his
talents were first exerted in debate, and of which body he was at
that time a member. He had at an early day foreseen the neces
sity of an amendment of the Articles of Confederation ; had
been a meraber of the raeeting at Annapolis ; and was, perhaps,
more instrumental in the call of the General Convention than
any other of his distinguised contemporaries. In that body he
had perforraed a leading part ; and in addition to his ordinary
duties as a member, he undertook the task of reporting the sub
stance of the debates, and thus preserved for posterity the only
full record of its deliberations that we possess. His services in
"" As Mr. Madison was a member of the May Convention of 1776,
and also a member of the first House of Delegates, it is reasonable to
suppose that he had been elected on two disdnct occasions by the peo
ple ; but as such was not the fact, and as both Mr. Jefferson and Mr.
Madison have made statements in some measure derogatory from the
true nature of our early Convention, it may be worth while to say that,
after the subsidence of the House of Burgesses in the Revoludon, the
members who were returned by the people on the basis of that House,
acted on the sovereign capacity of conventions, as we now understand
the word The conventions, like the House of Burgesses, were elected
for a given terra ; and the raembers of the Convendon of May, 1776,
after framing the Constitudon, having been elected to serve one year,
did not adjourn sine die, but being on the identical basis of the House
of Delegates under the new Consdtution, held over, and became the
first House of Delegates ofthe General Assembly, the Senate of which
had been elected by the people. Hence, Mr. Madison and Mr. Jeffer
son have frequently affirmed that the first Constitution of Virginia was
made by an ordinary legislature ; overlooking the facts stated above,
and failing to recognize the two remarkable precedents afforded by
Englibh history in the Convendon Pariiament of 1660, which restored
Charies the Second, and the Convention Parliament of 1688, which
setded the British crown on William and Mary; both of which bodies,
when their conventional dudes were finished, became the ordinary
House of Coraraons until the expiration of the term for which the
members had been elected.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 95
this respect were invaluable.'"' From his entrance into Congress
he was compelled to engage in public speaking; and as all his
intellectual powers had for years been trained to discussion, when
he took his seat in the present Convention he was probably one
of the most thorough debaters of that age. His figure had
during the last twelve years become more manly, and though
below the middle stature, was rauscular and weU-proportioned.
His raanners and address were sensibly iraproved by the refined
society in which he had appeared during that interval, and his
complexion, formerly pale, had become ruddy. He was a bach
elor, and was handsomely arrayed in blue and buff. His coat
was si'ngle-breasted, with a straight collar doubled, such as the
Methodists wore thirty years ago ; and at the wrist and on his
breast he wore ruffles. His hair, which was combed low on his
forehead to conceal a baldness which appeared in early life, was
dressed with powder, and ended in a long queue, the arrange
ment of which was the chief trouble of the toilet of our fathers.
The moustache, then seen only on some foreign lip, was held in
abhorrence, and served to recall the carnage of Blackbeard, who
had been slain in the early part of the century, in the waters of
Carolina, by the gallant Maynard, and whose name made the
burden of the song with which Mason and Wythe had been
scared to sleep in their cradles. Even the modest whisker was
rarely worn by eminent public men ; and neither the moustache

"" Mr. Madison told Governor Edward Coles that the labor of writ
ing out the debates, added to the confineraent to which his attendance
in Convention subjected him, almost killed hira ; but that having
undertaken the task, he was determined to accomplish it. It is not
improbable that other raembers made memoranda ; but as yet we have
nothing more than a very respectable record from Chief Justice Robert
Yates, of New York, who, however, withdrew at an early period of the
session. I attempted to sketch the debates in the Convention of 1829,
and have saved a few things which occurred in the legislative com
mittee ; but gave the matter up when I saw the full and accurate re
ports raade under the auspices of Mr. Ritchie. My slight experience
convinced me that the task would be incompatible with any partici
pation in society. It enhances our opinion of the talents of Madison,
when we reflect that in addition to his formidable labor in reporting
and writing out the proceedings of the Convention, he was able to bear
a principal part in its deliberations.

96 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
nor the whisker was ever seen on the face of Madison, Monroe,
Jefferson or Washington. He walked with a bouncing step,
which he adopted with a view of adding to his height, or had
unconsciously caught during his residence at the North, and
which was apparent to any one who saw him, forty years later,
enter the parlor at MontpelUer. But what was far more impor
tant than any mere physical quality, he not only possessed, as
before observed, the faculty of debate in such a degree that he
may be said to exhaust every subject which he discussed and
to leave nothing for his successors to say, but a self-possession,
acquired pardy by conflict with able men, partly by the con
sciousness of his strength, without which, in the body in which
he was now to act, the finest powers would have been of little
avail, and a critical knowledge ofthe rules of deliberative assem
blies. He was fortunate in another particular of hardly less im
portance than the possession of great powers ; he had an inti
mate knowledge of the raen to whom he was opposed, and
whose eloquence and authority would be apt to silence an oppo
nent when felt for the first time. He had known Grayson in
Congress, and had heard Henry in the Convention of 1776, and
had encountered him in the House of Delegates on several grave
questions that arose during the Revolution and subsequently.
With Mason also he had served the same apprenticeship, and
had recently acted with him in the General Convention ; and he
knew as well as any man living wherein the secret of the strength
of these formidable opponents lay. But with all these advantages
of knowledge and experience, of which he availed himself during
the session to the greatest extent and with consummate tact, he
had the physical qualities of an orator in a less degree than any
of his great contemporaries. His low stature made it difficult
for him to be seen frora all parts of the house ; his voice was
rarely loud enough to be heard throughout the hall ; and this
want of size and weakness of voice were the more apparent from
the contrast with the appearance of Henry, and Innes, and Ran
dolph, who were large raen, and whose clarion notes were no
conteraptible sources of their power. He always rose to speak
as if with a view of expressing sorae thought that had casually
occurred to hira, with his hat in his hand, and with his notes in
his hat ; and the warmest excitement of debate was visible in him

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 97
only by a more or less rapid and forward see-saw motion of his
body.'"' Yet such was the force of his genius that one of his
warmest opponents in the Convention declared, years after the
adjournment, that he listened with raore delight to his clear and
cunning argumentation than to the eloquent and starding appeals
of Henry ; and he established a reputation in this body which
was diffused throughout the State, and which was the ground
work of his subsequent popularity. One quality which was per
ceptible in all the great occasions of his life, occurring on the
floor or in the cabinet, and which can never be commended too
highly, was the courtesy and the respect with which he regarded
the raotives and treated the arguments of the hurablest as well
as the ablest of his opponents, and which placed hira on a noble
vantage ground when he was personally assailed by others.'"'
He viewed an arguraent in debate, not in respect of the
worth or want of worth of him who urged it, but in respect of
™ I have often heard of Mr. Madison's mode of speaking from mem
bers of the Assembly of 1799. One of those members, some years
ago, wrote a capital sketch of his manner, which appeared in the
Richmond Enquirer. I am sorry that I have mislaid the reference to
it. When the Euquirer was first published it always contained an in
dex at the close of the year, and that index was a great help to the
memory. The style of Mr. Madison's speaking was well adapted to the
old Congress and the General Convention, which were small bodies;
but he never could have been heard at any time in the hall of the
House of Delegates. In the Convention of 1829 he spoke once or
twice, but he was inaudible by the members who crowded about him.
On one occasion I remember John Randolph rising and advancing sev
eral steps to hear hira, and holding his hand to his ear for a minute or
two, and then dropping his hand with a look of despair.
'"' The sternest judge, before the merits of Madison as a speaker,
could pass in review— one who was the Ajax Telamon of the opposite
party — was the late Chief-Justice Marshall ; yet, towards the close of
his life, being asked which of the various public speakers he had
heard — and he had heard all the great orators, parliamentary and
forensic, of America — he considered the most eloquent, replied : '¦ Elo
quence has been defined to be the art of persuasion. If it includes
persuasion by convincing, Mr. Madison was the most eloquent man I
ever heard." Rives' Madison, II, 612, note. As an instance of the
courtesy of Mr. Madison, while conversing on a very irritating theme
with the late Lord Jeffery, who visited the United States in 1813, see
Lord Cockburn's Life of Jeffery, I, 179.

98 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
its own intrinsic worth. The same sense of propriety which led
him to respect the feelings and motives of others, impelled him
to resent with stern severity any attack upon his own ; and on
two occasions during the session, when he thought a reflection
was cast upon him, he demanded reparation in a tone that men
aced an immediate call to the field. On the present occasion he
saw that the utmost discretion was indispensable, if any conclu
sive and really valuable conquest was to be won by the friends of
the Constitution. He could not know that the Constitution
would be carried at all ; and he knew that, if it was, it would be
carried in opposition to the wishes of some of the ablest and
wisest men of that age — men to whom, for more than twenty
years, Virginia had looked for guidance in war and in peace, and
who, if they were not sustained by a large raajority of the peo
ple, held in their keeping the keys of the General Assembly. He
saw that, if a triumph worth enjoying was to be attained by his
friends, it was to be accomplished by concUiation and forbear
ance, not by intimidation or by obloquy ; and instead of imita
ting his friend Randolph, who could not repress a spirit of sar
casm and defiance in answering the purely political interroga
tories of Henry, he addressed himself to the arguments of Mason
with the blandness with which one friend in private life would
seek to reraove the objections of another. He said "it would
give him great pleasure to concur with his honorable colleague
on any conciliating plan. The clause to which he alludes is only
explanatory of the proportion which representation and taxation
shall respectively bear to one another. The power of laying di
rect taxes will be more properly discussed when we come to that
part of the Constitution which rests that power in Congress. At
present I must endeavor to reconcile our proceedings to the
resolution we have taken by postponing the examination of this
power till we come properly to it. With respect to converting
the Confederation to a coraplete consolidation, I think no such
consequence will foUow from the Constitution ; and that with
raore attention the gendeman will see that he is mistaken ; and,
with respect to the number of representatives, I reconcile it to
my mind, when I consider it may be increased to the proportion
fixed ; and that, as it may be so increased, it shall, because it is
the interest of those who alone can prevent it, who are our rep
resentatives, and who depend on their good behavior for re-elec-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 69
tion. Let me ob.serve also that, as far as the number of repre
sentatives may seem to be inadequate to discharge their duty,
they wiU have sufficient information frora the laws of particular
States, from the State legislatures, frora their own experience,
and frora a great number of individuals ; and as to our security
against them, I conceive that the general limitation of their pow
ers, and the general watchfulness of the States, will be a sufficient
guard. As it is now late, I shall defer any further investigation
till a more convenient time."
When he ended, the House rose, and Madison hastened to his
solitary room at the Swan, and wrote to Washington that Ran-
-¦ dolph had thrown hiraself fully in the Federal scale ; that Henry
and Mason had made a lame figure, and appeared to take dif
ferent and awkward grounds ; that the Federalists were elated
at their present prospects ; that he could not speak certainly of
the result ; that Kentucky was extremely tainted, and was sup
posed to be adverse ; and that every kind of address was going
on privately to work on the local interests and prejudices of that
and other quarters.'"
"" Madison to Washington, June 4, 1788, Writings of Washington, IX,
370, note. Washington received the earliest intelligence of the pro
ceedings ofthe Convention from his friends in the body, and commu
nicated freely his advices to his distant correspondents. As a specimen
of his reporting at second hand, I annex his letter to John Jay, dated
June 8, 1788 (Ibid., 373), in which he gives the proceedings to the close
of this day's session : " On the day appointed for the meeting of the
Convention, a large proportion of the members assembled, and unani
mously placed Mr. Pendleton in the chair. Having on that and the
subsequent day chosen the rest of the officers, and fixed upon the
mode of conducting the business, it was moved by some one of those
opposed to the Constitution to debate the whole by paragraphs, with
out taking any question until the investigation should be completed.
This was as unexpected as acceptable to the Federalists, and their
hearty acquiescence seems to have somewhat startled the opposite
party, for fear they had committed themselves.
" Mr. Nicholas opened the business by very ably advocating the sys
tem of representation. Mr. Henry, in answer, went more vaguely into
the discu.ssion of the Constitution, intimating that the Federal Conven
tion had exceeded its powers, and that we had been and might be
happy under the old Confederation with a few alterations. This called
up Governor Randolph, who is reported to have spoken with great
pathos in reply, and who declared that, since so many of the States had

100 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
Nor was Madison the only correspondent of Washington in
the Convention. There was a young man, who had just reached
his thirtieth year, who had been educated at William and Mary,
had made a short tour in the Revolution, and, going to Phila
delphia, had studied law under Wilson ; and who, having setded
in Richmond, devoted himself to his profession, and published
two volumes of reports, which still preserve his narae in asso
ciation with his native State. He was destined to distinction in
after life. He was the nephew of Washington, bore that hon
ored name, became the heir of Mount Vernon, and for nearly the
third of a century after his illustrious uncle had descended to the
tomb held a seat in thp Suprerae Court created by the Consd
tution, the fate of which he was about to decide. It was from this
young man, from Madison, and from other friends, that Wash
ington received as regular reports of the proceedings of the
Convention as the postal facilities of that day would convey ; and
he was thus enabled to keep his friends in other States well
instructed in the progress of that great debate, which he re-
adopted the proposed Constitution, he considered the sense of America
to be already taken, and that he should give his vote in favor of it
without insisting previously upon amendments. Mr. Mason rose in
opposition, and Mr. Madison reserved himself to obviate the objections
of Mr. Henry and Colonel Mason the next day. Thus the matter rested
when the last accounts gave way.
" Upon the whole, the following inferences seem to have been drawn :
That Mr. Randolph's declaration will have considerable effect with
those who had hitherto been wavering ; that Mr. Henry and Colonel
Mason took different and awkward ground, and by no means equaled
the public expectations in their speeches ; that the former has receded
somewhat from his violent measures to coalesce with the latter ; and
that the leaders of the opposition appear rather chagrined, and hardly
to be decided as to their mode of opposition
"The sanguine friends of the Constitution counted upon a majority
of twenty at their first meeting, which number, they imagine, will be
greatly increased ; while those equally strong in their wishes, but
more temperate in their habits of thinking, speak less confidently of
the greatness of the majority, and express apprehension of the acts
that may yet be practiced to excite alarms with the members from the
Western District (Kentucky)." It is much to be regretted that Mr.
Sparks did not publish all the letters received by Washington during
the session of the Convention. In the absence of the newspapers,
which seem to have been all lost, they would have been important in
many respects.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 101
garded with an interest not less intense than that with which he
had watched the tide of battle or the issue of a campaign.
The morning of Thursday, the fifth day of June, witnessed a
dense crowd in the New Acaderay. It was expected that Madi
son would reply to Henry and Mason ; and that Henry and
Mason, unrestrained by the order of discussion, would review
the Constitution at large. Sorae business appertaining to con
tested elections was soon despatched; and Pendleton, having
called Wythe to the chair, was helped to a seat in the body of
the house. There was a pause, for the courtesies of parliament
were strictly observed, and Madison was entitled to the floor.
But he was nowhere to be seen. It was whispered that he had
been taken suddenly Ul, and was confined to his room. Every
eye was then turned to Henry and Mason, when, to the amaze
raent of all, Pendleton was seen to make an effort to rise, and,
supported on crutches, addressed the chair. Those who forty
years later, in the Convention of 1829 beheld Mr. Madison, in
the midst of an excited discussion rise frora his seat, and pro
ceed to make a speech, and can recall the confusion produced
by the members hastening from their seats to gather around
hira, or leaping on the benches in the hope of seeing, if they
could not hear, what was passing before them, may forra sorae
conception of the interest so suddenly excited by the appearance
of Pendleton on the floor with a view of making a regular
speech. He had been for the third of a century eminent for
skill in debate, and his fame had become a matter of history ;
and he had never before been in a body the discussions of which
were better adapted to the display of his extraordinary talents ;
but he was so far advanced in life, so crippled by his hurt, and
so long absent from public bodies and unused to debate, it was
not expected that he would be able to do more than to speak to
some point of order or to give his vote. He soon, however,
gave a remarkable proof that fine powers kept in full employ
ment do not sensibly decay with time, and that he only wanted
physical strength to take the lead out of the hands of the prom
ising statesmen who had been born and had grown up since he
first entered a deliberative assembly. It is said that some of the
oldest members,'" as they looked at the feeble old man on his
'" In the Convention of 1829, when Mr. Monroe was conducted to the
chair by Mr. Madison and Chief Justice Marshall, several members

102 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
feet, and at his ancient compeer Wythe leaning forward in the
chair to catch the tones of a voice which for the past thirty years
he had heard with various emotions, were affected to tears. But
there was no snivelling or passion in Pendleton himself He
had resolved to refute the arguments urged by Henry the day
before, and he performed his task as thoroughly and as deUb
erately, and very much in the same way, as he would deliver an
opinion upon the bench. On its face the speech seems conclu
sive ; for, as like Nicholas, he was purely arguraentative, and, as
he dealt only with special objections, his words are reported with
a force and connection which are altogether wanting in the
speeches of Henry and Randolph.
He met the objection of Henry, that the General Convention
had exceeded its powers in substituting an entirely new system
in the place of the Confederation which they were required to
amend, in the following raanner : " But the power of the Con
vention is doubted. What is the power ? To propose, and not
to determine. This power of proposing is very broad ; it ex
tended to remove all defects in government. The members of
that Convention were to consider all the defects in our general
government; they were not confined to any particular plan.
Were they deceived ? This is the proper question here. Sup
pose the paper on your table dropped from one of the planets;
the people found it, and sent us here to consider whether it is
proper for their adoption. Must we not obey them ? Then the
question must be between this Governraent and the Confedera
tion. The latter is no government at all. It has been said that
it carried us through a dangerous war to a happy issue. Not

were seen to weep. There are several points of resemblance in the
incidents of the two bodies. Pendleton, speaking on his crutches,
recalls William B. Giles, who had broken a leg by a similar accident,
[his descendants say that he was disabled by rheumatism— Ed.] and was
only a year or two younger than Pendleton. The change in the
opinions of Edmund Randolph has its counterpart in the change attribu
ted to Chapman Johnson ; and the collision between Patrick Henry and
Edmund Randolph was repeated in that between Chapman Johnson
and John Randolph. The election of Pendleton instead of Wythe,
who was the more popular of the two, is reflected in the election of
Monroe instead of Madison, who was universally fixed upon both in
and out of the Convention as its presiding officer, and who alone could
have defeated his election, which he did by instandy rising when the
body was called to order and nominating Mr. Monroe.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 103
that Confederation, but common danger and the spirit of Amer
ica were the bonds of our union. Union and unanimity, and not
that insignificant paper, carried us through that dangerous war.
'United we stand; divided we fall,' echoed and re-echoed
through America, from Congress to the drunken carpenter, was
effectual, and procured the end of our wishes, though now forgot
by gentlemen, if such there be, who incline to let go this strong
hold to catch at feathers — for such all substituted projects may
prove." He also met the objection of Henry, to the words in the pre
amble of the Constitution, " We, the people," in this wise : "An
objection is made to the forra. The expression, ' We, the peo
ple,' is thought improper. Permit me to ask the gentleman who
made this objection, who but the people can delegate powers ?
Who but the people have a right to forra government? The
expression is a common one, and a favorite one with me. The
representatives of the people, by their authority, is a mode
wholly inessential. If the objection be that the union ought to
be not of the people, but ofthe State Governments, then I think
the choice of the former very happy and proper. What have
the Slate Governments to do with it ? Were they to determine,
the people would not, in that case, be the judges upon what
terras it was adopted."
In allusion to the fears expressed by Henry, of the loss of lib
erty under a particular forra of Government, he thus expressed
his views of the nature of Government, and the raode of relief i-n
the event of maladministration : " Happiness and security can
not be attained without Government. What was it that brought
us from a state of nature to society but to secure happiness ?
Personify Government ; apply to it as to a friend to assist you,
and it will grant your request. This is the only Government
founded on real corapact. There is no quarrel between Govern
ment and Liberty ; the former is the shield and protector of the
latter. The war is between Governraent and licentiousness, fac
tion, turbulence, and other violations of the rule of society to
preserve Uberty. Where is the cause of alarra ? We, the peo
ple, possessing all power, forra a Government such as we think
will secure happiness ; and suppose in adopting this plan we
shall be mistaken in the end, where is the cause of alarm on that
quarter? In the sarae plan we point out an easy and quiet

104 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
method of reforming what may be found amiss. No; but say,
gentieraen, we have put the introduction of that raethod in the
hands of our servants, who will interrupt it from raotives of self-
interest. What then ? We will resist, did my friend say, con
veying an idea of force? Who shaU dare to resist the people?
No ; we will assemble in Convention, wholly recall our dele
gated powers,^" or reform them so as to prevent such an abuse;
and punish those servants who have perverted powers designed
for our happiness to their own emolument. We should be ex
treraely cautious not to be drawn into dispute with regular Gov
ernment by faction and turbulence, its natural enemies. Here,
then, there is no cause of alarra on this side ; but on the other
side, rejecting of Government and dissolving of the Union, pro
duce confusion and despotism."
Before taking his seat, he said he was of no party, nor actu
ated by any influence but the true interest and real happiness of
those whom he represented ; that his age and situation, he trusted,
would sufficiently demonstrate the truth of his assertion, and that
he was perfectly satisfied with this part of the systera.
This was a characteristic effort of the venerable President.
Meagre as the report is, we know from the report itself, as well
as from tradition, that it was able and effective ; and it displays
not only the skill of the lawyer, but that familiarity with public
bodies which places a speaker abreast of his audience, and en
ables a wary debater to strike the level of the general mind. As
far as Pendleton saw — and on stricdy legal questions he saw all
the way — no man saw more clearly ; but his range of political
vision was limited ; and his speech is the speech rather of a great
lawyer than of a great statesman. While he affirmed in the
strongest manner the right of the people of Virginia, in Conven-
"'^ This opinion, which at that day was deemed a truism, let it be re
membered, was uttered by an old man verging to seventy, who had
been the leader of the conservative party of the Colony and of the
Commonwealth for forty years. If such a man so thought, what might
be expected from the younger members, three-fourths of whom had
actually drawn the sword, and one-fourth of whora had held the high
est civil offices, in the great Rebellion of 1776? When Henry touched
upon this point in his reply to Pendleton, he admitted it, of course,
urged with that sound, practical sense which was his polar star in poli
tics, that, if the power of the purse and the sword were surrendered,
the State would have no power to enforce its action.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 105
tion assembled, to recall their delegated powers at will, he did
not see, or failed to recognize, the distinction between the people
of the United States and the States so pointedly drawn by Henry,
and the bounden duty of representatives charged with a public
trust of performing it according to the letter of their instructions
and the obvious wishes of their constituents. He did not see
that the example of such a body as the General Federal Con
vention, at so early a period in the history of free systems, if
unchecked and unconderaned, would take away from posterity
all hope of a limited Convention, and that, when a Convention is
called to amend a specific system, it may destroy that systera en
tirely, and introduce even a monarchy in its stead, and be free
from the blame or censure of those whom they have betrayed.
It is not enough to say that the people may adopt or reject the
new scherae at pleasure. That scheme, ushered under the sanc
tion of able and honorable raen, and sustained by august names
and an extrinsic authority, is a power in itself ; and it is unjust
to impose upon the people the ri.sk of a battle which they did
not seek, and which, by the intrigues, of a wealthy and unscru
pulous minority, they may lose.
We may well imagine the feelings with which Henry listened
to this sophistical, though apparently conclusive, answer to his
speech of the previous day. In all the great conjunctures of our
history, in which he had borne a conspicuous part, he had been
opposed by Pendleton. In the House of Burgesses, in the de
bate on his own resolutions against the Stamp Act; and on the
bill separating the office of treasurer from that of the speaker,
the success of which had been hailed as a triumph by the peo
ple ; on the resolutions of the March Convention of 1775, put
ting the Colony into a posture of defence ; and on nearly all the
dividing questions in the Conventions and in the House of Dele-
getes, that old raan, then in the meridian of his strength, and
now in his decline, had opposed him with untiring zeal, and
made victory itself little raore than a drawn battle. There were
other recollections which raight have flashed across the raind of
the husband and the father. When, young and poorly clad, and
ruined in fortune, with a wife and children looking to him for
daily bread, he had ventured, under the unconscious impulse,
perhaps, of that genius which was in a few short years to invest
his humble name and the name of his country with unfading lus-

106 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
tro, as a last resort to seek a license to practice law, with the
hope of gathering, in the suburbs of a proud profession, a scanty
support for his family, he had applied to Pendleton for his sig
nature, and had been denied so hurable a boon — a boon which,
though refused by a man who, like himself, had sprung from the
people, was proraptly granted by the generous Randolphs, whose
blood could be traced in the veins of raen whose career in British
annals was to be measured by centuries.
Therefore, the cause which Henry had upheld was successful.
Was his star to decline uow wheii he believed that he was en
gaged in a cause in comparison with which his other contests
seemed unimportant, and when the liberties of his country were
at stake ? Some such thoughts may have occurred to him as he
rose to make one of the greatest exhibitions of his genius which
his compeers had ever witnessed, and which, though in a muti
lated form, has come down to us in the pages of Robertson.
He was anticipated, however, by Henry Lee, who, rising near
the chairman, caught his eye, and proceeded to address the
House. This remarkable young man, now in his thirty-second
year, was excelled by none of his contemporaries, with the ex
ception of Hamilton, who was his junior by a single year, if
indeed excelled by him, in the display from the beginning to the
close of the war of the highest qualities in the field, and in his
subsequent position in the legislature of his native State and in
the Congress.'" His brilliant achievements in war had con
ferred upon a patronymic known for more than a hundred years
in the councils of the Colony a fresh and peculiar honor, the
splendor of which was rather enhanced than diminished by the
exhibition of those eminent endowments which his kinsmen
during the Revolution had exerted in civil life. He had taken
his degree in the college of New jersev in 1773, when he had
reached his seventeenth year, entering that institution as Madi
son was about to leave it, and received the instruction of Wither
spoon, whose distinctive praise it was not only to have signed
with his own hand the Declaration of Independence, but to have
trained a band of young men who nobly sustained that instru-

'" It may be worth noting that our fathers always spoke of the Con
gress as we speak of the Congress of Verona, or Vienna, a fact not
without political significance.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 107
ment in the field and in the cabinet, and whose genius ruled in
the deliberations of the Union from the end of the war untU
nearly the raiddle of the present century. In 1776, he was
elected an ensign in one of the Virginia regiments, and was soon
promoted by Governor Henry to a troop of horse ; and having
soon been transferred to the North, developed qualities which
attracted the commander-in-chief who in due time despatched
him with a separate command to the South. The skill, gallantry
and success with which he led his corps araid the complicated
erabarrassraents of a long and predatory war in a sickly and
inhospitable country, have not only made his own name immor
tal, but invested the name of his legion with the dignity of a
household word of the Revolution. His soldiers were hailed
with the most flattering name. The legion was called the right
hand of Greene. It was the eye of the army of the South. On
that great occasion, when, on the evacuation of Charleston by
the British, whose outstretched canvas, spread upon innumerable
spars, was seen in the distant offing seeking the Atlantic, Lee,
at the head of his gallant corps, constituting, as a mark of valor,
the van of the army of Greene, was the first to enter the lovely
city of the South."* His reputation, which had culminated
during his Southern campaigns, was regarded as the property of
Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, as well as of Vir
ginia; and each of those States would have been proud to offer
him, in comraon with his illustrious coraraander, a home within
her territory. Returning to his patrimonial estate, he entered
the General Assembly, and in 1785 he was elected a member of
the Congress of the Confederation, and was present during the
discussion of the most momentous Southern question that oc
curred in that body. Of his course on that occasion we shall
treat in another place. His delight, however, was in arms ; and
when the French Revolution broke odt, and France, our old
ally, was beset by the combined powers of Europe, he wished to
offer his sword to the young republic, but was dissuaded frora
his purpose by his friends. As a soldier, he enjoyed the unlim-
ted confidence, respect and esteem of Washington, and he recip
rocated the attachment with an affection which was perceptible
in his entire political career. When, the death of his illustrious
"* Written in 1857. 1866— alas I

108 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
friend was announced to Congress, the resolutions which were
adopted by the body, though offered by the hand of another,
were frora his pen ; and in the presence of both houses he pro
nounced the funeral oration of the man whom he justly caUed
"first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-
citizens." Ten years later he won a victory, not achieved in the
field over prostrate foes, but in the closet— the fairest and most
unfading of all his honors— in recording with uncommon grace
the events of the war in the South. Writing in the shadows of
a prison, within the bounds of which he had been comraitted for
debt, oppressed with pecuniary responsibilities which he was
unable to raeet, anxious to provide for approaching old age, and
distant from those records without which an accurate and full
history could not be written,"^ we know what his indomitable
spirit achieved ; but what he would have done in the enjoyment
of honorable repose, surrounded by admiring friends, in close
communion with his surviving compeers, whose recollections
might have corrected and refreshed his own, and with the affec
tionate and approving eye of the South watching and cheering
him in the progress of the history of the war of her deliverance,
what animated scenes he would have portrayed, now vanished
forever, how many heroic deeds he would have recorded, never
to be heard of more, we can only deplore that now we can never
know. The deep gloom of his latter life was in sad contrast with
the splendor of its dawn. The brutal treatment which he re
ceived in the city of Baltimore frora a ruthless banditti on an
occasion which involved no personal interest ofhis own, but into
which he was led by the generous impulse of friendship, while
it inflicted bodily wounds, from the effects of which he never
recovered, was yet more revolting to the sensibilities of a gen
tleraan, a scholar, a soldier, and a patriot; and after a brief
sojourn in the West Indies, whither he had gone in the vain
hope of restoring his shattered systera, calling at the residence
of his old commander in the Southern war, who had departed
before him, but whose hospitable raansion was yet renowned for
the cordiality of that welcome which his daughter extended to
the friends of her honored sire, he there breathed his last. A
"^ If he could have consulted Washington's letters and papers, and
especially his own letters in the cabinet of Mount Vernon, he would
have been saved from some great mistakes.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 109
gleam of that raiUtary pageantry so familiar to his early years
shone at his grave. His pall, borne by six officers of the army
and navy along the line of soldiers and saUors who were then
engaged in the public service at St. Mary's, was conveyed to the
place of interment, and was buried with the honors of war.""
But M^hen he now rose in the vigor of manhood to reply to
Henry, the spectator would easily believe that the highest honors
of the new system, in the event of its adoption, would be within
his reach. From his chUdhood a noble ambition animated his
bosom. He knew that his ancestors had time immemorial filled
many prominent posts in the Colony, and had heard the tradi
tion that the house which sheltered him in his infancy, and which,
abounding in historic associations, is still to be seen by the trav
eller as he winds his solitary way through the county of West
moreland, had been reared by the munificence of a British queen.
He had already secured an honorable fame in the field ; and in
the Congress of the Confederation he had gained some experi
ence in civil affairs. Looking forward with the prophetic cast
of genius, he clearly saw that there were questions in our civil
affairs which in a few years must be decided, if decided at all,
by the sword, and that a vigorous and self-sustaining govern
ment, by whatever name it raight be called, was an element
almost indispensable to complete success. It was impossible
that a large and warlike population of savages, hovering like
vultures on three sides of the Confederacy, daily excited by the
aggressive progress of the white settler, and fostered by the wiles
"" General Lee died at Dungeness House, the property ofthe daugh
ter of General Nathaniel Greene, on the evening of the 25th of March,
1818. When he arrived there frora the West Indies, he brought with
him a number of papers in barrels, and it was thought that he was
engaged in writing a history of the United States. If these papers
could be found, they might throw light on several subjects of the war
of the Revolution. See in the Appendix an extract from an interesting
letter of a lady giving an account of the funeral of the General, at
which she was present. There is no separate memoir of Lee that I
know of; but the reader will find in the latest edition of the letter of
his son Henry on Mr. Jefferson's books some authentic details, as also
in a memoir prefixed to an edition of Lee's Memoirs, which was writ
ten by his son Charles C. Lee, Esq. [There is a "Life of General Henry
Lee " prefixed tothe third edition of his Memoirs of the War, Svo, 1870.
Edited ostensibly by his illustrious son, Robert E. Lee — Ed.]

110 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
of a great railitary nation which held our frontier posts in the
face of a solemn treaty, could long be kept down, and that he
might gather new laurels in a familiar sphere.'" And if peace,
contrary to present appearances, should prevail, there were pros
pects of a civil career under the new system such as the old
Confederation, however modified, was not likely to afford. A
long and prosperous course seemed to lie before him ; and, as he
was a scholar as well as a politician, there was a vision of a se
rene and honored old age, in which he might imitate Xenophon
an Caesar, and record his history for the eye of future ages.
His external appearance was in unison with his inteUectual
character. His stature approached six feet ; the expression of
his handsome face was bland and captivating ; his voice, which
had been trained in war, and had often been heard in battle amid
the clangor of charging horseraen, was full and clear, and evi
dently modulated in the closet, made a raost favorable irapres
sion upon his audiences. But he was a partisan in the Senate as
well as in the carap ; and, as he knew the result of a panic
among soldiers in the beginning of a fight, and saw the effect of
Henry's first speech on the House, he sought to rally the mem
bers by a bold attack upon his most formidable opponent. With
this view he assailed Henry with a vehemence which few of his
seniors would have dared to use : " I feel every power of my
raind," he said, "'raoved by the language of the honorable gen
deman yesterday. The eclat and brUliancy which have distin
guished that gentleman, the honors by which he has been digni
fied, and the talents which he has so often displayed, have
attracted ray respect and attention. On so important an occa
sion, and before so respectable a body, I expected a new display
of his powers of oratory ; but, instead of proceeding to investi
gate the merits of the new plan of government, the worthy
character informed us of horrors which he felt, of apprehensions
in his mind, which made him tremblingly fearful of the fate of
the Commonwealth. Was it proper, Mr. Chairman, to appea
to the fear of this House ? I trust that he is come to judge, and
not to alarm. I trust that he, and every other gentleraan in this
'" The fear of Indian hostilities controlled the vote of the Valley of
Virginia in favor of the Constitudon ; and the fate of Harman and St.
Clair, and the battles of Wayne, very soon justified these apprehen
sions.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. Ill
house, coraes with a firra resolution coolly and calmly to exam
ine, and fairly and impartially to deterraine. He was pleased to
pass an eulogiura on that character who is the pride of peace
and the support of war, and declared that, even from him, he
would require the reason of proposing such a system. I cannot
see the propriety of mentioning that illustrious character on this
occasion ; we must all be fully impressed with a conviction of his
extreme rectitude of conduct. But, sir, this system is to be ex
amined on its own merits. He then adverted to the style of the
governraent, and asked what authority they had to use the ex
pression 'We, the people' instead of ' We, the States.' This
expression was introduced into that paper with great propriety ;
this system is submitted to the people for their consideration,
because on them it is to operate if adopted. It is not binding
upon the people until it becomes their act. It is now submitted
to the people of Virginia. If we do not adopt it, it will always
be null and void to us. Suppose it was found proper for our
adoption, in becoming the government of the people of Virginia,
by what style should it be done ? Ought we not to raake use of
the name ofthe people? No other style would be proper."
He then spoke of the characters ofthe men who framed the Con
stitution, and continued: "This question was inapplicable,
strange, and unexpected ; it was a more proper inquiry whether
such evils existed as rendered necessary a change of govern
ment. This necessity is evidenced by the concurrent testimony
of alraost aU Araerica. The legislative acts of different States
avow it. It is acknowledged by the acts of this State ; under
such an act we are here now assembled. If reference to the
Acts of Assembly will not sufficiently convince him of this ne
cessity, let him go to our seaports — let him see our commerce
languishing — not an Araerican bottora to be seen. Let him ask
the price of land and of produce in different parts of the coun
try ; to what shall we ascribe the very low prices of these ? To
what cause are we to attribute the decrease of population and
industry ?'" and the impossibility of employing our tradesmen
'" It is to be regretted that the speaker did not specify some fact in
proof of his assertions. Even Edmund Randolph spoke of the popu
lation flowing into Virginia. The truth is that Lee represented the
landed interest of a particular section which had lost slaves, carried off
by the enemy, and all its investments in bonds and securities, which

112 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
and raechanics ? To what cause will the gendeman impute these
and a thousand other misfortunes our people labor under?
These, sir, are owing to the imbecility of the Confederation — to
that defective system which never can raake us happy at home
nor respectable abroad. The gentleman sate down as he began,
leaving us to ruminate on the horrors which he opened with.
Although I could trust to the argument of the gentlemen who
spoke yesterday in favor of the plan, permit me to make one
observation on the weight of our representatives in the Govern
ment. If the House of Commons in England, possessing less
power, are now able to withstand the power of the Crown ; if
that House of Commons, which has been undermined by cor
ruption in every age, with far less power than our representatives
posses, is still able to contend witb the executive of that country,
what danger have we to fear that our representatives cannot suc
cessfully oppose the encroachments of the other branches of the
Government? Let it be remembered that in the year 1782 the
East India bill was brought into the House of Commons.
Although the members of that House are only elected in part
by the landed interest, that bill was carried in the House by a
majority of one hundred and thirty, and the king was obliged to
dissolve the ParUament to prevent its effect. If then, the House
of Commons was so powerful, no danger can be apprehended
that our House of Representatives is not amply able to protect
our liberties. I trust that this representation is sufficient to se
cure our happiness, and that we may fairly congratulate our
selves on the superiority of our Government to that I just
referred to."
had been paid off in depreciated currency during the war. As for the
price of lands, those in Westmoreland and that section had been culti
vated for raore than a century without domestic or foreign manures,
and all the lands ofthe Piedmont country, to say nothing of Kentucky,
could be purchased on moderate terms, at a time when the money
flowing in from abroad, to fill the vacuum made by the Revolution, had
only begun to diffuse itself through the ordinary channels of trade.
The lands in Westmoreland, even, would have brought as good prices
at that time as they would have done when the new governraent had
been in operation half a century. The great and innumerable facts of
a prosperous period gradually succeeding a state of depression pass
unheeded by a conimon observer ; while some specific grievance,
which, when properly explained, is no grievance at all, looms in gigan
tic proportions.

VIRGINIA- CONVENTION OF 1 788. 113
Henry, who was always placable, and showed through a long
life an indisposition to engage in personal controversies, and
who was well aware that clever young men, speaking under the
excitement of the floor, were prone to utter what in their calmer
moraents they would be the first to condemn, now rose, and after
a slight recognition of the compliment which Lee paid to his
genius, passed at once to the discussion of his subject : " I am not
fl free from suspicion," he said; " I ara apt to entertain doubts. I
rose yesterday to ask a question which arose in ray mind.
When I asked that question, I thought the meaning of my inter
rogation obvious ; the fate of this question and America may
depend on this. Have they said, ' We, the States ' ? Have
they raade a proposal of a corapact between States? If they
had, this would be a confederation. It is otherwise most clearly
a consolidated government. The question turns, sir, on that
poor Uttle thing — the expression, ' We, the people,' instead of
the States of Araerica. I need not take much pains to show that
the principles of this systera are extreraely pernicious, impolitic,
and dangerous. Is this a monarchy like England — a compact
between prince and people, with checks on the former to secure
the Uberty of the latter ? Is this a confederacy like Holland, an
association of a number of independent States, each of which
retains its individual sovereignty ? It is not a democracy,
wherein the people retain all their rights securely. Had these
principles been adhered to, we should not have been brought to
this alarming transition from a confederacy to ^ consohdated
government. We have no detail of those great considerations,
which, in my opinion, ought to have abounded, before we should
recur to a government of this kind. Here is a resolution as
radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It is as
radical, if in this transition our rights and privileges are endan
gered and the sovereignty of the States be relinquished ; and
cannot we see that this is actually the case ? The rights of con
science, trial by jury, liberty of the press, all your imraunities
and franchises, all pretensions to huraan rights and privUeges,
are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this change so loudly talked
of by sorae, and inconsiderately by others. Is this tame relin
quishment of right worthy of freemen? Is it worthy of that
manly fortitude that ought to characterize republicans ?
"It is said that eight States have adopted this plan. I declare

114 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
that, if twelve States and a half had adopted it, I would with manly
firmness, and in spite of an erring worid, reject it. You are not
to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are
to become a great and powerful people ; but how your liberties
can be secured, for liberty ought to be the direct end of your
1 government. Having premised these things, I shall, with the
I aid of my judgment and information, which, I confess, are not
extensive, go into the discussion of this system raore rainutely.
Is it necessary for your liberty that you should abandon those
great rights by the adoption of this- systera ? Is the relinquish
ment of trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for
your liberty ? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights
tend to the security of your liberty ? Liberty — the greatest of
all earthly blessings — give us that precious jewel, and you may
take everything else. But I am fearful that I have lived long
enough to become an old-fashioned fellow. Perhaps an invinci
ble attachment to the dearest rights of man may in these refined
and enlightened days be deemed old-fashioned ; if so, I am con
tented to be so. I say the time has been wheri every pulse of
my heart beat for American liberty, and which, I beUeve, had a
counter-part in the breast of every Araerican. But suspicions
have gone forth — suspicions of ray integrity— puslicly reputed
that ray professions are not real.'" Twenty-three years ago, was
I supposed to be a traitor to ray country ? I wasjthen said to
be a bane of sedition, because I supported the rights of my
country." " We have come hither to preserve the poor Commonwealth of
Virginia, jf it can possibly be done ; soraething must be done to
preserve your liberty and raine. The Confederation — this same
despised government — merits in my opinion th6 highest en
comium. It carried us through a long and dangerous war. It
'" Even Madison, in a letter to Edmund Randolph, dated New York,
January 10, 1788, talks of Henry's "real designs"; and Washington,
in the heat of the moment, wrote about Henry and Mason — the
Gamaliels at whose feet he sate for twenty years — in a manner that be
trayed more passion than judgment. Great as were the merits of
Washington and Madison, and none rejoices in them more than I do,
it is simply stating a historical fact in saying that in 17S8 neither of
them stood in the estimation of the Virginia of that day on the same
platform with Patrick Henry and George Mason as a statesman.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 115
rendered us victorious in that bloody conflict with a powerful
nation. It has secured us a territory greater than any European
monarch possesses. And shall a government which has been
thus strong and vigorous be accused of imbecility and abandoned
for want of energy ? Consider what you are about to do before
you part with this government. Take longer time in reckoning
things. Revolutions like this have happened in almost every
country in Europe ; similar examples are to be found in ancient
Greece and ancient Rome ; instances of the people losing their
Uberty by their own carelessness and the ambition of a few."
After animadverting at length on the inadequate representa
tion in the House of Representatives, he then aimed his attacks at
the system in general. " In some parts of the plan before you,"
he said, "the great rights of freemen are endangered; in other
parts absolutely taken away. How does your trial by jury stand?
In civil cases gone — not sufficiently secured in criminal — this
best privilege is gone ! But we are told that we need not fear,
because those in power, being our representatives, will not abuse
the powers we put into their hands. I am not well versed in
history, but I will submit to your recollection whether liberty
has been destroyed raost often by the licentiousness of the peo
ple or by the tyranny of rulers ? I iraagine, sir, that you will
find the balance on the side of tyranny. Happy will you be, if
you miss the fate of those nations, who, omitting to resist their
oppressors, or negligently suffering their liberty to be wrested
from them, have groaned under intolerable despotisra. Most of
the huraan race are now in this deplorable condition. And those
nations which have gone in search of grandeur, power, and
splendor, thev have also fallen a sacrifice, and been the victiras
of their own folly. While they acquired these visionary bless
ings, they lost their freedom."
" The honorable gentleman who presides (Pendleton) told us
that to prevent abuses in our governraent, we will asserable in
Convention, recall our delegated powers, and punish our servants
for abusing the trust reposed in thera. O ! sir, we should have
fine tiraes indeed, if to punish tyrants it were only sufficient to
asserable the people. Your arms wherewith you could defend
yourselves are gone ! You have no longer an aristocratical, no
longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolu-

116 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
tion in any nation brought about by the punishment of those ii|
\_ power inflicted by those who have no power at all ? "
He then contrasts the security of the State government founded
on the Declaration of Rights with the various provisions of the
P Federal Constitution, and opposes the policy of direct taxation.
"The voice of tradition," he said, "wUl, I trust, inform pos
terity of our struggles for freedom. If our descendants be
worthy of the name of Americans, they will preserve and hand
down to the latest posterity the transactions of the present time ;
and although my exclamations are not worthy the hearing, they
will see that I have done my utraost to preserve their liberty.
For I wiU never give up the power of direct taxation but for a
scourge. I am willing to give it conditionally, that is, after a
non-compliance with requisitions. I will do more, sir, and what
I hope will convince the most skeptical raan that I am a lover of
the American Union ; that, in case Virginia shall not make
punctual payment, the control of our custom-houses and the
whole regulation of our trade shall be given to Congress, and
that Virginia shall depend upon Congress even for passports,
till Virginia shall have paid the last farthing, and furnished the
last soldier. Nay, sir, there is another alternative to which I
would consent ; even that they should strike us out ofthe Union
and take away from us all Federal privileges, till we comply with
Federal requisitions ; but let it depend on our own pleasure to
pay our money in the raost easy raanner for our people. Were
all the States, more terrible than the mother country, to join
against us, I hope Virginia could defend herself ; but, sir, the
I dissolution of the Union is most abhorrent to my raind. The
first thing I have at heart is American liberty ; the second thing
is American union." He then proceeded to show the incom-
patibUity of direct taxation at the same time by the Federal and
State governments, drawing a vivid picture of the malfeasance
of the State sheriffs who acted under the eye of the Assembly,
and of the utter ruin of the people by the combined array of
Federal and State collectors, and closing the part of his speech
with a declaration that "on this subject he should be an infidel
tiU the day of his deadi."
When he had rallied for a moraent, he continued his general
examination of the new plan, opening with that description of

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 117
the Constitution which has been repeated so often since by the
school-boy and the statesman, "This Constitution is said to have
I beautiful features ; but when I come to examine these features,
sir, they appear to me horribly frightful. Among other de
formities it has an awful squinting— it squints towards monarchy.
I And does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true
American ? Your President may easily become king. Your
Senate is so imperfectly constituted that your dearest rights may
be sacrificed by what may be a small minority, and a very small
rainority raay continue forever unchangeably this Government
although horribly defective. Where are your checks in this
Government ? Your strongholds wiU be in the hands of your
enemies. If your American chief be a man of ambition and
abUities, how easy it is for him to render himself absolute !
The army is in his hands, and if he be a man of address, it will
be attached to him ; and it will be a subject of long meditation
with hira to seize the first auspicious raoraent to accoraplish his
designs. And, sir, will the Araerican spirit solely relieve you
when this happens ? I would rather infinitely, and I ara sure
most of this Convention are of the same opinion, have a king,
lords, and coraraons, than a government so replete with insup
portable evils. If we make a king, we may prescribe the rules
by which he shall rule his people, and interpose such checks as
shall prevent him frora infringing them ; but the President in
the field at the head of his army can prescribe the terms on
which he shall reign master so far that it will puzzle any Ameri
can to get his neck from under the galling yoke. I cannot with
patience think of this idea. If ever he violates the laws, one of
two things will happen : he will come at the head ofhis army to
carry every thing before him, or he will give bail to do what
Mr. Chief Justice will order him.'™ If he be guilty, will not the
recollection of his crimes teach him to raake one bold push for
the American throne? WUl not the iraraense difference between
being njaster of everything, and being ignominiously tried and
punished, powerfully excite hira to raake this bold push ? But,
sir, where is the existing force to punish him? Can he not at
'^ This was uttered in the presence of gentlemen, two of whom
afterwards became President of the United States, one of whom be
came Chief Justice, and another of whom became a Justice of the
Supreme Court.

118 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
the head of his army beat down every opposition ? Away with
your President ; we shall have a king. The army will salute
him monarch ; your militia will leave you and assist in making
him king, and fight against you. And what have you to oppose
this force? What will then become of you and your rights?
Will not absolute despotisra ensue?" (Here, says the reporter,
Mr. Henry strongly and pathetically expatiated on the proba
bility of the President's enslaving Araerica, and the horrid con-
; sequences that must result).
He then passed on to the subject of the elections under the
Constitution, which he discussed at length ; and when he had
exarained the argument of Lee, derived from the composition of
the House of Commons, apologized for the time he had con
sumed and for his departure from the order adopted by the Con
vention, and indulged the hope that the House would aUow him
the privilege of again addressing it, ending with the prayer,
" may you be fully apprized of the dangers of the new plan of
government, not by fatal experience, but by some abler advo
cate than I."
The speech of Henry lasted more than three hours, and was
not only the longest he ever made, but the most eloquent ever
pronounced in public bodies.'" Two well-authenticated instances
of its effect have come down to us. General Thomas Posey was
an officer of distinction in the army of the Revolution, was sub
sequently second in comraand under Wayne in the successful
'" I am inclined to think that this was the longest speech made by
Henry during the session. Judge Curtis (History ofthe Constitution,
&c,. II, 558, note) reports a newspaper rumor that Henry spoke on
some one occasion seven hours, and thinks it was when this speech was
delivered. Pendleton and Lee, the only speakers that day, did not
consume much of the morning before Henry began and spoke till the
adjournment. We know that the speech of Randolph, delivered in
reply the following day consumed two hours and a half, and that Madi
son and George Nicholas made long and elaborate speeches after him.
In the debates, the speech of Randolph occupies more space than the
speech of Henry, but in the case of the latter, we have the confession
of the reporter that he could not follow him in his pathetic appeals.
Tradition affirms that if Henry had offered at the close of his speech
a motion of indefinite postponement ofthe Constitution, it would have
succeeded by a considerable majority. The testimony of General
Posey would lead us to think so.

VIRGINIA CONVENTlbN OF 1788. 119
Indian campaigns of that general, and was warmly in favor of
the adoption of the Constitution ; yet he declared to a friend that
he was so overpowered by the eloquence of Henry on this occa
sion as to beUeve that the Constitution would, if adopted, be the
ruin of our liberties as certainly as he believed in his own exist
ence; that subsequent reflection reassured his judgment, and
his well considered opinion resumed its place."''' Mr. Best, e^p
intelligent gentleman of Nansemond. who heard tb" f"'"-"'''^ r^"-
scription which Henry gave of the slavery nf the people wroug^it
by a Federal executive at the head of his armed hosts, declared
that so thrilling was the delineation ofthe scen^, " h{^ invnliii;i-
tarily felt his wrists to assure himself that the fetters were not
already pressing his flesh : and that the gallery on which he was
sitting seeraed to becorae as dark as a dungeon '."^^
"~ An incident occurred while Henry was speaking which shows
that the feelings of the husband and father were not wholly lost
in those of the patriot. As his eye ranged over the house, when
in the height of his argument, he caught the face of his son,
whom he had left a few days before in Prince Edward as the pro
tector of his family during his absence, and he knew that some
important domestic event had brought him to Richmond. He
hesitated for a moment, stooped down, and with a full heart
whispered to a friend who was sitting before him: "Dawson, I
see my son in the hall ; take him out." Dawson instantly with
drew with young Henry, and soon returned with the grateful
inteUigence that Mrs. Henry had been safely delivered of a son,
and that mother and child were doing well. That new-born
babe, called from a raaternal ancestor Spotswood, lived to become
familiar with the features of his father's face, and to enjoy his
splendid fame ; and in the quiet burial-ground of Red Hill, at
the mature age of sixty-five, was laid by his side.''*
'" Life of Dr, A. Alexander by his son, page 190.
'^ Letter of Joseph B. Whitehead, Esq., to the author. To save
repetition, the reader will regard all letters, when the name of the per
son to whom they are written is not stated, as addressed to the author.
One evidence of the effect of the speech was seen in the fact that the
following day three of the strongest federalists, Randolph, Madison,
and George Nicholas, the last the most powerful man of the three in
debate at a great crisis, occupied the whole of the session.
'" Henry, on his return home, told this fact to his wife, who told it to
her son John, who told it to me.

120 VIRGINIA c6nvention of 1788.
When Henry finished his speech Edraund Randolph rose to
deprecate the irregular raode of debate and the departure from
the order of the House. He said that if the House proceeded in
that irregular raanner, contrary to its resolution, instead of three
or six weeks, it would take six raonths to decide the question.
He should endeavor to raake the coramittee sensible of the neces
sity of establishing a national Government, and the inefficacy
of the Confederation. He should take the first opportunity of
doing so ; and he raentioned the fact merely to show that he had
not answered the gentleman fully, nor in a general way, yester
day. The House then adjourned.

CHAPTER III.
The effect of Henry's speech both in and out of the House
had been great. It startled the friends of the new systera from
that sense of security in which the more sanguine had indulged ;
and they saw that unless prompt measures were adopted to
counteract the present feeling all hopes of a successful issue
would be vain. Accordingly, on Friday, the sixth day of June,
and the fifth of the session, the federalists summoned to the field
the most able array of talents, which, abounding as they did
in able men, their ranks afforded. It was feared that Henry
might rise to deepen the impression which he had already made ;
for Randolph in his few remarks the previous day had not se
cured the floor, and every effort must be exerted to prevent such
an untoward movement. It was evidently arranged that Ran
dolph should discuss the whole subject in an elaborate speech ;
that Madison, who had been ill, should be on the alert to suc
ceed him ; and should his feeble health prevent hira frora con
suming the entire day, that George Nicholas, who was more
farailiar with large public bodies than either Randolph or Mad
ison, should exhaust the reraainder of the sitting.
When the President called the Convention to order, a debate
arose on the returns of an election case, which was soon dis
patched, and the House resolved itself into coramittee — Wythe
in the chair. As soon as he was fairly seated, Edraund Ran
dolph rose to reply to the speech delivered by Henry. In an
exordium of rare beauty, in which he called himself a child of
the Revolution, he alluded to the early raanifestations of affec
tion to hira by Virginia at a time when, from peculiar circura
stances well known to the House, he needed it raost, and to the
honors which had been bestowed upon hira ; and in which he
declared that it should be the unwearied study of his life to pro-

122 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
mote her happiness, and that in a twelvemonth he should with
draw frora all public eraployraents. Then launching into his
subject, " We are told," he said, " that the report of dangers is
false. The cry of peace, sir, is false ; it is but a sudden calm.
The tempest growls over you. Look around : wheresoever you
look you see danger. When there are so many witnesses in
many parts of Araerica that justice is suffocated, shall peace and
happiness still be said to reign ? Candor requires an undis
guised representation of our situation. Candor deraands a
faithful exposition of facts. Many citizens have found justice
strangled and trampled under foot through the course of juris
prudence in this country. Are those who have debts due them
satisfied with your Government ? Are not creditors wearied
with the tedious procrastination of your legal process? — a pro
cess obscured by legislative mists. Cast your eyes to your sea
ports — see how commerce languishes. This country, so blessed
by nature with every advantage that can render commerce
profitable, through defective legislation is deprived of aU the
benefits and emoluments which she might otherwise reap from
it. We hear many complaints of located lands — a variety of
competitors claiming the same lands under legislative acts ;"*
public faith prostrated, and private confidence destroyed. I
ask you if your laws are reverenced ? In every well-regulated
community the laws command respect. Are yours entitled to
reverence? We not only see violations of the Constitution, but
of national principles, in repeated instances.
" How is the fact ? The history of the violations of the Consti-
tion from the year 1776 to this present time — violations made by
formal acts of the Legislature. Everything has been drawn
within the legislative vortex. There is one example of this vio
lation in Virginia of a most striking and shocking nature — an
exaraple so horrid that if I conceived ray country would pas
sively permit a repetition of it, dear as it is to me, I would seek
means of expatriating myself frora it. A man who was then a
citizen was deprived of his Ufe in the following manner : From
mere reliance on general reports, a gentleman in the House of
Delegates informed that body that a certain man (Josiah Philips)
had comraitted several criraes, and was running at large perpe-
'" A hit at George Mason, who drew the first land law.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 123
trating other criraes. He therefore moved for leave to attaint
hira. He obtained that leave instantly. No sooner did he ob
tain it than he drew from his pocket a bill ready written for that
effect. It was read three times in one day, and carried to the
Senate. I will not say that it passed the same day through the
Senate ; but he was attainted very speedily and precipitately,
without any proof better than vague reports. Without being
confronted with his accusers and witnesses, without the privilege
of calling for evidence in his behalf he was sentenced to death,
and was afterwards actually executed. Was this arbitrary depri
vation of life, the dearest gift of God to raan, consistent with
, the genius of a republican governraent? Is this compatible with
the spirit of freedom ? This, sir, has made the deepest impres
sion on my heart, and I cannot contemplate it wilhout horror. ^'^^

"" The reader must keep in mind that this severe tirade against the
legislation of Virginia was designed by the speaker to reflect partly on
Mason, but especially on Henry, who, throughout the war and until the
session of the Convention, bore a leading part either in the executive
or legislative department of the State. But never was an orator more
unfortunate than Randolph in his selection of an intt^nce of tyranny.
The case of Philips was presented to the Assembly, not by a member,
but by the Governor (Henry), who enclosed the letter of Colonel Wil
son, of Norfolk county, detailing the enormities perpetrated on un
offending and helpless women and children in the county of Princess
Anne by that infamous oudaw. The message of the Governor was re
ferred to a committee of the whole, which reported a resolution at
tainting Philips. A bill was brought in accordingly, was read on three
several days as usual, was passed and sent to the Senate, which adopted
it without amendment. Nor was Philips executed in consequence of
the act of attainder. On the contrary, having been apprehended, he
was indicted for highway robbery by Randolph himself, who was Attor
ney-General at the time, an after a fair trial by a jury was condemned
and executed. Possibly, as Randolph was clerk of the House of Dele
gates (as well as Attorney-General) at the time, he may have reraera
bered that Harrison was speaker of the body at the time, and that
Tyler was one ofthe committe which brought in the bill, both of whom
were members of the present Convention, and were warmly opposed
to the new Constitution. But granting for the sake of argument that
at the most trying period of the Revolution the people of Princess
, Anne, instead of hanging a desperate outlaw to the first tree, sought to
attain their end by an act of attainder, and that the wretch had suffered
accordingly, what does it prove? Siraply that there were occasional
errors in the legislation of the State at a difficult crisis — errors that

124 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
There are still a multiplicity of complaints of the debility of the
laws. Justice in many cases is so unattainable that commerce
may be said in fact to be stopped entirely. There is no peace,
sir, in this land. Can peace exist with injustice, heentiousness,
insecurity and oppression ? These considerations, independent
of many others which I have not yet enumerated, would be a
sufficient reason for the adoption of this Constitution, because it
secures the liberty of the citizen, his person and property, and
will invigorate and restore commerce and industry."
He argued at length to prove that the excessive licentiousness
which has resulted from the relaxation of the laws would be
checked by the new system ; that the danger and impoUcy of
waiting for subsequent amendments were extreme ; that jury
trial was safe or would readily be raade safe ; that the position
.ind the connections of the Swiss Cantons were so diverse from
ours that no argument drawn from thera was applicable to the
present case ; that the extent of a country was not an insuper
able objection to a national governraent ; that the union was
necessary to Virginia from her accessibility by sea, from her
proximity to Maryland and Pennsylvania, which had adopted the
Constitution, from the number of savages on her borders, and
from the presence of the black population. "The day may
come," he said, " when that population may make an impression
upon us. Gentlemen who have long been accustomed to the
conteraplation of the subject, think there is cause of alarm in this
case. The number of those people, compared to that of the
whites, is in an immense proportion. Their number amounts to
two hundred and thirty-six thousand; that of the whites only to
three hundred and fifty-two thousand.'" Will the American

might have occurred under any form of government, and that might
argue an amendment of the State Government, and not of a Confeder
ation. It may not be araiss to say that Randolph was a warm advocate
of a Convention to amend the Constitution of the State.
'*' By the census of 1790, the number of whites in Virginia, including
the district of Kentucky, was 442,115 ; the number of blacks, 293,427;
and the whole population, including all other persons, was 748,308.
Either the figures of Randolph are far below the actual population of
the State in 1788. or the census taken two years later indicates a won
derful increase ; and it is known that the census of 1790 underated our,'
numbers.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 125
spirit so much spoken of, repel an invading eneray or enable you
to obtain an advantageous peace ? Manufactures and raUitary
stores raay afford relief to a country exposed. Have we these
at present? If we shall be separated from the Union, shall our
chance of having these be greater, or will not the want of these
be the raore deplorable ?
He spoke of the debts due to foreign nations — to France,
Spain, England, and Holland — and the abiUty of those powers
to close our ports on our failure to comply with their demands.
"Suppose," he said, "the American spirit in fullest vigor in
Virginia, what mUitary preparations and exertions is she capable
of making? The o'ther States have upwards of three hundred
and thirty thousand men capable of bearing arras. Our railitia
amounts to fifty thousand, or say sixty thousand. In case of an
attack, what defence can we make ? The mUitia of our country
will be wanted for agriculture. Sorae also will be necessary for
raanufactures and those mechanic arts which are necessary for
the aid of the farmer and the planter. If we had raen sufficient
in number to defend ourselves, it could not avail without other
requisites. We raust have a navy, to be supported in time of
peace as well as in war, to guard our coasts and defend us
I against invasion. The maintaining a navy will require money ;
^nd where can we get money for this and other purposes? How
shall we raise it ? Review the enorraity of the debts due by this
country. The amount of debt we owe to the continent for bills
of credit, rating at forty to one, will amount to between six and
seven hundred thousand pounds. ''^^ There is also due the con
tinent the balance of requisitions due by us ; and in addition to
this proportion of the old continental debt, there are the foreign,
domestic, State-military, and loan-office debts ; to which, when
you add the British debt, where is the possibility of finding
money to raise an array or navy ? Review your real ability.
ShaU we recur to loans ? Nothing can be raore irapolitic; they
irapoverish a nation. We, sir, have nothing to repay them ; nor
can we procure them. If the imposts and duties in Virginia,
even on the present footing, be very unproductive and not equal
to our necessity, what would it be if we were separated from the
Union ? Frora the first of September 'to the first of June, the
i»8 Virginia currency; the pound at $3.33}^.

126 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
amount put into the treasury is only fifty-nine thousand pounds,
or a little more.'^" But if srauggling be introduced in conse
quence of high duties, or otherwise, and the Potoraac should be
lost, what hope of getting money from these ? Our commerce
will not be kindly received by foreigners if transacted solely by
ourselves. It is the spirit of commercial nations to engross as
much as possible the carrying trade. This makes it necessary
to defend our commerce ; but how shaU we compass this end ?
England has arisen to the greatest height in modern times by
her navigation act and other excellent regulations. The same
means would produce the same effect. We have inland navi
gation. Our last exports did not exceed one millions of pounds
value. Our export trade is entirely in the hands of foreigners.
I beg, gendemen, to consider these two things : our inability to
raise and man a navy, and the dreadful consequences of a disso
lution of the Union."
He next adverts to an arguraent used by Henry. "It is
'"' The exact amount from November 30th, 1787 to November, 1788,
derived from customs, was seventy four thousand pounds ; and as the
average of the tariff was very low, not exceeding two per cent., we can
readily see the amount of the imports during that period. The whole
receipts in that interval, including customs, reached ^417,498 9s 8>^d,
collected from a people as industrious and quiet as existed on the face
of the globe. This immense commerce, it mu.st be remembered,
sprang from nothing to its present araount in about four years and a
little more ; and proves that the talk about our coramerce gone forever
and our languishing industry, was only the talk of politicians. Even
Randolph admits that our population was increasing ; but he did not
appreciate the enormous accessions that had been made and were
daily making from abroad, and especially fro-m the Northern States,
As for what Randolph denounces as want of justice and violations of
the Constitution of the State by the General Assembly, they were mere
matters of opinion among public men, and unknown to the mass of the
people. Let the reader consult the report of the Committee of the
House of Delegates on the Treasury, raade on the 19th of December,
1788, (Journal House of Delegates, 106) and note the amount of back
taxes which were gradually coming in from the poorer counties, and
the various items of receipts, and the sum of money paid down, and
he will see an exhibit honorable to any country. It was in the society
in which Randolph moved, men formeriy of princely wealth, who had
suffered seriously by the war, as such classes always do, that the talk
about declining agriculture and vanishing commerce was heard.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. ,127
insinuated," he said, "by the honorable gentleraan that we want
to be a grand, splendid and magnificent people. We wish not
to become so. The magnificence of a royal court is not our
object. We want government, sir ; a government that will have
stability and give us security ; for our present Government is des-
stitute of the one and incapable of producing the other. It can
not with propriety be denominated a government, being void of
that energy requisite to enforce sanctions. I wish my country
not to be conteraptible in the eyes of foreign -nations. A well
regulated coraraunity is always respected. It is the internal
situation, the defects of government, that attracts foreign con
tempt. That contempt, sir, is too often followed by subjugation."
" The object of a federal government," he said, " is to remedy
and strengthen the weakness of its individual branches, whether
that weakness arises from situation or from any external cause.
With respect to the first, is it not a miracle that the confederation
carried us through the war ? It was our unanimity that carried
us through it. That systera was not ultimately concluded till the
year 1781. Although the greatest exertions were made before
that time, when came requisitions for men and money, its defects
then were iramediately discovered. The quotas of men were
readily sent ; not so those of raoney. One State feigned inabil
ity ; another would not coraply till the rest did ; and various
i excuses were offered, so that no money was sent into the treasury
— not a requisition was fully complied with. Loans were the
next measure fallen upon. Upwards of eighty millions of dollars
were wanting, beside the emissions of dollars forty for one.
These things show the irapossibility of relying on requisitions."
" Without adequate powers vested in Congress, Araerica cannot be
respectable in the eyes of other nations. Congress ought to be
fully vested with power to support the Union; protect the interests
ofthe United States; raaintain their commerce and defend them
from external invasions and insults and internal insurrections ; to
maintain justice and promote harraony and public tranquility
among the States. A government not vested with these powers
will ever be found unable to make us happy or respectable. How
the Confederation is different from such a government is known
to all America. What are the powers of Congress ? They have
fuU authority to recommend what they please; this recommenda
tory power reduces them to the condition of poor supplicants.

128 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
Consider the dignified language of the members of the American
Congress. May it please your high mightiness of Virginia to
pay your just proportionate quota of our national debt; we
humbly supplicate that it may please you to comply with your
federal duties. Their operations are of no validity when counter
acted by the States. Their authority to recommend is a mere
mockery of government. But the araendability of the Confed
eration seeras to have great weight on the minds of some gentle
men. To what points will the amendments go ? What part
makes the most important figure ? What part deserves to be
retained ? In it one body has the legislative, executive and judi
cial powers ; but the want of efficient powers has prevented the
dangers naturally consequent on the union of these. Is this
union consistent with an augmentation of their powers ? WiU
you, then, amend it by taking away one of these three powers?
Suppose, for instance, you only vested it with the legislative and
executive powers without any control on the judiciary, what must
be the result ? Are we not taught by reason, experience and
governmental history that tyranny is the natural and certain con
sequence of uniting these two powers, or the legislative and
judicial powers excusively, in the same body ? Whenever any
two of these three powers are vested in one single body, they
must at one time or other terminate in the destruction of liberty.
In the raost important cases the assent of nine States is necessary
to pass a law. This is too great a restriction, and whatever good
consequences it may in some cases produce, yet it will prevent
energy in many other cases. It will prevent energy which is
most necessary in some emergencies, even in cases wherein the
existence of the community depends on vigor and expedition.
It is incompatible with that secrecy which is the life of execution
and despatch. Did ever thirty or forty men retain a secret?
Without secrecy no governraent can carry on its operations on
great occasions ; this is what gives that superiority in action to
the governraent of one. If anything were wanting to complete
this farce, it would be that a resolution of the Assembly of Vir
ginia and the other legislatures should be necessary to confirm
and render of any validity the congressional acts ; this would
openly discover the debility of the general Government to all the
world. An act of the Assembly of Virginia, controverting a
resolution of Congress, would certainly prevaU. I therefore con-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 129
elude that the Confederation is too defective to deserve correction.
Let us take farewell of it with reverential respect as an old bene
factor. J^t is gone whether th^slloiise^sayisqj)!- not It is gone,
sir, by its own weakness."
He thus concluded : " I intended to show the nature of the
powers which ought to have been given to the general Govern
ment, and the reason of investing it with the power of taxation ;
but this would require more time than my strength or the patience
of the committee would now admit of I shall conclude with a
few objections which corae from my heart. I have labored for
the continuance of the Union — the rock of our salvation. I be
lieve that, as sure as there is a God in Heaven, our safety, our
political happiness and existence, depend on the union of the
States ; and that without this union the people of this and the
other States will undergo the unspeakable calamities which dis
cord, faction, turbulence, war and bloodshed, have produced in
other countries. The American spirit ought to be mixed with
Araerican pride to see the Union raagnificently triumphant. Let
that glorious pride, which once defied the British thunder, reani
mate you again. Let it not be recorded of America that, after
having performed the most gallant exploits, after having over
corae the raost astonishing difficulties, and after having gained
the admiration of the world by their incomparable valor and
policy, they lose their acquired reputation, their national conse
quence and happiness, by their own indiscretion. Let no future
historian inform posterity that they wanted wisdom and virtue to
concur in any regular efficient government. Catch the present
' moment — seize it with avidity and eagerness — for it may be lost,
never to be regained. If the Union be now lost, I fear it wiU
remain so forever. I believe gentlemen are sincere in their op
position, and actuated by pure raotives ; but when I raaturely
weigh the advantages of the Union and the dreadful conse
quences of dissolution ; when I see safety on my right and de
struction on my left ; when I behold respectability and happiness
acquired by the one, but annihilated by the other, I cannot hesi
tate to decide in favor of the former. I hope my weakness for
speaking so long will apologize for my leaving this subject in so
mutUated a condition. If a further explanation be desired, I
shall take the liberty to enter into it raore fully another tirae."
This able, eloquent, and patriotic speech, which consumed two

130 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
hours and a half in the delivery, was received with warm ap
plause by the friends of the speaker, and with the admiration
which genius and talents always inspire in the breasts of honor
able opponents. Before his raanly form had disappeared in the
mass of the house, and the tones of his sonorous voice had
ceased to fill that crowded hall, Madison, diminutive in stature
and weak from recent illne.ss, rose to address the Assembly.
Nought but a sense of public duty, upheld by a proud con
sciousness of superior worth, would have impelled, him at that
raoment to such a serious undertaking. His few first sentences
were wholly inaudible. When his voice was more assured he was
understood to say that he would not attempt to make impres
sions by ardent professions of zeal for the public welfare ; that
the principles of every man will be, and ought to be, judged, not
by his professions and declarations, but by his conduct ; by that
criterion he wished, in common with every other member, to be
judged ; and should it prove unfavorable to his reputation, yet
it was a criterion from which he would by no means depart. He
said the occasion deraanded proofs and deraonstration, not
opinion and assertion. " It gives rae pain," he said, "to hear
gentlemen continually distorting the natural construction of lan
guage ; for it is sufficient if any human production can stand a
fair discussion. Before I proceed to make some additions to the
reasons which have been adduced by my honorable friend over the
way (Randolph), I must take the liberty to make some observa
tions on what was said by another gentleman (Henry). He told
us this Constitution ought to rejected because it endangered the
public liberty. Give me leave to make one answer to that obser
vation : let the dangers which this system is supposed to be re
plete with be clearly pointed out ; if any dangerous and unneces
sary powers be given to the general legislature, let them be
plainly demonstrated ; if powers be necessary, apparent danger
is not a sufficient reason against conceding them. He has sug
gested that licentiousness has seldom produced the loss of Uberty;
but that the tyranny of rulers has alraost always effected it.
Since the general civilization of raankind, I believe there are
"^ more instances of the abridgeraent of the freedom of the
1 people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power,
than by violent and sudden usurpations. On a candid ex
amination of history we shall find that turbulence, violence,

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 131
and abuse of power, by the raajority trarapling on the rights of
the rainority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in
republics, have more frequently than any other cause produced
despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and
raodern republics, we shall find their destruction to have gener
aUy resulted frora those causes. If we consider the peculiar
situation of the United States, and what are the sources of that
diversity of sentiment which pervades their inhabitants, we shall
find great danger to fear that the same causes may terrainate
here in the sarae fatal effects which they produced in those re
publics. This danger ought to be wisely guarded against. Per
haps in the progress of this discussion it may appear that the
only possible remedy for those evils, and the raeans of preserv
ing and protecting the principles of republicanisra, will be found
in that very system which is now exclaimed against as the parent
of oppression."
He next reverts to Henry's observation that the people were
at peace until the new S3^stem was put upon them : "I wish sin
cerely, sir, this were true. If this be their happy situation, why
has every State acknowledged the contrary ? Why were depu
ties from all the States sent to the General Convention ? Why
have complaints of national and individual distresses been echoed
and re-echoed throughout the continent? Why has our general
government been so shamefully disgraced and our Constitution
violated? Wherefore have laws been made to authorize a
change, and wherefore are we now assembled here?""" After
'•"' This argument, when used by Mr. Madison, was hardly fair. He
knew that the Annapolis resolution had brought about the present
state of things, and that he had offered that resolution when Virginia
had settled upon a plan to arrange her commercial relations with Mary
land, Pennsylvania, and other States. That arrangement was cora
pleted by the Assembly by the selection of five delegates, consisting of
St. George Tucker, William Ronald, Robert Townsend Hooe, Thomas
Pleasants, and Francis Corbin, on the 25th of November, 1786, and it
was believed that our Federal relations were at an end for the session,
and a large number of the members had probably left for their homes ;
when, on the 30th of the same month, or five days later, and on ihe
last day of the session, Mr. Madison caused the Annapolis resolution to
be called up, to be hurried through the House, and sent lo the Senate,
which body passed it within an hour after receiving it. But two mem
bers in the House opposed the resolution. It was plain that the sequel

132 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
replying to Henry's arguments on the majority of three-fourths,
on the exclusive legislation of Congress in the federal district,
on the provision concerning the militia, and on the tendency of
power once transferred never to be voluntarily renounced, he
discussed the objection that the raising and supporting of armies
ofthe resolution was mainly a matter of course, and afforded no legiti
mate arguraent to Mr. Madison, who was privy to the whole game.
Nor was it quite fair for Mr. Madison to talk of the Constitution of the
State as having been violated. These so-called violations were by acts
of the Assembly, not by violence ; and on Madison's own principles
the Legislature might be authorized to take what liberties they pleased
with that instrument ; for he contended in his speech on the Conven
tion question in the House of Delegates, at the May session of 1784,
that the Convention of May. 1776, which fraraed the Constitution, was
'¦ without due power from the people ; " that it was framed in conse
quence of the recommendation of Congress of the 15th of May (which
is a great mistake, as the Virginia resolution of absolute independence
was adopted on that very day, and a resolution to report a plan of gov
ernment for an independent State also, while the resolution of the 15th
of May [or rather the loth, see Folwell's edition of the Journals of
Congress, II, 158], which was only a re-enactment of the resolution of
Congress of the previous year, advising the colonies to form such a
plan of government " as would raost effectually secure good order in
the province during the present dispute between Great Britain and the
colonies," was a temporizing measure only), which was prior to the
Declaration of Independence ; that the Convention that framed the
Constitution did not " pretend " that they had received "anv power
from the people " for that purpose ; that they passed other ordinances
during the same session that were deemed "alterable;" that they
made themselves a branch of the Legislature under the Constitution
which they had framed; that the Cons\.\tuX.\on, if it be so called, e\.c.,
etc. (Rives' Madison, I, 559.) It is thus evident that in .Madison's de
liberate judgment the Constitution of Virginia had no higher dignity
than other ordinances of the Convention, which all admit were altera
ble ; and that it was corapetent for the legislature, in Mr. Madison's
opinion, to alter the instrument at pleasure. It was then a little pru
dish to blarae the Assembly for doing what they had a right to do, or
to apply any other test than that of expediency to their action. We
have shown in a previous note our views upon this subject, and will
merely add that Mr. Randolph's views were quite as capricious as
those of Mr. Madison, as that gentleman alleged in the course of one
of his speeches in Convention that the Declaration of Rights was no
part of the Constitution, and, of course, of no obligation whatever. It
is necessary to know what ideas these gendemen had of the Constitu
tion before we can estimate what they call "violations" of it.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 133
was a dangerous element in the Constitution. With apparent
candor he declared that he wished there was no necessity of
vesting this power in the general Government. " But," he said,
" suppose a foreign nation to declare war against the United
States ; must not the general legislature have the power of de
fending the United States ? Ought it to be known to foreign
nations that the general Government of the United States of
America has no power to raise and support an army, even in the
utraost danger, when attacked by external enemies ? Would not
their knowledge of such a circumstance stiraulate thera to fall
upon us ? If sir. Congress be not invested with this power, any
powerful nation, prompted by ambition or avarice, will be invited
by our weakness to attack us ; and such an attack by disciplined
veterans would certainly be attended with success when only op
posed by irregular, undisciplined militia. Whoever considers
the peculiar situation of this country, the multiplicity of its ex
cellent inlets and harbors, and the uncommon facility of attack
ing it — however he raay regret the necessity of such a power —
cannot hesitate a raoraent in granting it. One fact may elucidate
this argument. In the course of the late war, when the weak
parts of the Union were exposed, and many States were in the
most deplorable condition by the enemies ravages, the assistance
of foreign nations was thought so urgently necessary for our
protection that the relinquishment of territorial advantages was
not deeraed too great a sacrifice for the acquisition of one ally.
This expedient was admitted with great reluctance, even by those
States who expected advantages from it. The crisis, however,
at length arrived, when it was judged necessary for the salvation
of this country to make certain cessions to Spain, whether wisely
or otherwise is not for me to say ; but the fact was that instruc
tions were sent to our representative at the court of Spain to
empower him to enter into negotiations for that purpose. How
it terminated is well known. This fact shows the extremities to
which nations will go in cases of irarainent danger, and deraon-
strates the necessity of raaking ourselves raore respectable. The
necessity of making dangerous cessions, and of applying to for-
'eign aid, ought to be excluded."
When he had replied to the argument derived from the policy
of the Swiss Cantons in their confederate alliance, and stated his
impression that uniformity of reUgion, which he thought ineligi-

134 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
ble, would not necessarily flow frora uniforraity of government,
and that the government had no jurisdiction over religion, he
adverted to the policy of previous amendments, contending that
if araendraents are to be proposed by one State, other States
have the same right, and will also propose alterations, which
would be dissimilar and opposite in their nature. " I beg leave,"
he said, " to remark that the governments of the different States
are in many respects dissimilar in their structure ; their legisla
tive bodies are not similar ; their executive are more different.
In several of the States the first magistrate is elected by the peo
ple at large ; in others by joint ballot of the merabers of both
branches of the legislature ; and in others in a different mode
still. This dissimilarity has occasioned a diversity of opinion on
the theory of government, which will, without many reciprocal
concessions, render a concurrence impossible. Although the
appointment of an executive magistrate has not been thought
destructive to the principles of democracy in many of the States,
yet, in the course of the debate, we find objections to the federal
executive. It is argued that the President will degenerate into
a tyrant. I intended, in compliance with the call of the honor
able meraber, to explain the reasons of proposing this Constitu
tion and develop its principles ; but I shall postpone my remarks
till we hear the supplement, which, he has inforraed us, he in
tends to add to what he has already said."
He next investigated the nature of the governraent, and
whether it was a consolidated system as had been urged by
Henry. On this subject, he said, " there are a number of
opinions ; but the principal question is whether it be a federal
or consolidated government. In order to judge properly ofthe
question before us, we must consider it minutely in its principal
parts^ I conceive myself that it is of a mixed nature ; it is in a
manner unprecedented. We cannot find one express example in
the experience of the world. It stands by itself In some re
spects it is a government of a federal nature ; in others it is of
a consolidated nature. Even if we attend to the manner in
which the Constitution is investigated, ratified, and raade the act
of the people of America, I can say, notwithstanding what the
honorable gentleman has alleged, that this Government is not
corapletely consolidated, nor is it entirely federal. Who are
parties to it ? The people — but not the people as coraposing one

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 135
great body ; but the people as composing thirteen sovereignties.
Were it, as the gentleman asserts, a consolidated governraent,
the assent of the raajority of the people would be sufficient for
its establishment ; and as a majority has adopted it already, the
remaining States would be bound by the act of the majority,
even if they unanimously reprobated it. Were it such a gov
ernment as suggested, it would now be binding upon the people
of this State, without their having had the privUege of deUberating
upon it.'^' But, sir, no State is bound by it, as it is without its
own consent. Should all the States adopt it, it will then be a
government established by the thirteen States of America, not
through the intervention of the legislature, but by the people at
large. In this particular respect the distinction between the ex
isting and proposed governments is very material. The existing
system has been derived from the dependent derivative au
thority of the legislatures of the States ; whereas this is derived
from the superior power of the people. If we look at the man
ner in which alterations are to be made in it, t||e same idea is in
sorae degree attended to. By the new system a majority of the
States cannot introduce amendments; nor are all the States re
quired for that purpose. Three-fourths of them must concur in
alterations ; in this there is a departure from the federal idea.
The members to the national House of Representatives are to
be chosen by the people at large, in proportion to the numbers
in the respective districts. When we come to the Senate, its
members are elected by the States in their equal and political
capacity. But had the Government been completely consolidated,
the Senate would have been chosen by the people in their indi
vidual capacity, in the same manner as the merabers of the other
house. Thus it is of a complicated nature, and this complica
tion wiU, I trust, be found to exclude the evils of absolute con
solidation, as well as of a mere confederacy. If Virginia was
separated from all the States, her power and authority would ex
tend to aU cases ; in like manner, were all powers vested in the
general Government it would be a consolidated government; but
the powers df the Federal Government are enumerated ; it can
'" This is an obvious sophism. Each State is called upon in the usual
mode to say whether a particular systera, be that system what it may,
shall be henceforth its plan of government. Its mode of assent or
dissent from the scheme cannot be called a part of the scheme itself

136 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
only operate in certain cases ; it has legislative powers on de
fined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its juris
diction." This reasoning of Madison, in seeking to establish the nature
of a government from the mode of conducting elections pre
scribed by the rule creating it, is sophistical and unjust, and wars
at once with sound philosophy and simple truth. Had William
the Third been elected under the declaration of right by the
people of Great Britain, assembled at the polls, instead of a con
vention of both houses of Parliament, the nature of the govern
raent which he was invited to administer would not have been
altered by the change. He would still have been the King of
England, the occupant of a hereditary throne, bound to rule
according to the instrument which contained his right to thS
crown. Nor is the case altered by the frequent recurrence of
elections under a particular system. The mode of electing the
agents of that system cannot affect the nature of the system
itself which is fixed and unalterable except in the way agreed upon
by its framers. It is evident that Madison believed the new
government to be a consolidated system. The favorite term of
a complete consolidation is a mere play upon words. A govern
raent raust be either integral or federal. In can no more be both
than an individual can— like the fabulous centaur of antiquity, be
at one and the same time half a man and half a brute. If he is
human at all he is human all over ; if he is a brute at aU he is a
brute all over. So with a coUection of human beings united in
a political systera. If that system is integral at all it is wholly
integral ; if federal at all it is wholly federal. Details may com
plicate and disguise, but cannot alter the nature of the thing.
Thus the new constitution was the chart of a strictiy federal
systera. Had not Madison been swayed by early prepossessions,
his adrairable powers of analysis and his unrivalled stores of
historic lore would have enabled him to furnish a conclusive
answer to the arguments of Mason and of Henry, and to force
those able men frora their strongest ground to a contest on the
raere details of the constitution — a ground peculiarly his own.
Ten years later the true argument would instantly have risen to
his lips. He would have said that compacts between States, hke
corapacts between private persons, raight be as various as the
necessities or interests of the parties should require; that a com-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 137
pact which should embrace an infinite variety of detaUs bearing
directly or indirectly on persons and things, however voluminous,
was as strictly a federal alliance as an ordinary treaty of a few
sections. Under the Confederation, he might have laid, the legis
lative, judicial and executive powers were vested in a single body
which might exercise them in the manner most conducive to the
pubUc welfare ; that revenue was obtained by requisitions on the
States ; and that all control over the customs was denied to Con
gress ; that the same parties which made these arrangements
could abolish thera and substitute others in their place ; might
decree that the legislative, judicial and executive powers should
be exercised by separate bodies under certain limitations ; that
raoney should be obtained by levying a tax on persons and things
in any given mode ; that the entire revenue accruing from customs
should be appropriated by the central agency ; that these and
other changes might be made, and that the nature of the federal
alliance, however changed in outward form, would be no more
changed in reality than an individual would be changed by throw
ing off the clothing of one season and putting on the clothing of
another. When Madison had concluded his review of the nature of the
proposed Government, he adverted to the argument of Henry
against the large powers which had been conferred by the Consti
tution on Congress. "I conceive," he said, "that the first ques
tion on this subject is whether these powers be necessary ; if they
be, we are reduced to the dilemma of either submitting to the
inconvenience or of losing the Union. Let us consider the most
important of these reprobated powers ; that of direct taxation is
raost generally objected to. With respect to the exigencies of
governraent, there is no question but the raost easy mode for
providing for thera will be adopted. When, therefore, direct
taxes are not necessary they will not be recurred to. It can be
of little advantage to those in power to raise money in a manner
oppressive to the people. To consult the conveniences of the
people will cost them nothing, and in raany respects will be ad
vantageous to them. Direct taxes will only be recurred to for
great purposes. What has brought on other nations those im
mense debts, under the pressure of which many of them labor ?
Not the expenses of their governments, but war. If this country
should be engaged in war — and I conceive we ought to provide

138 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
for the possibility of such a case — how would it be carried <h ?
By the usual means provided frora year to year? As our im
ports will be necessary for the expenses of governraent and ojier
common exigencies, how are we to carry on the means of de
fense? How is it possible a war could be supported wi^out
money or credit ? And would it be possible for a governruent to
have credit without having the power of raising money/? No ;
it would be impossible for any government in such a case to de
fend itself Then, I say, sir, that it is necessary to establish
funds for extraordinary exigencies, and to give this power to the
general Government ; for the utter inutility of previous requisi
tions upon the States is too well known. Would it be possible
for those countries, whose finances and revenues are carried to
the highest perfection, to carry on the operations of government
on great emergencies, such as the maintenance of a war, without
an uncontrolled power of raising money? Has it not been
necessary for Great Britain, notwithstanding the facility of the
collection of her taxes, to have recourse very often to this and
other extraordinary methods of procuring money ? Would not
her public credit have been ruined if it was known that her power
to raise raoney was limited ? Has not France been obliged on
great occasions to use unusual means to raise funds ? It has
been the case in many countries, and no government can exist
unless its powers extend to make provisions for every contin
gency. If we were actually attacked by a powerful nation, and
our general Government had not the power of raising raoney,
but depended solely on requisitions, our condition would be truly
deplorable ; if the revenue of this Commonwealth were to de
pend on twenty distinct authorities, it would be impossible for it
to carry on its operations. This must be obvious to every mem
ber here; I think, therefore, that it is necessary, for the preser
vation ofthe Union, that this power shall be given to the general
Government." It had been urged by Henry and Mason that the consolidated
nature of the Government, combined with the power of direct
taxation, would eventually destroy all subordinate authority, and
result in the absorption of the State governments. Madison
thought that this would not be the case. " If the general Gov
ernment," he said, " were wholly independent of the govern
raents of the particular States, then indeed, usurpation might be

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 139
expected to the fullest extent. But, sir, on whom does this gen
eral Government depend? It. derives its authority from these
governments, and from the same sources from which their au
thority is derived. The members of the Federal Government
are taken from the same men from whom those of the State leg
islatures are taken. If we consider the mode in which the fed
eral representatives wiU be chosen, we shall be convinced that
the general will never destroy the individual governments ; and
this conviction must be strengthened by an attention to the con
struction of the Senate. The representatives wUl be chosen
probably under the influence of the members of the State legis
latures ; but there is not the least probability that the election of
the latter will be influenced by the former. One hundred and
sixty raerabers represent this Coramonwealth in one branch of
the legislature, are drawn from the people at large, and raust ever
possess raore influence than the few men who will be elected to
the general legislature."
He concluded by showing that the raembers of Congress
would depend for their election on the popular men in the differ
ent counties, and the merabers of the Senate, appointed by the
legislatures, would not be likely to forget or defy the source of
their existence ; that the biennial exclusion of one-third of the
number of Federal senators would lessen the facility of combi
nations ; that the members of Congress had hitherto "signalized
themselves by their attachment to their seats," and were not
likely to neglect the interests of their Constituents : closing this
remarkable speech in these words: "I wish this Government
raay answer the expectation of its friends, and foil the apprehen
sions of its enemies. I hope the patriotism of the people wiU
continue, and be a sufficient guard to their liberties. I believe
its tendency will be that the State governments will counteract
the general interest and ultimately prevail. The number of rep
resentatives is yet sufficient for our safety and will gradually in
crease ; and if we consider their different sources of information,
the number wiU not appear too small."
It must ever be a source of regret to the student of history
that a more extended report of this speech, revised by its author,
has not been preserved. With all the faithful care of Robertson
the existing report is hardly more than an outline of the original.
The beautiful philosophy with which he illustrated the various

140 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
causes which led to the loss of liberty among the nations of the
earth wholly escaped the reporter ; and when, forty years later,
an opportunity was presented on the republication of the debates
to fill the void, a refined sense of delicacy, which we raay admire
while we deplore the result, impelled him to decline it.
But, however attractive and eloquent was the performance of
Randolph ; however rich in the philosophy of history and in its
application to the subject in hand, and in its wonderful display
of the probable working of the new systera, was the effort of
Madison ; the speech which was now to be raade, was, in logical
vigor and practical sense, and in its present force on a popular
body, perhaps more effective than either of its predecessors of
this remarkable day.
George Nicholais succeeded Madison in the debate. Of aU
the friends of the Constitution he was the most forraidable to
Henry. His perfect acquaintance with all the local and doraestic
topics of State policy, and especially of the whole system of
legislation, in which he was a prominent actor since the dawn of
the Commonwealth; his connections by descent and affinity with
the old aristocratic families ; his physical qualities, which made
him equally fearless in the House and out of the House, were
evinced by his civil and'railitary career since manhood ; his great
powers of minute and sustained argumentation, so minute and so
sustained that posterity in perusing the debates of the Convention
will hesitate in awarding the palm of superiority to Madison; his
expositions of the Constitution more elaborate in their details
than those of Madison, added to his character of a thorough and
unflinching representative of the patrimonial feuds and preju
dices with which from his early life Henry had been continually
batding, raade his opposition not only unwelcome but gaUing to
the opponents of the new system. It was alike difficult to evade
and repel his attacks. Henry would neutralize the speeches of
Madison by the thunders of his oratory, and he could throw
Randolph frora his balance by a covert sarcasm discernible only
by the person who felt its sting ; but neither oratory nor sarcasm
availed in a contest with Nicholas, who was as potent in the war
of wit as he was irresistible by the force of his logic. Not that
Nicholas possessed or coveted wit in its higher raanifestations ;
but his knowledge of his opponents had supplied him with such
an array of facts bearing on their past history, that, by a mar-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 141
shalling of their absurdities and inconsistencies, he could pro
duce in the way of arguraent an effect similar to that wrought by
a faculty which he did not possess, and of which in his busy and
speculating life he never felt the want. He now rose to address
himself specially to Henry, and analyzed his arguments with a
severity of discrimination that neither Madison, who never forgot
the statesman in the debates, nor Randolph, who, under the
pressure of the interrainable topics crowding upon hira, was
compelled to pass over many, and to touch lightly upon others,
could not well imitate. On this occasion, as on others, Nicholas
was fortunate in his reporter. He discussed a single topic at a
time ; his style of argument was clear and was within the reach
of the stenographer, who, by the aid of his recoUections and by
his own skill in argument, could irapart a completeness to a speech
of Nicholas, which is almost wholly wanting to the speeches of
Henry and Randolph, and even of Madison.
He began by saying that if the resolution taken by the House
of going regularly through the system, clause by clause, had
been followed, he could have confined himself to one particular
paragraph ; but as, to his surprise, the debates have taken a dif
ferent turn, he would follow the train of the argument of the
gentleman in opposition. Then, addressing himself to Henry,
" the worthy gendeman," he said, " entertained us very largely on
the impropriety and dangers of the powers given by this plan
to the general Government; but his argument appears to me in
conclusive and inaccurate. It amounts to this : that the powers
given to any government ought to be small ; a new idea in poli
tics. Powers being given for some certain purpose ought to be
proportionate to that purpose, or else the end 'for which they
were delegated wUl not be assured. If a due raediura be not
observed in the delegation of such powers, one of two things
must happen : if they be too sraall, the Governraent raust moulder
and decay away ; if too extensive, the people raust be oppressed.
As there can be no liberty without government, it must be as
dangerous to make powers too limited as too great. He objects
to the expression ' We, the people,' and deraands the reason
why they had not said, ' We, the United States of America.' In
my opinion, the expression is highly proper: it is submitted to
the people, because on them it is to operate ; till adopted, it is but
a dead letter, and not binding on any one ; when adopted, it

142 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
becomes binding on the people who adopted it. It is proper on
another account. We are under great obligations to the Federal
Convention for securing to the people the source of all power."
He then animadverts on the difficulties apprehended from two
sets of collectors, frora direct taxes, from a reduction of the
number of representatives, from being taxed without our con
sent, from the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and from
the want of responsibility, discussing each topic with syllogistic
force, and foUowing Henry step by step throughout his speech.
One argument on the subject of Northern influence has an inter
est at this day. " The influence," he observed, "of New Eng
land and the other Northern States is dreaded ; there are appre
hensions of their combining against us. Not to advert to the
improbability and illiterality of this idea, it must be supposed
that our population will in a short period exceed theirs, as their
country is well settled, and we have very extensive uncultivated
tracts. We shall soon outnumber them in as great a degree as
they do us at this time ; therefore, this Government, which, I
trust, will last to the remotest ages, will be very shortly in our
favor." His answer to the argument on the want of responsi
bility in the representatives of the new Constitution shows the
summary manner in which he dealt with the objections of Henry.
" We are told," he said, " that there is wanting in this Govern
ment that responsibility which has been the salvation of
Great Britain, although one-half of the House of Commons pur
chase their seats. It has already been shown that we have much
greater security from our federal representatives than the people
in England can boast. But the worthy member has found out a
way of solving our difficulties. He tells us that we have nothing
to fear if separated frora the adopting States ; but to send on our
money and men to Congress. In that case, can we receive the
benefits of the union ? If we furnish money at aU, it wiU be our
proportionate share. The consequence will be that we shaU pay
our share without the privilege of being represented. So that,
to avoid the inconvenience of not having a sufficient number of
representatives, he would advise us to relinquish the number we
are entitied to, and have none at all," This speech would have
been received in such a body as the House of Commons with
heartier applause than either the speech of Randolph or the
speech of Madison. It is, however, the speech rather of a wily

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 143
logician whose paramount object is to overthrow his opponent,
than of a politician who embraces in his view the interests of a
remote posterity. It is the speech of an emissary of Westmin
ster Hall entering St. Stephen's on a special retainer, and in
structed to answer Burke's speech on American conciliation.
At the close of the speech of Nicholas, the House rose and
cordial greetings were exchanged by the friends of the Constitu
tion. Even their opponents could not deny that three such
speeches as had been delivered at that sitting had never before
been heard' in a single day in a deliberative assembly of Virginia.
A contemporaneous account has come down to us. Immediately
on the adjournment, Bushrod Washington wrote to his uncle
that Governor Randolph made an able and elegant harangue of
two hours and a half; that Madison followed with such force of
reasoning and a display of such irresistible truths that opposition
seemed to have quitted the field, and that Nicholas concluded
the day with a very powerful speech inferior to none that had
been raade before as to close and connected arguraent. Wash
ington went so far as to say that Madison's speech had made
several converts to the Constitution.'"
On the following day (Saturday, the seventh of June), as soon
as some election details were disposed of Wythe was called to
the chair of the committee, the first and second sections of the
Constitution still under consideration. While the expectation
of the public was eager to hear the reply of Henry to the three
powerful opponents who had spent the whole of the previous day
in answering his objections to the Constitution, a young man
whose person was unknown to the elder spectators, rose and pro
ceeded to address the House in defence of the new plan. Francis
Corbin "' was descended from an ancestor who, near the middle
'¦'^B. Washington to G. Washington, June 6, 1788. — Writings of Wash
ington. IX, 378, note. When Nicholas made this speech he was thirty-
two ; Madison and Randolph, both of whom were born in 1751, were
thirty-seven. ^'^ Of the lineage of Robert Corbion or Corbin, who gave lands to
the Abbey of Talesworth in 1154 and 1161. Francis Corbin was third
in descent from Henry Corbin (and his wife, Alice Eltonhead), born
1629; came to Virginia 1654; member ofthe House of Burgesses for
old Lancaster county, 1658-9 and of the Council from 1663 to his death,
January 8, 1675 ; acquired a great landed estate, his seat being " Buck-

141 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
of the seventeenth century, had emigrated to the Colony, who
had acquired great wealth, and who had risen to distinction in
the public councils. From the date of the arrival of the ancestor
to that of the Revolution the family which he founded had en-
joyed'high consideration, and in the public acts and in the civil
and religious proceedings relative to the county of Middlesex the
name of Corbin always appears with honor.'" Inheriting from
the patriarch of his race a reverence for kingly government, the
representative of the family at the Revolution, then advanced in
life, had been suspected of co-operating with some of his rela
tives who had taken sides with the Bristish, and had been placed
under surveillance by the Convention of 1775. Francis, then a
mere lad, was sent over to England and had spent the entire
period of the war of the Revolution in attendance on British
schools and at the University. On his return, he soon entered
the Assembly, where his fine person, his pohshed manners, his
talents in debate, his knowledge of foreign affairs, aided by the
prestige of an ancient narae, were observed and applauded. He
was not far from thirty and had opposed the passage of the reso
lution convoking the meeting of AnnapoUs ; "° but, fascinated
by its supposed beauties, had given in his adhesion to the new
system. The speech which he made sustains the reputation
which he had acquired in the House of Delegates and fully
evinces the zeal and success with which, amid the allurements of
a fashionable residence abroad, he had cultivated the powers of
his mind and the strict observation with which he had surveyed
the political systems of that age. He made a neat apology for
engaging in a debate in which so many older and abler men had
taken part and repUed in detail to the arguments of Henry. His

ingham House," in Middlesex county. He was born in 1760; sent to
England at an early age and educated at Canterbury school, Cambridge,
and at the Inner Temple ; returned to Virginia about 17S3 and resided at
"Buckingham House," and subsequently at "The Reeds," Caroline
county; memDer of the House of Delegates from Middlesex county
1787-1793 and other years, and of the Convention of 1788; died June
15, 1821; married Anne Munford, of " Blandfield," Essex county,
Virginia. — Ed.
'"* Bishop Meade's Old Churches, &c., I, 357.
'"* Mr. Madison states that Meriwether Smith and Corbin were the
only persons who spoke against the Annapolis resolution. Madison to
Monroe, January 22, 1786. See the letter in Rives' Madison, II, 65.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 145
definition of the new system was ingenious. " There are contro
versies," he observed, "about the name of this Government. It
is denorainated by some, federal ; by others, a consolidated gov
ernment. The definition given of it by my honorable friend (Mr.
Madison) is, in my opinion, accurate. Let me, however, call it
by another name — a representative federaLrepublic — as contra
distinguished from a confederacy. The forraer is more wisely
constructed than the latter. It places the remedy in the hands
which feel the disorder ; the other places ihe remedy in those
hands which cause the disorder." Another view of this young
statesman displayed a perspicuity which was not so fully appar
ent araong his raore prorainent coadjutors and deserves to be
recorded. The hostility raanifested by the opponents of the
Constitution was founded very much upon the belief that the
ordinary revenues of the new Governraent would be drawn frora
that source ; and had such been the result, it is hardly probable
that the new systera would have survived the last century. Cor
bin saw the danger to which the Constitution was exposed from
such a quarter, and having examined with uncommon pains and
research all the records and other sources of intelligence within
his reach, showed that " the probable annual amount of duties
on imported articles throughout the continent, including West
India produce, would, from the best calculation he could procure,
exceed the annual expenses of the administration of the general
Government, including the civil list, contingent charges, and the
interest of the foreign and domestic debts, by eighty or ninety
thousand pounds ; which would enable the United States to dis
charge in a few years the principal debts due to foreign nations ;
and that in thirty years that surplus would enable the United
States to perforra the most splendid enterprises." He then con
cluded that no danger was to be apprehended from the power
of direct taxation "since there was every reason to believe that
it would be very seldora used " — a prediction which, but for two
special exceptions of short duration, would have almost been
strictly verified. '^°
136 Written in 1857. Corbin, in describing Henry's style, speaks of
" the elegance of his periods," and he was familiar with the best
models of that age. He also alludes to a motion made in the House
of Delegates in 1789, which Henry approved, of vesting in Congress

146 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
He spoke nearly an hour, and, on taking his seat was warmly
congratulated on his chaste and statesmanlike effort. Henry
then rose and expressed a wish that Randolph should continue
his observations left unfinished the day before, and that he would
now give him, as he had already done, a most patient hearing, as
he wished to be informed of everything that gentlemen could
urge in defence of that system which appeared to him so defect
ive. Randolph resumed his remarks, and spoke at great length
and, perhaps, with even greater ability than he had yet done,
reviewing what had been said by his opponents, pointing out in
detail the defects of the Confederation, and stating some of the
defects of the proposed systera which had led him to withhold
his signature from it in the General Convention. He gave way
to Madison, who made, perhaps, the most elaborate and the most
profound speech delivered during the entire session of the Con
vention, in which he exhibited with the skill of a political phil
osopher the nature and defects ofthe Amphyctionic and Achaian
leagues of the Germanic body of the Swiss Confederation, and
of the confederate government of Holland, not overlooking the
ancient union of the colonies of Massachusetts, Bristol, Con
necticut, and New Hampshire, quoting his authorities in fuU, and
concluding with an application of all the facts and reasons ofhis
grand argument to the case in hand. Henry rose in reply. He
spoke of the value of maxims, which have attracted the admira
tion of the virtuous and the wise in all nations, and have stood
the shock of ages — that the bill of rights of Virginia contains
those admirable raaxims dear to every friend of liberty, of virtue
and raanhood ; that their observance was essential to our security;
that it was impiously inviting the avenging hand of Heaven,
when a people, who are in the full enjoyment of freedom, launch
out in the wide ocean of human affairs, and desert those maxims
which alone can preserve liberty. "Now, sir," he said, " let us
consider whether the picture given of American affairs ought to
drive us from those beloved raaxims. The honorable gende
man (Randolph) has said it is too late in the day for us to reject
this new plan. That system which was once execrated by the
honorable member must now be adopted, let its defects be ever
the power of forcing delinquent States to pay their respective quotas,
without, however,-alluding to Henry's course on that occasion.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 147
SO glaring. That honorable raeraber wUl not accuse me of want
of candor, when I cast in my raind what he has given the pub
lic,'" and corapare it with what has happened since. It seeras to
rae very strange and unaccountable that that which was the
object of his execration should now receive his encoraiuras.
Something extraordinary raust have operated so great a change
in his opinion. It is too late in the day! I never can believe,
- sir, that it is too late to save all that is precious. At present, we
have our Uberties and privileges in our own hands. Let us not
adopt this system till we see them secure. There is some sraall
possibility that should we follow the conduct of Massachusetts,
amendments might be obtained. There is a sraall possibility of
amending any government ; but, sir, shall we abandon our most
jinestimable rights, and rest their security on a mere possibility ?
If it be araended every State will accede to it ; but by an impru
dent adoption in its defective and dangerous state, a schism must
inevitably be the consequence. I can never, therefore, consent
to hazard our most inalienable rights on an absolute uncer
tainty. You are told that there is no peace, although you fondly
flatter yourselves that all is peace; no peace — a general cry and
alarm in the country — commerce, riches and wealth vanished —
citizens going to seek comfort in other parts of the world— laws
insulted — many instances of tyrannical legislation. These things
are new to me. The gentleraan has raade the discovery. As to
the adrainistration of justice, I believe that failure in commerce
cannot be attributed to it. My age enables me to recollect its
progress under the old government. I can justify it by saying
that it continues in the same manner in this State as it did under
the former governraent. As to other parts of the continent, I
refer that to other gentlemen. As to the ability of those who
administer our Government, I believe that they could not suffer
by a comparison with those who adrainistered it under the royal
authority. Where is the cause of complaint that the wealthy go
away ? Is this, added to the other circumstances, of such enor
mity, and does it bring such danger over this Comraonwealth as
to warrant so important and so awful a change in so precipitate a
'" Governor Randolph's letter to the Speaker of the House of Dele
gates of Virginia, heretofore alluded to, which may bte seen in Elliot's
Debates, I, 482.

148 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
raanner ? As to insults offered to the laws, I know of none. In
this respect, I believe this Coramonwealth would not suffer by a
coraparison with the former government. The laws are as weU
executed and as patiently acquiesced in as they were under the
royal administration. Compare the situation of the country —
compare that of our citizens to what it was then — and decide
whether persons and property are not as safe and secure as they
were at that time. Is there a man in this Coramonwealth whose
person can be insulted with impunity ? Cannot redress be had
here for personal insults or injuries, as well as in any part of the
world ? — as weU as in those countries where aristocrats and mon
archs triumph and reign ? Is not the protection of property in
fuU operation here ? The contrary cannot with truth be charged
on this Commonwealth. Those severe charges which are exhib
ited against it appear to be totally grou?idless. On a fair investi
gation we shall be found to be surrounded with no real dangers."
He adverted to the case of Josiah Philips, which Randolph had
introduced, and, overlooking the fact that he had been tried on
an indictment for highway robbery and not under the act of at
tainder, justified his execution on the ground of his being an out
law and eneray of the huraan race. He insisted that the middle
and lower ranks of the people were not discontented ; that if
there were discontents, they existed among politicians whose
microscopic vision could see defects in old systems, and whose
illuminated imaginations discovered the necessity of a change.
He urged that by the confederation the rights of territory were
secured ; that under the new system, you wiU raost infalUbly
lose the Mississippi. He declared that we might be confederated
with the adopting States without ratifying this systera. "You
will find no reductions of the public burdens by this system.
The splendid raaintenance of the President, and of the members
of both houses, and the salaries and fees of the swarm of officers
and dependents of the Government, will cost the continent im
mense sums. Double sets of collectors will double the expenses ;
to those are to be added oppressive excise men and custom
house officers. The people have an hereditary hatred of cus
tom-house officers. The experience of the raother country leads
me to detest them.""^

"* The hostility to tax gatherers of all kinds, which Henry here ex
pressed, as on several other occasions during the session, reminds us

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 149
An incident in the delivery of this speech should be noted, not
so much on its own account, as tending to show the temper of
Randolph and Henry toward each other, which resulted the fol
lowing day in one of the most celebrated parliaraentary explo
sions in our annals. In the course of his remarks Henry had
animadverted upon the words "We, the people," as designed to
appeal to the prejudices of the people. " The words," he con
tended, " were introduced to recoramend it to the people at
large — to those citizens who are to be levelled and degraded to a
herd, and who, by the operation of this blessed system, are to be
transformed frora respectable independent citizens to abject de
pendent subjects or slaves. The honorable gentleraan (Ran
dolph) has anticipated what we are to be reduced to by degrad-
f f ingly assimilating us to a herd." Here Randolph rose and
said that he did not use that word to excite any odium, but
merely to convey an idea of a multitude. Henry replied that
the word had made a deep irapression on his raind, and that he
verily believed that system would operate as he had said. He
then said : " I will exchange that abominable word for requisi
tions — requisitions which gentlemen affect to despise, have noth
ing degrading in them. On this depends our political prosperity.
I wUl never give up that darling word requisitions. My country
may give it up. A raajority may wrest it from me ; but I will
never give it up till my grave. Requisitions are attended with
one singular advantage. They are attended by deliberation. ' '
When Henry concluded his reraarks the House rose. Thus
_  closed the first week of the Convention, during which we have
,, seen that Henry stood alone in opposition to a phalanx ofthe
\ ablest raen of that era ; for, with the exception of a speech from
Mason, he had received no assistance from his friends. It was
easy, however, to perceive, from his last effort as well as from
the tone of his opponents, that, instead of losing ground, he was
evidently advancing ; that his arguments were raore compact and
guarded ; that his sarcasra, though within the Uraits of the
strictest decorum, wore a keener edge, and that he would either
of Dr. Johnson's definition of the word excise— "a hateful tax levied
upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of prop
erty, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid."— Johnson's
Folio Dictionary, Ed. 1765.

150 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
ultimately triumph or make the victory of his opponents hardly
worth the wearing. '''
"^ It was often remarked by the contemporaries of Henry that his
best school of preparation on any great question was listening to the
speeches of those who engaged in the debate. A friend informs me
that he " spent several days with the late James Marshall, of Fauquier,
a brother of the Chief Justice, a gentleman of almost as high intellect
as the Judge, and of more various accomplishments, who told him that
Henry's opponents in debate, to contrast their knowledge with his
want of it, would often display ostentatiously all they knew respecting
the subject under discussion, and that, consequently, when they were
done speaking Mr. Henry knew as much ofthe subject in hand as they
did. Then the superiority of his intellect would show itself in the per
fect mastery which he would evince over the whole subject. 'And if,'
said Mr. Marshall, 'he spoke three times onthe same subject, which
he sometimes did, his last view of it would be the clearest and most
striking that could be conceived.'" C. C. Lee, Esq., letter dated De
cember 6, 1856.

CHAPTER IV.
On Monday, the ninth of June, the combatants, refreshed by
the rest of the Sabbath, returned with new vigor to the field.
The House had now gone through with the election details
which had heretofore consuraed the first half hour ofthe morn
ing, and immediately went into committee. The first and second
sections of the first article of the Constitution were still the nom
inal order of the day ; but the debate from the first had compre
hended the entire scope of that instrument. The rumors of
great debates had spread over the neighboring counties, and the
crowd that pressed the hall alpd the galleries seemed rather
to increase than diminish. Henry and Mason, who had,
according to their usual habit, walked arra in arm frora the Swan,
were seen to pause a few moments at the steps of the Academy,
evidently engaged in consultation, and with difficulty raade their
way to their seats in the house.'*"
Wythe had just taken the chair, when Henry rose to conclude
his unfinished speech of Saturday. His first sentences were
short and broken, as if uttered to assure himself ofhis voice and
position. He then introduced a topic which had long been
dreaded by his opponents, but which startled them like a clap
of thunder in a clear sky. "There is one thing," he said,
" that I must mention. There is a dispute between us and the
Spaniards about the right of navigating the Mississippi. This
dispute has sprung frora the Federal Government. I wish a
great deal may be said upon the subject. In ray opinion, the
preservation of that river calls for our most serious considera
tion. It has been agitated in Congress. Seven States have

'*» On the authority of the Rev. Mr. Clay, of Bedford,
member of the Convention.

vho was a

152 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
voted so, as that it is known to the Spaniards, that under our
existing system the Mississippi shall be taken from them. Seven
States wished to relinquish this river to them. The six Southern
States opposed it. Seven States not being sufficient to convey
it away, it remains ours. If I am wrong, there is a meraber on
this floor who can contradict the facts ; I will readily retract.
This new governraent, I conceive, will enable those States who
have already discovered their inclination that way to give
away this river. Will the honorable gentleraan (Randolph)
'iadvise us to relinquish this inestiraable navigation, and to place
I forraidable enemies on our backs ? I hope this will be explained.
I was not in Congress at the time these transactions took place.
I may not have stated every fact. Let us hear how the great
and important right of navigating that river has been attended
to, and whether I am mistaken that Federal measures will lose it
to us forever. If a bare majority of Congress can make laws, the
situation of our Western citizens is dreadful."
Of the connection of the Mississippi with the interests of Vir
ginia we will treat at length when the memorable discussion of
the subject took place a few days later ; at present it is only
necessary- to sa}' that Kentucky, whose western boundary
impinged on that river, was then a part of Virginia, and was rep
resented in the Convention by twelve members, whose votes
might decide the fate of the new plan.
Henry then proceeded to reply to the arguraents of Randolph,
Madison, and Corbin in detail, with a force of logic and with a
fullness of illustration which he had not before evinced in his
speeches. He reviewed the dangers likely to flow from the non
payment of the debt due to France, bestowing an elegant com
pliment on Mr. Jefferson, whora he called " an illustrious citizen,
who, at a great distance frora us, remembers and studies our
happiness ; who was well acquainted with the policy of European
nations, and who, amid the splendor and" dissipation of courts,
yet thinks of bills of rights and those despised litde things
called maxiras ;" and speaking of Louis the Sixteenth as " that
great friend of America. ' ' He reviewed our relations with Spain
and with Holland, and showed with great plausibility that we had
nothing to fear from them. He then examined the arguments of
Randolph, drawn frora our position in respect of the neighboring
States, and gave his reasons for concluding that neither Marv-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 153
land nor Pennsylvania would give us serious trouble. He
reviewed our Indian relations, and showed that there was no
cause for alarm in that quarter, closing this branch of this sub
ject in these words : ' ' You will sip sorrow, to use a vulgar phrase,
if you want any other security than the laws of Virginia."
He adduced the authority of several eminent citizens to prove
the consolidating tenderness of the new plan, and asked "if any
one who heard him could restrain his indignation at a system
which takes from the State legislatures the care and the preserva
tion of the interests of the people. One hundred and eighty
representatives, the choice of the people of Virginia, not to be
trusted with their interests ! They are a raobbisb, suspected herd.
So degrading an indignity, so flagrant an outrage on the States,
so vile a suspicion, is humiliating to my raind, and to the rainds
of raany others." He ridiculed the notion that a change of gov
ernraent could pay the debts of the people. " At present," he
said, " you buy too much, and make too little to pay. The evils
that attend us lie in extravagance and want of industry, and can
only be removed by assiduity and economy. Perhaps we shall
be told by gentlemen that these things will happen, because the
administration is to be taken from us and placed in the hands of
the luminous few, who will pay different attention, and be more
studiously careful than we can be supposed to be."
With respect to the econoraical operation of the new govern
raent, he urged that the national expenses would be increased by
it tenfold. " I might tell you," he said, " of a standing army, of
a great powerful navy, of a long and rapacious train of officers
and dependents, independent of the president, senators, and
~ representatives, whose compensations are without limitation.
^ How are our debts to be discharged when the expenses of gov-
I ernment are so greatly augmented? The defects of this system
^ are so numerous and palpable, and so many States object to it,
no union can be expected unless it be amended. Let us take a
review of the facts." He then examined the condition of the
different States at length, ending his remarks on this topic with
these words : " Without a radical alteration of this plan, sir, the
States will never be embraced in one federal pale. If you attempt
to force it down men's throats and call it union dreadful conse
quences must follow."
He now-urged upon Randolph the inconsistency of his course

161 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
in relation to the adoption of the Constitution. "The gentle
raan has said a great deal of disunion and the dangers that are
to arise from it. When we are on the subject of union and dan
gers, let me ask hira how will his present doctrine hold with what
has happened ? Is it consistent with that noble and disinter
ested conduct which he displayed on a forraer occasion? Did he
not tell us that he withheld his signature? Where then were the
dangers which now appear to him so formidable ? He saw aU
America eagerly confiding that the result of their deliberations
would remove our distresses. He saw all Araerica acting under
the impulses of hope, expectation, and anxiety arising from our
situation, and our partiality for the members of that Convention ;
yet, his enlightened raind, knowing that system to be defective,
magnanimously and nobly refused to approve it. He was not
led by the illumined, the illustrious few. He was actuated by
the dictates of his own judgment, and a better judgment than I
can form. He did not stand out of the way of information.- He
raust have been possessed of every intelligence. What altera
tions have a few months brought about ? The internal differ
ence between right and wrong does not fluctuate. It is immu
table. I ask this question as a public man, and out of no par
ticular view. I wish, as such, to consult every source of infor
raation, to forra my judgraent on so awful a question, I had the
highest respect for the honorable gentleman's abilities. I con
sidered his opinion as a great authority. He taught me, sir, in
despite of the approbation of that great Federal Convention, to
doubt of the propriety of that system. When I found my hon
orable friend in the number of those who doubted, I began to
doubt also. I coincided with him in opinion. I shall be a
staunch and faithful disciple of his. I applaud that magnanimity
which led him to withhold his signature. If he thinks now dif
ferently, he is as free as I ara. Such is my situation, that, as a
poor individual, I look for inforraation everywhere." He con
tinued : " This Governraent is so new it wants a name. I wish
its other novelties were as harraless as this. The gentleman
told us that we had an American dictator in the year 1781 — we
never had an American President. In making a dictator, we
followed the example of the most glorious, raagnaniraous, and
skillful nations. In great dangers this power has been given.
Rome had furnished us with an illustrious example. America

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 155
found a person worthy of that trust ; she looked to Virginia for
him. We gave a dictatorial power to hands that used it glori
ously ; and which were rendered more glorious by surrendering
•-^ it up. Where is there a breed of such dictators ? Shall we find
: a set of American presidents of such a breed? Will the Ameri
can President come and lay prostrate at the feet of Congress his
laurels ? I fear there are few men who can be trusted on that
head. The glorious republic of Holland has erected raonuraents
of her warlike intrepidity and valor, yet she is now totaUy ruined
by a Stadt-holder — a Dutch president." He then drew some
seemingly apposite illustrations from the policy of the Dutch in
favor of his views. He touched one of the arguments of Corbin,
in passing which that gentleman drew frora the domestic legis
lation of Virginia. " Why," he said, "did it please the gentle
man to bestow such epithets on our country ? Have the worms
taken possession of the wood, that our strong vessel — our politi
cal vessel has sprung a leak ? He may know better than I, but
I consider such epithets to be raost illiberal and unwarrantable
aspersions on our laws. The system of laws under which we
live has been tried and found to suit our genius. I trust we shall
not change this happy system." Then, turning to Corbin, he
said : " Till I see that gentleman following after and pursuing
other objects than those which prevent the great objects of
huraan legislation, pardon rae if I withhold my assent."
When he had discoursed on the subject of forraing new codes
of law, of the nature ofthe various checks which were regarded
as sufficient to prevent federal usurpation, of the abuses of ira
plied powers, of the coraplicated union of State and Federal
collectors, he argued with great earnestness in opposition to that
part of the Constitution which gives to Congress jurisdiction
over forts and arsenals in the State. " Congress," he said, "you
sell to Congress such places as are proper for these, within your
State, you wiU not be consistent after adoption. It results, there
fore, clearly that you are to give into their hands all such places
-'¦' as are fit for strongholds. When you have those fortifications
and garrisons within your State, your State legislature wiU
have no power over thera, though they see the raost dangerous
insults offered to the people daily. They are also to have raag-
azines in each State. These depositories for arras, though within
the States, will be free frora the control of its legislature. Are

156 VIR^GINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
we at last brought to such a hurailiating and debasing degrada
tion, that we cannot be trusted with arras for our own defence ?
If our defence be the real object of having those arras, in whose
hands can they be trusted with more propriety or equal safety to
us, as in our own hands ? If our legislature be unworthy of
legislating for every foot of land in this State, they are unworthy
of saying another word."
He showed that by the power of taxation and by the right to
raise armies. Congress would possess the power of the purse and
the power of the sword, and sought to prove that, without a
miracle, no nation could retain its liberty, after the loss of the
purse and the sword. He contended that requisitions were the
proper means of collecting raoney frora the States, and appealed
to Randolph, as he said "he was a child oi the Revolution,'""
whether he did not recoUect with gratitude the glorious effects
of requisitions throughout the war.
He thus animadverted upon the definition which Madison had
given of the new plan : " We are told," he said, " that this new
governraent, collectively taken, is without an example; that it is
national in this part and federal in that part, &c. We may be
amused, if we please, 'oy a treatise of political anatomy. In the
brain it is national ; the stamina are federal — some limbs are fed
eral, some national. The senators are to be voted for by the
State legislatures ; so far it is federal. Individuals choose the
merabers of the first branch ; here it is national. It is federal in
conferring general powers ; but national in retaining them. It is
not to be supported by the States — the pockets of individuals
are to be searched for its raaintenance. What signifies it to me
that you have the most curious anatoraical description of it on its
creation ? To all the common purposes of legislation it is a great
CONSOLIDATION of government. You are not to have the right
to legislate in any but trivial cases. You are not to touch private
contracts. You are not to have the rights of having arms on
your own defences. You cannot be trusted with dealing out
justice between man and man. What shall the States have to
'*' Randolph opened his speech to which Henry was replying with
the words : " I am a child of the Revolution." The reader must keep
in mind Henry's inimitable powers of acting, and his ability by a mere
accent on a word or a look to raise the laughter of both friends and
foes.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 157
do ? Take care of the poor, repair and make highways, erect
bridges, and so on, and so on. Abolish the State legislatures at
once. What purposes should they be continued for ? Our Leg
islature will indeed be a ludicrous spectacle. One hundred and
eighty men marching in solemn farcical procession, exhibiting a
raournful proof of the lost liberty of their country, without the
power of restoring it. But, sir, we have the consolation that it
"isa mixed government ; that is, it may work sorely on your
neck ; but you will have some comfort by saying that it was a
federal government on its origin !'"*'
"I am constrained," he added, "to raake a few remarks on
the absurdity of adopting this system, and relying on the chance
of getting it araended afterwards. When it is confessed to be
replete with defects, is it not offering to insult your understand
ings to atterapt to reason you out of the propriety of rejecting
it tUl it be araended ? Does it not insult your judgraents to tell
you adopt first and then araend ? Is your rage for novelty so
great that you are first to sign and seal and then to retract ? Is
it possible to conceive a greater solecism ? I am at a loss what
to say. You agree to bind yourselves hand and foot — for the sake
of what? Of being unbound. You go into a dungeon — for what?
To get out. Is there no danger when you go in that the bolts of
federal authority shall shut you in ? Human nature will never
part from power." After illustrating his position by facts drawn
from the history of Europe, and paying a compliment to the
younger Pitt on account of his opinions favorable to reform in
the British Constitution, he closed his argument on this point
"' I have heard that this passage, of which we have but a condensed
^ report, and which blended irony and pathos in a remarkable degree,
1 was delivered with transcendant effect. On one of the occasions which
the reporter passes over with some such remark as, " Here Mr. Henry
declaimed with great pathos on the loss of our liberties," I was told by
a person on the floor of the Convention at the time, that when Henry
had painted in the most vivid colors the dangers likely to result to the
black population from the unlimited power of the general governraent,
wielded by men who had little or no interest in that species of prop
erty, and had filled his audience with fear, he suddenly broke out with
the homely exclamation : " They'll free your niggers!" The^audience
passed instantly from fear to wayward laughter ; and my informant said
that it was most ludicrous to see men who a moment before were half
frightened to death, with a broad grin on their faces.

r

158 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
with the inquiry : " I ask you again, where is the example that a
government was amended by those who instituted it? Where is
the instance of the errors of a government rectified by those who
adopted them?"
He closed the most briUiant argument which he had then ever
made with this affecting and patriotic peroration : " Perhaps I
shall be told that I have gone through the regions of fancy-
that I deal in noisy exclamations and mighty professions of pa
triotism. Gentlemen may retain their opinions; hut /look on
that paper as the most fatal plan that could possibly be conceived
to enslave a free people. If such be your rage for novelty, take
it and welcome, but you never shall have ray consent. My sen
timents may appear extravagant ; but I can tell you that a num
ber of my feUow-citizens have kindred sentiments. And I am
anxious, that if my country should come into the hands of ty
ranny, to exculpate myself from being in any degree the cause ;
and to exert my faculties to the utmost to extricate her. Whether
I am gratified or not in my beloved form of government, I con
sider that the more she is plunged into distress the more it is my
duty to relieve her. Whatever raay be the result, I shall wait
with patience tiU the day may come when an opportunity shaU
offer to exert myself in her cause."
Before the pathetic tones of Henry's voice had died away, and
when every eye was fixed on Randolph, who could not conceal
his emotions under Henry's frequent and pointed assaults, Henry
Lee obtained possession of the floor. In conducting a carapaign,
whether in the field or in a deliberative asserably, no raember of
the body had a keener sense of the poUcy to be pursued in a
great conjuncture than this daring young raan ; and it was ob
served by those who knew him well that, if his attention had
been as early and as ardently devoted to civil as to mUitary em
ployments, he would not have fallen behind the most distin
guished of his contemporaries. He now felt that no majority,
however large, could long withstand the glowing appeals of
Henry, and that it was of vital importance to the cause which he
embraced to break that speU which for the last three hours had
been cast by his eloquence over the house. He also knew that
if arguraent could accoraplish such a result, the admirable
speeches of Pendleton, of Madison, and of Nicholas, would
have left nothing to be desired. He accordingly, as on a former

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 159
o.Gfia;sion, adopted a different mode of tactics. He said that,
when he was up before, he had called upon that gentlemen
(Henry) to give his reasons for his opposition in a systematic
raanner ; and he had done so frora respect to the character of
that gentleman. He had also taken the liberty to tell him that
the subject belonged to the judgments of the raembers of the
comraittee, and not to i!nevc passions. He felt obliged to hira for
his politeness in the committee; "but," he added, "as the hon
orable gentleman seems to have discarded in a great raeasure
solid argument and strong reasoning, and has established a new
system of throwing those bolts which he has so peculiar a dex
terity in discharging, I trust I shall not incur the displeasure of
the committe by answering the honorable gentleman in the de
sultory raanner in which he has treated the subject. I shall
touch a {e\N of those luminous points he has entertained us with.
He told us the other day that the eneraies of the Constitution
were firra supporters of liberty, and iraplied that its friends were
not republicans. I conceive that I raay say with truth that the
friends of that paper are true republicans, and by no raeans less
attached to Uberty than their opponents. Much is said by gen
tleraen out of doors. They ought to urge all their objections
here. In all the rage of the gentleman for democracy, how often
does he express his admiration of the king and parliament over
the Atlantic? But we republicans are contemned and despised.
Here, sir, I conceive that implication might operate against
himself He tells us that he is a staunch republican, and adores
Uberty. I believe him, and when I do I wonder that he should
say that a kingly government is superior to that system which
we admire. He tells you that it cherishes a standing army, and
that militia alone ought to be depended upon for the defence of
every free country. There is not a gentleraen in this house —
there is no raan without these walls — not even the gentleman
himself, who admires the militia more than I do. Without
vanity I may say that I have had different experience of their
service frora that of the honorable gentleraan. It was my for
tune to be a soldier of my country. In the discharge of my
duty I knew the worth of militia. I have seen thera perform
feats that would do do honor to the first veterans, and subraitting
to what would daunt German soldiers. I saw what the honora
ble gentleman did not see — our men fighting with the troops of

160 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
that king which he so much adraires. I have seen proofs of the
wisdom of that paper on your table. I have seen incontroverti
ble evidence that militia cannot always be reUed on. I could
enumerate many instances, but one wUl suffice. Let the gentle
man recollect the action of Guilford. The American troops
behaved there withgallant intrepidity. What did the militia do?
The greatest numbers of them fled. The abandonment of the
regulars occasioned the loss of the field. Had the line been
supported that day, CornwaUis, instead of surrendering at York,
would have laid down his arms at Guilford."'*'
In replying to the argument of Henry, that the States would
be left without arras, he said he could not understand the impU
cation of the gendeman that, because Congress may arm the
militia, the States cannot do it. The States are, by no part of
the plan before you, precluded frora arraing and disciplining the
militia should Congress neglect it. He rebuked Henry for his
seemingly exclusive attachment to Virginia, and uttered the fol
lowing manly sentiraent: "In the course of Saturday, and in
previous harangues, frora the terms in which sorae of the North
ern States were spoken of one would have thought that the love
of an American was in sorae degree crirainal, as being incom
patible with a proper degree of affection for a Virginian. The
people of America, sir, are one people. I love the people of the
North, not because they have adopted the Constitution, but be
cause I fought with thera as my countryraen, and because I con
sider thera as such. Does it follow frora hence that I have
forgotten my attachment to ray native State? In all local matters
I shall be a Virginian. In those of a general nature I shall never
forget that I am an American." In referring to the proposed
surrender of the navigation of the Mississippi, he said that he

"' The reader famiUar with our early history will discover several
covert allusions to Henry's military character in the above-cited pas
sage The military officers of the United States were sometimes in
clined to assume rather too much authority in the States at particular
times. The correspondence between Colonel Edward Carrington and
Henry (when Governor) shows this verj- plainly. The ultimate result
was the triumph ofthe civilians in putting down the Cincinnati Society,
and the triumph of the military in effecting a ratification of the Federal
Constitution, especially by Virginia, where it was opposed by our ablest
and wisest statesmen, and probably by three-fourths of the people.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 161
" was in Congress at the time, and that there was not a raember of
the body who had an idea of such a surrender. They thought
of the best raode of securing that river, sorae thinking one way,
some another. There was no desire to conceal any of the trans
actions on that iraportant question. Let the gentleraan write to
the President of Congress for information. He will be gratified
fully." He then reviewed the opinions of the States on the sub
ject of ratification. " The gentleman says Rhode Island and
New Hampshire have refused to ratify. Is that a fact? It is not
a fact. He says that New York and North CaroUna will reject
It. Here is another of his facts. As he dislikes the veil of
secrecy, I beg that he would tell us the high authority from
which he gets this fact. Have the executives of those States in
formed hira ? I believe not. I hold his unsupported authority
in contempt." He thus closed his survey of the arguments of
Henry: " I contend for myself and the friends of the Constitution
that we are as great friends to liberty as he or any other person,
and that we will not be behind him in exertions in its defence
when it is invaded. For my part I trust, young as I am, I wiU
be trusted in the support of freedom as far as the honorable
gentleman. I feel that indignation and contempt with respect to
his previous amendments which he expresses against posterior
amendments. I can see no danger from a previous ratification.
I see infinite dangers from previous amendments. I shall give
my suffrage for the former, because I think the happiness of my
country depends upon it. To maintain and secure that happiness,
the first object of my wishes, I shall brave all storms and politi
cal dangers."'**
"* The bold and unsparing severity of Lee's speech was silently rel
ished by his friends, but its tone towards Henry cannot be justified.
Now that Henry and Lee are dead and their whole lives are before us,
it is worth knowing that Lee, in a year or two after the adoption ofthe
Constitution, was elected Governor of Virginia, and that when a va
cancy occurred in the Senate of the United States which he was re
quested to fill, his first act was to make out a commission for Henry,
which I have seen, and to despatch it by express to him in Prince Ed
ward. Their personal relations subsequently were most intimate and
cordial. It is said that Lee, in aiding Henry to exchange his Dismal
Swamp lands for some valuable Saura Town lands, greatly improved
the fortunes of his friend. It is also worth noting that Henry made no
reply to Lee.

162 VIRGI])IIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
We now come to the only severe personal quarrel to which
the discussions of the Convention gave birth, which made a
strong sensation at the time, and the details of which wUl be
eagerly read by posterity. As soon as Lee took his seat, Ed
mund Randolph with evident eraotion rose to reply to Henry.
He began by saying that having consumed so much of the time
of the committee, he did not intend to trouble it so soon ; " but,"
he said, " I find myself attacked in the raost illiberal manner by
the honorable gentleman (Henry). I disdain his aspersions and
his insinuations. His asperity is warranted by no principle of
parliamentary decency, nor compatible with the least shadow of
friendship. And if our friendship must fall, lei it fall like Luci
fer, never to rise again. Let him reraeraber that it is not to
answer him, but to satisfy this respectable audience, that I now
get up. He has accused me of inconsistency in this very respect
able assembly. Sir, if I do not stand on the bottom of integrity,
and pure love for Virginia, as rauch as those who can be most
clamorous, I wish to resign my existence. Consistency consists
in actions, and not in empty specious words. Ever since the
first entrance into that Federal business, I have been invariably
governed by an invincible attachment to the happiness of the
people of America. Federal raeasures had been before that
tirae repudiated. The augraentation of Congressional powers
was dreaded. The imbecility of the confederation was proved
and acknowledged. When I had the honor of being deputed to
the Federal Convention to revise the existing system, I was
irapressed with the necessity of a raore energetic government,
and thoroughly persuaded that the salvation of the people of
America depended on an intiraate and firm union. The honor
able gentlemen there '*^ can say that when I went thither, no man
was a stronger friend to such an union than myself I informed
you why I refused to sign. I understand not him who wishes
to give full scope to licentiousness and dissipation, and who
would advise me to reject the proposed plan, and plunge us into
anarchy." (Here His Excellency read the conclusion of his public letter,'"

'*' Meaning Mason, Wythe, Madison and John Blair, his colleagues
in the general Federal Convention, and also members of the present
Convention. '*" Addressed to the Speaker of the House of Delegates.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 1C3
wherein he says that notwithstanding his objections to the Con
stitution, he would adopt it rather than lose the Union), and
proceeded to prove the consistency of his present opinion with
his former conduct, when Henry rose and declared that he had
no personal intention of offending anyone ; that he did his
duty, but that he did not mean to wound the feelings of any
gentleman ; that he was sorry if he offended the honorable gen
tleman without intending it ; and that every gentleman had a
right to maintain his opinion. Randolph then said that he was
relieved by what the honorable gentleman had said ; that were
it not for the concession of that gentleman, he would have raade
some men's hair stand on end by the disclosure of certain facts.
Henry then requested that if he had anything to say against him
to disclose it. Randolph continued, that as there were some
gentlemen there who might not be satisfied with the recantation
of the honorable gentleman, without being informed, he should
give thera some information on the subject ; that his ambition
had ever been to promote the Union ; that he was no raore
attached to it now than he ever had been ; and that he could in
some degree prove it by the paper which he held in his hand,
which was a letter which he had written to his constituents.
After sorae further explanation of his course, he threw down the
letter on the clerk's table, and declared that it raight lie there
for the inspection of the curious and the malicious.
With those who look impartially at this passage of arras be
tween these two erainent and accomplished statesmen, there
'cannot well be at this day but one opinion, and that opinion
wholly adverse to the conduct of Randolph. In no respect had
Henry overleaped the strictest rules of parliamentary decorum.
He had exhibited what he regarded as inconsistency in the course
of a public man, who had been charged by the Commonwealth
with an important trust, and in the arguments which he had
used on the subject of the adoption of the Constitution. There
was not the slightest personal reflection or allusion in anything
that he had said. And when Randolph recited his charge
against Henry, it was mainly that he had accused him of incon
sistency before that very respectable assembly. Now there is
not in the whole armory of forensic warfare a more legitimate
weapon than that which is used to demonstrate the inconsistency
of the arguraents of an opponent with each other, or with other

164 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
arguraents urged by hira in different stages of the sarae case.
This process is sometiraes very unpleasant to the person whose
character is at stake, and not a little annoying ; but the only
honorable mode of defence is a proper exposition of the alleged
inconsistency, and a similar retaliation on the offending party.
Indignation, hard names, and downright insult have here nc
more place than in any other mode of logical refiitation. Henry
had also used the word " herd" in a different sense from that in
which Randolph had used it, but upon an explanation of the
raeaning passed to another topic. He had also quoted the
remark of Randolph that " he was a child of the Revolution,"
and had used it argumentatively ; but such a quotation was
neither inappropriate nor indecorous. Indeed, the only shadow
of unfairness, if in truth it be as palpable as a shadow, was the
use of the word " herd" on a single occasion after the explana
tion of Randolph, and when Henry raay be supposed to have
used it in its ordinary raeaning ; but if the use of this word
afforded ground for ani raad version, itwas the least possible, and
when regarded as a ground whereon to fasten a mortal quarrel
upon an opponent, it was utterly conteraptible. It is honorable
to the temper of Henry that he did not interrupt Randolph in
the harsh, unjust, and ungenerous remarks with which he began
his speech ; and above all, it is honorable to his character that,
in despite of such grievous provocation, he subsequently rose,
disavowed in the strongest terms any personal allusion, and
expressed his sorrow that he had unintentionally given offence to
Randolph. He had thus made all the reparation which one gen-'
tleman can well receive frora another. His course was in the
highest degree magnanimous, and ought to have been in the
highest degree satisfactory. Randolph, on the other hand,
accepted the explanation of Henry, but in one and the same
breath insulted Henry, not by showing any discrepancy in his
arguments, not by attacking the inconsistencies of his public
career, not by referring to any topic or incident that had occurred
in any deUberative assembly of which Henry had been a member,
but by uttering a threat to the effect that if the gentleman had
not recanted — Henry having recanted nothing, having merely
explained his original meaning — he would have made revelations
which would not have merely affected him as a meraber of a
public body, but would have blasted his reputation as a gende-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 165
man and as a man. If anything could have enhanced this most
wanton, this most unparliamentary, and wholly unjustifiable
threat, it was the withholding frora the instant demand of Henry
those charges which would involve his character in infamy, and
which he professed to be able to make, and which he would have
made but for the explanation. Nor did Randolph cease to fling
insult upon Henry with what he had thus far done. He gave a
new, uncalled for, and most aggravated insult to Henry when,
throwing down his own public letter on the table of the clerk, he
declared that it should lie there for the inspection of the curious
and the malicious. This taunting and somewhat theatrical
remark could apply only to Henry, who now saw that the dis
pute had passed beyond the walls of the House. He saw that
he was involved in an unpleasant predicament ; but he felt that
he had been placed there by no fault of his own. His entire life
had been free frora personal quarrels. He was declining in the
vale of life. He had passed his fifty-second year, had a young
and dependent faraily, and was poor. Randolph was in the vigor
of manhood, not having reached his thirty-seventh year, and had
also a young family; and, if not poor, his life, even in a pecu
niary view, was of the last importance to his family. A hostile
meeting between two such men, whose lives were wrapped up in
so many endearing doraestic ties, whose distinguished talents,
as they were the coraraon property, so they were the pride of
their country, and who had lived up to that time in the relations
of friendship, would have appalled the public raind ; and accord
ingly when on Tuesday raorning it was known that Col. William
Cabell had the evening before, as the friend of Henry, waited
on Randolph ; that the unpleasant affair had been settled with
out a resort to the field, and that a reconciliation between the
parties had been effected,'*' both the great divisions in the House
were sensibly relieved.
'*' The most direct personal charge of inconsistency that I have ever
seen in a public body was that raade in the Convention of 1829-30 by
Colonel John B. George, of Tazewell, against General William^ F. Gor
don, of Albemarle. Colonel George rose directly from his seat to
make the charge, made it in as few and as forcible words as he could
utter, and instantly sate down. General Gordon, who saw at once
what the occasion required, defended his course with eminent grace
and skill, and gained eclat by the affair. When John Randolph, in the

\

166 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
When the personal altercation was past, Randolph, as if re
lieved from a weight that hung heavily upon hira, spoke with
great freedora in defence of the Constitution, analyzed in detaU
the objections of Henry, and raade one of the longest, most
learned, and, at the sarae tirae, one of the most brilliant speeches
of his life.'*'
He was followed by a member in the opposition, who had not
yet engaged in the discussion, who was as yet a very young man,
almost wholly unknown to many of the leading members of the
House ; who had none of those outward advantages which stand
in the stead of a letter of introduction ; but whose narae, indis
solubly connected with the great events of the first third of a
century of that governraent, the adoption of which he now rose
to resist, is destined to survive the naraes of sorae whose fair
reputations were then in full leaf and to becorae a household
word to succeeding generations. It was not in the roll of a re
raote ancestry, or in the splendor of patrimonial wealth, or even
in the fostering care of those who enjoyed such advantages,
that the youthful speaker looked for his titles to success in the
world, and to the approbation of his country. So far from hav-

same body, marshalled what he deemed the inconsistencies of Chap
man Johnson in thick array against him, that great and good man took
the first opportunity of replying ; but no friend of Johnson drearaed
that the affair ought to have been transferred elsewhere.
"* In a note on the preceding page I alluded to the subsequent con
nections of Lee and Henry. Those between Randolph and Henry
were not so intimate. Randolph became the first Attorney-General
under the new plan, and succeeded Mr. Jefferson as Secretary of State
in the Cabinet of Washington. Henry went into opposition, as, in
deed, in a certain sense, was Randolph himself Both were eager to
obtain amendments, and were equally disappointed in their efforts.
Randolph soon withdrew from the State department under the most
painful circumstances, and went into full opposition. Henry, who had
warmly opposed the British Treaty, became alarmed at what he deemed
the rash measures of his old opponents in the Convention, who had
assumed the name of republicans, and rallied in support of the admin
istration of Washington. And it happened singularly enough that
when Randolph withdrew from the Cabinet, Henry was invited to take
his seat. These topics will be discussed more at length when I come
to treat of the general course of Henry and Randolph, as well as the
nature of the charges which Randolph threatened to throw at the head
of Henrv.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 167
ing been born in that elevated position in which he now stood —
side by side with the raost illustrious raen to whora the State had
given birth — he was the son of a Scotchman, or of Scotch descent,
a carpenter, wno had settled in Westmoreland, and who was en
abled by his industry to gratify an honorable passion of the
Scotch by affording to his son all the advantages of education
within his reach. And in this praiseworthy purpose he was
aided to the fullest extent by his son.
Frora the first, whether in the old-field school- house, in the
camp, in ihe college, which in his case instead of preceding suc
ceeded the camp, or in the council, or when, as it soraetimes,
though rarely, happened, he was in neither the one nor the
other, James Monroe never lost an advantage. He had attended
a country school with John MarshaU, in corapany with whom
he was to travel, in war and in peace, the trail of a long and
honored career, and had spent a term in William and Mary ;
but his elementary stock of knowledge was exceedingly small,
and his real education was on the stage of busy life. In his
eighteenth year he entered the army as a cadet, became in due
time a lieutenant and captain, and alternately an aid to a general
officer. From the beginning of the war to nearly its close he
was in active service, and he numbered among the battles in
which he was engaged those of Harlem Heights and White
Plains, of Princeton and Trenton, in which last he was wounded
in the shoulder, of Brandywine, Germantown and Monraouth.
As a military commissioner of Virginia he visited the Southern
army under De Kalb, and in 1782 he was returned from King
George to the House of Delegates. At the age of twenty-four
he was deputed to Congress, having been the youngest member
which the Assembly had ever elected to that body, in which, as
in the House of Delegates, and in raany other high appointments,
in the course of a long life, he had been preceded by Madison.
He plunged at once into affairs, and displayed that firm purpose,
that raoral hardihood, which, attributed by Sydney Smith to
Lord John Russell, would lead the EngUsh statesraan, though
ignorant of searaanship, to take coraraand of the Channel fleet,
which is one of the greatest qualities of a public man, and which
even impelled Monroe to meet rather than avoid difficult topics,
and to push thera to a practical conclusion ; and which, we may
add, is more nearly allied to wisdora than to folly, inasmuch as

168 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
in the affairs of a nation the prorapt settlement of a disputed
question, however dangerous to the propects of the individual,
is not unfrequently of far greater iraportance to the general wel
fare than the particular mode by which that settlement was
effected. He was now thirty ; he was tall and erect in person ;
his face with its high cheek bones betokening his Caledonian
descent, and not uncomely ; his manners kind and affectionate,
which had not yet lost their martial stiffness, and which, even in
the midst of courts and cabinets, at home and abroad, never
attained the easy freedom of a well-bred man. His demeanor
was marked by a gravity, another trait of his Scotch extraction,
which is not uncoraraon with those on whom the heavy responsi
bilities of life are early cast, and which concealed from the com
mon observer a warra and generous heart. These qualities were
not more perceptible to the public than his intense appUcation
to business, the entire concentration of all his faculties to the
case in hand, his sincerity of purpose, his truthfulness, his utter
want of those accomplishments which amuse, instruct and adorn
the social sphere, and perhaps his incapacity of appreciating
them in another, his slowness in coraprehending a subject,
equaUed only by the soundness ofthe conclusions which he ulti
mately reached,'*' his faculties invigorated by the exercise to
which they had been subjected, but neither very large nor very
bright, nor highly cultivated by art, nor rauch enriched by learn
ing drawn frora books, yet vigorous and eminently practical,
were recognized by those who knew him well. Yet, in this
unfriended, not half educated, unpolished youth the eleraents of
political success were raingled in an amazing degree. Inferior
to Randolph in genius, in eloquence, in literature, and in that
social position which raade the wealth, the talents, and the influ
ence of.a vast faraily connection ancillary to his views ; to Madi
son in the eariy culture of the faculties under the raost favorable
auspices, in acquireraents, and in universality of intellectual
power ; to Henry Lee in the extent and caste of doraestic rela
tionship, in early and tfiorough instruction in militarv talents as
well as in martial fame, and in a ready and striking elocution ;
to Marshall in unbounded vigor of mind as well as in the knowl-

'*" Patrick Henry always thought well of Monroe, and used to say of
him " that he was slow, but give him time and he was sure."

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 169
edge of the law to which they had served an apprenticeship to
gether, as they had done in the Northern army ; to Innes,
another colleague in the Northern army, in classical literature, in
general learning, and, above all, in a splendid eloquence ; to
Grayson, another corapatriot of the Northern army, in fasci
nating raanners, in humor, in wit, in a perfect mastery of the
science of political econoray, in an alraost unrivalled play of the
inteUectual powers, and in that exquisite taste in letters, which
imparts even to consuraraate statesmanship an attractive and ever
living grace ; to George Nicholas in those subtle faculties and in
that profound acquaintance with the law which enabled him to
pass instantly from an opinion on a land warrant shingled three
deep to the discussion of the most intricate questions in govern
ment and in the laws of nations ; to Corbin in habits of public
speaking, in political research, and in elegant learning ; to Ralph
Worraeley in a critical knowledge of the entire corapass of Eng
lish literature as in that honorable lineage which as early as King
Charles' tirae held the keys of the public treasure ; '^° inferior to
these, and not to these only of that galaxy of genius and worth
which then appeared on the Virginia horizon, and which our
later statesraen, theraselves now passed away, were wont to point
at and to dwell upon with conscious pride, this remarkable young
man succeeded in winning and wearing at his pleasure every
honor which public office at home or abroad could bestow, frora
'™ The Wormeley family can be traced to 1312, when they were seated
in Yorkshire, England. The first in Virginia was Captain Christopher
Worraeley, Governor of Tortuga in 1632-5; was granted 1.420 acres of
land in Charles River (York) county January 27, 1638; member of the
Council ; married, and had issue : Captain Ralph Wormeley of York
county, member of the Council in 1640 ; patented land, and settled at
" Rosegill," Middlesex county ; died before 1669, leaving issue : Ralph.
His widow Agatha married secondly Sir Henry Chicheley, Governor
of Virginia. Ralph Worraeley, second of the narae, died 1700, leaving
issue: John Wormeley, of "Rosegill,'' and Judith, married Colonel
Mann Page, of " Rosewell." Of the issue of John was Ralph Worme
ley, of " Rosegill," married, 1736, Sarah Berkeley of" Barn Elms "; Bur
gess for Middlesex county 1748-1758; member ofthe Council 1756-1761.
Of their issue was Ralph Wormeley, Jr., ofthe text, a scholar who pos
sessed one of the choicest libraries in Virginia ; married Eleanor Tay-
loe, sister of Colonel John Tayloe, of "Mount Airy" ; died January
19, 1806, in the 62nd year of his age. — Ed.

170 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
that of Governor of the Coraraonwealth and Senator of the
United States, frora repeated raissions to the raost distinguished
courts of Europe, from a seat in the Department of War and in
the Department of State, to that most exalted of all the honors
to which an American citizen can aspire, the Presidency itself;
while of his early corapatriots, as well as those who had already
reached a high position as those who, like hiraself were pluming
their wings for the new scene soon to open upon them, some
dropped almost immediately out of sight, or, enamoured of rural
life, clung to the domestic hearth and declined public trusts, or
devoted their time to State affairs, or were lost in the haze of a
local celebrity, or soared for a time only in the fresh azure of a
Federal sky, upborne on untiring wings, or voluntarily to de
scend after a season to the perch from which they had risen, or,
stricken by the hostile arrow, to be precipitated with a disas
trous fall, and others who were content to accept frora his hands
those offices which they not only did not aspire to bestow,
but were thankful to receive ; three only of that entire number
running continuously with him the long race of fifty years with
equal though various distinction ; and of those three one only
attaining to the first office of the nation.'"
The secret of this unparalleled success is difficult to find only
because it lies on the surface. Industry, integrity, personal in
trepidity, whether it was to be exhibited amid the clashing of
swords or the more fearful clashing of tongues, a satisfaction with
small things, which kept hira within the range of affairs till great
things were ready, one by one, to fall into his lap, so that, though
sometimes not in office, he may be said, in a certain sense, never
to have been out of office — the great office of his life, strong
common sense, which, though more than once begrimed by the
fallacies and passion of interested partisans, enabled hira at last
to see things as they were, and to recover himself ere it was too
late, and a firmness of purpose and a constancy of pursuit which
kept the great object of his ambition steadily before his eyes.
These were the means on which he relied, and in which he was
not deceived. Nor was his career unmarked by fluctuations
which even at this distance of time appear formidable. His re
call from the French mission by Washington, was one of those

'*' Bushrod Washington, John Marshall, and James Madison.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 171
ominous incidents in his history which would have proved fatal
to the arabition of a less-determined spirit than his own. And
at a later day, when, on his return from the court of St. James,
he found himself almost unconsciously at the head of a small but
influential faction which had stolen off rather than broke off from
the great party to which he had devoted his life, and which sought
to put him forward for the succession. In ordinary times no eye
would have detected sooner than his own the specious snare
which was spread for his destruction; but his long absence from
home, which had precluded him frora a correct knowledge of
affairs, the noise made by his advocates in public bodies, and
especially in the social circles of Virginia, which he now made
his residence, and sorae private griefs which, if they had been
left alone, would have soon healed without a scar, but which, by
the chirurgery of his new allies, were made to inflame and fester,
obscured for a season his better judgment, and he lent for a while
a not unwilling ear to the tempter. From the predicament, the
most dangerous in his whole career, in which he was now placed,
and which was regarded with unfeigned delight by his old ene
mies and with mortification by his old friends, he was rescued by
one of those trivial incidents which are usually thought beneath
the dignity of history, but which sometimes explain results other
wise beyond the keenest vision. But even here, in this fortunate
reconciliation with his late and successful rival in the game of
presidential honors, it was the distinctive peculiarity of his char
acter and the honesty of his nature which effected his deliver
ance.'^^ Our view of the character of Monroe would be incomplete, so
far as our present theme is concerned, if it did not embrace his
qualities as a public speaker. He had acquired the habit of de
bate in the House of Delegates and in the Congress of the Con
federation, but he had never studied the art of speech. Pronun
ciation, emphasis, gesture, in their full significancy, never crossed
his mind as things deserving a moment's consideration ; and, as
he did not value them hiraself so he set a very slight value upon
thera in the speaking of others. Like a workman who, in
choosing from the forest a shaft for his present purpose, heeds

'^'^ I do not feel altogether at liberty to state the circumstances which
led to the reconciliation between Mr. Madison and Colonel Monroe,
butit will be known in due time.

172 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
not the elevation and grandeur of the tree which he is about to
fell, or the magnificent sweep of those branches which have
wrestled with the. tempests of ages, or in the shadow of which,
ere the foot of the Anglo-Saxon had touched the shores of the
New World, the Indian hero had wooed his dusky mate, or the
tremulous glory of its leaf he disregarded that splendid iUustra
tion which invests the speeches of an Everett with the dignity
of an epic, and looked to the staple of a speech as the only ob
ject that could justify a rational creature in expending his own
breath and the time of other people. Hence there is hardly a
perceptible change, certainly no iraprovement, in his oratorical
powers from the beginning to the end of his parUamentary
course. As he spoke now, so he spoke forty years later, when,
in the midst of an august assembly whose passions were roused
by a prolonged discussion of the most exciting topics, he most
unexpectedly rose to present his views of the subject under de
bate. Now, as then, his manner, if indeed he may be said to
have had any manner at all, was to the last degree awkward,
warring at once with the common laws of motion and the estab
lished rules of pronunciation ; while in both instances his matter
was sterling, his purposes were manifestly sincere, and his aims
were those of a statesman who had reflected profoundly upon his
theme. What seemed at the first view to be a defect, really con
tributed no little to his success in public bodies. The temper of
mind which made him overlook the mere drapery of rhetoric
rendered him ever ready to take the floor. He had no idea of
the mollia tempora fandi. He could not conceive why a man
who had anything to say could not say it at one tirae as well as
another. The sarae teraper rendered him invulnerable to the
gibes of wit and to the sword of sarcasm ; and, free from ner
vous palpitations, and unhurt in the wildest storm of party mis
siles, he was an invaluable leader in times of trouble.
It is not an unworthy office to hold up the example of Monroe
for the iraitation of the young, and especially of the friendless
young, who are entering on the public stage. It is a beacon, the
light of which raay not necessarily, in the shifting changes of the
world, conduct to ultimate triumph in politics, but will lead to
personal iraprovement, certainly to distinction, and as certainly
to the esteem and love of mankind. And even this view of the
subject appears low when we look abroad and embrace within.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 173
the scope of our vision those grand arrangeraents of Providence
which control the operation of human affairs, which so frequently
confound the schemes of a vain imagination and even of brilliant
genius, and which stamp the moral virtues with a far deeper ira
press of approval than those more alluring and more dazzling
¦qualities which men are so eager to cultivate and rely upon as
the foundation of success in the business of life.
We have said that the training of Monroe was effected mainly
by his coraraerce with the world ; and to him the scene now
shifting its many-colored hues around hira was the best of schools.
Before he entered the Convention he had studied the new plan
•carefully, aided by the lights which, frora both sides, had been cast
upon it ; and during the present discussion he had listened at
tentively, making notes of the arguments and referring to the
cited authorities ; and his speech is a wonderful proof of the
success with which he prosecuted his labors. Viewed apart frora
the discussions ofthe period, both in and out ofthe House, both
on the rostrum and from the press, it evinces not only a thorough
acquaintance with the instrument itself, perfect logical consis
tency, and no little familiarity with the more abstruse illustra
tions drawn from ancient and modern history, with which it was
sustained or opposed, but such a comprehensive grasp of his
subject as to lead to the conviction that he had demonstrated the
true ^ause of the existing troubles of the country, that he was
ready to apply an immediate, safe, and effective remedy. His
introddction was modest and appropriate : "I cannot avoid ex-
pressiijig," he said, "the great anxiety which I feel upon the
present occasion — an anxiety that proceeds not only from a high
sense of the importance of the subject, but from a profound respect
for this!' august and venerable assembly. When we contemplate
the fatelthat has befallen other nations, whether we cast our eyes
back into the remotest ages of antiquity, or derive instruction
from those exaraples which modern times have presented to our
view, and observe how prone all human institutions have been to
decay ; how subject the best formed and wisely organized gov
ernments have been to lose their checks and totally dissolve ;
how difficult it has been for mankind, in all ages and countries,
to preserve their dearest rights and best privileges, impelled, as
it were, by an irresistible fate to despotisra ; if we look forward
to those prospects that sooner or later await our country, unless

174 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
we shall be exerapted frora the fate of other nations, even to a
raind the raost sanguine and benevolent, some gloomy apprehen
sions must necessarily crowd upon it. This consideration is suffi
cient to teach us the limited capacity of the human raind — how
subject the wisest men have been to error. For my own part, sir,
I corae forward here, not as the partisan of this or that side ofthe
question, but to coraraend where the subject appears to me to
deserve coraraendation, to suggest my doubts where I have any,
to hear with candor the explication of others, and, in the ulti
mate result, to act as shall appear for the best advantage of our
coramon country."
He called attention to the spectacle of a people about to frame
a new plan of government as in striking contrast with the history
of Europe for the last twelve centuries ; pointed out the distinct
ive elements of our colonial settleraent, and the change effected
by the Revolution, which put the government into the hands of
one class only — not of nobles and freemen as in other systems,
but of freemen only ; that the success of the American polity
could pnly be sustained by the union of the States, and that this
union was dearly cherished by all the States except Rhode
Island,'^' and that the question now was on what principles the
union should be constructed. With a view of reaching a cor
rect result, he reviewed the Federal alliances of ancient and
modern times, and especially the construction of the Amphyc
tionic Council, and showed the causes of its downfall ; he next ad
verted to the Achaian league, and pointed out its closer analogy
with the Articles of Confederation, arguing with seeming force
from that reserablance that our Confederation was not as weak
as was contended by the friends of the new plan, and seeking to
sustain his argument by quotations from Polybius, which he read
to the House. He successively reviewed in detail the constitu
tion of the Germanic body, of the Swiss Cantons, of the United
Netherlands, and of the New England Confederacy, and inferred
that as the destruction or inadequacy of the foreign federal asso
ciations arose from a dissimilarity of structure in the individual
raerabers, the facility of foreign interference, and the recurrence

">' The conduct of Rhode Island during the Revolution and subse-
quendy, met with no quarter from either side of the House throughout
the debates.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 175
to foreign aid, which were not applicable to us, there was no pro
priety in rejecting a federal system and in accepting a consoli
dated governraent in its stead. This view was enforced at great
length, and with an intiraate knowledge of the circumstances of
the country. He then discussed the question, " What are the
powers which the Federal Government ought to possess?"
arguing from various considerations that the entire control of
commerce ought to be given to the new plan, and that the power
of direct taxation, from its inexpediency, frora the impracticability
of its use, and from its peculiarity, should be withheld from it,
demonstrated that the present pressure on the Confederation was
i frora obvious causes not likely to occur again, but temporary,
and would soon pass away ; and that the means of relief in addi
tion to the control of coraraerce and the imposts which at five
per cent, it was estimated would exceed a million of doUars,
would be found in the sale of public lands which were rapidly
settling, in loans, which would be readily negotiated at a low
rate under the auspices of a large and certain revenue, and in
the last resort to requisitions upon the States. These topics
were argued deliberately and with great tact. He then pro
ceeded to analyze the new scheme of government, and concluded
that it was dangerous ; that a bill of rights was necessary ; that
the doctrine that all powers not ceded were retained might prove
utterly delusive, as by an evasion the Congress, under the clause
which gives power to pass all laws necessary for carrying the
plan into effect, might pass what laws they pleased, and might
destroy trial by jury, and the liberty of the press, and other
precious rights. He considered the alleged probability of har
mony between the General Governraent and the States, conclud
ing that, as history did not afford a single instance of the con
current exercise of powers by two parties without producing a
struggle between them, such would certainly be the case with us.
He then objected to the construction of the executive depart
ment as violating the correct idea of a legislative power, and of
other parts ofthe new plan, ending in these words, ' ' upon review
ing this government, I raust say, under ray present impression,
I think it a dangerous government and calciilated to secure
neither the interests nor the rights of our countrymen. Under
such an one I shall be averse to erabark the best hopes and
prospects of a free people. We have struggled long to bring

176 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
about this Revolution by which we enjoy our present freedoHo
and security. Why then this haste, this wild precipitation ?"
Monroe was immediately succeeded on the floor by a taU
young man, slovenly dressed in loose summer apparel, with
piercing black eyes, that would lead the observer to believe that
their possessor was raore destined to toy with the Muses than to
worship at the sterner shrine of Themis, his senior by three
years ; who had been his colleague in the old-field school, in the
army of the North through a long and perilous war, in the col
lege, and at the bar ; who, as on the present occasion, differed
with him in opinion, as on all others, during their continuous race
of half a century, and who was destined, Uke him, to fiU the
mission to France when one of the greatest political mael
stroms of modern tiraes was in full whirl, and to preside in the
Department of War and in the Department of State under the
Federal Constitution. But when one of them withdrew from the
House of Representatives and the other from the Senate of the
United States, their paths diverged, the elder devoting himself
entirely to politics, the younger to law, each with such success
that the pen which traces the history of James Monroe as
the head of the Federal Executive, wUl record on the same
page the history of John Marshall as the head of the Fed-
y~^eral Judiciary. Marshall was in his thirty-third year, and
1 from the close of the war to the meeting of the Convention, had
i applied himself with the exception of an occasional session in
I the House of Delegates, to the practice of the law. His raanners,
' Uke those of Monroe, were in strange contrast with those of Ed
mund Randolph or of Grayson, and had been forraed in the
tutelage of the camp, without, however, a tinge of that martinet
addrets which derides the rule of Hogarth, and consists in
making a stiff vertebral column the line of beauty and of grace ;
his habits were convivial alraost to excess ; and he regarded as
matters beneath his notice those appliances of dress and de
meanor which are commonly considered not unimportant to ad
vancement in a public profession. Nor should those personal
qualities which cement friendships and gain the affections of
men, and which he possessed in an eminent degree, be passed
over in a likeness of this young man — qualities as prominently
marked in the decline of his honored life, when his robe had
for a third of a century been fringed with ermine, as when, in

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 177
the heyday of youth, dressed in a light roundabout, he won his
way to every heart. Nor, as it is our duty as well as our plea
sure to dwell on the doraestic relations of our subjects, should
we fail to say that he had raarried, sorae years before, a charraing
woman, whose loveliness was the least of her perfections ; who
was the guardian angel of his earlier yfears, beckoning him from
the snares which thickly beset his amiable teraper and social pro
pensities ; who was the delight of his long life ; whora, when
laid for years upon that bed from which she was never to rise,
he tended w ith the watchfulness of early love ; and whom,
when taken from hira after an union of near half a century, he
coraraeraorated, on the first anniversary of her death, in a tri
bute which never saw the light tUl he was no raore, written with
such exquisite pathos as to touch the sternest heart, and which,
in a mere literary point of view, excels the productions, not only
of his own pen, but the pen of almost all his illustrious contem
poraries.'"* His speech now delivered has the peculiar marks which were
visible in his subsequent speeches in the House of Delegates,
and especially in that most celebrated of all his speeches — the
speech delivered in the case of Jonathan Robbins in the House
of Representatives, of which Gallatin, when pressed by a leading
politician to answer it, said in his then broken English: "An
swer it yourself; for my part I think it unanswerable." It will
afford in after tiraes a worthy theme to those who are curious in
watching the development of a great mind in the several stages
of its progress. Nothing could be raore directly to the point
than its exordiura. " I conceive," he said "that the object of
the discussion now before us is whether deraocracy or despotism
be most eligible. I am sure that those who framed the systera
submitted to our investigation, and those who now support it,
intend the establishraent and security of the forraer. The sup-
'" The maiden narae of Mrs. Marshall was Mary Arabler, who was
married to the Judge on the 3d of January, 1783, and died on the 25th
day of December, 1831. The paper alluded to was written on the 25th
of December, 1832, and may be found in Bishop Meade's " Old
Churches," Etc., II, 222. The letter of Mr. Jefferson to John Adams is
another specimen of tender affection, and shows, in connection with
the paper in question, that long and almost exclusive attention to pub
lic aifairs does not always deaden the kindlier feelings of the heart.
12

178 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
porters of the Constitution claira the tide of being firm friends
of liberty and of the rights of mankind. They say that they
consider it as the best means of protecting liberty. We, sir,
idolize deraocracy. Those who oppose it have bestowed eulo-
giuras on monarchy. We prefer this system to any monarchy,
because we are convinced that it has a greater tendency to se
cure our liberty and promote our happiness. We admire it,
because we think it a well-regulated democracy. It is recom
mended to the good people of this country ; they are, through
us, to declare whether it be such a plan of government as will
establish and secure their freedom. Perrait me to attend to what
the honorable gentleman (Henry) has said. He has expatiated
on the necessity of a due attention to certain raaxiras, to certain
fundamental principles from which a free people ought never to
depart. I concur with him in the propriety of the observance
of such maxiras. They are necessary in any governraent. but
more essential to a democracy than to any other. What are the
favorite raaxiras of democracy ? A strict observance of justice
and public faith, and a steady adherence to virtue. These, sir,
are the principles of a good government. No mischief — no mis
fortune ought to deter us from a strict observance of justice and
public faith. Would to heaven that these principles had been
observed under the present government ! Had this been the
case, the friends of liberty would not be so willing now to part
with it. Can we boast that our governraent is founded on these
raaxims ? Can we pretend to the enjoyment of political freedom
or security, when we are told that a man has been, by an Act
of Assembly, struck out of existence without a trial- by jury,
without exaraination, without being affronted by his accusers
and witnesses, without the benefits of the law of the land ?
Where is our safety, when we are told that this act was justifi
able, because the person was not a Socrates ?'*' What has be
corae of the worthy member's maxims ? Is this one of them ?

'^.5 Nothing shows raore plainly the desire of the friends of the Con
stitution to undermine the influence of Henry than the repetition of
this charge, which is not only false in every respect, but which, if true,
would only prove mal-administration in the State government, which
the new plan, if adopted, could neither punish nor prevent a repetition
of The belief at the time was, though wholly wrong, that Henry, as
Governor, had recommended the measure.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 179
Shall it be a raaxira that a man shall be deprived of his life with
out the benefit of law ? Shall such a deprecation of life be justi
fied by answering that the man's life was not taken secundum
ariem, because he was a bad man ? Shall it be a maxim that
government ought not to be empowered to protect virtue ? "
His purpose was to follow in the track of Henry ; and pro
ceeded to controvert the views of that gentleman on the Missis
sippi question; on the relative expediency of previous and subse
quent araendraents, and on the propriety of vesting the power of
direct taxation in Congress, which he discussed at considerable
K^ length. He agreed with Henry that a governraent should rest
on the affections of the people, and that the Constitution, founded
upon their authority, and resting upon them, deserved and would
receive their cordial support ; showed that the argument derived
frora the union of the purse and the sword in the sarae hands
would apply to every governraent as well as the one under con
sideration; that the objection urged against the Constitution from
the construction ofthe British government, which requires war to
be declared by the executive and the resources for carrying it on
to be provided by Parliaraent, was inapplicable, and that in fact
the new plan gave a far greater and more reUable security to the
people ; and closed with an able and critical comparison of the
British Constitution with the plan under discussion, which last,
he contended, was superior in every respect to the British, and
peculiarly adapted to the wants and to the genius of the people
of America.
When we look to the subsequent career of Monroe and Mar
shaU, their speeches delivered successively in the same' debate
have an interest which raight not attach to them in an abstract
view. The speech of Marshall is direct and conclusive, never
departing a hair's breadth frora the line of his argument. The
objection which he wishes to overcome is stated fairly and fully,
and he proceeds forthwith to remove it, using when possible the
concessions of his antagonist for his purposes, and sometiraes
with such effect that an honest antagonist, confiding in his own
maxims, feels inclined to accept the hostile commentary in place
of his own. But his speech on this occasion, though in passing
judgment the circurastances of its delivery must be kept in view,
is plainly rather that of a lawyer than a statesraan. He demon
strates with apparent conclusiveness the propriety of adopting

180 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
the Constitution, but he seeks to effect his object not so rauch by
arguments derived from the state of affairs, or frora an examina
tion of the different Federal systems analogous to our own, or
from a statesraanlike survey of the instruraent itself but mainly
frora the weakness of the arguraents urged against it by its oppo
nents, a mode of argumentation as applicable to the defence of
the worst as weU as the wisest political system.
In drawing the auguries of subsequent success from these
speeches of the young debaters, while it is evident that each, as
an inteUectual effort, exhibited abilities likely to attain distinction
in any sphere of public employraent, the speech of Marshall
indicates those qualities which become rather the bar and the
bench than the Senate and the cabinet, while the opposite con
clusion would probably be drawn from the speech of Monroe.
It wiU be observed that these speeches, although following con
secutively in the same debate, have no relation to each other,
each speaker having arranged his line of argument before he
entered the House.
Those who have come upon the stage since this illustrious man
has descended to his grave, have a right to inquire into his
habits of pubUc speaking. Of his inteUectual powers, the
speeches, few indeed, but signally representative, which he has
left behind hira,'^' his celebrated letter to Adet, and his diplo
matic correspondence, his arguments in the Virginia reported
cases, and above all, his judicial opinions, which from the first
abounding in strength, became more elaborate and more elegant
as he advanced in life, afford imperishable materials for the for
mation of a critical judgment. But not only have his equals
and rivals, who heard his finest speeches at the bar and in pubHc
assemblies, passed away with him, but nearly all of that brUliant
second growth of eminent men who took their places at the bar,
and on whose ears the echoes of his speeches were alraost as
distinct as the original sounds which gave thera birth, now rest
beneath the sod. There is not more than one man living in Vir
ginia, himself distinguished, who heard his speeches in the House
of Delegates during Washington's administration, nor, perhaps,
"* I regret to say that with the exception of his speech in the present
Convention, in the case of Jonathan Robbins, and those in the Conven
tion of 1829-30, I fear all are lost ; but even in this respect he is more
fortunate than most of his compeers.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 181
with the exception of an eminent citizen of Massachusetts, who,
in extreme old age but with unimpaired faculties, appeared to
honor a literary festival recently held in his native State,'" who
heard the speech of Marshall in the case of Jonathan Robbins.
Yet, we are rejoiced to say that so prolonged was his life, so
prominent was his position as the head of the Federal Judiciary
and the presiding judge of his circuit for the first third of the
present century, so accessible by the young as well as the old, by
the poor as well as the rich, by the fair sex as well as the manlier,
the former of which he treated with a true and a high chivalrous
courtesy, which Bayard could not have surpassed — a courtesy
the more sincere, as it was but the reflection of his own guileless
bosom — that there are hundreds yet living who can recall with
delight the modest and the deep thoughtful lines of his benignant
face, those piercing black eyes which never let the image of a friend
any more than the serablance of an argument escape his vision,
and his lofty figure clothed in the plainest dress of an ordinary
citizen, and mingling constantly and kindly with his fellow-men
in the street, in the market, on the quoit-ground, or reverently
bent in the humblest posture at the Throne of Grace. But, in
timate as was his knotvledge of the human heart, gathered from
a long experience in the camp and at the bar, those fruitful
schools of human nature, it was not by appeals to the interests
and to the passions of men that he sought to lay the stress of
his public efforts. Indeed, so utterly did he disregard aU such
appeals, that he launched in the opposite extreme, and as if
conscious of the true sources of his power, he avoided every
thing that might influence the mind through the eye. Indeed,
like his friend Monroe, he had no manner at all as a public
speaker, if by manner we mean soraething deliberate and studied
in action; and he raight be as readUy expected to speak in a
court-room with his hands on a chair, or with one of his legs
over its back, or within two feet of a presiding officer in a public
body, as in any other way. We have heard in early life from
those who knew him at the bar, that his manner did not differ
'" The Hon. Josiah Quincey, who said in his speech on the occasion
alluded to that he was the only living member of Congress of the last
century. Governor Tazewell entered the House of Representatives
in 1800 to fill Judge Marshall's unexpired term.

182 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
essentiaUy from what it was when, forty years later than our
present period, in the Convention of 1829-30, at several im
portant conjunctures, under a sense of deep responsibility, and
pressed by powerful opponents, he engaged in discussion. In
the common parts of his discourse he spoke with a serious
earnestness and with an occasional swing of his right arra, but
when he becarae aniraated, as we once beheld him, by the de
livery of his therae, which was the true iraport of certain words
of the Federal Constitution relating to the Judiciary, and by the
presence of several of the most astute men of that age who were
opposed to him in debate, and who were watching hira to his
destruction, he rose to the highest pitch of pathetic declaraation
thoroughly blended with argument, the most powerful of all
declamation ; and he might have been seen leaning forward witb
both arms outstretched towards the chair, as if in the act of
calling down vengeance on his opponents, or of deprecating
sorae enorraous evil which was about to befall his country; while
the tones, of his voice, exalted above his usual habit, were in
plaintive unison with his action. The report of this reraarkable
debate may be found elsewhere. '^^ The triumph of Marshall's
eloquence was heightened by the almost unequalled talents which
were arrayed against him — by the subde and terrible strength of
Tazewell, by the severe and sustained logic of Barbour, by the
versatile and brUliant but vigorous saUies of Randolph, whose
fame as the chairman of the Judiciary comraittee of 1802, which
reported the bill of repeal of the law passed by the Fed
eralists altering the judiciary systera to the House of Repre
sentatives, was at stake, and by the extraordinary skUl and
blasting sarcasm of Giles, heightened and stiraulated by the
recollections of ancient feuds which still burned brighdy in the
breast of his antagonist and in his own, and from a sense of
personal reputation which was involved in the passage of the
act of repeal in the House of Representatives, which he mainly
carried through that body. Of all the scenes which occurred in
the Convention of 1829-30, varied, animated, and intellectual as
they were, whether we respect the exciting nature of the topic
in debate, the zeal, the abilities, the public services, the venerable

'^•^ In the Debates of the Virginia Convention of 1829-30.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 183.
age, and the historical reputation of those who engaged in the
discussion — all enhanced in interest by the unequal division of
the combatants in the field, this was, perhaps, the most striking
which occurred in that body. And we feel the solemnity of this
scene the more, when we recall the fact that in less than five
years from the date of this eloquent exhibition of their faculties,
every member who participated in the discussion, with the ex
ception of one who is yet living, was consigned to the grave.
Now on such an occasion, opposed as we were to his views,
and familiar with the topic as we then were — a topic which had
been so thoroughly discussed in Congress as to be incapable of
novelty — we could but accord the palm of eloquence to Mar
shall ; and as that eloquence did not consist in the strength of
his argument — for we thought his opponents had the better of the
argument, or at least the right side of the question — it was the
triumph of his action, at once unexpected to his audience,
unpremeditated by himself and affording an unequivocal proof
of what he was capable of accoraplishing on a proper occasion
and in the prime of his powers.
As soon as MarshaU had resumed his seat, and while the
members were exchanging opinions respecting the relative merits
of the two young men who had just appeared for the first time
on the floor, there arose a large and venerable old man, elegantly
arrayed in a rich suit of blue and buff, a long queue tied with
a black ribbon dangling from his full locks of snow, and his long,
black boots encroaching on his knees, who proceeded, evidently
under high excitement, to address the House. He had been
so long a member of the public councils that even Wythe and
Pendleton could not easily recall the time when he had not been
a member of the House of Burgesses. His ancestors had landed
in the Colony before the first House of Burgesses had assembled
in the church on the banks of the James, and had invoked in
the presence of Governor Yeardley the blessing of heaven on
the great enterprise of founding an Anglo-Saxon colony on the
continent of America. One of his ancestors had been governor
of Somer's Islands, when those islands were a part of Virginia.
Others had been members and presidents of the Council of Vir
ginia from the beginning of the seventeenth century to that
memorable day in August, 1774, when the first Virginia Conven-

184 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
tion raet in Williamsburg, and appointed the first delegation to
the American Congress.'*' Of that delegation, whose naraes are
farailiar to our school-boys, and will be raore familiar to the youth
of future generations, this venerable man had teen a member,
had hastened to Philadelphia, and had declared to John Adams
that, if there had been no other means of reaching the city, he
would have taken up his bed and walked. But this was not his
first engageraent in the public service. Educated at William
and Mary, when that institution was under the guardianship of
Commissary Blair, he entered at an early age the House of
Burgesses, and in the session of 1764 was a member of the com
mittee which drafted the raeraorials to the king, the lords, and
the coramons of Great Britain against the passage of the Stamp
Act. During the following session of the House of Burgesses, in
1765, he opposed the resolutions of Henry, not from any want
of a cordial appreciation of the doctrines asserted by thera, but
on the ground that the House had not received an answer to the
raeraorials which he had assisted in drawing the year before,
which were daily expected to arrive. In the patriotic associa
tions of those times his name was always araong the first on the
roll. He was a raember of all the Conventions untU the inaugu
ration of the Coraraonwealth, and in the first House of Delegates
gave a hearty co-operation in accommodating the ancient polity
of the Colony to the requisitions of a republican system. But
his most arduous services were rendered in the Congress, and
as a representative of Virginia in that body he signed the Decla
ration of American Independence. While in Congress he had
presided on the most iraportant coraraittees, especially on those
relating to railitary affairs, and on the Committee of the Whole
during the animated discussions on the forraation of the Articles
of Confederation, and had been repeatedly deputed by Congress
on various missions at critical periods to the array and to the
States. On his return home he had been regularly a meraber of
the House of Delegates, of which he was alraost invariably the
Speaker while he had a seat in the Asserably. He was in the

'™That delegation consisted of Peyton Randolph, George Wash
ington, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Patrick Henry, and
Richard Bland.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 185
chair of the House when, in 1777, the bill attainting Philips had
been passed, and he knew that the bill had been drawn by Jeffer
son, his old colleague in the House of Burgesses, in the Conven
tions, and in Congress, in whose judgraent and patriotism he had
unlimited confidence. He reraerabered what a dark cloud was
resting upon his country when the miscreant Philips with his
band was plundering and raurdering the wives and daughters of
the patriotic citizens of Norfolk and Princess Anne, who were
engaged elsewhere in defending the Coraraonwealth, attacking
them in the dead of night, burning their habitations, perpetrating
the vUest outrages, and then retreating at daybreak into the
recesses of the swamp ; and that all the Assembly had done
under such provocation was to provide that, if the wretch did
not appear within a certain tirae and be tried by the laws of the
Coramonwealth for the crimes with which he was charged, he
should be deemed an outlaw ; and he felt indignant that such a
patriotic measure, designed to protect the lives and property of
the people, should be wrested from its true raeaning by the quib
bles of attorneys, and receive such severe condemnation. Before
he took his seat he declared his opposition to the Constitution,
little dreaming that the half-grown boy whora he had left at
Berkeley blazing away at the cat-birds in the cherry-trees, or
angling frora a canoe for perch in the river that flowed by his
farm, would one day wield the powers of that executive which
he now pronounced so kingly.
When Benjamin Harrison had pronounced the accusation of
the General Assembly in respect to Josiah Philips, unjust, he
declared that it had been uniformly lenient and moderate in its
measures, and that, as the debates would probably be published,
he thought it very unwarrantable in gentlemen to utter expres
sions here which raight induce the world to believe that the
Asserably of Virginia had perpetrated murder. He reviewed in
a succinct manner the proposed plan of government, declared
that it would infringe the rights and liberties of the people; that
he was amazed that facts should be so distorted with a view of
effecting the adoption of the Constitution, and that he trusted
they would not ratify it as it then stood. This aged patriot did
not engage in debate during the subsequent proceedings of the
Convention. He felt that his tirae of departure was near, and in
less than three years after the adjournment of the Convention, at

186 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788^
Berkeley his patrimonial seat on the James, he was gathered to
his fathers.'""
George Nicholas replied to Harrison that in the case of PhiUps,
the turpitude of a raan's character was not a sufficient reason to
deprive him of his life without a trial — that such a doctrine was
a subversion of every shadow of freedom. He then passed to
an exaraination of the various arguments which had been urged
by Henry in his last speech, taking them up one by one, and
sought to demonstrate that they were either unsound in them-

^^°I have represented Harrison as a large man, over six feet; but the
reader will not confound him with his namesake and relative, Benjamin
Harrison, who removed lo Georgia, where he died in 1818, aged forty-
five, and who measured seven feet tA'O inches and a-half in his stock
ings I frequently allude to the stature of our eariy statesraen, not
only because their physical qualities are proper subjects for remark,
but because of thetheory of the French philosopher about the dwindling
of the human race on this side of the Atlantic was a playful subject
with our fathers. Every member of the first deputation to Congress
reached six feet or over. Randolph. Washington, Henry, Pendleton,
R. H. Lee, Bland, and Harrison were six feet — their average height
being over six feet, and their average weight would have been two
hundred. In another place I have spoken of Herman Harrison as one of the
early governors of Virginia ; I should have said of the Soraer's Islands.
By the way, it was during the term of Herman Harrison that tobacco
worms and rats became popular on our plantations, as will be seen by
the tract of Captain John Smith on the " Confusion of Rats," Vol. II, 141.
From copies of records in the British State Paper Office, made by my
friend Conway Robinson, Esq., I perceive that the Harrisons were
among the earlier settlers. I ought to allude to the harsh comments
on Colonel Harrison, which appear in the diary of John Adams, recently
published in the edition of his works by his son. It was evidently a
hasty entry, made under some casual provocation, and never revised.
There could be, however, but little congeniality between the two men.
from their tastes and prejudices, and their modes of life, but it is
known that there was something like a feud in the Virginia delegation
at the time the entry was made, and Adaras sided warmly with Richard
Henry Lee and against Harrison. Perhaps this notice is all the entry
requires and deserves. Harrison corresponded with Washington
during the war, and in one of his letters commended Edmund Ran
dolph to him as a promising young man, when that young man, in 1775,
visited Cambridge with a view of entering the army. A copy of this
letter, which is too racy for publication, I have in my collection, and am
indebted for it to George M. Conarroe, Esq., of Philadelphia.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 187
selves or inapplicable to the plan under consideration. On the
conclusion of the speech of Nicholas, the House adjourned.
V" On Wednesday, the eleventh of June, the first and second sec
tions still norainally the order of the day, and Wythe in the
j chair, Madison took the floor and discussed the subject of direct
i^ taxation in all its bearings, replying by the way to the argu
ments of Henry against the expediency of vesting that power in
the Constitution, and delivered the raost elaborate speech of his
whole life. It wiU ever afford an admirable coraraentary on that
part ofthe Constitution which it was designed to expound. But
our liraits wiU allow us only to refer to a topic he touched upon,
which has a singular interest in connection with his subsequent
career in the administration of the Federal Government. When
he had showed the iraportance of a certain and adequate revenue
to a State in order to guard against foreign aggression, he said :
" I do not want to frighten the members of this Convention into
a concession of this power, but to bring to their minds those
considerations which demonstrate its necessity. If we were
secured from the possibility or the probability of danger, it
might be unnecessary. I shall not review that concourse of
dangers which raay probably arise at reraote periods of maturity,
nor all those which we have immediately to apprehend ; for this
would lead me beyond the bounds which I have prescribed my
self But I will mention one single consideration drawn from
the fact itself. By the treaty between the United States and his
most Christian raajesty, araong other things it is stipulated that
the great principle on which the armed neutrality in Europe was
founded, should prevail in case of future wars. The principle is
this, that free ships shall make free goods, and that vessels and
goods both shall be free from condemnation. Great Britain did
not recognize it. While all Europe was against her, she held
out without acceding to it. It has been considered for some
time past that the flames of war already kindled would spread,
and that France and England were likely to draw those swords
which were so recently put up. This is judged probable. We
should not be surprised in a short time to consider ourselves a
neutral nation ; France on one side and Great Britain on the other.
What is the situation of Araerica ? She is reraote from Europe
and ought not to engage in her politics or wars. The American
vessels, if they can do it with advantage, raay carry on the com-

188 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
raerce of the contending nations. It is a source of wealth
which we ought not to deny to our citizens. But, sir, is there
not infinite danger, that in spite of all our caution we may be
drawn into the war ? If American vessels have French prop
erty on board, Great Britain will seize them. By this raeans we
shall be obliged to relinquish the advantage of a neutral nation,
or be engaged in a war. A neutral nation ought to be respect
able, or else it will be insulted or attacked. Araerica in her
present impotent situation would run the risk of being drawn in
as a party in the war, and lose the advantage of being neutral.
Should it happen that the British fleet should be superior, have
we not reason to conclude, frora the spirit displayed by that
nation to us and to all the world, that we should be insulted in
our own ports, and our vessels seized ? But if we be in a respect
able situation, if it be known that our governraent can command
the whole resources of the nation, we shall be suffered to enjoy
the great advantages of carrying on the commerce of the nations
at war, for none of them would be anxious to add us to the num
ber of their enemies. I shall say no raore on this point, there
being others which merit your consideration."
The future historian, when he peruses the speech from which
we have made an extract, will pause in silent wonder, and will
hesitate whether most to adraire the thorough knowledge of the
operations of a governraent yet untried which it displays, the
vigor of its reasoning, now close, now wide, as the particular
topic in hand required, or the profound sagacity of its author.
Madison was succeeded by George Mason. It has been
remarked by one of the most celebrated orators of the present
age, that it is an advantage to a speaker of the first order of
ability, and to such only, to succeed the delivery of a first-rate
speech, that the attention of the audience is fixed firmly on the
subject in debate, and that there is a craving for a reply.'" In
this respect. Mason could not have been more fortunate, and in
another not less so ; for the speech which had just been delivered
was addressed to the reason and not to the passions of the
House, and the eminent perfection of Mason rested on his logi
cal power, in his knowledge ofthe British polity, and in his
experience as a statesraan. Hitherto Henry had stood alone—

Lord Brougham' s Miscellanies, I, 184, note.

\

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 189
alone, but unsubdued — exposed to the severest fire which up to
this moment in our parliamentary history had ever been levelled
against a single speaker. The raaxims drawn by Henry frora
the British Constitution, and so long accepted as undeniable
truths, the examples cited by him from ancient and modern his
tory, the practical doctrines and lessons drawn from our own
institutions, which he had from time to time reiterated in the
House, had been examined in detail by the able debaters who
liad successively appeared on the floor, and had almost been
frittered away, and in the comparatively brief space of time
aUowed for a reply araid the innuraerable arguraents against the
new plan with which his raind was teeraing, as the discussion
advanced, and as the fate of the Constitution was drawing nigh,
it was impossible for him to reply in detail. Hence the service
of such a coadjutor as Mason at that time was as appropriate as
it was welcome.
After some observations on the propriety of arguing at large
instead of confining the debate to a particular clause in the
present condition of the House, he reverted to an argument of
Nicholas', borrowed frora Dr. Price, on the subject of the repre
sentation of the British people in the House of Commons, and
showed that the reraark could only apply to a single political
system — a government totus teres alque rotundus — that as it was
admitted by Nicholas that five hundred and fifty members could
be bribed, then it was as much easier to bribe sixty-five, the
nuraber of the new House of Representatives, as sixty five was
less five hundred and fifty ; that the bribery of the House of
Commons was effected mainly by the distribution of places,
offices and posts, and that Congress was authorized to create
these at its discretion, and, as he sought to show, without any
practical restraint. He proceeded to prove that the unlimited
power of taxation vested in the Constitution would ultimately
result in the oppression of the people ; that the concurrent
power of taxation by two governments would necessarily clash ;
that the mode of requisitions, while it would proraote econoray
in the adrainistration ofthe Federal Governraent, would prevent
any unpleasant collision between the parties, and that he was
willing to yield the power of taxation as a resource where requi
sitions failed. He showed what would be the subject of taxation
under the new plan, establishing his point by a quotation frora a

190 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
letter of Robert Morris, the financier of the governraent, de
nounced the poU-tax, as well as the other taxes proposed in that
letter, as peculiarly severe upon the slave-holding States, and
invoking a certain conflict between the governments. He
denied that Congress would possess the proper information for
the assessraent of direct taxes, especially as it was said that the
body would be coraposed of the well-born — that aristocratic
idol, that flattering idea, that exotic plant, which has been lately
iraported frora Great Britain and planted in the luxuriant soil of
this country.'"' He established the position of Henry about the
difficulty of getting back powers once given away, and showed
that out of a thousand instances where the people precipitately
and unguardedly relinquished power, there has not yet been one
solitary instance of a voluntary surrender of it back by rulers,
and defied the production of a single case to the contrary.
Following the line of arguraent pursued by Randolph, he ex
pressed his love of the union and his opinion on another topic
not devoid of interest at the present tirae. "The gentleman
(Randolph) dwelt largely on the necessity of the union. A
great many others have enlarged upon this subject. Foreigners
would suppose, from the declamation about union, that there
was a great dislike in America to any general American govern
ment. I have never in ray whole life heard one single man
deny the necessity and propriety of the union. This necessity
is deeply impressed upon every American mind. There can be
no danger of any object being lost when the mind of every man
in the country is strongly attached to it. But I hope it is not to
the narae, but to the blessings of union that we are attached.
Those gentleraen who are the loudest in their praises of the
name are not raore attached to the reaUty than I am. The
security of our liberty and happiness is the object we ought to
have in view in wishing to establish the union. If instead of
securing these we endanger thera, the name of union will be but
a trivial consolation. If the objections be removed — if those
parts which are clearly subversive of our rights be altered — no
man will go further than I will to advance the union. We are
told in strong language of the dangers to which we will be ex-
i02j|,|g term " well-born " had dropped in conversation from a friend
of the Constitution.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788., 191
posed unless we adopt this Constitution. Araong the rest,
doraestic safety is said to be endangered. This governraent does
Y not attend to our doraestic safety. It authorizes the importation
of slaves for twenty-odd years, and thus continues upon us that
nefarious trade. Instead of securing and protecting us, the
continuation of this trade adds daily to our weakness. Though
^ this evil is increasing, there is no clause in the Constitution that
will prevent the Northern and Eastern States from meddling with
our whole property of that kind. There is a clause to prohibit
the importation of slaves after twenty years ; but there is no
provision made for securing to the Southern States those they
now possess. It is far frora being a desirable property. But it
wUl involve us in great difficulty and infelicity to be now deprived
of them. There ought to be a clause in the Constitution to
secure us that property, which we have acquired under our for
mer laws, and the loss of which would bring ruin on a great
many people."
When Mason had replied to most of the arguments of Ran
dolph, maintaining his opinions from authorities, which he read
on the floor, he discussed the objection of the difficulties that
might result frora delay, and referred to the inconsistency of the
course of that gentleman : " My honorable colleague in the late
Convention seems to raise phantoms, and to show a singular
skill in exorcisms, to terrify and compel us to take the new gov
ernment with all its sins and dangers. I know he once saw as
great danger in it as I do. What has happened since to alter
his opinion ? If anything, I know it not. But the Virginia
Assembly has occasioned it by postponing the raatter ! The
Convention has raet in June, instead of March or April ! The
liberty or raisery of millions yet unborn are deeply concerned in
our decision. When this is the case, I cannot iraagine that the
short period between the last of September and the first of June
ought to make any difference. The union between England and
Scotland has been strongly instanced by the honorable gentleman
to prove the necessity of acceding to this new government. He
must know that the act of union secured the rights ofthe Scotch
nation. The rights and privileges of the people pf Scotland are
expressly secured. We wish only our rights to be secured.
We must have such amendments as will secure the liberty and
happiness of the people on a plain, siraple construction, not on

192 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
<' a doubtful ground. We wish to give the Government sufficient
j energy on real republican principles ; but we wish to withhold
j such powers as are not absolutely necessary in theraselves, but
' are extreraely dangerous. We wish to shut the door against
' corruption in that place where it is most dangerous — to secure
against the corruption of our own representatives.'"" We ask
such amendments as will point out what powers are reserved to
the State governments, and clearly discriminate between them
and those that are given to the General Government, so as to
prevent future disputes and clashing of interests. Grant us
amendments like these, and we wUl cheerfuUy with our hands
and hearts unite with those who advocate it, and we wUl do every
thing we can to support and carry it into execution. But in its
present form we can never accede to it. Our duty to God and
"^ to our posterity forbids it. We acknowledge the defects of the
; Confederation, and the necessity of a reforra. We ardendy wish
i for an union with our sister States on terms of security. This, I
/ am bold to declare, is the desire of most of the people. On
these terras we will raost cheerfully join with the warmest friends
of this Constitution. On another occasion I shall point out the
great dangers of this Constitution, and the araendraents which
are necessary. I will likewise endeavor to show that amend
ments, after ratification, are delusive and faUacious — perhaps
utterly impracticable."
There is one passage in this speech which, in a historical view,
should not be omitted. We have raore than once observed that
the ratification of the Federal Constitution by Virginia was
effected mainly by the military officers of the Revolution and by
the judiciary of the State, in opposition to the wishes of a large
majority of the ablest and wisest statesmen who had engaged in
the theatre of that contest, and we readUy conceive the reasons
which impelled thera to desire a more energetic government than
could well exist under the Articles of Confederation. Soldiers
and judges are rarely safe statesmen in great civU conjunctures ;
but in the present instance their purity of purpose and their
'^'The disclosures made at a late session of Congress show that the
evil apprehended by Mason is not imaginary. In fact, most of the
leading opponents of the Constitution in Convention went down to
their graves in the full belief that they had witnessed for themselves a
remarkable case of corruption in Congress.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 193
patriotism were unquestionable. There was, however, another
class of men friendly to the Federal Constitution, who had mani-
fested from the dawn of the contest with Great Britain a decided
reluctance to a change of dynasty, but who, with the object of
securing their estates from confiscation, determined to take sides
with the people. These disaffected, on all trying occasions, hung
on the rear of the friends of freedom, and sought to obstruct
their progress when they could effect their object safely and
without suspicion. They opposed the resolution of independence
in the Convention of 1776, and the Constitution of the Common
wealth, and, disinclined to widen the rupture with Great Britain,
zealously opposed the ratification of the Articles of Confederation
by the Virginia Assembly.'"* When the independence of the
United States was recognized by Britain, and a return to the
rule of the mother country becarae irapracticable, guided by that
distrust of the people which led them to obstruct the -several
capital stages of the Revolution, they were eager to estabUsh a
government as nearly allied in form to that which had been over
thrown as they could succeed in accomplishing. As these per
sons were possessed of high position, wide family connections,
and abilities, their influence was sensibly felt by those able and
patriotic raen who believed that the Constitution, however wisely
intended by its fraraers, would ultimately result in impairing the
Uberties of the people. Yet it was a raost delicate and difficult
task to assail them. It was this aspect of the case which Mason
had the courage to denounce, when he said: "I have sorae
acquaintance with a great raany characters who favor this Gov
ernment, their connections, their conduct, their political principles,
and a number of other circumstances. There are a great raany
wise and good raen among them. But when I look around
the number of ray acquaintance in Virginia, the country wherein
I was born, and have lived so raany years, and observe who are
the warmest and most zealous friends to this new government, it
makes me think of the story of the cat transforraed into a fine
lady — forgetting her transforraation, and happening to see a rat,
she could not restrain herself but sprung upon it out of the
chair." '" Letter of George Mason to R. H. Lee, May 18, 1776, in the archives
of the Virginia Historical Society; and Patrick Henry to R. H. Lee,
December 18, 1777, in the " Red Hill " papers.
13

194 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
Henry Lee, ever mindful of the tactics of his profession, and
thinking he saw an opening for a charge upon the eneray, sprang
to the floor, and demurred to Mason's iUustration of the cat and
the fine lady. " The gentleraan," he said, "has endeavored to
draw our attention frora the raerits of the question by jocose
observations and by satirical allusions. Does he iraagine that he
who can raise the loudest laugh is the soundest reasoner? Sir,
the judgments and not the risibility of raen are to be consulted.
Had the gentleman followed that rule which he hiraself proposed,
he would not have shown the letter of a private gentleman, who,
in tiraes of difficulty, had offered his opinion respecting the mode
in which it would be most expedient to raise the public funds.
Does it follow that since a private individual proposed such a
scheme of taxation, the new Government will adopt it? - But the
same principle also governs the gentleman, when he raentions
the expressions of another private gentleraan — the well-born —
that our representatives are to be chosen frora the higher orders
of the people — from the well-born. Is there a single expression
like this in the Constitution ? This insinuation is totally unwar
rantable. Is it proper that the Constitution should be thus
attacked with the opinions of every private gentleraan ? I hope
we shall hear no more of such groundless aspersions. Raising
a laugh, sir, will not prove the merits nor expose the defects of
this system.'""^
When Lee had exhausted his fire, there appeared on the floor
for the first tirae one of those eminent men, the iraraediate
growth of the Commonwealth, who blended in his character the
quaUties of the soldier and the statesman, and whose fame, won
in various fields and in contact with his raost distinguished con
temporaries, though obscured by the mists which have so long
gathered over the memory of our early statesmen, raay fitly fill
'*^ It is evident from Lee's speech that the cat and the fine lady was
not the only piece of fun with which Mason relieved one of his ablest
arguments ; but there is not a shadow of humor in any other part of
the reported speech. I may say here that it is almost impossible in a
short synopsis to present fairly the arguments of a speech ranging over
the entire Constitution, and recurring time and again to the same
topics. Under such a process all the speeches lose what little savour is
left by the original reporter, but especially those of Henry, Mason, and
Grayson, the three great champions of the opposition.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 195
one of the brightest pages in our annals. His military career,
beginning with the dawn of the Revolution, and pursued for the
most part under the eye of Washington — with whora in early life
he had hunted foxes over the moors of Westmoreland, and
whose respect and esteem he enjoyed to the end of his life — con
tinued nearly to its close, and was raarked by enterprise, by
intrepidity, and by success. But the military services of Wil
liam Grayson, prorainent as they were, were lost sight of in the
blaze which his civic accoraplishments kindled about his narae.
It is hard to say whether he was raore fortunate in his natural
genius, or in those advantages which enabled hira to discipUne
and develop it. Educated at Oxford,'"" to which he early re
paired, he not only acquired a correct knowledge of the Latin
and Greek tongues and of the sciences, but cultivated so
assiduously the purer literature of England, especially in the
departraent of British history, that in his splendid conversa
tional debates, and in his speeches at the bar and in public
bodies, his excellence in this respect was universally confessed.
The tirae of his abode in England was opportune. There was
indeed a raoraentary pause in the productions of English genius.
The wits of Queen Anne's time had disappeared, but the glory
of the Georgian era was yet in its dawn. ; The Johnsonian
galaxy yet shone with a moderate lustre. Burke, who was
known as the author of " a very pretty treatise on the sublime,"
was yet to make his magnificent speeches in the House of Com
mons, and Gibbon, who was spoken of in a small circle as the
author of a clever tract in refutation of one of the ingenious
theories which Warburton had ventured upon in his Divine
Legation, had not yet put forth the first volume of the Decline
and Fall. Even Johnson had not published the most elegant of
his prose compositions, the Lives of the British Poets. But in
the sister kingdom of the north there appeared in rapid succes
sion a series of literary works which reminded the world that
Scotland was the home of Buchanan, of Boethius, and of Napier,
and was now the abode of Hume, of Ferguson, of Kames, of
Robertson, and of Adara Sraith. Grayson, smitten with a love
of learning, eagerly perused the works of these authors as they
'*^ Grayson's name does not appear in the Alumni Oxienses of the
eminent antiquary and genealogist, Joseph Foster. — Ed.

196 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
appeared ; but it was to the Wealth of Nations that he devoted
all the energies of his intellect, and so thoroughly did he master
the problems of the new philosophy, that in conversation and in
debate he was proud to declare his allegiance to Adam Smith as
the founder, or if not the founder, the great modern expositor
of the science of political economy.'"'
After serving his terms in the Temple, with a mind richly im
bued aUke with the learning of the law and with the living htera
ture of the age, and panting for honorabledistinction, he returned
to Virginia at a time when the opposition to British rule, begun
in the House of Burgesses, had passed to the people, and when
Associations were regarded by the colonists as the surest means
of defending their rights. A rapid and striking panorama then
passed before his eyes. The Conventions soon began to assem
ble ; the royal governor soon fled from his palace ; the House of
Burgesses soon went down to rise no more ; and the Virginia
regiraents, fuUy equipped, were to be seen drawn up in the
square at Williarasburg, or lounging in the shade of Waller's
grove. Grayson instantly enrolled his narae in one of the Asso
ciations, and becarae a candidate for the majority in the new
corps, but was defeated by Alexander Spotswood.'"" In the
'*' A gentleraan who knew Grayson intimately, told me that the
Wealth of Nations had long been his favorite book, and that a favorite
expression with him in the House of Delegates, when Virginia regu
lated her own commerce, and in Congress, was, " Let commerce alone ;
it will take care of itself" — a version ofthe answer of the French mer
chants to Colbert.
'"^Journal Convention of July, 1775, page 19. The first public act of
Grayson was his participation in the Westmoreland meeting, which
adopted the rules of association on the 27th day of February, 1766.
Va. Hist. Reg., II, 17. I regret that I cannot ascertain his age, which is
unknown to most of his descendants. As he was buried in a vault, we
have no tombstone to refer to. and his coffin had no inscription upon
it, as I learn from one who examined it. I have reason to believe that
he was in England as late as 1765. One of his descendants states that
he was educated at Edinburg ; another, equally intelligent and devoted
to his meraory, insists that he was educated at Oxford. Professor
Tucker says he certainly studied law in the Temple. I have decided,
from all the facts within my reach, that Oxford was the true place of
his education. His combined classical and scientific acquirements, and
especially his skill in Latin prosody, betoken an English training. My
belief is that he was in his forty eighth year when he took his seat in

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 197
following year he was appointed colonel of the first battaUon of
infantry raised for the internal security and defence of the State.
His spirit and intelligence early attracted the attention of Wash
ington, who invited him to become a member of his military
faraUy. With the affairs at VaUey Forge his narae is intiraately
connected, and was associated with that of Hamilton in the dis
charge of several iraportant trusts.'"' He was at the battles of
Long Island and White Plains, of Brandywine and Germantown,
and at Monmouth he is beUeved to have comraanded the first
brigade jn the order of attack."" He had been appointed colonel
of a regiment to be raised in Virginia in January, 1777, and it
was probably in the command of this regiment that he was
engaged at Monmouth.'" In 1779 his regiment was blended
with Nathaniel Gist's, and, having become a superriuraerary, he
accepted the office of a Commissioner of the Board of War,
which he had previously declined when a prospect of active
service was before him, and in December of that year he took
his seat at that Board, which he ultimately resigned on the loth
of September, 1781."^ In closing this allusion to the raUitary
the present Convention, as in the year 1775 he was a candidate for the
office of major, along with such men as Thomas Marshall, the father
of the Chief Justice, and in the following year was elected a full
colonel (Journal House of Delegates, 1776, p. 104), while Henry Lee
and Theodoric Bland were satisfied with captaincies. Colonel Clement
Carrington told me that when he saw Grayson attending Congress in
New York, in 1786, he thought he was about fifty, but it is well
known that very young men are prone to overestimate the age of their
seniors. The age of an individual may seem unimportant, but in a
body of men made up of two or three generations, a knowledge of the
relative ages of the merabers is indispensably to a correct representa
tion of their characters, and of their relative' positions towards each
other. 169 Writings of Washington. V, 272. He was officially announced as
aid to Washington in a general order dated "Headquarters at New
York, 24th August, 1776."
"" Morse, in a school history of the United States, is the authority of
this statement.
"'Journals of the Old Congress, Vol. II, pp. 19, 60, 300. His lieu
tenant colonel was Levin Powell, also a member of the present Con
vention; born in 1738, in Loudoun county ; representative in Congress,
1799-1801 ; died at Bedford, Pa., in August, i8io. — Ed.
'"Journals of Congress, IV, 505, 524 ; V, 335; VII, 144.

198 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
offices which Colonel Grayson held during the war, one raarked
instance of his intrepidity, taken from the lips of the late and
ever venerable Bishop White, deserves a record : " I was sitting
in this house during the war," he said to a friend in conversation
with him at his residence on Fifth street, Philadelphia, a short
time before his death, " when a raost furious mob of several
hundred persons assembled on the opposite side of the street,
and a few doors above this house, and I saw Colonel Grayson
with some fifteen men, with fixed bayonets, hastily pass. My
apprehension was that they would be torn to pieces ; but Colonel
Grayson instantly entered the house of the rioters at the head of
his sraall force, and in a few rainutes the ringleaders were secured
and the raob was dispersed."""
On his return to Virginia, Grayson continued the practice of
the law until 1784, when he was deputed to Congress, and in
March of the following year he took his seat ih that body. To
such a man opportunity was alone wanting to become an expert
debater; and, although the deliberations of Congress were secret,
we know that he soon acquired distinction on the floor. During
his term of service some of the most serious questions that
sprung up under the Confederation were disposed of Among
the number was the Connecticut cession of western lands with
the Reserve, which he warmly opposed, and the passage of the
Northwestern Ordinance, which he as warraly sustained."* But,
to pass over his Congressional career, to which we shall revert
hereafter, although firraly attached to the Governraent prescribed
by the Articles of Confederation, he was candid enough to declare
as early as 1785 that new and extensive powers ought to be
engrafted upon it, and that the ninth article should be amended

"' On the authority of a letter from Peter G Washington, Esq., dated
August 24, 1856. Mr. Washington heard the Bishop narrate the inci
dent in the text. Mr. Washington is the grandson of the Rev. Spence
Grayson, the brother of the Colonel. I must confess my obligations to
Mr. Washington for the information contained in his letters to me, which
are the more valuable frora their reference to the proper authorities.
"* I regret that I cannot put my finger on the short note of Grayson
addressed to a friend in Virginia announcing the passage of the Ordi
nance. One ground of his satisfaction was. that the Northwestern
States would not be able to make tobacco. The letter was published
in the papers in 1845.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 199
and extended,"" and he was equaUy explicit in declaring what
these new powers ought to be, and with what limitations they
should be granted. Still there was a barrier in the way of his
approval of the new Constitution which it was irapossible to
reraove. It involved, in his opinion, a total change of polity;
and for this change he felt that he was able to prove that there
was no real necessity.
But before we proceed to develop his views of the new plan,
we raust speak of hira as he now was, in the meridian of his
farae as the raost elegant gentleman as well as the most accom
plished debater of his age. In this respect he had some quali
ties which were possessed in no ordinary degree by his great
contemporaries ; but there were ether qualities which he alone
possessed, and which he possessed in an erainent degree. In
massive logical power he had his equals ; but his distinctive
superiority in this respect was marked by the raode of argu
mentation which he pursued, and which was peculiar to himself
Thoroughly coraprehending his therae in all its parts, as if it
were a problem in pure matheraatics, and conscious of his
strength, he would play with his subject most wantonly, calling
to his aid arguments and illustrations the full bearing of which
he saw, and which he knew he could manage, but which to ordi
nary hearers were as fraught with danger as they were easy of
misrepresentation. He was equally wanton in his manner of
treating the arguments of his adversaries, pushing thera to the
greatest extreraes, and, as he worked his way without the slight
est interraixture of passion, often producing an effect upon his
audience most worrying to his opponents, and near akin to the
exhibition of humor itself One practical effect was, that men
laughed as heartily during his most profound arguments at the
display ofthe wit of reason, as they are wont to do at the display
of the wit which in other speakers ordinarily flows frora the
imagination. But there was one result which sometimes fol
lowed this sport of dialectics which was embarrassing in itself,
and which was likely to lead to a loss of the garae. He was
liable to,be raisunderstood by those who were either unable or
unwilling to follow hira in the course of his flight, and he was
"° Writings of Washington. Washington to Grayson, August 22,
1785, IX, 125.

200 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
further liable to the wilful misrepresentations of those whose
arguments he had handled with so litde reserve. It exposed
hira also to the suspicion and distrust of a class of men, who,
though they never engaged in debate, exercised no Uttle influ
ence in and out of the House, and who had learned to confound
gravity with logic, and thought that a man could no more rea
son than he could tell the truth with a smile, and who, if they
had Uved at the tirae of the invention of gunpowder, would have
denied to the last that a man could be as effectually killed by a
buUet or a round shot as by a bow and arrow ; or in the time of
the Holy Wars, that a head could be as completely severed from
the neck by the scimiter of Saladin as by the sword of Richard.
But his uncommon versatility of logical power, which made
every speech a specimen in dialectics, was only one of his accom
plishments as a debater. In the more refined departraents of
learning we have already said he was a proficient ; but in a min
ute acquaintance with the affairs of Congress since the war, when
the defects of the Confederation had been fully developed, in a
knowledge of all questions of coraraerce and political economy,
and of the politics of England and of the continental States,
which had been his favorite study abroad, and in a sound com
mon sense, which he did not suffer to be dazzled by his own spec
ulations any more than by the speculations of others, or deterred
by the cumulative terrors of a present crisis, if he raay be said to
have had an equal in the House, he certainly had no superior in
or out of it. Even these abundant stores of information, applied
by an unimpassioned inteUect to the case in hand, sometimes
failed to produce their effects upon coramon minds ; for, as was
observed of a celebrated English statesman, he was inclined to
view questions requiring an immediate solution, not as they
appeared, clogged with the interests and the passions of the
raoment, but as they would appear in the eyes of the next gen
eration — a trait, which, though favorable to a reputation with
posterity, is in ordinary cases fatal to a reputation for practical
affairs, but which was peculiarly adapted to the investigation of
a new plan of government.""
"" One of the most perfect exhibitions in recent times of powers kin
dred with those of Grayson was the speech delivered by Governor
Tazewell in the House of Delegates on the Convention bill of 1816.
I heard in conversation with Mr. Tazewell the general oudine of his

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 201
His powers of humor, wit, sarcasm, ridicule, prolonged and
sustained by argument and declamation, were unrivalled. The
speech which he now rose to deliver abounds in passages of
humor and sarcasm, not put Ibrth to excite mirth, but to ad
vance his argument, and to annoy his adversaries. Nor did he
confine himself to those illustrations which, reflected from the
classics, have a lustre not to be questioned, though sometimes
hard to perceive, but drew his iraages frora the coramon life
around hira. When, in proving that the dangers from the neigh
boring States, which had been marshalled by the friends of the
Constitution in dread array as likely to overwhelm Virginia in
the event of the rejection of that instrument, were imaginary, he
ridiculed such apprehensions of alarra, and, turning to South
CaroUna, described the citizens of that gaUant State as rushing
to invade us, raounted, not on the noble Arabian which poetry
as well as history had clothed with beauty and with terror —
not with the cavalry of civilized nations — but upon alligators,
suddenly summoned from the swarap and bridled and saddled
for the nonce — a cavalry worthy of such a cause — that of crush
ing a sister Coraraonwealth — his sally was received with roars
argument twelve years after it was delivered, with a pleasure which I
have rarely received since from any public effort. The late Philip
Doddridge, who took a part in the debate, told me that it was not only
the most extraordinary exhibition of logical power which he had ever
witnessed in debate, but which he believed was ever delivered in any
public body in America. There, too, the speech was subjected to the
misrepresentation of opponents, who fell upon the words " many-
headed monster," which Mr Tazewell used in animadverting on the
word " people," which was contained in the bill, and which he con
tended included men, women and children, white, black, and mulatto,
and every other description and complexion known among men.
Twenty years afterwards I heard these words, which had been carried
to the counties and brought back again to Richmond, where they had
been forgotten, quoted to show that Mr. Tazewell had spoken disre
spectfully of the people, of whom he and his large family were a part,
and whose rights, at a severe pecuniary loss to himself, he had been
elected without his knowledge to maintain on this very question. To
have made such an objection in debate would have been to raise loud
laughter. The great speech of Upshur on the basis of representation in the
Virginia Convention of 1829-30, was another splendid example of Gray
son's mode of debate.

202 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
of laughter frora both sides of the House. A Latin scholar,
skilled in prosody, he ever showed a reluctance to let a slip in a
quotation pass unreproved ; and when a friend of the Constitu
tion, in using the words "spolia opima," raade the penult of the
last word short:, Grayson whispered in a tone that reached the
ear of the orator: " Opima, if you please"; and when another
friend of the Constitution sought to derive the word contract
frora con and tracto, Grayson, with a lengthened twirl of the lips,
troUed out in an undertone that was heard by the learned gentle
raan in possession of the floor: " Tra- ho." And the laugh in
this case, as in the preceding, passed like a wave from the spot
where it was raised gradually to the reraote parts of the house.
He was not surprised, he is reported to have said, that men who
were, in his opinion, about to vote away the freedom of__a living
people, should take such liberties with a dead tongue.
The physical qualities of Grayson were quite as distinctive as
the intellectual. He was considered, as we have already said,
the handsomest man in the Convention. He had a most comely
and imposing person — his stature exceeded six feet, and though
his weight exceeded two hundred and fifty pounds, such was the
symmetry of his figure, the beholder was struck more with its
height than its raagnitude. His head was very large, but its
outUne was good ; his forehead unusually broad and high, and
in its reserablance to that of Chalmer's indicating a predilection
for the abstract sciences ; his eyes were black and deep-seated ;
his nose large and curved ; his Ups well formed, disclosing teeth
white and regular, which retained their beauty to the last ; a fine
complexion gave aniraation to the whole. When he was walk
ing, his head leaned slightly forward as if he were lost in thought.
Lest our sketch may seem to be overdrawn, although no person
who, as an adult, had known Grayson, with one exception, is
now alive, we have fortunately a singular proof of the fidelity of
the portrait which we have delineated. When Grayson had lain
forty-six years in his coffin its lid was lifted, and there his majestic
form lay as if it had been recently wrapped in the shroud. The
face was uncovered by the hand of a descendant, and its noble
features, which had frowned in batde, which had sparkled in
debate, and on which the eyes long closed of tender affection
had loved to dwell, were fresh and full. The towering forehead;
the long black hair — the growth of the grave ; the black eye,

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 203
glazed and slightly sunken, yet eloquent of its ancient fire ; the
large Roman nose ; the finely wrought lip ; the perfect teeth,
which bespoke a temperate life ended too soon ; the wide
expanded chest ; the long and sinewy limbs terminating in those
small and delicate hands that rested on his breast, and in those
small feet that had been motionless so long ; the grand and
graceful outline of the form as it was when laid away to its final
rest, told touchingly with what faithfulness tradition had retained
the image of the beloved original.'"
The address of Grayson was winning and courteous. His
manners, formed abroad at a time when the young Araerican
was apt to be taken for a young savage, and improved by a
large experience with the world, were highly polished. He was

'" One of the descendants of Colonel Grayson represents him as over
six feet, another quite six, and another, a lady who in her childhood
knew him, as very tall. A friend, now dead, who knew Graysoii,
thought hira over six feet.
I derive the particulars of the appearance of Colonel Grayson in his
coffin from Robert Grayson Carter, Esq , of Grayson, Carter cO/Unty,
Kentucky^ who uncovered the face of Grayson, and examined the
body. He particularly alludes to the size of the head, and of the
smallness of hands and feet, the hair, the features, and the teeth. I am
indebted to Mr. Carter for his efforts to obtain information respecting
his illustrious grandfather. The father of Colonel Grayson was naraed
Benjamin ; was, it is believed by some of my correspondents, a Scotch
raan, and married a lady whose maiden narae was Monroe ; and it is
thought that Grayson and James Monroe were first or second cousins.
Grayson himself married Eleanor, sister of General William Srrjallwood.
[It is a suggestive coincidence that the christian name of the father of
James Monroe aud of a brother of Colonel Grayson was Spence — in
such use an uncommon name. — Ed.]
I shall trace the career of Grayson more particularly when I come to
speak of the members at large. Grayson was buried in the vault of
Belle Air, then the seat of the Rev. Spence Grayson, near Dumfries.
I must also acknowledge ray indebtedness to John M. Orr. Esq.,
another connection of Grayson's, for an intere.sting letter about Colonel
Grayson. Mr. Orr thinks that the Graysons are English, and were
residents of the Colony for several generations before the Revolution.
He also says that Grayson was educated at Edinburg ; but as Mr. P. G.
Washington, whose grandfather, Spence Grayson, was a brother of
Colonel WiUiam, and was abroad with him at the same time, may be
supposed to have heard or learned from authentic sources where his
grandfather was educated, and affirms that it was at Oxford, I lean to
his side of the question.

204 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
fond of society, and whether he appeared at the fireside of the
man of one hogshead,"" or in the aristocratic circles of the Col
ony, he was ever a welcome and honored guest. His conversa
tion, playful, sparkling, or profound, as the time or topic re
quired, or the mood prompted, was not only admired by his con
temporaries, but has left its impress upon our own tiraes; and it
was in conversation that he appeared with a lustre hardly inferior
to that which adorned his forensic disputations. His huraor was
inexhaustible, and the young and the old, grave statesraen as
weU as young men who are ever ready to show their charity by
honoring the jests of middle-aged people, were alike captivated
by it. We are told by a friend who, in 1786, walked from the
haU of Congress, then sitting in New York, in company with
Grayson, Colonel Edward Carrington, and Judge St. George
Tucker on their way to their boarding-house, that Grayson became
lively, and threw out jests with such an effect that the gentlemen
were so convulsed with laughter as hardly to be able to walk
erect through the streets, he quite serious the while, gravitate
incolumi.^''" And in an humbler sphere his loving nature and
pleasant talk were so relished by the family of a worthy woman
at whose house, in visiting his mills on Opequon creek, he usually
stopped, that, when his death was announced, all of thera burst
into tears.'"" Withal there was a dignity about him which the
ablest and the bravest raen would have been the last to trench
upon. "* In early times it was common to designate a planter according to
the numBer of hogsheads of tobacco he made annually.
'™ Carrington Memoranda.
'™I have received from Robert Grayson Carter, Esq., a reminiscence
of Colonel Grayson, taken from the lips of the lady mentioned in the
text, who was living last December (1857) in Lewis county, Kentucky,
at the age of ninety-three. Her faculties were all nearly entire. Her
meraory was perfect, and she described Colonel Grayson as if she had
seen hira the day before. She says that in 17S4 his hair was slightly
gray, though originally very black ; that he was a very large raan; that
"he had a bright and intelligent black eye, and that he was altogether
the handsoraest man she ever laid her eyes upon " ; that he used fre
quently to stay at her house on his way to his mills at Opequon, and
that he said he was so pleased to find at her house a bed so much
better than any he could get at the mills. She thought him in 1784
between fifty and sixty ; that he was universally beloved, and that her
brother, Captain Willi.^ra Helm, thought " that there was no such man

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 205
We have spoken of his mode of debate ; and it is fit that we
should say something of his manner of speaking. It should
seem improbable that a man of good address, of rare reasoning
powers, and of undaunted spirit, should be destitute of the ordi
nary qualities of an orator, unless he had some irapediraent in
his speech, or lost all self-possession the raoment he stood upon
his feet. Such was not the case with Grayson. It was his self-
possession, acquired partly by his speeches in the English clubs
and at the bar, partly by his early essays in the House of Bur
gesses,'"' but mainly by his service in the Congress of the Con
federation, which, as it was a small body, and consisted of the
first men of the Union, exacted from those who addressed it a
severity of manner as well as of matter, and a degree of prepara
tion and research rarely exhibited in popular assemblies, and
which was one of the best schools of our early statesmen,'"^ and
as Colonel Grayson for every faculty and virtue that could adorn a
human being." She says that " he was remarkably temperate in his
diet — took for breakfast coffee, butter and toast ; for dinner, a slice of
mutton or a piece of chicken, with vegetables, and no dessert ; and
that he would take a cup of tea afterwards, but never ate supper."
She says that "his portly form and dignified appearance filled her with
such reverence that but for his agreeable and bland manners she would
have felt restraint in his presence, but that she was entirely relieved by
the affectionate manner in which he spoke and acted." Mr. Carter
rode through a storm to secure the inforraation of this venerable lady.
I ought to add that the name of the lady is Mrs. Lucy Bragg, and that
she further says, that Colonel Grayson always rode to her house in his
¦carriage, attended by his negro raan. Punch, who used to rub his mas
ter's feet, who reclined on the bed. Grayson had the gout, and
ultimately died of it.
'" Several of my correspondents mention his having been a member
ofthe House of Burgesses ; but I cannot find his name in the Journals.
This absence of his name on the face of the Journals is not conclusive
evidence of his not having been a member, as there is no list of mera
bers prefixed to the Journals, and the ayes and noes were not taken
until after the formation of the Constitution of the State. The only
means of ascertaining the membership of individuals must be found
in the annual almanacs, which I do not possess, and know not where
to seek.
'"* Mr. Jefferson expressed the opinion that if Mr. Madison had not
been a member of a small body like the old Congress, his modesty
would have prevented him from engaging in debate.

206 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
not a little from his mode of argumentation, which, anticipating
frora the first all possible objections to the case in hand, made
hira eager to court them from the lips of an adversary ; it was
this self-possession that appeared to the observer not the least
characteristic of his manner. He had also studied oratory as aii
art, at a time when Wedderburne, though in full practice at the
bar, deemed it not unworthy to becorae a pupil of Sheridan, and
in listening to the eloquence of Dunning, of Townsend, of Burke,
of Mansfield, and of the elder Pitt, he had forraed conceptions
of the art which it was the tendency as well as the ambition of
his life to develop and to practice. His person, as has been said
already, was commanding. His voice was clear, powerful, and
under perfect control, and had been disciplined with care, and
in sarcastic declamation its tones were said to be terrible ; but it
had not the universal compass of Henry's, nor those musical
intonations which made the voice of Innes grateful to the most
wearied ear. He spoke at times with great animation ; but his
stern taste, as well as his peculiar range of argument, in some
measure interdicted much action, in the raechanical sense of the
word. But it was only when the hour of reflection came that
such thoughts occurred to the hearer, who was borne along,
while the orator was wrapped in his subject, unresistingly by the
ever- abounding, ever-varying and transparent current of his
speech. Yet it is rather in the highest rank of debaters than in
the highest rank of orators we should place the name of Grayson.
In his present position on the floor, when he rose to make the
only one of his great speeches that have come down to us, he
had an advantage which is necessary to a speaker on a great
occasion, and of which he knew how to avail himself^he well
knew his opponents. Nicholas, Randolph, Lee, and MarshaU
were his juniors in the array, and his juniors in years. With
two of thera he had served in Congress, and he had encountered
them all at the bar. He began his speech with an apology for
the desultory way in which, from the previous debate, he would
be compelled to treat his subject, and with a declaration of his
confidence in the patriotism and worth of the merabers of the
General Convention, who were raembers of the House. He
hoped that what he designed to say might not be raisapplied.
He would raake no allusions to any gentleman whatever.
He admitted the defects of the Confederation, but he appre-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 207

V \

hended they could not be removed, because they flowed fronli
the nature of that government and from the fact that particular
interests were preferred to the interests of the whole. He con
tended that the particular disorders of Virginia ought not to be
attributed to that source, as they were equally beyond the reach
of the Federal Government and of the plan upon the table ; that
the present condition of Virginia was a vast improvement upon
" the Colonial system ; that the Judiciary was certainly as rapid as
under the royal government, where a case had been thirty-one
years on the docket. He then detaUed the state of public feeling
on the subject of a change in the Federal Government before the
meeting of the General Convention, and showed that in Virginia
alone was there any dissatisfaction. He then reviewed, with a
full knowledge of the subject, the dangers alleged to exist from the
hostility of foreign powers and of the neighboring States, show
ing that they were wholly imaginary. " As for our sister States,"
he said, " disunion is impossible. The Eastern States hold the
fisheries, which are their cornfields, by a hair. They have a
dispute with the British government about their rights at this
moment. Is not a general and strong government necessary for
their interest? If ever nations had any inducements to peace,
the Eastern States now have. New York and Pennsylvania are
looking anxiously forward to the fur trade. How can they
obtain it but by union? How are the Uttle States inclined?
They are not likely to disunite. Their weakness will prevent
them frora quarreling. Little men are seldora fond of quarrel
ing among giants. Is there not a strong inducement to union,
while the British are on one side and the Spaniards on the other ?
Thank heaven, we have a Carthage of our own. But we are
told that if we do not embrace the present raoment to adopt a
I I system which we believe to be fatal to our liberties, we are lost
I I forever. Is there no difference between productive' States and
/ carrying States? If we hold out, will not the tobacco trade
' enable us to raake terms with the carrying States ? Is there
,' nothing in a similarity of laws, religion, language and raanners ?
^ ^ Do not these, and the intercourse and intermarriages between
people of the different States invite them in the strongest man
ner to union ?
" But what would I do on the present occasion to reraedy the
defects of the present Confederation ? There are two opinions

208 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
prevailing in the world ; the one that mankind can only be gov
erned by force ; the other that they are capable of freedom and
a good government. Under the supposition that mankind can
r- govern themselves, I would recomraend that the present Con-
l federation be amended. Give Congress the regulation of com-
! raerce. Infuse new spirit and strength into the State govern
ments ; for when the coraponent parts are strong, it wiU give
energy to the government, although it be otherwise weak. This
may be proved by the union at Utrecht. Apportion the public
debts in such a raanner as to throw the unpopular ones on the
back lands. Call only for requisitions for the foreign interest,
and aid them by loans. Keep on so until the Araerican charac
ter be marked with sorae certain features. We are yet too
young to know what we are fit for. The continual migration of
people from Europe, and the settleraent of new countries on our
western frontiers, are strong arguraents against raaking new ex
periments now in government. When these things are removed,
we can with greater prospect of success devise changes. We
ought to consider, as Montesquieu says, whether the construction
ol a government be suitable to the genius and disposition of the
people, as well as a variety of other circumstances.
" But, if this position be not true, and raen can only be gov
erned by force, then be as gentle as possible. What then would
I do ? I would not take the British raonarchy for ray model.
We have not materials for such a government in our country,
although I will be bold to say, that it is one of the governments
in the world by which liberty and property are best secured.
But I would adopt the foUowing government. I would have a
president for life, choosing his successor at the same time ; a
Senate for life, with the powers of the House of Lords, and a
triennial House of Representatives. If sir, if we are to be con
solidated AT ALL, we ought to be fully represented, and governed
with sufficient energy, according to nurabers in both Houses.
"Will this new plan accomplish our purposes? Will the
liberty and property of the country be secure under it? It isa
government founded on the principles of monarchy with three
estates. Is it like the model of Tacitus or Montesquieu ? Are
there checks on it like the British monarchy ? There is an ex
ecutive fettered in sorae parts, and as unlimited in others as a
Roman Dictator. Look at the executive. Contrary to the

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 209
opinion of all the best writers, it is blended with the legislative.
We have asked for water, and they have given us a stone. I am
wiUing to give the government the regulation of trade. It will
be serviceable in regulating the trade between the States. But I
f believe it will not be attended with the advantages generally
i^ expected." He then spoke of the inexpediency of giving up the power of
\ taxation. "As to direct taxation," he said, "give up this, and
you give up everything, as it is the highest act of sovereignty.
[ Surrender this inestiraable jewel and you throw a pearl away
k richer than all your tribe." When he had proved that the ex
ercise of this power would result in a conflict between the Gen
eral and the State Governraent, in opposition to the opinion
expressed by Pendleton, and established his position by exaraples,
and had critically surveyed the construction of the new House of
Representatives, which he contended was defective, he concluded:
" But ray greatest objection is, that in its operation it will be
found unequally grievous and oppressive. If it have any efficacy
at aU, it raust be by a faction — a faction of one part of the Union
against the other. I think that it has a great natural irabecility
within itself — too weak for a consolidated, and too strong for a
confederate governraent. But if it be called into action by a
corabination of seven States, it wiU be terrible indeed. We need
to be at no loss to deterraine how this combination will be
formed. There is a great difference of circumstances between
the States. The interest of the carrying States is strikingly different
V frora that of the productive States. I raean not to give offence
to any part of America, but raankind are governed by interest.
; The carrying States will assuredly unite, and our situation then
I will be wretched indeed. Our commodities will be transported
i on their own terms, and every measure will have for its object
/ 'their particular interest. Let ill-fated Ireland be ever present
to our view. We ought to be wise enough to guard against the
abuse of such a governraent. Republics, in fact, oppress raore
than monarchies. If we advert to the page of history, we will
find this disposition too often raanifested in republican govern
raents. The Roraans in ancient, and the Dutch in modern times,
oppressed their provinces in a remarkable degree. I hope that
my fears are groundless ; but I believe it as I do my creed, that
this Government will operate as a faction of seven States to

210 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
oppress the rest of the Union. But it may be said that we are
represented, and cannot, therefore, be injured — a poor represen
tation it will be. The British would have been glad to take
America into the union, like the Scotch, by giving us a smaU
representation. The Irish may be indulged with the same
favor by asking for it. Will that lessen our misfortunes ? A
small representation gives a pretense to injure and destroy.
But, sir, the Scotch union is introduced by an honorable gende
man, as an arguraent in favor of adoption. Would he wish his
country to be on the sarae foundation as Scotland ? She has but
forty-five members in the House of Commons, and sixteen in the
House of Lords. They go up regularly in order to be bribed.
The smallness of their number puts it out of their power to carry
any measure. And this unhappy nation exhibits, perhaps, the
only instance in the world where corruption becomes a virtue.
I devoutly pray that this description of Scotland may not be
picturesque of the Southern States in three years frora this time.
The committee being tired, as well as myself I will take another
tirae to give my opinion raore fully on this great and important
subject.'"""

'^Grayson was born in Prince William county, and died at Dumfries,
Va. , March 12,1 790. He married Eleanor Small wood, sister of General
and Governor Wm. Smallwood, of Maryland. He left issue : i George
W., of Fauquier county, died before 1832 (leaving issue: 1. P'rances mar
ried Richard H. Foote; 2. George W.; 3, William) ; ii. Robert H. married
 (and left issue : i. Wm. P. ; 2. Hebe C. married William P. Smith ; 3.
Ellen S); iii. Hebe Smallwood ; iv. Alfred W. died before 1829; mar
ried (and left issue : John Breckinridge, Brigadier-General Confederate
States Army, from Kentucky) ; v. William J., statesman, born at Beau
fort, S. C , Nov., 1788, died in Newberne, N. C, Ociober4, 1S63. was grad
uated at the College of South Carolina in 1809, and bred to the legal
profession. Entering on the practice of law at Beaufort he became a
Commissioner of Equity of South Carolina, a member of the State
Legislature in 1813, and Senator in 1831. He opposed the Tariff Act
of 1831, but was not disposed to push the collision to the extreme of
civil war. He served in Congress from December 3, 1S33, to March 3,
1837, and in 1841 was appointed Collector of Customs at Charleston, S.
C. In 1843 he retired to his plantation. During the secession agita
tion of 1850 he published a letter to Governor Seabrook deprecating
disunion, and pointing out the evils that would follow. He was a fre
quent contributor to the Southern Review, and also published " The
Hireling and Slave,' a poem (Charleston, S. C, 1854); " Chicora, and

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 211
Monroe, seconded by Henry, moved that the comraittee should
rise, that Grayson should have an opportunity of continuing his
argument next day ; and the House adjourned. Its session had
been protracted. The heat had been intense, but it was a day
which posterity wUl recall with pride ; for in its course Madison,
Mason, Lee, and Grayson raade such speeches as have been
rarely heard in a single day in any deliberative assembly.
On Thursday, the twelfth of June, as soon as the House went
into comraittee, Wythe in the chair, and the first and sec
ond sections of the Constitution still norainally the order of
the day, Grayson resuraed his speech. His first few sentences
told that he felt a greater freedora than even the most adroit
debaters are apt to feel in addressing an august asserably for the
first time, which had been listening to a succession of able men,
and which was destined to unraake as well as make reputations.'"*
" I asserted yesterday," he said, " that there were two opinions
in the world — the one that mankind were capable of governing
themselves, the other that it required actual force to govern
them. On the principle that the first position was true, and
which is consonant to the rights of humanity, the House will
recollect that it was my opinion to araend the present Confed
eration, and to infuse a new portion of health and strength into
the State Governments, to apportion the public debts in such a
other Poems" ; "The Country,'' a poem ; "The Life of James L. Pet-
tigru," (New York, i865), and is supposed to have been the author of
a narrative poem entitled " Marion." Colonel William Grayson, by his
will, emancipated all negroes owned by him who were born after the
Declaration of Independence. The executors of his will were: Benj.
Orr Grayson, Robert Hanson Harrison, and it was witnessed by Spence
Grayson. Benjamin Orr Grayson married Miss Bronaugh. He was the
second of Armistead Thomson Mason in the fatal duel of the latter
with his cousin, John Mason McCarty. — Ed.
'^ This fear of the House, if I may so call it, was plainly perceptible
in the manner of those who came forth early in the debate on the basis
of representation in the Convention of 1829-30. There was a tremu-
lousness even in Randolph in his first speech. Other men of real
ability absolutely failed in that debate ; but, as the fear of the House
wore off, and the debate passed from the basis question into a more
limited range, the number and the freedom of the speakers were
quite as great as was desirable, and the same result to a certain extent
will presently appear in this body.

212 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
manner as to throw the unpopular ones on the back lands, to
divide the rest of the domestic debt araong the different States,
and to call for requisitions only for the interest of the foreign
debt. If contrary to this maxim, force is necessary to govern
men, I then did propose as an alternative, not a monarchy like
that of Great Britain, but a milder government; one which,
under the idea of a general corruption of manners and the con
sequent necessity of force, should be as gentle as possible. I
showed, in as strong a manner as I could, some of the principal
defects in the Constitution. The greatest defect is the opposition
of the component parts to the interest of the whole. For let
gentleraen ascribe its defects to as many causes as their imagina
tions may suggest, this is the principal and radical one. I urged
that to remedy the evils which must result from this new gov
ernment, a more equal representation in the legislature, and
proper checks against abuse, were indispensably necessary. I
do not pretend to propose for your adoption the plan of govern
ment which I mentioned as an alternative to a raonarchy, in case
mankind were incapable of governing theraselves. I only meant
that if it were once established that force was necessary to gov
ern men, that such a plan would be raore eligible for a free peo
ple than the introduction of crowned heads and nobles. Having
preraised thus rauch to obviate raisconstruction, I shall proceed
to the clause before us with this observation, that I prefer a com
plete consolidation to a partial one, but a Federal Government to
either." He proceeded to discuss the sections under consideration, and
declared that the State which gives up the power of taxation has
nothing more to give. "The people of that State," he said,
" which suffer any but their own immediate government to inter
fere with the sovereign right of taxation are gone forever. Giving
the right of taxation is giving the right to increase the miseries
of the people. Is it not a political absurdity to suppose that
there can be two concurrent legislatures, each possessing the
supreme power of direct taxation ? If two powers come in con
tact, must not the one prevail over the other? Must it not
strike every man's mind that two unlimited, co-equal, co-ordinate
authorities over the same objects cannot exist together ? But we
are told that there is one instance of co-existent powers in cases
of petty corporations as well here as in other parts of the world."

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 213
He examined this example, and showed that it was wholly inap
plicable to two powers possessing each an unlimited right of
taxation. He then turned to the case of Scotland, which had
been brought up by the friends of the Constitution as a case in
point, and showed that it also was inapplicable, as the limit of
taxation was fixed in the articles of union, which provide that
when England pays four shillings on the pound, Scotland only
pays forty-five thousand pounds sterling. He referred to the
minor jurisdictions in England, the stannary courts and others,
and showed that they had no application whatever to the case of
two supreme legislatures in a single country. After showing
that the judicious exercise of such a power, according to the
received maxims of representation, was impracticable, he placed
his opponents in the dilemraa, either of being corapeUed to with
hold this power from the Federal Government, or of surrendering
the first maxims of representation, that those who lay the taxes
should bear their proportion in paying them. A tax that raight
with propriety be laid and collected with ease in Delaware, would
be highly iraproper in Virginia. The taxes cannot be uniforra
through the States without being oppressive to some. If they
be not uniform, sorae of the merabers will lay taxes, in the pay
ment of which they will bear no proportion. The members of
Delaware may assist in laying taxes on our slaves ; but do they
return to Virginia ?
Following closely in the track of Madison's speech, delivered
the day before, he thus replied to the arguraent derived from our
probable position as a neutral power, which had been argued so
ably by that gentleman : " We are then told," he said, " ofthe
armed neutrality of the Empress of Russia, the opposition to it by
Great Britain, and the acquiescence of other powers. We are
told that, in order to become the carriers of contending nations,
it will be necessary to be forraidable at sea — that we raust have a
fleet in case of a war between Great Britain and France. I think
that the powers which forraed that treaty will be able to support
it. But, if we were certain that this would not be the case, still
I think that the profits that would arise frora such a transient
coraraerce would not corapensate for the expense of rendering
ourselves forraidable at sea, or the dangers that would probably
result from the attempt. To have a fleet in the present limited
population of Araerica is, in ray opinion, irapracticable and inex-

214 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
pedient. Is America in a situation to have a fleet ? I take it to
be a rule founded on coramon sense that manufacturers, as well
as sailors, proceed from a redundancy of inhabitants. Our
numbers, compared to our territory, are very smaU indeed. I
think, therefore, that all attempts to have a fleet, tUl our western
lands are fully settled, are nugatory and vain. How will you
induce your people to go to sea ? Is it not more agreeable to
follow agriculture than to encounter the dangers and the hard
ships of the ocean ? The same reason will apply, in a great
degree, to manufacturers. Both are the result of necessity. It
would, besides, be dangerous to have a fleet in our present weak,
dispersed, and defenceless situation. The powers of Europe,
which have West India possessions, would be alarmed at any
extraordinary maritime exertions ; and, knowing the danger of
our arriving at manhood, would crush us in our infancy. In my
opinion, the great objects most necessary to be promoted and
attended to in America are agriculture and population. First,
take care that you are sufficiently strong by land to guard against
European partitions. Secure your own house before you attack
that of another people. I think that the sailors, who could be
prevailed upon to go to sea, would be a real loss to the commu
nity. Neglect of agriculture and loss of labor would be the
certain consequence of such an irregular policy. I hope that,
when these objections are thoroughly considered, all ideas of
having a fleet in our infant situation will be given over. When
the Araerican character is better known, and the Government
established on permanent principles — when we shall be suffi
ciently populous, and our situation secure — then come forward
with a fleet ; not with a small one, but with one sufficient to meet
any of the maritime powers.'"""
'^^These early opinions on the subject of a navy have much interest
in connection with the controversies that were soon to be waged on
that topic. Adam Stephen was the first of our politicians to predict
glory frora the establishment of a navy. In a letter to R. H. Lee,
dated February 3, 1775, he says ; " We only want a navy to give law to
the world, and we have it in our power to get it." John Adams is
usually considered the father of the navy ; but in his letters he insists
that "the navy is the child of Jefferson." The resolutions of 1799
gave it a blast, which was followed by the action of Mr. Jefferson.
When one of our prominent politicians, near the close of the last cen-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 215
He next adverted to an opinion of Madison on the revenue
likely to flow from imposts, and as this passage shows the views
held by two of the first political economists in the Convention on
the amount of revenue to be expected from the customs, we will
give it in full : "The honorable gentleman (Madison)," he said,
" has told us that the irapost will be less productive hereafter, on
account of the increase of population. I shall not controvert
this principle. When all the lands are settled and we have manu
factures sufficient, this may be the case ; but I believe that for
a very long time this cannot possibly happen. In islands and
thickly -settled countries, where they have manufactures, the
principle will hold good, but will not apply in any degree to our
country. I apprehend that among us, as the people in the lower
country find themselves straightened, they will remove to the
frontiers, which will, for a considerable period, prevent the lower
country frora being very populous, or having recourse to raanu
factures. I cannot, therefore, but conclude that the amount of
imposts will continue to increase, at least for a great raany
years.'''"" He next came to the relief of Henry and Mason in sustaining
the inferences which they had drawn from Holland, and went
into an explanation of the state of parties in that country — the
party of the Prince of Orange and the Louvestein faction— Eng
land taking the side of one and France of the other ; and main-

tury, was charged with having said that the union ought to be dissolved.
he denied that he made the remark, except with the qualification that
•¦' in the contingency of the Federal Government building three seventy-
fours." Though now long dead, he lived to read the bulletins of Hull,
Decatur, Stewart, Perry, McDonough, and their gallant compatriots.
"*It is not uninstructive to recur to the opinions held by our early
statesmen on the rate of duties to be laid upon imports. If the States
had assented to the plan of vesting in the old Confederation the right
to levy five per cent, upon imports (which Virginia assented to), in all
human probability the Federal Constitution would not have been called
into existence. In the course of his present speech Grayson expressed
the opinion that two and a half per cent, would put more money into
the treasury than five, as the high rate would encourage srauggling.
As late as 1792, Pendleton, in his letter on a Federal tariff, thought that
five per cent, was as high as the Federal Government ought to go. It
is very plain that in framing a government the wisest men sometimes
see but a very little way ahead.

216 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
tained that the difficulties of the Dutch were produced by that
unnatural contest, and were not the result of the particular con
struction of their federal alliance. As for the slowness with
which our own requisitions were paid, will any patriot blame
a non-compliance during the war, when our ports were block
aded, when all raeans of getting raoney were destroyed, when
our country was overrun by the eneray, when almost every arti
cle which the farmer could raise was seized to sustain the armies
in the field ? And since the war the flourishing States have very
fairly coraplied with requisitions. Others have delayed to pay
from inability to make the payment. Massachusetts attempted
to correct the nature of things by extracting from the people
raore than they were able to part with ; and what was the result?
A revolution that shook that State to its centre ; a revolution
from which she was rescued by that abhorred and contemned
system which gentlemen are anxious to supersede ; for it was a
vote of Congress for fifteen hundred men, which, aided by the
executors of the State, put down all opposition, and restored
the public tranquility.
He adverted to an argument which Pendleton had urged as a
means of relief against raaladrainistration in the Federal Govern
raent : " We are told," he said, " that Conventions gave and Con
ventions can take away. This observation does not appear to
me to be well-founded. It is not so easy lo dissolve a government
like that upon the table. Its dissolution may be prevented by a
trifling minority of the people of America. The consent of so
many States is necessary to obtain amendments, that I fear they
will with great difficulty be obtained." He scanned the clause
of the Constitution which sets apart the ten miles square. "I
would not deny," he said, " the propriety of vesting the Govern
ment with exclusive jurisdiction over this territory, were it prop
erly guarded. Perhaps I am mistaken ; but it occurs to me that
Congress may give exclusive privUeges to merchants residing in
the ten railes square, and that the sarae exclusive power of legis
lation will enable thera to grant sirailar privileges to raerchants
within the strongholds of the State. Such results are not with
out precedent. Else, whence have issued the Hanse Towns,
Cinque Ports, and other places in Europe, which have peculiar
privileges in coraraerce as well as in other matters ? I do not
offer this sentiment as an opinion, but a conjecture ; and in this

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 217
doubtful agitation of mind on a point of such infinite magnitude,
I only ask for information from the framers of the Constitution
whose superior opportunities must have furnished them with
more ample lights on the subject than I ara possessed of'""' He
discussed the question of the relative safety of the right of navi
gating the Ptlississippi under the old and the new system ; and
maintained that under the Confederation nine States were neces
sary to cede that right away, but that under the new five States
only were required for the purpose, as ten raembers were two-
thirds of a quorum in the Senate, and five States send ten raera
bers.'"" "In ray opinion," he said, "the power of making
treaties by which the territorial rights of the States may be
essentially affected, ought to be guarded against every possi
biUty of abuse ; and the precarious situation to which those
rights will be exposed is one reason with me, among a number
of others, for voting against the adoption of this Constitution."'"'
Tradition has represented this speech as one ofthe most argu
mentative, most eloquent, and most effective delivered during the
session ; and frora the meagre skeleton of it that has corae down
^ to us, we can easily see that it deserved the highest praise. It
i is said that it gave a new irapulse to the opposition, and its influ-
/ ence raay be clearly traced in the subsequent discussions.
As soon as Grayson took his seat, Pendleton, who, when the
House was in coramittee, always sat near the chair, caught the
eye of Wythe, and, placed upon his crutches, proceeded to deliver
the most elaborate of all the speeches which he raade upon the
floor."" '" In his vaticinations he came very near embracing the case of the
Cohens v. the State of Virginia, Wheaton, Vol. — .
'"" The opposition of New England to the acquisition of Louisiana is
an instance within the range of his fears.
"' I may say here that I do not refer to the page in Robertson' s De
bates, partly because the book, which has been out of print for thirty
years, may be reprinted ere long in a different form, when my refer
ences would lead astray ; but mainly because I record each day's ses
sion and the order of the speakers on the floor. Elliot's Debates are
also out of print, and their paging does not correspond with Robertson's.
If there had been a new edition of the debates, I would have cited the
page for the convenience of the student.
"" It was interesting to behold the eagerness ofthe members on both
sides of the House in their endeavors to assist Pendleton in his efforts

218 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
He began by brushing away the driftwood which had been
floating on the stream of debate ; and which defiled the face of
the waters. The venerable speaker had not relished the laugh
which Henry had raised by ridiculing his scheme of calling a
Convention to withdraw the powers of a Governraent, the presi
dent of which, at the head of a well-equipped and devoted
array, was marching against the people of a State which had no
arms in its possession, and he followed Henry in the course of
his speech. He regretted that such expressions as those which
likened the people to a HERD had been used, and he wished the
gentleman (Henry) had felt himself at liberty to let it pass.
" We are assembled by the people," he said, " to contemplate in
the calm lights of mild philosophy what government is best cal
culated to promote their happiness and secure their liberty.
We should not criticize harshly the expressions which may es
cape in the effusions of honest zeal. On the subject of govern
ment the worthy member (Henry) and myself differ on the
threshold. I think governraent necessary to protect liberty.
He supposes the American spirit all-sufficient for the purpose.
Do Montesquieu, Locke, and Sidney agree with the gentleman ?
They have presented us with no such idea. They denounce
cruel and excessive punishments, but they recommend that the
ligaments of government should be firmer and the execution of
the laws more strict in a republic than in a monarchy. Was I
not then correct in my inference that such a government and
liberty were friends and allies, and that their common enemy
was faction, turbulence and violence ? A republican government
is the nursery of science. It turns the bent of it to eloquence as
a qualification for the representative character, which is, as it
ought to be, the road to our public offices. I differ from the
gendeman in another respect. He professes himself an advo
cate for the middle and lower classes of men. I profess to he
a friend to the equal liberty of all men from the palace to the
cottage, without any other distinction than between good and
bad men." He then referred to an expression which Mason had
quoted from a friend of the Constitution. " Why introduce

to rise. He took a seat near the chair for the convenience of ascend
ing and descending from it at the beginning and at the end of each
day's session.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 219
such an expression as well-born ? None such are to be found in
the paper on your table. I consider every man well-born who
comes into the world with an inteUigent raind, and with all his
parts perfect. Whether a man is great or small, he is equally
dear to me. I wish for a regular government for the protection
of the honest and industrious planter and farmer. I am old
enough to have seen great changes in society. I have often
known those who coraraenced life without any other stock than
industry and econoray attain to opulence and wealth. This
could only happen in a regular government. The true princi
ple of republicanism, and the greatest security of liberty, is reg
ular government. What become of the passions of men when
they enter society ? Do they leave them ? No ; they bring
them with them, and their passions will overturn your govern
ment without an adequate check." He recurred to the use of
the word " illumined " by Henry, and charged hira with incon
sistency in its use. " The gentleraan has raade a distinction
between the illumined and the ignorant. I have heard else
where with pleasure the worthy gentleman expatiate on the
advantages of learning, among other tilings as friendly to liberty.
I have seen in our code of laws the public purse applied to chet-
\sh. private seminaries. This is not strictly just; but with rae
the end sanctified the raeans, and I was satisfied.'" But did we
thus encourage learning to set up those who attained its bene
fits as butts of invidious distinction? Surely, the worthy raera
ber on reflection will disavow the idea. Ara I still suspected of
a want of attachraent to ray fellow-citizens, whora the gentleman
calls peasants and cottagers ? Let me rescue them from the
ignominy to which he consigns them. He classes them with the
Swiss, who are born and sold as raercenaries to the highest bid
der; with the people of the Netherlands, who do not possess
that distinguished badge of freedom, the right of suffrage; and
with the British, who have to a small extent the right of suffrage,
but who sell it for a mess of pottage. Are these people to be
corapared to our worthy planters and farraers who draw food
"" This is a hit at Henry, but I know not to what it refers, unle.ss to
Hampden-Sidney, of which Henry was one ofthe trustees, or to Ques
nay, the builder of the first Richmond acaderay, whom Henry be
friended.

220 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
and raiment, and even wealth, from the inexhaustible stores
which a bountiful Creator has placed beneath their feet ?"
He raaintained that the happiness and safety of the people
were the objects of the plan under consideration, and they were,
therefore, regarded by it as the source of power. But, as the
people cannot act in a body, they raust act through their repre
sentatives ; and he showed that a representative government was
the only true and safe raode of administering the affairs of a
people ; that, if the Confederation had rested on a popular basis,
we should '^have found that peace and happiness which we are
now in quest of In the State Constitution you commit the
sword to the executive and the purse to the legislature, and
everything else without a limitation. In both cases the repre
sentative principle is preserved, and you are safe. Legislatures
raay sometimes do wrong. They have done wrong. Here his
voice fell to a low tone, and then became inaudible. His physical
suffering had for a moment repressed the faculties of his fine
intellect. It was a scene that appealed to the sensibilities of all
present. It was the first time that voice, which for the third of
a century had been the delight of friends and terror of foes, ever
faltered in debate. When he ralUed, he was understood to say
that his brethren of the judiciary felt great uneasiness in their
minds to violate the Constitution by such a law.'"' They had
prevented the operation of some unconstitutional acts. StUl,
preserve the representative principle in your governraent, and you
are safe. He said he had raade his reraarks as introductory to the
consideration of the paper on the table. " I conceive," he said,
" that in those respects, where our State Constitution has not been
disapproved of objections will not apply against that on your
table. In forming our State Constitution we looked only to our
local circurastances ; but in forming the plan under consideration
we must look to our connection with the neighboring States.

'^^ He had just raentioned the case of Philips when he ceased to be
heard. If in continuation he referred to that case, which I hardly think
is probable, it is one of the most singular instances on record of indi
viduals imagining feelings which they never felt ; for it is unquestionable
that Philips, in company with four or five others, was indicted for
highway robbery and condemned, after a fair trial, by the ordinary laws
of the land, and not by attainder.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 221
We have seen the advantages and blessings of the union. God
grant we may never see the disadvantages of disunion !"
On the subject of direct taxation, he said that " if It was
necessary for our interests to form an union, then it was necessary
to cede adequate powers to attain the end in view. We raust
delegate the powers appropriate to the end. And to whom do
we delegate those powers ? To our own representatives. Why
should we fear raore from our representatives there than from our
, representatives here ? But a gentleman (Monroe) has said that
the power of direct taxation is unnecessary, because the back
lands and the impost will be sufficient to answer all Federal pur
poses. What, then, are we disputing about ? Does the gentleman
think that Congress vrill lay direct taxes if other funds are suffi
cient? It will remain a harmless power on paper, and do no
injury. If it should be necessary, will gentlemen run the risk of
the union by withholding it?" When he had rescued the sub
ject of requisitions and taxation frora the raisrepresentations
which he alleged had been raade in the committee, re-established
his position respecting the probable harmony of the two judi
ciary systeras, and showed that it was the interest of the General
Government to strengthen the government of the States, he dis
cussed the Mississippi question, then passed to the judiciary, and
ended with an expression of his opinion, which he sustained by
arguments in favor of subsequent amendments.
There was a short intermission while the friends of Pendleton
were aiding him to resume his seat, and were congratulating him
on his speech. It was remarked that some of his opponents
cordially greeted the old man eloquent, and that others gave a
silent pressure of the hand, which spoke not less sensibly ttian
words. In fact, his speech, apart from the speaker, was a reaUy
fine effort. The rebukes which he dealt to his opponents were
galling, his points were well-raade, the turning of the arguraent
of Monroe against his own party was adroit, and the beautiful
exposition of the theory of a populai- representative system in
averting misrule and in preserving the public liberty in the long
run intact, and of the defects of the Confederation as resulting
from the absence of this principle in that instrument, was inge
nious and happy. But when we add to the intrinsic worth of the
speech the picture of the venerable old man, in whose person
the infirmity of an irreparable accident was added to the infirmi-

222 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
ties of age, his high authority, which imparted to every word
that he uttered an almost judicial dignity, and his still higher
spirit beneath which his physical powers sank, the occasion must
have excited uncoraraon interest. StiU there were parts of his
speech which evinced that the old debater had not forgot his
ways. His evident raisrepresentation ofthe arguraent of Henry
in more than one instance, his ungenerous reflection upon that
individual for his liberality in lending a helping hand to our
infant literary institutions, and, perhaps, his imagined sorrow' at
an event that never occurred, indicated that personal feelings
had mingled with political, and that the man was not wholly lost
in the sage.
Madison rose to reply to Grayson. As Grayson had pro
pounded a dilemma for the reflection of the friends of the
Constitution, Madison was resolved to return the corapliraent.
The dilemraa of Grayson was that, on their own admission, the
advocates of the new plan raust either adrait the irapracticability
of laying uniform taxes throughout the States, or surrender the
great principle on which the doctrine of representation rests,
that those who lay the taxes should pay thera. "The honorable
gentleman over the way," said Madison, "set forth that by
giving up the power of taxation we should give up everything,
and still insists on requisitions being made on the States ; and
that then, if they be not complied with. Congress shall lay direct
taxes by way of penalty. Let us consider the dilemma which
arises from this doctrine. Either requisitions will be efficacious,
or they will not. If they will be efficacious, then I say, sir, we
give up everything as much as by direct taxation. The same
amount will be paid by the people as by direct taxes. But if
they be not efficacious, where is the advantage of this plan ? In
what respect will it relieve us from the inconveniencies which we
have experienced frora requisitions ? The power of laying direct
taxes by the General Government is supposed by the honorable
gentleman to be chimerical and impracticable. What is the con
sequence of the alternative he proposes ? We are to rely upon
this power to be ultiraately used as a penalty to compel the
States to comply. If it be chimerical and irapracticable in the
first instance, it will be equally so when it will be exercised as a
penalty. The dilerama of Madison has not the force of the
dilemraa propounded by Grayson. Both of its horns have a

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 223
rottenness visible on its surface. He assumes a position which he
was bound to prove, and which is incapable of proof that the
araount called for by requisition and the araount to be raised by
direct taxes levied by the Federal Governraent could be collected
with the sarae convenience and econoray frora the citizens of
Virginia. In collecting, the amount of a requisition selected its
own objects and availed itself of a well-established machinery
for the purpose, raerely adding a certain per centum to the annual
taxes ; while the General Governraent would be corapeUed to
maintain a staff of officers for carrying into effect a contingency
which may happen this yesr, but which may not happen in the
next seven. There was also another consideration in favor of
the States in the case of requisitions. The Congress, well know
ing the difficulty and delicacy, as well as the uncertainty and
cost, of collecting a given araount by direct taxation over a region
of wild country as vast as the whole of Europe, would be
inclined, in order to avoid an unpleasant alternative, to exact as
little in the first instance by requisition as would satisfy the public
exigencies. It was the difficulty of the reraedy that induced
Grayson to propose it as a penalty, and a penalty it would be to
the States to the extent of the difference between the two raodes
of collection. Nor was the other horn of the dilemma more
formidable. It is true that the collection of the direct taxes
might be equaUy difficult, whether as an original measure or as a
penalty ; but the argument of Mason was ad hominem, and
applied to Madison and to all those who contended that direct
taxes could be easily collected by the Federal Government.
Madison replied to the arguments urged by Grayson against
the policy of creating a navy in prospect of the uncertain and
epheraeral profits to be derived from a neutral trade. "The
gentleman has supposed," he said, "that my argument with
respect to a future war between Great Britain and France was
fallacious. The other nations of Europe have acceded to that
neutrality, while Great Britain opposed it. We need not suspect
in case of such a war that we should be suffered to participate
of the profitable eraoluraents of the carrying trade, unless we
were in a respectable situation. Recollect the last war. Was
there ever a war in which the British nation stood opposed to so
raany nations ? All the beUigerent nations of Europe, with
nearly one-half the British empire, were united against it. Yet

224 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
that nation, though defeated and humbled beyond any previous
example, stood out against this. From her firmness and spirit
in such desperate circumstances, we may divine what her future
conduct may be. I did not contend that it was necessary for the
United States to establish a navy for that sole purpose, but
instanced it as one reason out of several for rendering ourselves
respectable. I am no friend to naval or land arraaraents in time
of peace ; but if they be necessary, the calamity must be sub
mitted to. Weakness will invite insults. A respectable govern
ment will not only entitle us to a participation of the advantages
which are enjoyed by other nations, but will be a security against
attacks and insults. It is to avoid the calamity of being obliged
to have large armaments that we should establish this govern
ment. Tne best way to avoid danger is to be in a capacity to
withstand it."
As a speciraen of fair debating, we annex the reply of Madi
son to the arguments of Grayson in relation to the probable
increase of the revenue from imports : " The imports, we are
told, will not diminish, because the emigrations to the westward
will prevent the increase of population. The gentleman has rea
soned on this subject justly to a certain degree. I admit that the
imports will increase till population becomes so great as to com
pel us to recur to manufactures. The period cannot be very far
distant when the unsettled parts of Araerica will be inhabited.
At the expiration of twenty-five years hence, I conceive that in
every part of the United States there will be as great a popu
lation as there is now in the settled parts. We see already that
in the raost populous parts of the union, and where there is but
a medium, manufactures are beginning to be established. Where
this is the case, the amount of importations will begin to dimin
ish. Although the imports may even increase during the term of
twenty-five years, yet, when we are preparing a government for
perpetuity, we ought to found it on permanent principles and
not on those of a temporary nature." He next reviewed the
Mississippi question, and the explanations of Grayson respecting
Holland ; and examined the distinction raade by Grayson be
tween the carrying and the producing States, showing that the
majority of the States would probably be non-carrying, and
would unite with Virginia in opposing them when necessary.
In the course of his speech he answered the inquiry, " How*

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 225
came the New England States to object to the cession of the
navigation of the Mississippi, when the Southern States were
wiUing to part with it ? What was the cause of the Northern
States being the champions of this right, when the Southern
States were disposed to surrender it? The preservation of this
right will be for the general interest of the Union. The West
ern country will be settled from the North as well as from the
South, and its prosperity will add to the strength and security of
the union."
Henry followed Madison and observed that, however painful
it was to be making objections, he was compelled to raake some
observations. He said that the dangers with which we have
been menaced have been proved to be imaginary ; but the
dangers from the new Constitution were real. Our dearest
rights would be left in the hands of those whose interest
it would be to infringe them. He reviewed Mr. Jefferson's
letter, which had been read by Pendleton, and insisted that
according to that letter fouj- States ought to reject the Consti
tution. Where are the foiir States to come frora if Virginia
approves the new plan ? Let Virginia instantly reject that instru
ment, and all araendraents necessary to secure the liberties of
the people will certainly be adopted. But how can you obtain
araendraents when Massachusetts, the great Northern State,
Pennsylvania, the great Middle State, and Virginia, the great
Southern State shall have ratified the Constitution ? He exara
ined the doctrine that all powers not expressly granted are re
served, and showed that henceforth our dearest rights would
rest on construction and implication. Did this process satisfy
our British ancestors ? Look at Magna Charta, at the Bill of
Rights, and at the Declaration of Rights, which prescribed on
what terms William of Orange should reign. " The gentleraan
(Randolph) has told us his object is union. I adrait that the
reality of union, and not the narae, is the object which raost
merits the attention of every friend of his country. He told you
that you should hear many sounding words frora our side of the
House. We have heard the word union from him. I have
heard no word so often pronounced in this House as he did this.
I admit that the Araerican union is dear to every raan. I admit
that every man who has three grains of inforraation must know
and think that union is the best of all things. But we must noi mis-

I

226 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
take the ends forthe means. If he can show that the rights ofthe
union are secure, we will consent. It has been sufficiendy
demonstrated that they are not secured. It sounds mighty
prettily to curse paper raoney and honestly pay debts. But look
to the situation of Araerica, and you will find that there are
thousands and thousands of contracts, whereof equity forbids an
exact liberal performance. Pass that government, and you will
be bound hand and foot. There was an iraraense quantity of
depreciated paper raoney in circulation at the conclusion of the
war. This money is in the hands of individuals to this day.
The holders of this money may call for the norainal value, if
this governraent be adopted. This State raay be compeUed to
pay her proportion of that currency pound for pound. Pass
this government, and you will be carried to the Federal court
(if I understand that paper right), and you will be compelled to
pay shilling for shilling. A State may be sued in the Federal
court, by the pa'per on your table."
He reverted to the frequently cited case of Scotland, contend
ing that the Scotch, like a sensible people, had secured their
rights in the articles of union. He said that, if this new scheme
would establish credit, it might be well enough ; but if we are
ever to be in a state of preparation for war on such airy and
iraaginable grounds as the possibility of danger, your govern
ment raust be military and dangerous to liberty. " But we are
to become formidable," he said, and have a strong government
to protect us from the British nation. Will that paper on your
table prevent the attacks of the British navy, or enable us to
raise a fleet equal to the British fleet ? The British have the
strongest fleet in Europe, and can strike everywhere. It is the
utraost folly to conceive that that paper can have such an opera
tion. It will be no less so to attempt to raise a powerful fleet.
He urged the advantage of requisitions, in preference of direct
taxation by the Federal Government, on the ground that "the
whole wisdom of the science of government with respect to tax
ation consisted in selecting that mode of collection which wiU
best accommodate the convenience of the people. When you
come to tax a great country, you will find ten men too few
to settie the manner of collection.'" One capital advantage
""The number of representatives to which Virginia would be enti
tled in the first Congress was ten.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 227
which will result from the proposed alternative will be this : that
there will be a necessary communication between your ten mem
bers of Congress and your one hundred and seventy representa
tives here. We raight also remonstrate, if by mistake or design
the sum asked for is too large. But, above all, the people would
pay the taxes cheerfully. If it be supposed that this would
occasion a waste of time and an injury to public credit, which
would only happen when requisitions were not coraplied with,
the delay would be corapensated by the payraent of interest,
which, with the addition of the credit of the State to that of the
general governraent, would in a great raeasure obviate that
objection." He repelled the idea that responsibility was secured
by direct taxation, maintaining his denial by arguments drawn
from the construction of the House of Representatives, and that
the State governments would exercise more influence than the
general governraent, contending that the larger salaries and the
multiplicity of Federal offices would cast the balance' against the
State. He recurred to the argument of Pendleton on the nature
of representative government, and sought to prove that the prin
ciple was only norainally adopted in the new scheme, enforcing
his views by a reference to the inequality of representation in
the Senate. Rulers are the servants of the people — the people
are their masters. Is this the spirit of the new scheme ? It is
the spirit of our State Constitution. That gentleman (Pendleton)
helped to form that governraent ; and all the applause which it
justly deserves go to the condemnation of this new plan. The
gendeman has spoken of the errors and failures of our State
government. " I do not justify," he said, " what merits censure,
but I shall not degrade my country. The gentleraan did our
judiciary an honor in saying that they had the firmness to coun
teract the Legislature in some cases. WUl your Federal judi
ciary imitate the example ? Where are your landraarks in this
government ? I will be bold to say that you cannot find any in
it. I take it as the highest encomium on Virginia that the acts
of the Legislature, if unconstitutional, are liable to be opposed
by the judiciary.""* He proceeded to show that the two execu-
"* It is remarkable that Henry rarely replied to any personal remark
made against him in debate. In this instance he could easily have
retorted on Pendleton the censure which that gentleman cast upon him
for helping private literary institutions, but he passed the matter over.

/

228 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
tives and the two judiciaries raust necessarUy interfere with each
other, and that of the State must go down in the collision. The
citizen would be oppressed by the Federal collector, and dragged
into sorae distant Federal court, unless there was a Federal court
in each county, which he hoped would not be the case.
Madison rose to reply to Henry. He raade his usual apology
for departing frora the order of the day, but was corapeUed to
follow gentleraen on the other side, who had taken the greatest
latitude in their remarks. He argued that, if there be that terror
in direct taxation, which would compel the States to comply
with requisitions to avoid the Federal legislature, and if as gen
tlemen say, this State will always have it in her power to make
her collections speedily and fully, the people will be corapeUed to
pay the same araount as quickly and as punctually as if raised
by the Federal Government. "It has been amply proved," he
said, " that the general government can lay taxes as conveniently
to the people as the State governments, by imitating the State
systems of taxation. If the general governraent has not the
power of coUecting its own revenues in the first instance, it wiU
be still dependent on the State governraents in some measure;
and the exercise of this power after refusal wiU be inevitably pro
ductive of injustice and confusion, if partial compliances be made
before it is driven to assume it. Thus, without relieving the
people in the sraallest degree, the alternative proposed will im
pair the efficacy of the government, and will perpetually endan
ger the tranquility of the union." He next combatted with
great force the charge of the insecurity of religious freedom
under the new system. "Is a bill of rights," he said, " a se
curity for religion ? Would the biU of rights in this State
exempt the people from paying for the support of one particular
sect, if such sect were exclusively established by law ?"® If there
were a majority of one sect, the bill of rights would be a poor
protection for liberty. Happily for the Slates they enjoy the
utraost freedom of religion. This freedom arises from that mul-
tipUcity of sects which pervade America, and which is the best
and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where
'"' Since the delivery of this speech, the bill of rights has been decided
to be a part of the Constitution of the State, and the question has lost its
force. Edmund Randolph declared in this debate that it was not a
part of the Constitution.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 229
there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any
one sect to oppress and persecute the rest. Fortunately for this
Coramonwealth, the majority ofthe people are decidedly against
any exclusive establishment. I think it is so in the other States.
There is not a shadow of right in the general government to
intermeddle with reUgion. Its least interference with it would
be a raost flagrant usurpation. I can appeal to ray uniform con
duct on this subject, that I have warmly supported religious
freedom. "° It is better that this security should be depended
upon from the general government, than from one particular
State. A particular State might concur in one religious project.
But the United States abound in such a variety of sects, that it
is a strong security against religious persecution, and is sufficient
to authorize a conclusion that no one sect will ever be able to
outnumber or depress the rest." He aniraad verted on the intro
duction of Mr. Jefferson's opinions in debate, and sought by an
appeal to the pride of the House, couched in terras as sarcastic
as his strict sense of propriety aUowed him to indulge, to impair
the force of Henry's arguments drawn frora the contents of the
letter of that statesman. "Is it corae to this, then," he inquired,
"thatwe are not to follow our own reason? Is it proper to
introduce the naraes of individuals not within these walls ? Are
we, who, in the honorable gentleraan's opinion, are not to be
governed by an erring world, now to submit to the opinion of a
gendeman on the other side of the Atlantic ?" He then most
adroitly quoted the authority which he had so explicitly con
demned as out of place in that hall. "I am in sorae raeasure
acquainted with his opinions on the question imraediately before
the House. I will venture to say that this clause is not objected
to by Mr. Jefferson. He approves of it because it enables the
governraent to carry on its own operations." He declined to
follow the gentleraan through all his desultory objections, but
would recur to a few points. He rarely fails to contradict the
arguments of those on his own side of the question. He com
plains that the numbers of the Federal Government will add to
"* This is as near an approach to his own personal acts as Mr. Madi
son ever made. He drew the memorial in favor of religious freedom,
which is one ofthe finest State papers in our language. Had his mod
esty been less, many a letter and State paper in our hisforical literature,
now passing under the name of another, would be known to be his.

230 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
the public expense a weight too formidable to be borne, while he
and other gentlemen on the same side object that the number of
representatives is too small. He inveighs against the govern
ment because such transactions as require secresy raay be kept
private ; yet forgets that that v^ry part of the Constitution is
1 borrowed from the Confederation — the very system which the
I gentleman advocates. He seeks to obviate the force of my
observations with respect to concurrent collections of taxes under
different authorities, and says there is no interference between
parochial and general taxes because they irradiate from the same
centre. Do not the concurrent collections under the State and
general governraent, to use the genderaan's own term, all
irradiate from the people at large ? The people is the coramon
superior. The sense of the people at large is to be the pre
dominant spring of their actions. This is a sufficient security
against interference. He observed that he would reply to other
arguraents offered by the gentleman in their proper places.
The House then adjourned.
Y On Friday raorning, the thirteenth day of June, the people
) began to assemble at an early hour in the new Academy. The
^. seats set apart for spectators were soon fiUed, and an eager crowd
had collected about the windows and beset the approaches to the
hall. At the first stroke of the bell which announced the hour
of ten every member was in his place. It was observed that the
voice of Waugh, as he read the collect for the day, had a tone
>^ of more than usual solemnity. For it was generaUy known that
the subject of the navigation of the Mississippi — a subject which
enlisted the passions equally of the rich and the poor, and was
the absorbing topic of the age in the South — would that day be
discussed in a most imposing form ; and it was thought not
improbable that under the daring lead of Henry the opponents
of the Constitution, who had suddenly sprung this raine under
the feet of its friends, raight seek to carry their point by an imme
diate vote on the ratification of that instrument. George Nicho
las was the first to rise. He was friendly to the Constitution,
and doubtless desired its success ; but he was deeply connected
with Kentucky, whither he was soon to remove, and he was
indisposed from motives of present as well as future policy to
thwart the wishes of the delegation frora the district. He urged
the Convention either to proceed according to their original

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 231
deterraination of discussing the Constitution clause by clause, or
to rescind that order, and discuss that paper at large. Henry
opposed the policy of proceeding clause by clause, and thought
that the mode of discussion should be at large. He observed
that there was one question which had taken up much time, and
he wished before leaving that subject that the transactions of
Congress relative to the navigation of the Mississippi should be
communicated to the Convention, in order that the merabers
might draw their conclusions from the best source. With this
view he hoped that those gentleraen who had been then in Con
gress, and the present raembers of Congress in Convention,
could communicate what they knew on the subject. He declared
that he did not wish to hurt the feelings of the gentlemen who
had been in Congress, or to reflect on any private character;
but that for the information of the Convention, he was desirous
of having the most authentic account, and a faithful stateraent of
facts. Nicholas assented to the proposition of Henry. Madison,
who had at the coraraencement of the session written his fears to
Washington that the topic of the Mississippi might jeopard the
success of the Constitution, felt indignant at the snare which he
believed Henry had spread for his destruction, and seemed not in
disposed, contrary to his usual habit, to construe the action of that
individual into a personal reflectio<i upon himself He rose and
declared that, if Henry thought that he had given an incorrect
account of the transactions relative to the Mississippi, he would
on a thorough and complete investigation find himself mistaken ;
that it had always been his opinion that the policy which had for
its object the relinquishment of that river was unwise, and that
the mode of conducting it was still more exceptionable. He
added that he had no objection to have every light on the subject
that could tend to elucidate it.
The House then resolved itself into a Coramittee ofthe Whole,
" more particularly for the purpose of receiving information con-
concerning the transactions of Congress relative to the Mis
sissippi." Wythe took the chair, and, on raotion, the acts and
resolutions of the Assembly relative to the Mississippi were read.
We now proceed to record a scene which our fathers were
wont to rehearse to their sons in subdued tones, as if the crisis
were imminent, which nearly involved the fate of the Federal
Constitution, and which, even at this day, when viewed through

232 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
the mirage of seventy suraraers, appears one of the most intensely
interesting and thrilling scenes in our history. We are to record
the spectacle of a people, in their highest sovereign capacity,
holding an inquest into the conduct of their representatives on
an occasion of vital importance to their own welfare and to the
welfare of their posterity. It will have been seen that the navi
gation of the Mississippi had often been alluded to in debate, and
had been discussed at sorae length on both sides of the House.
At the present day, if we look to the West, we will see many
young, populous, and prosperous republics, which feel a more
direct interest in that river than we can possibly feel ; for while
we can only regard it mainly in a national view, they regard it as
the source of daily personal convenience and profit as well as in
its national aspect; but it was far otherwise with our fathers.
They cherished the right to navigate that river as the apple of
their eye. It was with a just pride that they looked to the
extended limits of the State. Often has the young Virginian,
when visiting the picturesque seats on the Thames, told to won
dering Englishmen how the eastern frontier of the great Com
monwealth from which he came rested on the Atlantic, and how
the western, instead of being traced, as now, by an imaginary
line running through obscure forests and over hills and creeks,'"
was bounded by that majestic stream, whose many waters, spring
ing from the recesses of far distant and inaccessible mountains,
whose base the foot of civiUzed man had never approached, and
in their course of thousands of miles through an iUimitable
region, into which the fearless La Salle had not ventured to launch
his canoe, nor the saintly Hennepin to hold up the cross of his
Heavenly Master, gathering tributes from streams vaster than
their own, flowed past its entire extent in their triumphal progress
to the sea. The present Comraonwealth of Kentucky, then a
district of Virginia, was divided into six counties, which, like the
other counties of the State, sent a delegation of two members
each to the present Convention. To the prosperity, nay, almost
'" The word " creek " is an instance of the truth with which the
origin of a people may be traced in their use of words. It is properly
applicable to salt water cestuanes only, and its use in connection with
water-courses a thousand miles distant from tide, shows that the ances
tral stock came from the seaboard, and, perhaps, from an island, where
the word necessarily abounds more than on the mainland.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 233
to the very existence of that territory, which was soon to become
a State, the navigation of the Mississippi was indispensable ; and
it was now believed that the twelve members from the district
held the fate of the Constitution in their hands. If they voted
for that instruraent in a body, its ratification was certain ; and if
they gave an united vote against it, its rejection was deeraed
almost certain. There were other contingent interests connected
with the subject which were of grave raoment. The emigrants
to the district were principally Virginians, the sons and daughters,
and, in sorae cases, the fathers and raothers, of those whora they
left behind in their quest of the cheap and fertile lands of the
west. There was another tie which bound the people of Virginia
to the new land of proraise, even stronger than that of consan
guinity. They lived by agriculture ; and the wide area of land,
shelving gradually from the Blue Ridge to the ocean, had been
for nearly two centuries in cultivation, and had long ceased to
retain the virtues of the virgin soil. While such was the case,
with some exceptions, generally, it was especially so in the
country not far above tide and nearly all below it, a region of
country which erabraced rauch of the active capital of the State.
Large speculations had already taken place in western lands, and
more than one prorainent meraber of the Convention was cast
ing his eyes to Kentucky as the future home of hiraself and of
his posterity. But all these flattering hopes would be instantly
blasted with the loss of the navigation of the Mississippi. The
poor man might indeed build his cabin in the district, and rear
his family on the products of his farm and from the chase ; but
capital there could find no eraployraent unless the proceeds of
labor could be made to mingle with the coramerce of the world.
It had been well known that the cession of that river to Spain
had been recently under discussion, and had received the coun
tenance of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, who, it was said, was
acting in friendly union with Guardoqui, the Spanish minister.
Rumors only reached the public ear ; for, as the proceedings of
Congress were secret, no reliable intelUgence on the subject was
generally known. An alarm faintly to be expressed by words
seized the people generally, irrespective of their place of resi
dence. The Kentuckians were raaddened almost to desperation.
And it was plain that Kentucky would not only refuse to be a
party to a treaty of cession, but to acknowledge its obligation.

231 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
Fortunately, several of the merabers of Congress were also
merabers of the Convention, and from them the true state of the
case might be ascertained. What enhanced the interest of the
present occasion was the belief that the "six easternmost States"
had seemed to acquiesce in the suggestion of Mr. Jay, the Secre
tary of Foreign Affairs, of a cession of the river to Spain for five
and twenty years; and that, under the new system, as had been
shown by Grayson, it was possible that as ten members might
constitute a quorum of the Senate competent to make a treaty,
and as those ten were returned by five States, the five New Eng
land States might seize the lucky moment, and accomplish the
ruin of the West. The subject was also regarded with peculiar
emotions by the Convention as a body. The friends of the
Constitution viewed the whole affair as a plot deliberately de
signed for their overthrow, and although they felt the deepest
indignation, and knew that, though they might lose everything,
they could not possibly gain a single advantage, they were com
pelled from policy to assent to this public exposition. Quite
different were the feelings of the opponents of the new scheme.
They regarded that scheme as fraught with untold evils to the
country, and were ready to avail themselves of all legitimate
means to prevent its adoption. The navigation of the great
river of the West had hung by a hair, and the safety of that
invaluable right alone was ol sufficient importance to make or to
unmake constitutions. They also believed that not only was
this great right insecure, but that all the other great rights which
society was formed to protect were in peril from the proposed
scheme of government. That the scene raight not lack the
proper complement in a solemn public inquisition, Henry acted
as Attorney for the Commonwealth, and the zeal, the tact, and
the keenness which he displayed in his self-assumed office, made
him no unmeaning figure in that exciting drama.
The members ot the Convention who had been in Congress
during the Mississippi affair were Henry Lee and Madison, who
were friendly to the Constitution, and Grayson and Monroe, who
were opposed to it. It is probable that Madison, who was an
expert parliamentarian, had arranged that Lee should first
address the comraittee, reserving for himself the closing of the
discussion. Lee accordingly took the floor.
Of the appearance of this brilliant soldier as he then was, in

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 235
the prime of manhood, we have already spoken. Now there
was an evident confusion in his manner. He disliked the subject,
he disliked the purposes for which it had been introduced, and
he disliked himself; for he had written to Washington when the
subject was before Congress, intiraating plainly that he was not
indisposed to cede the river to Spain for a terra of years."" He
said a few words only, but strongly asserted that it was the deter
mined resolution of Congress not to give up that river, and that
they earnestiy wished to adopt the best pcssible plan of securing
it. The testimony of Lee was strictly true, but it was the testi
mony of a tactician, not of a statesman. It was true that Con
gress did not intend to surrender the right of navigating the
Mississippi, and that they wished to secure it in what they deemed
the best possible raanner, but it was also true that the assent of
only three States was wanting to vote the surrender of the navi
gation for the terra of twenty-five years — a period at the expira
tion of which half the present population of the globe would be
in their graves.
Monroe, who was two years younger than Lee, having just en
tered his thirtieth year, and who well deserved the compliment
of honest and brave which Mr. Jefferson. had paid him, was called
upon to speak. He said he had heretofore preserved silence on
the subject, and, although he acknowledged his duty to obey the
wishes of the General Assembly, that body had relieved him, at
his request, frora the necessity of raaking any disclosure. The
right of the Convention was even paramount to that of the As
sembly ; but he wished it had not been exercised by going into
comraittee for that purpose. He objected to the partial repre
sentations which had been made in debate as likely to lead into
error. The policy of Virginia in respect of the navigation of the
Y Mississippi had always been the sarae. It is true that at a se
vere crisis she had agreed to surrender the navigation ; but it
was at a tirae when the Southern States were overrun and in
possession of the eneray. Georgia and South Carolina were
prostrate. North Carolina raade but a feeble resistance. Vir
ginia was then greatly harassed by the enemy in force in the
heart of the country, and by impressments for her own defence
and for the defence of other States. The finances of the Union
'*" Sparks' Washington Correspondence, IV, 137.

236 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
were totally exhausted, and France, our ally, was anxious for
peace. The object of the cession was to unite Spain in the war
with all her forces, and thus bring the contest to a happy and
speedy conclusion. Congress had learned from our minister at
the Spanish court that our Western settlements were viewed with
jealousy by Spain. All inferior objects must yield to the safety
of society itself Congress passed an act authorizing the ces
sion, and our minister at the court of Spain was authorized to
relinquish this invaluable right to that power on the condition
already stated. But what was the issue of this proposition?
Was any treaty made with Spain that obtained an acknowledg
ment of our independence, although she was then at war with
England, and such acknowledgraent would have cost her noth
ing? Was a loan of raoney accoraplished? In short, does it
appear that Spain herself thought it an object of any import
ance? So soon as the war was ended, this resolution was re
scinded. The power to make such a treaty was revoked. So
that this system of policy was departed from only for a short
time, for the raost important object that can be conceived, and
resumed again as soon as it possibly could be.
After the peace, continued Monroe, Congress appointed three
commissioners to make commercial treaties with foreign powers,
Spain inclusive ; so that an arrangement for a treaty with Spain
had been already taken. While these powers were in force, a
representative from Spain arrived, who was authorized to treat
with the United States on the interfering clairas of the two na
tions respecting the Mississippi, and the boundaries and other
concerns in which they were respectively interested. A similar
commission was given to the honorable the Secretary of Foreign
Affairs on the part ofthe United States, with these ultimata : That
he enter into no treaty, compact, or convention whatever, with the
said representative of Spain which did not stipulate our right to
the navigation of the Mississippi, and the boundaries as estab
lished in our treaty with Great Britain. Thus the late negotia
tion commenced under the raost flattering auspices. Was it not
presumable that she intended, frora various circurastances, to
raake a merit of her concession to our wishes? But what was
the issue of this negotiation? Eight or ten raonths elapsed with
out any communication of its progress to Congress, when a let
ter was received from the Secretary, stating that difficulties had

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 237
arisen in his negotiation with the representative of Spain, which,
in his opinion, should be so managed as that even their existence
should remain a secret for the present, and proposing that a
coraraittee be appointed with full power to direct and instruct
him in every case relative to the proposed treaty. As the only
ultimata in his instructions respected the Mississippi and the
boundaries, it readily occurred that these occasioned the difficul
ties alluded to, and were those which he wished to remove. And
for many reasons, said Monroe, this appeared to me an extra
ordinary proposition. By the Articles of Confederation, nine
States are necessary to enter into treaties. The instruction is
the foundation ofthe treaty; for if it is forraed agreeably thereto,
good faith requires that it be ratified. The instructions under
which our comraercial treaties have been made were carried by
nine States. Those under which the Secretary now acted were
passed by nine States. The proposition then would be, that the
powers, which, under the Constitution, nine States only were
competent to exercise, should be transferred to a committee, and
that the object of the transfer was to disengage the Secretary
from the ultimata in his existing instructions. In this light the
subject was taken up, and on these principles discussed. The
Secretary, Mr. Jay, summoned before Congress to explain the
difficulties mentioned in his letter, presented the project of a
treaty of coraraerce containing, as he supposed, advantageous
commercial stipulations in our favor, in consideration of which
we were to contract to forbear the use of the navigation of the
Mississippi for the term of twenty-five or thirty years ; and he
earnestly advised the adoption of it by Congress. The subject
now took a decided forra. AU arabiguity was at an end. We
were surprised that he had taken up the subject of commerce at
aU. We were still more surprised that it should form the prin
cipal object of the project, and that a partial or temporary sacri
fice of the very interest, for the advancement of which the nego
tiation was set on foot, should be the consideration to be given for
it. The Secretary urged that it was necessary to stand well with
Spain ; that the comraercial project was highly beneficial ; that a
stipulation to forbear the use, contained an acknowledgraent on
the part of Spain of our right ; that we were in no condition to
take the • ''ver, and tht ;fore gave nothing for it ; and for other
reason? /'' We differed with the Secretary almost in every respect.

238 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
We wished to stand well with Spain, but wished to accomplish
that end on equal terms. We considered the stipulation to for
bear the use as a species of barter unbecoming the raagnanimity
and candor of a nation, and as setting a precedent which might
be applied to the Potomac, the Hudson, or the Chesapeake.
We thought that there was a material distinction between a stipu
lation to forbear the use, and an inability to open the river. The
first would be considered by the inhabitants of the Western coun
try as an act of hostility ; the last raight be justified by our
weakness. And with respect to the coraraercial part of the pro
ject, we really thought it an iU-advised one on its own merits
solely. The subject was referred to a Comraittee of the Whole.
The delegates frora the seven easternraost States voted that the
ultimata in the instructions of the Secretary should be repealed ;
which was reported to the House, and entered on the Journal by
the Secretary of Congress, as affirming the fact that the question
was carried. Upon this entry a constitutional question arose to
this effect : nine States being necessary, according to the Arti
cles of Confederation, to give an instruction, and seven having
repealed a part of an instruction so given for the formation of a
treaty with a foreign power, so as to alter its import and autho
rize, under the remaining part thereof the formation of a treaty
on principles altogether different from what the original instruc
tion conteraplated, can such reraaining part be considered as in
force and constitutionally obligatory ? We pressed on Congress
for a decision on this point often, but we pressed in vain. Not
withstanding this, I understood, said Monroe, that it was the
intention of the Secretary to proceed and conclude a treaty in
conformity with his project with the Spanish minister. At
this stage I left Congress. "I thought it my duty," he said,
" to use every exertion in Congress for the interest of the
Southern States. With many of those gentlemen to whom
I always considered it my particular raisfortune to be opposed,
I ara now in habits of correspondence and friendship ; and I
am concerned for the necessity which has given birth to this
relation. Whether the delegates of those States spoke the lan
guage of their constituents ; whether it may be considered as the
permanent interest of those States to depress the growth and
increasing population of the Western country, are points which I
cannot pretend to determine." He concluded with th^expres-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 239
sion of the opinion that the interest of the Western country would
not be as secure under the proposed Constitution as under the
Confederation; because under the latter system the Mississippi
could not be relinquished without the consent of nine States ;
whereas by the former a majority of seven States could yield it.
His own opinion was that it would be given up by a raajority of
the senators present in the Senate, with the president, which
would put it in the power of less than seven States to surrender
it ; that the Northern States were inclined to yield it ; that it was
their interest to prevent an augraentation of Southern influence
and power ; and that, as raankind in general, and States in par
ticular, were governed by interest, the Northern States would
not fail of availing theraselves of the opportunity afforded by
the Constitution of relinquishing that river in order to depress
the Western country, and prevent the Southern interest from
preponderating. Now, little did Monroe reflect, as that august assembly was
eagerly watching every word that fell from his lips, how vain in
respect of the future is the wisdom of the wise, and how rarely
the vaticinations of politicians, founded on the most subtle pro
cesses of logical deduction, are fulfilled 1 How little did he drearn
that in a few short years Spain should, in an agony of terror,
cede her dearly cherished province of Louisiana with all its
appendages to France ; that in less than fourteen years frora
the tirae when he was speaking, not only the right of navigating
the Mississippi should be acquired by the United States, but
the exclusive title to the river itself; and not only the exclu
sive tide to the river itself but the exclusive title to the superb
realm drained by its waters ; that the beneficent treaty which
was to accomplish such results, which was to settle so many
dangerous disputes, and which was destined to confer upon
untold generations the choicest blessings of heaven, should be
mainly negotiated by hiraself and should be ratified by a con
stitutional raajority of that Senate which he now viewed with
such stern distrust ; that, before the expiration of the terra
stipulated by Mr. Jay, he should preside in the Federal Govern
ment, and that he should, in a heedless moment, in a time of pro
found peace, and when surrounded by a Southern cabinet,"'
"° Mr. Monroe's cabinet consisted of Mr. Adams of Massachusetts ;
Mr. Crawford, of Georgia ; Mr. Calhoun, of South Carolina ; Mr.

240 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
virtually cede to Spain a vast and fertile dominion of the South,
which a succeeding generation, at the sacrifice of thousands of
valuable lives and of more millions than made up the debt of the
Revolution, should recover; but not until an infant then puling
in the nurse's arms in an hurable homestead in Orange (General
Zachary Taylor) had won a series of dazzling victories on the
soil of the enemy, and not until another Virginia boy, then run
ning barefoot on a farm in Dinwiddie (General Winfield Scott),
had landed, from the decks of ships which had already won dis
tinction in contests with the ships of the greatest naval power of
the globe, his brilliant battalions on the hostile shore, and, mark
ing his encampments by battles, and his battles by victories,
should close his campaign by unfurling in the proud capital of
the enemy, above those gorgeous structures frora which the once
terrible lions of Spain had for two centuries bade defiance to the
world, the standard of his country.
The speech of Monroe was well received. It raade upon the
House a strong irapression, which was heightened by the modesty
of his deraeanor, by the sincerity which was reflected frora every
feature of his honest face, and by the rainute knowledge which
he exhibited of a historical transaction of surpassing interest to
the South. But if the impression was felt by the members gen
erally, it was felt most keenly by those who were anxious about
the sales of their crops and for the prosperity of their famUies.
The raerabers frora the West were furious. They had just learned
for the first tirae the irarainent hazard to which their raost valued
privilege had been exposed,*" and they did not conceal their
indignation. And that indignation was neither unbecoraing nor
uncalled for. That a Secretary of State, instructed strictly to
negotiate a treaty for the security of an object of vital importance
to the South and West, should lose sight of that object altogether

Thompson, of New York; and Mr. Wirt, of Virginia, as attorney-gen
eral ; including Mr. Monroe himself, it was a strong Southern adminis
tration. ™ In 1788 information traveled slowly. In fact, the intelligence
divulged by Monroe, in compliance with the wishes of the Convention,
could have been known but to few, Humphrey Marshall saw the
numbers of The Federalist for the first time in the hands of George
Nicholas, whom he fell in with on his way from Kentuckyto attend the
present Convention.— .fi'?///^r'.r History of Kentucky, 167.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 241
and propose a treaty relating to an object of lesser importance,
which was beyond his powers, and which, insignificant and value
less in itself could only be obtained by a sacrifice of the invalua
ble rights which he was expressly instructed to secure, and that
such a project should be sanctioned by seven Eastern States in
direct contravention of the Articles of Confederation, might well
arouse the astonishment and anger of the West. Nor was the
tirae of danger past. The treaty raay have been already raade,
and raight then be on its way to Spain.
The alarra thus raised soon extended to the new Constitution.
For it was plain that the seven States which had so recently voted
to cede the right of navigating the Mississippi, and which raight
be supposed to retain their opinions unchanged, would certainly
constitute a raajority of the new Senate if every raember was in
his seat, and might at sorae unexpected moment and in a thin
house, accomplish by a vote of two-thirds of a quorura their
decided purpose. Such was the excitement in the Convention
that men whose opinions were entitled to respect declared after
wards that, if the final vote on the Constitution had then been
'j pressed, that instrument would have been lost by a raajority fully
'as large as that which ultimately adopted it.
Grayson rose next to give his testimony in the case. In age,
in eloquence, and in breadth of statesmanship, he stood nearly
in the same relation to Monroe, to Lee, and to Madison, that in
a body which sat forty years later in this city Watkins Leigh
and Chapraan Johnson stood to Droragoole, to Goode, to Mason
of Southampton, to Mason of Frederick, to MiUer of Botetourt,
and to Moore of Rockbridge. He said that, like Monroe, he
felt a delicacy in disclosing what had occurred in secret session ;
but he declared that he had protested against the injunction of
secrecy on a great constitutional question. He coincided in the
stateraent just made, and said that Spain claimed not only the
absolute and exclusive navigation of the Mississippi, but one-half
of the State of Georgia and one-half of the district of Kentucky;
and that this was the reason of the limitation imposed on the
Secretary relative to the boundaries recognized in our treaty
with Great Britain. He said that the Southern States were
opposed to a surrender of the Mississippi ; that the Northern
States were once opposed to give it up, but that was when they
were apprehensive about their fisheries, on which their very

242 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
existence depended, and regarding the Mississippi as a counter
poise to the fisheries, they apprehended that, if the Mississippi
were given up, the fisheries might also be relinquished ; that the
fisheries were now secure, and the result was that the seven
easternraost States had resolved to release Mr. Jay frora the fetters
which had been iraposed upon hira by the constitutional majority
of nine States ; that this determination had been communicated
to Mr. Jay for his guidance in forming a treaty with the Spanish
rainister ; that this instruction violated the express injunction of
the Constitution, which required nine States to make a treaty.
Adhere to the limitations imposed upon Mr. Jay, and Georgia
was safe, Kentucky was safe, the Mississippi was safe, the Con
stitution was safe ; depart from them, and the most precious
rights and privileges of the South are at his mercy. He said
that, as the instructions to Mr. Jay were the foundation and sub
stance of the treaty, any compact which that gentleraan might
raake with the Spanish rainister would, if not ratified by Congress,
give Spain just cause of war ; so that we would be involved in
the dilemraa of violating the Constitution by a corapliance with
it, or, in case of a non-corapliance, of incurring the risks of war
with that power. The South also contended that it had no right
to dismeraber the empire, or relinquish to a foreign power the
exclusive navigation of our rivers. He said that Maryland had
coincided with the North. He again reverted to the reluctance
which the Eastern States had at one time evinced toward surren
dering the Mississippi, and said that, when their apprehensions
were removed, the natural instinct of interest revived, and they
became solicitous of securing a superiority of influence in the
national councils. Their language, he said, was this : " Let us
prevent any new States from rising in the Westem world, or they
will outvote us. We will lose our importance, and become as
nothing in the scale of nations. If we do not prevent it, our
countrymen will remove to those places instead of going to sea,
and we will receive no particular tribute or advantage from
them,"'^^ When he had expressed his opinions at length, he
said that whether this great interest would be safe under the
new Constitution he left it to others to determine. It certainly
was not safe under the present, though more so than under the
one proposed for their adoption.
^^ The language and the italics of the quotation are Grayson's.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 243
When Grayson ended, Henry rose to request Monroe to dis
cover the rest of the project, and to inform the House what Spain
was to do on her part as as an equivalent for the cession of the
Mississippi. Monroe replied that the equivalent was the advan
tages of commercial intercourse ; but that Spain conceded nothing
more in fact than was granted to other nations trading with her.
When Monroe expressed this opinion, it is said that an expression
of astonishment was visible on the faces of the members.
It was at this culminating point of the discussion that Madi
son, then in his thirty-seventh year, and in the full possession of
those admirable powers of debate, which, unused and unob
served for more than the third of a century before his death, have
been almost forgotten in the contemplation of the subsequent
titles that he acquired to the grateful reraerabrance of his coun
try, was called to the floor. He could not well have been placed
in a more unpleasant predicament. It was irapossible to defend,
directly and unequivocally, the action of Congress. No speaker
who would rise and approve the deliberate instruction of seven
Eastern States to disraeraber the half of Georgia and the half of
Kentucky, and to cede with the territory of those States the
absolute and exclusive navigation of the Mississippi, without an
equivalent, to a foreign power, could expect for an instant the
favorable ear of a Southern asserably. Yet some defence was
required at his hands. The new Constitution was in irarainent
jeopardy. It is evident from his remarks which have come down
to us, that he was much discoraposed. He could neither conceal
the whole truth nor tell the whole truth without inflicting equal
injury upon the cause which he had so much at heart. If he
concealed any part of the truth, there were Grayson and Monroe
to refresh his raeraory ; if he told the whole truth, he would
sustain by his own authority the truth of as palpable an outrage
as was ever airaed at the liberties of a free people. But it is on
such occasions that the man of genius appears in strong contrast
with the raere raan of words, however dexterously he may use
them in common emergencies. What disarranged him the raore
was the belief and certain knowledge that the whole scene had
been conjured up by Henry to effect the ruin of the new Consti
tution, and it was with eraotions bordering on disgust that he
found hiraself corapeUed to contribute his share to the entertain
ment. As, in the early part of the day, he was disposed to inter-

244 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
pret the conduct of Henry in seeking a full disclosure of the sub
ject as, in sorae raeasure, personal to himself so he now reflected
upon the action of the House in a way that might have led to
a call to order. He said it was extremely disagreeable to him
to enter into a discussion which was foreign to the deliberations
of the House, and which would sully the reputation of our pub
lic councils. He admitted the facts as stated by the gentlemen
who had preceded him, but he differed about the principles in
volved in them. He declared that he never approved the ces
sion ; that neither the Confederation nor the proposed Constitu
tion gave a right to surrender the Mississippi ; that such a sur
render was repugnant to the laws of nations ; paid a glowing
compliment to the virtues and talents of Mr. Jay ; and demon
strated that, whatever may have been the opinions of their rep
resentatives at a particular time on the subject, it was the per
manent interest of the Northern States, which were the carriers
of our produce, to sustain the navigation ofthe Mississippi; that
it would be unwise to argue that, as the South had at one time
assented to the cession and changed its opinion, the North
might not do the same ; and spread such an ingenious net- work
of argument and opinion over the glaring facts of the case as in
sorae degree to conceal its deformity. He ended by saying that
there were circumstances within his knowledge which rendered it
certain that no effort would be made hereafter unfavorable to the
navigation of the Mississippi. His speech, even in its present
forra, is an exquisite specimen of the tact and skill with which an
eminent statesman, wielding the while with extraordinary judg
ment the weapons of a debater, may appear to walk steadily
over ground that was quaking beneath him.
As soon as Madison took his seat Grayson appeared on the
floor. He instantly reverted to the considerations which Madi
son did not think proper to disclose to the House, stated by way
of supposition what they were, and sought by a detail of facts
and by general reasoning to demonstrate that no reliance could
be placed upon them. He foUowed Madison step by step, arid
assailed his reasoning in a speech which, by its statesraanlike
views of domestic policy, by the fervor of its declamation, and
by the force of its logic, was one of the most fascinating exhibi
tions of the day. Madison, as if disinclined to protract the dis
cussion, made no reply.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 245
Henry then spoke. A more appropriate tirae for the display
of his peculiar powers could not be desired. The occasion, the
therae, the irameasurable issues which raight be swayed by the
deliberations of a single day, threw such an inspiration over his
genius that he seeraed to be wrapt into a higher sphere, and
his lips appeared to glow as if touched with the coals from the
altar. The leading facts of a great question ^f natianal policy
were before hira, and it was his duty to pres^thera upon the
hearts of his audience. He began by throwing the responsi
bility of the discussion on Madison, who had gone at large into
the subject, and, following for a tirae his train of argument,
threw himself on his own inexhaustible resources. Elderly men,
who had heard his raost eloquent speeches, and who pronounced
his speech on this occasion one of the most eloquent of all,
delighted to recall the lineaments of two pictures which he drew
with a raaster' s hand. One described the great valley of the
Mississippi as stretching from the Alleghanies to the nameless
mountains of the distant West, as teeming with a mighty popu-
' lation, cultivated farms, thriving villages, towns, cities, colleges,
and churches, filUng the vision in every direction — the Missis
sippi covered with ships laden with foreign and domestic wealth —
the West the strength, the pride, and the flower of the Confed
eracy. Such would be the valley of the West with a free navi
gation of the Mississippi, and under a Federal system. The
other picture was a reverse of the scene, and presented a pros
pect of unaUoyed calaraity. The Mississippi no longer alive
with ships — its unburdened waters flowing idly to the sea— no
villages, no towns, no cities, no schools, no churches, no culti
vated plains ; the original solitude of the forest unbroken, save
here and there by the rude hut of the outlaw ; capital flyi-ng
frora a land where it would turn to dross. Such would be the
West with the loss of the Mississippi, and under a consolidated
governraent to be controlled by those who had no interest in its
welfare. The reported speech is more argumentative than elo
quent ; but it is plain that the reporter rarely was able to do
more than record the main points raade by the speaker.
At the close of the speech there was a pause in the House.
No Federalist seemed willing to engage in the discussion. It is
said that Pendleton, who was in the body of the House, his
right hand clenching his crutch, sat silent and amazed. He

246 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
felt that moment more keenly the spell of Henry's genius than
when, in the Hoi^se of Burgesses in 1765, he heard him defy
the king, or when, in the Convention of 1775, he heard him ex
claim " Give me lioerty, or give me death."
It was at this 'earful raoment that there rose to address the
House C>ne of those remarkable men of whom the Revolution
was prolific, and who had nearly changed the fortunes of the
hour. He appeared to be about the middle stature, thick and
broad ; and though only in his thirty-fifth year, his head was so
bald as to suggest the impression that in some fierce Indian foray
he had forfeited his scalp. In his features and in his demeanor
there was nothing imposing. His voice was the voice of a man
accustomed to address popular assemblies, but was to be noted
neither for its power nor its sweetness. His influence lay in
another direction. He had mingled freely with all classes of
society, and was as farailiar with the carap and the court-green
as if his feet had never pressed the carpets of " Westover," or his
lips had never been raoistened with the raellow wine from the
vaults of "Brandon " or of "Shirley." He was one of that bril
liant group of soldier-statesmen who had caught their inspiration
and their love of country from the lips of Wythe. At the bar, to
the front rank of which he had risen, his tact and knowledge of
mankind availed himself as much, if not more, than his learning,
which he had drawn mainly from Blackstone, whose commenta
ries had already superceded the elder writers of the law, and had
been for the past eighteen years in the hands of every educated
Virginian. He entered the House of Delegates in early life,
and soon became one of the leaders ofthe body. He was utterly
fearless. He shrunk from no duty, and in the midst of a civU
war he sought to subject to an impeachment a statesman who
was the second Governor of Virginia, and whose name now
stands, and will stand forever, second only to that of Washington.
He bore a name illustrious in the annals of the Colony and of the
Comraonwealth ; but George Nicholas had a genius of his own
which needed no hereditary endorsement, and was ample enough
to sustain him in any sphere, military or civil, which might suit
his fancy. Soon after the separation of Kentucky from Virginia
he eraigrated to the new Coramonwealth, where he succeeded in
attaining the same elevated position which he held at home, and
blended his name inseparably with the early history of that State.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 247
His influence in his native State and in the State of his adoption
is felt to this day. He possessed great tact in the management
of public bodies, and had already participated with great ability in
the debates of the body. He saw at a glance that the fate of the
Constitution might depend upon the results of that day's session.
He well knew that if the Kentucky delegation voted against the
Constitution, and was joined by a single county on the Western
waters, the fate of that instrument was sealed. He instantly
decided on his plan of attack. He saw that all explanations and
apologies were idle. He determined, instead of resting on the
defensive, to push into the ranks of the enemy, and make a
desperate effort to retrieve the fortunes of the day. He said that
the statements which he had heard that day had filled him with
astonishment A great, an inestimable right, the right of navi
gating the Mississippi, which was necessary, which was indi.'pen-
sable to the developraent of the resources of that fertile region
and to the prosperity of the South, had nearly been sacrificed.
It was in this strain that he continued until he had disarraed sus
picion and had gained the syrapathy of a raajority of the House,
when, turning suddenly to Henry, he exclaimed. By whom was
this fearful act conteraplated ? By the gentleman's favorite Con
federation. Would gentlemen dare to say that this was an
• argument which should induce the West to uphold a system of
government which might consummate the odious and abominable
policy which it had already set in train ? It was by this mode of
argument that he sought to quiet the fears of the raembers from
the West, and his arguraent produced a sensible effect upon the
House which Edmund Randolph sought to deepen ; but while
Corbin, who followed Randolph on the same side, was speaking,
a storm arose, which rendered speaking irapossible, and the
House adjourned. The result of this day's discussion — a dis
cussion which, whether we consider the intense interest of the
subject which called it forth, the various talents which were
exhibited in its course, and the splendid prize held up to the suc
cessful combatants, was one of the most interesting in our
history — ^was, that of the fourteen members from Kentucky, ten
voted against the ratification of the Federal Constitution.
On the morning of Saturday, the fourteenth of June, a painful
rumor reached the House. Pendleton had fallen suddenly iU the
night before, and was unable to take his seat. The House pro-

248 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
ceeded to the election of a vice-president, which resulted in the
choice of John Tyler,'"* who was to preside during the inabiUty
of Pendleton. He was one of the staunchest opponents of the
new Constitution; but that his appointment might lack no mark
of honor, and raight show conspicuously to future tiraes the
courtesy of a body, which, though agitated by the strongest pas
sions, disdained to look to the opinions of an individual, but re
garded only his fitness for the office which he would be called
upon to fill, the vote was unanimous. Nor could that exalted
honor have been conferred on a purer statesman, or on one more
corapetent in all respects to discharge its duties. The history of
the vice-president well deserves to be studied by posterity. His
paternal ancestor of the same name, a youth of seventeen, had
come over in 1637, had settled in Bruton parish, the official re
cords of which attest, untU near the close of the seventeenth
century, his zeal in the cause of the Church, and had founded a
numerous faraily, sorae of the raost distinguished members of
which still reside within a short range ofthe ancient seat of their
race. It has been said that he could trace his descent from those
brave outlaws of Sherwood Forest, who were wont to sally forth
and levy upon their generation certain rude extemporaneous as
sessments, which were respected more frora the suraraary mode
in which they were exacted than from their consonance with the
laws of the realm.
John Tyler, who had just received from his associates so sig
nal a raark of their respect, was born in the year 1748 in the
county of Jaraes City, where he grew up to manhood. His
mother was of French extraction, and he raingled in his veins
the blood of the Anglo-Saxon with the blood of the Huguenot,
a mixture not unfriendly to freedom, to genius, to eloquence,
and to philosophy.™' From his nearness to Williarasburg,
™^ The Journal of the Convention not only does not contain the name
of the mover and seconder, but omits all notice of the election. The
" Debates " mention the appointment, but not the name ofthe raember
who moved it. It was probably Patrick Henry, who was particularly
fond of Tyler, and had nominated him to the speakership of the House
of Delegates on more than one occasion, if I mistake not. The ances
tor of John Tyler was believed to be the famous Wat Tyler, of the
times of Richard II.
™ The raother of John Tyler of the text was a daughter of Dr. Con-
tesse of Williamsburg.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 249
whither his father, who was Marshal of the Colony, and himself
frequently repaired, he had an opportunity of observing the
incidents of the time. He could remeraber Fauquier as well as
Botetourt and Dunmore ; had seen their stately progresses
through the Colony, and at the age of seventeen had heard the
speech of Henry on his resolutions against the Starap Act.
Frora that hour began his opposition to a kingly government,
which continued unfalteringly till the day of his death. He
attended William and Mary College, and studied law in the office
of Robert Carter Nicholas, from whose fcharacter he copied
several traits which were afterwards conspicuous in his own.
When Dunmore purloined the powder from the magazine at
WUliamsburg, Tyler, with young Harrison, a son of Benjamin
of "Berkeley," enrolled a number of gallant young men, and
marched at their head to the capital, where Henry, at the head of
his Hanover company, had just arrrived. On the establishment
of the Constitution in 1776, he was appointed by the Convention
to the office of Coraraissioner of Adrairalty, the duties of which
he discharged throughout the war f* and when the first elections
for the Senate under the new Constitution were held, he was a
candidate, and published an address to the people which is still
extant, and which is worthy of note as the first communication
addressed to the voters of Virginia that ever appeared in print.™^
He soon after entered the House of Delegates, and in 1782, and
again in 1783, he was elected Speaker, having been nominated
by Henry. In 1789 he was elected a judge of the general
court, and discharged for twenty years that laborious and respon
sible office. In 1808 he was elected Governor, but, as his health
suffered from his residence in Richmond, he accepted, near the
end of his second terra, the office of judge of the Federal dis
trict court. This appointraent had in his eyes a peculiar signifi
cancy. It was as a judge of Admiralty, entering on the office the
very day the first Constitution of Virginia took effect, and five
years before the Articles of Confederation were adopted, that
he began his pubUc career ; and it was in the discharge of the
2»* The Virginia Gazette of July 5, 1776, announced the appointraent
of John Tyler, James Hubard, and Joseph Prentis, as Commissioners
of Admiralty.
205 Yirginia Gazelle, July 26, 1776. Tyler lost his election.

250 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
duties of practically, the same office under the Federal Consti
tution that now in his old age he was destined to end it. He re
sided at " Greenway," his estate on the banks ofthe James; and it
not unfrequently happened that prize cases not admitting of delay
were brought by the parties for adjudication to his house ; and
on one bright raorning of the summer of 1812, in the shade of a
wide-spreading willow that grew in his vard, and in the presence
of the Marshal of the United States and of the mate and some
of the crew, he adjudicated the first prize case that occurred in
the war of 1812, that of the ship Sir Simon Clarke. The case
was clear and was soon decided, and the parties, having declined
a cordial invitation to dine with the judge, went their way.
When he returned to his family, his first words were " That
proud nation which has so long made war upon our commerce,
will soon come to know that the war is no longer altogether on
one side." But his time was now come. On the sixth day of
February, 1813, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, he breathed
his last, and was buried at " Greenway" by the side of his wife,
who had died some years before.'" The ruling passion of the
patriot who had witnessed the sufferings endured in the Revo
lution, was strong to the last. During his last illness his mind
dwelt upon the war then raging with Great Britain, which he
regarded as the second war of independence with our ancient
foe ; and but a short time before his death he raised his head
from his pillow and said, " I could have wished to live to see
again that haughty nation humbled before America; but it is
decreed otherwise, et nunc dimittas, Domine 1 ' '
But the chief distinction of this worthy patriot was derived
from his career in the House of Delegates. Throughout that
protracted and perilous period, reaching from the Declaration of
Independence to the adoption of the present Federal Constitu
tion, he was foremost in meeting the difficult and perplexing
questions of the times, and by his intrepidity, by his knowledge
of affairs, by his sound judgment, by a ready and robust elo
quence, sustained in the public councils the cause ofhis country.
Indeed, it is to his great honor that, in the decision of the nu
merous and delicate questions which arose during the war and
subsequently, and which created acrimonious and lasting divi-

Mrs. Tyler was Mary Armistead, of the county of York.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 251
sions in the State, he erabraced those views of finance, of public
credit, of domestic and foreign policy, which those who now re
gard them at the distance of seventy years would pronounce to
be the wisest and the best. It was in the session of 1786, how
ever, that he performed an act which, if the other deeds of his
long and patriotic course were forgotten, would stamp imraor
tality upon his narae. He offered, in the House of Delegates,
and sustained by his eloquence, that ever memorable resolution
convoking the Convention at Annapolis, which ultimately led to
the assembling of the General Convention that formed the
present Federal Constitution.
There were points of connection between John Tyler and the
venerable statesman who was his coUeague from Charles City in
the Convention, that attracted the attention of our fathers, and
are not without interest in our own age. Benjamin Harrison
was born in Charles City ; had sprung from a wealthy family in
the Colony; had extensive connections which were then deeraed
almost essential to the success of a rising politician, and had
been a leading member of the House of Burgesses when Tyler
was a boy. Tyler was born in the neighboring county of James
City; had in early raanhood setded in Charles City; had en
gaged in the practice of the law, and had by his open and honor
able conduct acquired the esteera of the people. He was regularly
returned to the House of Delegates, and had been frequently
elected Speaker. Harrison, who had held a seat in the House
of Burgesses for near thirty years, was often elected by the As
sembly to a seat in Congress, and was compelled, in pursuance
of an Act passed in 1777, to vacate his seat in the House of Dele
gates during his terra of service in Congress.™' At the expira
tion of his term in Congress he was always a candidate for a seat
in the House of Delegates, and, from his position as one of the
oldest raerabers of the House of Burgesses as weU as of Con
gress, and as Governor of the Commonwealth, his valuable ser
vices, and his reputation as a presiding officer, was usually
elected Speaker of that body. Thus insensibly there grew up,
rather among the neighbors of these gentlemen than between
™' Until the passage of this Act the raembers of Assembly, when
elected to Congress, always retained their seats, and when Congress
was not in session attended to their duties in the Assembly.

252 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
themselves, a kind of rivalry, as it was known that, on the elec
tion of both to the House of Delegates, a contest would occur
between them for the chair. The result was that on one occa
sion Harrison ousted Tyler from the chair which he had held at
the previous session, and on another Tyler returned the compli
ment by ousting Harrision from his seat in the House, who,
however, resolved not to be outdone, crossed over to the county
of Surry, and was imraediately returned from that county to the
House. There was one ground held in common by these wor
thy patriots, and which justly entitled thera to the public esteem —
their unwavering patriotism in times of trial. Harrison, by long
and arduous service in Congress as well as in our State councils,
and Tyler, by his equally efficient service in the House of Dele
gates, conferred lasting benefits upon their country. Harrison,
as chairman of the Committee of the Whole, had reported to
Congress the resolution which dissolved the connection between
the Colonies and Great Britain, and the Declaration of Inde
pendence; Tyler, as we have before observed, offered, and suc
ceeded in carrying through the House of Delegates, the resolu
tion which may be said to have laid the foundation of the present
Federal Constitution. And, as if the connection between them
should be continued and refreshed in the memory of succeeding
times, each had a son who, under that Constitution which their
fathers had united in opposing with all their eloquence on the
floor of the present Convention, became the Chief Magistrate
of the Union.
Tyler belonged to that class of statesmen who honestly believed
that the government of Virginia was, in respect both of domestic
and foreign policy, the safest and the best for the people of Vir
ginia. Hence he was one of the most open and most fearless
opponents of the new scheme. He had loved Virginia when
she was the free dominion of a constitutional king ; but he loved
her with redoubled affection when she became, pardy by his own
efforts, an independent Coraraonwealth. Like Henry, he deemed
the word country applicable only to the land of his birth.''"
That the slightest tax should be levied upon the people by any

™" Henry always used the word "country" only in connection with
Virginia. See the Debates /nMzw, and his letter to R. H. Lee in the
" Henry Papers," quoted in the discourse of the Virginia Convention
of 1776, page 141, note.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 253
Other authority than that of the General Asserably ; that a collec
tor appointed by any other power should stalk among the home
steads of Virginia and gather a tribute which was not to find its way
into her exchequer ; that Virginia ships, as they passed his door
bound on a foreign voyage, should carry any other flag than that
which in a day of doubt and dread he had seen when it was first
hoisted above the Capitol at Williamsburg ; that under any con
ceivable complication of affairs Virginia should be required in a
time of profound peace to surrender without Umitation or qualifi
cation to a foreign governraent the power of the purse and the
power of the sword, presented to his raind an idea so revolting
to his sense of honor that he was more disposed to denounce it
as a scheme of treason than to approve it as a dictate of patri
otism. Yet no man living cherished with greater devotion the
union of the States. By the union of the States he well knew
that the coraraon liberty had been secured, and that by the union
it would best be preserved ; but it was an union of sovereign
States bound by a few siraple and general powers adequate to
the conduct of foreign affairs that he desired and deemed ample
enough to attain the end in view. It was a simple league or con
federation, competent for a few general purposes, that found favor
in his eyes. He deemed Virginia fully able to manage her own
affairs, and he shrunk from a plan of government which, under
the guise of transacting her foreign affairs more economically
than she could transact thera herself was endowed with an
authority as great, in his opinion, as that of the king and Par
liament of Great Britain, whose yoke had been but lately over
thrown, and paramount to the laws of the States. And he
opposed the new scheme with the greater boldness, because in
common with others he had honestly sought to amend the
Articles of Confederation on some points in which they had
been found defective, and had taken an active interest in calling
the General Convention which had, in his opinion, so far tran
scended its legitiraate office. The severe simpUcity ofhis manners
and the purity of his life, which recalled the image of Andrew
Marvel or of Pym, his long and distinguished career in the
House of Delegates, his unblemished honor as a public man,
lent an additional force to his opposition.
But it is as Tyler was when, in his fortieth year, and before he
Iiad been called to that bench on which he sat for twenty years.

254 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
he was elected vice-president ofthe Convention, that we wish to
present him to the view. There was a gravity in his demeanor
that became the presiding officer of such an assembly. His
stature was broad and full, and was nearly six feet in height. A
large head, which had been bald from his early life ; a large, calm
blue eye overcast by a massive forehead ; a nose as prominent as
the beak of an eagle, a firmly set raouth and chin, imparted at
first sight to his aspect an air of sternness, which was softened by
a benignant smile and by the courtesy of his manner. He was
scrupulously neat in his person, and was dressed in a suit of
homespun ; for he lived at a time when it was the pride of the
Virginia wife to array her husband throughout in the fabrics of
her own loom. He had long been farailiar with the duties ofthe
chair. In fact, he had presided oftener in deliberative bodies
than — with the exception of Harrison — any meraber of the House.
On taking his seat a motion was made to go into committee, and
his first act was to call Wythe to the chair.'"'
Corbin, with the remark that the subject of the Mississippi had
been sufficiently discussed, raoved that the coraraittee proceed to
the discussion clause by clause. Grayson thought that the dis
cussion of the day before ought to be renewed. The question of
the Mississippi was, practically, whether one part of the continent
should rule the other. Alexander White, then a promising young
lawyer from Frederick, and known to our own times as a vene
rable judge of the general court, expressed the opinion that the
discussion of that topic might be postponed until the treaty-
making power came up in course, and seconded the motion of
Corbin ; which was agreed to.
The third section of the first article was then read. Tyler
hoped that when araendraents were brought forward, the raem
bers ought-to be at liberty tQ take a general view of the whole
Constitution. He thought that the power of trying impeach-
raents, added to that of making treaties, was something enor
mous, and rendered the Senate too dangerous. Madison
answered that it was not possible to form any system to which
objections could not be made ; that the junction of these powers
^"^ A portrait of Judge Tyler, taken mainly from memory, some years
after his death, is at Sherwood Forest, the residence of his son, the
ex-President. An obituary from the pen of Judge Roane may be seen
in the Richmond Enquirer of the Sth or gth of February, 1813.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 255
might in some degree be objectionable, but that it could not be
araended. He agreed with Tyler that when araendraents were
brought on, a collective view of the whole systera raight be taken.
The fourth and fifth sections of the sarae article were read, and
were briefly discussed by Monroe, Madison, and Randolph.
The sixth section was read, when Henry addressed the com
mittee, and was followed by Madison, Nicholas, Tyler, and Gray
son, and by Mason and Grayson in reply. The seventh section
was discussed by Grayson and Madison.
When the eighth section was read, Charles Clay, of Bedford,
took the floor. The position and the patriotism of Clay, who
was one of the three clergymen holding seats in the Convention,
and who clung to his native country through a long and perilous
war, raaintaining her cause by his fluent and fearless eloquence,
which is said to have been not unlike that of his illustrious kins
man who recently descended to the grave amid the tears of his
country,'"" merit the remembrance of posterity. He was born
and educated in the Colony, was ordained by the Bishop of Lon
don in 1769, and was immediately installed as rector of St. Anne's
parish, in the county of Albemarle. Sorae of his sermons yet
extant in manuscript have been pronounced by a severe judge
to be sound, energetic, and evangelical beyond the character of '
the times. During the Revolution, instead of flying his native
land, he never lost an occasion of exhorting his countrymen to
prosecute the war with vigor; and on a fast day in 1777, he
preached at Charlottesville before a corapany of rainute-raen a
sermon which reminds us of that preached on a similar occasion
seventeen years before by Sarauel Davies, and which displays a
chivalric spirit of patriotisra. "Cursed be he," he said, "who
keepeth back his sword from blood in this war." He protested
against apathy and backwardness in such a cause; denounced
" those who would rather bow their necks in the most abject
slavery than face a raan in arms," and implored the people that
as the cause of liberty was the cause of God, they should plead
the cause of their country before the Lord with their blood. He
frequendy addressed the British prisoners taken at Saratoga, who
were cantoned in Albemarle. Removing in 1784 frora Alberaarle
"o Bishop Meade thinks that Charles was probably an own cousin of
Henry Clay.

256 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
to Bedford, he resided there during the rest of his life. He was
a large and handsome man, cordial in his raanners, fond of
society, and a most entertaining and instructive companion. He
was an intimate friend of Jefferson, who owned an estate in Bed
ford which he visited; and then these venerable patriots in their
declining years discoursed of men and things that had long
passed away. Clay was the first to depart, having died in 1824
near his eightieth year, and in the raidst of his descendants, and
having survived most of his present associates.^" His peculiar
temper was seen in his will. He selected a spot for his grave,
and ordered a mound of stones to be raised over it ; and this
monuraent, now covered with turf reserables in its fuU propor
tions one of those ancient burrows which were forraerly to be
seen in the low-grounds of some of our mountain streams. ^'^
The political principles of Clay were as fixed as his religious.
The right of taxation he regarded as the greatest of all rights ;
and he thought that a people who assented to a surrender of that
right without Uraitations clearly and unequivocally expressed,
might possibly retain their freedom, but that freedom would no
longer be a privilege, but an accident or a concession. Taxa
tion, he said, could only be exercised judiciously and safely by
agents responsible to those who paid the taxes ; and, as this re
sult was, in his opinion, irapracticable under the new scherae, he
thought that, in adopting that scheme, we virtually reUnquished
the great object attained by the Revolution. He was probably
born in Hanover, and in early life may have heard Samuel Da
vies, whose noble sermons on Braddock's Defeat, on Religion and
Patriotisra, the Constituents of a Good Soldier, and on the Curse
^" At the death of Clay in 1824, the members of the Convention then
living, were Madison, Marshall, Monroe, and John .Stuart of Greenbrier,
Archibald Stuart of Augusta, White of Frederick, Johnson of Isle of
Wight. '" For particulars concerning Clay consult Bishop Meade's valuable
work on the Old Churches, &c., of Virginia, II, 49. The mound is
described by the Bishop as being twenty feet in diameter, twelve feet
high, and neatly turfed. I suppose Clay to have been five and twenty
at his ordination, which would make him eighty at his death. I am
indebted to Clay at second-hand through my friend, John Henry of
" Red Hill," for some interesting incidents of the present Convention,
which are introduced in their proper place.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 257
of Cowardice, found a counterpart in the animated and daring
appeals of Clay. Nor is the merit of Clay less, if it be not
greater, than that of Davies. Davies was a dissenter. He had
felt the power of the established Church, and had wrestled with
success against the authority claimed for her by her zealous but
imprudent defenders. He had no respect for the doctrines of
passive obedience. He had no respect for kings unless they
were wise and good men. He was also a Calvinist. He be
longed to a sect which had no scruples about drawing the sword
in defence of civil and religious liberty. In fact, the religion of
the Sage of Geneva was nearly as raiUtant as the religion of the
Prophet of Mecca. Of the more than three hundred years
which had elapsed since John Calvin had, in the raidst of a scene
of unrivaled natural beauty, proraulgated to the world the tenets
of his stern faith, more than two-thirds of the whole had been
spent by their votaries in contests with principalities and powers,
and with various fortune. Soraetiraes they were crushed to the
earth beneath the heel of the oppressor. Then they rose in
their terrible strength, and struck the head of the oppressor frora
the block. To revert to tiraes which have no indirect relation
to our own, Calvinism had nearly overturned the government of
James the First. It brought his successor to the scaffold, and,
in the person of one of its truant votaries, seized on the suprerae
power of the State, and raade the name of England a terror to
Europe. Then it sank down, and in its coverts scowled at the
storm which overwhelmed it, and with it the comraon raorality
and the coraraon decency in one seeraingly irretrievable ruin.
Then it reared its head once more, grappled with another Stuart,
drove him into exile, and placed upon the British throne one of
its truest and ablest defenders. It shook the throne of Louis the
Fourteenth, and filled Europe with victories, the glory of which
became a national inheritance. It crossed raging seas, and in
the New World, amid ice and snow, on a rock-bound coast,
moored its frail vessels, felled forests, smote the Indian with the
edge of the sword, reared flourishing republics which vexed the
most distant seas with their keels, inscribed the names of more
than one of. its votaries on the American Declaration of Inde
pendence, and ended one great cycle of its destiny. Then it
fell asleep in its strongholds, until Geneva and Edinburgh and
Boston, forgetting liits three-fold tongue, began to utter each a
17

258 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
language of its own. Of this fierce sect, then in its vigor, Da
vies was a staunch and most eloquent adherent. Yet, though
his spirit was ever equal to any eraergency, he had only exhorted
his countryraen to take the field against the public enemies — and
those enemies, the French and the Indians, between whom and
the Anglo-Saxon race there was a natural, an inveterate, and an
irreconcilable hostility. Clay, as an individual, if not as a patriot,
went a step beyond. He belonged to another and a very differ
ent faraily of Christians. He was a priest of the Established
Church. He was a meraber of that splendid hierarchy whose
highest representative was the first peer of the British realm,
whose bishops sat with equal honor side by side with the heredi
tary legislators of Britain, and whose suprerae head on earth was
the king. One of the purest bishops of that Church had laid upon
hira his consecrating hand, and had by a soleran ordination set
hira apart for her service. He was thus bound to the king, not
only by those tender ties of veneration and love which bound
our fathers to tbe House of Hanover as the great political bul
wark of Protestant Christianity, but by those no less formidable
ties which bound a priest to his ecclesiastical superior. But the
intrepid spirit of Clay did not hesitate for an instant to sunder
all political and religious connection with a king who sought to
enslave Virginia. He stood on a platform too elevated for most
of his clerical brethren ; and when the cloud of war had burst,
and the sun of a new day had risen, and men could look quietly
around them, it was seen that he stood almost alone."" He was
in his forty-fourth year, and, although fluent and undaunted in
debate, he wisely resigned the office of discussion to the able
men whose whole lives had been spent in political affairs, and
rarely rose unless to make some pertinent inquiry ; and, as it
was observed by a learned jurist, that Dirlton's Doubts were
more certain than the certainties of other people, so it was re
marked that Clay's questions had often the effect of an argument
enforced by a regular speech. He now rose to inquire why Con
gress was to have power to provide for calling forth the militia
to put the laws of the Union into execution.
^" Bishop Meade states that of the ninety-one clergymen at the be
ginning of the war, not more than twenty-eight appeared at its close.
Among the clerical representatives of the Established Church in the
field were Colonel Thurston and Major-General Mecklenburg.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 259
Madison explained and defended the clause, and was followed
by Mason, who denounced it as not sufficiently guarded, in an
able harangue, which called forth an elaborate reply frora Madi
son. Clay was not satisfied with the explanations of Madison.
"Our mUitia," he said, '"might be dragged frora their horaes
and marched to the Mississippi." He feared that the execution
of the laws by other than the civil authority would lead ulti
mately to the establishment of a purely railitary systera. Madison
rejoined, and was followed by Henry, who exhorted the opponents
V of the new scherae to raake a firm stand. "We have parted,"
' he said, " with the purse, and now we are required to part with
the sword." Henry spoke for an hour, and was followed by
Nicholas and Madison in long and able speeches. Henry replied,
~ and was followed by Madison and Randolph. Mason rejoined
at length, and was followed by Lee, who threw with rauch dex
terity several pointed shafts at Henry. .Clay rose evidently under
strong excitement. He said that, as it was insinuated by a gen
tleman (Randolph) that he was not under the influence of com
mon sense in making his objection to the clause in debate, his
error might result from his deficiency in that respect ; but that
gentleman was as much deficient in comraon decency as he was
in common sense. He proceeded to state the grounds of his
objection, and showed that in his estimation the reraarks of the
gentleraan were far from satisfactory. Madison rejoined to Clay,
and passing to the arguments of Henry, spoke with great force
in refuting them. Clay asked Madison to point out the instances
in which opposition to the laws did not corae within the idea of
an insurrection. Madison replied that a riot did not corae within
the legal definition of an insurrection. After a long and ani
mated session the committee rose, and the House adjourned.
IOn Monday, the sixteenth day of June, Pendleton appeared
and resumed the chair. The House went into coraraittee, Wythe
in the chair, the eighth section of the first article still under con
sideration. Henry rose and reviewed the previous sections, and
was followed in detail by Madison. Mason then spoke, and was
foUowed by Madison and Corbin. Marshall replied to a speech
deUvered the day before by Grayson, who rejoined. Henry rose
.^^^in reply, and Madison rejoined. Mason replied to Madison, and
was answered by Nicholas. A prolonged debate ensued, in
I which Grayson, Nicholas, Mason, Madison, Lee, Pendleton, and

260 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
Henry took part. The day closed with a passage between
Nicholas and Mason, Nicholas affirraing that the Virginia Bill of
Rights did not provide against torture, and Mason proving to the
conviction of Nicholas that it did. The House then adjourned."*
On Tuesday, the seventeenth day of June, a subject to which
recent developraents in the South have added a present interest,
carae up for consideration. As soon as the House went into
coraraittee, Wythe in the chair, the first clause of the ninth sec
tion of the first article was read. That clause is in these words :
' ' The raigration or importation of such persons as any of the
States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be pro
hibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight
hundred and eight ; but a tax or duty raay be iraposed on such
importation not exceeding ten dollars for each person."
Mason rose and denounced it as a fatal section, which has
created more dangers than any other. "This clause," he said,
" allows the importation of slaves for twenty years. Under the
royal governraent this evil was looked upon as a great oppression,
and many attempts were raade to prevent it ; but the interest of
the African raerchants prevented its prohibition. No sooner did
the Revolution take place than it was thought of It was one of
the great causes of our separation frora Great Britain. Its
exclusion has been a principal object of this State, and raost of
the States of the Union. The augraentation of slaves weakens
the States ; and such a trade is diabolical in itself and disgraceful
to raankind. Yet by this Constitution it is continued for twenty
years. As rauch as I value the union of all the States, I would
not adrait the Southern States into the Union unless they agreed
to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade. And though
this infaraous traffic be continued, we have no security for the
property of that kind which we have already. I have ever
looked upon this clause as a raost disgraceful thing to America.
^'* It is remarkable that the Virginia Declaration of Rights was always
spoken of in debate, even by Mason, who drafted it, as the Bill of
Rights — a name appropriate to the British Bill of Rights, which was
first the Petition of Right, and was then enacted into a law; but alto
gether inapplicable to our Declaration, which had never been a bill,
and was superior to all bills. It is true that the Declaration of Rights
was read three times in the Convention which adopted it ; but so was
the Constitution, which nobody would call a bill.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 261
I cannot express ray detestation of it. Yet they have not
secured us the property of the slaves we have already. So that
' they have done what they ought not to have done, and have left
undone what they ought to have done.' "
Madison made answer that he should conceive this clause ira
politic, if it were one of those things which could be excluded
without encountering great evils. The Southern States would
not have entered the union without the temporary perraission of
that trade. And if they were excluded from the union, the con
sequences might be dreadful to them and to us. We are not in
a worse situation than before. That traffic is prohibited by our
laws, and we may continue the prohibition. Under the Articles
of Confederation it might be continued forever. But by this
clause an end may be put to it in twenty years. There is, there
fore, an amelioration of our circumstances. A tax may be laid
in the mean time ; but it is liraited, otherwise Congress might
lay such a tax as would amount to a prohibition. " From the
mode of representation and taxation," continued Madison, "Con-
^ gress cannot lay such a tax on slaves as wiU amount to manu
mission. Another clause secures us that property which we now
\ possess. At present, if any slave elopes to any of those States,
he becomes emancipated by their laws. For the laws of the
States are uncharitable to one another in this respect. But in
this Constitution ' no person held to service or labor in one
State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in con
sequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from
any such service or labor ; but shall be delivered up on claim of
the party to whom such service or labor may be due.' This
clause was expressly inserted to enable owners of slaves to re
claim thera. No power is given to the general government to
interpose with respect to the property in slaves now held by the
States." "I need not," he said in concluding, "expatiate on this
subject. Great as the evil of this clause is, a dismemberment of
the union would be worse. If those Southern States should dis
unite from the other States for not indulging them in the tem
porary use of this traffic, they might solicit and obtain aid from
foreign powers."
Tyler warmly enlarged on the impolicy, iniquity, and disgrace-
fulness of this wicked traffic. He thought the reasons urged by
gentlemen in support of it were iU-founded .ind inconclusive. It

262 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
was one cause of the complaints against British tyranny that
this trade was permitted. His earnest desire was that it should
be handed down to posterity that he had opposed this wicked
clause. He also contended that as, according to the admission
of Madison, Congress would have had power to abolish the
traffic but for the restriction, and as no express power so to do
was contained in the Constitution, then it followed that the dis
cretion of Congress was its rule of authority, and that the neces
sity of a bill of rights was indispensable. Madison rejoined, and
was followed by Henry, who enforced at length the arguraent
advanced by Tyler, and urged in eloquent terras the absolute
necessity of a bill of rights. He denied that Madison had shown
the security of our slave property. The arguraent of Madison,
he said, was no more than this — that a runaway negro could be
taken up in Marylajid or in New York. This could not prevent
Congress from interfering with that kind of property by laying a
grievous and enormous tax upon it, so as to compel owners to
emancipate their slaves rather than pay the tax. He feared that
this property would be lost to this country. Nicholas replied to
Henry with peculiar tact, showing the inconsistency of those
who with one and the same breath blamed the Constitution for
allowing the introduction of slaves for a liraited period, and for
not protecting the very interest which it allowed to increase for
twenty years. He urged that it was better to have this clause and
union, than disunion without it. He also contended that the ratio
of taxation was fixed by the Constitution; and that as the people
were now reduced to beggary by the taxes on negroes, so by the
adoption of the Constitution which exerapts two-fifths, the taxes
would rather be lightened than rendered more oppressive. He
intimated an inconsistency in the arguments urged by gentlemen
here and those offered in the House of Delegates at a previous
period. The second, third, and fourth clauses of the ninth section were
now read."* Mason said that the restriction in the fourth clause
of the capitation tax was nominal and deceptive. It only meant
that the quantum to be raised of each State should be in pro
portion to their nurabers in the manner directed in the Consti-
^'* Concerning the writ of habeas corpus, bills of attainder, and ex
post facto laws, and the capitation and direct tax.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 263
tution. But the general governraent was not precluded from
laying the proportion of any particular State on any one species
of property. They raight lay the whole tax on slaves, and anni
hUate that species of property. The security was extended only
to runaway slaves. Madison replied that the Southern States in
the Convention were satisfied with the protection accorded by
the Constitution; that every member of that body desired an
equaUty of taxation, which uniformity could not secure; that
some confidence must be placed in human discretion, or civil
society could not exist; and that five States were perraanently
interested in the security of slave property, and other States in
a greater or less degree.
The fifth and sixth clauses of the ninth section were read.™
Mason thought the expression " from time to time" was loose.
It might refer to triennial or septennial periods. Lee objected to
such reraarks as trivial. He wished gentlemen would confine
themselves to an investigation of the principal parts of the Con
stitution, as the Assembly was about to meet the coraing week.
Mason begged to be allowed to use the mode of arguing to
which he had been accustomed. However desirous he was of
pleasing that worthy gentleman, his duty would give way to that
pleasure. Nicholas, Corbin, and Madison replied to Mason, who
still insisted on the vagueness of the words " from time to time,"
and said that in the Articles of Confederation a monthly publi
cation was required.
The seventh clause of the ninth section, which prohibits titles
of nobiUty from being granted by the United States, or the public
officers accepting presents from foreign powers without the con
sent of Congress, was now read. Henry said he considered
himself at liberty to review all the clauses of the ninth section
of the first article. He said that this seventh section was a sort
of bUl of rights to the Constitution, and, by comparing it in
detail with the Virginia BUl of Rights, argued that it was wholly
Inefficient. He concluded by saying that if gentieraen thought
that this section would secure their liberties, then he and his
friend (Mason) had spoken in vain. Randolph followed in an
"*No tax or duty to be laid on articles exported from any State, or
preference shown by any regulation ; no moneys to be drawn from the
treasury but by appropriations, and a regular statement published from
time to time, &c.

r'

264 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
elaborate review of the ninth section, and in reply to Henry.
On the sweeping clause he thus spoke : " The rhetoric of the
gentleraan has highly colored the dangers of giving the gen
eral government an indefinite power of providing for the gen
eral welfare. I contend that no such power is given. They
have power ' to lay and coUect taxes, duties, imposts, and ex
cises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and
general welfare of the United States.' Is this an independent,
separate, substantial power to provide for the general welfare ?
No, sir. They can lay and collect taxes — for what ? To pay
the debts and provide for the general welfare. Were not this
the case, the following part of the clause would be absurd. It
would have been treason against coramon language. Take it
altogether, and let me ask if the plain interpretation be not this :
', a power to lay and coUect taxes, etc. , in order to provide for the
l_ general welfare and pay debts."
In his remarks upon the clause which forbids public officers
from receiving presents frora foreign powers, he observed that
" an accident which actually happened operated in producing
that restriction. A box was presented to our arabassador by the
king of our allies. It was thought proper, in order to exclude
corruption and foreign influence, to prohibit any one in office
from receiving or holding any eraoluraents frora foreign States.
I believe that if at that raoment, when we were in harraony with
the king of France, we had supposed that he was corrupting our
arabassador, it raight have disturbed that confidence and dimin
ished that mutual friendship which contributed to carry us through
the war.'""
} In reply to an objection of Henry that the trial by jury was
\ unsafe, he showed that it was secured in criminal cases, and that
j in civil cases, as there was then great contrariety in the practices
of the different States on this subject, the matter was wisely
"' Dr. Franklin is the person alluded to by Randolph. In the winter
of 1856, in Philadelphia, under the roof of a venerable granddaughter
of Dr. Franklin, I saw the beautiful portrait of Louis XVI, snuflf-box
size, presented by that king to the doctor. As the portrait is exacdy
such as is contained in the snuff-boxes presented by crowned heads,
one of which I have seen, it is probable this portrait of Louis was ori
ginally attached to the box in question, which has in the lapse of years
been lost or given away by Franklin.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 265
referred to legislation ; and in reply to another objection of that
gentleman, that the comraon law was not established by the
Constitution, he argued that "the wisdora ofthe Convention
was displayed by its omission, because the common law ought
not to be imrautably fixed. It is established, not in our own Bill
of Rights or in our State Constitution, but by the Legislature,
and can therefore be changed as circumstances require. If it
had been established by the new Constitution, it would be in
many respects destructive to republican principles. It would
have revived the writ for burning heretics, and involved other
absurdities equally enormous. But it is not excluded. It may
be established by the Legislature with such modifications as the
public convenience and interests may hereafter prescribe."
Henry lamented that he could not see with that perspicuity
which other gentlemen were blessed with.
The first clause of the tenth section, which prevents a State
from entering into any treaty or alliance with a foreign power, or
granting letters of marque or reprisal, or coining raoney, or
making anything but gold and sUver a tender in pay.ment of debts,
or passing any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or any law im
pairing the obligation of contracts, or of laying, without the
consent of Congress, any imposts or duties on imports or ex
ports, except what might be absolutely necessary for executing
its inspection laws, etc., etc., was read. Henry regarded with
concern these restrictions on the States. They may be good in
themselves ; but he feared the States would be compelled by
them to pay their share of the Continental money shiUing for shil-
Ung. There had been great speculations in Continental money.
He had been inforraed that some States had collected vast quan
tities of that raoney, which they should be able to recover in its
nominal value of the other States. Madison adraitted that there
might be sorae speculation on the subject, and believed that the
old Coritinental money had been setded in a very disproportion
ate manner. But the first clause of the sixth article setded this
matter. That clause provided that all debts and engagements
entered into before the adoption of the Constitution shaU be as
valid as under the Confederation. He affirmed that it was
meant there should be no change with respect to clairas by this
poUtical alteration. The validity of claims ought not to dimin
ish by the adoption of the Constitution. It could not increase

266 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
the deraands on the public. Mason said that there had been
enormous speculations in Continental money, in the hope of re
covering shilling for shilling. The clause was well enough as
far as it went. The money had depreciated a thousand for one.
The old Congress could settle this matter. The hands of Con
gress were now tied. Under the new scheme we must pay it
shUling for shilling, or at least one for forty. Madison made an
swer that the question as to who were the holders of the money
was immaterial ; it could not be affected by the Constitution,
which made all claims as valid as they were before, and not more
so. Henry replied that he saw clearly that we would be com
pelled to pay shiUing for shilling. No ex post facto law could be
passed by Congress or by the States, and there could be no re
lief He instanced the case of relief by the Assembly from the
payment of British debts. The State could be sued in the Fed
eral court. Barrels of paper raoney had been hoarded at the
North. There could be no relief Judgment wiU be given
against you, and the people will be ruined. Nicholas said that
Virginia could raake no law affecting the value of Continental
money. So the case will stand hereafter as it does now. He
denied that Congress could be sued by speculators. Congress
may be plaintiff, but not defendant in her own courts. Randolph
urged the restriction concerning ex post facto laws had no rela
tion to the case at all ; that the terra was technical, and applied
only to criminal cases. He said that the British debts, which
were held contrary to treaty, ought to be paid. The payment
might press the country, but we should retrench our extravagance
and folly. He denied that private benefit affected his views, as,
unless reduced very low indeed, he should never feel the benefit
of the payraent. Madison rose to quiet the fears which had
been raised by Henry. Strike out the clause altogether, he said,
and the case would stand just as it does now. As for the ruin
threatened by the payment of debts, the original amoiint was
only one hundred raillions, of which some had been destroyed-
But before it was destroyed, the share of Virginia was only
twenty-six mUlions, which, at forty for one, araounted to five
hundred thousand dollars only. Mason was still of his former
opinion. Had three words been added after the words ex post
facto, confining those words to crimes, then the position of those
debts would be the same hereafter as now. Randolph replied

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 267
that ex post facto laws applied exclusively to crirainal cases ; that
such was the meaning of the words in interpreting treaties, and
it was so understood by all civilians.
The next clause of the section concerning the inspection laws
was read, and was discussed by Mason, Nicholas, and Madison.
The first clause of the first section of the second article, which
provides that the executive power shall be vested in a President
of the United States of America, who shall hold his office during
the term of four years, and, together with the Vice-President,
chosen for the same term, be elected as follows, was then read.
Mason said that there was not a more important article in the
Constitution than this. The great fundamental principle of
republicanisra is here sapped. The President is elected without
rotation. It is said that you raay reraove hira by a new election,
but is there a single instance of a great man not being re-elected?
Our governor is obliged to return after a given period to a pri
vate station. Your President is in office for life. The great
powers of Europe will not allow you to change him. The peo
ple of Poland have a right to displace their king; but will Rus
sia and Prussia allow them? He may receive a pension from
European powers. One of those powers, since the Revolution,
offered eraoluraents to persons holding offices under our govern
ment. I should be contented that he raight be elected for eight
years. As it now stands, he may be elected for life. Your
government will be an elective monarchy. The gentleraan (Ran
dolph), ray colleague in the late Convention, says not a word
about those parts of the Constitution which he denounced. He
will excuse rae for repeating his own arguments against this dan
gerous clause." Randolph thought that he had mentioned his
objections with freedora and candour; but he believed that the
Constitution, in the present state of affairs, ought to be adopted
as it stands. He had changed his opinion on this clause, be
lieving that the hope of a re-election would stiraulate the incum
bent to direct his attention to his country instead of his own
private gains. The President was excluded from receiving
' emoluments from foreign powers. It was impossible to guard
better against corruption.
Mason said that the Vice-President was not only an unneces
sary but a dangerous officer; that the State frora which he coraes
may have two votes when the others have but one; that he

268 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
blended in his person executive and legislative functions ; that
though he could not foresee in the distance of time the conse
quences of such an appointraent, he feared he would become a
tool in overturning the liberties of his country. He objected
that as the Vice-President was to succeed the President in certain
contingencies, and as there was no provision for a fresh election
of a President, it would be the interest of the Vice President to
postpone or prevent an election. Perhaps, he said, he might be
raistaken. Madison replied that there were some peculiar advan
tages incident to this office, that he would probably corae from
one of the larger States, and his vote so far would be favorable ;
that he approved the fact that he would be the choice of the peo
ple at large, as it was better to confer this power on a person so
elected than on a senator elected by a single State ; that he also
approved of the power which authorized Congress to provide
against the death of the President and the Vice-President, and he
saw that such an event would rarely occur, and that this power,
which was well-guarded, kept the governraent in motion. The
House then adjourned.
On Wednesday, the eighteenth of June, the House went into
committee, Wythe in the chair, the first section of the second
article still under consideration. Monroe addressed the com
mittee at some length, contending that our circumspection in
politics should be commensurate with the extent of the powers
granted ; that the President ought to act under the strongest
impulses of rewards and punishments, the strongest incentives to
human actions; that there were two ways of securing this
point — dependence on the people for his appointment and con
tinuation in office, and responsibility in an equal degree to all
the States, and trial by dispassionate judges. He proceeded to
show in detail that these objects were not secured by the section
under discussion, and declared that the person first elected might
continue in office for life. He argued that the United States
raight become the arbiter between foreign powers ; that vast
territories belonging to foreign powers adjoined our own, and
that the continuance of an individual in office might be important
to their purposes, and that corruption would ensue. He opposed
the office of Vice-President as unnecessary, and as justly amen
able to the objections urged by Mason. Grayson followed, and in
an argument of uncommon ingenuity opposed the clause. He

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 269
said that if we adverted to the democratic, aristocratical, or ex
ecutive branch of this new government, we would find their
powers perpetuaUy varying and fluctuating throughout the
whole; that the democratic branch could be well constructed but
for this defect ; that the executive branch was still worse in this
respect than the democratic ; that the President was to be elected
by a majority of electors, but that the principle was changed in
the absence of that majority, when the election was to be decided
by States. He pointed out the probability of the interference
of foreign powers, and instanced in detaU the case of Sweden ;
and adverted to the motives which might govern France and
England in seeking to influence the election of President. He
sought to deraonstrate the want of responsibility in the Presi
dent; and showed by an elaborate calculation that he raight be
elected by seventeen votes out of the whole number of one hun
dred and thirty-nine. Mason followed in corroboration of the
views of Grayson. He said that it had been wittily remarked
that the Constitution raarried the President and the Senate ; and
he believed that the usual results of marriage would follow —
they would be always helping one another. There could be no
true responsibility in such a case. He referred to the trial of
Milo at Rome, when the court was bristling with the myrmidons
of the executive. Your President, he said, raight surround the
Senate with thirty thousand arraed men.
Madison rose and encountered the opposition with more than
his usual tact. He did not object to some of the opinions which
had been advanced in detail ; that the mode of electing the Pres
ident created rauch difficulty in the general Convention ; that
gentlemen who opposed the raode prescribed by the Constitu
tion had suggested no raode of their own ; that it was the result
of a coraproraise between the large and the small States, the
large States having the opportunity of deciding the election in
• the first instance, and the small States in the last ; that the gen
tleman last up erred in saying that there must be a raajority of
the whole nuraber of electors appointed ; and that a majority of
votes, equal to a majority of the electors appointed, wiU be suf-
k ficient. Mason replied and Madison rejoined.
The first clause of the second section of the second article,
which provides " that the President shall be coraraander-in-chief
of the array and navy of the United States, and of the mUitia of

270 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
the several States, when caUed into the actual service of the
United States," &c., was read. Mason did not object to the
President's being the official head of the army and navy, but
thought that he ought to be prohibited from commanding in
person without the consent of Congress. He reminded the com
raittee of what Washington could have done, if to his great abil-
ities and popularity he had added the ambition of the mere
soldier. He did not disapprove of the President's consulting
the executive officers, but he denounced the absence of a regular
and responsible council. He thought the President ought not
to have an unrestricted liberty of pardoning, as he raight pardon
criraes perpetrated by his own advisement ; and he should be
expressly debarred from granting pardons before conviction.
" It may happen," he said, " at sorae future day, he raay destroy
the republic and establish a raonarchy." Lee observed that it
did not follow that the President would command in person. He
thought the pardoning power wisely lodged in the President.
The experience of New York was in favor of the plan. Mason
observed that he did not raean that the President was of necessity
to coramand in person, but that he might do so when he pleased,
and that if he were an arabitious man, he might raake a dan
gerous use of his position. Nicholas reminded the comraittee
that the array and navy were to be raised, not by the President,
but by Congress. The arrangeraent was the sarae in our State
governraent, where the governor coramanded in chief As to
possible danger, any commander might pervert what was intended
for the public safety. The President went out every four years.
Any other coraraander might have a longer term of office.
Mason denied that there was a resemblance between the Presi
dent and the governor. The latter had very few powers, went
out every year, and had no comraand over the navy. He was
comparatively harraless. The danger of the President consisted
in the union of vast civil, railitary, and naval powers in a single
person, without proper responsibility and control. The pubUc
liberty had been destroyed by railitary coramanders only. Mad
ison, adverting to Mason's objections to the pardoning power
being given to the President, said it would be extremely improper
to vest that power in the House of Representatives. Such was
the fact in Massachusetts, and it was found in the case of the late
insurgents that the House at one session was for universal ven-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 271
geance, and at another for general mercy. He said one great
security from the malfeasance of the President consisted in the
power of impeaching and of suspending him when suspected.
Mason replied that the seeming inconsistency of the Massachusetts
House of Representatives was sound policy. It was wise to
punish pending the rebellion, and to pardon when it was past.
Madison rejoined that it so happened that both sessions of that
House had been held after the rebellion was over.
The second clause of the second section of the second article,
which empowers the President by and with the advice and con
sent of the Senate to raake treaties, provided two-thirds of the
' Senators present concur, to norainate and, by and with the advice
and consent of the Senate, to appoint ambassadors, other public
ministers and consuls, judges of the Suprerae Court, and all other
officers of the United States, with certain restrictions, was read.
Mason thought this a most dangerous clause. Five States could
make a treaty. Now nine States were necessary. His principal
fear, however, was not that five, but that seven States, a bare
majority, would make treaties to bind the Union. Nicholas
I answered that we were on a more safe footing in this Constitution
lj than under the Confederation. The possibility of five States
( forraing a treaty was founded on the absence of the Senators
frora the other States. The absence would be reciprocal. It
may be safely presumed that in iraportant cases there would be a
full attendance, and then nine States would be necessary. He
thought the approbation of the President, who was elected by all
the States, was an additional security. Mason differed widely
from the gentleman. He conceived that the contiguity of some
States and the reraoteness of others would present that reciprocity
to which Nicholas aUuded. Sorae States were near ; others were
nine hundred railes off. Suppose a partial treaty made by the
President. He has a right to convene the Senate. Is it pre
sumable that he would call or wait for distant States whose inte
rests were to be affected by the treaty ? Nicholas asked if it was
probable that the President, who was elected by the people of all
the States, would sacrifice the interest of the eight larger States
to accoraraodate the five smaUest ? Lee compared the non-
attendance of the Senators to that in our own Legislature, which
consisted of one hundred and seventy members, of whom eighty-
six were a majority sufficient to form a House ; and of that House

272 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
forty-four would raake a raajority. He asked if all our laws
were bad because forty-four raembers could pass them ? Madi
son wondered that gentleraen could think that foreign nations
would be willing to accept a treaty raade by collusion. The
President would instantly be irapeached and be convicted, as a
raajority of the States so injured would try the irapeachraent.
Henry begged the coraraittee to consider the condition the
country would be in if two-thirds of a quorum could alienate
territorial rights and our most valuable commercial advantages.
The treaty-making power of this new scherae exceeded that of
any other nation of the earth. Gentlemen were going on in a
fatal career, but he hoped they would stop before they concede
this power unguarded and unaltered. Madison said that, instead
of being alarmed, he had no doubt that the Constitution would
increase rather than decrease our territorial and commercial
rights, as it would augment the strength and respectability of the
country. If treaties are to have any efficacy at all they raust be
the law of the land. He denied that the country could be dis
membered by a treaty in tirae of peace. The king of England
could make a treaty of peace, but he could not dismember the
empire or alienate any part of it. The king of France even had
no such right. The right to raake a treaty does not invoke the
right of dismembering the Union. Henry asked how the power
of the king of England would stand in respect to dismembering
the empire if treaties were the supreme law of the land ? He
would confess his error if the gendeman would prove that the
power of the king and that of the Congress, as to making treaties,
were simUar. Madison conceived that as far as the king of
England had a constitutional right of raaking a treaty, such a
treaty was binding. He did not say that his power was unlira
ited. One exception was that he could not disraeraber the
empire. Grayson rose and made a brilliant and characteristic speech.
After pointing out the difference of what was called the laws of
nations in various countries and its different operations, he ex
pressed his alarra at the clause under discussion. He recurred
to the dangers to which the right of navigating the Mississippi
would be exposed, by surrendering the power of alienating it to
the very States which had sought to attain their object by over
leaping the existing Constitution. He declared that such was

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 273
his repugnance to the aUenation of a right so dear to the South,
so iraportant to its expansion and prosperity, that, if the new
scherae contained no other defect, he would object to it on this
ground alone.
Nicholas, if with less elegance, with equal vigor of logic, re
plied to Grayson. He criticised with severity his views respect
ing the laws of nations ; represented his arguraents derived frora
the risk of losing the navigation of the Mississippi as a renewal
of the scuffle for Kentucky votes, and argued the power of the
king of England and of the Congress in respect of the nature of
treaties was the same. In each country it was equally without
limit. In each it was, and must ever be, the supreme law of the
land. If gentlemen can show that the king can go so far, I will
show thera the sarae liraitation here. If as the gentleraan says,
the weight of power ought to be with the South because we
have raore people here, then these people, who elect the Presi
dent, will elect a man who wUl attend to their interests. This is
a sufficient check.
Henry instanced the case of the Russian ambassador in Queen
Anne's time, to show that there was in England a lirait to the
treaty-raaking power. The emperor demanded that the man
who had arrested his ambassador should be given up to him to
be put to death. Queen Anne wrote with her own hand a letter
to the emperor, in which she declared that it was beyond her
power to surrender a British subject to a foreign power. We
are in contact, he said, with Great Britain and with Spain. It
is easy to define your rights now. Hereafter, when your citizens
are charged with violating a treaty, will they have a fair trial ?
WiU the laws of Virginia protect them in a Federal court? He
denied that the same checks existed in the new scheme as existed
in England. Can the king violate Magna Charta or the Bill of
Rights by a treaty ? Even the king of France calls on his par
liament to aid hira in the raaking of treaties. When Henry VI
made a treaty with Sigismund, king of Poland, he subraitted it
to parliament. Here we have only the President and the Senate.
Randolph availed himself of the concession of Henry, that if
the treaty-raaking power were put on as good footing here as in
England, he would consent to the power, because there the king
had a limit to his power ; and showed the restraints placed upon
the President and Senate. Would they seek to overturn the

274 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
very governraent of which they were the creatures ? He defied
any one to show how the treaty power could be liraited. As for
dismerabering a State, the Constitution expressly declares that
nothing contained therein shall prejudice any claims of the
United States or of any particular State. The House then ad
journed. On Wednesday, the eighteenth of June, the House went into
committee, Wythe in the chair, and the second clause of the
second section of the second article still under consideration.
Grayson took the floor. He adverted to the irarainent risk of
losing the Mississippi by the adoption of the clause in debate ;
showed that the words of the Constitution quoted by Randolph
as a protection to the territorial rights of the States applied ex
clusively to the tides held by the different States to the back
lands ; and replied to the arguraents of Nicholas in refutation of
his views of the nature of the law of nations. He laid it down
as a principle that a nation, like an individual, can renounce any
particular right, and, to show that the Mississippi raight be given
up, he raentioned the case of the Scheldt which was surrendered
by the treaty of Munster. Nicholas raade an elaborate argu
ment to prove that there was no limit to the treaty-making
power in England, and quoted directly in point the authority of
Blackstone, who adds that the rainisters who advised a bad
treaty could be punished by impeachment. Here we can im
peach the President himself In each country the treaty is the
supreme law of the land ; but under the new Constitution only
such treaties are binding as are made under the authority of the
United States, which authority is bounded by that instruraent.
He argued that the case of the Russian arabassador did not ap
ply. It had no relation to a treaty. It was an offence against
the law of nations, and Great Britain iraraediately passed an act
which punished such offences in future coraraitted within her
own liraits.
Corbin then rose, and in a capital speech, in which he exhibited
great perspicacity in anticipating the real action of the Federal
Governraent, supported the Constitution. He enforced sorae of
the arguraents urged by Nicholas, and in order to prove that a
treaty was the suprerae law in England, he said he would con
firm it by a circurastance fresh in the raeraory of every body.
When our treaty of peace was raade by England, Parliament

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 275
disapproved of it, and the rainistry was turned out ; but the
treaty was good. The great distinction in our favor was that
whUe in England the rainister only was responsible, here the
President in person was responsible. Treaties raust not be bind
ing at aU — that is, we must have no treaties — or they raust be
binding altogether, or the country would be involved in perpetual
war with foreign powers, and lose all the advantages of coraraer
cial intercourse. He drew a distinction between coramon and
commercial treaties. By the first, if territory was dismerabered,
the people of Kentucky, for instance, would be justified by the
laws of nations in resisting the treaty ; by the last, the House of
Representatives would act, because of the necessity of the pas
sage of laws adapted to the state of the case. He said that the
treaty-making power was amply guarded. If we are told that
five States can make a treaty, we answer that three States can
prevent it from being made. If the whole twenty-eight raerabers
are present, and, as raen are apt to attend to their interests, it is
fair to presume that they will be, then it will require nineteen
to raake a treaty, which is one raeraber raore than the nine
States required by the Confederation. Henry said that the gen
tleman had fallen, unconsciously he knew, into an error when
he said that the treaty of peace was binding on the nation though
disapproved by Parliament. Did not an act pass acknowledging
the independence of America? No cession of territory is bind
ing in England without the authority of an act of Parliament.
WiU it be so here? They will tell you that they are oranipotent
on this point.
Madison then pronounced an adrairable disquisition on the
treaty-raaking power. He showed that this power was exactly
the sarae under the Confederation and under the Constitution ;
that the exercise of this power raust always be consistent with
the object which it was delegated to attain ; that, as this power
could only be exercised with foreign nations, its objects must be
external ; that, as it is impossible to foresee all our relations with
other nations, so it would be imprudent to limit our capacity of
action in regard to them ; that, in transactions with foreign coun
tries, it is fair to presurae that we would prefer our own interests
and honor to theirs, and not wantonly sacrifice the rights of
our people ; and the minister who negotiates the treaty, who is
indeed our President, is liable to be punished in person for mal-

276 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
feasance. He said the case of the Russian ambassador was not
applicable to the subject any more than other quotations made
by the gentieraan (Henry). Corbin adraitted that an act of Par
liaraent did pass acknowledging the independence of America,
but said that there was nothing about the fisheries in that act,
yet that part of the treaty relating to them was binding.""
We now approach a theme which, in itself considered, pos
sessed an importance in the eyes of our fathers that language
would vainly attempt to measure, which was discussed with a
fuUness of learning, with a keenness of logic, and with a glow of
eloquence that it might well elicit, and which, though technical,
and seen through a vista of seventy years, cannot fail to strike a
responsive chord in the breasts of every true son and daugliter
of our noble Comraonwealth. But, added to its own intrinsic
dignity, it now received an additional interest derived from the
state of the contest between the friends and the opponents of the
Constitution. It was to be the last battle-ground of the parties
into which the Convention was in nearly equal proportions
divided, and frora which the merabers were to pass to the final
vote. In reviewing the discussions of the Convention we should not
forget that the experience of seventy years, derived frora a rainute
ob^rvation of the workings of a political system, wUl place a
child apparently on the same level with a giant, and the merest
tyro in politics with a Soraers or a Mason ; and we should espe
cially remeraber that tirae was an element in the calculations of
our ancestors ; that seventy years bears to the Ufe of a nation no
greater proportion than a single year bears to the life of an indi
vidual, and that the fears and glooray predictions uttered by the
opponents of the Constitution have, by the vigilance and caution
which they inspired, operated in a raaterial degree in preventing
their own fulfiUraent. As no two coraplicated political systeras
which were identical in all their relations and circurastances ever
did or can exist, the wisest statesraen in predicting their opera -
^"Corbin was probably present in the House of Coramons when the
treaty was under discussion. The lovers of Fox must always deplore
his unprincipled and factious opposition to the treaty, and the iniqui
tous coalition with Lord North, which succeeded in turning out Lord
Shelburne for his approval of the treaty. To this day that coalition
stands alone in its deformity and in the contempt and scorn of mankind.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 277
tion can only judge frora the general experience ofthe past.
Hence arguraents and analogies, hopes and fears, which seera
chimerical now, might have had great weight with men who were
quite as wise and as bold as those who have succeeded them, and
who were more intimately acquainted with the difficulties of
their age than it was possible for their successors to be. Another
great element which pervaded the reasonings both of the friends
and enemies of the new scheme consisted in the belief that, as
the State governments, even when they drew a revenue from
imposts, relied mainly for their support on direct taxation, such
would also be the case with the Fedgral Government. The
immense revenue which has flowed from the customs and from
the sales of western lands into the Federal treasury, was not fore
seen in its full extent by either of the great parties. It is true
that both looked to a revenue frora the custoras ; but while the
ablest statesmen on either side agreed that the revenue from cus
toms would increase for a limited period, the friends of the new
system contended that the period when the increase from that
source would determine, was not very remote.^" But the states
man who would have ventured to predict that in half a century
the custoras of a single year would equal the amount of the entire
debt of the Revolution, would have been derided as a vain theo
rist, or a wUd babbler who sought to raislead other rainds by the
absurd creations of his own. The low rate of duties which the
principal friends of the Constitution fixed upon as the standard
for the customs, indicates what was anticipated from that source.^™
And the result was that both parties looked to direct taxation as
the source from which the income of the new government would
accrue. Their arguments were based on this supposition; and it
can hardly be doubted that, if direct taxation had been the prin-
''"See a previous debate between Grayson, Madison, and Corbin.
Grayson argued that the period of decline would be very remote ;
Madison, that the highest point would be reached in less tirae than that
specified by Grayson, when the duties would begin to decline. Corbin
showed by arithmetical calculations that the revenue from the customs
would immediately become a handsome source of revenue.
"" Pendleton, as late as 1792, thought five per cent, high enough ; and
Grayson thought that two and a half per cent, would, by preventing
smuggling, put more money into the treasury. Grayson, supra, and
Pendleton's letter on the tariff

278 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
cipal source of the Federal revenue, and the rate of expenditure
under the Constitution had been the same, the raost disraal vati
cinations would have been verified, and the union would scarcely
have survived a quarter of a century. And it raay be safely
affirmed that the calamities predicted by our fathers have been
averted, and the union preserved safe to our tiraes, not so much
in consequence of the provisions of the Constitution, as of the
source from which the principal revenue has accrued.
But the prospect which was presented in the year 1788 was
widely different. The unlimited power of direct taxation was to
be ceded to the new governraent, and the Congress was to be
empowered to pass such laws as might be deemed necessary to
carry it into effect. And what increased the general anxiety was,
that those laws were to be enforced by tribunals appointed by
the Federal authority, responsible to that authority, and wholly
beyond the reach of the governraent of the State. The citizen
who had heretofore looked with confidence to his own General
Asserably for protection, now, when the land was to be overrun
with Federal judges. Federal sheriffs, Federal constables, and
Federal jails, and when he needed that protection most, would
look in vain.
Frora these apprehensions, however, it was possible to escape.
The citizen who had satisfied the full deraands of the Federal
sheriff, and who was so fortunate as not to owe a dollar, raight
be safe. The dangers which beset that epoch were peculiar to a
people who had just passed through a revolution of eight years,
and are not likely to occur again ; but they then presented an
aspect so fearful as to fill the raost dispassionate statesraan with
alarra. These dangers were such that no effort of an individual
could elude them, and which threatened whole communities with
ruin. Extensive grants of land, made under the royal govern
raent, had been confiscated by the State, and in the lapse of ¦
twelve years had been purchased and settled by active, indus
trious, and brave men, who had encountered the terrors of the
wUderness, had driven back the savage, had cleared farms, and
had built homes for their families. Every foot of these lands
were now in jeopardy. Every farraer in the Northern Neck was
liable to be dragged into a Federal court, to be evicted frora his
home, and to be cast with his wife and children on the world.
Every farraer of the vaUey of Virginia, from the suramit of the

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 279
Blue Ridge to the summit of the Alleghany, was in equal peril.
The claims of the Indiana Corapany, if established by the Federal
court, would involve thousands of poor, honest, but high-spirited
men, who had fought gallantly during the war, in total ruin.
Federal decisions involving such results could only be enforced
by the bayonet, and civil war, deplorable as it must ever be, was
one only of the evils that might flow from a resort to arms.
The Comraonwealth might be cut in twain. There raight arise
in the West a new, enterprising, and warlike State, which, sus
tained by the valor and skUl of the soldiers who had been trained
in the Indian wars and in the Revolution, and who had made, or
might make, Kentucky their horae, and upheld by the willing
aid of England in the North and of Spain in the South, would
not only bid defiance to the laws of the Federal Governraent,
but raight succeed in confiijing the boundaries of the States to
the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge. Wise statesmen, who saw
the extent of the public peril, cautiously withheld any open
expression of their opinions, but sought in private to contravene
the dreaded calamity as far as was within their power. The
intensity of a great crisis is not always to be estiraated by the
causes which produced it ; and fearful as was, in the opinion of
many, the surrender of the purse and the sword, the surrender
of the right of trial involving men's lives and lands seeraed more
fearful still.
Another topic which created no little anxiety in the minds of
those who were now to discuss the judiciary department of the
new system was the payment of the British debts. The pay
ment of these debts, estiraated at several millions of dollars,^"
land deemed by many judicious persons a harsh measure in
itself raight prove a fruitful source of annoyance to the people.
These debts had been confiscated by the State, had been paid in
whole or in part into the public treasury, and were clairaed by
foreigners. The debtors might then be brought into a Federal
court held hundreds of miles from their horaes, and forced to
pay those debts a second tirae, and in coin. As these debts were
'''^ I have never been able to make up my mind as to the true amount
of the British debts. Some estimate it at ten millions. If this estimate
was made on the value of a paper currency before that currency began
to decline rapidly, it may be not far from the mark. I am disposed to
think that three millions of dollars in coin would cover the amount.

280 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
owed by Eastern raen, the subject of the new judiciary had a
relation to them in this respect alone as delicate and as personal
as to the people of the West.
None saw the difficulties of the crisis more distinctly than the
friends of the Constitution, or could have adopted a safer line of
policy. The judiciary department of the new system must be
introduced to the comraittee by one of their nuraber, and under
the most favorable auspices. Its virtues should be carefully and
deliberately set forth, its defects even pointed out, and the mode
of araending those defects prescribed ; and this office must de
volve on an individual who to eminent skill as a debater, as a
lawyer, and as a judge, should add the authority of high charac
ter and great services. In a body of which Pendleton was a
raember there could be no hesitation in the choice of the proper
person. His years, his weakness, the frail tenure which seemed
to hold him to life, would impart to his opinions on a subject
peculiarly his own the weight of a parting benediction. Ac
cordingly, as soon as the first and second sections of the third
article were read,™ though showing in his face the effects of re-
^'' "Sec. I. The judicial power of the United States shall be vested
in one suprerae court, and in such inferior courts as Congress may from
time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme
and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and
shall at stated times receive for their services a compensation, which
shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.
" Sec II. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and
equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States,
and treaties made, or which shall be raade under their authority . to
all cases affecting ambassadors, other public rainisters and consuls ;
to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction ; to controversies
to which the United States shall be a party ; to controversies between
two or more States, between a State and the citizens of another State,
between citizens of different States, between citizens of the same State
claiming lands under grants of different States, and between a State,
or the citizens thereof, and foreign States, citizens or subjects.
" In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls.
and those in which a State shall be a party, the supreme court shall
have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the
supreme court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and
fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress
shall make.
"The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 281
cent illness, this venerable man was assisted to his crutches, and
forthwith addressed the Chair. Nor did he ever deliver, in the
vigor of health and in the height of his fame, a more ingenious
or a more conclusive speech. He had studied the subject with
the strictest attention, had analyzed with iniraitable tact the va
rious powers ceded to the judiciary, had scanned the defects of
the systera as he had scanned its perfections, and delivered a
speech which, even in the raeagre shreds that have corae down
to us, displays the attributes of a consuraraate debater in adrai
rable juxtaposition with those of an accoraplished judge. He
began by saying that, in a forraer review of the Constitution at
large, he had raentioned the necessity of making the judiciary
an essential part of the government ; that it was necessary to
arrest the executive arm, to prevent arbitrary punishments, to
guard the innocent, to punish the guilty, to protect honesty and
industry, and to punish violence and fraud. Conceding, then,
that a judiciary was necessary, it must also be conceded that it
must be co-extensive with the legislative power, and extend to
all parts of the society intended to be governed. It must be so
arranged that there shall be sorae court which will be the central
point of its operations ; and for the plain reason that all the busi
ness cannot be done at the central point, there raust be inferior
courts to carry it on. The first clause contains an arrangeraent
of the courts — one suprerae, and such inferior as Congress may
ordain and establish. This is highly proper. Congress wUl be
the judge of the public convenience, and raay change and vary
the inferior courts as experience shall dictate. It would there
fore have been not only iraproper, but exceedingly inconvenient
to fix the arrangement in the Constitution itself, instead of leav
ing it to be changed according to circumstances. He then ex
pressed an opinion, which was confirmed in the sarae debate by
Madison, and which may seera strange in our tiraes, that the first
experiraent would probably be to appoint the State courts to
have the inferior Federal jurisdiction, as such a plan would give
general satisfaction and proraote economy. But even this eUgi
ble mode experience raay furnish powerful reasons for changing,
jury ; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes
shall have been committed ; but when not committed within any State,
the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law
direct."

282 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
and Congress very properly possesses the power to alter the ar
rangement. He said this clause also secures the independence
of the judges, both as to tenure of office and pay of salary ; and
he wished it had extended to increase as well as diminution.
When he had enumerated and dwelt upon the subject of the
jurisdiction ofthe supreme court, he concluded that the necessity
and propriety of Federal jurisdiction in such general cases would
be obvious to aU. He adverted to the second clause of the section
which settles the original jurisdiction of the supreme court, and
confines it to arabassadors, rainisters, and consuls, and to cases
in which a State shall be a party. And here he sought to an
ticipate an objection which he knew would be urged by his op
ponents, by showing that, though the original jurisdiction was
liraited to the objects raentioned, yet Congress may go farther
and exclude its original jurisdiction by limiting, for obvious and
beneficial purposes, the cases in which it shall be exercised.
Yet the Legislature cannot extend its original jurisdiction. He
then dwelt on the appellate jurisdiction of the court. He said
that it was necessary, in all free systems, to allow appeals under
certain circumstances, in order to prevent injustice by correcting
the erroneous decisions of inferior tribunals, and to introduce
uniformity in decisions. This appeUate jurisdiction was mani
festly proper, and could not have been objected to, if the Consti
tution had not unfortunately contained the words, " both as to
law and fact." He sincerely wished these words had been buried
in oblivion ; if they were, the strongest objection against the
section would have been reraoved. He would give his free and
candid sentiments on the subject. "We find," he said, "these
words followed by others, which remove a great deal of doubt :
' With such exceptions and under such regulations as Congress
shall make,' So that Congress may raake such regulations as
the public convenience raay require."
" Let us consider the appellate jurisdiction, if these words had
been left out. The general jurisdiction must embrace decrees in
chancery and admiralty, and judgraents in courts of common
law, in the ordinary practice of ' this appellate jurisdiction.
When there is an appeal from the inferior court to the court of
chancery, the appellate jurisdiction goes to law and fact, because
the whole testimony appears in the record. The court proceeds
to consider the circurastances of both law and fact blended

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 283
together, and then decrees according to equity. This must be
unexceptionable to everybody. How is it in appeals from the
admiralty ? That court, except in some cases, proceeds as a
court of chancery. In some cases they have trials by jury. But
in most cases they proceed as in chancery. They consider all
the circurastances, and determine as weU what the fact as what
the law is. When this goes to the superior court, it is deter
mined in the same way. Appeals frora the common law courts
involve the consideration of facts by the superior court, when
there is a special verdict. They consider the fact and the law
together, and decide accordingly. But they cannot introduce
new testimony. When a jury proceeds to try a cause in an
inferior court, a question may arise on the competency of a
witness, or sorae other testimony. The inferior court decides
that question. They either admit or reject that evidence. The
party intending to object states the matter in a bill of exceptions.
The jury then proceeds to try the cause according to the judg
ment of the inferior court ; and, on appeal, the superior court
determines upon the judgment of the inferior court. They do
not touch the testiraony. If they deterraine that the evidence
was either improperly admitted or rejected, they set aside the
judgment, and send back the cause to be tried again by a jury
in the sarae court. These are the only cases in appeal frora
inferior courts of coramon law where the superior court can
even consider facts incidentally. I feel the danger, he said, as
much as any gentleman in this committee, of carrying a party to
the Federal court to have a trial there. But it appears to rae
that it will not be the case if that be the practice I have now
stated; and that that is the practice must be admitted. The
appeals may be liraited to a certain sum. You cannot prevent
appeals without great inconvenience. But Congress can prevent
that dreadful oppression which would enable many men to have
a trial in the Federal court, which is ruinous. Congress raay
make regulations which will render appeals as to law and fact
proper and perfectly inoffensive. If I thought that there was a
possibUity of danger I would be alarraed ; but when I consider
who Congress are, I cannot conceive that they will subject the
citizens to oppressions of that dangerous kind." When he had
arrived at that point of his argument when the trial by jury, and

284 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
that trial to be held in the State where the offence was coramitted,
was considered, his voice failed, and he resuraed his seat.
Mason then spoke. He had cherished the hope, he said, that
the warraest friends of the Constitution would have pointed out
the important defects of the judiciary ; and, as it was not in his
Une, he would have held his peace, if he were not convinced that
it was so constructed as to destroy the dearest rights of the com
raunity. Having read the first section, he inquired, what is there
left to the State courts? What reraains? There is no liraitation.
The inferior courts are to be as nuraerous as Congress raay think
proper. All the laws of the United States are pararaount to the
laws and the Constitution of Virginia. "The judicial power,
shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this
Constitution." What objects will not be comprehended by this
provision? Such laws may be fraraed as will include every
object of private property. When we consider the nature and
the operation of these courts, we must conclude that they wUI
destroy the State governraents. As to ray own opinion, he said,
I most religiously and conscientiously believe that it was the
intention to weaken the State governments, to make them con
temptible, and then to destroy them. But, whatever may have
been the intention, I think that it will destroy the State govern
ments. There are many gentleraen in the United States who
think it right that we should have one great consolidated govern
raent, and that it was better to bring it about slowly and iraper
ceptibly than all at once. This is no reflection on any raan, for
I raean none. I know from my own knowledge that there are
many worthy gentlemen of this opinion. (Here Madison inter
rupted Mason, and demanded an unequivocal explanation. As
those insinuations might create a belief that every raember of
the late Federal Convention was of that opinion, he wished him to
teU to whora he alluded.) Mason replied : " I shaU never refuse
to explain rayself It is notorious this is a prevailing principle.
It was at least the opinion of raany gentleraen in Convention,
raany in the United States. I do not know what explanation
the honorable gentleman asks. I can say with great truth that
the honorable gentieraan, in private conversation with rae, ex
pressed hiraself against it. Neither did I ever hear any of the
delegates frora this State advocate it." Madison declared him-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 285
self satisfied with this, unless the comraittee thought theraselves
entitled to ask a further explanation.^''"
Mason continued : " I have heard that opinion advocated by
gentleraen for whose abilities, judgment, and knowledge I have
the highest reverence and respect. I say that the general de
scription of the judiciary involves the most extensive jurisdic
tion. Its cognizance in all cases arising under that system, and
the laws of Congress, raay be said to be unliraited. In the next
place it extends to treaties raade, or which shall be raade, under
their authority. This is one of the powers that ought to be given
them. I also admit that they ought to have judicial cognizance
in all cases affecting ambassadors, public ministers, and consuls,
as well as in cases of maritime jurisdiction. The next power of
the judiciary is also necessary, uilder some restrictions. Though
the decision of controversies to which the United States shall be
a party, may at first view seem proper, it may, without restraint,
be extended to a dangerously oppressive length. The next, with
respect to disputes between two or raore States, is right. I can
not see the propriety of the next power, in disputes between a
State and the citizens of another State. As to controversies
between citizens of different States, their power is improper and
inadraissible. In disputes between citizens of the same State
claiming lands under the grants of different States, the power is
proper. It is the only case in which the Federal judiciary
ought to have appeUate cognizance of disputes between private
citizens. The last clause was still more improper. To give
them cognizance between a State and the citizens thereof is
utterly inconsistent with reason and sound policy." Here Nich
olas rose and informed Mason that his interpretation was not
warranted by the words. Mason replied that if he recollected
rightly, the propriety of the power as explained by him had
been contended for ; but that, as his memory had never been
good, and was now much irapaired from his age, he would not
insist on that interpretation. He then proceeded : " Give me
^'^ Madison manifested great sensitiveness during the speech of
Mason, and it is not to be disguised that he did touch doctrines in the
Convention which would have led the way to the plan denounced by
Mason ; for he is reported by Yates to have said that the States were
never sovereign, and were petty corporations. See Yates' Reports,
Bnd the letter of Madison, published in the collection of McGuire.

286 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
leave," he said, "to advert to the operation of this judicial
power. Its jurisdiction in the first case will extend to all cases
affecting revenue, excise and custom-house officers. It wUl take
in of course what others do to them, and what is done by them
to others. In what predicament will our citizens then be? If
any of the Federal officers should be guilty of the greatest
oppressions, or behave with the raost insolent and wanton bru
tality to a raan's wife or daughter, where is this raan to get
relief? His case will be decided by Federal judges. Even sup
posing the poor raan raay be able to obtain judgraent in the
inferior court for the greatest injury, what justice can he get on
appeal ? Can he go four or five hundred miles ? Can he stand
the expense attending it ? On this occasion they are to judge
of fact as well as law. He raust bring his witnesses where he is
not known, where a new evidence may be brought against him,
of which he never heard before, and which he cannot contradict."
The honorable gentleman who presides, he said, has told us
that the supreme court of appeals must embrace every object of
maritime, chancery, and common law controversy. In the two
first the indiscriminate appellate jurisdiction as to fact must be
generaUy granted ; because otherwise it would exclude appeals
in those cases. But why not discriminate as to matters of fact in
common law controversies? The honorable gentleraan has al
lowed that it was dangerous, but hopes regulations will be made
to suit the convenience of the people. But raere hope is not a
sufficient security. I have said that it appears to me (though I
ara no lawyer) to be very dangerous. Give rae leave to lay be
fore the coraraittee an araendraent which I think convenient, easy,
and proper. (Here Mason proposed an alteration nearly the
sarae as the first part of the Fourteenth Araendraent recom
mended by the Convention, which see in the Appendix.)
The jurisdiction of the Federal courts extends to controver
sies between citizens of different States. Can we not trust our
State courts with the decision of these? If I have a controversy
with a man in Maryland — if a raan in Maryland has my bond
for a hundred pounds— are' not the State courts competent to try
it? Why carry rae a thousand miles from home— from my
family and business — where it may perhaps be impossible for me
to prove that I have paid it ? I may have a witness who saw me
pay the money ; and I must carry him a thousand mUes or be

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 287
compelled to pay the money again. " What effect," he inquired,
"will this power have between British creditors and the citizens
of this State? This is a ground on which I shall speak with con
fidence. Everyone who heard me speak on the subject knows
that I always spoke for the payment ofthe British debts. I wish
every honest debt to be paid. Though I would wish to pay the
British creditor, yet I would not put it in his power to gratify •
private malice, to our injury. Every British creditor can bring
his debtors to the Federal court. There are a thousand in
stances where debts have been paid, and yet by this appellate
cognizance be paid again. ' To controversies between a State
and the citizens of another State.' How will their jurisdiction
in this case do ? Let the gentleraan look to the westward. Clairas
respecting those lands, every liquidated account, or other claira
against this State, will be tried before the Federal court. Is not
this disgraceful? Is the State of Virginia to be brought to the
bar of justice like a delinquent individual ? Is the sovereignty
of the State to be arraigned like a culprit, or a private offender?
Will the States undergo this mortification? I think this power
perfectly unnecessary. What is to be done if a judgment be
obtained against a State ? Will you issue a fieri facias ? It
would be ludicrous to ."say that you would put the State's body
in jail. How is the judgraent then tobe enforced? A power
which cannot be executed ought not to be granted."
"Let us consider," said Mason, " the operation ofthe last
subject of its cognizance — controversies between a State, or the
citizens thereof and foreign States, citizens, or subjects. There
is a confusion in this case. This much, however, may be raised
out of it — that a suit wiU be brought against Virginia. She may
be sued by a foreign State. What reciprocity is there in it? In
a suit between Virginia and a foreign State, is the foreign State
to be bound by the decision ? Is there a similar privilege given
to us in foreign States ? How will the decision be enforced ?
Only by the ultima ratio regum, A dispute between a foreign
citizen or subject and a Virginian, cannot be tried in our own
courts, but raust be decided in the Federal conrts. Cannot we
trust the State courts with a dispute between a Frenchraan,
or an EngUshman, and a citizen ; or with disputes between
two Frenchmen? This is digraceful. It will annihUate your
State judiciary. It wiU prostrate your Legislature. Thus, sir, ' '

288 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
he said, "it appeared to me that the greater part of the powers
are unnecessary, dangerous, tending inevitably to impair and
ultiraately to destroy the State judiciaries, and by the sarae prin
ciple, the legislation of the State governraents. Alter mentioning
the original jurisdiction of the suprerae court, it gives it appellate
jurisdiction in all the other cases mentioned, both as to law and
fact, indiscriminately, and without limitation. Why not remove
the cause of fear and danger ? But it is said that the regulations
of Congress will remove it. I say that, in my opinion, those
r,egulations will have a contrary effect, and will utterly annihilate
your State courts. Who are the court ? The judges. It is a
familiar distinction. We frequentiy speak of a court in contra
distinction to a jury. The judges on the bench are to be judges
of fact and law. Now give me leave to ask : Are not juries
excluded entirely? This great palladium of national safety,
which is secured by our own State governments, will be taken
from us in the Federal courts ; or, if it be reserved, it will be but
in name, and not in substance. This sacred right ought to be
secured." He then adverted to some of the probable effects of the deci
sions of Federal courts. " I dread," he said, "the ruin that
will be brought upon thirty thousand of our people with respect
to disputed lands. I am personally endangered as an inhabitant
of the Northern Neck. The people of that section will be com
pelled by the operation of this power to pay the quit-rents of
their lands. Whatever other gentlemen raay think, I consider
this a most serious alarm. It wiU little avail a man to make a
profession of his candor. It is to his character and reputation they
will appeal. To these I wish gentlemen to appeal for an inter
pretation of my raotives and views. Lord Fairfax's title was
clear and undisputed. After the Revolution we taxed his lands as
private property. After his death an Act of Asserably was made
(in 1782) to sequester the quit-rents due at his death in the hands
of his debtors. Next year an act was made restoring them to
the executor of the proprietor. Subsequent to this the treaty of
peace was made, by which it was agreed that there should be no
further confiscations. But after this an Act of Assembly passed
confiscating this whole property. As Lord Fairfax's title was
indisputably good, and as treaties are to be the supreme law of
the land, will not his representatives be able to recover aU in the

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 289
Federal court ? How will gentleraen like to pay an additional
tax on the lands in the Northern Neck ? This the operation of
this systera will compel them to do. They are now subject to
the same taxes other citizens are, and if the quit-rents be recov
ered in the Federal court they will be doubly taxed. This raay
be called an assertion ; but were I going to my grave I would
appeal to Heaven that I think it true. How wUl a poor man get
relief when dispossessed unjustly ? Is he to go to the Federal
court eight hundred railes off? He raight as well give up his
claim." " Look," said Mason, " to that great tract of country between
the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany raountains. Every foot of
it wiU be clairaed, and probably recovered in the Federal court
frora their present possessors, by foreign corapanies which have a
title to thera. These lands have been sold to a great number of
people. Many settled on thera on terms which were advertised.
How will this be in respect oi ex posi facto laws? We have
not only confirmed the title of those who made the contracts,
but those who did not, by ^ law in 1779, on their paying the
original price. Much was paid in a depreciated value, and rauch
not paid at all. Look now to the Indiana Corapany. The great
Indiana purchase, which was raade to the westward, will by this
new judicial power be raade a cause of dispute. The possessors
may be ejected from those lands. That corapany paid a consid
eration of ten thousand pounds to the Crown before the lands
were taken up. That corapany raay now corae in and show that
they have paid the raoney, and have a full right to the land.
Three or four counties are settled on those lands, and have long
enjoyed thera peacefully. All these clairas before those courts, if
successful, will introduce a scene of distress and confusion almost
without a parallel. The gloomy pictures which Virgil has painted
of a desolated country and an ejected people will be seen in our
own land; and frora hundreds of honest and thrifty raen reduced
to ruin and raisery, and driven with their faraUies frora their
homes, we will hear the mournful ditty of the poet :
Nos patriam fugimus — et dulcia linquimus arva.
Mason concluded by offering an amendment which would pre
vent such direful results as he feared would happen, in these
words : " That the judiciary power shaU extend to no case where

290 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
the cause of action shall have originated before the ratification
of this Constitution, except in suits for debts due to the United
States, disputes between States about their territory, and dis
putes between persons claiming lands under the grants of differ
ent States." In these cases there is an obvious necessity for
giving the court a retrospective power. "I have laid before
you," he said, "my ideas on the subject, and expressed my
fears, which I raost conscientiously believe to be well-founded."
It was now past the usual hour of adjournment, but late
as it was, Madison rose to break the effect of Mason's speech.
He said that he did not wonder that Mason, who believed
the judiciary system so fatal to the liberties of the country,
should have opposed it with so rauch warmth ; but as he believed
his fears were groundless, he would endeavor to refute his objec
tions wherein they appeared to him ill-founded. He confessed that
there were defects in the judiciary — that it might have been better
expressed ; but that truth obliged him to put a fair interpretation
upon the words of the Constitution ; and as it was late, he could
not then enter fully on the subject. He hoped, however, that
gentleman would see that the dangers pointed out by Mason did
not necessarily follow. The House then adjourned.
On Friday, the twentieth of June, the House went into com
mittee, Wythe in the chair, and the first and second sections of
the third article still under consideration.
Madison rose to reply to Mason. There was an evident inter
est shown to hear the speech of Madison, who, like Mason, was
not a lawyer, on a topic which was beyond the usual sphere of
a politician, and which had been argued with such eminent
ability by Mason the day before. When Madison had detailed
at some length the difficulties inseparable frora the task of form
ing a Federal compact between different States whose interests
and opinions were apparently diverse, and had referred to the
executive department of the Constitution, and especially the
judiciary in the way of illustration, he discussed the question of
the judiciary under two heads ; the first, whether the subjects of
its cognizance be proper subjects for Federal jurisdiction, and
next, whether the provisions respecting it will be consistent with
safety and propriety, will answer the purposes intended, and suit
local circumstances. Under the first head he discussed the
powers of the judiciary. As to its jurisdiction in controversies

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 291
between a State and the citizens of another State, its only opera
tion would be that if a State wished to bring suit against an indi
vidual, it must be brought in the Federal court. It is not in the
power of individuals to call any Stale into court. As to its cog
nizance of disputes between citizens of different States, perhaps
this authority ought to have been left to the State courts. He
thought that the result would be rather salutary than otherwise.
As to disputes between foreign States and one of our States,
should such a case ever arise, it could only come on by consent
of parties. It might avert difficulties with foreign powers.
Ought a single State have it in its power to involve the union at
any time in war?
Under the second head, he said, suppose the subjects of juris
diction had only been enumerated, and full power given to Con
gress to establish courts, would there have been any valid ob
jection ? But the present arrangeraent was better and more
restrictive. As to the objections against the appellate cognizance
of fact as well as law, he mainly relied on the arguments and
authority of Pendleton, which were conclusive with him. Con
gress may make a regulation to prevent such appeals entirely.
He argued that in so far as the judicial power extended to con
troversies between citizens of different States, it was beneficial to
the coraraercial States, and proportionally to Virginia. He be
lieved that the Legislature would accommodate the judicial power
to the necessities of the people, and instead of making the
suprerae court stationary, wUl fix it in different parts of the
Continent, as was done with the adrairalty courts under the Con
federation. It would also be in the power of Congress to vest
the judicial power in the inferior and superior courts of the
States. Gentleraen argued that the Legislature, would do all
the ill that was possible. Distrust to a certain extent was wise ;
he did not lean to over-confidence hiraself; but without sorae
measure of confidence governraent was irapof,sible. Without
confidence no theoretical checks, no form of government could
render us secure. It was objected that the jurisdiction of the
Federal courts would annihUate the Stati courts ; but, though
there then were from peculiar circumstarices raany cases between
citizens of different States, it might nfjver occur again, and he
affirmed that hereafter ninety-nine cases out of a hundred would
remain with the State courts. As to vexatious appeals, they can

292 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
be remedied by Congress. If the State courts were on a good
footing, what would induce men to take such trouble ? And if
this provision should have the effect of establishing universal
justice, and accelerating it in America, it would be a raost fortu
nate result for debtors. Confidence would take the place of
distrust, and the circulation of confidence was better than the
circulation of money. No political systera can directly pay the
debts of individuals. Industry and econoray are the only re
sources of those who owe raoney. But by the establishment of
confidence the value of property will be raised, capkal wiU go
in quest of labor, and all will share in the general prosperity.
Madison concluded by saying that he would not enter into those
considerations which Mason added, but hoped sorae other gen
tleman would undertake to answer him.'''*
Henry rose to reply to Pendleton and Madison. He said that
he had already expressed painful sensations at the surrender of
our great rights, and was again driven to the mournful recollec
tion. The purse is gone — the sword is gone — and here is the
only thing of any importance that remains with us ! He con
tended that the powers in the section under discussion were
either impracticable, or, if reducible to practice, dangerous in the
extreme. He deplored the idea suggested by Pendleton and
sanctioned by Madison, that " our State judges would be con
tented to be Federal judges and State judges too." " If we
are to be deprived of that class of raen, and if they are to com
bine against us with the Federal Government, we are gone ! I
regard the Virginia judiciary as one of the best barriers against
the strides of power. So few are the barriers against the
encioachments and usurpations of Congress, that when I see this
last bi^rrier, the independency of the judges irapaired, I am
persuaded that I see the prostration of all of our rights. In
what a situadon wiU your judges be when they are sworn to
preserve the Coasti tution of the State and that of the Federal
Governraent? If "^^here should be a concurrent dispute be
tween the two gov<.rnraents, which shall prevail? My only
comfort, he said, wa.^ the independence of the judges. If
by this system we lost it, we must sit down quietly and be

'"In relation to British d ;bts, the Fairfax grants, the Indiana Cora
pany, &c.

\ \

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 293
oppressed. He discussed at length the appellate jurisdiction of
the courts, and contended that, if the arguments of the gentle
men were just, and that Congress would raake such a judiciary
as it pleased, then Congress can alter, and araend the Constitu
tion. And if the Constitution is to be altered, on whora ought
that duty to devolve? On the raembers of Congress, or on those
who are now entrusted with the office of securing the public
rights on a firm and certain foundation beyond the reach of con
tingencies ? He reverted to the remark of Madison that there
were great difficulties in fraraing a Constitution. " I acknowl
edge it," he said ; "but I have seen difficulties conquered which
were as unconquerable as this. We are told that trial by jury is
a technical terra. Do we not know its raeaning? I see one
thing in this Constitution — I raade the reraark before — that
everything with respect to privileges is so involved in darkness,
it makes me suspicious, not of those gentlemen who formed it,
but of its operation in its present forra. Trial by jury is secured
in criminal cases, it is said; I would rather it had been left out
altogether than have it so vaguely and equivocally provided for.
He endorsed the reasoning of Mason about the incarcerating of
a State, begged to know how money was to be paid if the State
was cast, and denounced the folly of investing the judiciary with
a power that could not be enforced. He contended that the pro
visions of the clause in debate would operate as a retrospective
law, which was odious in civil cases as ex post facto were in
criminal, and that citizens would be subject to a tribunal unknown
at the time the contracts were inade. He contested the assertion
of Madison that, in controversies between a State and the citi
zens of other States, a State could not be brought into court.
The gentleman asserts that the State can only be plaintiff; but
that paper says Virginia may be defendant as well as plaintiff.
If gentleraen construe that paper so loosely now, what will they
do when our rights and liberties are in their power ? He de
clared that this judiciary presented the first instance ever known
among civilized men of the establishment of a tribunal to try
disputes between the aggregate society and foreign powers. He
then discoursed at length upon the trial by jury, quoting Black-
stone's remarks upon it, and its virtual sacrifice under the new
scheme; and asked: "Shall Americans give up that which
nothing could induce the English people to relinquish? The

294 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
idea is abhorrent to my mind. There was a time when we would
have spurned at it. This gives me comfort that as long as I live
ray neighbors will protect me. Old as I am, it is probable I may
yet have the appellation of rebel. I trust I shall see congres
sional oppression crushed in embryo. As this governraent
stands, I despise and abhor it. Gentleraen deraand it, though it
takes away the trial by jury in civil cases, and does worse than
take it away in criminal cases. It is gone, unless you preserve
it now. I shall add no raore but that I hope that gentieraen wiU
recoUect what they are about to do, and consider that they are
about to give up this last and best privilege."
Pendleton replied to Mason and Henry. He said that if there
had been any person in the audience who had never read the
Constitution and had heard what has just been said, he would be
surprised to learn that trial by jury was not excluded in civil
cases, and was expressly provided in crirainal cases. He had
not heard that kind of arguraent in favor ofthe Constitution. It
is insisted that the right of challenging has not been secured ;
but when the Constitution says that the trial shall be by jury,
does it not also say that every incident shall go along with it?
The honorable gentleman (Mason) was raistaken yesterday in
his reasoning on the propriety of a jury from the vicinage. He
supposed that a jury frora the vicinage was had from this
view — that they should be acquainted with the character of the
person accused. I thought, said Pendleton, that it was with
another view — that the jury might have some personal knowl
edge of the fact and acquaintance with the witnesses who will
come from the neighborhood.''^ The same gentleman objected
^''^ Pendleton sought to make mirth with those gentlemen of the law
in the Convention who thought that none but lawyers can understand
legal questions. The fact is that Mason was clearly right, and Pendle
ton clearly wrong. Mason did not contend that a jury from the vici-'
nage was the sole benefit accruing from jury trial, but that it was an
important one, as it assuredly is, which a crirainal, carried a thousand
miles from his home, would lose. As Pendleton wholly e.xcludes from
his view this great benefit, it is he that errs, and not Mason. The his
tory of trial hyjury proves incontestibly that one of its most precious
privileges was that the criminal should be tried by his peers (pares)—
that is, by men living in the same region, placed under the sarae cir
curastances, and liable to be punished for the same crimes, upon the
testimony of the same men. When it is considered that it was mainly

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 295
to the unlimited power of appointing inferior courts. Why
Umit the power? Ought there not to be a court in every State?
Ought there not to be more than one, should the convenience of
the people hereafter require it? Look at our own legislation.
What would have been the condition of our Western counties,
and of Kentucky in particular, if our Legislature had not pos
sessed this power ? We established a general court in that dis
trict, but we did not lose sight of making every part of our
territory subject to one supreme tribunal. Appeals lay frora that
court to the court of appeals here. And what was the result ?
There has not been a single appeal. He also objected to the
clause which provides that cases under the Constitution and the
laws made in pursuance thereof should be tried in the Federal
court. Ought such raatters to be tried in the State courts ? But
he says that Congress will raake bad laws. Is not this carrying
suspicion to an extreme that tends to prove that there should
be no Legislature or judiciary at all ? But we are alarmed with
the idea that this is a consolidated government. It is so, say
gentiemen, in the other two great departments, and it must be
so in the judiciary. I never considered it, said Pendleton, to be
a consolidated government as to involve the interests of all
America. Of the two objects of judicial cognizance, one is gen
eral and national, and the other local. The former is given to
the general judiciary, and the latter left to the local tribunals.
They act in co-operation to secure our liberty. For the sake of
economy the appointraent of these courts might be in the State
courts. I rely on an honest interpretation frora independent
judges. An honest man would not serve otherwise, because it
would be to serve a dishonest purpose. To give execution to
proper laws is their peculiar province. There is no inconsis
tency, impropriety, or danger in giving the State judges the
Federal cognizance. Every gentleman who beholds my situa
tion, my infirmity, and various other considerations, will hardly
suppose that I carry my view to an accumulation of power.
Ever since I had any power, I was more anxious to discharge
my duty than to increase my power.
introduced to prevent oppression by the government and by superior
lords, the vicinage of his triers is an important consideration to the cul
prit, whose character will then, and only then, have its proper weight
in his favor.

296 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
Pendleton then argued that the impossibUity of calling a sove
reign State to the tribunal of another sovereign State, showed
the propriety and necessity of vesting the Federal court with the
decision of controversies to which a State shaU be a party. But
the principal objection of the gendeman (Mason) was, that juris
diction was given the Federal court in disputes between citizens
of different States. I think, said Pendleton, that in general those
decisions might be left to the State tribunals, especially as citizens
of one State are declared citizens of all. But cases may arise in
which this jurisdiction would be proper, as in the case of Rhode
Island, where a citizen of another State would be compelled to
accept payment of one-third or less of his money. Ought he
not to be able to carry his claim to a court where such unworthy
principles do not prevail ? He denied that there was any force
in the case put by Mason of the malicious assignment of a bond
to a citizen of a neighboring State, Maryland for instance. The
creditor cannot carry the debtor to Maryland. He must sue in
the local Federal court ; the creditor cannot appeal. He gets a
judgment. The defendant only can appeal, and gains a privilege
instead of an injury. As to the amendment proposed by the
gendeman, I attended to it, said Pendleton, and it gave force to
my opinion, that it is better to leave the subject to be amended
by the legislation of Congress. The honorable gentleman
(Henry) argued to-day that it was placing too rauch confi
dence in agents and rulers. Will the representatives of any
twelve States sacrifice their own interest and that of their citizens
to answer no purpose ? But suppose we should be deceived ;
have we no security ? So great was the spirit of Araerica that
it was found sufficient to oppose the greatest power in the world.
Will not that spirit protect us against any danger frora our own
representatives ? As it was late, he said he would add no more.
Pendleton was followed by a young man of thirty years who
resided in Richraond, who had already taken a prorainent part
in debate, whose arguments, enforced with logical precision, were
delivered with modesty and were heard with profound respect,
and whose fame, then in its early dawn, was destined in the course
of a third of a century, during which he held the office of chief-
justice of that court which he was now required to defend, to
attain its greatest lustre. His opinions, as well from the ability
with which they were maintained as frora his subsequent career.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 297
have a living interest even in our own times. He had delibe
rately prepared himself to reply to the arguments of Mason,
and followed that gentleman step by step. He said it was argued
that the Federal courts will not determine the causes which may
come before them with the same fairness and impartiality with
which other courts decide. What are the reasons of this sup
position ? Do gentlemen draw them from the raanner in which
the judges are chosen, or the tenure of their office ? What is it
that makes us trust our judges ? Their independence in office
\ and their manner of appointment. Are not the judges of the
Federal court chosen with as rauch wisdom as the judges of the
State governments ? Are they not equally, if not more inde
pendent ? If there be as rauch wisdom and knowledge in the
J United States as in a single State, shall we conclude that that
wisdom and knowledge will not be equally exercised in the selec
tion of judges? What are the subjects of Federal jurisdiction ?
Let us examine each of them with the supposition that the same
impartiahty will be observed in those courts as in other courts,
and then see if any mischief will arise from thera.
With respect to their cognizance in all cases arising under the
Constitution and the laws of the United States, the gentleraan
(Mason) observes that the laws of the United States being para
mount to the laws of the particular States, there is no case but
what this will extend to. Has the governraent of the United
States power to make laws on every subject ? Does he under
stand it so? Can they raake laws affecting the raode of trans
ferring property, or contracts, or clairas between citizens of the
same State ? Can they go beyond their delegated powers ? If
they did exceed those powers, their acts would be considered by
the judges beyond their jurisdiction and declared void. But,
^says the gentleman, the judiciary will annihilate the State courts.
\ Does not every gentleman here know that the causes in our
courts are raore numerous than they can decide according to
their present construction ? Are there any words in this Con
stitution which excludes the courts of the States from those cases
' which they now possess? Will any gentleraan believe it ? Are
not controversies respecting lands clairaed under the grants of
different States the only controversies between citizens of the
same State which the Federal judiciary can take cognizance of?
The State courts wiU not lose the jurisdiction of the causes

298 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
which they now decide. They have a concurrence of jurisdic
tion with the Federal courts in those cases in which the latter
have cognizance. How disgraceful is it, says the honorable
gentleman, that the State courts cannot be trusted ? Does the
Constitution take away their jurisdiction ? Is it not necessary
that Federal courts should have cognizance of cases arising
under the Constitution and laws of the United States ? What is
the purpose of a judiciary but to execute the laws in a peaceable,
orderiy manner, without shedding blood, or availing yourself of
force? To what quarter will you look for protection from an
infringement of the Constitution, if you wiU not give the power
to the judiciary? The honorable gentieraan objects to it be
cause the officers of government will be screened from merited pun
ishraent by the Federal authority. The Federal sheriff, he says,
wiU go into a poor man's house and beat hira or abuse his faraily,
and the Federal court will protect him. Is it necessary that
officers should comrait a trespass on the property or persons of
those with whom they are to transact business ? The injured
man would trust to a tribunal in his neighborhood, and he would
get ample redress. There is no clause in the Constitution which
bars the individual injured from seeking redress in the State
courts. He says that there is no instance of appeals ^s to fact
in comraon law cases. The contrary is well known to be the
case in this State. With respect to mills, roads, and other cases,
appeals lie from the inferior to the superior courts as to fact as
well as law. Is it a clear case that there can be no case in cora
raon law in which an appeal as to fact would be necessary and
proper ? If an appeal in matters of fact could not be carried to
the superior court, then it would result that such cases could not
be tried before the inferior courts for fear of injurious and partial
decisions. Where, says Marshall, is the necessity of discriminating be
tween the three cases of chancery, admiralty, and common law?
Why not leave it to Congress ? Is it necessary for them wantonly
to infringe your rights ? Have you anything to apprehend, when
they can in no case abuse their power without rendering them
selves hateful to the people at large? Where power may be
trusted, and there is no motive to abuse it, it seeras to rae to be
as weU to leave it undeterrained as to fix it in the Constitution.
With respect to disputes between a State and the citizens of

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 299
another State, its jurisdiction has beeil decried with unusual
vehemence. I hope, he said, that no gentleman will think that
a State will be called at the bar of the Federal court. Is there
no such case at present ? Are there not raany cases in which
the Legislature of Virginia is a party, and yet the State is not
sued? It is not rational to suppose that the sovereign power
shall be dragged before a court. The intent is to enable States
to recover claims of individuals residing in other States. I con
tend this construction is warranted by the words. I see a diffi
culty in making a State a defendant, which does not prevent its
being plaintiff. As to controversies between the citizens of one
State and the citizens of another State, I should not use ray own
judgment were I to contend that it was necessary in all cases to
bring such suits in a Federal court ; but cases may happen when
it would be proper. It is asked, in the court of which State will
the suit be instituted? In the court of the State wherein the
defendant resides, and it will be deterrained by the laws of the
State in which the contract was made. As to controversies be
tween a State and a foreign State, the previous consent of the
parties is necessary ; and therefore, as the Federal court will
decide, each party will acquiesce. The exclusion of trial by
jury in this case, the gentleraan (Mason) urged would prostrate
our rights. Does the word court only raean the judges? Does
not the deterraination of a jury necessarily lead to the judg
ment ofthe court? Is there anything here that gives the judges
exclusive jurisdiction of matters of fact ? What is the object
of a jury trial? To inform the courts of the facts. When a
court has cognizance of facts, does it not follow that they can
make enquiry by a jury? But it seems the right of challenging
the jurors is not secured in this Constitution. Is this done in
our own Constitution or by any provision of the English gov
ernment? Is it done by their Magna Charter or by their Bill of
Rights ? This privilege is founded on their laws. If we are
secure in Virginia without mentioning it in our laws, why should
not this security be found in the Federal court? As to the quit-
rents in the Northern Neck, has he not acknowledged that there
was no coraplete title ? Was he not satisfied that the right of
the legal representative of the proprietor did not exist at the
time he raentioned? If so, it cannot exist now. A law passed
in 1782, which setties this subject. He says that poor raen raay

300 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
be harassed by the representative of Lord Fairfax. If he has
no right this cannot be done. If he has this right and comes to
Virginia, what laws will this claim be determined by ? By the
laws of Virginia. By what tribunals will the claira be deter
rained ? By our own tribunals. After replying to some inci
dental objections which had been urged by Mason and Henry,
Marshall concluded his speech, and was followed in a few words
by Randolph, when the coramittee rose, and the House ad
journed. On Saturday, the twenty-first of June, the House resolved
itself into a comraittee, Wythe in the chair, the first and second
sections of the third articles still under consideration. Grayson
rose and reviewed the structure and the jurisdiction of the
Federal judiciary at great length, and denounced its defects in a
splendid oration, and was followed by Randolph at equal length
in reply. At the close of Randolph's speech the House ad
journed. On Monday, the twenty-third of June, the House again went
into committee, Harrison in the chair, and the same sections still
under consideration. Nicholas rose to suggest that the com
mittee now pass on to the next clause of the Constitution, but
he was opposed by Henry, who raade a handsome acknowledg
ment of the fairness and ability of Marshall, and replied to some
of his arguments. He was succeeded by a member far advanced
in life, who had not as yet spoken in the committee, and who was
not only held in high repute by his contemporaries, but deserves
the favorable regard of posterity. For nearly the third of a
century last past he had been engaged in the military service of
his country. He was one of the oldest and raost prominent raUi
tary men in the Commonwealth. In the Indian wars from 1755
to nearly the beginning of the Revolution he had borne a con
spicuous part, and was often in coraraand of the Virginia troops
raised for the defence of the frontier. His large stature and
great muscular strength, added to his experience in war, made
him the terror of the Indians. On one occasion he was sent to
South Carolina with the Virginia companies to aid in beating
back the Indians. As early as 1756, when Washington went to
Boston to consult General Shirley on a point of mUitary etiquette.
Colonel Adam Stephen was left in command of the military
forces of the colony until his return. In 1763 the Governor of

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 301
Virginia, when Stephen was in comraand of a levy of five hun
dred raen to defend the frontiers against the Indians, spoke highly
of his railitary capacity and cou'rage. In 1776 he commanded
the Fourth battalion of Virginia troops at Portsmouth, when he
was appointed a brigadier-general in the army of the United
States. On retiring from his coraraand in Portsraouth, a vale
dictory letter was addressed to him by his officers, who speak of
him as the polite gentleman and the accoraplished soldier ; and
in his answer he raentioned the fact that " the present was his
twelfth campaign.""'" In February, 1777, he was elected a major-
general by Congress. In the battle of Brandywine he distin
guished himself by his valor, as on other important occasions.
He had probably been a member of the House of Burgesses, and
was returned from Berkeley to the March Convention of 1775,
when he sustained the resolutions of Henry for putting the Col
ony into railitary array. In the following July he was also
returned to the Convention, but frora some informality in the
return he lost his seat."" A warra adrairer of the Federal Con-
226 Virginia Gazette, September 20, 1776.
'"Journal of the Convention of July, 1775, page 7. Irving, in his Life
of Washington, has several allusions to Stephen, but the best source of
information is Sparks's Writings of Washington, which the reader may
consult by referring to the name of Stephen in the index in the last
volume. In the years 1775 and 1776, of the American Archives, are
letters of Stephen. A letter of his heretofore quoted may be found in
the Life of R, H, Lee, by his grandson.
Stephen died in August, 1791, in Berkeley county, and lies buried on
the estate owned by the Hon. Charles J. Faulkner ; a rude stone marks
the spot. He has left descendants, all of whora occupy respectable
and honorable positions in the communities in which they reside.
Letter of the Hon. C f. Faulkner to Francis B. Jones, Esq., dated
May /p, i8s6. I am indebted to Mr. Jones for his great courtesy in
assisting rae in ray inquiries concerning Stephen and other persons
belonging to the history of the Valley of Virginia. It is believed that
Stephen was born in what is now Berkeley county, though I think it
questionable. He lived in Martinsburg in his latter days. The cause
of his losing his seat in the Convention of 1775 was, that two districts
of the county did not know that an election was to be held when
Stephen was elected, and that Stephen, who was on election day parad
ing the railitia, marched at their head to the polls, and was elected by
their votes. See Kercheval's History of the Valley, pages 244, 245 ;
also, Burke's History of Virginia, IV, 91 ; and Marshall's Life of
Washington, revised edition, I, 157, 158.

302 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
Stitution, and as feariess on the floor as in the field, he now rose
to give utterance to his feelings. Indeed, his speech is rather a
fierce personal attack upon Henry than a defense of the judiciary,
which was the topic in debate, or of the Constitution at large."
"The gentleman," says Stephen, " means to frighten us by his
bugbears and hobgoblins — his sale of lands to pay taxes — Indian
purchases, and other horrors, that I think I know as much about
as he does. I have traveled through the greater part of the
Indian countries ; I know thera well. I can raention a variety
of resources by which ihe people may be enabled to pay their
taxes." (He then went into a description ofthe Mississippi and
its waters. Cook's river, the Indian tribes residing in that coun
try, and the variety of articles which might be obtained to advan
tage by trading with those people.) "I know, he said, of several
rich mines of gold and silver in the western country. And will the
gentleman tell rae that these precious metals will not pay taxes ?
If the gentleman does not like this government, let him go and
live among the Indians. I know of several nations that live very
happy ; and I can furnish him with a vocabulary of their lan
guage." Nicholas rose to answer sorae arguments which had fallen
from the gentlemen on the other side. He denied that the Eng
lish judges were more independent than the judges of the Fed
eral judiciary. May not a variety of pensions be granted to the
judges with a view to influence their decisions ? May they not
be removed by a vote of both Houses of Parliaraent ? We are
told that quit-rents are to be sued for. To satisfy gentlemen, I
beg leave to refer them to an Act of Assembly, passed in the
year 1782, before the peace, which absolutely abolishes the quit-
rents, and discharges the holders of lands in the Northern Neck
from any claim of that kind. As to the claims of certain com
panies which purchased lands of the Indians, they were deter
mined prior to the opening of the land office by the Virginia
Assembly; and it is not to be supposed that they will be again
disposed to renew their claim. But, said Nicholas, there are
gentleraen who have corae by large possessions that it is not
easily to account for. Here Henry interfered, and hoped the
gentieraan meant nothing personal. Nicholas answered: "I
mean what I say, sir." He then alluded to the Blue Laws of
Massachusetts, of which he said he had never heard till yester-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 303
day, and said he thought those laws should have as little weight
in the present discussion as an arguraent which he had heard out
of doors, to the effect that as New England raen wore black
stockings and plush breeches, there could be no union with
them. He said the ground had been so rauch traveled over, he
thought it unnecessary to trouble the coraraittee any farther on
the subj ect.
Henry rose and said that if the gentleman means personal in
sinuations, or wishes to wound ray private reputation, I think this
an iraproper place to do so. If on the other hand, he means to
go on in the discussion of the subject, he ought not to apply ar
guments which might tend to obstruct the discussion. As to
land matters, I can teU how I came by what I have ; but I think
that gentleman (Nicholas) has no right to make that inquiry of
me. I mean not to offend any one — I have not the raost distant
idea of injuring any gentleman. My object was to obtain infor
mation. If I have offended in private life, or wounded the feel
ings of any man, I did not intend it. I hold what I hold in a
right and just manner. I beg pardon for having obtruded thus
far. Nicholas then observed that he raeant no personality in
what he said, nor did he mean any resentment. If such conduct
meets the contempt of that gentleman, I can only assure him, said
Nicholas, it meets with an equal degree of contempt frora rae.
The President hoped gentlemen would not be personal, and
that they would proceed to investigate the subject in a calm and
peaceable manner. Nicholas again rose and said that he did not
mean the honorable gentleman (Henry), but he meant those who
had taken up large tracts of land in the western country. The
reason he could not explain hiraself before was that he thought
some observations had dropped from the honorable gentleman
as ought not to have come frora one gentleman to another.""

"* Nicholas was the brother-in-law of Randolph, and was, it is be
lieved, deeply interested in western lands, and in fact removed to Ken
tucky in a short time after the adjournment of the Convention. The
account of the quarrel, as reported in the debates, I have given, but
there does not seem to be any excuse for the prompt refusal of Nicholas
to make an explanation. The explanation may, perhaps, be found in
the high state of excitement which prevailed as the final voting was
coming on ; in the tone in which Henry made his inquiry, and not a
little, perhaps, in the feeling with which Henry was regarded by the

304 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
An animated conversation in respect of the powers of the judi
ciary now sprang up between Monroe, Madison, Grayson, Henry
and Mason, when the sections under consideration were passed
over, and the first section of the fourth article was read."'"
Mason observed that how far Congress shall declare the degree
of faith to which public records were entitled to was proper, he
could not clearly see. Madison answered that the clause was
absolutely necessary, and that he had not employed a thought on
the subject.
The second section of the fourth article was then read."'"
Mason said that on a former occasion gendemen were pleased to
make some observations on the security of property coming
within this section. It was then said, and he now said, that
there is no security, nor have gentlemen convinced him that
there was.""'
leading friends of the Constitution, who laid the whole burden of oppo
sition at his door. There were repeated attempts to wound his feel
ings, but he treated most of thera with silence.
229 'i p^,l] fgjfp, ^pjj credit shall be given in each State to the public
acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the
Congress raay, by general laws, prescribe the raanner in which such
acts, records and proceedings shall be passed, and the effect thereof."
'*"" The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several States."
¦'A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime,
who shall flee from justice and be found in another State shall, on de
mand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be
delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the
crime." " No person held to service or labour in one State, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another shall, in consequence of any law or regu
lation therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be
delivered up, on claira of the party to whom such service or labour
may be due."
""' More than sixty years after this remark was made by Mason, one
of his grandsons in the Senate of the United States drew up an act to
carry this clause of the Constitution into effect.
If it had been objected to the first clause of this section, that a
Southern gentleman could not travel with his servants through another
State without having them forcibly taken from him, or in transitu to
some other State, the friends of the Constitution would have answered
that from their own experience no such result would ever follow.

I I ¦, VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 305
The third section of the fourth article was then read."'" Gray
son said that it appeared to him that there never can be a South
ern State admitted into the union. There are seven States who
are a majority, and whose interest it is to prevent it. The bal
ance being actually on their side, they will have the regulation
of commerce and the Federal ten miles square whenever they
please. It is not to be supposed then, that they will admit any
Southern State into the union so as to lose that majority. Madi
son thought this part of the plan more favorable to the Southern
States than the present Confederation, as there was a greater
chance of new States being admitted."'" Mason glanced at differ
ent parts of the Constitution, and argued that the adoption of a
system so replete with defects could not but be productive of
the most alarming consequences. He dreaded popular resist
ance to its operation. He expressed in eraphatic terms the
dreadful effects which must ensue should the people resist, and
concluded by observing that he trusted gentlemen would pause
hefore they decided a question which involved such awful con
sequences. Lee declared that he was so overcome by what
Mason had said that he could not suppress his feelings. He
revered that gentlemen, and never thought he should hear from
him sentiraents so injurious to the country, so opposed to the
dignity of the House, and so well calculated to bring on the
horrors which the gentleraan deprecated. Such speeches within
those walls would lead the unthinking and the vicious to overt
acts. God of Heaven, said Lee, avert that fearful doora ; but
should the madness of sorae and the vice of others risk that
awful appeal, he trusted that the friends of the Constitution would
""" "Sec III. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this
union; but no new State shall be forraed or erected within the juris
diction of any other State ; nor any State be formed by the junction of
two or more States without the consent of the Legislatures ofthe States
concerned, as well as of Congress."
" The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all nefedful
rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belong
ing to the United States ; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so
construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any
particular State.
"" Under the Confederation, the assent of all the States was neces
sary to the admission of a new State.
20

306 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
encounter with alacrity and resignation every difficulty and dan
ger in defence of the public liberty.
The remainder of the Constitution was then read, and we only
know, in the absence of any reported debate, that the part re
ferring to amendments to the Constitution was animadverted
upon by its opponents. The committee then rose, and the House
adjourned. On Tuesday, the twenty-fourth of June, the merabers began
to assemble in the hall at an early hour, and all appeared con
scious that the crisis was at hand. That day or the next the final
vote would be cast; and the grave question, which had so long
engaged their serious attention, and on the decision of which, in
the estimation of both parties, depended the fate of the country,
would be irrevocably settled. The same policy which had in-
, duced the friends of the Constitution to select Pendleton to open
the debate on the judiciary, impelled thera to select Wythe as
the proper person to bring forward the resolution of ratification.
As soon as the House was called to order, a raotion was raade
that it should resolve itself into committee, and adopted. Pen
dleton, who was privy to the plans of his friends, beckoned
Thomas Mathews to the chair. Of this gentleman, who, born
in one of the British West India islands, had emigrated in early
life to Norfolk, which borough he represented for many years in
the General Assembly; who opposed with zeal those measures
of the British Parliament that led to the Revolution, and served
faithfuUy during the war (attaining the rank of lieutenant-col
onel); who was long Speaker ofthe House of Delegates; whose
fine person, whose courteous raanners, and whose lively wit
made hira popular even with raen who were apt to frown on those
lighter foibles which were quite as conspicuous in our earlier as
in our later statesraen, and whose narae, conferred upon an east
ern county created during his speakership, is fresh in our own
tiraes, we have not leisure to speak at large. Like most of the
military raen of the Revolution, he approved the Constitution,
and faithfully executed the will of a town which celebrated the
inauguration of that instruraent with one of the raost brilliant
exhibitions in her history.""' Wythe instandy rose to address
"* The historical student will see the name of Thomas Mathews, as
Speaker of the House of Delegates, certifying the ratification of the

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 307
the chair. There was need of haste; for Henry had prepared
a series of araendraents which he desired the House to adopt,
and thus postpone the final vote on the Constitution for an in
definite period. He looked pale and fatigued ; and so great was
his agitation that he had uttered several sentences before he was
distinctly heard by those who sat near hira. When he was heard,
he was recapitulating the history of the Colonies previous to the
war, their resistance to the oppressions of Great Britain, and the
glorious conclusion of that arduous conflict. To perpetuate the
blessings of freedora, he contended that the union of the States
should be indissoluble. He expatiated on the defects of the
Confederation. He pointed out the impossibUity of securing
liberty without society, the impracticabilitv of acting personally,
and the inevitable necessity of delegating power to agents. He
recurred to the systera under consideration. He adraitted its
imperfection, and the propriety of sorae amendments. But, he
said, it had virtues which could not be denied by its opponents.
He thought that experience was the best guide, and that most of
the improvements that had been made in the science of govern
ment, were the result of experience. He appealed to the advo
cates for amendments to say whether, if they were indulged with
any alterations they pleased, there might not be still a necessity
of alteration ? He then proceeded to the consideration of the
question of previous or subsequent amendments. He argued
that, from the dangers of the crisis, it would be safer to adopt
the Constitution as it is, and that it would be easy to obtain aU
needful araendraents afterwards. He then proposed a forra of
ratification, which was handed to the clerk and read to the
committee.""^ Well might Wythe evince unusual emotion in presenting his
scheme. Henry rose in a fierce humor strangely mixed .vith
grief and sharae. Whether he felt discomfitted by h."- '" Joeen
,ty as w
^.^^^
first amendment of the series proposed by Congress to the considera
tion of the States. [He was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of "Ma
sons of Virginia from October 28, 1790, to October 28, 1793. — Ed.] John
Pride, another member of the Convention, was at that date (December
15. 1791,) Speaker of the Senate of Virginia ; and Humphrey Brooke,
another member, was clerk of the Senate at the tirae.
"'* See the form as it was adopted the following day.

308 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
forestaUed by Wythe in offering his own scheme, which had been
prepared with great care, to the committee, or was moved by the
terms of Wythe's proposition, or was influenced by the sense of
the imminent danger of losing the great battle which he had
been waging in behalf of what he deemed the common liberty,
there was something in his manner and in the subdued tones of
his voice that foretold a fearful explosion. In the beginning of
his speech he pitched his passion to a low key. He thought the
propo.sal of ratification premature, and that the iraportance of
the subject required the raost mature deliberation. He dissented
from the scheme of Wythe, because it admitted that the new
system was capitally defective; for immediately after the pro
posed ratification comes the declaration that the paper before you
is not intended to violate any of the three great rights — liberty of
the press, liberty of religion, and the trial by jury. What is the
inference when you enumerate the rights which you are to enjoy ?
That those not enumerated are relinquished. He then discanted
on the omission of general warrants, so fatal in a vast country
where no judge within a thousand miles can be found to issue a
writ of habeas corpus, and where an innocent man might rot in
jail before he could be delivered by process of law ; the dangers
of standing arraies in times of peace, and ten or eleven other
things equally important, all of which are omitted in the scheme
of Wythe. Is it the language of the Bill of Rights that these
things only are valuable ? Is it the language of men going into
a new government ? After pressing with great force the incon
sistency and futility of a ratification with subsequent araendraents,
he exhorted gentlemen to think seriously before they ratified the
Constitution and persuaded themselves that they will succeed in
making a feeble effort to obtain araendraents. With respect to
that part of Wythe's proposal which states that every power not
grauj coun L5»ains with the people, it must he previous to adop
tion, 's, we K41 involve this country in inevitable destruction. To
talk of it as a thing subsequent, not as one of your inaUenable
rights, is leaving it to the casual opinion of the Congress who
shaM take up the consideration of that matter. They wiU not
reason with you about the effect of this Constitution. They
will not take the opinion of this comraittee concerning its opera
tion. They will construe it as they please. If you place it
subsequendy, let rae ask the consequences ? Among ten thou-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 309
sand iraplied powers which they raay assurae, they raay, if we
be engaged in war, liberate every one of your slaves if they
please. And this raust and will be done by raen, a raajority of
whora have not a coramon interest with you.
It has been repeatedly said here that the great object of a
national government is national defence. All the raeans in the
possession of the people raust be given to the government which
is entrusted with the public defence. In this State there are two
hundred and thirty-six thousand blacks, but there are few or
none in the Northern States. And yet, if the Northern States
shall be of opinion that our nurabers are nuraberless, they raay
call forth every national resource May Congress not say that
every black raan raust fight ? Did we not see a little of this last
war ? We were not so hard pushed as to make eraancipation
general, but Acts of Asserably passed that every slave who
would go to the army should be free. Another thing will con
tribute to bring this thing about. Slavery is detested ; we feel
its fatal effects ; we deplore it with all the pity of huraanity. Let
aU these considerations, at some future period, press with full force
upon the minds of Congress. They will search that paper and
see if they have the power of manuraission. And have they
not, sir ? said Henry. Have they not the power to provide for
the general defence and welfare ? May they not think that these
caU for the abolition of slavery ? May they not pronounce all
slaves free, and will they not be warranted by that power ? This
is no ambiguous implication or logical deduction. That paper
speaks to the point. They have the power in clear, unequivocal
terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it. The majority of
Congress is to the North, and the slaves are to the South. In
this situation I see great jeopardy to the property of the people
of Virginia, and their peace and tranquility gone away. Dwell
ing on this topic for sorae time, he recurred to the subject of
subsequent araendraents, and denounced the novelty as well as
the absurdity of such a proposition. He said he was distressed
when he heard the expression frora the lips of Wythe. It is a
new thought altogether. It is opposed to every idea of forti
tude and raanliness in the States or in anybody else. Evils ad-
mhted in order to be reraoved subsequently, and tyranny sub
mitted to, in order to be excluded by a subsequent alteration, are
things totaUy new to me. " But I ara sure," he said, " that the

310 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
gentieraan meant nothing but to amuse the committee. I know
his candor. His proposal is an idea dreadful to rae. I ask, does
experience warrant such a thing frora the beginning of the worid
to the present day ? Do you enter into a corapact of govern
raent first, and afterwards settle the terras of the government?
It is admitted by everyone that this is a corapact. Although the
Confederation be lost, it is a constitutional corapact, or something
of that nature. I confess I never heard of such an idea before.
It is most abhorrent to ray mind. You endanger the tranquUity
of your country. You stab its repose, if you accept this gov
ernment unaltered. How are you to allay animosities ? For
such there are, great and fatal. He flatters me, and tells rae that
I can reconcile the people to it. Sir, their sentiraents are as firm
and steady as they are patriotic. Were I to ask them to apos
tatize from their ancient religion, they would despise me. They
are not to be shaken in their opinions with respect to the pro
priety of preserving their rights. You can never persuade them
that it is necessary to relinquish them. Were I to attempt to
persuade them to abandon their patriotic sentiments, I should
look on myself as the raost infaraous of raen. I believe it to be
a fact that the great body of the yeoraanry are in decided oppo
sition to that paper on your table. I raay say with confidence
that for nineteen counties adjacent to each other, nine-tenths of
the people are conscientiously opposed to it. I have not hunted
popularity by trying to injure this governraent. Though public
farae raay say so, it was not owing to me that this flame of oppo
sition has been kindled and spread. These men will never part
with their political opinions. Subsequent amendments will not
do for raen ol this cast. You raay arause thera by proposing
amendments, but they will never like your government."
He invoked the committee to look to the real sentiments of the
people even in the adopting States. "Look," he said, "at Penn
sylvania and Massachusetts. There was a raajority of only nine
teen in Massachusetts. We are told that only ten thousand were
represented in Pennsylvania, although seventy thousand were
entitied to be represented. Is not this a serious thing? Is it
not worth while to turn your eyes frora subsequent araendraents
to the situation of your country ? Can you have a lasting union
in these circumstances ? It wiU be in vain to expect it. But if
you agree to previous araendraents, you shall have union firm

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 311
and solid. I cannot conclude without saying that I shall have
nothing to do with the Constitution, if subsequent araendments
be determined upon. I say I conceive it my duty, if this gov
ernment is adopted before it is araended, to go horae. I shall
act as ray duty requires. Every other gentleman will do the
same. Previous amendments are, in ray opinion, necessary to
procure peace and tranquility. I fear, if they be not agreed to,
every moveraent and operation of government will cease ; and
how long that baneful thing, civil discord, will stay frora this
country, God only knows. When raen are free from constraint,
how long will you suspend their fury? The interval between
this and bloodshed is but a raoment. The licentious and the
wicked of the community will seize with avidity everything you
hold. In this unhappy situation, what is to be done? It sur
passes my stock of wisdom. If you will, in the language of
freemen, stipulate that there are certain rights which no man
under heaven can take from you, you shall have me going along
with you ; not otherwise."
He then inforraed the committee that he had a resolution
prepared to refer a Declaration of Rights, with certain amend
ments to the most exceptionable parts of the Constitution, to the
other States of the confederacy, for their consideration pre
vious to its ratification. The clerk read the resolution, the
Declaration of Rights, and the araendraents, which were nearly
the sarae as those ultiraately proposed by the Convention """
When the clerk had read the resolution and araendraents, Henry
resumed his remarks, and by considerations drawn from our
domestic and foreign affairs, enforced the necessity of the adop
tion of previous amendments.
Randolph replied to Henry. He declared that he anticipated
this awful period, but he confessed that it had not become less
awful by familiarity with it. Could he believe that all was tran
quil as was stated by the gentleman, that no storm was ready to
burst, and that previous araendments were possible, he would
concur with the gentieraan ; for nothing but the fear of inevitable
destruction corapeUed hira to approve the Constitution. " But,''
says Randolph, " what have I heard to-day? I sympathized
most warmly with what other gentleraen said yesterday, that,
"'* See them in the Appendix.

312 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
let the contest be what it may, the rainority should submit to
the majority. With satisfaction and joy I heard what he then
said — that he would submit, and that there should be peace, if
his power could procure it. What a sad reverse to-day ! Are
we not told by way of counterpart to language that did him
honor, that he would secede? I hope he wiU pardon and correct
me if I mis-recite him ; but, if not corrected, my interpretation
is that secession by him will be the consequence of adoption
without previous amendments." (Here Henry rose and denied
having said anything of secession ; but he had said he would
have no hand in subsequent araendments ; that he would remain
and vote, and afterwards he would have no business here). "I
see," continued Randolph, "that I am not raistaken. The
honorable gentleman says he will remain and vote, but after that
he has no business here, and that he will go home. I beg to
make a few reraarks about secession. If there be in this house
members who have in contemplation to secede frora the majority,
let rae conjure them by all the ties of honor, and of duty, to
consider what they are about to do. Some of them have more
property than I have, and all of them are equal to me in per
sonal rights. Such an idea of refusing to submit to the decision
of the majority is destructive of every republican principle. It
will kindle a civil war, and reduce everything to anarchy, uncer
tainty and confusion. To avoid a calamity so lamentable, I would
submit to the Constitution, if it contained greater evils than it does.
What are they to say to their constituents when they go home ?
' We come to tell you that libefty is in datiger, and though the
majority are in favor of it, you ought not to submit.' Can any
man consider, without shuddering with horror, the awful conse
quences of such desperate conduct? I conjure all to consider
the consequences to themselves as well as to others. They them
selves will be overwhelmed in the general disorder."
When Randolph closed his eloquent and patriotic invocation
to the merabers, he considered the scheme proposed by Wythe,
and showed by a minute examination of its words that it secured
all other rights as well as the liberty of speech, and ofthe press,
and trial by jury. He answered the reasoning of Henry in
respect of the abolition of slavery by Congress. He said he
hoped that none here, who, considering the subject in the calm
light of philosophy, will advance an objection dishonorable to Vir-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 313
ginia; that at the raoment they are securing the rights of their
citizens, an objection is started that there is a spark of hope
that those unfortunate men now held in bondage, raay, by the
operation of the general governraent, be raade free. But he
denied that any power in the case was granted to the general
governraent, and defied any man to point out the grant. He
examined the clause in relation to the importation of persons
prior to 1808, and proved that no such power could be drawn
from that source, and he instanced the extradition of persons
held to labor as a recognition of the right of property in slaves,
and of the co-operation of the government to sustain that right.
He recited his former exposition of the general welfare clause,
and proved incontestibly that no other construction than his own
could be placed upon it. He then reviewed all the articles in the
schedule presented by Henry, and expressed his opinions re
specting them in detail, concluding with a manly and pathetic
appeal to the raembers not to reject the Constitution and sunder
Virginia from her sister States, for the Confederation was now
no more, but to encounter the risk of obtaining subsequent
amendments, and preserve the Federal union.
Mason rose to correct a remark made by Randolph in respect
of the right of regulating commerce and navigation contained in
the Constitution, and made a most interesting disclosure. Ran
dolph had said that the right of regulation as it now stands was
a sine qua non of the Constitution. Mason said he differed from
him. It never was and, in his opinion, never would, be. " I will
give you," he said, "to the best of my recollection, the history
of that affair. This business was discussed at Philadelphia for
four months, during which time the subject of commerce and
navigation was often under consideration ; and I assert that eight
States out of twelve, for more than three months, voted for re
quiring two-thirds of the members present in each House to pass
commercial and navigation laws. True it is that it was after
wards carried by a majority as it now stands. If I am right,
there was a great majority for requiring two-thirds of the States
in this business, till a coraproraise took place between the North
ern and the Southern States, the Northern States agreeing to the
temporary importation of slaves, and the Southern States con
ceding in return that navigation and commercial laws should be
on the footing on which they now stand. These are my reasons

314 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
for saying that this was not a sine qua non of their concurrence.
The Newfoundland fisheries will require that kind of security
which we are now in want of The Eastern States, therefore,
agreed at length that treaties should require the consent of two-
thirds of the members present in the Senate."
Now, for the first time, John Dawson, who was the brother-in-
law of Monroe, as well as his colleague from Spotsylvania, who
was frequentiy a raember of the House of Delegates, and was
subsequendy, for a long period, a raeraber of the House of Rep
resentatives, and whose elegant address and suraptuous apparel
were throughout life in strong contrast with his hatred of a
splendid government, and with the stern severity of his republi
can principles, addressed the comraittee. He reviewed the Con
stitution at large and spoke for an hour with rauch earnestness
in opposition to the Constitution, declaring at the close of his
speech "that liberty was a sacred deposit which he would never
part with, and that the cup of slavery, which would be pressed
to the lips of the people by the adoption of the Constitution, was
equally unwelcorae to hira, whether adrainistered by a Turk, a
Briton, or an Araerican." ""
Grayson foUowed in a rapid review of those parts of the new
system which hc considered radicaUy defective, urged the indis
pensable necessity of previous amendments, and pointed out with
unerring sagacity the ultimate destruction of the comraercial and
raanufacturing interests of the Southern States which must result
from the adoption of the Constitution. He concluded by saying
that but for one great character so raany men could not be found
to support such a system. "We have one ray of hope," he
said. "We do not fear while he lives. But we can expect only
\n5fatne to be immortal. We wish to know who, besides him,
can concentrate the confidence and affections of all America?"
""Years after Dawson was in his grave, and half a century after the
date of the Convention, a friend described hira to me as having red
hair, most recherche in his dress, and wearing fair top boots. His at
tention to his dress gave hira a sobriquet, which is long since forgotten
and which I shall not revive. He was amiable in his deportment. He
was sent to France on an iraportant occasion with despatches. Henry
was very fond of him.
[The sobriquet was "Beau," as is still quite generally recollected.
Dawson died in Washington, D. C, March 30, 1814, aged fifty-two
years. — Ed.]

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 315
Madison then rose, and in an argument of extrerae beauty and
force, addressed alike to the pride, the interests, and the honor
of the House, demonstrated the necessity of adopting the Con
stitution, with a firm reliance on the justice and raagnaniraity of
our sister States. He spoke of the adrairation with which the
world regarded the United States for the readiness and ability
with which, in a time of revolution, they had formed their govern
ments on the soundest principles of public policy. But why this
wonder and applause? Because the work was of such raagni
tude, and was liable to be frustrated by so raany accidents. How
much more adrairation will the exaraple of our country inspire
should we be able peaceably, freely, and satisfactorily to establish
a general government when there is such a diversity of opinions
and interests, and when our councils are not cemented and stim-
\ ulated by a sense of imminent danger? He spoke of the
I difficulty and delicacy of forming a system of government for
\ thirteen States unequal in territory and population, and possessing
, various views and interests, and the necessity of a spirit of cora-
i promise. He then reverted to the clashing opinions of the
' opponents of the Constitution. Some of them thought that it
contained too much State influence ;""" others that it was consol
idated. Sorae thought that the equality of the States in the
Senate was a defect ; others regarded it as a virtue. He discussed
the scherae of ratification proposed by Wythe, and urged that
it was not only not liable to the objections offered by Henry, but
was fully adequate to secure all the great rights supposed to be
imperiled by the Constitution. He followed raainly in the track
of Henry's arguraents, and dwelt upon the danger apprehended
by that gentieraan to the slave property of the South. " Let me
ask," says Madison, "if even Congress should attempt anything
pf the kind, would it not be an usurpation of power?" There
• is no power to warrant it in that paper. If there be, I know it
not. But why should it be done ? The honorable gentleman
says for the general welfare ; it will infuse strength into our
system. Can any member of this comraittee suppose that it wiU
increase our strength ? Can any one believe that the American
"'" Madison mu.«t have alluded to the views of persons in the General
Convention, and beyond the limits of Virginia ; for certainly no such
opinion was expressed in the present Convention, unless he descended
so far as to allude to the hypothetical argument of Grayson.

316 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
councils will come into a measure which wUl strip thera of their
property, discourage and ahenate the afi'ections of five- thirteenths
of the Union ? Why was nothing of this sort airaed at before ?
I believe such an idea never entered into an Araerican breast ;
nor do I believe it ever wiU, unless it wiU enter into the heads of
those gentieraen who substitute unsupported suspicions for rea
sons. He concluded by observing that such of Henry's amend
ments as were not objectionable might be recoraraended for
adoption in the mode prescribed by the Constitution ; not that
those amendments were necessary, but because they can produce
no possible Ganger, and may promote a spirit of peace. " But
I never can consent," he said, "to previous amendments; be
cause they are pregnant with dreadful dangers."
Henry replied to the objections of Randolph to his schedule
of amendments, and to the arguments of Madison. When he
had performed this office in detail, he concluded his speech in a
strain of lofty and pathetic eloquence. " The gentleman (Madi
son) has told you of the numerous blessings which he imagines
will result to us and the world in general from the adoption of
this system. I see the awful immensity of the dangers with
which it is pregnant. I .^ee it — I feel it. I see beings of a higher
order anxious concerning our decision. When I look beyond
the horizon that binds human eyes, and see the final consuraraa
tion of all human things, and see those intelligent beings which
inhabit the ethereal mansions, reviewing the political decisions
and revolutions which in the progress of time will happen in
America, and the consequent happiness or misery of mankind, I
ara led to believe that much of the account on one side or the
other will depend on what we now decide. Our own happiness
alone is not affected by the event. All nations are interested in
the determination. We have it in our power to secure the hap
piness of one-half of the human race. Its adoption may involve '
the raisery of the other hemispheres." Here we are told "that
a storm suddenly rose. It grew dark. The doors came to with
a rebound like a peal of rausketry. The windows rattled ; the
huge wooden structure rocked ; the rain fell frora the eaves in
torrents, which were dashed against the glass ; the thunder
roared ; and the lightning, casting its fitful glare across the anx
ious faces of the raerabers, recalled to the raind those terrific
pictures which the imaginations of Dante and Milton have drawn

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 317
of those angelic spirits that, shorn of their celestial brightness,
had met in council to war with the hosts of Heaven." In the
height of the confusion Henry stood unappalled, and, in the lan
guage of a member present, "rising on the wings ofthe tempest,
he seized upon the artiUery of Heaven, and directed its fiercest
thunders against the heads of his adversaries." The scene, we
are told, became insupportable, and the raerabers rushed frora
their seats into the body of the House.""
While the merabers were moving about the House, and were
preparing to depart, a gleam of sunshine penetrated the hall, and
in a few raoments every vestige of the tempest was lost in a glo
rious noon-day of June. The House resumed its session ; when
Nicholas proposed that the question should be put at eleven
o'clock next day. Clay objected. Ronald also opposed the
motion, and wished araendraents should be prepared by a com
mittee before the question was taken. Nicholas contended that
the language of the proposed ratification would secure all that
was desired, as it declared that all the powers vested in the
Constitution were derived frora the people, and raight be resumed
by thera whensoever they should be perverted to their injury
and oppression, and that every power not granted remained at
their will. For, said Nicholas, these expressions will become a
part of the contract. If thirteen individuals are about to make
a contract, and one agrees to it, but at the same time declares
that he understands its raeaning, signification and intent to be
what the words of the contract plainly and obviously denote ;
that it is not to be construed as to irapose any suppleraentary
condition upon him ; and that he is to be exonerated from it
whensoever any such imposition shall be attempted — I ask, said
Nicholas, whether in this case these conditions on which he
assented to it, would not be binding on the other twelve ? In
Uke manner, these conditions will be binding on Congress.
¦^ Ronald replied that unless he saw amendments, either previous
•or subsequent, introduced to secure the liberties of his constit
uents, he must vote, though much against his inclination, against
; the Constitution.
""Judge Archibald Stuart, of Augusta, then a young man, and a
member of the Convention, and a friend of the Constitution, has de
scribed this scene with great animation in a letter to Wirt. Life of
Henry, 313.

318 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
Madison conceived that what defects there raight be in the
Constitution raight be removed in the raode prescribed by itself
He thought a solemn declaration of our essential rights unneces
sary and dangerous ; unnecessary, because it was evident that
the general governraent had no power but what was given it, and
the delegation alone warranted the exercise of power; danger
ous, because an enumeration, which is not coraplete, is not safe.
Such an enuraeration could not be made within any corapass of
time as would be equal to a general negation such as was pro
posed in the form presented by Wythe. He^renewed his declara
tion that he would assent to any subsequent amendments that
were not dangerous.
The committee then rose, and the House adjourned, to meet
next day at ten o'clock.
On Wednesday morning the twenty-fifth day of June, before
the bell had announced the hour of ten, every meraber was in his
seat, and an eager and anxious crowd filled the hall. It was
known that the final vote would be cast in the course of the day,
and it was generaUy believed that the Constitution would be rati
fied ; but by what raajority, was a question of doubt and appre
hension to its warraest friends. The raanoeuver of Henry, which
had at a single blow struck from the list of its friends nearly the
whole of the Kentucky delegation, was freshly remembered ;
some such dexterous and daring movement might affect the votes
of four or five merabers who had hitherto been friendly, and the
loss of five votes would turn the scale and destroy the new sys
tem. And it was inferred from the fierce tone of Henry in the
debate of the previous day, that, if the Constitution were carried,
he might, on the announceraent of the vote, rise from his seat,
protest against the action of a small majority on so vital a ques
tion, and, at the head of the minority, withdraw from the Con
vention. The secession of so large a number of the most able
and most popular men in the Coramonwealth would in every
aspect be fatal to the Constitution. The result must follow either
that the friends of the new systera would be compelled to recon
sider the vote of ratification, and accept the schedule of previous
amendments proposed by Henry, or remain firra and uphold
their decision by an appeal to arms. Either alternative was raost
unwelcome, and fraught with extreme peril. To rescind the vote
of ratification at a time when nine States had adopted .the new

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 319
system and would proceed to organize the Federal Government
in pursuance of its provisions,"*" and to surrender the fruits of a
victory so dearly earned, involved not only a deep sense of
humiliation in the minds of the majority, but a coraplete frustra
tion of all their plans and all their hopes. In raany respects the
delay would be fatal. It was plain that Washington could not
have been chosen the head of a government of which Virginia
_ was not a component part, and the danger likely to arise frora the
selection of any other individual to carry the new systera into
effect was irarainent. There was another danger, which, though
it might not so keenly affect the sensibilities ofthe majority, was
yet appalling. As the new President would certainly be a North
ern man, and probably the Vice-President also, and as, in the
organization of the new system, some measures not agreeable to
the taste or to the feelings of its opponents might be adopted,
hostility to the Constitution, already great, might gain strength,
and a confederacy, consisting of Virginia, Kentucky, and North
Carolina in the first instance, and embracing ultimately South
Carolina and Georgia, would be called into existence. Such
were the difficulties to be apprehended from the first alternative.
But alarming and perilous as the first alternative decidedly was,
the second was still more formidable. If the majority resolved
to sustain their vote by a resort to arms, to what quarter would
they look for help ? Not to the General Assembly, which was
shortly to raeet ; for that body, as the fact proved, was opposed
to the new scherae, and, glad of an opportunity of overthrowing
it, would have upheld its opponents. Nor could they look for
support to the people ; for, as was generally believed at the tirae,
two-thirds of the people at least regarded the new scherae with
apprehension and dislike."" The only resource of the friends of
""Henry stated in debate this day that " we are told that nine States
have adopted it"; and it is probable that Madison had heard from
New Hampshire that that State would certainly adopt the Constitution,
which it had actually done on the 21st, three days before ; but the fact
could not have been known in Richmond on the 25th. Indeed, Harri
son did not allude to the act of New Hampshire in his speech delivered
during the morning, when he spoke ofthe course of that State respect
ing amendments.
"*' Judge Marshall states that, "in some of the adopting States it is
scarcely to be doubted that a majority of the people were in the oppo
sition"; and he doubtless had reference to Virginia, the State he knew

320 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
the Constitution would have been to appeal to the new government,
and bring about a war between the non-slaveholding and the
slaveholding States ; the result of which, whether prosperous or
adverse to the arms of the new governraent, would equally
destroy all hopes of a friendly union of the States.
On the other hand, the opponents of the Constitution were in
a dangerous raood. They believed that instruraent at best, with
the aid of all the amendments which were likely to be adopted,
to be fatal to the public liberty ; and they thought that they had
gone to the farthest verge of concession in assenting to its ratifi
cation with the hope of subsequent amendments. But it now
seemed that they were not to obtain even the boon of subse
quent araendraents. The liberal proraises which had been dealt
out were all a sham. Strange rumors were indeed abroad. It
was first mentioned in whispers, and was then currently reported
that, as soon as the Constitution was ratified, its leading friends
would, under various pretexts, quit the city and leave the ques
tion of future amendments to its fate, with a deliberate design to
prevent their incorporation into the new system. To incur a
defeat on the question of the ratification of the Constitution was
a source of the deepest mortification to its opponents ; but to be
tricked into the bargain was past bearing. They would not sub
mit at one and the same time to a loss of liberty and to a flagrant
outrage. The session of the Assembly was at hand. That body
must be looked to to save the country. It might refuse to recog
nize the new systera ; might refuse to pass the necessary laws for
carrying it into effect, and raight refuse to order an election of rep
resentatives, or an election of senators, until the proposed amend
ments were made a part of the Constitution. In the meantime,
it might appoint commissioners to ascertain the terms of a union
with North CaroUna, which State was determined to reject the
Constitution,"'" and might hold the militia in readiness for contin-

best. He also confirms the remark of Grayson, "that had the influ
ence of character been removed, the intrinsic merits of the instrument
would not have secured its adoption." Life of Washington, II, 127.
I quote the second edition of the work, which is in every possible re
spect superior to the first. Had the work appeared originally as it now
is, the fame of the author would have been greatiy enhanced.
"*" North Carolina rejected the Constitution by a majority of one hun
dred. The vote stood one hundred and eighty-four to eighty-four.

^ VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 321
gencies. Never, at any period in the history of the Colony or
of the Comraonwealth, did a deliberative asserably raeet in such
painful circurastances of doubt and alarra as on this raeraorable
morning. The House iraraediately went into committee, Pendleton call
ing Mathews to the chair. Nicholas was the first to break
sUence. He said that he did not wish to enter into further
debate, that delay could only serve the cause of those who
wished to destroy the Constitution, and that, should the Consti
tution be ratified, amendments might be adopted recommending
Congress to alter that instrumenWn the mode prescribed by
itself He warmly repelled the charge that the friends of the
Constitution meditated a flight after its adoption, and defied the
^ author of the charge to establish its truth. He declared his
own wish for araendraents ; thought the araendments secured in
the form proposed by Wythe were satisfactory, but was willing
to agree to others which would not destroy the spirit of the
Constitution. He raoved that the clerk read the forra of ratifi
cation proposed by Wythe, that the question raight be put upon
it. The clerk read the form, and also read, at the suggestion
of Tyler, the bill of rights and the amendments proposed by
Henry. The urgency of the crisis brought Harrison to the floor.
This venerable raan had in all the great conjunctures of a quarter
of a century then past acted an honorable part. He was a
member of that celebrated committee which, in 1764, had drawn
the memorials to the king, the lords, and the coraraons of England.
He was an old member of high standing in the House of Bur
gesses in 1765, when Henry offered his resolutions against the
Stamp Act. In all the early Conventions he had strenuously
upheld the rights of the Colony and the dignity of the new Com
monwealth. In Congress he had been during the war at the
head of the most iraportant railitary committees ; had been
deputed on emergencies to the headquarters of the army, and
had presided in the Coramittee of the Whole when the resolu
tion of independence and the Declaration of Independence had
The Convention began its session on the 21st of June and, of course,
was sitting when the vote of Virginia was taken. — Wheeler's History
0/ North Carolina, page 60. It was not until the 21st of November of
the following year that the Federal Constitution was adopted.

322 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
been approved, and when the Articles of Confederation had been
prepared by Congress. He rarely spoke at great length, and
his speeches were adapted rather to a council of raen charged
with responsible duties to be instantly performed than to popular
bodies; but his great experience as a statesman, and his practical
sense, expressed in a short harangue, had often more influence
than the well-reasoned speeches of ordinary orators. He now
rose to utter his soleran protest against the ratification of the
Constitution. He denounced the policy of trusting to future
araendraents. When the Constitution was once ratified it was
beyond our reach. Even ^ture araendments might be evaded
by the flight of its friends ; and if adopted by the House, what
was the hope of their ultimate success ? The sraall States, he
said, refused to come into the Union without extravagant con
cessions : and can it be supposed that those States, whose interest
and iraportance are so greatly enhanced under the Constitution
as it stands, will consent to an alteration that will diminish their
influence ? Never ! Let us act now, he said, with that fortitude
which animated us in our resistance to Great Britain. He entered
into a minute analysis of the views of the different States in
respect of amendments, and drew the conclusion that seven States
were anxious to obtain thera. Can it be doubted that, if these
seven States make araendraents a condition of their accession,
they will be discarded frora the union ? Let us, then, not be
persuaded into the opinion that, if we reject the Constitution, we
will be cast adrift and abandoned. He had no such idea. He
was attached to the union. A vast raajority of the people were
attached to it. But he thought he saw a desire to make a great
and powerful government. Look at the recent settlement ofthe
country, and its present population and wealth, and who can faU
to perceive that such a scheme was premature and irapossible.
National greatness ought not to be forced. Like the formation
of great rivers, it should be gradual and progressive. Gentlemen
tell us that we must look to the Northern States for help in
danger. Did they relieve us during the Revolution ? They left
us to be buffeted by the British. But for the fortunate aid of
France we should have been ruined. He concluded by an appeal
to Heaven that he cherished the union ; but he deeraed the
adoption of the Constitution without previous amendments to be
unwarrantable, precipitate, and dangerously impolitic.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 323
Madison spoke with something more than his usual courtesy.
He would not have risen, he said, but for the remarks which had
fallen from Harrison. He protested against the unkind sus
picions of withdrawal which had been raised against the friends
of the Constitution on the subject of araendraents, and argued
from Harrison's stateraents that, if seven States desired araend
ments, the accession of Virginia would secure the success of the
common object. It was easy to obtain amendments hereafter ;
but, if we called upon the States to rescind what they had done,
to confess that they have done wrong, and to consider the sub
ject anew, it would produce delays and dangers which he shud
dered to contemplate. Let us not hesitate in our choice, and he
declared that there was not a friend of the Constitution that
would not concur in procuring amendments.
Monroe followed Madison, and contended that previous
amendments alone were worth anything. Would the small
States refuse to grant them, and raake eneraies of the large and
powerful States ? He did not think that the Federal Govern
ment would iramediately infringe the rights of the people, but
he thought that the operation of the governraent would be op
pressive in process of tirae. He pronounced the argument of
Madison, derived frora the impracticability of obtaining previous
amendments, fallacious, and a specious evasion. The Constitu
tion is admitted to be defective. Did ever men meet with so
loose and uncurbed a coraraission as the Generai Convention ?
And can it be supposed that subsequent reflection on the plan
' which they put forth may not raake it raore efficient and com
plete ? As to the araendraents presented to the committee, they
are acknowledged to be harmless ; but their previous acceptance
wiU secure our rights. He hoped that gentlemen would concur
in them.
The friends of the Constitution well knew that Henry would
address some parting words to the House, and had foreseen the
necessity of presenting the new systera in its raost favorable
light when the question was about to be taken. The choice of
an individual to perform that delicate office was made with their
usual tact. Second to Henry, and second to Henry alone, in
action, in a varied and splendid eloquence, and in all those fac
ulties that enable men to move popular assemblies, stood con
fessedly a young raan, then entering his thirty-fourth year, whose

324 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
name, becoming extinct in the eariy part of the present century
by the sudden and untimely death of its representative while
engaged in the naval service of his country in a distant sea, was
widely known and honored in his generation, but which, rarely
mentioned in the political controversies of the day, has almost
slipped from the raemory of men. On the field of battle, at the
bar, and in the House of Delegates he held a distinguished rank
among his compeers ; but, owing to his attendance on the courts
then sitting as the Attorney- General of the Comraonwealth, he
did not appear often in the House, and had not opened his lips
in debate. Of that briUiant group of soldier-statesmen, who
drew their inspiration from the counsels of Wythe, and whose
virtues shed renown not only on Virginia, but on the Union at
large, none more eminently merits fhe grateful and affectionate
regard of succeeding times than James Innes. Like Henry, he
was the son of a Scotchman — the Rev. Robert Innes, who was
a graduate of Oxford; who had corae over to this country sorae
years before the birth of Jaraes, on the recoraraendation of the
Bishop of London, and who becarae the rector of the parish of
Drysdale, in the county of Caroline. His classical training
James received from his father, who intended him, the youngest
of three sons, for the Church, and who bequeathed to him his
library. In 1771 he entered William and Mary College, and in
a class consisting of Blands, Boushes, Diggeses, Fitzhughs,
Madisons, Maurys, Pages, Randolphs, Rootes, Stiths, and
Wormleys, he was singled out as the most eminent for skUl in
declamation, for fluent elocution, and for elegant coraposhion.
George Nicholas, Bishop Madison, St. George Tucker, then a
clever youth, who had corae over from Bermuda to attend col
lege, and who magnanimously took the side of his foster-home
in the approaching war, and Beverley Randolph, were his friends
and associates."" He had exhausted his slender patrimony in
paying his college biUs, and accepted the office of usher, under
Johnson, in the school of huraanity. At the beginning of the
troubles he rallied a band of students, and secured sorae stores
which were about to be secreted by Dunmore; and, as a reward
of his patriotism, was disraissed by the faculty, which as yet re-

"" See the class of 177 1 in the gerteral catalogue of Williara and
Mary.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 325
mained faithful to the Crown."" In February, 1776, he was
elected captain of an artillery company, and raarched to Hamp
ton to repress the incursions of the eneray."'^ In Noveraber,
1776, he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of one of the six bat
taUons of infantry to be raised on the Continental establishment;
and joining the Northern array, he becarae one of the aids of
Washington, and shared in the glory of Trenton, Princeton,
Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth."*^ His regiment
having dwindled, from the casualties of war, beneath the dignity
of a lieutenant-colonel's command, he resigned his commission,
and returned to Virginia. In October, 1778, he was appointed
by the Assembly one of the commissioners of the navy."" In
1780 he entered the House of Delegates as a member frora Jaraes
City, where he raade his first essay as a debater. At the soUci
tation of Washington he raised a regiraent for home defence,
and was present with his comraand at the siege of York. He
then devoted hiraself to the profession of law, and attained a
high rank at the bar. His popular raanners, his classical taste,
and his captivating eloquence soon attracted public attention, and
he was elected the successor of Edraund Randolph in the office
of Attorney- General. In the faculty of addressing popular
"" Letter of Miss Lucy H. Randolph, September 24, 1855. Miss Ran
dolph is a granddaughter of Colonel Innes. I trust that she will see
that, wherein I have not adopted her stateraents, I have record evi
dence beyond dispute to sustain me.
"*° Virginia Gazette of that date. For his appointment as lieutenant-
colonel, see Journal of the House of Delegates, November 13, 1776,
page 54. George Nicholas was appointed major at the same time; also
Holt Richeson. For the settleraent of the father of Innes in Drysdale
parish, see Bishop Meade's Old Churches, I, 41-4.
^Burk's Virginia, IV, 234.
""Journal of the House of Delegates, October 21, 1778, page 22. It
has been stated that Colonel Innes was at the battle of Monraouth. An
anecdote, told of Innes in connection with that battle, has been long
current in Virginia, for the truth of which I do not avouch. It seems
that he at once comprehended the reason of Lee's retreat, and being
asked why he did not communicate his impressions to Washington
when that gentleman overhauled Lee in rough terms, he said that at
that moment he would as soon have addressed the. forked lightning.
Innes was born in 1754. His mother was Miss Catharine Richards, of
Caroline.

326 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
bodies, of aU his contemporaries he approached, in the general
estimation, nearest to Patrick Henry. There were those, who,
fascinated by the graces of his raanner, by his overwhelming ac
tion, by the majestic tones of his voice, and by his flowing pe
riods, thought him more eloquent than Henry. We know that
the most distinguished living Virginian, who had heard both
speakers, has pronounced Innes the most classical, the most ele
gant, and the most eloquent orator to whom he ever listened."*'
Born in Caroline, the residence of .Pendleton, and the pupU of
Wythe, he possessed the confidence of those illustrious men,
who watched with affectionate attachment the development of his
genius, who witnessed his finest displays, and who, in their ex
treme old age, deplored his untimely death.
His physical qualities marked him among his feUows as dis
tinctively as his inteUectual. His height exceeded six feet. His
stature was so vast as to arrest attention in the street. He was
beUeved to be the largest man in the State. He could not ride
an ordinary horse, or sit in a common chair, and usually read or
meditated in his bed or on the floor. On court days he never
left his chamber till the court was about to sit, studying all his
cases in a recumbent posture. It is believed that he was led to
adopt this habit not so much frora his great weight as from a
weakness induced by exposure during the war. In speaking,
when he was in full blast, and when the tones of his voice were
sounding through the hall, the vastness of his stature is said to
have imparted dignity to his manner. His voice, which was of
unbounded power and of great compass, was finely raodulated ;
and in this respect he excelled all his compeers with the exception
of Henry. From his size, frora the occasional vehemence of his
action, and from a key to which he sometiraes pitched his voice,
he is said to have recaUed to the recollections of those who had

'**Such is the opinion of Governor Tazewell, who, when a young
man, was accustomed to hear Innes. I once asked Governor Tazewell
what he thought of Innes as a lawer. " Innes, sir, was no lawyer (that
is, he was not as profound a lawyer as Wythe, or Pendleton, or Thom
son Mason, who were eminent when Innes was born) ; but he was the
most elegant belles-lettres scholar and the most eloquent orator I
ever heard." It rtiust be remembered that Innes, at the time of his
death, in 1798, had not completed his forty-fourth year, and that Wythe
and Pendleton attained to nearly double his years.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 327
heard Fox the iraage of that great debater. A rainiature by
Peale, still in the possession of his descendants, has preserved
his features to posterity. He is represented in the dress of a
colonel in the Continental line ; and we gather frora that capa
cious and intellectual brow, shaded by the fresh auburn hair of
youth, those expressive blue eyes, that aquiline nose, sorae notion
of that fine caste of features and that expression which were so
much admired by our fathers. His address was in the highest
degree imposing and courteous ; and in the social circle, as in
debate or at the bar, his classical taste, and an inexhaustible
fund of huraor, of wit, of accurate and varied learning, kindly
and generously dispensed, won the regard and excited the admi
ration of all.
From the day when a youth he entered the family of Wash
ington to the day of his death, Innes shared the confidence of
his chief"*' He was dispatched by him on a secret mission to
Kentucky at a dangerous crisis, and was tendered the office of
Attorney-General of the United States, which the state of his
health and the condition of his family compelled hira to decline.
Had he accepted that appointraent, and had his Ufe been pro
tracted to the age of his colleagues and associates — of Madison,
of Monroe, of Marshall, and of Stuart, of Augusta — ^his history,
instead of being made up of meagre shreds collected from old
newspapers, from the scattering entries in parliaraentary journals,
from moth-eaten and half-decayed manuscripts, frora the testi
mony of a few solitary survivors of a great era, and frora the
fond but hesitating accents of descendants in the third and fourth
generation, might have been yet living on a thousand tongues,
and his name have been, in connection with the names of the
friends and co-equals of his youth, one of the cherished house
hold words of that country whose infancy had been protected by
his valor, and whose glory had been enhanced by the almost
unrivaled splendor of his genius, and by the undivided homage
of his heart."'"
"*" Innes died the year before Washington.
"^ It is proper to say that I have frequently conversed during the past
thirty years with those who knew James Innes from his youth upward,
and that my impressions of his character have been drawn from various
other sources than those already cited.

328 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
Unfortunately for the reputation of Innes, no fair speciraen of
his eloquence remains. We are told that, like Henry,"*' he
rarely spoke above an hour ; and that, as he prepared hiraself
with the utmost deliberation, he presented a masterly outline of
his subject, dwelling mainly upon the great points of his case ;
that he embellished his arguments with the purest diction and
with the aptest illustrations, and that he deUvered the whole with
a power of oratory that neither prejudice nor passion could effec
tually resist.
Such was the man whom the friends of the Constitution had
chosen to make the last impression upon the House in its favor.
The occasion was not wholly congenial to his taste. Nor was it
altogether favorable to his fame as a statesman. If he discussed
the new system in detail he would injure the cause of its friends
who were eager for the question, and he would promote the ends
of its enemies who were anxious for delay and would rejoice to
re-open the debate. Andif he passed lightly over his subject he
would suffer in a comparison with his colleagues who had, after
raonths of study, debated at length every department of the new
government. In the brief notes of his speech which have come
down to us, this vacillation of purpose is plainly visible."" He
"*i Henry spoke in the present Convention several times for more
than two hours, and on one occasion more than three, and at the bar
in iraportant cases he has spoken over three hours, and in the British
debt cause for three entire days ; but in the House of Delegates he
rarely spoke over half an hour. One part of his policy was to provoke
replies, which furnished hira with fresh matter.
"»" Innes adhered to the Federal party during the administration of
Adams, and would have been sent envoy to France in place of Judge
Marshall, had not a friend informed the President that he would be
unable from the condition of his family to accept the appointment. He
accepted, however, the office of Commissioner under Jay's treaty, in
the latter part of 1797, and was discharging its duties in Philadelphia at
the tirae of his death, on the second of August, 1798. He was buried
in Christ Church burial ground in that city, not far from the grave of
Franklin. A plain marble slab marks the spot. It once stood on
columns, but from the filling up of the yard some years ago, is now
level with the ground.
Henry Tazewell, one of his eariy friends and classmates, was buried
within three feet of his grave. Innes died of a dropsy of the abdomen.
The following epitaph from the pen of his classmate, Judge St. George
Tucker, now legible in some of its parts only, was inscribed upon the

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 329
began by saying that his silence had not proceeded from neu
trahty or supineness, but from public duties which could not be
postponed. The question, he said, was one of the gravest that
ever agitated the councils of America. " When I see," he said,
"in this House, divided in opinion, several of those brave offi
cers whom I have seen so gallantly fighting and bleeding for
their country, the question is doubly interesting to rae. I
thought that it would be the last of human events that I should
be on a different side from them on this awful occasion."
He said that he was consoled by the reflection that difference
of opinion had a happy consequence, inasmuch as it evoked dis-
tombstone of Innes : " To the memory of James Innes, of Virginia, for
merly Attorney- Geheral of that State. A sublime genius, improved
by a cultivated education, united with pre-eminent dignity of character
and greatness of soul, early attracted the notice and obtained the con
fidence of his native country, to whose service he devoted those con
spicuous talents, to describe which would require the energy of his
own nervous eloquence. His domestic and social virtues equally en
deared him to his family and friends, as his patriotisra and talents to
his country. He died in Philadelphia August the second, 1798, whilst
invested with the important trust of one of the comraissioners for car
rying into effect the treaty between Great Britain and the United
States.'' This beautiful tribute to the raeraory of Innes has one great
defect — the absence of the date of his birth. As the inscription is now
nearly washed out by the rains of sixty years, it may not be amiss to
say that the grave is directly in front of the seventh column of the
brick wall (on Fifth) from Arch, about a foot from the wall. I am in
debted to my friend, Townsend Ward, Esq., of Philadelphia, for his aid
in deciphering the inscription, an accurate copy of which I afterwards
received from another quarter. My impression is that Innes was a
grand-nephew of Colonel James Innes, who at the date of his birth was
a military character in the Colony.— Writings of Washington, XII,
Index. [Colonel James Innes, who commanded a regiment from North Caro
lina in the French and Indian wars, was a native of Scotland, and a citi
zen of New Hanover county. North Carolina. He had served in 1740,
it is believed, as a captain in the unsuccessful expedition against Car
thagena, commanded by Colonel William Gooch, subsequendy knighted
and Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia. He was doubtless a familiar of
Governor Dinwiddie in Scotiand, as the latter constantiy addressed
him as "Dear James." See Dinwiddie Papers, Virginia Historical
Collection, Vols. Ill, IV. The editor can adduce nothing in confirma
tion of the supposition of Mr. Grigsby as to his relationship to Colonel
James Innes of the text.]

330 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
cussion, and was a friend to truth. He came hither under the
persuasion that the felicity of our country required that we
should accept this governraent, that he was, nevertheless, open
to conviction, but that all that he had heard confirmed him
in the belief that its adoption was necessary for our national
honor, our happiness, and our safety. He then discussed the
policy in respect of amendments, and contended that previous
amendments were beyond the power ofthe Convention. Adopt
this system with previous amendments, and you transcend your
commission from the people, who have a right to be consulted
upon them. They have seen the Constitution, and have sent us
hither to accept or reject it. And have we more latitude upon the
subject ? He alluded to the distrust and jealousy of our Northern
brethren which was abroad. Did we distrust them in 1775? If
we had distrusted them, we would not have seen that unanimous
resistance which had enabled us to triumph through our enemies.
It was not a Virginian, or a CaroUnian, or a Pennsylvaniau, but the
glorious narae of an American, that was then beloved and con
fided in. Did we then believe that, in the event of success, we
should be armed against each other ? Had I believed then what
we are told now, he said, that our Northern brethren were desti
tute of that noble spirit of philanthropy which cherishes pater
nal affections, unites friends, enables men to achieve the most
gallant exploits, and renders thera formidable to foreign powers,
I would have submitted to British tyranny rather than to North
ern tyranny. When he had reviewed at length the arguments
founded on the dissimilar interests of the States, and on the con
dition of our foreign relations, he said that " we are told that we
need not be afraid of Great Britain. Will that great, that war
like, that vindictive nation lose the desire of avenging her losses
and her disgraces? WUl she passively overiook flagrant viola
tions of the treaty? Will she lose the desire of retrieving those
laurels that are buried in Araerica? Should I transfuse into the
breast of a Briton that love of country which so strongly pre
dominates in my own, he would say, while f have a guinea, I
shall give it to recover lost America." He then treated with
stern disdain the insinuation that we should check our maritime
strength on account of fears apprehended frora foreign powers.
To promote their glory, he said, we must become wretched and
conteraptible. It raay be said that the ancient nations which

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 381
deserved and acquired glory lost their liberty. But have not
mean and cowardly nations, Indians and Cannibals, lost their
Uberty likewise ? And who would not rather be a Roraan than
one of those creatures that hardly deserves to be incorporated
among the human species? I deem this subject, he said, as
important as the Revolution which severed us from the British
empire. It is now to be deterrained whether America has gained
by that change which has been thought so glorious ; whether
those hecatombs of American heroes, whose blood was so freely
shed at the shrine of liberty, fell in vain, or wheth er we shaU estab
Ush such a government as shall render Araerica respectable and
happy ! It is my wish, he said, to see her not only possessed of
civil and political liberty at home, but to be formidable, to be ter
rible, to be dignified in war, and not dependent upon the corrupt
and ambitious powers of Europe for tranquility, security, or
safety. I ask, said Innes, if the raost petty of those princes,
even the Dey of Algiers, were to make war upon us, we should
not be reduced to the greatest distress ? Is it not in the power
of any raaritime nation to seize our ships and destroy our com
merce with irapunity ? We are told, he said, that the New Eng
landers are to take our trade frora us, and raake us hewers of
wood and drawers of water, and in the next raoraent to eraanci
pate our slaves. They tell you that the adraission of the iraport-
ation of slaves for twenty years shows that their policy is to keep
us weak; and yet the next raoraent they tell you that they intend
to set them free ! If it be their object to corrupt and enervate
us, wiU they emancipate our slaves ? Thus they complain and
argue against the system in contradictory principles. The Con
stitution is to turn the world topsy-turvy to make it suit their
purposes. He looked to the aUeged dangers to religious free
dom from the Constitution, and argued that they were imaginary
and absurd. With respect to previous araendments, he contended
that it was discourteous to request the other States, which, after
months of deUberation, had ratified the new systera, to undo aU
that they have done at our bidding. Those States will say :
t i V " The Constitution has been laid before you, and if you do not
like it, consider the consequences. We are as free, sister Vir
ginia, and as independent as you are. We do not like lo be
dictated to by you.' ' But, say gentleraen, we can afterwards corae
into the union. I teU you, he said, that those States are not of

^

332 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788.
such pliant, yielding stuff as to revoke a soleran decision to
gratify your capricious wishes. He concluded with an aniraated
appeal to the raerabers to accept the Constitution. Unless we
look for a perfect Constitution, he said, we ought to take this.
From India to the Pole you will seek a perfect Constitution in
vain. It raay have defects, but he doubted whether any better
systera can be obtained at this time. Let us try it. Experience
is the best test. The new system will bear equally upon aU, and
all will be equally anxious to araend it. I regard, he said, the
members of Congress as ray fellow-citizens, and rely upon their
integrity. Their responsibility is as great as can well be expected.
We elect them, and we can remove them at our pleasure. In
fine, the question is, whether we shall accept or reject this Con
stitution ? With respect to previous araendraents, they are equal
to rejection. They are abhorrent to my mind. I consider them
the greatest of evils. I think myself bound to vote against
every measure which I believe to me a total rejection, than which
nothing within my conception can be more imprudent, destruc
tive, and calamitous.
j The sensation produced by the speech of Innes was profound.
The loose report of it which has come down to us presents some
of the main points on which he dwelt, and enables us to form a
vague opinion of the raode in which he blended severe arguraent
with the loftiest declaraation ; but it affords only a faint likeness
of the original, and conveys no idea of the prodigious impression
which the speech raade at the time. And what that impression
was we know from conclusive authority. Old men have been
heard to say that, exalted by the dignity of his theme and con
scious that the issue was to be instantly decided, he spoke like
one inspired. The tones of tender affection when he spoke of
our Northern brethren, who had fought side by side with us in
battle and had achieved with us the coraraon liberty ; of fierce
disdain when he described his opponents as lowering the flag of
his country to ingratiate the petty princes of Europe ; of appre
hension when he portrayed the terrible power of England and
her thirst for vengeance; of unutterable scorn when he repelled
the charge that Northern men would make hewers of wood and
drawers of water of the people of the South ; and of passionate
patriotism when he conjured the House not to throw away the
fruits of the Revolution by rejecting the proposed systera, but in

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 333
a spirit of fraternal love to ratify it without araendraent; his atti
tudes and his gestures, as he raoved his gigantic stature to and
fro, and the unbroken and overflowing torrent of his speech, were
long reraerabered. His friends were liberal in their congratula
tions, and declared that he had surpassed himself — that he had
surpassed any speaker whom they had ever heard. But the
expectations of friends are sometimes easily satisfied. There is,
however, one witness whose testimony is beyond cavil. Henry
could hardly find words to express the admiration with which
the eloquence of Innes had inspired him. It was grand. It was
magnificent. It was fit to shake the human raind."''
Statesmen of real genius, of pure raorals, and of sincere patriot
ism, though pitted by heated and hating partisans against each
other, rarely undervalue one another. In the breasts of such
men detraction, envy and jealousy, which corrode the temper of
meaner spirits, find no durable abiding-place. Innes appreciated
the raagnaniraity of Henry ; and when, in the early part of the
following year, the character of his great rival was traduced in a
series of articles by an anonyraous writer in a Richraond paper,
and when, frora the political coraplexion of those articles and
from the research, pungency and point with which they were
written, pubhc opinion had fixed their authorship on Innes, he
wrote to Henry to contradict the rumor, and to assure him of his
highest admiration and esteem."**
Tjder followed Innes. He was raany years younger than his
¦colleague, Harrison, who had spoken in the early part of the day.
Indeed, when Harrison, in the debate on Henry's resolutions
against the Stamp Act, was a leading member of the House of
Burgesses, Tyler, then a boy of sixteen, was looking on from the
I "^See the speech of Henry, to be noticed in this day's debate. The
only instance that occurs to me of an opponent extolling, at a time, of
intense excitement, in such exalted terms, the speech of a rival whom
he followed in debate and whom he sought to overthrow, was in the
debate in the House of Coramons on the peace of 1803, when Fox,
rising after Pitt, said of his speech that " the orators of antiquity would
, have adraired — probably would have envied it."
"**I allude to the letters of " Decius," the first of which appeared in
the Richmond Independent Chronicle of the 7th of January, 1789. Of
these letters I may say something in the sequel. The letter of Innes is
in the Henry papers at " Red Hill."

334 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
gallery. But, frora his long and exclusive devotion to the inte
rests of the Commonwealth, he had gained an ascendancy in the
public councils which was possessed by few of his contempo
raries, and which caused him to be singled out as a fit person to
bring forward the resolution inviting the raeeting at Annapolis.
He was also a ready, forcible, and, not unfrequently, an eloquent
speaker, and was generally followed as a leader by the delegates
from the tide-water counties. It was doubtless with a view of
rousing the fears of some of the smaUer counties on the seaboard,
which had shown a disposition to sustain the new system, that
he now spoke, not only more at length than he had yet done,
but with a force and a freedora unlooked for by his opponents.
He said that he was inclined to have voted silently on the
question about to be put ; but, as he wished to record his oppo
sition for the eyes of posterity, he felt bound to declare the prin
ciples on which he opposed the Constitution. His objections in
the first instance were founded on general principles ; but when
upon a closer examination he saw the terras of the Constitution
expressed in so indefinite a raanner as to call forth contradictory
constructions from those who approved it, he could find no peace
in his mind. If able gentlemen who advocate this system can
not agree in construing it, could he be blaraed for denouncing
its ambiguity? The gentleman (Innes) has brought us to a de
grading condition. We have no right to propose araendments.
He should have expected such language after the Constitution
was adopted ; but he heard it with astonishment now. The
gendeman objected to previous amendments because the people
did not know thera. Did they know their subsequent amend
ments? (Here Innes rose and made a distinction between the
two classes of amendments. The people would see those that
were subsequent, and, if they disliked them, might protest against
them.) Tyler continued: Those subsequent araendraents, he
said, I have seen, and, although they hold out soraething that
we wish, they are radically deficient. What do they say about
direct taxation ? about the judiciary ? The new systera contains
many dangerous articles. Shall we be told by the gendeman
that we shaU be attacked by the Algerians, and that disunion '
shall take place, unless we adopt it? Such language I did not
expect here. Littie did I think that raatters would have come to
this when we separated frora the mother country. There, every

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 335
man is amenable to punishraent. There is far less responsibility
in that systera. British tyranny would have been more tolerable.
Hinder the Articles of Confederation every man was at least se
cure in his person and in his property. Liberty was then in its
zenith. Human nature wUl always be the same. Men never
were nor ever will be satisfied with their happiness. When once
we begin these radical changes, where shall we find a place of
rest? He contended that, if the new systera were put into ope
ration unamended, the people would not bear it ; that two om
nipotent agents exercising the right of taxation without restraint,
could not CO exist ; that a revolt or the destruction of the State
governraents would follow ; that as long as cliraate produces its
effects upon men, men would differ frora each other in their
tastes, their interests, and affections ; and that a consolidated
system could only be sustained under a railitary despotism. He
discussed in detail the policy of amendments, and concluded that
the public mind would not be satisfied until the great questions
at issue should be settled by another Convention. He reviewed
the chances of interference by foreign powers, and argued that
as It was their interest to be at peace with us, they would obey
the dictates of interest. He deprecated the idea of a great and
powerful government. Self defence in the present age and con
dition ofthe country was all that we ought to look for. He said
he sought invariably to oppose oppression. His course through
the Revolution would justify him. He held now a paltry office,
away with it."** It had no influence upon his conduct. He was
no lover of disunion. He wished Congress to possess the right
of regulating trade, as he thought that a partial and ever- varying
system of regulation by the individual States would not suffice,
and he had proposed to vest that right in the general govern
ment ; but since this new government had grown out of his

"*^ Tyler was appointed one of the Coramissioners of Admiralty in
July, 1776, by the Convention, and performed the duties of his office
under a State appointment until 1781, when the Articles of Confedera
tion took effect, and when his appointment as Judge of Admiralty was
renewed by the Federal government. By the ninth of those articles
the general government received the power '' of establishing rules for
deciding in all cases what captures on land or water shall be legal, and
in what manner prizes taken by land or by the naval forces of the
United States shall be divided or appropriated."

336 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
scheme to effect a desirable object, he lamented that he had put
his hand to it. It never entered his head that we should quit
liberty and throw ourselves into the hands of a great and ener*
getic government. But, if we are to surrender Uberty, we surely
ought to know the terms of the surrender. The new system,
however, as construed by its own friends, does not accord us that
poor privilege. He said he was not prone to jealousy ; that he
would trust his life to the merabers of this House, but he could
not trust the Constitution as it stood. Its unlimited power of
taxation, the supremacy of the laws of the union, and of trea
ties, were, in his opinion, exceedingly dangerous. There was no
responsibility. Who would punish the President? If we turn
out our own ten representatives, what can we do with the re
maining fifty-five ? The wisdom of Great Britain gave each
colony its separate legislature, a separate judiciary, and the ex
clusive right to tax the people. When that country infringed our
rights, we declared war. This system violates all those precious
rights. In 1781 the Assembly were compelled by the difficulties
of the times to provide by law that forty merabers should con
stitute a quorum. That measure has been harshly blamed by
gentleraen ; but if we could not trust forty then, are we to be
blamed for not trusting to len now ? After denouncing the im
policy and the folly of altering or amending a contract when it
was signed and sealed, he concluded by saying that his heart
-was full — that he could never feel peace again till he saw the de
fects ofthe new system reraoved. Our only consolation, he said,
is the virtue of the present age. It is possible that the friends
of this system, when they see their country divided, will reconcile
the people by the introduction of such araendments as shall be
deemed necessary. Were it not for this hope he would despair.
He should say no more, but that he wished his name to be seen
in the yeas and nays, and that it may be known hereafter that his
opposition to this new system arose frora a full persuasion and
conviction of its being dangerous to the liberties of his country.
The fierce and uncorapromising assault of Tyler called up
Adam Stephen. Stephen had risen some days before for the
purpose of rebuking Henry for the course which he had pursued
in debate, but had not gone fully into a discussion of the new
scheme. Nor did he now proceed to examine that system in
detail, but in a highly figurative strain of eloquence advocated

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 337
its ratification without previous araendments. The country, he
said, was in an unhappy condition, and that the members had
been sent here to accept or reject the new systera. That was
their sole duty. Still he would concede future araendments,
and he felt assured that such araendraents would at an early day
be engrafted on the Constitution. He praised the Constitution
as erabodying in just proportions the virtues of the three dif
ferent kinds of government. Let gentlemen remeraber that we
now have no Federal governraent at all. It is gone. It has been
asked where is the genius of Araerica ? He would answer that it
was that genius which convoked the Federal Convention, and
. which sent us here to decide upon the merits of the system framed
by that body. What has now becorae of that genius ? that benefi
cent genius which convoked the Federal Convention? "Yon
der she is," he said, " in mournful attire, her hair dishevelled,
distressed with grief and sorrow, suppUcating our assistance
against gorgons, fiends, and hydras, which are ready to devour
her and carry desolation throughout her country. She bewails
the decay of trade and the neglect of agriculture — her farraers
discouraged, her ship carpenters, blacksraiths, and all other
tradesraen uneraployed. She casts her eyes on these, and de
plores her inability to relieve them. She sees and laments that
the profits of her coraraerce go to foreign States. She further
bewails that all she can raise by taxation is inadequate to her
necessities. She sees religion die by her side, public faith pros
tituted, and private confidence lost between raan and man. Are
the hearts of her citizens so steeled to compassion that they wUl
not go to her relief?" He closed his reraarks by holding up
the raagnanimity of Massachusetts in ratifying the Constitution
in a spirit of union, and by declaring that the question was
whether Virginia should be one of the United States or not.
Stephen was succeeded by a member who had not yet partici
pated in debate, but who, as a representative of the Valley, was
listened to with profound respect. Zachariah Johnston came
from Augusta, a county which had been distinguished by the
valor of its sons in the Indian wars, especiaUy at the battle of
Point Pleasant, "*° and in the Revolution; which had hailed the
"*° One of the Augusta companies that marched to Point Pleasant
reminded one of Frederick the Second's tall regiment. We are told
22

338 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
conduct of the Virginia merabers of the Congress of 1774 in a
patriotic letter still extant, and which had urged the Convention
of May, 1776, before that body had dissolved the allegiance of
the Colony to the crown, to establish an independent govern
raent, and to forra an alliance of the States."*' The position of
the VaUey helped to give a cast to the politics of its inhabitants.
Its waters ran to the east and sought the Atiantic through the
Chesapeake. Its rich lands were thinly settled. The eraigra
tion, which had since the war been winding its way to Kentucky,
passed through its breadth, and not only left none behind, but
was taking off some of its citizens. The people of the Valley
by Dr. Foote "that the company excited admiration for the height of
the raen and their uniformity of stature. In the bar-room of Sampson
Mathews a mark was made upon the walls, which remained until the
tavern was consumed by fire about seventy years after the measure
ment of the company was made The greater part of the men were
six feet two inches in their stockings, and only two were but six feet." —
. Foote' s Sketches of Virginia, second series, 162.
[Sarapson Mathews was a brother of Colonel George Mathews ofthe
Revolution, subsequently Governor of Georgia, etc., and the brothers,
prior to the Revolution, were raerchants and partners under the firm
name of Sampson and George Mathews. — Ed.]
"' The address of the freeholders of Augusta, dated February 22,
1775, to Thomas Lewis and Samuel McDowell, and the letter to the
delegates in Congress are now well known, and may be found in the
American Archives compiled by Mr. Force, but it is a raistake to sup
pose that my allusion in the discourse on the Convention of 1776, in
• the sketch of Thomas Lewis, to a memorial of Augusta had any refer
ence to these papers. They are honorable to the people of Augusta,
but they did not refer to independence. The memorial to which I
allude in the text was presented by Thomas Lewis in the Convention
of May, 1776, and distinctly pointed to the establishment of an inde
pendent State government and a Federal union. (See Journal, page
II.) The only paper which can stand near this, and a noble paper it
is, is the instructions forwarded by the freeholders of Buckingham to
Charies Patteson and John Cabell, then delegates in the same Conven
tion. These instructions were drawn before the resolution of the Con
vention instructing the delegates in Congress to declare independence
had reached Buckingham, and require the delegates from that county
to form an independent government. These instructions were printed
in the Virginia Gazette of June 14, 1776, though written certainly be
fore the middle of the previous month. The paper should be printed
and framed and hung frora every wall in Buckino-ham.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 339
were, therefore, raore disposed to look to the East than to the
West, and no appeal founded on the probable loss of the navi
gation of the Mississippi had any effect upon thera. In fact, the
stoppage of the navigation of that streara was raore likely to
prove a benefit than an injury to thera. It would check eraigra
tion. It would not only keep their own people at horae, but it
would probably collect the emigrants from the East within the
borders of the Valley. On the other hand, the dangers which
the people of the Valley had raost to apprehend, were from the
Itidians, who might not molest their own firesides, but who, if
they made an inroad on the frontiers, must be repelled mainly by
y their arms. Hence a strong and energetic governraent, which
might bring at any raoraent the railitary resources of the Union
to bear upon the Indians, had in itself nothing unpleasing in the
sight of the Valley people. And when we recall the subsequent
Indian carapaigns, during which two well-equipped arraies of
the Federal government, officered by brave and skillful men,
were surprised and slain, it should appear that their fears were
not wholly groundless.
Only one member frora the Valley had spoken ; but Stephen
was an old soldier, and was apt to view political questions raore
in the spirit of a soldier than of a statesman. Thomas Lewis
was a man of large experience in civil affairs ; but it was now
believed that he would support the Constitution."** It was plain
r that the opponents of that paper regarded the Valley delegation
with alarra. It was raainly coraposed of men who had seen hard
military service, and were devoted to Washington ; and a large
' proportion of such men were in favor of a scherae of govern-
ument which their chief had assisted in framing; which bore his
august name on its face ; which was recoraraended tothe Con
gress of the Confederation in an eloquent letter from his pen,
and the adoption of which it was well known that he had used
aU the just influence of his character to secure."*" Nor were the

"** In the discourse on the Virginia Convention of 1776, trusting to
the researches of others instead of consulting the records for myself, I
inadvertently represented Lewis as voting against the ratification of the
Constitution. He voted in favor of it.
"*" Washington enclosed copies of the Constitution to many promi
nent men throughout the Union. See the form of his letter to them,

340 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
tender ties which bound the soldier to Washington severed by
the peace. The society of the Cincinnati had been called into
existence ; its diplomas, admirably printed, for the times, on
parchraent, were seen neatly fraraed, and were to be seen in the
rude cabins of the frontier as well as in the costlier dwellings of
the East ; and of that influential body he was the head. Stuart,
of Greenbriar, who had behaved with gallantry at Point Plea
sant, and who has handed down in his Memoir a description of
the battle, lived on the other side of the raountain ; but by mar
riage, by association, and by similarity of interest, was induced
to sustain the policy of the VaUey people. Stuart, of Augusta,
had left William and Mary CoUege to engage in the war, and,
fighting gallantly at Guilford, had seen his commander, who was
his own father,"™ fall from his horse, pierced with many wounds,
and dragged off the field by the eneray, to be incarcerated in a
prison- hulk on the seaboard. Darke, as well as his colleague,
Ste'^'nen, fortemque Gyan fortemque Cloanthum, the opponents
of the Constitution knew regarded that instrument with affec
tion. Moore, of Rockbridge, who had seen arduous service in
the Northern army, and was present when the flag of St. George
was lowered on the field of Saratoga, had received instructions
to oppose the new system ; but it was believed that he would
disobey thera."' Gabriel Jones was not a soldier, but an able
lawyer ; but his shrewdness in business ; his vast wealth, raade
up of lands and cash ; his hatred of paper raoney, and the ec
centric cast of his character, would insensibly lead hira to ap
prove an energetic and hard-money government.
In this state of apprehension respecting the opinions of the
and the raanly answers of Harrison and Henry, in the Writings of
Washington. Index to the volumes in the XII Volume, Articles, Harri
son and Henry.
""" [Major Alexander Stuart, whose sword, presented by his grandson,
Hon. Alex. H. H. Stuart, is among the relics of the Virginia Historical
Society. — Ed.]
"«' He did disobey them ; but, though warmly opposed by the cele
brated Williara Graham [founder of Liberty Acaderay, now Washing
ton and Lee University], he was returned from Rockbridge at the next
election of the House of Delegates by a large majority. General
Moore was not present at the battle of Point Pleasant, as is repre
sented by Dr. Foote, and in Howe's Virginia.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 841
menelibers frora the Valley, the words of Johnston were closely
watic/;hed. Of the sentiraents held by others, however, he said
notlfliing, but in a few sentences reraoved all doubt about his
owrfi. After presenting sorae remarks appropriately introduced
res*oecting the nature and value of government, and offering a
deslerved compliment to Pendleton, he discussed, concisely and
cleairly the legislative department, and pointed out its fine adap-
tatiijn, in his opinion, to attain the end in view. He approved
the! provisions touching the railitia, which, as the father of a large
fan/lily, he regarded with caution ; saw no danger to religious
frwedora, or fear frora direct taxation, and defended the irregu
larities of the new system by an illustration drawn from the num-
b?,;r of fighting men in the county of Augusta and in the county
of Warwick, and argued that the representation in the House of
Representatives was more equal and raore just than in our own
House of Delegates. He saw full responsibility in the houses
of Congress. Men would not be wicked for nothing, and when
they becarae wicked we would turn thera out. When the mem
bers of Congress knew that their own children would be taxed,
there was sufficient responsibility. He animadverted sternly on
the amendments brought forward by the opponents of the new
scheme. They had left out the raost precious article in the bill
of rights. They feared, he said, that eraancipation would be
brought about. That had begun since the Revolution ; and, do
what you wiU, it will come round. If slavery, he said, were
totally abolished, it would do much good. He now looked forward
to that happy day when discord and dissension shall cease.
Division was a dreadful thing. The Constitution, he admitted,
might have defects ; but where do the annals of the world show
us a perfect constitution ? He closed his reraarks by a novel and
weU-drawn paraUel between the condition of the British people,
who, when they had overthrown raonarchy, were unable to gov
ern theraselves, and had in despair called Charles the Second to
the throne, and the condition of our own country, warning the
members of the fate which might overtake thera, if, by rejecting
the Constitution, they became involved in disunion and anarchy."""
Henry rose to utter his last words. We are told, he said, of
the difficulty of obtaining previous amendments. I contend that

"^"This speech is quite able, and is well reported by Robertson.

342 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
they may be as easily obtained as subsequent amendments.
are told that nine States have adopted this Constitution. I
when the government gets in motion, have they not the ng.
consider our amendments as well as if we had adopted first ?
we remonstrate, raay they not consider our amendments ? I
subsequent amendments, he said, will make our condition wo
They will make us ridiculous. I speak in plain direct langu^tge.
It is extorted from me. I say, if the right of obtaining araejud-
raents is not secured, then our rights are not secured. The p>ro-
, ' position of subsequent amendments is only to lull our apprehen
sions. He dweh upon the surrender of the right of direct
taxation. Taxes and excises are to be laid on us. The peojijle
are to be oppressed. The State Legislature is to be prostrate^.
The power of making treaties is also passed over. Our country
may be dismerabered. He might enumerate many other great
rights that are oraitted in the amendments. I am astonished, he
said, at what my worthy friend (Innes) said — that we have no
right of proposing previous amendments. That honorable gen-
tleman is endowed with great eloquence — eloquence splendid,
magnificent, and sufficient to shake the human mind. He has
brought the whole force of America against this State. He has
shown our weakness in comparison with foreign powers. His
reasoning has no effect upon me. He cannot shake my political
faith. He admits our power over subsequent amendments,
though not over previous ones. If we have the right to depart
from the letter of our commission in one instance, we have in the
other. We shall absolutely escape danger in the one case, but
not in the other. If members are serious in wishing araend
raents, why do they not join us in a manly, firm, and resolute
manner to procure thera? "Ibeg pardon of this House," he
said, "for having taken up raore time than carae to my share,
and I thank thera for the patience and polite attention with which
I have been heard. If I shall be in the rainority, I shall have
those painful sensations which arise frora a conviction of being
overpowered in a good cause. Yet I will be a peaceable citizen.
1 My head, my hand, and my heart shall be ready to retrieve the
loss of liberty, and remove the defects of that system, in a con
stitutional way. I wish not to go to violence, but will await with
hopes that the spirit which predominated in the Revolution is
not yet gone, nor the cause of those who are attached to the

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 343
Revolution yet lost. I shall therefore patiently wait in expecta
tion of seeing that government changed so as to be compatible
with the safety, liberty, and happiness of the people."
Randolph ended that long and brilliant debate in a touching
valedictory. One parting word, he said, he humbly supplicated.
The suffrage which he should give in favor of the Constitution
will be ascribed by raalice to raotives unknown to his breast.
"But, although for every other act of ray life," he said, " I shall
seek refuge in the raercy of God, for this I request his justice
only. Lest, however, sorae future annalist, in the spirit of party
vengeance, deign to raention ray name, let hira recite these
truths : that I went to the Federal Convention with the strongest
affection for the union ; that I acted there in full conformity with
this affection ; that I refused to subscribe because I had, as I
StiU have, objections to the Constitution, and wished a free
enquiry into its raerits ; and that the accession of eight States
reduced our deliberations to the single question of union or no
union." The President now resuraed the chair, and Mathews reported
that the coraraittee had, according to order, again had the Con
stitution under consideration, and had gone through the sarae,
and corae to several resolutions thereupon, which he read in his
place, and afterwards delivered in at the clerk's table, where
they were again read, and are as followeth :
" Whereas, The powers granted under the proposed Consti
tution are the gift of the people, and every power not granted
thereby reraains with them and at their will ; no right therefore, of
any denomination can be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modi
fied by the Congress, by the Senate or House of Representatives
acting in any capacity, by the President, or any department or
officer of the United States, except in those instances in which
power is given by the Constitution for those purposes ; and
among other essential rights, liberty of conscience and of the
press cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified by
any authority of the United States ;
"And Whereas, Any iraperfections which may exist in the
said Constitution ought rather to be examined in the mode pre
scribed therein for obtaining araendments, than by a delay, with
a hope of obtaining previous araendments, to bring the union
into danger ;

344 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
" Resolved, That it is the opinion of this coramittee that the
said Constitution be ratified.
" But in order to relieve the apprehensions of those who may
be solicitous for araendraents, ,
''Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that what
soever araendraents may be deemed necessary, be recoraraended
to the consideration of Congress, which shall first asserable under
the said Constitution, to be acted upon according to the raode
prescribed in the fifth article thereof"
The first resolution proposing a ratification of the Constitution
having been read a second tirae, a raotion was raade to amend
it by substituting in lieu of the resolution and its preamble the
following :
' ' Resolved, That previous to the ratification of the new Con
stitution of government recommended by the late Federal Con
vention, a declaration of rights asserting and securing from en
croachment the great principles of civil and religious liberty, and
the unalienable rights of the people, together with amendments to
the most exceptionable parts of the said Constitution of govern
ment, ought to be referred by this Convention to the other
States in the American confederacy for their consideration."
The vote on this araendraent, which involved the question of
previous or subsequent araendments, was taken without debate,
and resulted in its rejection by a majority of eight votes.""'
'^ The ayes and noes, which were ordered for the first time in a Vir
ginia convention, on motion of Henry seconded by Bland, were 80 to
88, as follows :
Ayes: Edmund Custis, John Pride, Edmund Booker, William Cabell,
Samuel Jordan Cabell, John Trigg, Charles Clay, Henry Lee, of Bour
bon, the Hon. John Jones, Binns Jones, Charles Patteson, David Bell,
Robert Alexander, Edmund Winston, Thomas Read, Benjamin Harri
son, the Hon. John Tyler, David Patteson, Stephen Pankey, junior,
Joseph Michaux, Thomas H. Drew, French Strother, Joel Early, Joseph
Jones, Williara Watkins, Meriwether Sraith, Jaraes Upshaw, John Fow
ler, Samuel Richardson, Joseph Haden, John Early, Thomas Arthur,
John Guerrant, Williara Sampson, Isaac Coles, George Carrington,
Parke Goodall, John Carter Littlepage, Thomas Cooper, John Mann,
Thomas Roane, Holt Richeson, Benjarain Temple, Stevens Thompson
Mason, William White, Jonathan Patteson, Christopher Robinson, John
Logan, Henry Pawling, John Miller, Green Clay, Samuel Hopkins,
Richard Kennon, Thomas Allen, Alexander Robertson, John Evans,
Walter Crockett, Abraham Trigg, Matthew Walton, John Steele, Ro-

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF I788. 345
' The raain question was then put, that the Convention agree
1 with the coramittee on the said first resolution — the resolution of
ratification — and was carried in a house of one hundred and
sixty-eight members by ten votes.""*
bert Williams, John Wilson, of Pottsylvania, Thomas Turpin, Patrick
Henry, Robert Lawson, Edmund Ruffin, Theodrick Bland, William
Grayson, Cuthbert Bullitt, Thomas Carter, Henry Dickenson, Jaraes
Monroe, John Dawson, George Mason, Andrew Buchanan, John How
ell Briggs,' Thomas Edmunds, the Hon. Richard Cary, Samuel Ed
monson, and James Montgomery — 80.
Noes: The Hon. Edmund Pendleton, president, George Parker,
George Nicholas, Wilson Nicholas, Zachariah Johnston, Archibald
Stuart, William Darke, Adara Stephen, Martin McFerran, William Flem
ing, James Taylor, of Caroline, the Hon. Paul Carrington, Miles King,
Worlick Westwood, David Stuart, Charles Simms, Humphrey Mar
shall, Martin Pickett, Humphrey Brooke, John S. Woodcock, Alexan
der White, Warner Lewis, Thomas Smith, George Clendenin, John
Stuart, William Mason, Daniel Fisher, Andrew Woodrow, Ralph Hum
phreys, George Jackson, John Prunty, Isaac Vanmeter, Abel Seymour,
His Excellency Governor Randolph, John Marshall, Nathaniel Burwell,
Robert Andrews, James Johnson, Robert Breckenridge, Rice Bullock,
Williara Fleet, Burdet Ashton, William Thornton, James Gordon, of
Lancaster, Henry Towles, Levin Powell, Wm. O. Callis, Ralph Worm-
ley, junior, Francis Corbin, William McClerry, Wills Riddick, Soloraon
Shepherd, William Clayton, Burwell Bassett, James Webb, Jaraes Tay
lor, of Norfolk, John Stringer, Littleton Eyre, Walter Jones, Thomas
Gaskins, Archibald Wood, Ebenezer Zane, James Madison, James Gor
don, of Orange, William Ronald, Anthony Waike, Thomas Walke,
Benj. Wilson, John Wilson, of Randolph, Walker Tomlin, William
Peachy, William McKee, Andrew Moore, Thoraas Lewis, Gabriel Jones,
Jacob Rinker, John Williams, Benj. Blunt, Samuel Kello, John Hart
well Cocke. John Allen, Cole Digges. Henry Lee, of Westmoreland,
Bushrod Washington, the Hon. John Blair, the Hon. George Wythe,
James Innes, and Thomas Mathews — 88.
""The ayes and noes, ordered on motion of George Mason, seconded
by Henry, were ayes 89, noes 79, as follows:
Ayes: The Hon. Edmund Pendleton, president, George Parker,
George Nicholas, Wilson Nicholas, Zach. Johnston, A. Stuart, W. Darke,
A. Stephen, M. McFerran, W. Fleming, Jas. Taylor, of Caroline, the
Hon. P. Carrington, D. Patteson, M. King, W. Westwood, D.Stuart, C.
Simms, H. Marshall, M. Pickett, H. Brooke, J. S. Woodcock, A. White,
W Lewis, T Smith, G. Clendenin, J Stuart, W. Mason, D. Fisher, A.
Woodrow, R. Humphreys, G. Jackson, John Prunty, I. Vanmeter, A.
Seymour, His Excellency Governor Randolph, J. Marshall, N. Burwell,
R.Andrews, J. Johnson, R. Breckenridge, Rice Bullock, W Fleet, B.

346 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
When the vote was announced from the chair, and when it
appeared that the long and arduous contest had been at last
decided in favor of the new system, there was no show of
triumph or exultation on the part of its friends. A great victory
had been achieved by them ; but it was impossible to say that
the Constitution was yet safe. It was carried by a meagre
majority ; and it was carried, it was believed by those who had
the control of the Assembly, in plain opposition to the wishes of
the people; the Legislature might yet interpose obstacles to the
organization of the government, and raight virtually annul, for
sorae time at least, the ratification which had been so dearly won.
The vote which we shall soon record, attests in the strongest
manner the desire for conciliation which governed the conduct
of the friends of the Constitution.
The second resolution having been amended by striking out
the preamble, was then agreed to by a silent vote.""^
Ashton, W. Thornton, J. Gordon, of Lancaster, H. Towles, L. Powell,
W. O. Callis, R. Wormeley, junior, F. Corbin, Wil. McClerry, W. Rid
dick, S. Shepherd, W. Clayton, B. Bassett, J. Webb, J. Taylor, of Norfolk,
J. Stringer, L. Eyre, W. Jones, T. Gaskins, A. Woods, E. Zane, James
Madison, J. Gordon, of Orange, W. Ronald, A. Walke, T. Walke, B.
Wilson, J. Wilson, of Randolph, W. Tomlin, W. Peachy, W. McKee, A.
Moore, T. Lewis, G. Jones, J Rinker, J. Williaras, B. Blunt, S. Kello, J. H.
Cocke, J. Allen, C. Digges, H. Lee, of Westmoreland, B Washington,
the Hon. J. Blair, the Hon. G. Wythe, J. Innes, and T. Mathews— 89.
Noes: E Custis, J. Pride, E. Booker, W. Cabell, S. J. Cabell, J. Trigg,
C. Clay, H. Lee, of Bourbon, the Hon. J. Jones, B. Jones, C. Patteson, D.
Bell, R. Alexander, E. Winston, T. Read, B. Harrison, the Hon. J.Tyler,
S. Pankey, Jr., J. Michaux, T. H. Drew, F. Strother, Joel Eariy, J. Jones,
W. Watkins, M. Smith, J. Upshaw, J. Fowler, S. Richardson, J. Haden.
John Eariy, T. Arthur, J. Guerrant, W. Sampson, I. Coles, G. Carring
ton, P. Goodall, J. C. Littlepage, T. Cooper, J. Mann, T. Roane, H. Riche
son, B. Temple, S. T. Mason, W. White, Jona. Patteson, C. Robertson,
J. Logan, H. Pawling, J. Miller, G. Clay, S. Hopkins, R. Kennon, T.
Allen, A. Robertson, J. Evans, W. Crockett, A. Trigg, M. Walton, J.
Steele, R. Williams, John Wilson, of Pottsylvania, F. Turpin, P. Henry,
R. Lawson, E. Ruffin, T. Bland, W. Grayson, C. Bullitt, T. Carter, H.'
Dickenson, James Monroe, J. Dawson, Geo. Mason, A. Buchanan, J. H.
Briggs,T. Edmunds, the Hon. Richard Cary, S. Edmonson, and James
Montgomery — 79.
""» The vote on striking out the first resolution, and inserting the
amendment in its stead, was the test vote, and was lost by eight votes.
A change, therefore, of four of the votes of the majority would have

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 347
A committee was then appointed to prepare and report a form
of ratification, and Randolph, George Nicholas, Madison, Mar
shall, and Corbin were placed upon it.""" A comraittee was also
appointed " to prepare and repiort such amendments as shall by
them be deemed necessary to be recommended in pursuance of
the second resolution," and consisted of Wythe, Harrison,
Mathews, Henry, Randolph, George Mason, Nicholas, Grayson,
Madison, Tyler, Marshall, Monroe, Ronald, Bland, Meriwether
Smith, Paul Carrington, Innes, Hopkins, John Blair, and Simras.
Randolph iraraediately reported a form of ratification, which
was read and agreed to without debate ; and is as follows :
"We, the Delegates of the People of Virginia, duly elected in
pursuance of a recommendation from the General Assembly, and
now met in Convention, having fully and freely investigated and
discussed the proceedings of the Federal Convention, and being
prepared, as well as the raost raature deliberation hath enabled
us, to decide thereon. Do, in the narae and in the behalf of the
People of Virginia, declare and raake known, that the powers
granted under the Constitution being derived frora the People
made a tie, and a single additional vote would have settled the fate of
the Constitution for that time. Had Moore and McKee obeyed their
instructions, and had Stuart, of Augusta, reraained at home at the time
of the Botetourt election, instead of using his influence effectually on
the ground in favor of the Constitution, and of causing the Botetourt
candidates to pledge themselves to sustain that system ; and had Paul
Carrington voted with his colleague, Read, in favor of it, those five
votes would have been forthcoming. That some of the delegates
voted in opposition to the wishes of their constituents was well known
at the time.
""" This was an able committee, but a grave objection exists against
it that it did not contain the name of an opponent of the Constitution.
I am reminded by the names of Madison and Marshall of the fact that
those two gentiemen were appointed to a similar committee in a similar
body forty years afterwards. On the adjournraent of that body, I walked
home to our lodgings in the Eagle Tavern with the president, the late
Philip Pendleton Barbour, and by the way asked him if he had been in
the chair at a joint session ofthe Senate and House of Representatives,
could he have selected such a committee, when he answered without
hesitation, " No, nor from the Union at large." That comraittee con
sisted of Madison, Marshall, Tazewell, Doddridge, Leigh, Johnson, and
Cooke; one from the tidewater country, two from above tide, two
from the Valley, and one from the extreme west.

348 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
of the United States, may be resumed by them whensoever the
same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that
every power not granted thereby remains with them, and at their
wiU ; that therefore, no right of any denomination can be can
celled, abridged, restrained, or raodified by the Congress, by the
Senate or House of Representatives acting in any capacity, by
the President, or any department, or officer of the United States,
except in those instances in which power is given by the Con
stitution for those purposes ; and that araong other essential
rights, the liberty of conscience and of the press cannot be can-
ceUed, abridged, restrained, or modified, by any authority of the
United States.
"With these impressions, with a solemn appeal to the searcher
of hearts for the purity of our intentions, and under the convic
tion that whatsoever imperfections may exist in the Constitution,
ought rather to be exarained in the raode prescribed therein,
than to bring the Union into danger by a delay, with a hope of
obtaining amendments previous to the ratification :
"We, the said Delegates, in the name and in behalf of the
People of Virginia, do, by these presents, assent to, and ratify
the Constitution, recommended on the seventeenth day of Sep
tember, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, by the
Federal Convention for the government of the United States,
hereby announcing to all those whom it may concern, that the
said Constitution is binding upon the said People, according to
an authentic copy hereto annexed, in the words following:"""'
(See the Constitution in the Appendix.)
The Convention then ordered two fair copies of the form of
ratification and of the Constitution to be engrossed forthwith,
and adjourned to the next day at twelve o'clock.

™ The form of ratification has been usually attributed to the pen of
Madison; but I ara corapeUed to give up this opinion, which was com
mon thirty years ago. It is but an enlargeraent of the preamble ofifered
by Wythe, and doubtless from internal evidence written by him. That
preamble is not such as in my opinion Madison or Randolph would
have drawn, and is very properiy amended in a vital part in the form
of ratification. As Randolph was chairman of the committee which
reported the form, and was a critical writer, and as the form was
raainly an enlargement of the preamble presented by Wythe, the safer
conjecture is that its merit belongs jointiy to Randolph and Wythe.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 349
On Thursday, the twenty-sixth day of June, at twelve o'clock,
the Convention met, and, one copy only of the forra of ratifica
tion having as yet been transcribed, it was read by the clerk, was
signed by the president on behalf of the Convention, ahd was
ordered " to be transraitted by the president to the United States
in Congress asserabled."""" As the Coraraittee on Araendraents
had not yet completed its schedule, the House, after making cer
tain allowances to its officers for services rendered during the
session, adjourned until the next day at ten o'clock.""'
On Friday, the twenty-seventh day of June, the Convention
met for the last time. The session, which had lasted during
twenty-five eventful days, was to close with the adjournment of
that day. Nor was the public anxiety less intense than at an
earlier stage of the proceedings. The hall of the Acaderay was
crowded. Several of the raerabers of the select coraraittee, who
happened to be late, could with difficulty force their way to their
seats. It was certain that, unless the proposed amendments were
acceptable to the minority, the worst results were yet to be ap
prehended. The members of that rainority, who, in a house of
¦one hundred and seventy merabers, were only ten less than the
majority, and who, in all those qualities necessary for the guid
ance of men in a great crisis, were certainly not inferior to their
opponents, raight proceed to organize, and to digest a plan of
operations, the effect of which would certainly be, in the first in
stance, to prevent all participation by Virginia in setting up the
new government, and might ultiraately end in the organization
of a Southern confederacy."'" Fortunately the friends of the
""* That is, to the Congress ofthe Confederation, which held its sit
tings in New York, and "which determined on the 13th of September,
1788, under the resolutions of the General Convention, that the Con
stitution had been established, and that it should go into operation on
the first Wednesday of March (the fourth), 1789."
"' The president was allowed forty shillings per day, Virginia cur
rency, for his pay ; the secretary, forty pounds in full ; the chaplain,
thirty pounds; the sergeant, twenty-four pounds; each door-keeper,
fifteen pounds.
"'" It is proper to remind the reader, what has been said before, that
our greatest statesmen, to their dying day, believed that they had been
trapped in calling the general Federal Convention, and that they dis
trusted "the military gentiemen, "'as George Mason called them, into

350 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
Constitution saw the full extent of the conjuncture, and deter
rained, by a manly patriotism, and by a spirit of concession as
rare as it was honorable, to avert the impending danger.
When Pendleton took the chair the clerk proceeded to read the
second engrossed copy of the form of ratification, which was
signed by the president. It was then ordered that the form
should be deposited in the archives of the General Assembly.
Wythe now rose and presented the amendments proposed by the
select committee to be raade to the Constitution in the mode pre
scribed by that instrument. Those araendraents consisted of a
Declaration of Rights, in twenty articles nearly similar to those
prefixed to the Constitution of the State, and a series of araend
raents proper, also in twenty articles, to be added to the body of
the Federal Constitution. The report of the coramittee ended
in these wqrds : " And the Convention do, in the name and be
half of the people of this Coraraonwealth, enjoin it upon their
representatives in Congress to exert all their influence, and use
all reasonable and legal raethods to obtain a ratification of the
foregoing alterations and provisions in the raanner provided by
the fifth article of the said Constitution ; and in all congressional
laws to be passed in the raeantirae, to conforra to the spirit of
these araendraents as far as the said Constitution will adrait."
The Declaration of Rights was then adopted without a divi
sion. The araendments proper were read, and a motion was
raade to araend thera by striking out the third article in these
words : " When Congress shall lay direct taxes or excises, they
shall immediately inform the executive power of each State, of
the quota of such State according to the census herein directed,
which is proposed to be thereby raised ; and if the Legislature
of any State shall pass a law which shall be effectual for raising
such quota at the time required by Congress, the taxes and ex
cises laid by Congress shall not be collected in such State.' '
whose hands they feared the new governraent would be committed.
All had unliraited confidence in the integrity of Washington ; but they
had known him, as yet, as a silent member by their sides in the House
of Burgesses, as an Indian fighter, and as the great commander of the
armies during the Revolution, but never as a statesman. But, how
ever eminent he might be in every respect, he must lean mainly on the
friends ofthe Constitution, who were the greatest soldiers of their day.
Grayson expressed the general opinion when he said : " We have no
fear of tyranny while he lives."

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 351
This araendraent, which it was proposed to strike out, was, in
the estiraation of the opponents of the Constitution, the most
important of all. It struck at the root of the new Federal polity.
Of that polity the distinguishing characteristic was that it was
complete in itself and by itself in effectuating all measures within
its scope; especially, that it was free to lay and collect taxes of its
own authority and at its own discretion. This was deeraed a car
dinal virtue by its friends, and a cardinal vice by its opponents.
To strike this feature from the Constitution was substantially to
fall back upon requisitions. What passed in the select com
mittee is not known, and, unless it may be gleaned from stray
letters written at the tirae, which may hereafter be cast up, will
remain a secret ; but it can hardly be doubted that the adoption
of this araendraent by the coraraittee was raade by Henry and
Mason an indispensable prelirainary of a peaceful adjustment.
But it raust also be sanctioned by the House ; otherwise its adop
tion by the coraraittee would be too palpable a farce to irapose on
two such statesraen. Accordingly, the motion to strike it out failed
by twenty votes. Pendletori was the raost prorainent opponent
who gave way. He was followed by Paul Carrington. The gal
lant and patriotic Fleraing, who carried to his grave a troublesome
wound which he received in the thickest of the fight at Point
Pleasant, followed the example of Carrington. Eight other
members magnanimously followed Fleming, and ten votes taken
from one scale and added to the other make up the decisive
number. Thus, by the most decisive vote given during the ses
sion the Convention solemnly pledged itself to amend the power
of direct taxation, and virtually to faUback upon requisitions.""
"" The ayes and noes were called by Nicholas, seconded by Harri
son, and were ayes, 65 ; noes, 85, as follows :
Ayes: G. Parker, G. Nicholas, W. Nicholas, Z. Johnston, A. Stuart,
W. Dark, A. Stephen, M. McFerran, Jaraes Taylor, of Caroline, D.
Stuart, C. Simms, H. Marshall, M. Pickett, H. Brooke, J. S. Woodcock,
A. White, W. Lewis, T. Smith, fohn Stuart, D. Fisher, A. Woodrow,
G. Jackson, J. Prunty, A. Seymour, His Excellency Governor Ran
dolph, John Marshall, N. Burwell, R. Andrews, James Johnson (who
was the latest survivor of the Convention, died at his residence in Isle
of Wight county on the i6th day of August, 1845, aged ninety-nine
years). R. Bullock, B. Ashton, W. Thornton, H. Towles, L. Powell, W.
O. Callis, R. Wormeley, Francis Corbin, W. McClerry, James Webb,
James Taylor, of Norfolk, J. Stringer, L. Eyre, W. Jones, T. Gaskins,

352 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788.
The raain question on concurring in the araendments proposed
by the comraittee was then put, and decided in the affirraative
without a division. The secretary was ordered to engross the
amendments on parchment, to be signed by the president, and
to transmit the same, with the ratification of the Federal Consti
tution, to the United States in Congress asserabled. A fair en
grossed copy of the forra of ratification, with the proposed
amendments, was ordered to be signed by the president, and to
be forwarded to the executive of each State in the Union. It
was further ordered that the proceedings of the body be recorded
in a well-bound book, and, when signed by the president and
secretary, to be deposited in the archives of the Council of State.
The printer was ordered to transmit fifty copies of the form of
ratification," with the araendraents, to each county in the State.
Sorae accounts of the printer and of the carpenters, who had
fitted up the hall of the Acaderay, were referred to the auditor
for settleraent, and the business of the Convention was done.
A. Woods, James Madison, J. Gordon, of Orange, W. Ronald, T.
Walke, Anthony Walke. Benjamin Wilson, John Wilson, of Randolph,
W. Peachey, Andrew Moore, T. Lewis, G. Jones, J. Rinker, J. Williams,
Benjamin Blunt, S. Kello, J. Allen, Cole Digges, B. Washington, the
Hon. George Wythe, and Thomas Mathews — 65.
Noes: The Hon. Edmund Pendleton, president, E. Custis, J. Pride,
William Cabell, S. J. Cabell, J. Trigg, C. Clay, William Fleming, Henry
Lee, of Bourbon, John Jones, B. Jones, C. Patteson, D. Bell, R. Alex
ander, E. Winston, Thomas Read, the Hon. Paul Carrington, Benjamin
Harrison, the Hon. John Tyler, D. Patteson, S. Pankey, junior, Joseph
Michaux, French Strother, Joseph Jones, Miles King, J. Haden, John
Eariy, T. Arthur, J. Guerrant, W. Sampson, Isaac Coles, George Car
rington, Parke Goodall, John C. Littlepage, Thomas Cooper, W. Fleet,
Thoraas Roane, Holt Richeson, B. Temple, James Gordon, of Lancas
ter, Stevens Thompson Mason, W. White, Jona. Patteson, J. Logan,
H. Pawling, John Miller, Green Claf, S. Hopkins, R. Kennon, Thoraas
Allen, A. Robertson, Walter Crockett, Abraham Trigg, Solomon Shep
herd, W. Clayton, Burwell Bassett, M. Walton, John Steele, R. Wil
liams, John Wilson, of Pittsylvania, T. Turpin, Patrick Henry, Edmund
Ruffin, Theodoric Bland, Williara Grayson, C. Bullitt, W. Tomlin, W.
McKee, Thoraas Carter, H. Dickenson, Jaraes Monroe, J. Dawson,
George Mason, A. Buchanan, John Hartwell Cocke, J. H. Briggs,
Thomas Edmunds, the Hon. Richard Cary, S. Edmonson, and J. Mont
gomery— 85.
This list of names deserves to be well studied.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1 788. 353
And now the last scene was at hand. Sorae member, whose
name has not come down to us, offered a resolution expressive
of the sense entertained by the Convention of the dignity, the
impartiality, and the ability displayed by Pendleton in the chair.
It was received with unaniraous assent. A motion to adjourn
sine die was then made and carried. Then that old man, who
had hitherto kept his seat when putting a question to the House,
was seen to rise slowly frora the chair ; and while he was adjust
ing hiraself on his crutches, the raerabers on the farthest benches
crept quietly into the body of the hall. They were unwilling to
lose any of the last words of an erainent raan whose narae had
been honored by their fathers and by their grandfathers ; whose
skUl in debate was unrivalled, and who was about to close, on a
soleran occasion aptly designed for such an event, a parliaraentary
career the longest and raost brilliant in our annals. His first
words were alraost inaudible to those nearest hira. He said "he
felt grateful to the House for the mark of respect which they had
just shown hira. He was conscious that his infirraities had pre
vented hira from discharging the duties of the chair satisfactory
to himself and he therefore regarded the expression of the good
will of his associates with the more grateful and the more tender
sensibility. He knew that he was now uttering the last words
that he should ever address to the representatives of the people.
His own days were nearly spent, and whatever might be the
success or failure of the new government, he would hardly live
to see it. But his whole heart was with his country. She had
overlooked his failings and had honored him far beyond his
deserts, and every new mark of her esteera had been to hira a
fresh raeraorial of his duty to serve her faithfully. The present
scene would recall to others, as it did to hira, a sirailar one which
occurred twelve years ago. The Convention had then declared
independence, and the merabers who had cheerfully incurred the
risks of a war with a powerful nation, were about to depart to
sustain their country by their counsels and by their valor. He
saw some of those raembers before him. A kind Providence
had blessed them beyond their hopes. They had gained their
Uberty, and their country was placed among the nations of the
earth. They had acquired a territory nearly as large as the con
tinent of Europe. That territory connected them with two great
warlike and maritime nations, whose power was forraidable and

354 VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
whose friendship was at least doubtful. The defects of the Con
federation were generally admitted, and the Constitution, which
has been ratified by us, is designed to take its place. This Con
vention was called to consider it.
" Heretofore our Conventions had met in the midst of a raging
war. Now all was peace. There was no eneray within our bor
ders to intiraidate or annoy us. The Constitution was in some
important respects defective. The numerous amendments pro
posed by the Convention were designed to point out those de
fects, and to remove them. The raembers had perforraed their
duty with the strictest fidelity, and he was pleased to see so raany
young, eloquent, and patriotic men ready to take the places of
those who must soon disappear. He beseeched gentlemen who
had acquitted theraselves with a reputation that would not be lost
to posterity, to forget the heats of discussion, and reraeraber that
each had only done what he deeraed to be his duty to his coun
try. Let us raake allowances for the workings of a new system.
It is the Constitution of our country. If our hopes should be
disappointed, and should the government turn out badly, the
remedy was in our own hands. Virginia gave, and Virginia would
take away. But all radical changes in governments should be
made with caution and deliberation. We could know the present,
but the future was full of uncertainties. The best government was
not perfect, and even in a government that has serious defects,
the people might enjoy, by a prudent and temperate administra
tion, a large share of happiness and prosperity. But it was his
solemn conviction that a close and firm union was essential to the
safety, the independence, and the happiness of all the States, and
with his latest breath he would conjure his countrymen to keep
this' cardinal object steadily in view. We are brothers ; we are
Virginians. Our common object is the good of our country.
Let us breathe peace and hope to the people. Let our rivalry be
who can serve his country with the greatest zeal ; and the future
would be fortunate and glorious. His last prayer should be for
his country, that Providence might guide and guard her for years
and ages to come. If ever a nation had cause for thankfulness
to Heaven, that nation was ours. As for himself, if any unpleas
ant incident had occurred in debate between hira and any raem
ber, he hoped it would be forgotten and forgiven ; and he tendered
to all the tribute of his most grateful and affectionate respect.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788. 355
One duty alone reraained to be perforraed, and he now pro
nounced the adjournment of the Convention without day."
While Pendleton was speaking, we are told that the House was
in tears. Members who had mixed in the fierce milee, and who
had uttered the wUdest imprecations on the Constitution, as they
listened to his calra, raonitory voice, could not restrain their emo
tions. Old raen, who had heard his parting benediction twelve
years before to the Convention which declared independence, and
called to mind his manly presence and the clear silver tones of a
voice now tremulous and faint from infirraity and age, bowed
' their heads between their hands and wept freely. But in the
midst of weeping the deep blue eye of Pendleton was undimraed.
When he concluded his speech he descended frora the chair, and,
taking his seat on one of the nearest benches, he bade adieu to
the merabers individually, who crowded around hira to press a
parting salutation. The warmest opponents were seen to ex
change parting regards with each other. For it was a peculiar
and noble characteristic of our fathers, when the contest was de
cided, to forgive and forget personal collisions, and to unite heart
and hand in the common cause. On the breaking up of the
House many members ordered their horses, and were before sun
set some miles on their way homeward ; and before the close of
another day all had disappeared ; and there was no object to re
mind the citizen of Richmond, as at nightfall through deserted
streets he sought his home, that the members of one of the most
j iUustrious asserablies that ever raet on the American continent
I had finished their deliberations, had discharged the high trust
\ confided to them > by their country, and had again mingled with
the mass of the people.

APPENDIX

As a specimen of the complaints about the state of trade in
1785, I annex, with sorae comments upon it, an extract from a
letter of Mr. Madison, dated Orange C. H., July 7, 1785, and
addressed to R. H. Lee, which may be seen in Mr. Rives' His
tory of the Life and Times of Madiso?i, Vol. II, 47, note :
" What makes the British raonopoly the raore mortifying is
the abuse which they make of it. Not only the private planters,
who have resumed the practice of shipping their own tobacco,
but raany of the raerchants, particularly the natives of the coun
try, who have no connections with Great Britain, have received
accounts of sales this season which carry the raost visible and
sharaeful frauds in every article. In every point of view, indeed,
the trade of the country is in a raost deplorable condition.
"A coraparison of current prices here with those in the
Northern States, either at this time or at any time since the
peace, will show that the loss direct on our produce, and indirect
on our imports, is not less than fifty per cent. Till very lately
the price of one staple has been down at 32s. and 33s. on James
river, at 28s. on Rappahannock river tobacco. During the same
period the former was selling in Philadelphia, and I suppose in
other Northern ports, at 44s. of this currency, and the latter in
proportion, though it cannot be denied that tobacco in the
Northern ports is intrinsically worth less than it is here, being
at the same distance from the ultimate market, and burthened
with the freight from this to the other States. The price of
merchandise here is, at least, as much above, as that of tobacco
is below, the Northern standard."
The British monopoly spoken of in the letter was nothing
more or less than that England, having more ships than any

358 APPENDIX.
Other nation, sent raore of thera to Virginia than any other
nation did. Had France, or Spain, or Holland, or any other
country, been fortunate enough to own raore ships than its
neighbor, the sarae ground of coraplaint would have existed ;
or had all the foreign shipping that entered our ports been
equally divided araong foreign powers, the ground of coraplaint
would have been the same. The ship-carpenters, and the mer
chants who owned home-built ships, were dissatisfied at the
state of things, and called for reUef And supposing, for the
sake of argument, it would have been expedient to burden for
eign vessels with taxes, the Assembly of Virginia had full au
thority to administer the proposed relief which was done at the
session following the date of the letter by the passage of an act
imposing a tax on British shipping. And if it be alleged that,
if Virginia imposed a tax, Maryland would adrait the vessel
taxed duty-free, it is conclusive to say that Virginia, with the
assent of Congress, which followed as a matter of course, could
form any agreement she pleased with Maryland, and did take effi
cient measures for so doing at the session of 1785. Thus far
all that is complained of by Mr. Madison could be accomplished
by an ordinary Act of Assembly, and required no change in the
organic law.
The next ground of complaint is, that the foreign commission
merchants made fraudulent returns to the planter ; a very bad
thing indeed, and justified a change of agents ; but surely such
a change could be made without overturning the government of
the Confederation. Indeed, the Philadelphians, as it appears
from the last sentence ofthe letter, did find honest agents abroad,
we may suppose, if it be true, as alleged, that they sold their
imported articles so much lower than they could be sold on James
river. What the Northern merchant could do under the exist
ing Confederation, we could do as well.
The second paragraph, which relates to current prices of to
bacco in Philadelphia and in the Virginia waters, will strike every
man of business as representing an abnormal state of trade, which
is frequently seen under every systera of laws. The obvious ex
planation is, that Philadelphia was not a tobacco market, and that
what little tobacco she had was mainly designed to make up the
compleraent of assorted cargoes, and would naturaUy coramand
under such circumstances a higher price than the article was sell-

APPENDIX. 859
ing for several hundred miles off. If the Philadelphia market
had been stable at the prices naraed in the letter, and if the Vir
ginia planter lost fifty per cent, of his crop and of his return
purchases by sending it to England, it is plain that the whole to
bacco crop of Virginia would have been at the foot of Market-
street wharf in that city in less than six weeks frora the time when
the intelligence reached James river ; for vessels were abundant,
according to the letter itself The saving in tirae, in freight, and
in foreign purchases, would have put the Northern raarket ahead
of all the world. Such inequalities, then, could have been rerae
died by a little raanageraent and common sense alone, without
any change in the Federal alliances of Virginia.
But the great value of this letter, which has been selected from
the files of Mr. Madison to show the desperate condition of
affairs under the government of the Confederation, and to justify
that statesman in his policy of depriving his native State of the
invaluable right of regulating her own trade, consists in affording
an unconscious, but not the less remarkable, proof of the commer
cial prosperity of Virginia at the time in question. Let it be re
membered that the treaty with Great Britain, that ended the war
of the Revolution, was not signed at Paris till the 3d day of Sep
teraber, 1783, and was not ratified by Congress until the 14th
day of January, 1784; and that this letter of Mr. Madison was
written in Julv, 1785 ; and that, besides the large trade and cora
raerce of Norfolk, which we know from other sources, it repre
sents the planters shipping from their own estates their abundant
agricultural products in the ships of a single nation which were
so numerous as to raonopoUze the trade and fix what rates they
pleased; and that all this trade and coramerce was the growth of
less than eighteen raonths, and we have before us, under all the
circumstances of the case, a picture of prosperity almost without
a parallel. And this picture is heightened by the purport of
three petitions, which are given on the same pages which con
tain the above letter. These petitions corae from Norfolk, Ports
mouth and Suffolk. That from Norfolk is in the following words :
"That the prohibition laid by Great Britain on the trade to the
West Indies, and the almost total monopoly of the other branches
of trade by foreigners, has produced great distress and much
injury to the; trade of the Coraraonwealth ; that the rapid de
crease of Araerican bottoras, the total stop to ship-building and

360 APPENDIX.
to the nursery of Araerican seamen occasioned thereby, threaten
the most alarming consequences unless tiraely avoided by the
wisdora of the Legislature."
The object of this petition, which coraes from the ship-carpen
ters and the raerchants who built vessels, is the laying of a tax
on the ships of all countries trading to our ports to favor their
own private gain, which, so far as that private gain is the public
gain, and no farther, is coramendable ; and in asking for a tax on
foreign tonnage, they sought what the Asserably could grant
raost effectually if it pleased, and was granted at the said session
of 1785, no change in the Federal sybtera being necessary for
such a purpose. As for the prohibition on the West India trade,
which only means that Great Britain would not allow our vessels,
any more than the vessels of other nations, to engage in what she
regards as her coasting trade, the petition, whether presented in
1785 or 1826, would have been beyond the power of any nation
under any possible forra of government to have granted. Great
Britain deterrained to be the carrier of the productions of her
Colonies in her own bottoms ; but — and this is one of the
bright signs of those times — all those productions were brought
to our ports by her vessels, which received in return the products
of our own industry, and the result was a most profitable busi
ness that greatly enhanced our prosperity. The complaint of
the Norfolk merchants was that, in addition to the gains resulting
from such a commerce, they could not secure the profits of the
carrying trade. They sucked the orange dry, and muttered that
the producer of the orange kept the rind to himself
The petitioners further urged as a grievance that, besides their
inabiUty to substitute their own vessels for the vessels owned by
the West Indians who brought their valuable cargoes to Norfolk,
and took back our produce in return, "there was an alraost
total monopoly of other branches of trade hy foreigners." The
history of the case is this : Norfolk had been reduced to ashes
at the beginning of the war, and the whole population sent into
the interior. It was so effectuaUy destroyed by the British and
by our own people that it was a boast that in that once flourish
ing town a shed could not be found to shelter a cow. Let it be
remembered that among the merchants and traders of the town
before it was burned, comparatively few were native Virginians,
who regarded mercantUe employraents with dislike. As soon

APPENDIX. 361
as the war was over, hundreds of enterprising business men of
every class and of every country flocked to the town, and in a
short time restored it to a degree of prosperity which it had
never known before. These men from abroad brought with
them a capital in raoney as well as skill, and the business natu
rally fell into their hands. They becarae good citizens, married
good Virginia wives, and the blood of one who carae to Virginia
from Scotland in 1783, and helped to build up the prosperity of
that era, flovys in the veins of him who traces these lines. I only
wish we had the same ground of complaint now that the Nor
folk petitioners had then.
The Norfolk petition further urges some relief against " the
decrease of Araerican bottoras." Then the business raen of
that day had a choice between home and foreign bottoras, and
preferred the foreign. Now, according to the received laws of
free trade, for which the South has ever been such an advocate,
that preference was just; as to place the horae bottoras on a
level with the foreign, by legislation, would be to pay the horae
ship-owner a bounty not only equal to the difference in the
charge of freight, but to the costs of collection. But, whatever
we raay think of the doctrines of free trade, the Asserably was
competent to apply the remedy, and no organic change was
needed on this account. And let it be kept in mind that, as
Norfolk was a wUderness, destitute of people, capital, and skill
at the close of the war, the men, the capital, and the skill which
built these home-made vessels, which were said to be diminish
ing, were all the result of a space of tirae not exceeding eighteen
months. The .Portsmouth memorial, quoted by Mr. Rives, is as follows:
The petitioners affirm that "the present deplorable state of
trade, occasioned by the restrictions and policy of the British
acts of navigation, has caused great and general distress, and
threatens total ruin and decay to the several branches of cora
raerce;" and we add frora the Journal ofthe House of Delegates
(October session of 1785, page 24,) the raode of relief desired
by the petitioners, which is " that certain restrictive acts may be
imposed on the British trade, or other more adequate and effec
tual raeasures adopted for relief therein." Here we have the
reraedy proposed by the petitioners, which is to tax foreign ton
nage to such a degree as either to drive it from our ports or to

362 APPENDIX.
enable thera to build ships to compete with it. And Suffolk
adds " that even the coasting trade and inland navigation had
faUen into the hands of foreigners." What we would call atten
tion to is the fact that these petitioners fully believed that the
Assembly possessed the power, as it assuredly did, to grant the
relief desired, and professed no wish for a change in our federal
system. As to a business view of the matter, when we recall the
fact that, on the declaration of peace, we had hardly a canoe to
launch on the waters of the Elizabeth, and not a solitary dollar
in specie, and that our merchants had accumulated so eariy a
moneyed capital which inspired them with the hopes of driving aU
foreign bottoms from our waters — and all this in the space of
eighteen months — we see in all these raeraorials from our sea
ports, not the proofs of a decreasing trade, as some would bave
us believe, but the most infallible indications of comraercial
success. Of all the men of his times, Mr. Madison possessed that caste
of intellect best adapted for the discussions of commerce and
political economy. But his sphere of personal observation was
very limited. He never visited Petersburg, I believe ; and, as
well as I could learn from his writings, from the recollections of
his intimate friends, and from conversations which I have had
with him from time to time about Norfolk, he never visited our
seaport in the interval between 1783 and 1788, if ever. He lived
far beyond the scent of salt water in Orange, which was then as
distant from Norfolk, if we measure distance by the tirae of ordi
nary travel, as Quebec or New Orleans is now. The only breath
of sea air he probably ever drew was in crossing frora the Jersey
shore to New York to take his seat in Congress. He served but
a single session in our Assembly, the October session of 1776,
when he was twenty-five, and the next deliberative body of which
he was a meraber was Congress, in which he remained the consti
tutional term of three years, and to which he was returned as
soon as he was eligible. He was thus led to regard the Union
as his patriotic stand-point — and a glorious stand-point it was —
and not the State of Virginia, one more glorious still ; and his
occasional appearances in the Assembly, in which he rendered
invaluable service to his country, but in which on federal topics
he was almost powerless, did not conquer his central preposses
sions. But in or out of Congress, a truer patriot never lived.

APPENDIX. • 363

CONSTITUTION.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the
comraon defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Bles
sings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and estab
lish this Constitution for the United States of America.
ARTICLE I.
Section I. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a
Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and
House of Representatives.
Section II. i. The House of Representatives shall be composed of
members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States,
and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite
for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
2. No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained
to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the
United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of
that State in which he shall be chosen.
3. Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned araong the
several. States which may be included within this Union, according to
their respective Numbers, which shall be deterrained by adding to the
whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a
Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all
other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three
Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and
within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they
shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed
one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one
Representative ; and until such enumeration shall be raade, the State
of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts
eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five,
New- York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one,
Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and
Georgia three.
4. When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the
Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such
Vacancies. 5. The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and
other Officers ; and shall have the sole Power of Irapeachraent.

364 APPENDIX.
Section III. i. The Senate of the United States shall be composed
of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof,
for six Years : and each Senator shall have one Vote.
2. Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the
first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three
Classes. The seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated
at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expi
ration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of
the sixth Year, so that one-third may be chosen every second Year ;
and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Re
cess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make
temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature,
which shall then fill such Vacancies.
3. No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the
Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States,
and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for
which he shall be chosen.
4. The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the
Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.
5. The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President
pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall
exercise the Office of President of the United States.
6. The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.
When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation.
When the President ofthe United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall
preside : And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of
two-thirds of the Members present.
7. Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than
to removal frora Office, and Disqualification to hold and enjoy any
Office of honour. Trust or Profit under the United States: but the
Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictraent,
Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to law.
Section IV. i. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections
for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by
the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law
make or alter such Regulations, except as to the places of chusing
Senators. 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such
Meeting shall be on the first Monday in Deceraber, unless they shall by
Law appoint a different Day.
Section V. i. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Re
turns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each
shall constitute a Quorum to do Business ; but a smaller Number may
adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the At
tendance of Absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penal
ties as each House may provide.

APPENDIX. 365
2. Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings,, punish
its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two
thirds, expel a Member.
3. Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from
time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their
Judgment require Secrecy ; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of
either House on any question shall, at, the Desire of one fifth of those
Present, be entered on the Journal.
4. Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the
Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any
other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.
Section VI. i. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a
compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid
out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, ex
cept Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged frora Ar
rest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses,
and in going to and returning from the same ; and for any -Speech or
Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other
Place. 2. No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he
was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the
United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments
whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person
holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either
House during his Continuance in Office.
Section VII. 1. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the
House of Representatives ; but the Senate may propose or concur with
Amendments as on other Bills.
2. Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives
and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the Presi
dent of the United States ; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he
shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have
originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal,
and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds
of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together
with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be
reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall be
come a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be
determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Naraes of the Persons voting
for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House
respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within
ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him,
the Same shall be a law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless
the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case
it shall not be a Law.
3. Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the

366 APPENDIX.
Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a
question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the
United States ; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved
by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds
of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules
and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.
Section VIII. The Congress shall have Power
I. To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the
Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare ofthe
United States ; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform
throughout the United States ;
2. To borrow -Money on the credit of the United States ;
3. To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the sev
eral States, and with the Indian Tribes ;
4. To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws
on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United State ;
5. To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin,
and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures ;
6. To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and
current Coin of the United States ;
7. To establish Post Offices and post Roads ;
8. To proraote the progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing
for limited Tiraes to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their
respective Writings and Discoveries ;
9. To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
10. To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the
high'Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations ;
11. To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make
Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water ;
12. To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to
that Use shall be for a longer Term th.an two Years ;
13. To provide and maintain a Navy ;
14. To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land
and naval forces ;
15. To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the
Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions ;
16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia,
and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Ser
vice of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Ap
pointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia
according to the Discipline prescribed by Congress ;
17. To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over
such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of
particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of
the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority
over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the

APPENDIX. 367
State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines,
Arsenals, Dock- Yards, and other needful Buildings ; — And
18. To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for car
rying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested
by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any
Department or Officer thereof
Section IX. i. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any
of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be
prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hun
dred and eight, but a Tax or Duty raay be imposed on such Importa
tion, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
2. The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be sus
pended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public
Safety may require it.
3. No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
4. No Capitation or other direct Tax shall be laid, unless in Propor
tion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
5. No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported frora any State.
6 No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Coramerce or
Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall
Vessels bound to, or frora, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay
Duties in another.
7. No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence
of Appropriations made by Law ; and a regular Statement and Ac
count of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be
published from time to time.
8. No title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States : And
no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall
without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present. Emolu
ment, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or
foreign State.
Section X. i. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Con
federation ; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal ; coin Money ; emit
Bills of Credit ; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in
Payment of Debts ; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or
Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of No
bility. 2. No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any Im
post or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely
necessary for executing it's inspection Laws : and the net Produce of
aU Duties and Imposts laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall
be for the Use ofthe Treasury of the United States ; and all such Laws
shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.
3. No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of
Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into
any agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power,

368 APPENDIX.
or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger
as will not admit of Delay. ARTICLE IL
Section I. i. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of
the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the
Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for
the same Term, be elected, as follows:
2. Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature there
of may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of
Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the
Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an
Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed
an elector.
3. The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by
Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant
of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a list of all
the Persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each ; which List
they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Gov
ernment of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate.
The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and
House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes
shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest number of
Votes shall be the President, if such a number be a Majority of the
whole Number of Electors appointed ; and if there be more than one
who have such Majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the
House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of
thera for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the
five highest on the List the said House shall in like manner chuse the
President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by
States, the Representation from each State having one Vote: A Quo
rum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two-
thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary
to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Per
son having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the
Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have
equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse frora them by Ballot the Vice
President. 4. Congress may deterraine the Tirae of Chusing the Electors, and
the Day on which they shall give their Votes ; which day shall be the
sarae throughout the United States.
5. No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the
United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall
be eligible to the Office of President ; neither shall any Person be eli
gible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five
Years, and been fourteed Years a Resident within the United States.

APPENDIX. 369
6. In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his
Death, Resignation, or Inability to Discharge the Powers and Duties
of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and
the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death,
Resignation, or Inability, both of the President and Vice President,
declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer
shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President
shall be elected.
7. The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a
Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during
the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not re
ceive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States,
or any of them.
8. Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the
following Oath or Affirmation : —
"I do soleranly swear (or affirra) that I will faithfully execute the
" Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my
" Ability, preserve, prptect and defend the Constitution of the United
"States." Section II. i. The President Shall be Commander in Chief of the
Array and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several
States, when called into the actual Service of the United States ; he
may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of
the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of
their respective Offices, and he shall have power to grant Reprieves
and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of
Impeachment. 2. He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the
Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present
concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Con
sent of the Senate, shall appoint Embassadors, other public Ministers
and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers ofthe
United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided
for, and which shall be established by Law : but the Congress may by
Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think
proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads
of Departments.
3. The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may
happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions
which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Section III. He shall frora time to time give to the Congress Infor
mation of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Considera
tion such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient ; he may,
on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them,
and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the tirae
of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think

370 APPENDIX.
proper: he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers ; he
shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Com
mission all the Officers of the United States.
Section IV. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of
the United States, shall be reraoved frora Office on Impeachment for,
and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misde
meanors. ARTICLE III.
Section I. The judicial Power of the United States, shaU be vested
in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may
from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the su
preme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Beha
vior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compen
sation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in
Office. Section II. i. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law
and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United
States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Au
thority ; to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers,
and Consuls ; to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction ;— to
Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party ;— to Contro
versies between two or raore States ; — ^between a State and Citizens of
another State;— between Citizens of different States, — between Citizens
of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and
between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or
Subjects. 2. In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and
Consuls, and those in which a State shall be a Party, the supreme Court
shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before raen
tioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate lurisdiction, both as to
Law and fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as
the Congress shall make.
3. The trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be
by Jury ; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes
shall have been committed ; but when not committed within any State,
the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law
have directed.
Section III. i. Treason against the United States, shall consist only
in levying War against thera, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving
them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason un
less on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on
Confession in open Court.
2. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of
Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood,
or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

APPENDIX. 371

ARTICLE IV.
Section I. Full faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the
public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.
And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which
such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect
thereof. Section II. i. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all
Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
2. A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other
Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall
on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he
fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction
of the Crime.
3. No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or
Regulation therein, be discharged frora such Service or Labour, but
shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or
Labour may be due.
Section III. i. New States may be adraitted by the Congress into
this Union ; but no new State shall be formed or greeted within the
Jurisdiction of any other State ; nor any State be formed by the Junc
tion of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of
the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
2. The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all need
ful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property
belonging to the United States ; and nothing in this Constitution shall
be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of
any particular State.
Section IV. The United States shall guarantee to every State in
this Union a Republican Form of Governraent, and shall protect each
of them against Invasion ; and on Application of the Legislature, or
of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against
domestic Violence. 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, as Part of this Consti
tution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several
States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the
other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress : Pro
vided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year one

372 APPENDIX.
thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first
and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article ; and that
no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in
the Senate. ARTICLE VI.
I. All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the
Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United
States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
2. This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall
be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall
be made, tinder the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme
Law of the Land ; and the Judges in every State shall be bound there
by, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws ofany State to the Contrary
notwithstanding. 3. The Senators and Representatives before raentioned, and the
Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judi
cial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall
be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution ; but no
religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or
public Trust under the United States. ,
ARTICLE VII.
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient
for the Estabhshment of this Constitution between the States so rati
fying the Same.