USA > Virginia > The history of the Virginia federal convention of 1788, with some account of eminent Virginians of that era who were members of the body, Vol. I > Part 28
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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 immediately returned from that county to the House. There was one ground held in common by these wor- thy patriots, and which justly entitled them 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, partly by his own efforts, an independent Commonwealth. Like Henry, he deemed the word country applicable only to the land of his birth.208 That the slightest tax should be levied upon the people by any
208 Henry always used the word "country " only in connection with Virginia. See the Debates passim, and his letter to R. H. Lee in the "Henry Papers," quoted in the discourse of the Virginia Convention of 1776, page 141, note.
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other authority than that of the General Assembly ; 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 limitation or qualifi- cation to a foreign government the power of the purse and the power of the sword, presented to his mind 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 common 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 simple 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 them 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 legitimate office. The severe simplicity of his 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 had been called to that bench on which he sat for twenty years,
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he was elected vice-president of the 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 mouth 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 familiar with the duties of the chair. In fact, he had presided oftener in deliberative bodies than-with the exception of Harrison-any member 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. 209
Corbin, with the remark that the subject of the Mississippi had been sufficiently discussed, moved that the committee 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 amendments were brought forward, the mem- bers ought to be at liberty to take a general view of the whole Constitution. He thought that the power of trying impeach - ments, 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
209 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 8th or 9th of February, 1813.
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might in some degree be objectionable, but that it could not be amended. He agreed with Tyler that when amendments were brought on, a collective view of the whole system might be taken.
The fourth and fifth sections of the same 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, maintaining 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,210 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. Some 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 company of minute-men a sermon which reminds us of that preached on a similar occasion seventeen years before by Samuel Davies, and which displays a chivalric spirit of patriotism. "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 man 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 frequently addressed the British prisoners taken at Saratoga, who were cantoned in Albemarle. Removing in 1784 from Albemarle
210 Bishop Meade thinks that Charles was probably an own cousin of Henry Clay.
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to Bedford, he resided there during the rest of his life. He was a large and handsome man, cordial in his manners, 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 midst of his descendants, and having survived most of his present associates.211 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 monument, now covered with turf, resembles in its full propor- tions one of those ancient burrows which were formerly to be seen in the low-grounds of some of our mountain streams. 212
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 limitations 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, impracticable under the new scheme, he thought that, in adopting that scheme, we virtually relinquished 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 Patriotism, the Constituents of a Good Soldier, and on the Curse
211 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.
212 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.
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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 militant as the religion of the Prophet of Mecca. Of the more than three hundred years which had elapsed since John Calvin had, in the midst of a scene of unrivaled natural beauty, promulgated 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. Sometimes 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 from the block. To revert to times 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 supreme : power of the State, and made 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 common morality and the common decency in one seemingly 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 &its three-fold tongue, began to utter each a
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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 emergency, he had only exhorted his countrymen 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 family of Christians. He was a priest of the Established Church. He was a member 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 supreme head on earth was the king. One of the purest bishops of that Church had laid upon him his consecrating hand, and had by a solemn ordination set him 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 the 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.213 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.
213 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.
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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 from Madi- son. Clay was not satisfied with the explanations of Madison. "Our militia," he said, "might be dragged from their homes 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 military system. Madison rejoined, and was followed by Henry, who exhorted the opponents of the new scheme to make 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 much 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 common decency as he was in common sense. He proceeded to state the grounds of his objection, and showed that in his estimation the remarks of the gentleman 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 come within the idea of an insurrection. Madison replied that a riot did not come within
the legal definition of an insurrection. After a long and ani- mated session the committee rose, and the House adjourned.
On Monday, the sixteenth day of June, Pendleton appeared and resumed the chair. The House went into committee, 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 followed by Madison and Corbin. Marshall replied to a speech delivered 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 which Grayson, Nicholas, Mason, Madison, Lee, Pendleton, and
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Henry took part. The day closed with a passage between Nicholas and Mason, Nicholas affirming 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.214
On Tuesday, the seventeenth day of June, a subject to which recent developments in the South have added a present interest, came up for consideration. As soon as the House went into committee, 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 migration 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 may be imposed 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 government this evil was looked upon as a great oppression, and many attempts were made to prevent it ; but the interest of the African merchants 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 from Great Britain. Its exclusion has been a principal object of this State, and most of the States of the Union. The augmentation of slaves weakens the States ; and such a trade is diabolical in itself and disgraceful to mankind. Yet by this Constitution it is continued for twenty years. As much as I value the union of all the States, I would not admit the Southern States into the Union unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade. And though this infamous 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 most disgraceful thing to America.
214 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.
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I cannot express my 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 im- 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 permission 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 limited, 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 will 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
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. 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 them. 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 ill-founded and inconclusive. It
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