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 3
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"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 of 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 8th, 1881 :
"The death of HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY, LL.D., the Chancellor and
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HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY.
honored Visitor, on the 28th of April, ISSI, has deprived the College, the Visitors and the Faculty, of a true and constant friend.
"Mr. GRIGSBY's connection with the College began in I855, 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 IS71. 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 of the 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.
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THE HISTORY
OF THE
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Virginia Federal Convention
OF 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 Buildings1 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 sittings in what was known as the Old Capitol, situated at the northwest corner of Cary and Four- 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.
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Federal Constitution.2 Our theme, both in its moral and politi . 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 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 of the legis- lative and executive departments of their government, and in the presence of many honorable and illustrious guests from dis- tant States, have 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 3 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 still 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 peculiar 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
2 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.
3 The Washington Monument, inaugurated February 22d, 1858 ; sub- scriptions towards the erection of which were authorized by an Act of Assembly passed February 22d, 1817. The sum of $13,063 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 $100,000 for the erection of the monument, the corner-stone of which was laid February 22d, 1850, in the presence of General Zachary Taylor, President of the United States, his Cabinet, and a host of other distinguished persons.
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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 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.5 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 16th, 1845, having survived the adjourn- ment more than fifty-seven years.
5 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 Henry Rawle, 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."
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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 6 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-fitth 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 well 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
6 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 of the 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, IS68. 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.]
7 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 of the square on the north side of Broad, between Eighth and Ninth streets.
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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.8 This
8 Morse describes Richmond in 1789, one year later, as having three hundred houses.
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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 overlooks 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- tality by the genius of Hubard,9 and which, we fondly hope, will
9 William James Hubard (pronounced Hu-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- manv, 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, 1862, 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.
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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 ;10 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.11
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 James 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 Hist. Con., I, 137.
11 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
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VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
The 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, 12 that had sought the flat lands of Ohio, or that had married and settled 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.13 Her num- bers might well inspire the respect of her sisters and the pride of her sons, and sufficiently 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 9th, · 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.
12 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.
13 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.
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statesmen, and in comparison with which the questions of the extent of our territory and the number of the population appear almost unimportant, is the condition of the 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 unwise 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.14 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.15 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 dollars. 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
14 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.
15 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.
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