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 34
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let the contest be what it may, the minority 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 will 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 amendments ; that he would remain and vote, and afterwards he would have no business here). "I see," continued Randolph, "that I am not mistaken. 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 remarks about secession. If there be in this house members who have in contemplation to secede from the majority, let me 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 liberty is in danger, 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 members, 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 of the 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-
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ginia; that at the moment 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, may, by the operation of the general government, be made free. But he denied that any power in the case was granted to the general government, 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 members 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 compromise 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
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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 frequently a member of the House of Delegates, and was subsequently, for a long period, a member of the House of Rep- resentatives, and whose elegant address and sumptuous 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 committee. He reviewed the Con- stitution at large and spoke for an hour with much 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 unwelcome to him, whether administered by a Turk, a Briton, or an American." 237
Grayson followed in a rapid review of those parts of the new system which he considered radically defective, urged the indis- pensable necessity of previous amendments, and pointed out with unerring sagacity the ultimate destruction of the commercial and manufacturing 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 many 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 his fame to be immortal. We wish to know who, besides him, can concentrate the confidence and affections of all America?"
237 Years after Dawson was in his grave, and half a century after the date of the Convention, a friend described him to me as having red hair, most recherche in his dress, and wearing fair top boots. His at- tention to his dress gave him 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 important 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.]
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Madison then rose, and in an argument of extreme 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 magnanimity of our sister States. He spoke of the admiration 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 magni- tude, and was liable to be frustrated by so many accidents. How much more admiration will the example 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 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 com- 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 ;233 others that it was consol- idated. Some thought that the equality of the States in the Senate was a defect ; others regarded it as a virtue. He discussed the scheme 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 mainly in the track of Henry's arguments, and dwelt upon the danger apprehended by that gentleman to the slave property of the South. "Let me ask," says Madison, "if even Congress should attempt anything of 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 committee suppose that it will increase our strength? Can any one believe that the American
238 Madison must 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.
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councils will come into a measure which will strip them of their property, discourage and alienate the affections of five-thirteenths of the Union? Why was nothing of this sort aimed at before ? I believe such an idea never entered into an American breast ; nor do I believe it ever will, unless it will enter into the heads of those gentlemen who substitute unsupported suspicions for rea- sons. He concluded by observing that such of Henry's amend- ments as were not objectionable might be recommended for adoption in the mode prescribed by the Constitution; not that those amendments were necessary, but because they can produce no possible danger, 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 see 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 consumma- 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 am 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 misery 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 musketry. The windows rattled ; the huge wooden structure rocked ; the rain fell from 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 members, recalled to the mind those terrific pictures which the imaginations of Dante and Milton have drawn
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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 of the tempest, he seized upon the artillery of Heaven, and directed its fiercest thunders against the heads of his adversaries." The scene, we are told, became insupportable, and the members rushed from their seats into the body of the House. 239
While the members were moving about the House, and were preparing to depart, a gleam of sunshine penetrated the hall, and in a few moments 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 amendments 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 from the people, and might be resumed by them 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 meaning, signification and intent to be what the words of the contract plainly and obviously denote ; that it is not to be construed as to impose any supplementary 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 like 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.
239 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.
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Madison conceived that what defects there might be in the Constitution might be removed in the mode prescribed by itself. He thought a solemn declaration of our essential rights unneces- sary and dangerous ; unnecessary, because it was evident that the general government 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 complete, is not safe. Such an enumeration could not be made within any compass 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 member 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 generally believed that the Constitution would be rati- fied ; but by what majority, was a question of doubt and appre- hension to its warmest friends. The manœuver 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 members 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 announcement 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 Commonwealth would in every aspect be fatal to the Constitution. The result must follow either that the friends of the new system would be compelled to recon - sider the vote of ratification, and accept the schedule of previous amendments proposed by Henry, or remain firm and uphold their decision by an appeal to arms. Either alternative was most unwelcome, and fraught with extreme peril. To rescind the vote of ratification at a time when nine States had adopted the new
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system and would proceed to organize the Federal Government in pursuance of its provisions,24 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 complete frustra- tion of all their plans and all their hopes. In many 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 from the selection of any other individual to carry the new system into effect was imminent. There was another danger, which, though it might not so keenly affect the sensibilities of the 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 meet ; for that body, as the fact proved, was opposed to the new scheme, 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 time, two-thirds of the people at least regarded the new scheme with apprehension and dislike.241 The only resource of the friends of
240 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 of the course of that State respect- ing amendments.
241 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
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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 government, 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 mood. They believed that instrument 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 amendments. The liberal promises 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 system ; might refuse to pass the necessary laws for carrying it into effect, and might 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 Carolina, which State was determined to reject the Constitution,242 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 greatly enhanced.
242 North Carolina rejected the Constitution by a majority of one hun- dred. The vote stood one hundred and eighty-four to eighty-four.
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gencies. Never, at any period in the history of the Colony or of the Commonwealth, did a deliberative assembly meet in such painful circumstances of doubt and alarm as on this memorable morning.
The House immediately went into committee, Pendleton call- ing Mathews to the chair. Nicholas was the first to break silence. 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 instrument in 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 amendments; thought the amendments 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 moved that the clerk read the form of ratifi- cation proposed by Wythe, that the question might 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 man 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 commons 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 important military committees ; had been deputed on emergencies to the headquarters of the army, and had presided in the Committee of the Whole when the resolu- tion of independence and the Declaration of Independence had
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