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 35
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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 of North Carolina, page 60. It was not until the 21st of November of the following year that the Federal Constitution was adopted.
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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 men 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 solemn protest against the ratification of the Constitution. He denounced the policy of trusting to future amendments. When the Constitution was once ratified it was beyond our reach. Even future amendments might be evaded by the flight of its friends ; and if adopted by the House, what was the hope of their ultimate success ? The small States, he said, refused to come into the Union without extravagant con- cessions : and can it be supposed that those States, whose interest and importance 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 them. Can it be doubted that, if these seven States make amendments a condition of their accession, they will be discarded from 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 majority 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 of the country, and its present population and wealth, and who can fail to perceive that such a scheme was premature and impossible. 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 deemed the adoption of the Constitution without previous amendments to be unwarrantable, precipitate, and dangerously impolitic.,
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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 amendments, and argued from Harrison's statements that, if seven States desired amend- 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 make enemies of the large and powerful States? He did not think that the Federal Govern- ment would immediately infringe the rights of the people, but he thought that the operation of the government would be op- pressive in process of time. He pronounced the argument of Madison, derived from 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 commission as the General Convention ? And can it be supposed that subsequent reflection on the plan which they put forth may not make it more efficient and com- plete? As to the amendments presented to the committee, they are acknowledged to be harmless ; but their previous acceptance will 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 system in its most 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 man, then entering his thirty-fourth year, whose
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name, becoming extinct in the early 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 memory 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 Commonwealth, he did not appear often in the House, and had not opened his lips in debate. Of that brilliant 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 the 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 come over to this country some years before the birth of James, on the recommendation of the Bishop of London, and who became 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 skill in declamation, for fluent elocution, and for elegant composition. George Nicholas, Bishop Madison, St. George Tucker, then a clever youth, who had come 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. 243 He had exhausted his slender patrimony in paying his college bills, and accepted the office of usher, under Johnson, in the school of humanity. At the beginning of the troubles he rallied a band of students, and secured some stores which were about to be secreted by Dunmore ; and, as a reward of his patriotism, was dismissed by the faculty, which as yet re-
243 See the class of 1771 in the general catalogue of William and Mary.
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mained faithful to the Crown .? " In February, 1776, he was elected captain of an artillery company, and marched to Hamp- ton to repress the incursions of the enemy.245 In November, 1776, he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of one of the six bat- talions of infantry to be raised on the Continental establishment; and joining the Northern army, he became one of the aids of Washington, and shared in the glory of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth.246 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.247 In 1780 he entered the House of Delegates as a member from James City, where he made his first essay as a debater. At the solici- tation of Washington he raised a regiment for home defence, and was present with his command at the siege of York. He then devoted himself to the profession of law, and attained a high rank at the bar. His popular manners, his classical taste, and his captivating eloquence soon attracted public attention, and he was elected the successor of Edmund Randolph in the office of Attorney-General. In the faculty of addressing popular
24 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 statements, I have record evi- dence beyond dispute to sustain me.
245 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 settlement of the father of Innes in Drysdale parish, see Bishop Meade's Old Churches, I, 414.
246 Burk's Virginia, IV, 234.
247 Journal of the House of Delegates, October 21, 1778, page 22. It has been stated that Colonel Innes was at the battle of Monmouth. 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.
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bodies, of all his contemporaries he approached, in the general estimation, nearest to Patrick Henry. There were those, who, fascinated by the graces of his manner, 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. 248 Born in Caroline, the residence of Pendleton, and the pupil 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 fellows as dis- tinctively as his intellectual. His height exceeded six feet. His stature was so vast as to arrest attention in the street. He was believed 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 from 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 modulated ; and in this respect he excelled all his compeers with the exception , of Henry. From his size, from the occasional vehemence of his action, and from a key to which he sometimes pitched his voice, he is said to have recalled to the recollections of those who had
248 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 must 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.
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heard Fox the image of that great debater. A miniature 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 from that capa- cious and intellectual brow, shaded by the fresh auburn hair of youth, those expressive blue eyes, that aquiline nose, some 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 humor, 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.249 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 him to decline. Had he accepted that appointment, and had his life 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 parliamentary journals, from moth-eaten and half-decayed manuscripts, from the testi- mony of a few solitary survivors of a great era, and from 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. 250
249 Innes died the year before Washington.
250 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.
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Unfortunately for the reputation of Innes, no fair specimen of his eloquence remains. We are told that, like Henry,2%} he rarely spoke above an hour ; and that, as he prepared himself 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 delivered 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. And if he passed lightly over his subject he would suffer in a comparison with his colleagues who had, after months 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. 252 He
25] 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 important 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 him with fresh matter.
252 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 time 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 early 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
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began by saying that his silence had not proceeded from neu- trality os 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 me. 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-General 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 patriotism and talents to his country. He died in Philadelphia August the second, 1798, whilst invested with the important trust of one of the commissioners for car- rying into effect the treaty between Great Britain and the United States." This beautiful tribute to the memory 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, subsequently knighted and Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. He was doubtless a familiar of Governor Dinwiddie in Scotland, as the latter constantly addressed him as "Dear James." See Dinwiddie Papers, Virginia Historical Collection, Vols. III, 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.]
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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 government, 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 of the 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 Carolinian, or a Pennsylvanian, but the glorious name 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 them 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? Will she passively overlook flagrant viola- tions of the treaty? Will she lose the desire of retrieving those laurels that are buried in America? 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 I 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 from foreign powers. To promote their glory, he said, we must become wretched and contemptible. It may be said that the ancient nations which
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deserved and acquired glory lost their liberty. But have not mean and cowardly nations, Indians and Cannibals, lost their liberty likewise? And who would not rather be a Roman 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 determined 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 whether we shall estab- lish such a government as shall render America 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 most 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 maritime nation to seize our ships and destroy our com- merce with impunity ? We are told, he said, that the New Eng- landers are to take our trade from us, and make us hewers of wood and drawers of water, and in the next moment to emanci- pate our slaves. They tell you that the admission of the import- ation of slaves for twenty years shows that their policy is to keep us weak; and yet the next moment they tell you that they intend to set them free ! If it be their object to corrupt and enervate us, will 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 alleged dangers to religious free- dom from the Constitution, and argued that they were imaginary and absurd. With respect to previous amendments, he contended that it was discourteous to request the other States, which, after months of deliberation, had ratified the new system, to undo all that they have done at our bidding. Those States will say : " 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 to be dictated to by you." But, say gentlemen, we can afterwards come into the union. I tell you, he said, that those States are not of
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