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 37
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Henry rose to utter his last words. We are told, he said, of the difficulty of obtaining previous amendments. I contend that
22 This speech is quite able, and is well reported by Robertson.
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they may be as easily obtained as subsequent amendments. We are told that nine States have adopted this Constitution. If so, when the government gets in motion, have they not the right to consider our amendments as well as if we had adopted first? If we remonstrate, may they not consider our amendments ? I fear subsequent amendments, he said, will make our condition worse. They will make us ridiculous. I speak in plain direct language. It is extorted from me. I say, if the right of obtaining amend- ments is not secured, then our rights are not secured. The pro- position of subsequent amendments is only to lull our apprehen- sions. He dwelt upon the surrender of the right of direct taxation. Taxes and excises are to be laid on us. The people are to be oppressed. The State Legislature is to be prostrated. The power of making treaties is also passed over. Our country may be dismembered. He might enumerate many other great rights that are omitted in the amendments. I am astonished, he said, at what my worthy friend (Innes) said-that we have no right of proposing previous amendments. That honorable gen- tleman is endowed with great eloquence-eloquence splendid, magnificent, and sufficient to shake the human mind. He has brought the whole force of America against this State. He has shown our weakness in comparison with foreign powers. His reasoning has no effect upon me. He cannot shake my political faith. He admits our power over subsequent amendments, though not over previous ones. If we have the right to depart from the letter of our commission in one instance, we have in the other. We shall absolutely escape danger in the one case, but not in the other. If members are serious in wishing amend- ments, why do they not join us in a manly, firm, and resolute manner to procure them?, "I beg pardon of this House," he said, "for having taken up more time than came to my share, and I thank them for the patience and polite attention with which I have been heard. If I shall be in the minority, I shall have those painful sensations which arise from a conviction of being overpowered in a good cause. Yet I will be a peaceable citizen. My head, my hand, and my heart shall be ready to retrieve the loss of liberty, and remove the defects of that system, in a con - stitutional way. I wish not to go to violence, but will await with hopes that the spirit which predominated in the Revolution is not yet gone, nor the cause of those who are attached to the
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Revolution yet lost. I shall therefore patiently wait in expecta- tion of seeing that government changed so as to be compatible with the safety, liberty, and happiness of the people."
Randolph ended that long and brilliant debate in a touching valedictory. One parting word, he said, he humbly supplicated. The suffrage which he should give in favor of the Constitution will be ascribed by malice to motives unknown to his breast. "But, although for every other act of my life," he said, " I shall seek refuge in the mercy of God, for this I request his justice only. Lest, however, some future annalist, in the spirit of party vengeance, deign to mention my name, let him recite these truths : that I went to the Federal Convention with the strongest affection for the union ; that I acted there in full conformity with this affection ; that I refused to subscribe because I had, as I still have, objections to the Constitution, and wished a free enquiry into its merits ; and that the accession of eight States reduced our deliberations to the single question of union or no union."
The President now resumed the chair, and Mathews reported that the committee had, according to order, again had the Con- stitution under consideration, and had gone through the same, and come to several resolutions thereupon, which he read in his place, and afterwards delivered in at the clerk's table, where they were again read, and are as followeth :
"WHEREAS, The powers granted under the proposed Consti- tution are the gift of the people, and every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will ; no right therefore, of any denomination can be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modi- fied by the Congress, by the Senate or House of Representatives acting in any capacity. by the President, or any department or officer of the United States, except in those instances in which power is given by the Constitution for those purposes ; and among other essential rights, liberty of conscience and of the press cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified by any authority of the United States ;
" AND WHEREAS, Any imperfections which may exist in the said Constitution ought rather to be examined in the mode pre- scribed therein for obtaining amendments, than by a delay, with a hope of obtaining previous amendments, to bring the union into danger ;
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" Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee that the said Constitution be ratified.
" But in order to relieve the apprehensions of those who may be solicitous for amendments,
" Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that what- soever amendments may be deemed necessary, be recommended to the consideration of Congress, which shall first assemble under the said Constitution, to be acted upon according to the mode prescribed in the fifth article thereof."
The first resolution proposing a ratification of the Constitution having been read a second time, a motion was made to amend it by substituting in lieu of the resolution and its preamble the following :
" Resolved, That previous to the ratification of the new Con- stitution of government recommended by the late Federal Con- vention, a declaration of rights asserting and securing from en- croachment the great principles of civil and religious liberty, and the unalienable rights of the people, together with amendments to the most exceptionable parts of the said Constitution of govern- ment, ought to be referred by this Convention to the other States in the American confederacy for their consideration."
The vote on this amendment, which involved the question of previous or subsequent amendments, was taken without debate, and resulted in its rejection by a majority of eight votes.263
263 The ayes and noes, which were ordered for the first time in a Vir- ginia convention, on motion of Henry seconded by Bland, were 80 to 88, as follows :
AYES: Edmund Custis, John Pride, Edmund Booker, William Cabell, Samuel Jordan Cabell, John Trigg, Charles Clay, Henry Lee, of Bour- bon, the Hon. John Jones, Binns Jones, Charles Patteson, David Bell, Robert Alexander, Edmund Winston, Thomas Read, Benjamin Harri- son, the Hon. John Tyler, David Patteson, Stephen Pankey, junior, Joseph Michaux, Thomas H. Drew, French Strother, Joel Early, Joseph Jones, William Watkins, Meriwether Smith, James Upshaw, John Fow- ler, Samuel Richardson, Joseph Haden, John Early, Thomas Arthur, John Guerrant, William Sampson, Isaac Coles, George Carrington, Parke Goodall, John Carter Littlepage, Thomas Cooper, John Mann, Thomas Roane, Holt Richeson, Benjamin Temple, Stevens Thompson Mason, William White, Jonathan Patteson, Christopher Robinson, John Logan, Henry Pawling, John Miller, Green Clay, Samuel Hopkins, Richard Kennon, Thomas Allen, Alexander Robertson, John Evans, Walter Crockett, Abraham Trigg, Matthew Walton, John Steele, Ro-
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The main question was then put, that the Convention agree with the committee on the said first resolution-the resolution of ratification-and was carried in a house of one hundred and sixty-eight members by ten votes. 264
bert Williams, John Wilson, of Pottsylvania, Thomas Turpin, Patrick Henry, Robert Lawson, Edmund Ruffin, Theodrick Bland, William Grayson, Cuthbert Bullitt, Thomas Carter, Henry Dickenson, James Monroe, John Dawson. George Mason, Andrew Buchanan, John How- ell Briggs, Thomas Edmunds, the Hon. Richard Cary, Samuel Ed- monson, and James Montgomery-So.
NOES: The Hon. Edmund Pendleton, president, George Parker, George Nicholas, Wilson Nicholas, Zachariah Johnston, Archibald Stuart, William Darke, Adam Stephen, Martin McFerran, William Flem, ing, James Taylor, of Caroline, the Hon. Paul Carrington, Miles King, Worlick Westwood, David Stuart, Charles Simms, Humphrey Mar- shall, Martin Pickett, Humphrey Brooke, John S. Woodcock. Alexan- der White, Warner Lewis, Thomas Smith, George Clendenin, John Stuart, William Mason, Daniel Fisher, Andrew Woodrow. Raiph Hum- phreys, George Jackson, John Prunty, Isaac Vanmeter, Abel Seymour, His Excellency Governor Randolph, John Marshall, Nathaniel Burwell, Robert Andrews, James Johnson. Robert Breckenridge, Rice Bullock, William Fleet, Burdet Ashton, William Thornton, James Gordon, of Lancaster, Henry Towles, Levin Powell, Wm. O. Callis, Ralph Worm- ley, junior, Francis Corbin, William McClerry, Wills Riddick, Solomon Shepherd, William Clayton, Burwell Bassett, James Webb, James Tay- lor, of Norfolk, John Stringer, Littleton Eyre, Walter Jones, Thomas Gaskins, Archibald Wood, Ebenezer Zane, James Madison, James Gor- don, of Orange, William Ronald, Anthony Walke, Thomas Walke, Benj. Wilson, John Wilson, of Randolph, Walker Tomlin, William Peachy, William McKee, Andrew Moore, Thomas Lewis, Gabriel Jones, Jacob Rinker, John Williams, Benj. Blunt, Samuel Kello, John Hart- well Cocke. John Allen, Cole Digges. Henry Lee, of Westmoreland, Bushrod Washington, the Hon. John Blair, the Hon. George Wythe, James Innes, and Thomas Mathews-88.
264 The ayes and noes, ordered on motion of George Mason, seconded by Henry. were ayes 89, noes 79, as follows :
AYES: The Hon. Edmund Pendleton, president, George Parker, George Nicholas, Wilson Nicholas, Zach. Johnston, A. Stuart, W. Darke, A. Stephen, M. McFerran, W. Fleming, Jas. Taylor, of Caroline. the Hon. P. Carrington, D. Patteson, M. King, W. Westwood, D. Stuart, C. Simms, H. Marshall, M. Pickett, H. Brooke, J. S. Woodcock, A. White, W Lewis, T Smith, G. Clendenin, J. Stuart, W. Mason, D. Fisher, A. Woodrow, R. Humphreys, G. Jackson, john Prunty, I. Vanmeter, A. Seymour, His Excellency Governor Randolph, J. Marshall, N. Burwell, R. Andrews, J. Johnson, R. Breckenridge, Rice Bullock, W Fleet, B.
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When the vote was announced from the chair, and when it appeared that the long and arduous contest had been at last decided in favor of the new system, there was no show of triumph or exultation on the part of its friends. A great victory had been achieved by them ; but it was impossible to say that the Constitution was yet safe. It was carried by a meagre majority ; and it was carried, it was believed by those who had the control of the Assembly, in plain opposition to the wishes of the people; the Legislature might yet interpose obstacles to the organization of the government, and might virtually annul, for some time at least, the ratification which had been so dearly won. The vote which we shall soon record, attests in the strongest manner the desire for conciliation which governed the conduct of the friends of the Constitution.
The second resolution having been amended by striking out the preamble, was then agreed to by a silent vote. 265
Ashton, W. Thornton, J. Gordon, of Lancaster, H. Towles, L. Powell, W. O. Callis, R. Wormeley, junior, F. Corbin, Wil. McClerry, W. Rid- dick, S. Shepherd, WV. Clayton, B. Bassett, J. Webb, J. Taylor, of Norfolk, J. Stringer, L. Eyre, W. Jones, T. Gaskins, A. Woods, E. Zane, James Madison, J. Gordon, of Orange, W. Ronald, A. Walke, T. Walke, B. Wilson, J. Wilson, of Randolph, W. Tomlin, WV. Peachy, W. McKee, A. Moore, T. Lewis, G. Jones, J Rinker, J. Williams, B. Blunt, S. Kello, J. H. Cocke, J. Allen, C. Digges, H. Lee, of Westmoreland, B Washington, the Hon. J. Blair, the Hon. G. Wythe, J. Innes, and T. Mathews-89.
NOES : E Custis, J. Pride, E. Booker, W. Cabell, S. J. Cabell, J. Trigg, C. Clay, H. Lee, of Bourbon, the Hon. J. Jones, B. Jones, C. Patteson, D. Bell, R. Alexander, E. Winston, T. Read, B. Harrison, the Hon. J. Tyler, S. Pankey, Jr., J. Michaux, T. H. Drew, F. Strother, Joel Early, J. Jones, W. Watkins, M. Smith, J. Upshaw, J. Fowler, S. Richardson, J. Haden. John Early, T. Arthur, J. Guerrant, W. Sampson, I. Coles, G. Carring- ton, P. Goodall, J. C. Littlepage, T. Cooper, J. Mann, T. Roane, H. Riche- son, B. Temple, S. T. Mason, W. White, Jona. Patteson, C. Robertson, J. Logan, H. Pawling, J. Miller, G. Clay, S. Hopkins, R. Kennon, T. Allen, A. Robertson, J. Evans, W. Crockett, A. Trigg, M. Walton, J. Steele, R. Williams, John Wilson, of Pottsylvania, F. Turpin, P. Henry, R. Lawson, E. Ruffin, T. Bland, WV. Grayson, C. Bullitt, T. Carter, H. Dickenson, James Monroe, J. Dawson, Geo. Mason, A. Buchanan, J. H. Briggs, T. Edmunds, the Hon. Richard Cary, S. Edmonson, and James Montgomery-79.
265 The vote on striking out the first resolution, and inserting the amendment in its stead, was the test vote, and was lost by eight votes. A change, therefore, of four of the votes of the majority would have
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A committee was then appointed to prepare and report a form of ratification, and Randolph, George Nicholas, Madison, Mar- shall, and Corbin were placed upon it.266 A committee was also appointed " to prepare and report such amendments as shall by them be deemed necessary to be recommended in pursuance of the second resolution," and consisted of Wythe, Harrison, Mathews, Henry, Randolph, George Mason, Nicholas, Grayson, Madison, Tyler, Marshall, Monroe, Ronald, Bland, Meriwether Smith, Paul Carrington, Innes, Hopkins, John Blair, and Simms. Randolph immediately reported a form of ratification, which was read and agreed to without debate ; and is as follows :
"We, the Delegates of the People of Virginia, duly elected in pursuance of a recommendation from the General Assembly, and now met in Convention, having fully and freely investigated and discussed the proceedings of the Federal Convention, and being prepared, as well as the most mature deliberation hath enabled us, to decide thereon, Do, in the name and in the behalf of the People of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People
made a tie, and a single additional vote would have settled the fate of the Constitution for that time. Had Moore and McKee obeyed their instructions, and had Stuart, of Augusta, remained at home at the time of the Botetourt election, instead of using his influence effectually on the ground in favor of the Constitution, and of causing the Botetourt candidates to pledge themselves to sustain that system ; and had Paul Carrington voted with his colleague, Read, in favor of it, those five votes would have been forthcoming. That some of the delegates voted in opposition to the wishes of their constituents was well known at the time.
266 This was an able committee, but a grave objection exists against it that it did not contain the name of an opponent of the Constitution. I am reminded by the names of Madison and Marshall of the fact that those two gentlemen were appointed to a similar committee in a similar body forty years afterwards. On the adjournment of that body, I walked home to our lodgings in the Eagle Tavern with the president, the late Philip Pendleton Barbour, and by the way asked him if he had been in the chair at a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives, could he have selected such a committee, when he answered without hesitation, " No, nor from the Union at large." That committee con- sisted of Madison, Marshall, Tazewell, Doddridge, Leigh, Johnson, and Cooke; one from the tidewater country, two from above tide, two from the Valley, and one from the extreme west.
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of the United States, may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them, and at their will ; that therefore, no right of any denomination can be can- celled, abridged, restrained, or modified by the Congress, by the Senate or House of Representatives acting in any capacity, by the President, or any department, or officer of the United States, except in those instances in which power is given by the Con- stitution for those purposes ; and that among other essential rights, the liberty of conscience and of the press cannot be can- celled, abridged, restrained, or modified, by any authority of the United States.
"With these impressions, with a solemn appeal to the searcher of hearts for the purity of our intentions, and under the convic- tion that whatsoever imperfections may exist in the Constitution, ought rather to be examined in the mode prescribed therein, than to bring the Union into danger by a delay, with a hope of obtaining amendments previous to the ratification :
"We, the said Delegates, in the name and in behalf of the People of Virginia, do, by these presents, assent to, and ratify the Constitution, recommended on the seventeenth day of Sep- tember, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, by the Federal Convention for the government of the United States, hereby announcing to all those whom it may concern, that the said Constitution is binding upon the said People, according to an authentic copy hereto annexed, in the words following :''26
(See the Constitution in the Appendix.)
The Convention then ordered two fair copies of the form of ratification and of the Constitution to be engrossed forthwith, and adjourned to the next day at twelve o'clock.
267 The form of ratification has been usually attributed to the pen of Madison; but I am compelled to give up this opinion, which was com- mon thirty years ago. It is but an enlargement of the preamble offered by Wythe, and doubtless from internal evidence written by him. That preamble is not such as in my opinion Madison or Randolph would have drawn, and is very properly amended in a vital part in the form of ratification. As Randolph was chairman of the committee which reported the form, and was a critical writer, and as the form was mainly an enlargement of the preamble presented by Wythe, the safer conjecture is that its merit belongs jointly to Randolph and Wythe.
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On Thursday, the twenty-sixth day of June, at twelve o'clock, the Convention met, and, one copy only of the form of ratifica - tion having as yet been transcribed, it was read by the clerk, was signed by the president on behalf of the Convention, and was ordered "to be transmitted by the president to the United States in Congress assembled." 268 As the Committee on Amendments had not yet completed its schedule, the House, after making cer- tain allowances to its officers for services rendered during the session, adjourned until the next day at ten o'clock. 269
On Friday, the twenty-seventh day of June, the Convention met for the last time. The session, which had lasted during twenty-five eventful days, was to close with the adjournment of that day. Nor was the public anxiety less intense than at an earlier stage of the proceedings. The hall of the Academy was crowded. Several of the members of the select committee, who happened to be late, could with difficulty force their way to their · seats. It was certain that, unless the proposed amendments were acceptable to the minority, the worst results were yet to be ap- prehended. The members of that minority, who, in a house of one hundred and seventy members, were only ten less than the majority, and who, in all those qualities necessary for the guid- ance of men in a great crisis, were certainly not inferior to their opponents, might proceed to organize, and to digest a plan of operations, the effect of which would certainly be, in the first in- stance, to prevent all participation by Virginia in setting up the new government, and might ultimately end in the organization of a Southern confederacy.270 Fortunately the friends of the
268 That is, to the Congress of the Confederation, which held its sit- tings in New York, and "which determined on the 13th of September, 1788, under the resolutions of the General Convention, that the Con- stitution had been established, and that it should go into operation on the first Wednesday of March (the fourth ), 1789."
269 The president was allowed forty shillings per day, Virginia cur- rency, for his pay ; the secretary, forty pounds in full ; the chaplain, thirty pounds; the sergeant, twenty-four pounds; each door-keeper, fifteen pounds.
270 It is proper to remind the reader, what has been said before. that our greatest statesmen, to their dying day, believed that they had been trapped in calling the general Federal Convention, and that they dis- trusted "the military gentlemen," as George Mason called them, into
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Constitution saw the full extent of the conjuncture, and deter - mined, by a manly patriotism, and by a spirit of concession as rare as it was honorable, to avert the impending danger.
When Pendleton took the chair the clerk proceeded to read the second engrossed copy of the form of ratification, which was signed by the president. It was then ordered that the form should be deposited in the archives of the General Assembly. Wythe now rose and presented the amendments proposed by the select committee to be made to the Constitution in the mode pre- scribed by that instrument. Those amendments consisted of a Declaration of Rights, in twenty articles nearly similar to those prefixed to the Constitution of the State, and a series of amend- ments proper, also in twenty articles, to be added to the body of the Federal Constitution. The report of the committee ended in these words : " And the Convention do, in the name and be- half of the people of this Commonwealth, enjoin it upon their representatives in Congress to exert all their influence, and use all reasonable and legal methods to obtain a ratification of the foregoing alterations and provisions in the manner provided by the fifth article of the said Constitution ; and in all congressional laws to be passed in the meantime, to conform to the spirit of these amendments as far as the said Constitution will admit."
The Declaration of Rights was then adopted without a divi- sion. The amendments proper were read, and a motion was made to amend them by striking out the third article in these words: " When Congress shall lay direct taxes or excises, they shall immediately inform the executive power of each State, of the quota of such State according to the census herein directed, which is proposed to be thereby raised ; and if the Legislature of any State shall pass a law which shall be effectual for raising such quota at the time required by Congress, the taxes and ex- cises laid by Congress shall not be collected in such State."
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whose hands they feared the new government would be committed. All had unlimited confidence in the integrity of Washington ; but they had known him, as yet, as a silent member by their sides in the House of Burgesses, as an Indian fighter, and as the great commander of the armies during the Revolution, but never as a statesman. But, how- ever eminent he might be in every respect, he must lean mainly on the friends of the Constitution, who were the greatest soldiers of their day. Grayson expressed the general opinion when he said : "We have no fear of tyranny while he lives."
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This amendment, which it was proposed to strike out, was, in the estimation of the opponents of the Constitution, the most important of all. It struck at the root of the new Federal polity. Of that polity the distinguishing characteristic was that it was complete in itself and by itself in effectuating all measures within its scope ; especially, that it was free to lay and collect taxes of its own authority and at its own discretion. This was deemed a car- dinal virtue by its friends, and a cardinal vice by its opponents. To strike this feature from the Constitution was substantially to fall back upon requisitions. What passed in the select com- mittee is not known, and, unless it may be gleaned from stray letters written at the time, which may hereafter be cast up, will remain a secret ; but it can hardly be doubted that the adoption of this amendment by the committee was made by Henry and Mason an indispensable preliminary of a peaceful adjustment. But it must also be sanctioned by the House ; otherwise its adop- tion by the committee would be too palpable a farce to impose on two such statesmen. Accordingly, the motion to strike it out failed by twenty votes. Pendleton was the most prominent opponent who gave way. He was followed by Paul Carrington. The gal- lant and patriotic Fleming, who carried to his grave a troublesome wound which he received in the thickest of the fight at Point Pleasant, followed the example of , Carrington. Eight other members magnanimously followed Fleming, and ten votes taken from one scale and added to the other make up the decisive number. Thus, by the most decisive vote given during the ses- sion the Convention solemnly pledged itself to amend the power of direct taxation, and virtually to fall back upon requisitions. 271
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