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 7
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46 It is the opinion of what may be called the illustrious second growth of eminent Virginians-men who were born between 1773 and 1788- such as John Randolph, Tazewell, James Barbour, Leigh, Johnson, Philip P. Barbour, Stanard, the late President Tyler, etc., who may be said to have lived in the early shadows of the body itself, and mingled with some of the members in their old age, that the present Convention was, as a whole, the most able body which had then met in the United States. It is creditable to the conservative character of Virginia that in all her public bodies since the passage of the Stamp Act each suc- cessive one has been largely made up from its predecessor. Thus in the Convention of 1776 there was a large number of the leading mem- bers who voted, in 1765, on Henry's resolutions against the Stamp Act, such as Henry himself, Nicholas, Harrison, Pendleton, Wythe, Lewis, and others ; and in the present Convention there were members who had been in the House of Burgesses in 1765, as well as in the Conven- tions of 1774, 1775, and 1776. And in the Convention of 1829-30, the Convention of 1776 was represented by Madison, the only surviving member, and the present Convention by Madison, Marshall and Mon- roe. If we were to trace back the Journals from 1765 to 1688, the date of the British Revolution, although I have never performed that office, and state my impressions only, I believe that a continuous and con-
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It has been said that the interest excited by the Convention was not confined to the Commonwealth. It was well known, as already stated, that, with the exception of Washington and Mc- Clurg, all the representatives of Virginia in the General Conven- tion were members of the present ; and it was feared by the friends of the Constitution abroad that, as three only out of seven had signed that instrument, and one of those in an official char- acter only, it would appear, as it were, under the protest of a majority of those to whom Virginia had committed her interests and her honor. But what enhanced the excitement beyond our borders, as well as at home, was the knowledge of the fact that, of the nine States necessary to the inauguration of the new sys- tem, eight had already ratified it, and the favorable vote of the ninth, as the result soon proved, was certain. It was also believed that Rhode Island, which was not represented in the General Convention, and North Carolina would decline to accept it.47
trolling representation of the House of Burgesses, which acknowledged allegiance to William and Mary as their lawful sovereigns, could be traced to the Burgesses of 1765, and, as I have just shown, to 1776, when that allegiance was withdrawn, to 1788, and to 1829-30, a period of nearly a century and a half. And if we go back to the first House of Burgesses held in the Colony, at James Town, July 30, 1619, a year be- fore the May Flower left England with the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, and consisting of twenty-two members, we will find Mr. Jef- ferson, of Flowerdieu Hundred, represented by Mr. Jefferson, of Albe- marle, in the Convention of 1776; Captain William Powell, of James City, represented in the present Convention by Colonel Levin Powell, of Loudoun ; Mr. John Jackson, of Martin's plantation, by George Jack- son, of Harrison, in the same body, and Charles Jordan, of Charles City, by Colonel Samuel Jordan Cabell, of Amherst.
47 The Convention of North Carolina met on the 21st of July, 1788, when the Constitution was lost by one hundred votes. Wheeler's North Carolina, II, 98. The States adopted the Constitution in the fol- lowing order : Delaware, December 7, 1787; Pennsylvania, December 12, 1787; New Jersey, December 18, 1787; Georgia, January 2, 1788; Connecticut, January 9, 1788 ; Massachusetts, February 6, 1788; Mary- land, April 28, 1788 ; South Carolina, May 23, 1788; New Hampshire, . June 21, 1788; Virginia, June 26, 1788; North Carolina, November 21. 1789 ; Rhode Island, May 29, 1790. Hence it appears that the Consti- tution was accepted by nine States five days before Virginia cast her vote, a fact which, though alluded to in Convention, could not have been known positively at the time.
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The vote of Virginia, which was eagerly sought by the friends of the Constitution not only as the vote of a State, but as the vote of the largest of the States, was then, if not to decide its fate, yet materially to affect its success; for, although the instru- ment should be ratified by New Hampshire, and the full comple- ment of States required to the organization of the Government be attained, still there were fears that Virginia might, as was afterwards suggested by Jefferson, and attempted in the body, hold out until such amendments as she would propose as the condition of her acceptance should be ratified by the States, and become an integral part of the new system. Nor were these apprehensions groundless. Her western boundary was the Mis- sissippi, and strange reports, which we know represented not less than the truth, were rife that a deliberate effort had been made by the Northern and Middle States to close the navigation of that stream by the people of the South for thirty years ; nor was it known that a scheme so fatal to the prosperity of Virginia had been abandoned. The vote which was to decide these doubts was to be given by the Convention about to assemble.
We have said that fears for the rejection of the Constitution were not ill-founded. At no moment from its promulgation to the meeting of the first Congress in the following year, would the new system have received more than a third of the popular vote of the State. It was ultimately carried in a house of one hun- dred and seventy members by a majority of ten only, and five votes would have reversed the decision; and it is certain that at least ten members voted, either in disobedience of the positive instructions of their constituents, or in defiance of their well- known opinions.48 Nor were those opinions the offspring of the
48 See the proceedings of the Assembly which met three days before the adjournment of the present Convention. Judge Marshall, who was a member of the present Convention, and probably wrote from the result of his observation in Virginia, says, "that in some of the adopt- ing States, a majority of the people were in the opposition"; he also says, "that so small in many instances was the majority in its favor, as to afford short ground for the opinion that had the influence of char- acter been removed, the intrinsic merits of the instrument would not have secured its adoption." Life of Washington, II, 127. Sympa- thizing as I do with the views of Henry, Mason, &c., who opposed the Constitution, it might appear invidious to give the names of those who
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moment. They had been held by their ancestors and themselves for a century and a half; and as they reflected the highest credit upon the patriotism of our fathers and that conservative worth which is the true safety of States, but which has fallen into dis- repute in more recent times, it is proper to recall their modes of thinking on political subjects, as well as to take a passing glance at the state of parties into which the public men of that day were divided. A large portion of the people, even larger than at present, were engaged in the cultivation of the earth, and were in the main tobacco planters and slave-holders ; and a tobacco- planting, slave-holding people are rarely eager for change. Like their ancestors in England, they were not anxious for the alter- ation of laws to which they had long been accustomed. Even during the contest with the mother country, no greater changes were made than were deemed absolutely necessary to accomplish the end in view. The Committee of Safety, which, in the inter- vals of the sessions of the Conventions, administered the govern- ment until the Constitution went into effect, was but a standing committee of the Conventions, which were the House of Bur- gesses under another name. And when a declaration of inde- pendence, which was held back until it became impossible to obtain foreign aid in men and means without such a measure, was put forth, and a new form of government was rendered imperative, no greater change was made in the existing system than was required by the emergency. The law of primogeni- ture, the law of entails, the Church establishment, were not touched by the Constitution. And when the Convention of May,
voted as charged in the text: As an illustration of "the influence of character," it may be said that no four men excited more influence in favor of the Constitution in Virginia, than George Washington, Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, and James Madison, and four purer names were probably never recorded in profane history ; yet to those who look into the secret motives that unconsciously impel the most candid minds on great occasions, which involve the destinies of posterity, it may be said that they were all men of wealth, or held office by a life tenure, and that, though married, neither of them ever had a child. In the same spirit it may be mentioned that Mason and Henry were men of large families, and that hundreds now living look back to "Gunston Hall " and "Red Hill." In the case of Henry, the cradle . began to rock in his house in his eighteenth year, and was rocking at his death in his sixty-third.
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1776, which formed the Constitution, adjourned, the polity of the Colony, with the exception of the executive department, was essentially the polity of the Commonwealth. The House of Delegates was the House of Burgesses under another name. The Senate was the Council under a different organization. It was to be chosen by the people instead of being nominated by the king, and its judicial forces, separated from its legislative, were assigned to officers who composed the new judiciary. Although the new Constitution was assailed shortly after its birth by the authority and eloquence of Jefferson, and at a later date by able men, whose talents were hardly inferior to those of Jefferson, it remained without amendment or revision for more than half a century. Our fathers were as prompt and practical as well as prudent ; and when it was necessary to form a bond of union among the States, they accepted the Articles of Confederation without delay. But when so great a change in the organic law as was proposed by the Federal Constitution was presented for their approval, they were filled with distrust and suspicion. That instrument, under restrictions real or apparent, invested the new Government with the purse and the sword of the Common- wealth. Alarming as this concession appeared to the people, it was as unexpected as alarming. The colonists had brought to the new world a just appreciation of the liberties which they enjoyed in Great Britain ; and the appreciation was enhanced by the repre- sentative system which was adopted here. There were times, indeed, in the previous century, as in the then existing one, when the rights and privileges of a British subject, here as well as in England, were disregarded or lost sight of for a season; but there were no times when the great bulwarks of British freedom were razed to their foundations. The governor was appointed by the king, and appeared in the Colony either by proxy or by deputy; and he had the power of proroguing the Assembly. An ancient form, which had been borrowed from England, pre- scribed that the member who was elected Speaker of the House of Burgesses should, before taking the chair, and before the mace was laid upon the table of the clerk, be approved by the Gover- nor ; but should the Governor refuse to approve the choice of the House, the House might proceed to elect another Speaker; and should the Governor determine to reject a second choice of the House, another election must follow, for none other than a
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member could occupy the chair. The assent of the king was necessary to a law ; but that assent was in extreme cases only suspended, and so rarely withheld that a law took effect on its passage; and in the event of a refusal of the royal assent, the worst consequence was that the people were thrown on the exist- ing laws which had been enacted by themselves. Every shilling collected from the colonists for more than a century and a half had been assessed by their own House of Burgesses, and was received and disbursed by a Treasurer, who was elected by the House, who was almost always a member of it, and was respon- sible to it for the performance of his duty." Our fathers were always ready to give and grant their own money of their own free will, but not upon compulsion or at the dictation of another. They appropriated large sums for the Indian wars, when it was known that the hostile attacks of the savages were excited by the French, and were made upon the territory of the Colony, not from any hatred to the colonists, but because they were the sub- jects of the British king. During the government of Cromwell, the colonists had not only exercised the functions of a free State, but were substantially independent. They passed what laws they pleased, and carried a free trade with foreign nations. In the commercial control of the mother country, they were com- pelled to acquiesce ; but they denied the right of Parliament to lay a shilling in the shape of direct taxation. Hence the resist- ance to the Stamp Act, and the series of measures which led
19 The Speaker was almost invariably appointed Treasurer until a separation of the offices was effected in 1766, on the death of Speaker Robinson, when Peyton Randolph was elected Speaker, and Robert Carter Nicholas. Treasurer. The Burgesses rarely changed their offi- cers, John Robinson, the predecessor of Randolph, having filled the chair more than twenty years, and Randolph filled it from his first appointment to 1775, when he withdrew to attend Congress. R. C. Nicholas was re-elected Treasurer from 1766 to 1776, when he resigned because the Constitution would not allow the Treasurer to hold a seat
in the Assembly. See Journal House of Delegates, November 29, 1776, where Nicholas is thanked by the House for his fidelity, and ex- presses his acknowledgments, closing his remarks with these words : "That he would deliver up his office to his successor, he trusted, with clean hands ; he would assure the House it would be with empty ones." These words were often quoted by our fathers when the name of Nicho- las was mentioned.
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slowly but surely to independence. So jealous and so careful were the people of Virginia on the subject of direct taxation that under the pressure of the war, when the Articles of Confedera- tion were adopted, they would not part with the power of the purse, and cautiously provided in those Articles that the quota of each State in the general charge should be raised, not by taxa- tion at the discretion of Congress, but in the form of a requi- sition on the State alone. This principle was so firmly planted in the general mind, that no speaker in public debate, no writer from the press, dared to assail or call it in question. And lest a delegate to Congress might prove faithless to his trust, though his term of service lasted yet a single year, and he could serve only three years out of six, he might be recalled at any moment at the bidding of the Assembly.50 The Act of Assembly ap- pointing delegates to the General Convention, so far from con- templating a surrender of the principle of taxation, guarded it with the greatest care, and instructed the members so appointed "to join with the delegates from other States in devising and discussing all such alterations and further provisions as may be necessary to render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Union, and in reporting such an act for that purpose to the United States in Congress, as, when agreed to by them, and duly confirmed by the several States, will effectually provide for the same." It was evidently an ordinary amend- ment to the Articles of Confederation, to take the course pre- scribed in that instrument in the case of amendments, and not the substitution of a different scheme of government, which they. sought to obtain.51 They dearly loved the union of the States,
50 Articles of Confederation, Art. V.
51 Nothing can be clearer than the fact stated in the text. The Arti- cles of Confederation provide for their own amendment in these words : "unless such alterations be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State." Art. XIII. Accordingly, when on the 3d of November, 1786, the House of Delegates, after a deliberate discussion in committee of the whole, adopted a resolution requiring a bill to be brought in appointing dele- gates to the General Convention, they conclude their instructions to the committee in these words : "And to report such an act for the pur- pose to the United States in Congress assembled, as, when agreed to by them, and afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State,
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and they felt that some decided measure was necessary to sus- tain the public faith. The debt of the Revolution was not only unpaid, but the money to pay the interest upon it was impracti- cable to obtain. Requisitions were faithfully made by the Con- gress ; but, in the absence of pressure from without, and from the extraordinary difficulties which beset the States just emerging from a protracted civil war, were rarely complied with. To amend the Articles of Confederation, therefore, was a measure required alike by our relations with our confederate States, and with the States of Europe to which we were so deeply indebted for those loans that enabled us to prosecute the war, and was demanded by every consideration of justice and of honor.
The Assembly, however, was careful and explicit in declaring that it was an amendment to the existing form that they desired, and not a change in the form itself. With that form they were satisfied. It had borne them through the war; and under its
will effectually provide for the same." The committee so appointed consisted of Mathews. George Nicholas, Madison, Nelson, Mann Page, Bland and Corbin. Madison drew the bill concluding with the resolu- tion in the text, which conforms generally with the instructions, but substitutes the word 'States " for legislatures, the word used in the Articles of Confederation, and in the resolution of the House ordering the bill to be brought in. Now, this may have been done inadvertently ; but when we know the unpopularity of Madison in the House, which he felt so keenly that when he drew his resolution inviting the meet- ing at Annapolis, he had it copied by the clerk of the House, lest his handwriting should betray the authorship, and prevailed on Mr. Tyler to offer it, and which prevented him from doing any act directly with any hope of success, we hardly refrain from calling it a parliamentary manœuvre. And this view is strengthened when we recall a similar manœuvre by which that resolution was carried through the House. It was called up on the last day of a session of more than three months' duration, when it is probable that a large number of the members had departed with the confident belief that, in their commercial Convention with Maryland, in which all the States were invited to participate, they had settled the subject of Federal relations, and was pressed through both houses in a few hours. All these things may be legitimate in the strategy of politics, but they excite distrust and work evil. But our present purpose is only to show that it was an amendment, in the strict sense of the word, of the Articles of Confederation, and not their entire destruction, that the Assembly had in view in sending delegates to Philadelphia.
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influence, since the peace, the trade and commerce of Virginia had advanced with rapid strides. The State and the people had been plunged, by a war of eight years, into difficulties and em- barrassments, which time only could remove ; but there was every reason to believe that the time of deliverance was at hand. The duties from commerce were pouring larger and larger sums every year into the treasury of the State; and the day was not distant when, from this source alone. Virginia would be able not only to meet all the requisitions of the Federal Government, but to defray a large part of the ordinary expenses of government.
Such was the state of the public mind when the new system was proposed for the adoption of the people. Its first appearance was calculated to excite alarm. They beheld a total subversion of the plan of government to which they were attached, and which they had expressly instructed their delegates to amend, not to destroy. They saw, or thought they saw, in the power of laying taxes, which the new plan gave to Congress, their most sacred privilege, which they and their fathers before them had so long enjoyed, and in defense of which they had lately concluded a fearful war, would be invaded, if not wholly alienated. It was true that they would contribute a respectable delegation to Con- gress ; but, as the interests of the States were not only not iden- tical, but antagonistic, it might well happen, nay, it would fre- quently happen, that a tax would be levied upon them not only without the consent of their representatives, but in spite of their opposition. Direct taxes were unpleasant things, even when laid by their own Assembly ; but when laid by men who had no com- mon interest with those who paid them, they might be oppres- sive ; and when they were oppressive, the State would have no power of extending relief; for the Acts of Congress were not only to prevail over Acts of Assembly, but over the Constitu- tion of the State. Heretofore, even in the Colony, they had always looked to their House of Burgesses for relief, and had rarely looked in vain. That body had ever been faithful to the rights and franchises of British freedom. It had, ere this, de- posed a royal Governor, had held him in confinement, and had transmitted him, by the first vessel from the James, to pay his respects to the King. It had frequently sent agents to England, who were in all things but the name the ministers plenipotentiary
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of the Colony.52 But the power of the purse and the power of the sword were not the only invaluable rights which were to be surrendered to the new Government. The commerce and the navigation of the country were to be placed under the exclusive control of Congress. The State had expressed a willingness to allow a certain percentage of her revenue, derived from imports, for the benefit of the Federal Government, and was ever willing and ever ready to bear her full proportion in the general charge; but she had deliberately refused, three years before, 53 when the proposal was made in the Assembly, and was sustained by all the authority which argument and eloquence could exert, to part with the right to regulate the entire trade and business of the community, and was not disposed to go farther now than she was then willing to go. Indeed, on this subject the people desired no change .. Their prosperity under the existing system was as great as could have been anticipated ; nay, had surpassed their most sanguine hopes ; and, as the North was a commercial peo- ple, it was probable that, whatever the South might lose, it was likely to gain nothing by subjecting its interests to such a super- vision. To sum up the whole : They thought that, however im- portant a Federal alliance with the neighboring States would be to the members who composed it, and however solicitous Vir- ginia was to form such a union on the most intimate and liberal terms, there was a price she was not disposed to pay; that such a union was, at best, the mere machinery for conducting that comparatively small portion of the affairs of any community which is transacted beyond its borders more economically and effectually than could be done by the community itself; and that, in effecting it, to surrender the right to lay its own taxes, to reg- ulate its own trade, to hold its own purse, and to wield its own sword at once and forever, was a sacrifice which no large and
52 Sir John Randolph was sent to England more than once. In the epitaph on Sir John, inscribed on the marble slab in the chapel of Wil- liam and Mary College, which was destroyed by fire in 1858, it is stated that he was frequently sent to England: "Legati ad Anglos semel atque iterum missi vices arduas sustinuit." His sons, Peyton and John, were also sent over, besides others.
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