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. II > Part 13
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
force of the compliment said by Henry Lee, the son of General Henry Lee, to have been paid by John Wickham to Pendleton on the superior precision of his (Pendleton's) part of the revision; and as we may sup- pose that Jefferson, being the younger and more ready man, recast much more of Pendleton's part than Wythe, it may be that the very precision praised by Wickham was the merit of Jefferson. Still, eminent credit is due to each of the revisors, and it deserves to be noticed that although the admirable accomplishment of this great work was sufficient of itself to fill the measure of the fame of each, yet such were the numerous and valuable services rendered by each of the revisors to his country that the revision of the laws appears only as one act of the series. See Randall's Jefferson, Vol. I, 217.
136
VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
ceeded in good earnest to perform its duty, and made consider- able progress, when, on the 14th of December, it was resolved that the further consideration of the several bills in the Revised Code, from No. 63 to the end, except the bill (No. 68) for the employment, government, and support of malefactors con- demned to labor for the Commonwealth; the bill (No. 82) for establishing religious freedom; the bill (No. 105) reforming the proceedings in writs of right; and the bill (No. 123) concerning executors, be postponed till the next session of the General Assembly. And on the 21st the House went into committee " on the residue of the printed bills in the Revised Code of laws enumerated in the order of the 14th instant," and, on rising, it was resolved "that the House would again resolve itself into committee on the 31st of March next on the said bills." When we recall the fact that from 1779 to 1785 nine bills only had been acted on, and that during the present session the number of sixty-eight had been reached in regular progression, we may form an opinion of the dispatch of public business in the days of our fathers.128
But, engrossing as were the labors expended in the revision of the laws, the current business of the State would have suf- ficed to occupy the full time of an ordinary session. Before we relate the memorable proceedings of the House on Federal affairs, we will glance at a few acts which exhibit the courtesy and taste, as well as the sense of justice, of the House. A bill was reported in the early part of the session for the naturaliza- tion of the Marquis de Lafayette, which passed rapidly through its several stages, and was passed unanimously into a law. A bill securing to authors of literary works an exclusive property
128 Those who wish to refer to the acts passed at this session will find them in Hening's Statutes at Large, Anno 1785. Probably one of the greatest theatres of usefulness, as well as for the display of his great powers of management and reasoning, which was presented in Madi- son's whole career, was his masterly and triumphant generalship of the revised bills. No man then living but himself-if we except Mr. Jeffer- son, who always seemed to carry his point by casting a spell over his political associates-could have achieved the work. And the members of the House, who were also members of the present Convention, and who aided him on the occasion, deserve, and should receive, their just and patriotic praise.
137
ALEXANDER WHITE.
therein for a limited term of years was introduced by Mr. Madi- son, and received the sanction of both houses. The House received with due sensibility, on the 30th of December, the intelligence of the death of the Honorable 'Samuel Hardy, a delegate from Virginia in Congress, who had died in Philadel- phia, paid cheerfully the expenses which his colleague (Grayson) had incurred in conducting the funeral, and entered on their Journal, as a perpetual record, that "the faithful and important services of Samuel Hardy demand this token of his country's gratitude.'' 129
129 The bill of funeral expenses was {114 9d. Samuel Hardy died in Philadelphia on the 17th of October, 1785, while attending Congress as one of the delegates from Virginia. His death was announced the same day to Congress, which resolved that the members, as a body, would attend his funeral the following day, with a crape around the left arm, and will continue in mourning for the space of one month. They appointed Mr. Grayson, Mr. Read, and Mr. Kean a committee to superintend the funeral. and the chaplains were notified to attend, and one of them to officiate on the occasion; and the committee was ordered " to invite the Governor of the State, the ministers of foreign Powers, the mayor of the city, and other persons of distinction in town to attend the funeral." (Journals of the Old Congress, October 17, 1785, Vol. X, 251, edition of 1801.) Hardy was one of the most popu- lar and beloved of our early statesmen. He entered the House of Delegates about the close of the war, and remained an active member until he was sent to Congress in 1783. The Assembly, during the pres- ent year [1858], called a county by his name. Monroe and Hardy were about the same age, were in the Assembly together, were on terms of the strictest intimacy, and boarded with Mrs. Ege, in Richmond. When Monroe made his Southern tour as President, he called to see his old landlady, who presently appeared, and, though thirty-odd years had passed since the death of Hardy, as she threw her arms about the neck of Monroe, she sobbed forth, "Poor Hardy!" [There is a tradition, which has been regarded as somewhat apocryphal, that the small one-story-and attic building of rubble-stone on the north side of Main, between Nineteenth and Twentieth streets, known as the " Old Stone House," has accommodated as guests Washington, Monroe, and other distinguished men. It is now the oldest house in Richmond, and was probably built soon after the town was laid off in 1737. In the original plan Jacob Ege appears as an owner of a town lot. His descendants occupied the house until a few decades past. The house is too small, and the rooms two few in number, for it to have been used for the entertainment and lodging of guests. Mrs. Ege, the land- lady of Monroe and Hardy, was more likely some other than the
138
VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
The session of the House of Delegates of 1785, in connection with Federal affairs, will always be conspicuous in our annals. It may be said, in a certain sense, to have given birth to the present Federal Constitution. During the century and a half of her colonial existence the commerce of Virginia, except in the interval of the Protectorate, was regulated by Great Britain, either in the form of direct legislation or by the supervisory power which was exercised over the acts of Assembly.130 130 After the Declaration of Independence the Commonwealth passed laws for the regulation of her trade; but, owing to the prepon- derance of the naval power of the enemy throughout the war, our regulations were merely nominal. At the peace of 1783 all obstacles to trade were removed, and Virginia, for the first time since the death of Cromwell, regulated her trade with foreign Powers. It was soon apparent that her geographical position in respect to several neighboring States rendered a commercial compact with them highly expedient, if not indispensably neces- sary to the prosperity of each. An adroit legislative movement of Maryland, in abolishing a duty on certain articles highly taxed by Virginia, might divert the entire foreign trade of a season from Norfolk to Baltimore or Annapolis. Hence the early indi- cations of a wish in our councils to form an agreement with Maryland; and the object was promoted by the residence on the Potomac of some of the ablest statesmen of that era, who felt sensibly the inconvenience perpetually arising from a conflict of jurisdiction over their immediate waters. But, anxious as Mary- land might be to form an agreement with Virginia, she must be controlled, to a greater or less extent, by the policy of Pennsyl- vania, whose waters mingled with her own, and whose territory, running the whole length of the northern boundary of Mary- land, afforded opportunities for smuggling, which nothing short
mistress of the " Old Stone House."-EDITOR.] His remains still rest in Philadelphia, where those of Henry Tazewell, James Innes, Stevens Thomson Mason, Isaac Read, and of other gallant and patriotic Vir- ginians also repose. Should we not gather all the honored dead of the Revolution in a cemetery of our own ?
130 I have before me the Sessions Acts of 1766, [? ] in which the acts vetoed by Great Britian are marked by a member of the House of Burgesses. The royal veto was exercised very freely on the acts of that session.
١
1
-
10
00
139
ALEXANDER WHITE.
of a strict military police always on the field could fully check. At the present session two years and a half had elapsed since the peace; yet, with every disposition on the part of Virginia to form an equal and amicable commercial league with neighboring States, she had been foiled in her purposes-each State looking to her local interests only, and unrestrained by any feeling of a personal or patriotic nature. 131 Hence a conviction, which had long been felt by our members of Congress, became general among the people at large that the regulation of commerce, under certain restrictions, should be entrusted to the Federal Government.
The nature and extent of those restrictions involved long and angry debates. Those argue falsely who contend that the acknowledgment of our independence bound the several States to each other, so far as local interests were concerned, more intimately than before. The main conviction drawn from the struggle with England was that the union of the States was necessary to enable them to resist a foreign foe; but that any one State should subject its business or its trade to the control of another, or of all the States, was a sentiment that was slow to make its impression on the public mind. The interests of the States were diverse; there was but little communication between them; their institutions were unlike; and few of those considera- tions that soften national prejudice could act upon the people. It is probable that there was a more intense individuality of feeling and of character among the several States after the peace than before it. This temper was heightened in Virginia by her weight in the confederacy, produced by her numbers, the extent of her territory, and her wealth, and partly, perhaps, from the fact that some of her most eminent statesmen, who had for thirty years directed the State councils, had never gone abroad, nor had come directly in contact and in friendly association with men of the same class in other States.132 The success of the Revolution tended rather to confirm the sense of individuality in
131 John Randolph, of Roanoke, used to say that the exemption by Maryland of certain articles which were taxed high in Virginia gave the first impulse to the trade of Baltimore.
132 Patrick Henry, George Mason, Joseph Prentis, John Tyler, Henry Tazewell, and many other able men had never been abroad or held seats in Congress-except Henry, for a few weeks-and they opposed the adoption of the Federal Constitution with all their might; while
-
140
VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
the States, for it added a moral element to the less exalted ones of interest and power. Still, a commercial arrangement with a neighboring State, whose waters were identical with our own, was necessary, and its negotiation on fair terms seemed imprac- ticable. And, as the finances of the States required the success- ful development of all her resources, it was determined to bring the whole subject before the Assembly. Accordingly, on the 7th of November the House of Delegates went into Committee on the State of the Commonwealth; and, when it rose, Prentis reported a resolution, which was twice read and agreed to by the House, declaring that an act ought to pass to authorize the dele- gates of Virginia in Congress to give the assent of the State to a general regulation of the commerce of the United States under certain qualifications. A select committee, consisting of Joseph Prentis, James Madison, Henry Lee, Meriwether Smith, Carter Braxton, William Ronald, James Innes, and Cuthbert Bullitt, were ordered to bring in a bill in pursuance of the resolution. 133
Madison, Randolph, Henry Lee, and Pendleton (who occupied a seat on two occasions in Congress) were friendly to its adoption. This distinction was obvious in the Assembly from as early as 1777 to 1778, and exercised a serious influence upon public measures.
133 This committee, which was appointed by Speaker Harrison, who had been a member of Congress and knew the parties of the House, was composed of four members who had not been members of Con- gress, and four who had. Prentis, one of the best of men, the substi- tute of Wythe in the Convention of 1775, an old member of the House, and afterwards a judge of the General Court; Bullitt, a member of all the early Conventions, an old member of the House, of which he was Speaker, and afterwards a judge of the General Court; John Tyler, who had been more than once Speaker of the House, afterwards a judge of the Court of Admiralty, and a district judge under the Federal Constitution ; Innes, who succeeded Edmund Randolph as Attorney- General of Virginia, was a commissioner under Jay's treaty, and declined the appointment of Attorney-General of the United States tendered by Washington; and Ronald, an old and able lawyer, and a member of the present Convention. These four members of the com- mittee had never been abroad; while Meriwether Smith, one of our oldest statesmen, who has claims to the authorship of the first Consti- tution of Virginia (of which hereafter), Madison, Carter Braxton, who signed the Declaration of Independence, and Henry Lee, who was soon to become a member of Congress, had been much abroad in a public capacity. All the members of the committee except Prentis and Braxton were members of the present Convention.
141
ALEXANDER WHITE.
Meantime, the House reconsidered the plan of giving its assent to regulations of commerce by a bill, and resolved to discharge the committee from the office of preparing one, and, constituting the same gentlemen members of a new committee, ordered them to draft and report instructions to the delegates of the State in Congress according to the resolution adopted by the House. On the 14th Prentis reported a preamble and resolution, the preamble setting forth that "Whereas the relative situation of the United States has been found on trial to require uniformity in their commercial regulations, as the only effectual policy for obtaining in the ports of foreign nations a stipulation of privi- leges reciprocal to those enjoyed by the subjects of such nations in the ports of the United States, for preventing animosities, which cannot fail to arise among the several States from the interference of partial and separate regulations, and for deriving from commerce such aids to the public revenue as it ought to contribute, and whereas such uniformity can be best carried into effect by the Federal councils, which, having been instituted for the purpose of managing the interests of the States in cases that cannot be so well provided for by measures individually pursued, ought to be invested with authority in this case as being within the reason and policy of their institution"; and the resolution declaring "that the delegates in Congress be instructed to pro- pose in Congress a recommendation to the States in union to authorize that Assembly to regulate their trade on the following principles and under the following qualifications: (1) That the United States, in Congress assembled, be authorized to prohibit vessels belonging to any nation which has no commercial treaty with the United States from entering any of the ports thereof, or to impose any duties on such vessels and their cargoes which may be judged necessary ; all such prohibitions and duties to be uniform throughout the United States, and the proceeds of the latter to be carried into the treasury of the State within which they shall accrue. (2) That over and above the duties which may be so laid the United States, in Congress assembled, be authorized to collect in manner prescribed by an act 'to provide certain and adequate funds for the payment of this State's quota of the debt contracted by the United States,' an impost not exceeding five per centum, ad valorem, on all goods, wares, and merchandises whatsoever imported into the United States from
1
142
VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
any foreign ports; such impost to be uniform as aforesaid, and to be carried to the treasury of the United States. (3) That no State be at liberty to impose duties on any goods, wares, or merchandises imported by land or by water from any other State, but may altogether prohibit the importation from any other State of any particular species or description of goods, wares, or merchandise of which the importation is at the same time pro- hibited from all other places whatsoever. (4) That no act of Congress as may be authorized, as hereby proposed, shall be entered into by less than two-thirds of the confederated States, nor be in force longer than - years, unless continued by a like proportion of votes within one year immediately preceding the expiration of the said period, or be revived in like manner after the expiration thereof, nor shall any impost whatsoever be col- lected by virtue of the authority proposed in the second article after the year 17 -. ' 134 The instructions were read a second time and were ordered to be committed to a Committee of the Whole on Friday sennight.
When we consider the temper of the times, these stipulations must be regarded as going far beyond the true mark. The uniformity of duties was desirable, and some sacrifice of interest might fairly be claimed for the arrangement. Still it was a con- cession that went beyond any proposition offered by the States to the Federal authority, and was rendered yet more influential from the source from which it came. The payment of the cus- toms into the treasury of the State in whose waters they were collected was right and proper. But the grant to the Federal Government of the right to laying five per centum on imposts at a time when the average rate of the Virginia tariff was greatly below that figure, and which savored of an entire cession of the customs to the United States, might well create alarm and rouse the suspicions of those who were inclined to view the Federal authority with distrust. If it be alleged that the measures
134 House Journal, November 14, 1785, page 36. Mr. Gilpin, in his note (169) to the "Introduction" of Mr. Madison, refers to the pro- ceedings of the Assembly of the 30th November and Ist of December, 1785, but has overlooked the resolution of the 14th of November, which is the foundation of the whole. I cannot refrain from bearing my tribute to the modesty, accuracy, and unbounded research which characterizes the editing of the Madison Papers by Mr. Gilpin. :
143
ALEXANDER WHITE.
recommended by the committee excluded those States that did not possess seaports from all benefits arising from the customs, it also relieved them from all expense in their collection; and it was competent to any State, with the consent of Congress, to make any agreement with any seaport State in relation to the customs which might be deemed beneficial. It should be remembered that each State was then responsible for its own debt, foreign and domestic, contracted during the war. The duration of the grant for a term of years, which could not be recalled until they expired, but could be abridged at the pleasure of Congress, was also a concession to the Federal Government.
In the interval an urgent petition was forwarded to the House by the merchants of Petersburg, the business of which town then greatly exceeded that of Richmond, setting forth that they considered the commerce of the State in a ruinous situation from the restrictions and impositions which have been laid upon it by the commercial Powers of Europe, and praying that such measures may be adopted as may tend to re-establish it upon a proper basis; and that due encouragement be given to the build- ing of ships in this State, and to the trade carried on in Ameri- can bottoms, and owned by American merchants only. 135
When Friday came the House, as if reluctant to grapple with Federal affairs, ordered that the Committee of the Whole, to which had been referred the instructions to the delegates in Congress, be discharged from further proceedings thereon, and that the instructions be referred to the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Commonwealth. On the 28th the House went into committee to consider the instructions, and, when it rose, Alexander White reported that the committee had come to certain resolutions on the subject, which it had instructed him to present whenever the House should think proper to receive them. On the 30th White reported the original preamble with- out amendment, and the first and third stipulations of the origi- nal resolution, omitting the second, which set apart five per
185 House Journal, November 24, 1785. Norfolk had presented an equally urgent memorial at the last session, referring mainly to the West India trade. I have often conversed with old merchants in the interior who bought their foreign goods at this date in Petersburg, which they paid for in specie or tobacco. The merchants of Peters- burg were mostly foreign, as were those at Norfolk.
W
144
VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
centum of the imposts for the Federal treasury, and declaring, as a third stipulation, that no act of Congress that may be authorized as hereby proposed shall be entered into by less than two-thirds of the confederated States, nor be in force longer than thirteen years. The Federal party proper had evidently sus- tained an overwhelming defeat in committee; for no member of that party proposed in the House to amend the report by insert- ing their favorite stipulation, which had been lost, but merely sought a comparatively immaterial issue by moving to add after the words "thirteen years," in the third stipulation, the words "unless continued by a like proportion of votes within one year immediately preceding the expiration of the said period, or be revived in like manner after the expiration thereof." This amendment was, at best, but a matter of minor detail since the rejection of the grant of five per centum, and could add but little to the power already granted by the stipulation; but, such as it was, the Federal party determined in its support to venture a battle, which resulted in their second entire defeat-the ayes being only twenty-eight and the noes seventy-nine. The mem- bers of the present Convention who voted in the affirmative were Madison, Johnston, Archibald Stuart, John Tyler, Strother, Simms, David Stuart, Thomas Smith, Clendenin, Isaac Coles, Thornton, Innes, and Matthews, and in the negative were Ben- jamin Harrison (Speaker), Alexander White, Cabell, John Trigg, Watkins, Joseph Jones (of Dinwiddie), Miles King, Westwood, Humphreys, Isaac Vanmeter, George Jackson, Prunty, Temple, Robertson, Corbin, Willis Riddick, Ruffin, Bullitt, Andrew Moore, Edmunds (of Sussex), Briggs, and Cary. The third stipulation was then read and agreed to, and Alexander White was ordered to carry the instructions to the Senate.
The following day (December Ist), as soon as the House pro- ceeded to business, a motion was made that, as the resolution including the stipulations respecting commerce, which had been agreed to the day before and sent to the Senate, did not, from a mistake, contain the sense of a majority of the House that voted for the resolution, the direction to send the resolution to the Senate be rescinded, and the House immediately resolve itself into a committee to reconsider the same. This motion was car- ried by a vote of sixty to thirty-three-ascertained by ayes and noes; Madison, Trigg, Cabell, Watkins, Jones, Westwood,
145
ALEXANDER WHITE.
Simms, David Stuart, Thomas Smith, Humphreys, Vanmeter, Prunty, Temple, Willis Riddick, Ruffin, Bullitt, Andrew Moore, Edmunds (of Sussex), Briggs, Cary, and Innes voting in the affirmative, and Alexander White, Johnston, Archibald Stuart, John Tyler, Patteson, Strother, King, Jackson, Thornton, and Matthews in the negative. The House at once resolved itself into committee on the instructions; and, when it rose, Matthews reported that the committee had taken the resolution into con- sideration and had made several amendments thereto, which he was directed to present when the House should think proper to receive them. The report was then ordered to be laid upon the table.
The real cause of the recall of the resolution from the Senate can only be inferred; but it is probable that the Federal party proper, having felt the pulse of their opponents since the adjourn- ment of the previous day, were inclined to make another effort to secure the grant of five per centum for the Federal treasury; while their astute opponents, on the other hand, thinking, per- haps, that they might have gone too far, were not unwilling that the resolution should be placed once more within their reach. 136 Its further history may be given at once. The House went into committee on the 4th of December, and, when it rose, Alexander White reported two resolutions on the subject of commerce, one of which declared that no vessel trading to this State, other than such as are wholly owned by American citizens, or the subjects of Kingdoms or States having commercial treaties with the American States, shall be permitted to bring in any goods not the produce or manufacture of the State to which she belongs; and the other allowing a certain drawback on the duties imposed on goods imported into the Commonwealth by her citizens, or by citizens of the United States, in Virginia-built vessels, which
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.