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 26
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
Although he voted to ratify the Federal Constitution, he was determined to confine its practical working to the strictest letter of its meaning. He saw that if discretion or policy was to be the rule of its interpretation, the restrictions and limitations which it contained were not worth the paper on which they were written. Hence, when the engrossed bill laying a duty on imports was reported to the House from the committee, a motion was made by Madison that a clause limiting the time of its con- tinuance should be added at the end. The object of Madison was altogether practical; for he knew, from his acquaintance with
.
T
٠١٨
2 006
272
VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
commercial affairs, that if the merchant was not assured that there was stability in the tariff he would not send his ships on a distant voyage and subject their cargoes to a rate of duty which might be ruinous on their return. But White, who also saw the practical bearing of the proposition, took another view of the case. He argued that he had no jealousy of the Senate or of the Executive; but that, as the House alone had the power of origi- nating money bills, we should be careful in parting with the power for any long period; that, as the Constitution declared that no appropriation should be for a longer term than two years, it virtually limited the duration of a revenue law to that period. The following day the amendment offered by Madison again came up, and the ayes and noes were called upon it. White, after expressing himself sarcastically on the policy of calling the ayes and noes in the stages of a bill, 257 went into a masterly argument against the amendment, which, near seventy years later, was applauded by an able parliamentarian and poli- tician for its ability and wisdom. Madison, with his usual tact, substituted another amendment in the place of the one he had offered, and which was in substance that the act should not con- tinue in force after a certain day, unless otherwise provided in the act for the appropriation of the revenue. This proposition, although it recognized the propriety of limitations, yet, if the duration of the act exceeded two years, did not entirely accord with the sound doctrine laid down by White; but, in a spirit of compromise, he voted for it, and it prevailed by a vote of forty- one to eight. 258
The right of the President to remove public officers, whose tenure of office is not prescribed by the Constitution, was dis- cussed at an early day, and the doctrine advanced by White in the first day's debate has been sanctioned by the uniform prac-
257 But for the calling of the ayes and noes what would have become of the name of Alexander White ? Posterity would hardly have known that he ever was a member of the Assembly, as the Journal of the House of Delegates contains no other record of the full names of its members, or any other obvious means of identifying them, than the ayes and noes.
258 See the note of Colonel Benton on White's speech, in which are enumerated the difficulties that have arisen since the adoption of the Federal Constitution by a departure from the rule advocated by White.
273
ALEXANDER WHITE-SUPPLEMENTAL.
tice of the Government to this time. He said that the President appointed the officers, and that he conceived that the party who appointed ought to judge of the removal, always excepting those cases specified in the Constitution. At a later day, when the bill establishing a department for foreign affairs was discussed, he reiterated the sound doctrine that the appointing power had the right of removal; but, confounding the advisory power of the Senate in relation to the appointment, which is mainly for the purpose of record and identification, with the power of appoint- ing, he argued that the Senate ought to be associated with the President in removing incumbents from office-a doctrine that strikes at the very root of executive vigor and availability. At a still later day he seconded the motion that impeachment was the only mode of removing a public officer. He said that impeachments were to be employed in the case of officers who held their employment for a term of years or during good behavior. He intimated that they might be used when the Presi- dent insisted on retaining an officer who ought not to be retained. The judges were to be removed by impeachment. These, he said, were the three cases in which impeachment was the remedy. I am afraid that, if his views on the subjest of removal had pre- vailed, he would have made a very considerable deduction from the good which would have arisen had his opinions respecting the limitation of public acts been acted upon. To bring a tide- waiter from Oregon or California across the Isthmus or by the Cape to be impeached by the House and to be tried by the Senate, with the train of witnesses, and to consume the public time and money in the trial, would involve so much inconvenience and expense that we would soon find it a better plan to send the culprit a check for fifty thousand dollars, and beseech him to make for parts unknown. As he ultimately voted against a simi- lar bill on constitutional grounds, I wish he had argued that as the appointing power was vested by the Constitution in the President, and with it the power of removal, the conferring upon the President by act of Congress a right which he possessed under the Constitution might lead to mistakes in our future legislation and furnish a bad precedent. Such was doubtless the view of Madison; but, seeing the temper of the House, and anxious for the passage of so important a bill as that estab-
+
18
274
VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
lishing a State Department, he was willing to regard the clause conferring a power upon the President which he already pos- sessed as mere surplusage, and voted for the bill.
He opposed a fixed salary for the Vice-President, contending that he should be paid according to the amount of public ser- vice rendered. Accordingly, he moved to strike out a clause in the bill concerning that officer, which fixed the salary at five thousand dollars; and said that if his motion prevailed he would move an amendment allowing that officer the pay of the President when he acted as President, and a daily pay during the time that he acts as President of the Senate. During the debate he said that the Vice-President had personal advantages from his position, which holds him up as the successor of the President. The voice of the people is shown to be considerably in his favor, and, if he be a deserving person, there will be but little doubt of his succeeding to the presidential chair.259 His motion to strike out failed, and so did the motion of Page, who moved to strike out five thousand dollars with the view of inserting eight thou- · sand dollars.260
He strenuously opposed the distinction between the pay 261 of the senators and that of the members of the House of Repre- sentatives, and was joined by his colleague, Andrew Moore (and opposed by Madison), on the ground that as the Constitution made no distinction on the score of services between one mem-
259 The succession of the Vice-President to the chair of the President continued in the two instances of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson; then the State Department became within the line of safe precedents. Now that is eschewed, and, perhaps, at present the chances of selec- tion are in favor of those who hold no office at all.
260 It was on the motion of John Page that the President's salary was fixed at twenty-five thousand dollars. He had previously moved to fill the blank with thirty thousand dollars.
261 In all the early debates about fixing the wages of a member of Congress no other mode than that of a per diem was hinted at. When many years later an annual salary was allotted to the members, the scheme was scouted by the people. Any other mode than that of a per diem is plainly against economy and the very nature of a Parlia- ment. Yet the rate of an annual salary has recently been adopted. The remedy is to raise the per diem, but still cling to the per diem as the life and substance of a representative system.
-
1
275
ALEXANDER WHITE-SUPPLEMENTAL.
ber of Congress and another, legislation should make none, and that the members of both houses ought to be paid in proportion to the service rendered by them. Here he has been sustained by the public opinion of our own times. He opposed the pro- position of Vining for a home department, and argued with great plausibility against it. In this opinion, however, though he was probably right in his day, he is not upheld at the present time, as the comparatively recent creation of the Department of the Interior clearly shows.
A question of intense interest at the first session of the Con- gress was the location of the seat of government. The House of Representatives had, by a decisive majority, selected some place on the banks of the Susquehanna; but at the heel of the session the Senate sent back the bill with an amendment striking out the Susquehanna, and proposing " a district of ten miles square, bounded on the south by a line running parallel at one mile's distance from the city of Philadelphia on the east side of the river Delaware, and extending northerly and westerly so as to include Germantown." The amendment kindled a blaze in the House. The Southern members opposed it in a body. Theo- doric Bland thought that the bill was so materially changed by the amendment as to warrant the House in postponing its con- sideration, and he made a motion to that effect. He said that he trusted the House would not be affected by the fact that the Senate had kept back the appropriation bill as a hostage for the passage of the bill before them. Page seconded the motion to postpone. White objected to the Senate's amendment, as virtu- ally changing the tenor of the bill and as introducing a new sub- ject; and, as the House would not allow the introduction of a new subject by one of its own members at this late hour, so the rule should apply to the new measure, though it proceeded from the Senate. Madison, with exquisite skill, opposed the intro- duction of an entirely new place for the seat of government, on the ground that it had not been named before the people; that all the other places had been deliberately brought to the notice of the country; that .two of them had been examined by the old Congress and had received a favorable decision, and that to adopt in a moment a rival place never before contemplated was risking an improper and a dissatisfactory decision. The question on
276
VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
Bland's motion was taken by ayes and noes, and was rejected by a vote of twenty-nine to twenty-five-all the Virginia mem- bers voting in the minority.262
At the beginning of the second session of Congress, in Janu- ary, 1790, the members from Virginia were nearly all in their seats. One of the first questions discussed in the House was respecting the reporters. During the previous session these useful gentlemen, to whose labors history is more indebted than to the labors of the professed historians, were placed behind the Speaker's chair, whence they could see and hear to great advan- tage; but at the present session they had been removed to the gallery. Page brought the subject up informally before the House, spoke very handsomely in favor of the reporters, and thought that they ought to be restored to their old seats. White acknowledged the general fidelity of the reported debates and the readiness of the reporters in obtaining from the speakers their exact expressions in debate, and thought that it was well enough to admit them within the bar of the House; but he said that if the House went further it would seem to give an official encouragement to the reporters, and to hold the House in some degree responsible for their reports. No question was taken, but the cheerfulness with which the members approved of the publication of the debates is the more praiseworthy, as the old Congress always sat with closed doors, and as the Senate fol- lowed their examble, and it was not long before that the publi- cation of the debates in the House of Commons had ceased to be a breach of privilege. Even at this day, in the House of Lords, there are some restrictions on the right to publish without the consent of their House. 263
262 The Virginia members were Isaac Coles, James Madison, Theodo- ric Bland, Alexander White (who were members of the present Con- vention), John Page, Richard Bland Lee, Samuel Griffin, Josiah Parker, and John Brown. Bland died during the second recess of Congress, and was succeeded by William Branch Giles.
263 Lord Campbell says that before he could venture to offer to the world his Lives of the Lord Chancellors he was legally estopped by a standing order of the House of Lords, of ancient date, which declared "that no one should presume to publish the lives of any lords, spiritual or temporal, deceased, without the permission of their heirs and execu-
1
A
277
ALEXANDER WHITE-SUPPLEMENTAL.
The discrimination among the public creditors was another of the difficult problems of our early legislation. That a capitalist who had purchased from a poor soldier his certificate of one hundred dollars for five or ten should receive the original amount was monstrous; and the report of the Secretary of the Treasury recommended a modified discrimination. When that report came up in Committee of the Whole, Madison proposed a scale of modification, which was earnestly and ably supported by White. His speech on the occasion was probably the ablest he ever delivered in Congress, and displays a perfect knowledge of his subject, clear and conclusive argumentation, and no incon- siderable learning. Moore also supported the motion of Madi- son at great length, and with a seriousness in keeping with the magnitude and the delicacy of the subject. But the arguments of White, Moore, and Madison are too much in detail for our present purposes. 26+
The report of a committee on a Quaker memorial concerning slavery was discussed (March 17th) in the Committee of the Whole, when White moved to strike out the first proposition, because he was opposed to entering at that time into the con- sideration of the powers of Congress on the subject. He objected to other propositions contained in the report, which he proposed to offer in a different form. 265 He concluded by observing that his wish was to promote the happiness of man- kind, and among the rest those who were the subjects of the present consideration; but this he wished to do in conformity to the principles of justice and with a due regard to the peace and happiness of others. He would contribute all in his power to the well-being and comfort of slaves; but he was fully of opinion that Congress had no right to interfere in the business . any further than he proposed by his two propositions as modi-
tors"; and as he was about to publish the lives of Thomas a Becket, Michael de la Pole, and other early Chancellors, and, as he could hardly think of hunting up their heirs and executors, he was led to move a repeal of the order. This was within the last ten or twelve years. (Lives of the Lord Chancellors, Vol. V, 88.)
264 Consult in the index of the first volume of Benton's Debates the names of White, Moore, Madison, &c.
265 The Debates do not give the report, and I cannot state the exact nature of its recommendations.
5
T
W
1
·
PA
278
VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
fied. If Congress had the power to interfere, he did not think the essential interests of the Southern States would suffer. Twenty years ago he supposed the idea he now suggested would have caused universal alarm. Virginia, however, about twelve years since, prohibited the importation of negroes from Africa, and the consequences apprehended were never realized. On the contrary, the agriculture of that State was never in a more pros- perous condition.266
In the course of a debate on the subject White expressed his views of the policy of bounties on the occupations of individuals. A bill had been reported entitled an act for the encouragement of the bank and other cod fisheries, which allowed a bounty of so many dollars on the tonnage of the vessels engaged in the trade. Giles moved to strike out the first section of the bill, and made a strong speech on the impolicy of granting bounties to any particular class of persons. White, conscious of the neces- . sity of building a commercial marine, had no objection to give the trade a proper degree of encouragement; but he did not relish the idea of granting bounties; but he said that if any gen- tleman would prepare an amendment, so as to make them draw- backs in fact as well as in words, he would consent to the measure.
He was in his seat at the opening of the session in November, 1792, and was called on to give a vote on a subject which has been long since settled, but which was then not decided. A motion was made to inform the Secretary of the Treasury and the Sec- retary of War that the House of Representatives would on the following Wednesday take into consideration the report of a committee appointed to inquire into the causes of the failure of the late expedition under General St. Clair, to the end that they may attend the House and furnish such information as may be
266 This testimony of an able and honest friend of the Federal Consti- tution in favor of the prosperity of Virginia at the period of the ratifi- cation of that instrument is in strong contrast with the gloomy pictures of decay and desolation which were held forth by his associates in the Federal Convention of Virginia. White's attention had probably been called recently to this subject, as he had been appointed a year or two before one of a committee to inquire whether the number of slaves in the State had increased or diminished since the passage of the act prohibiting the importation of slaves.
279
ALEXANDER WHITE-SUPPLEMENTAL.
conducive to the due investigation of matters stated in said report. Williamson moved to strike out that part of the reso- lution requiring the presence of the Secretaries, and Venable followed in a short and decisive speech in support of the motion. White followed Venable, and took the ground that would be taken at the present day. Madison and Giles followed on the same side, and the motion to strike out prevailed. 267
He voted in the majority with Andrew Moore, against Madi- son, Giles, Venable, and Parker, in favor of preventing a reduc- tion of the army at that time, which was one of the party questions of the day. He voted against the bill to create the Department of Foreign Affairs, on the ground heretofore men- tioned; his colleagues (Isaac Coles, Josiah Parker, and John Page) voting with him, and Madison, Moore, Lee, and Griffin against him. He voted in common with the whole Virginia delegation against the scheme for fixing the seat of the Federal Government on the Susquehanna, and with Madison, Giles, Moore, and Parker against the bill incorporating the Bank of the United States. When the President returned the bill for apportioning representatives among the several States to the House of Representatives, with his reasons for not assenting to its passage, he voted with his colleagues (Madison, Giles, Griffin, Brown, and Moore) in the negative, and defeated that measure. He approved the famous act respecting fugitives from justice and persons escaping from the service of their masters, and voted in the majority of forty-eight to seven. In the minority of seven were two of his colleagues-John Francis Mercer and Josiah Par- ker; but the grounds of their vote it is impossible now to ascer-
267 While the presence of the secretaries in the House of Commons is the life and soul of the British polity, it is wholly inapplicable to our institutions. In the colonial government of Virginia the Treasurer always held a seat in the House of Burgesses; indeed, the Treasurer and the Speaker were usually, though not invariably, the same person, until 1765, when the two offices were prohibited by law from being held by the same person. The Treasurer continued to be a member of the House, and afterwards of the Conventions held prior to Declara- tion of Independence. At the first session of the General Assembly (October, 1776), it was decided that the Treasurer could not hold a seat in either house, and Robert Carter Nicholas, who had been regu- larly re-elected since 1766, preferring to hold his seat in the House of Delegates, resigned the office of Treasurer.
T
280
VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
tain. When several test questions were taken he appears to have been absent from his seat.
Having served four years in Congress, he withdrew from public life, maintaining to the last a high place among the most distinguished members of the body. He does not seem to have been a partisan on either side, but voted with either, according to his sense of propriety and his views of the Constitution. Eager to organize the new government, he opposed the act to establish the Department of Foreign Affairs, because it con- tained, in his opinion, an unconstitutional provision; and on the same ground, though favorable to the eminent man at the head of the Treasury, he opposed the favorite scheme of a bank of the United States.
His long and honorable career was drawing to a close. He had devoted the prime of his life to the public service, and in his latter days he was assigned the duty of supervising the construction of the buildings which were designed to accommo- date the Federal authorities in the new city of Washington, which had been established by his vote on the banks of the Potomac, 268 And at Woodville, in the county of Frederick, in the year 1804, and in the sixty-sixth year of his age, he departed this life.
The character of White must be determined by his acts, and these we have endeavored to lay before the reader. In all the public bodies of which he was a member, whether at home or abroad, his ready information, his eloquence, and his decision placed him in the front rank. His public qualifications were enhanced by his virtues, among which were a deep and ever- present sense of an overruling Providence, and a firm belief in the truth of the Christian religion.
268 A letter from General Washington to White, dated March 25, 1798, would lead me to believe that the latter held the trust mentioned in the text. (Writings of Washington, Vol. IX, 334.) In Lanman's Dictionary of Congress, Alexander White is confounded with a person of the same name from North Carolina, who was a member of the old Congress in May, 1786, but who was not a member of Congress during Washing- ton's administration. White of Virginia was never a member of the old Congress.
E
GEORGE NICHOLAS.
Continuing our course in the shadow of the Blue Ridge, we enter the county of Albemarle, the red soil of which is reputed to be fertile of official dignitaries, and which certainly contributed to the Convention two very remarkable men in the persons of George and Wilson Cary Nicholas. They were brothers, and acted together in political affairs while they both lived; but, for twenty years after the death of George the name of Wilson Cary, in his capacity as a member of the House of Delegates, of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives of the United States, and as Governor of Virginia, was well known and read daily from one end of the country to the other.
And first of George. Allusion has been repeatedly made already to his course in the Assembly in our review of the ses- sions to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the striking figure which he made during the debates in the present Convention has been exhibited at full length; but such was the force of his character, such was the vast influence in Virginia and in Kentucky until the close of the last century, that a more deliberate notice of his character is due to his memory; and I perform this office with the less reluctance, as there is not, so far as I know, any record of his career in print, and as if neglected now it may be overlooked hereafter.
He was the son of Robert Carter Nicholas and of Anne Cary, his wife.269 Of the father it may suffice to say that he was esteemed for his abilities as a lawyer, for his sterling qualities as a statesman and a patriot, and, at a time when religion in its devotional aspects had almost faded away among the great, for his pure and ardent piety. He was a member of the House of Burgesses from the county of York as early as 1758, holding a place on all the important committees, and in 1766, on the death of Speaker Robinson, when the office of Treasurer was separated from that of the Speaker, he was chosen by the House of Bur-
269 R. C. Nicholas married Miss Cary in 1754.
1
. 282
VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF 1788.
gesses to the former office. He performed the duties of his office with great satisfaction to the public until the first session of the General Assembly held in October, 1776, when, in conse- quence of a decision of the House of Delegates, of which he was a member, that the offices of a delegate and of the Treasurer were incompatible, he resigned the latter in a short address to the House, in which he said that he resigned his office "with honest hands-at least with empty ones," and received the unani- mous approbation of both houses of the Assembly for his integ- rity, fidelity, and honor in the discharge of his duties. On the first organization of the judiciary he was elected one of the judges of the General Court; but, as the war kept the courts closed, it is probable that he did not take his seat on the bench, or, if he did, that it was but for a short time that he performed the duties of a judge, which he was so well qualified to discharge. It was at the bar and in the House of Burgesses that he acquired the great reputation which he enjoyed among his contempo- raries, and which was acknowledged by his appointment to the office of Treasurer, and to the office of President of the Conven- tion of July, 1775, on the retirement of Peyton Randolph. That he was the equal and rival of such men as Thomson Mason, Wythe, Pendleton, Peyton Randolph, and his brother John, and others of a similar stamp, is praise enough with posterity. He did not live to hail the recognition of the independance of his country by Great Britain, but died at his seat in Hanover, in 1780, in the fifty-second year of his age. 210
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.