The American Founding

<Constitutional Convention

The Constitutional Convention: Act I, The Alternative Plans

Scene 1: Laying Down the Rules

May 14: Constitutional Convention lacks necessary quorum

Only four delegates from Virginia and four delegates from Pennsylvania present. This Second Monday in May was the day initiated by the Annapolis Convention and confirmed by the Confederation Congress. The delegates “adjourned from day to day until Friday of the said month,” when the quorum requirement was met! The entire Virginia delegation was there within three days of the scheduled start of the Convention. The delegates drafted the Virginia Plan and disseminated it to the arriving delegates over the next week.

May 25: Constitutional Convention meets quorum requirement

Convened and elected officers: George Washington as President and William Jackson as Secretary. Chose committee (Wythe, Hamilton, and C. Pinckney) to prepare rules.

May 28: Committee on Rules Reports rules for Convention

Adopted sixteen rules and additional suggested rules referred to the committee. The Convention called to reconsider the efficacy of the Articles of Confederation began by adopting five voting rules of the Articles: 1) a quorum required a majority of states, 2) each state was allotted one vote, 3) the voting was to be by states and not by individuals, 4) each state could send up to seven delegates, and 5) each state sets its own internal quorum requirements. (The Convention, also without argument, accepted the “honorary” presence of Franklin as the eighth delegate from Pennsylvania.)

Scene 2: The 15 Resolutions of the Virginia Plan

May 29: Virginia Plan introduced and defended by Randolph

The Committee on Rules reported and five additional rules, including secrecy, were adopted. The language of the secrecy rule was: “nothing spoken in the house be printed, or otherwise published or communicated without leave.” Madison defended the rule in a letter to James Monroe: “it will secure the necessary freedom of discussion.”

Edmund J. Randolph submitted and defended a set of 15 Resolutions, known as the Virginia Plan. Randolph reminded the delegates that their “Mission” was to prevent “the fulfillment of the predictions of the American downfall.” The Convention agreed to meet the next day as a Committee of The Whole to consider the Resolutions.

Charles Pinckney also filed a plan.

Scene 3: First Discussion of the Virginia Plan

May 30: Resolution 1 amended and Resolution 2 discussed

Madison reports that Roger Sherman took his seat. The whole dynamic of the Convention would change as a result of his presence. The Convention resolved itself into Committee of The Whole, Nathaniel Gorham in the Chair. Four votes were recorded with 8 state delegations voting.

Resolution 1

After discussion, agreed (6 – 1 – 1) that a national government consisting of a supreme legislature, judiciary, and executive should be formed. Connecticut voting against, New York divided. G. Morris “explained the distinction between a federal and a national, supreme, Government.” Sherman opposed “too great inroads on the existing system.”

Resolution 2

Discussed whether representation should be based on population or amount of each State’s financial contribution.

May 31: Resolutions 3 – 6 discussed and 5a defeated.

Four votes recorded with ten states voting.

Resolution 3

Decided on a bicameral legislature.

Resolution 4a

Agreed (6 – 2 – 2) on election of First Branch by the people. New Jersey and South Carolina voted “no.” Connecticut and Delaware were divided. New York voted “yes.” Lansing had not yet arrived.

Resolution 5a

Defeated (7 – 3 – 0) Second Branch elected by the First Branch. Only Massachusetts, Virginia, and South Carolina voted in favor of Resolution 5a of the Virginia Plan that called for “the members of the second branch… to be elected by those of the first” based on a scheme of popular representation.
Madison’s reaction: “a chasm (was) left in this part of the plan.”
Roger Sherman’s suggestion to fill the chasm: “election of one member by each of the State Legislatures.”

Resolution 6

Agreed unanimously that either branch could initiate legislation. Agreed unanimously to State Incompetence and Negative on State Laws clauses.

June 1: Debated and postponed Resolution 7 on the Presidency.

Agreed to institute a National Executive with power to carry into effect the national laws and to appoint officers not otherwise provided for. Agreed (5 – 4 – 1) on a seven-year term for Executive. In Massachusetts, King and Gorham vote in favor while Gerry and Strong vote against. Connecticut, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia vote “no.” Postponed consideration of single or plural Executive.

June 2: Further lengthy deliberation of Resolution 7

Confusing day on the Executive. Agreed to selection of Executive by the National Legislature. Agreed on seven-year term (8 – 2), and ineligible after one term (7 – 2 – 1). Dickinson’s motion that Executive be subject to impeachment defeated (9 – 1).
Franklin: Executive should receive no salary. Motion postponed.

June 4: More deliberation of Resolution 7

Seven recorded votes. New Jersey absent.

Resolution 7

Another confusing day on the Executive. Agreed (7 – 3) on single Executive. New York voted “no.” Lansing. and Yates outvoted Hamilton. Virginia voted “yes”: Washington broke a 2-2 tie in Virginia.

Resolution 8

Council of Revision postponed. Agreed (8 – 2) to give Executive a veto over legislation subject to override by 2/3 of each branch of Legislature. Gerry objected to the Judiciary and the Executive having the joint power of prior review: the Judiciary were granted “the exposition of the laws, which involved a power of deciding on the Constitutionality.” King agreed: “the Judges ought to be able to expound the law as it should come before them, free from the bias of having participated in its formation.”

Resolution 9

Agreed to establish a National Judiciary consisting of a Supreme Court and one or more inferior tribunals.

June 5: Consideration of Resolutions 9-15

Resolution 9

Agreed to delete “one or more” and change to “a Supreme Court and inferior tribunals.”

Debated judicial selection and postponed decision, but agreed (8 – 2) to reject approval of judicial appointments by Legislature.

Agreed on judicial tenure during good behavior. Agreed on a salary provision.

Reconsidered inferior tribunals and agreed to eliminate reference to them, then agreed to empower the Legislature to establish such courts.

Resolution 10

Agreed (8 – 2) to admit new states on equal footing with original states.

Resolution 11

Postponed republican guarantee clause until representation is settled.

Resolution 12

Passed an Interim Government provision (8 – 2).

Resolution 13

Postponed provision for Constitutional amendments (7 – 3).

Resolution 14

Postponed oath of officers (6 – 4 – 1). New Jersey voting.

Resolution 15

Postponed mode of ratification of the Constitution. Sherman thought a “popular ratification unnecessary, the Articles of Confederation providing for changes and alterations with the assent of Congress and ratification of State Legislatures.” Madison thought it was “essential” and “indispensable” that “the new Constitution should be ratified in the most unexceptionable form, and by the supreme authority of the people themselves.”

Scene 4: Madison-Sherman Exchange

June 6: Are people ‘more happy in small than large States?’

Resolution 4a

Defeated (8 – 3) motion to have State Legislature elect First Branch of National Legislature. Connecticut, New Jersey, and South Carolina opposed. James Wilson articulated the theoretical issue early in the session: a vigorous general government acquires its “vigorous authority… from the mind or sense of the people at large.” Sherman’s response recalls the argument of the “celebrated” Montesquieu on behalf of the traditional virtues of the small republic and anticipates one of the main Antifederalist themes during the ratification struggle: for republics to be free, they must be small and homogeneous rather than large and heterogeneous. “The objects of the Union, he thought were few… All other matters civil and criminal would be much better in the hands of the States. The people are more happy in small than in large States.” Besides, it is not the factious nature of the people that must be guarded against; rather it is the corruption of the politicians who are unable to resist the temptation of political power. Madison’s argument in favor of popular representation focused on 1) the dangers of majority faction, especially concerning the property question, and 2) the solution residing in the control of the effects of faction rather than in the elimination of the causes of faction. This June 6 speech points us back to his Vices, written in Spring 1787, and forward to Federalist 10. The extended republic argument of the Vices and Federalist 10 are intertwined with 4a of the Virginia Plan. And the link is what is to be done about controlling the effects, in contrast to eliminating the causes, of majority faction. Madison claimed that to “enlarge the sphere… was the only defense against the inconveniences of democracy” in “civilized societies”—those attached to the preservation of the diversity of opinions, passions, and interests in a free society—consistent with “the democratic form of Government.” Faction, in effect, is sown in the nature of man and when we have democratic or republican government, we get a factious majority tyrannizing an unprotected minority: “We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man… Debtors have defrauded their creditors. The landed interest has borne hard on the mercantile interest.” Madison wanted a modification in the structure of the Articles of Confederation because they preserved the privileged position of the State Legislatures who were guilty of putting the revolutionary principles of economic liberty, political liberty, and religious liberty in danger.

Resolution 8a Reconsidered

The second vote of the day concerned the Council of Revision provision of the Virginia Plan. The Council of Revision added “a convenient number of the national Judiciary to the Executive in the exercise of the negative” over acts of Congress. The vote was 8-3 against the proposition. Only Connecticut, New York, and Virginia voted in favor of the Council of Revision.

Scene 5: Second Discussion of the Virginia Plan

June 7: How to fill ‘the chasm’ created by defeat of Resolution 5a

Resolution 5a

Agreed (11 – 0) to election of Second Branch of National Legislature by State Legislatures. This proposal by Dickinson and Sherman filled the “chasm” mentioned by Madison. He argued that the purpose of the Senate is to proceed “with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom, than the popular branch.” Madison failed to carry Virginia.

June 8: Resolution 6 and the Negative on State laws

Resolution 6

A move by Madison and Pinckney to extend the Congressional negative to all state laws was defeated (7 – 3 – 1). Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were in favor with Delaware divided. Pinckney failed to carry South Carolina. Virginia’s vote was 3 – 2. According to Madison, “Mr. Randolph and Mr. Mason no. Mr. Blair, Doctor McClurg, Mr. Madison yes. General Washington not consulted.”

June 9: Reconsideration of Resolution 7

Resolution 7

Defeated (10 – 1) a motion by Gerry that State Executives elect the National Executive. Delaware divided.

Resolution 4a

Debated voting procedures within the National Legislature.

Scene 6: The 19 Resolutions of the Amended Virginia Plan

June 11: Popular representation in both branches?

G. Morris absent today until June 30.

Resolution 4a

Return to National Representation. Sherman proposes a compromise: popular representation in the House and equal State representation in the Senate. South Carolina suggests that wealth, and not just people and States, be represented. According to Butler, “money was power.” Wilson introduces the 3/5 Clause. Decided (9 – 2) that representation in First Branch of the National Legislature should be based on free population plus 3/5 of all other persons. Only New Jersey and Delaware vote “no.” Sherman and Ellsworth now propose one vote per state in the Senate. Sherman: “Everything depended on this. The smaller States would never agree to the plan on any other principle than an equality of suffrage in this branch.” Disagreed (6 – 5) that each State should be equally represented in Senate. Wilson assisted Madison in defeating Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.

Resolution 5a

Agreed (6 – 5) that representation in the Second Branch should also be proportional plus 3/5 of all other persons. Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland vote “no.” The June 11 version of the “Connecticut Compromise” failed.

Resolution 13

Discussed.

Resolution 14

Agreed (6 – 5) to require oaths to observe the National Constitution and National laws by State officers. Sherman “opposed it as unnecessarily intruding into the State jurisdictions.”

June 12: The Specifics of Representation

Resolution 15

Agreed (5 – 3 – 2) to refer the Constitution to the people of the several states for ratification. Pennsylvania not voting. Delaware and Maryland divided. Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey voted “no.”

Resolution 4b

Agreed (7 – 4) on three-year terms for First Branch of National Legislature. Massachusetts, Connecticut, North Carolina, and South Carolina voted “no.”

Resolution 4c

Struck out, without discussion, rotation and recall provisions, thus marking the end of the “small republican” legislative tradition.

Resolution 4d

Agreed (8 – 3) to provide “liberal compensation” for members of the First Branch “to be paid from the National Treasury.”

Resolution 4e

Agreed (8 – 1 – 2) to make members of First Branch ineligible for offices under the National Government for one year after leaving the House. Maryland divided.

Resolution 5b, c

Agreed to require a minimum age of 30 (7 – 4) and a seven-year term for Senators (8 – 1 – 2). Georgia and North Carolina divided.

Resolution 5d

Defeated (7 – 3 – 1) no pay for Senators. Maryland divided.

Resolution 9

Discussed and postponed the jurisdiction to be given the Supreme Court.

June 13: The 19 Resolutions of the Amended Virginia Plan continued

Resolution 9

Agreed that the jurisdiction of the National Judiciary should extend to cases concerning the collection of the national revenue, impeachment of any national officers and questions of national peace and harmony.

Agreed that the Supreme Court should be appointed by the Senate.

Resolution 6

Rejected (8 – 3) a motion requiring money bills to originate only in the First Branch of the Legislature.

Received and agreed to vote on Amended Virginia Plan with 19 resolutions.

Scene 7: The 9 Resolutions of the New Jersey Plan Discussed

June 14: Dickinson to Madison: “you see the consequences of pushing things too far.”

New Jersey requested postponement of Amended Virginia Plan to present an alternative plan. Paterson wanted to introduce a plan that was “purely federal.” A postponement was agreed to.

June 15: New Jersey Plan introduced

Paterson submitted 9 Resolutions. The Plan restored the single chamber of the Articles of Confederation with each State represented equally regardless of population size. The power to tax and regulate interstate commerce was added. The other key features of the New Jersey Plan were: 1) the absence of popular representation, 2) a unicameral legislature, 3) equal representation of the States, and 4) the States retained as the central structural players. New Jersey actually met their own internal quorum requirements on this day!

June 16: The New Jersey Plan is “legal” and “practical”

The New Jersey Plan was debated. The Plan increases the powers of Congress, but leaves the federal structure of the Articles of Confederation unaltered. Paterson: “Our object is not such a Government as may be best in itself, but such a one as our Constituents have authorized us to prepare, and as they will approve.” Wilson “conceived himself authorized to conclude nothing, but to be at liberty to propose anything.” Pinckney remarked that there was no principle involved: “Give New Jersey an equal vote,” and she “will dismiss her scruples.” Randolph: “When the salvation of the Republic was at stake, it would be treason to our trust, not to propose what we found necessary.”

Scene 8: The 11 Resolutions of Hamilton’s Plan Presented

June 18: Neither the Virginia Plan nor the New Jersey Plan is adequate to secure “good government”

Hamilton argues that the Virginia Plan does not go far enough in enhancing the powers or altering the existing structure of the federal arrangement to secure “good government.” According to Hamilton, “we ought to go as far in order to attain stability and permanency, as republican principles will admit.” He recommends 11 ways to create a strong central and republican government. This is the first time that the word “vested” has been used to identify the location of political power. Note Hamilton’s Hamilton’s position on war powers.

Scene 9: Decision Day – Adoption of the Amended Virginia Plan

June 19: New Jersey Plan rejected

Defeated (6 – 4 – 1) Dickinson’s motion to defer consideration of the New Jersey Plan. Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware voted “no.” Maryland divided. Heard Madison’s eight arguments against the New Jersey Plan. “The great difficulty lies in the affair of Representation; and if this could be adjusted, all others would be surmountable.”

Defeated the New Jersey Plan (7 – 3 – 1). Connecticut voted “yes!” New York, New Jersey, and Delaware voted “no.” Maryland divided.

Madison summarized Act I. The issue was “the great difficulty” of representation. The coalition in favor of equal representation for the States “began now to produce serious anxiety for the result of the Convention.”

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George Washington

George Washington

State: Virginia

Age at Convention: 55

Date of Birth: February 22, 1732

Date of Death: December 14, 1799

Schooling: Private Tutors, Honorary L.L.D. from Harvard 1776

Occupation: Planter and Slave Holder, General of the Continental Army, Lending and Investments, Real Estate Land Speculations, Public Security Interests

Prior Political Experience: Virginia House of Burgesses 1759-1774, Continental Congress 1774-1775, Commander in Chief of Continental Army 1775-1783

Committee Assignments: President of the Convention

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. He spoke only once near the end of the deliberations, but the record suggests that he had a profound influence on the scope and direction of the discussions. William Pierce stated that “having conducted these States to independence and peace, he now appears to assist in framing a Government to make the People happy. Like Gustavus Vasa, he made be said to be the deliverer of his Country.”

New Government Participation: He supported ratification of the Constitution by the State of Virginia. He was unanimously elected by the Electoral College as President of the United States (1788 – 1796). He used his Presidential powers to put down the Whisky Rebellion (1794).

Biography from the National Archives: The eldest of six children from his father’s second marriage, George Washington was born into the landed gentry in 1732 at Wakefield Plantation, VA. Until reaching 16 years of age, he lived there and at other plantations along the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, including the one that later became known as Mount Vernon. His education was rudimentary, probably being obtained from tutors but possibly also from private schools, and he learned surveying. After he lost his father when he was 11 years old, his half-brother Lawrence, who had served in the Royal Navy, acted as his mentor. As a result, the youth acquired an interest in pursuing a naval career, but his mother discouraged him from doing so.

At the age of 16, in 1748, Washington joined a surveying party sent out to the Shenandoah Valley by Lord Fairfax, a land baron. For the next few years, Washington conducted surveys in Virginia and present West Virginia and gained a lifetime interest in the West. In 1751-52 he also accompanied Lawrence on a visit he made to Barbados, West Indies, for health reasons just before his death.

The next year, Washington began his military career when the royal governor appointed him to an adjutantship in the militia, as a major. That same year, as a gubernatorial emissary, accompanied by a guide, he traveled to Fort Le Boeuf, Pennsylvania, in the Ohio River Valley, and delivered to French authorities an ultimatum to cease fortification and settlement in English territory. During the trip, he tried to better British relations with various Indian tribes.

In 1754, winning the rank of lieutenant colonel and then colonel in the militia, Washington led a force that sought to challenge French control of the Ohio River Valley, but met defeat at Fort Necessity, Pennsylvania—an event that helped trigger the French and Indian War (1754-63). Late in 1754, irked by the dilution of his rank because of the pending arrival of British regulars, he resigned his commission. That same year, he leased Mount Vernon, which he was to inherit in 1761.

In 1755, Washington reentered military service with the courtesy title of colonel, as an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock, and barely escaped death when the French defeated the general’s forces in the Battle of the Monongahela, PA. As a reward for his bravery, Washington rewon his colonelcy and command of the Virginia militia forces, charged with defending the colony’s frontier. Because of the shortage of men and equipment, he found the assignment challenging. Late in 1758 or early in 1759, disillusioned over governmental neglect of the militia and irritated at not rising in rank, he resigned and headed back to Mount Vernon.

Washington then wed Martha Dandridge Custis, a wealthy widow and mother of two children. The marriage produced no offspring, but Washington reared those of his wife as his own. During the period 1759-74, he managed his plantations and sat in the Virginia House of Burgesses. He supported the initial protests against British policies; took an active part in the nonimportation movement in Virginia; and, in time, particularly because of his military experience, became a Whig leader.

By the 1770s, relations of the colony with the mother country had become strained. Measured in his behavior but strongly sympathetic to the Whig position and resentful of British restrictions and commercial exploitation, Washington represented Virginia at the First and Second Continental Congresses. In 1775, after the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord, Congress appointed him as commander in chief of the Continental Army. Overcoming severe obstacles, especially in supply, he eventually fashioned a well-trained and disciplined fighting force.

The strategy Washington evolved consisted of continual harassment of British forces while avoiding general actions. Although his troops yielded much ground and lost a number of battles, they persevered even during the dark winters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and Morristown, New Jersey. Finally, with the aid of the French fleet and army, he won a climactic victory at the Battle of Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781.

During the next 2 years, while still commanding the agitated Continental Army, which was underpaid and poorly supplied, Washington denounced proposals that the military take over the government, including one that planned to appoint him as king, but supported army petitions to the Continental Congress for proper compensation. Once the Treaty of Paris (1783) was signed, he resigned his commission and returned once again to Mount Vernon. His wartime financial sacrifices and long absence, as well as generous loans to friends, had severely impaired his extensive fortune, which consisted mainly of his plantations, slaves, and landholdings in the West. At this point, however, he was to have little time to repair his finances, for his retirement was brief.

Dissatisfied with national progress under the Articles of Confederation, Washington advocated a stronger central government. He hosted the Mount Vernon Conference (1785) at his estate after its initial meetings in Alexandria, though he apparently did not directly participate in the discussions. Despite his sympathy with the goals of the Annapolis Convention (1786), he did not attend. But, the following year, encouraged by many of his friends, he presided over the Constitutional Convention, whose success was immeasurably influenced by his presence and dignity. Following ratification of the new instrument of government in 1788, the electoral college unanimously chose him as the first President.

The next year, after a triumphal journey from Mount Vernon to New York City, Washington took the oath of office at Federal Hall. During his two precedent-setting terms, he governed with dignity as well as restraint. He also provided the stability and authority the emergent nation so sorely needed, gave substance to the Constitution, and reconciled competing factions and divergent policies within the government and his administration. Although not averse to exercising presidential power, he respected the role of Congress and did not infringe upon its prerogatives. He also tried to maintain harmony between his Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, whose differences typified evolving party divisions from which Washington kept aloof.

Yet, usually leaning upon Hamilton for advice, Washington supported his plan for the assumption of state debts, concurred in the constitutionality of the bill establishing the Bank of the United States, and favored enactment of tariffs by Congress to provide federal revenue and protect domestic manufacturers.

Washington took various other steps to strengthen governmental authority, including suppression of the Whisky Rebellion (1794). To unify the country, he toured the Northeast in 1789 and the South in 1791. During his tenure, the government moved from New York to Philadelphia in 1790, he superintended planning for relocation to the District of Columbia, and he laid the cornerstone of the Capitol (1793).

In foreign affairs, despite opposition from the Senate, Washington exerted dominance. He fostered United States interests on the North American continent by treaties with Britain and Spain. Yet, until the nation was stronger, he insisted on the maintenance of neutrality. For example, when the French Revolution created war between France and Britain, he ignored the remonstrances of pro-French Jefferson and pro-English Hamilton.

Although many people encouraged Washington to seek a third term, he was weary of politics and refused to do so. In his “Farewell Address” (1796), he urged his countrymen to forswear party spirit and sectional differences and to avoid entanglement in the wars and domestic policies of other nations.

Washington enjoyed only a few years of retirement at Mount Vernon. Even then, demonstrating his continued willingness to make sacrifices for his country in 1798 when the nation was on the verge of war with France he agreed to command the army, though his services were not ultimately required. He died at the age of 67 in 1799. In his will, he emancipated his slaves.

James Madison, Jr.

James Madison

State: Virginia

Age at Convention: 36

Date of Birth: March 16, 1751

Date of Death: June 28, 1836

Schooling: College of New Jersey (Princeton) 1771

Occupation: Politician

Prior Political Experience: Lower House of Virginia 1776, 1783-1786, Upper House of Virginia 1778, Virginia State Constitutional Convention 1776, Confederation Congress 1781- 1783, 1786-1788, Virginia House of Delegates 1784-1786, Annapolis Convention Signer 1786

Committee Assignments: Third Committee of Representation, Committee of Slave Trade, Committee of Leftovers, Committee of Style

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. He is best known for writing the Virginia Plan and defending the attempt to build a stronger central government. He kept copious notes of the proceedings of the Convention which were made available to the general public upon his death in 1836. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Madison is a character who has long been in public life; and what is very remarkable every Person seems to acknowledge his greatness. He blends together the profound politician, with the Scholar. … The affairs of the United States, he perhaps, has the most correct knowledge of, of any Man in the Union.”

New Government Participation: Attended the ratification convention of Virginia and supported the ratification of the Constitution. He also coauthored the Federalist Papers. Served as Virginia’s U.S. Representative (1789-1797) where he drafted and debated the First Twelve Amendments to the Constitution; ten of which became the Bill of Rights; author of the Virginia Resolutions which argued that the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were unconstitutional. Served as Secretary of State (1801-1809) Elected President of the United States of America (1809-1817).

Biography from the National Archives: The oldest of 10 children and a scion of the planter aristocracy, Madison was born in 1751 at Port Conway, King George County, VA, while his mother was visiting her parents. In a few weeks she journeyed back with her newborn son to Montpelier estate, in Orange County, which became his lifelong home. He received his early education from his mother, from tutors, and at a private school. An excellent scholar though frail and sickly in his youth, in 1771 he graduated from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), where he demonstrated special interest in government and the law. But, considering the ministry for a career, he stayed on for a year of postgraduate study in theology.

Back at Montpelier, still undecided on a profession, Madison soon embraced the patriot cause, and state and local politics absorbed much of his time. In 1775 he served on the Orange County committee of safety; the next year at the Virginia convention, which, besides advocating various Revolutionary steps, framed the Virginia constitution; in 1776-77 in the House of Delegates; and in 1778-80 in the Council of State. His ill health precluded any military service.

In 1780 Madison was chosen to represent Virginia in the Continental Congress (1780-83 and 1786-88). Although originally the youngest delegate, he played a major role in the deliberations of that body. Meantime, in the years 1784-86, he had again sat in the Virginia House of Delegates. He was a guiding force behind the Mount Vernon Conference (1785), attended the Annapolis Convention (1786), and was otherwise highly instrumental in the convening of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. He had also written extensively about deficiencies in the Articles of Confederation.

Madison was clearly the preeminent figure at the convention. Some of the delegates favored an authoritarian central government; others, retention of state sovereignty; and most occupied positions in the middle of the two extremes. Madison, who was rarely absent and whose Virginia Plan was in large part the basis of the Constitution, tirelessly advocated a strong government, though many of his proposals were rejected. Despite his poor speaking capabilities, he took the floor more than 150 times, third only after Gouverneur Morris and James Wilson. Madison was also a member of numerous committees, the most important of which were those on postponed matters and style. His journal of the convention is the best single record of the event. He also played a key part in guiding the Constitution through the Continental Congress.

Playing a lead in the ratification process in Virginia, too, Madison defended the document against such powerful opponents as Patrick Henry, George Mason, and Richard Henry Lee. In New York, where Madison was serving in the Continental Congress, he collaborated with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in a series of essays that in 1787-88 appeared in the newspapers and were soon published in book form as The Federalist (1788). This set of essays is a classic of political theory and a lucid exposition of the republican principles that dominated the framing of the Constitution.

In the U.S. House of Representatives (1789-97), Madison helped frame and ensure passage of the Bill of Rights. He also assisted in organizing the executive department and creating a system of federal taxation. As leaders of the opposition to Hamilton’s policies, he and Jefferson founded the Democratic-Republican Party.

In 1794 Madison married a vivacious widow who was 16 years his junior, Dolley Payne Todd, who had a son; they were to raise no children of their own. Madison spent the period 1797-1801 in semiretirement, but in 1798 he wrote the Virginia Resolutions, which attacked the Alien and Sedition Acts. While he served as Secretary of State (1801-9), his wife often served as President Jefferson’s hostess.

In 1809 Madison succeeded Jefferson. Like the first three Presidents, Madison was enmeshed in the ramifications of European wars. Diplomacy had failed to prevent the seizure of U.S. ships, goods, and men on the high seas, and a depression wracked the country. Madison continued to apply diplomatic techniques and economic sanctions, eventually effective to some degree against France. But continued British interference with shipping, as well as other grievances, led to the War of 1812.

The war, for which the young nation was ill prepared, ended in stalemate in December 1814 when the inconclusive Treaty of Ghent which nearly restored prewar conditions, was signed. But, thanks mainly to Andrew Jackson’s spectacular victory at the Battle of New Orleans (Chalmette) in January 1815, most Americans believed they had won. Twice tested, independence had survived, and an ebullient nationalism marked Madison’s last years in office, during which period the Democratic-Republicans held virtually uncontested sway.

In retirement after his second term, Madison managed Montpelier but continued to be active in public affairs. He devoted long hours to editing his journal of the Constitutional Convention, which the government was to publish 4 years after his death. He served as co-chairman of the Virginia constitutional convention of 1829-30 and as rector of the University of Virginia during the period 1826-36. Writing newspaper articles defending the administration of Monroe, he also acted as his foreign policy adviser.

Madison spoke out, too, against the emerging sectional controversy that threatened the existence of the Union. Although a slaveholder all his life, he was active during his later years in the American Colonization Society, whose mission was the resettlement of slaves in Africa.

Madison died at the age of 85 in 1836, survived by his wife and stepson.

James McClurg

State: Virginia

Age at Convention: 41

Date of Birth: 1746

Date of Death: July 9, 1823

Schooling: College of William and Mary 1762, Edinburgh (M.D.) 1770

Occupation: Doctor, Public Security Interests, Professor of Medicine at College of William and Mary

Prior Political Experience: None

Committee Assignments: None

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25, departed the Convention July 21, and never returned. He was a staunch ally of Madison during his attendance at the Convention. William Pierce stated that “Mr. McClurg is a learned physician. … He attempted once or twice to speak, but with no great success.”

New Government Participation: Did not serve in the new government.

Biography from the National Archives: James McClurg was born near Hampton, Virginia, in 1746. He attended the College of William and Mary and graduated in 1762. McClurg then studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and received his degree in 1770. He pursued postgraduate medical studies in Paris and London and published Experiments upon the Human Bile and Reflections on the Biliary Secretions (1772) in London. His work and writings were well-received and respected by the medical community, and his article was translated into several languages. In 1773, McClurg returned to Virginia and served as a surgeon in the state militia during the Revolution.

Before the end of the war, the College of William and Mary appointed McClurg its professor of anatomy and medicine. The same year, 1779, he married Elizabeth Seldon. James McClurg’s reputation continued to grow, and he was regarded as one of the most eminent physicians in Virginia. In 1820 and 1821, he was president of the state medical society.

In addition to his medical practice, McClurg pursued politics. In 1782, James Madison advocated McClurg’s appointment as secretary of foreign affairs for the United States but was unsuccessful. When Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry declined to serve as representatives to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, McClurg was asked to join Virginia’s delegation. In Philadelphia, McClurg advocated a life tenure for the President and argued for the ability of the federal government to override state laws. Even as some at the convention expressed apprehension of the powers allotted to the presidency, McClurg championed greater independence of the executive from the legislative branch. He left the convention in early August, however, and did not sign the Constitution.

James McClurg’s political service did not end with the convention. During George Washington’s administration McClurg served on Virginia’s executive council. He died in Richmond, Virginia, on July 9, 1823.

Edmund J. Randolph

State: Virginia

Age at Convention: 34

Date of Birth: August 10, 1753

Date of Death: September 2, 1813

Schooling: Attended College of William and Mary

Occupation: Governor of Virginia, Planter and Slave Holder, Lending and Investments, Real Estate and Land Speculation

Prior Political Experience: Virginia House of Delegates Clerk 1778-1779, Continental Congress 1779-1780, Confederation Congress 1781 – 1782 State Constitutional Convention of Virginia 1776, Governor of Virginia 1786-1789, Attorney General of Virginia 1776-1786, Annapolis Convention Signer 1786

Committee Assignments: Second Committee of Representation, Committee of Detail, Committee of State Commitments

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. He did not sign the Constitution. He is best known for introducing and defending the Virginia Plan and then declining to sign the Constitution of September 17, 1787. His explanation was that the “Republican propositions” of the Virginia Plan had “much to his regret been widely, and in his opinion, irreconcilably departed from.” He recommended that a Second General Convention be called. William Pierce stated that Mr. Randolph is “a young Gentleman in whom unite all the accomplishments of the Scholar, and the Statesman. He came forward with the postulata, or first principles, on which the Convention acted, he supported them with a force of eloquence and reasoning that did him great honor. He has a most harmonious voice, a fine person and striking manners.” [Editor’s Note: Mr. Pierce left the Convention on July 2 and never returned. Accordingly, he failed to capture Mr. Randolph’s change of mind as a result of the conversations regarding the original Virginia Plan.]

New Government Participation: Attended the ratification convention of Virginia and supported the ratification of the Constitution, due to the persuasion of James Madison. President Washington nominated and the Senate confirmed him as the Attorney General of the United States (1789-1794). U.S. Secretary of State (1794-1795).

Biography from the National Archives: On August 10, 1753, Edmund Randolph was born in Tazewell Hall, Williamsburg, Virginia. His parents were Ariana Jenings and John Randolph. Edmund attended the College of William and Mary and continued his education by studying the law under his father’s tutelage.

When the Revolution broke out, father and son followed different paths. John Randolph, a Loyalist, followed the royal governor, Lord Dunmore, to England, in 1775. Edmund then lived with his uncle Peyton Randolph, a prominent figure in Virginia politics. During the war Edmund served as an aide-de-camp to General Washington and also attended the convention that adopted Virginia’s first state constitution in 1776. He was the convention’s youngest member at age 23. Randolph married Elizabeth Nicholas in 1776.

Randolph continued to advance in the political world. He became mayor of Williamsburg and Virginia’s attorney-general. In 1779 he was elected to the Continental Congress, and in November 1786 Randolph became Governor of Virginia. In 1786 he was a delegate to the Annapolis Convention.

Four days after the opening of the federal convention in Philadelphia, on May 29, 1787, Edmund Randolph presented the Virginia Plan for creating a new government. This plan proposed a strong central government composed of three branches, legislative, executive, and judicial, and enabled the legislative to veto state laws and use force against states that failed to fulfill their duties. After many debates and revisions, including striking the section permitting force against a state, the Virginia Plan became in large part the basis of the Constitution.

Though Randolph introduced the highly centralized Virginia Plan, he fluctuated between the Federalist and Antifederalist points of view. He sat on the Committee of Detail that prepared a draft of the Constitution, but by the time the document was adopted, Randolph declined to sign. He felt it was not sufficiently republican, and he was especially wary of creating a one-man executive. He preferred a three-man council since he regarded “a unity in the Executive” to be the “foetus of monarchy.” In a Letter… on the Federal Constitution, dated October 10, 1787, Randolph explained at length his objections to the Constitution. The old Articles of Confederation were inadequate, he agreed, but the proposed new plan of union contained too many flaws. Randolph was a strong advocate of the process of amendment. He feared that if the Constitution were submitted for ratification without leaving the states the opportunity to amend it, the document might be rejected and thus close off any hope of another plan of union. However, he hoped that amendments would be permitted and second convention called to incorporate the changes.

By the time of the Virginia convention for ratification, Randolph supported the Constitution and worked to win his state’s approval of it. He stated his reason for his switch: “The accession of eight states reduced our deliberations to the single question of Union or no Union.”

Under President Washington, Edmund Randolph became Attorney General of the United States. After Thomas Jefferson resigned as Secretary of State, Randolph assumed that post for the years 1794-95. During the Jefferson-Hamilton conflict he tried to remain unaligned. After retiring from politics in 1795, Randolph resumed his law practice and was regarded as a leading figure in the legal community. During his retirement he wrote a history of Virginia. When Aaron Burr went on trial for treason in 1807, Edmund Randolph acted as his senior counsel. In 1813, at age 60 and suffering from paralysis, Randolph died while visiting Nathaniel Burwell at Carter Hall. His body is buried in the graveyard of the nearby chapel.

John Blair

State: Virginia

Age at Convention: 55

Date of Birth: 1732

Date of Death: September 12, 1800

Schooling: College of William and Mary, Graduated Law Middle Temple

Occupation: Judge, Lawyer, Public Security Interests

Prior Political Experience: Virginia House of Burgesses (Representative of William and Mary) 1766-1770, Clerk of Colony’s Council 1770-1775, State Upper House of Virginia 1776-1777, Virginia State Constitutional Convention 1776, Virginia General Court Judge 1778, Virginia High Court of Chancery 1780, Virginia Privy Council 1776-1778

Committee Assignments: None

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. He was a staunch ally of James Madison at the Convention. William Pierce stated that “he is one of the Judges of the Supreme Court in Virginia, and acknowledged to have a very extensive knowledge of the Laws.”

New Government Participation: Attended the Virginia ratifying convention and supported the ratification of the Constitution. President Washington nominated Blair and the Senate confirmed him as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1789 – 1796).

Biography from the National Archives: Scion of a prominent Virginia family, Blair was born at Williamsburg in 1732. He was the son of John Blair, a colonial official and nephew of James Blair, founder and first president of the College of William and Mary. Signer Blair graduated from that institution and studied law at London’s Middle Temple. Thereafter, he practiced at Williamsburg. In the years 1766-70 he sat in the Virginia House of Burgesses as the representative of William and Mary. From 1770 to 1775 he held the position of clerk of the colony’s council.

An active patriot, Blair signed the Virginia Association of June 22, 1770, which pledged to abandon importation of British goods until the Townshend Duties were repealed. He also underwrote the Association of May 27, 1774, calling for a meeting of the colonies in a Continental Congress and supporting the Bostonians. He took part in the Virginia constitutional convention (1776), at which he sat on the committee that framed a declaration of rights as well as the plan for a new government. He next served on the Privy Council (1776-78). In the latter year, the legislature elected him as a judge of the General Court, and he soon took over the chief justiceship. In 1780 he won election to Virginia’s high chancery court, where his colleague was George Wythe.

Blair attended the Constitutional Convention religiously but never spoke or served on a committee. He usually sided with the position of the Virginia delegation. And, in the commonwealth ratifying convention, Blair helped win backing for the new framework of government.

In 1789 Washington named Blair as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, where he helped decide many important cases. Resigning that post in 1796, he spent his remaining years in Williamsburg. A widower, his wife (born Jean Balfour) having died in 1792, he lived quietly until he succumbed in 1800. He was 68 years old. His tomb is in the graveyard of Bruton Parish Church.

George Wythe

George Wythe

George Wythe (1726-1806) was born in Elizabeth County (Hampton) Virginia to a wealthy agricultural family. He died in Richmond probably poisoned with arsenic by his heir, George Sweeney. His grave is located in the yard of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond. He married in 1747, but his wife died in 1748. He remarried in 1755 and fathered one child who died in infancy. He inherited the family farm on the death of his brother in 1755.

Wythe’s father died when he was three, but his mother tutored him in the classics His mother died when he was still a teenager. George attended the college of William and Mary but, due to financial reasons, dropped out and studied at a law office in Spotsylvania. He was admitted to the bar in Spotsylvania County in 1746, at the age of 20.

He was appointed clerk to the Committee which formed the rules of conduct and elections in the House of Burgesses in 1747. In 1753 the Royal Governor of Virginia made him Attorney General. In 1755 Wythe was elected to represent Williamsburg in the House of Burgesses and served there until 1775. In 1764 Wythe drafted a remonstrance for the House in anticipation of Britain passing the Stamp Act.

In 1761 he was elected to the Board of Visitors at the College of William and Mary. Eight years later, he became America’s first Professor of Law a position he held until 1789. His students included Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, James Monroe, and John Marshall. He taught for twenty years and admitted to no greater love than that of forming young minds.

In 1775 Wythe was elected to the Second Continental Congress to replace George Washington who had become commander of the continental army. In June 1776 he returned to Virginia to help draft the new state Constitution and was thus absent on July 4 and August 2. He signed the Declaration in September in a space reserved for him at the top of the Virginia column.

He was elected Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1777 and in 1778 became one of the three Chancellors of the State of Virginia and served in that position for the rest of his life.

In 1787 he was chosen as one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention but left in early June due to his wife’s ill health. He served with Alexander Hamilton and Charles Pinckney on the committee that proposed the rules of procedure for the Convention. Fellow delegate William Pierce considered Wythe “one of the most learned legal characters of the present age and known for his “exemplary life.” He attended the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1788 where he supported ratification.

Wythe was revered as a man on great honor and integrity. In his will, Wythe left his large book collection to Thomas Jefferson which Jefferson later sold to create the Library of Congress. Jefferson praised Wythe as “my ancient master, my earliest and best friend, and to him I am indebted for first impressions which have [been] the most salutary on the course of my life.” He also freed his slaves in his will and made provisions for their support until they could earn a living for themselves. In 1785, Jefferson assured English abolitionist Richard Price that Wythe’s sentiments against slavery were unequivocal.

George Mason

State: Virginia

Age at Convention: 62

Date of Birth: December 11,1725

Date of Death: October 7, 1792

Schooling: Personal tutors

Occupation: Planter and Slave Holder, Lending and Investments, Real Estate Land Speculation, Public Security Investments, Land owner

Prior Political Experience: Author of Virginia Bill of Rights, State Lower House of Virginia 1776-1780, 1786-1787, Virginia State Constitutional Convention 1776

Committee Assignments: First Committee of Representation, Committee of Assumption of State Debts, Committee of Trade, Chairman Committee of Economy, Frugality, and Manufactures

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution, however he did not sign the Constitution. Initially Mason advocated a stronger central government but withdrew his support toward the end of the deliberations. He argued that the Constitution inadequately represented the interests of the people and the States and that the new government will “produce a monarchy, or a corrupt, tyrannical aristocracy.” William Pierce stated that “he is able and convincing in debate, steady and firm in his principles, and undoubtedly one of the best politicians in America.” He kept notes of the debates at the Convention.

New Government Participation: He attended the ratification convention of Virginia where he opposed the ratification of the Constitution. Did not serve in the new Federal Government.

Biography from the National Archives: In 1725 George Mason was born to George and Ann Thomson Mason. When the boy was 10 years old his father died, and young George’s upbringing was left in the care of his uncle, John Mercer. The future jurist’s education was profoundly shaped by the contents of his uncle’s 1500-volume library, one-third of which concerned the law.

Mason established himself as an important figure in his community. As owner of Gunston Hall he was one of the richest planters in Virginia. In 1750 he married Anne Eilbeck, and in 23 years of marriage they had five sons and four daughters. In 1752 he acquired an interest in the Ohio Company, an organization that speculated in western lands. When the crown revoked the company’s rights in 1773, Mason, the company’s treasurer, wrote his first major state paper, Extracts from the Virginia Charters, with Some Remarks upon Them.

During these years Mason also pursued his political interests. He was a justice of the Fairfax County court, and between 1754 and 1779 Mason was a trustee of the city of Alexandria. In 1759 he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. When the Stamp Act of 1765 aroused outrage in the colonies, George Mason wrote an open letter explaining the colonists’ position to a committee of London merchants to enlist their support.

In 1774 Mason again was in the forefront of political events when he assisted in drawing up the Fairfax Resolves, a document that outlined the colonists’ constitutional grounds for their objections to the Boston Port Act. Virginia’s Declaration of Rights, framed by Mason in 1776, was widely copied in other colonies, served as a model for Jefferson in the first part of the Declaration of Independence, and was the basis for the federal Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

The years between 1776 and 1780 were filled with great legislative activity. The establishment of a government independent of Great Britain required the abilities of persons such as George Mason. He supported the disestablishment of the church and was active in the organization of military affairs, especially in the West. The influence of his early work, Extracts from the Virginia Charters, is seen in the 1783 peace treaty with Great Britain, which fixed the Anglo-American boundary at the Great Lakes instead of the Ohio River. After independence, Mason drew up the plan for Virginia’s cession of its western lands to the United States.

By the early 1780s, however, Mason grew disgusted with the conduct of public affairs and retired. He married his second wife, Sarah Brent, in 1780. In 1785 he attended the Mount Vernon meeting that was a prelude to the Annapolis convention of 1786, but, though appointed, he did not go to Annapolis.

At Philadelphia in 1787 Mason was one of the five most frequent speakers at the Constitutional Convention. He exerted great influence, but during the last two weeks of the convention he decided not to sign the document.

Mason’s refusal prompts some surprise, especially since his name is so closely linked with constitutionalism. He explained his reasons at length, citing the absence of a declaration of rights as his primary concern. He then discussed the provisions of the Constitution point by point, beginning with the House of Representatives. The House he criticized as not truly representative of the nation, the Senate as too powerful. He also claimed that the power of the federal judiciary would destroy the state judiciaries, render justice unattainable, and enable the rich to oppress and ruin the poor. These fears led Mason to conclude that the new government was destined to either become a monarchy or fall into the hands of a corrupt, oppressive aristocracy.

Two of Mason’s greatest concerns were incorporated into the Constitution. The Bill of Rights answered his primary objection, and the 11th amendment addressed his call for strictures on the judiciary.

Throughout his career Mason was guided by his belief in the rule of reason and in the centrality of the natural rights of man. He approached problems coolly, rationally, and impersonally. In recognition of his accomplishments and dedication to the principles of the Age of Reason, Mason has been called the American manifestation of the Enlightenment. Mason died on October 7, 1792, and was buried on the grounds of Gunston Hall.

William Paterson

State: New Jersey (Born in Ireland, immigrated 1747)

Age at Convention: 41

Date of Birth: December 24, 1745

Date of Death: September 9, 1806

Schooling: College of New Jersey (Princeton) 1763

Occupation: Lawyer

Prior Political Experience: Delegate to the Annapolis Convention 1786, Attorney General for New Jersey 1776-1783, State Upper House of New Jersey Legislature 1776-1777, Provincial Congress 1775-1776, New Jersey State Constitutional Convention 1776, Legislative Counsel 1776-1777, Counsel of Safety 1777, Elected to Continental Congress 1780 but did not accept.

Committee Assignments: First Committee of Representation

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25, departed August 6 but returned to sign the Constitution on September 17. He is best remembered for introducing the New Jersey Plan and arguing that the delegates had exceeded their authority. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Patterson is one of those kind of Men whose powers break in upon you, and create wonder and astonishment.”

New Government Participation: Served in the U.S. Senate for the State of New Jersey (1789 – 1790), served as an Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court (1793 – 1806).

Biography from the National Archives: William Paterson (Patterson) was born in County Antrim, Ireland, in 1745. When he was almost 2 years of age, his family emigrated to America, disembarking at New Castle, DE. While the father traveled about the country, apparently selling tinware, the family lived in New London, other places in Connecticut, and in Trenton, NJ. In 1750 he settled in Princeton, NJ. There, he became a merchant and manufacturer of tin goods. His prosperity enabled William to attend local private schools and the College of New Jersey (later Princeton). He took a B.A. in 1763 and an M.A. 3 years later.

Meantime, Paterson had studied law in the city of Princeton under Richard Stockton, who later was to sign the Declaration of Independence, and near the end of the decade began practicing at New Bromley, in Hunterdon County. Before long, he moved to South Branch, in Somerset County, and then in 1779 relocated near New Brunswick at Raritan estate.

When the War for Independence broke out, Paterson joined the vanguard of the New Jersey patriots. He served in the provincial congress (1775-76), the constitutional convention (1776), legislative council (1776-77), and council of safety (1777). During the last year, he also held a militia commission. From 1776 to 1783 he was attorney general of New Jersey, a task that occupied so much of his time that it prevented him from accepting election to the Continental Congress in 1780. Meantime, the year before, he had married Cornelia Bell, by whom he had three children before her death in 1783. Two years later, he took a new bride, Euphemia White, but it is not known whether or not they had children.

From 1783, when he moved into the city of New Brunswick, until 1787, Paterson devoted his energies to the law and stayed out of the public limelight. Then he was chosen to represent New Jersey at the Constitutional Convention, which he attended only until late July. Until then, he took notes of the proceedings. More importantly, he figured prominently because of his advocacy and coauthorship of the New Jersey, or Paterson, Plan, which asserted the rights of the small states against the large. He apparently returned to the convention only to sign the final document. After supporting its ratification in New Jersey, he began a career in the new government.

In 1789 Paterson was elected to the U.S. Senate (1789-90), where he played a pivotal role in drafting the Judiciary Act of 1789. His next position was governor of his state (1790-93). During this time, he began work on the volume later published as Laws of the State of New Jersey (1800) and began to revise the rules and practices of the chancery and common law courts.

During the years 1793-1806, Paterson served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Riding the grueling circuit to which federal judges were subjected in those days and sitting with the full Court, he presided over a number of major trials.

In September 1806, his health failing, the 60-year-old Paterson embarked on a journey to Ballston Spa, NY, for a cure but died en route at Albany in the home of his daughter, who had married Stephen Van Rensselaer. Paterson was at first laid to rest in the nearby Van Rensselaer manor house family vault, but later his body was apparently moved to the Albany Rural Cemetery, Menands, NY.

James Wilson

James Wilson

James Wilson (1742-1798) was born near St. Andrews, Scotland. He emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1766, died in Edenton, North Carolina, while on Circuit Court duty for the United States Supreme Court, and was reinterred in Christ Church, Philadelphia. In 1793, a widower with six children, he remarried and one child who died in infancy.

He attended St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, and was a Latin tutor at the College of Philadelphia where he later gave lectures in English Literature and received an honorary Master of Arts degree. Wilson studied law under John Dickinson, was admitted to the bar in 1767, and set up a very lucrative practice in Reading, PA. He bought a farm near Carlisle and became interested in land speculation.

In 1774, Wilson was a member of the Carlisle Committee of Correspondence, and wrote a widely read pamphlet “Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament.” He argued that Parliament lacked authority to pass laws for the colonies.

In 1775 and 1776, Wilson was elected to both the First and Second Continental Congress. The Pennsylvania delegation was divided on the issue of reconciliation or separation. Initially, respecting the wishes of his loyalist inclined constituents, Wilson supported a three-week delay to reflect on Richard Henry Lee’s June 7 independence resolution. On July 2, Wilson joined Franklin and Morton and voted for independence.

Wilson’s political career and personal life were controversial between 1776 and 1787. In 1776, Wilson strongly opposed the new Pennsylvania state constitution and, as result, was temporarily recalled from Congress. He also resumed his activities in speculation, and acquired considerable debt. During a food shortage in 1779, Wilson, his friends, and his property on Third and Walnut in Philadelphia–“Fort Wilson”–were attacked. He was rescued by a law enforcement troop. In 1781, Wilson served as a director of the original Bank of North America. He was elected to the Confederation Congress in 1782, where he worked closely with Robert Morris on financial matters.

In 1787, he was appointed to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia where he supported majority rule, read Franklin’s speeches, and was on the five-member Committee on Detail that wrote the first draft of the Constitution. He was a strong advocate for the adoption of the Constitution at the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention. His famous “State House Speech” set the tone for the Federalist-Antifederalist out of doors debate.

Following ratification of the Constitution, he was appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in 1789. In 1792, he spent time in a debtors prison while still serving on the Supreme Court. He died while riding circuit in North Carolina.

William Pierce, a delegate from Georgia at the 1787 Constitutional Convention who provided sketches of the delegates, wrote of him: “No man is more clear, copious, and comprehensive than Mr. Wilson, yet he is no great Orator.”

Gouverneur Morris

State: Pennsylvania (Born in New York)

Age at Convention: 35

Date of Birth: January 31, 1752

Date of Death: November 6, 1816

Schooling: Kings College (Columbia University) 1768

Occupation: Lawyer, Mercantile, Manufacturing and Shipping, Educator

Prior Political Experience: Lower House of New York State Legislature 1777-1778, State Constitutional Convention of New York 1776, Continental and Confederation Congresses 1778-1789, Signed Articles of Confederation, Assistant Superintendent of Finance for U.S. 1781-1785

Committee Assignments: Chairman of Second Committee of Representation, Third Committee of Representation, Committee of Leftovers, Committee of Style

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25, and except for a three week period in late June, he was present through the signing of the Constitution. He spoke more frequently than any other delegate and supported the effort to build a strong central government. He is best remembered for writing the Preamble to the Constitution and for the “obligation of contracts clause” in Article I, Section 10 in the Constitution. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Gouverneur Morris is one of the Genius’s in whom every species of talents combine to render him conspicuous and flourishing in public debate. … No Man has more wit, nor can anyone engage the attention more than Mr. Morris.”

New Government Participation: President Washington nominated and the Senate confirmed him as an emissary to England (1790 – 1791), replaced Thomas Jefferson as emissary to France in (1792 – 1794). Member U.S. Senate for New York, 1800-1803.

Biography from the National Archives: Of French and English descent, Morris was born at Morrisania estate, in Westchester (present Bronx) County, NY, in 1752. His family was wealthy and enjoyed a long record of public service. His elder half-brother, Lewis, signed the Declaration of Independence.

Gouverneur was educated by private tutors and at a Huguenot school in New Rochelle. In early life, he lost a leg in a carriage accident. He attended King’s College (later Columbia College and University) in New York City, graduating in 1768 at the age of 16. Three years later, after reading law in the city, he gained admission to the bar.

When the Revolution loomed on the horizon, Morris became interested in political affairs. Because of his conservatism, however, he at first feared the movement, which he believed would bring mob rule. Furthermore, some of his family and many of his friends were Loyalists. But, beginning in 1775, for some reason he sided with the Whigs. That same year, representing Westchester County, he took a seat in New York’s Revolutionary provincial congress (1775-77). In 1776, when he also served in the militia, along with John Jay and Robert R. Livingston he drafted the first constitution of the state. Subsequently he joined its council of safety (1777).

In 1777-78 Morris sat in the legislature and in 1778-79 in the Continental Congress, where he numbered among the youngest and most brilliant members. During this period, he signed the Articles of Confederation and drafted instructions for Benjamin Franklin, in Paris, as well as those that provided a partial basis for the treaty ending the War for Independence. Morris was also a close friend of Washington and one of his strongest congressional supporters.

Defeated in his bid for reelection to Congress in 1779 because of the opposition of Gov. George Clinton’s faction, Morris relocated to Philadelphia and resumed the practice of law. This temporarily removed him from the political scene, but in 1781 he resumed his public career when he became the principal assistant to Robert Morris, Superintendent of Finance for the United States, to whom he was unrelated. Gouverneur held this position for 4 years.

Morris emerged as one of the leading figures at the Constitutional Convention. His speeches, more frequent than those by anyone else, numbered 173. Although sometimes presented in a light vein, they were usually substantive. A strong advocate of nationalism and aristocratic rule, he served on many committees, including those on postponed matters and style, and stood in the thick of the decision-making process. Above all, it was apparently he who actually drafted the Constitution. Morris subsequently left public life for a time to devote his attention to business. Having purchased the family home from his half-brother, Lewis, he moved back to New York. Afterward, in 1789, Gouverneur joined in a business venture with Robert Morris, and traveled to France, where he witnessed the beginnings of the French Revolution.

Morris was to remain in Europe for about a decade. In 1790-91 he undertook a diplomatic mission to London to try to negotiate some of the outstanding problems between the United States and Great Britain. The mission failed, but in 1792 Washington appointed him as Minister to France, to replace Thomas Jefferson. Morris was recalled 2 years later but did not come home. Instead, he traveled extensively in Europe for more than 4 years, during which time he handled his complicated business affairs and contemplated the complex political situation.

Morris returned to the United States in 1799. The next year, he was elected to finish an unexpired term in the U.S. Senate. An ardent Federalist, he was defeated in his bid for reelection in 1802 and left office the following year.

Morris retired to a glittering life at Morrisania, where he had built a new residence. In 1809 he married Anne Cary (Carey) Randolph of Virginia, and they had one son. During his last years, he continued to speak out against the Democratic-Republicans and violently opposed the War of 1812. In the years 1810-13 he served as chairman of the Erie Canal Commission.

Morris died at Morrisania in 1816 at the age of 64 and was buried at St. Anne’s Episcopal Churchyard, in the Bronx, New York City.

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the tenth son of soap maker, and died in Philadelphia, a man of considerable wealth and international admiration. He was buried in Christ Church Burial Ground. He fathered four children from two common law wives.

Franklin received little formal education but became an avid supporter of the arts and sciences. Later, he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Edinburgh and Oxford. At age 12, he worked for his half-brother James, printer of the New England Courant, where he published his first article, anonymously, in 1721. At age 16, he moved to Philadelphia, and then sought fame and fortune one year later in Europe. He returned to Philadelphia and re-entered the printing business. Franklin printed The Pennsylvania Gazette (1730-1748) and in 1741 began publishing the annual Poor Richard’s Almanac magazine, reportedly second only to the Bible in popularity and influence.

Franklin was Clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly (1736-1751), a member of the colonial Pennsylvania Assembly (1751-1764) and a postmaster of the American colonies (1753-1774). Between 1752 and 1775, Franklin also served as an “agent” for Pennsylvania and three other colonies to England, France, and several other European powers. Already popular in Europe, Franklin’s defense of the colonial opposition to the Stamp Act before the House of Commons helped him become a hero in America.

Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1775. He was elected to both the First and Second Continental Congress. He was a member of a three person diplomatic mission to Canada, along with Charles Carroll and Samuel Chase, to seek a union between Canada and the colonies. He also served on the five-member Committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. He is reputed to have said upon signing the Declaration: “Gentlemen, we must now all hang together, or we shall most assuredly all hang separately.” In 1787, he represented Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention. His “rising sun” speech on September 17, 1787 is a classical expression of Franklin’s optimism about the American experiment.

In addition to coining the phrases “a penny saved is a penny earned,” and “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,” Franklin created a list of 13 virtues to live by: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. He was also one of the earliest and strongest advocates for the abolition of slavery.

John Dickinson

State: Delaware (Born in Maryland)

Age at Convention: 54

Date of Birth: November 8, 1732

Date of Death: February 14, 1808

Affiliation: Federalist

Schooling: Middle Temple (London) 1757, Honorary LLD College of New Jersey (Princeton)

Occupation: Lending and Investments, Lawyer, Retired

Prior Political Experience: Delaware State Upper House 1781, Served Second Continental Congress 1775-1776, Pennsylvania Legislator 1762 & 1764-1771, Voted against Declaration of Independence & did not sign but supported the Revolutionary War, Continental Congress 1779-1780, Drafted and signed Articles of Confederation, President of Delaware’s Supreme Executive Counsel 1781, President of Pennsylvania 1782-1785, Represented Delaware at Annapolis Convention 1786

Committee Assignments: Committee of Assumption of State Debt, Committee of Slave Trade, Committee of Leftovers, Committee of Economy, Frugality and Manufactures

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 29, absent for three weeks in late June and early July, returned until September 14. George Read signed his name on September 17. He accused Madison of “going too far” in pushing for proportional representation. He is best known for his phrase “let experience be our guide. Reason may mislead us.” William Pierce stated that “Mr. Dickinson has been famed through all America, for his Farmer Letters; he is a Scholar, and said to be a Man of very extensive information. … I had often heard that he was a great Orator, but I found him an indifferent Speaker.”

New Government Participation: Wrote public letters supporting the ratification of the Constitution. Held no public office under the new government.

Biography from the National Archives: Dickinson, “Penman of the Revolution,” was born in 1732 at Crosiadore estate, near the village of Trappe in Talbot County, Maryland. He was the second son of Samuel Dickinson, the prosperous farmer, and his second wife, Mary (Cadwalader) Dickinson. In 1740, the family moved to Kent County near Dover, Delaware, where private tutors educated the youth. In 1750, he began to study law with John Moland in Philadelphia. In 1753, Dickinson went to England to continue his studies at London’s Middle Temple. Four years later, he returned to Philadelphia and became a prominent lawyer there. In 1770, he married Mary Norris, daughter of a wealthy merchant. The couple had at least one daughter.

By that time, Dickinson’s superior education and talents had propelled him into politics. In 1760, he had served in the assembly of the Three Lower Counties (Delaware), where he held the speakership. Combining his Pennsylvania and Delaware careers in 1762, he won a seat as a Philadelphia member in the Pennsylvania assembly and sat there again in 1764. He became the leader of the conservative side in the colony’s political battles. His defense of the proprietary governor against the faction led by Benjamin Franklin hurt his popularity but earned him respect for his integrity. Nevertheless, as an immediate consequence, he lost his legislative seat in 1764.

Meantime, the struggle between the colonies and the mother country had waxed strong and Dickinson had emerged in the forefront of Revolutionary thinkers. In the debates over the Stamp Act (1765), he played a key part. That year, he wrote The Late Regulations Respecting the British Colonies… Considered, an influential pamphlet that urged Americans to seek repeal of the act by pressuring British merchants. Accordingly, the Pennsylvania legislature appointed him as a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress, whose resolutions he drafted.

In 1767-68, Dickinson wrote a series of newspaper articles in the Pennsylvania Chronicle that came to be known collectively as “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania.” They attacked British taxation policy and urged resistance to unjust laws, but also emphasized the possibility of a peaceful resolution. So popular were the “Letters” in the colonies that Dickinson received an honorary LL.D. from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) and public thanks from a meeting in Boston. In 1768, responding to the Townshend Duties, he championed rigorous colonial resistance in the form of nonimportation and nonexportation agreements.

In 1771, Dickinson returned to the Pennsylvania legislature and drafted a petition to the king that was unanimously approved. Because of his continued opposition to the use of force, however, he lost much of his popularity by 1774. He particularly resented the tactics of New England leaders in that year and refused to support aid requested by Boston in the wake of the Intolerable Acts, though he sympathized with the city’s plight. Reluctantly, Dickinson was drawn into the Revolutionary fray. In 1774 he chaired the Philadelphia committee of correspondence and briefly sat in the First Continental Congress as a representative from Pennsylvania.

Throughout 1775, Dickinson supported the Whig cause, but continued to work for peace. He drew up petitions asking the king for redress of grievances. At the same time, he chaired a Philadelphia committee of safety and defense and held a colonelcy in the first battalion recruited in Philadelphia to defend the city.

After Lexington and Concord, Dickinson continued to hope for a peaceful solution. In the Second Continental Congress (1775-76), still a representative of Pennsylvania, he drew up the “Declaration of the Causes of Taking Up Arms.” In the Pennsylvania assembly, he drafted an authorization to send delegates to Congress in 1776. It directed them to seek redress of grievances, but ordered them to oppose separation of the colonies from Britain.

By that time, Dickinson’s moderate position had left him in the minority. In Congress, he voted against the Declaration of Independence (1776) and refused to sign it. Nevertheless, he then became one of only two contemporary congressional members (with Thomas McKean) who entered the military. When he was not reelected he resigned his brigadier general’s commission and withdrew to his estate in Delaware. Later in 1776, though reelected to Congress by his new constituency, he declined to serve and also resigned from the Pennsylvania Assembly. He may have taken part in the Battle of Brandywine, Pennsylvania (September 11, 1777), as a private in a special Delaware force but otherwise saw no further military action.

Dickinson came out of retirement to take a seat in the Continental Congress (1779-80), where he signed the Articles of Confederation; earlier he had headed the committee that had drafted them. In 1781, he became president of Delaware’s Supreme Executive Council. Shortly thereafter, he moved back to Philadelphia. There, he became president of Pennsylvania (1782-85). In 1786, representing Delaware, he attended and chaired the Annapolis Convention.

The next year, Delaware sent Dickinson to the Constitutional Convention. He missed a number of sessions and left early because of illness, but he made worthwhile contributions, including service on the Committee on Postponed Matters. Although he resented the forcefulness of Madison and the other nationalists, he helped engineer the Great Compromise and wrote public letters supporting constitutional ratification. Because of his premature departure from the convention, he did not actually sign the Constitution but authorized his friend and fellow-delegate George Read to do so for him.

Dickinson lived for two decades more but held no public offices. Instead, he devoted himself to writing on politics and in 1801 published two volumes of his collected works. He died at Wilmington in 1808 at the age of 75 and was entombed in the Friends Burial Ground.

Robert Yates

State: New York

Age at Convention: 49

Date of Birth: January 27, 1738

Date of Death: September 9, 1801

Schooling: Read law with William Livingston

Occupation: Politician, Judge

Prior Political Experience: State Constitutional Convention for New York 1776-1777, New York Supreme Court Judge 1777-1798, New York Provincial Congress 1775-1776

Committee Assignments: First Committee of Representation, Third Committee of Representation

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25, departed July 10, and never returned to the Convention. He is best known for his resistance to the efforts to create a strong central government. He joined in a letter with John Lansing to Governor Clinton that gave reasons for leaving the Convention early. James Madison in 1831 noted that Judge Yates “though a highly respectable man, was a zealous partizedian and has committed gross errors in his desultory notes.” William Pierce stated that “some of his Enemies say he is anti-federal Man, but I discovered no such disposition in him.”

New Government Participation: Attended the New York ratifying convention and opposed the ratification of the Constitution in 1788. Yates wrote against the Constitution in letters signed “Brutus.” He did not hold a position in the new Federal Government. The publication of his personal notes of the Convention caused considerable controversy within the political realm.

Biography from the National Archives: The son of Joseph and Maria Yates, Robert Yates was born in Schenectady, NY, on January 27, 1738. He received a classical education in New York City and later studied law with William Livingston. Yates was admitted to the New York bar in 1760 and thereafter resided in Albany.

Between 1771 and 1775 Yates sat on the Albany board of aldermen. During the pre-Revolution years Yates counted himself among the Radical Whigs, whose vigilance against corruption and emphasis on the protection of liberty in England appealed to many in the colonies. Once the Revolution broke out, Yates served on the Albany committee of safety and represented his county in four provincial congresses and in the convention of 1775-77. At the convention he sat on various committees, including the one that drafted the first constitution for New York State.

On May 8, 1777, Yates was appointed to New York’s supreme court and presided as its chief justice from 1790 through 1798. While on the bench he attracted criticism for his fair treatment of Loyalists. Other duties included serving on commissions that were called to settle boundary disputes with Massachusetts and Vermont.

In the 1780s Robert Yates stood as a recognized leader of the Antifederalists. He opposed any concessions to the federal congress, such as the right to collect impost duties, that might diminish the sovereignty of the states. When he travelled to Philadelphia in May 1787 for the federal convention, he expected that the delegates would simply discuss revising the existing Articles. Yates was on the committee that debated the question of representation in the legislature, and it soon became apparent that the convention intended much more than modification of the current plan of union. On July 5, the day the committee presented its report, Yates and John Lansing (to whom Yates was related by marriage) left the proceedings. In a joint letter to Gov. George Clinton of New York, they spelled out the reasons for their early departure. They warned against the dangers of centralizing power and urged opposition to adopting the Constitution. Yates continued to attack the Constitution in a series of letters signed “Brutus” and “Sydney” and voted against ratification at the Poughkeepsie convention.

In 1789 Yates ran for governor of New York but lost the election. Three years after his retirement from the state supreme court, on September 9, 1801, he died, leaving his wife, Jannetje Van Ness Yates, and four of his six children. Though he had enjoyed a comfortable income at the start of his career, his capital had dwindled away until very little was left. In 1821 his notes from the Constitutional Convention were published under the title Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Convention Assembled… for the Purpose of Forming the Constitution of the United States.

John Lansing, Jr.

State: New York

Age at Convention: 33

Date of Birth: January 30, 1754

Date of Death: December 29, 1829

Schooling: Read law with Robert Yates

Occupation: Lawyer, Public Security Interests

Prior Political Experience: New York Lower House Legislature 1780-1784 & Speaker 1786, Confederation Congress 1784-1785, Mayor of Albany 1786-1790

Committee Assignments: None

Convention Contributions: Arrived June 2, departed July 10 and never returned. He explained his reasons for departing early to Governor Clinton; Lansing thought that the convention had exceeded its authority and that the proposed “consolidated government” would be dangerous to the liberties of the people. William Pierce stated that “his legal knowledge I am told is not extensive, nor his education a good one. He is however a Man of good sense, plain in his manners, and sincere in his friendships.”

New Government Participation: Attended the New York ratifying convention and opposed the ratification of the Constitution in 1788. He did not serve in the new Federal Government, but was active in State and Local judicial positions.

Biography from the National Archives: On January 30, 1754, John Lansing was born in Albany, NY, to Gerrit Jacob and Jannetje Lansing. At age 21 Lansing had completed his study of the law and was admitted to practice. In 1781 he married Cornelia Ray. They had 10 children, 5 of whom died in infancy. Lansing was quite wealthy; he owned a large estate at Lansingburg and had a lucrative law practice.

From 1776 to 1777 Lansing acted as military secretary to Gen. Philip Schuyler. From the military world Lansing turned to the political and served six terms in the New York Assembly–1780-84, 1786, and 1788. During the last two terms he was speaker of the assembly. In the 2-year gap between his first four terms in the assembly and the fifth, Lansing sat in the Confederation Congress. He rounded out his public service by serving as Albany’s mayor between 1786 and 1790.

Lansing went to Philadelphia as part of the New York delegation to the Constitutional Convention. As the convention progressed, Lansing became disillusioned because he believed it was exceeding its instructions. Lansing believed the delegates had gathered together simply to amend the Articles of Confederation and was dismayed at the movement to write an entirely new constitution. After 6 weeks, John Lansing and fellow New York delegate Robert Yates left the convention and explained their departure in a joint letter to New York Governor George Clinton. They stated that they opposed any system that would consolidate the United States into one government, and they had understood that the convention would not consider any such consolidation. Furthermore, warned Lansing and Yates, the kind of government recommended by the convention could not “afford that security to equal and permanent liberty which we wished to make an invariable object of our pursuit.” In 1788, as a member of the New York ratifying convention, Lansing again vigorously opposed the Constitution.

Under the new federal government Lansing pursued a long judicial career. In 1790 he began an 11-year term on the supreme court of New York; from 1798 until 1801 he served as its chief justice. Between 1801 and 1814 Lansing was chancellor of the state. Retirement from that post did not slow him down; in 1817 he accepted an appointment as a regent of the University of the State of New York.

Lansing’s death was the most mysterious of all the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. While on a visit to New York City in 1829, he left his hotel to post some letters. No trace of him was ever found, and it was supposed that he had been murdered.

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton

State: New York (Born in British West Indies, immigrated 1772)

Age at Convention: 30

Date of Birth: January 11, 1757

Date of Death: July 12, 1804

Schooling: Attended Kings College (Columbia)

Occupation: Lawyer, Public Security Interests, Real Estate, Land Speculation, Soldier

Prior Political Experience: Confederation Congress 1782-1783, Represented New York at Annapolis Convention 1786, Lower State Legislature of New York 1787

Committee Assignments: Committee of Rules, Committee of Style

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25, departed June 30, and except for one day, August 13, he was absent until September 6. Upon his return he remained present through the signing of the Constitution. His most important contribution was the introduction and defense of the Hamilton plan on June 18, 1787, that argued neither the Virginia Plan nor the New Jersey Plan were adequate to the task at hand. William Pierce stated that “there is no skimming over the surface of a subject with him, he must sink to the bottom to see what foundation it rests on.”

New Government Participation: Attended the New York ratifying convention and supported the ratification of the Constitution. President Washington nominated and the Senate confirmed Hamilton as the Secretary of the Treasury (1789 – 1796). He was the principle author of the Federalist Papers.

Biography from the National Archives: Hamilton was born in 1757 on the island of Nevis, in the Leeward group, British West Indies. He was the illegitimate son of a common-law marriage between a poor itinerant Scottish merchant of aristocratic descent and an English-French Huguenot mother who was a planter’s daughter. In 1766, after the father had moved his family elsewhere in the Leewards to St. Croix in the Danish (now United States) Virgin Islands, he returned to St. Kitts while his wife and two sons remained on St. Croix.

The mother, who opened a small store to make ends meet, and a Presbyterian clergyman provided Hamilton with a basic education, and he learned to speak fluent French. About the time of his mother’s death in 1768, he became an apprentice clerk at Christiansted in a mercantile establishment, whose proprietor became one of his benefactors. Recognizing his ambition and superior intelligence, they raised a fund for his education.

In 1772, bearing letters of introduction, Hamilton traveled to New York City. Patrons he met there arranged for him to attend Barber’s Academy at Elizabethtown (present Elizabeth), NJ. During this time, he met and stayed for a while at the home of William Livingston, who would one day be a fellow signer of the Constitution. Late the next year, 1773, Hamilton entered King’s College (later Columbia College and University) in New York City, but the Revolution interrupted his studies.

Although not yet 20 years of age, in 1774-75 Hamilton wrote several widely read pro-Whig pamphlets. Right after the war broke out, he accepted an artillery captaincy and fought in the principal campaigns of 1776-77. In the latter year, winning the rank of lieutenant colonel, he joined the staff of General Washington as secretary and aide-de-camp and soon became his close confidant as well.

In 1780 Hamilton wed New Yorker Elizabeth Schuyler, whose family was rich and politically powerful; they were to have eight children. In 1781, after some disagreements with Washington, he took a command position under Lafayette in the Yorktown, VA, campaign (1781). He resigned his commission that November.

Hamilton then read law at Albany and quickly entered practice, but public service soon attracted him. He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1782-83. In the latter year, he established a law office in New York City. Because of his interest in strengthening the central government, he represented his state at the Annapolis Convention in 1786, where he urged the calling of the Constitutional Convention.

In 1787 Hamilton served in the legislature, which appointed him as a delegate to the convention. He played a surprisingly small part in the debates, apparently because he was frequently absent on legal business, his extreme nationalism put him at odds with most of the delegates, and he was frustrated by the conservative views of his two fellow delegates from New York. He did, however, sit on the Committee of Style, and he was the only one of the three delegates from his state who signed the finished document. Hamilton’s part in New York’s ratification the next year was substantial, though he felt the Constitution was deficient in many respects. Against determined opposition, he waged a strenuous and successful campaign, including collaboration with John Jay and James Madison in writing The Federalist. In 1787 Hamilton was again elected to the Continental Congress.

When the new government got under way in 1789, Hamilton won the position of Secretary of the Treasury. He began at once to place the nation’s disorganized finances on a sound footing. In a series of reports (1790-91), he presented a program not only to stabilize national finances but also to shape the future of the country as a powerful, industrial nation. He proposed establishment of a national bank, funding of the national debt, assumption of state war debts, and the encouragement of manufacturing.

Hamilton’s policies soon brought him into conflict with Jefferson and Madison. Their disputes with him over his pro-business economic program, sympathies for Great Britain, disdain for the common man, and opposition to the principles and excesses of the French revolution contributed to the formation of the first U.S. party system. It pitted Hamilton and the Federalists against Jefferson and Madison and the Democratic-Republicans.

During most of the Washington administration, Hamilton’s views usually prevailed with the President, especially after 1793 when Jefferson left the government. In 1795 family and financial needs forced Hamilton to resign from the Treasury Department and resume his law practice in New York City. Except for a stint as inspector-general of the Army (1798-1800) during the undeclared war with France, he never again held public office.

While gaining stature in the law, Hamilton continued to exert a powerful impact on New York and national politics. Always an opponent of fellow-Federalist John Adams, he sought to prevent his election to the presidency in 1796. When that failed, he continued to use his influence secretly within Adams’ cabinet. The bitterness between the two men became public knowledge in 1800 when Hamilton denounced Adams in a letter that was published through the efforts of the Democratic-Republicans.

In 1802 Hamilton and his family moved into The Grange, a country home he had built in a rural part of Manhattan not far north of New York City. But the expenses involved and investments in northern land speculations seriously strained his finances.

Meanwhile, when Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in Presidential electoral votes in 1800, Hamilton threw valuable support to Jefferson. In 1804, when Burr sought the governorship of New York, Hamilton again managed to defeat him. That same year, Burr, taking offense at remarks he believed to have originated with Hamilton, challenged him to a duel, which took place at present Weehawken, NJ, on July 11. Mortally wounded, Hamilton died the next day. He was in his late forties at death. He was buried in Trinity Churchyard in New York City.

Charles Pinckney

State: South Carolina

Age at Convention: 29

Date of Birth: October 26, 1757

Date of Death: October 29, 1824

Schooling: Unknown

Occupation: Lawyer, Planter and Slave Holder, Lending and Investments, Public Security Interests

Prior Political Experience: Continental Congress 1777-1778, Confederation Congress 1784-1787, State Legislature of South Carolina 1779-1780, 1786-1789, 1792-1796, Upper House 1779-1784

Committee Assignments: Committee of Rules

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. He is best known for his proslavery position, as well as a strong proponent of a Bill of Rights. He was a warm supporter of Madison’s attempt to build a stronger central government. William Pierce stated that “he is intimately acquainted with every species of polite learning, and has a spirit of application and industry beyond most Men.”

New Government Participation: Attended the South Carolina ratifying convention (serving as Chair of the Convention) and supported the ratification of the Constitution. Served as South Carolina’s U.S. Senator (1798 – 1801) President Jefferson nominated and the Senate confirmed him as ambassador to Spain (1801 – 1805) Elected as South Carolina’s U. S. Representative (1818 – 1821) and opposed the Missouri Compromise.

Biography from the National Archives: Charles Pinckney, the second cousin of fellow-signer Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, was born at Charleston, SC, in 1757. His father, Col. Charles Pinckney, was a rich lawyer and planter, who on his death in 1782 was to bequeath Snee Farm, a country estate outside the city, to his son Charles. The latter apparently received all his education in the city of his birth, and he started to practice law there in 1779.

About that time, well after the War for Independence had begun, young Pinckney enlisted in the militia, though his father demonstrated ambivalence about the Revolution. He became a lieutenant, and served at the siege of Savannah (September-October 1779). When Charleston fell to the British the next year, the youth was captured and remained a prisoner until June 1781.

Pinckney had also begun a political career, serving in the Continental Congress (1777-78 and 1784-87) and in the state legislature (1779-80, 1786-89, and 1792-96). A nationalist, he worked hard in Congress to ensure that the United States would receive navigation rights to the Mississippi and to strengthen congressional power.

Pinckney’s role in the Constitutional Convention is controversial. Although one of the youngest delegates, he later claimed to have been the most influential one and contended he had submitted a draft that was the basis of the final Constitution. Most historians have rejected this assertion. They do, however, recognize that he ranked among the leaders. He attended full time, spoke often and effectively, and contributed immensely to the final draft and to the resolution of problems that arose during the debates. He also worked for ratification in South Carolina (1788). That same year, he married Mary Eleanor Laurens, daughter of a wealthy and politically powerful South Carolina merchant; she was to bear at least three children.

Subsequently, Pinckney’s career blossomed. From 1789 to 1792 he held the governorship of South Carolina, and in 1790 chaired the state constitutional convention. During this period, he became associated with the Federalist Party, in which he and his cousin Charles Cotesworth Pinckney were leaders. But, with the passage of time, the former’s views began to change. In 1795 he attacked the Federalist backed Jay’s Treaty and increasingly began to cast his lot with Carolina back-country Democratic-Republicans against his own eastern aristocracy. In 1796 he became governor once again, and in 1798 his Democratic-Republican supporters helped him win a seat in the U.S. Senate. There, he bitterly opposed his former party, and in the presidential election of 1800 served as Thomas Jefferson’s campaign manager in South Carolina.

The victorious Jefferson appointed Pinckney as Minister to Spain (1801-5), in which capacity he struggled valiantly but unsuccessfully to win cession of the Floridas to the United States and facilitated Spanish acquiescence in the transfer of Louisiana from France to the United States in 1803.

Upon completion of his diplomatic mission, his ideas moving ever closer to democracy, Pinckney headed back to Charleston and to leadership of the state Democratic-Republican Party. He sat in the legislature in 1805-6 and then was again elected as governor (1806-8). In this position, he favored legislative reapportionment, giving better representation to back-country districts, and advocated universal white manhood suffrage. He served again in the legislature from 1810 to 1814 and then temporarily withdrew from politics. In 1818 he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he fought against the Missouri Compromise.

In 1821, Pinckney’s health beginning to fail, he retired for the last time from politics. He died in 1824, just 3 days after his 67th birthday. He was laid to rest in Charleston at St. Philip’s Episcopal Churchyard.

Pierce Butler

State: South Carolina (Born in Ireland, immigrated in 1771)

Age at Convention: 43

Date of Birth: July 11, 1744

Date of Death: February 15, 1822

Schooling: Unknown

Occupation: Planter and Slave Holder, Lending and Investments, Public Security Interests, Soldier

Prior Political Experience: Lower House of South Carolina State Legislature 1778-1782, 1784-1789, Confederation Congress 1787-1788

Committee Assignments: Committee of Trade, Committee of Leftovers

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Butler is a character much respected for the many excellent virtues which he possess but as a politician or an Orator, he has no pretensions to either.” Introduced and defended the fugitive slave clause.

New Government Participation: Supported the ratification of the Constitution but did not attend the ratification convention in South Carolina. Served in the U. S. Senate (1789 – 1796 and 1803 – 1804)

Biography from the National Archives: One of the most aristocratic delegates at the convention, Butler was born in 1744 in County Carlow, Ireland. His father was Sir Richard Butler, member of Parliament and a baronet.

Like so many younger sons of the British aristocracy who could not inherit their fathers’ estates because of primogeniture, Butler pursued a military career. He became a major in His Majesty’s 29th Regiment and during the colonial unrest was posted to Boston in 1768 to quell disturbances there. In 1771 he married Mary Middleton, daughter of a wealthy South Carolinian, and before long resigned his commission to take up a planter’s life in the Charleston area. The couple was to have at least one daughter.

When the Revolution broke out, Butler took up the Whig cause. He was elected to the assembly in 1778, and the next year he served as adjutant general in the South Carolina militia. While in the legislature through most of the 1780s, he took over leadership of the democratic upcountry faction in the state and refused to support his own planter group. The War for Independence cost him much of his property, and his finances were so precarious for a time that he was forced to travel to Amsterdam to seek a personal loan. In 1786 the assembly appointed him to a commission charged with settling a state boundary dispute.

The next year, Butler won election to both the Continental Congress (1787-88) and the Constitutional Convention. In the latter assembly, he was an outspoken nationalist who attended practically every session and was a key spokesman for the Madison-Wilson caucus. Butler also supported the interests of southern slaveholders. He served on the Committee on Postponed Matters.

On his return to South Carolina Butler defended the Constitution but did not participate in the ratifying convention. Service in the U.S. Senate (1789-96) followed. Although nominally a Federalist, he often crossed party lines. He supported Hamilton’s fiscal program but opposed Jay’s Treaty and Federalist judiciary and tariff measures.

Out of the Senate and back in South Carolina from 1797 to 1802, Butler was considered for but did not attain the governorship. He sat briefly in the Senate again in 1803-4 to fill out an unexpired term, and he once again demonstrated party independence. But, for the most part, his later career was spent as a wealthy planter. In his last years, he moved to Philadelphia, apparently to be near a daughter who had married a local physician. Butler died there in 1822 at the age of 77 and was buried in the yard of Christ Church.

Elbridge Gerry

Elbridge Gerry

Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814) was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts to a prosperous merchant family. He died in Washington, DC. while serving as Vice President of the United States. He was buried in Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Gerry is the only signer of the Declaration of Independence buried in DC. He fathered ten children. His wife lived until 1849, the last surviving widow of a signer.

He received a private education as a child and then studied at Harvard to be a merchant, graduating in 1764. Gerry then joined the lucrative family business and became a wealthy merchant in his own right.

Gerry’s political career was long, controversial, and effective, but mostly overlooked by historians.

In 1765, Parliament enacted the Stamp Act to raise revenue by taxing the colonies. Gerry was an opponent of these acts and allied himself with Samuel Adams and John Hancock. In 1772, Gerry was elected to the Massachusetts Bay legislature. In 1775, he was a member of a Committee of Safety, along with Adams and Hancock, in support of Boston.

In 1776, Gerry was selected to be a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. Gerry was a strong advocate for separating from England. He was absent for the formal signing on August 2, 1776 but signed later that year. He joins Oliver Wolcott, Lewis Morris, Thomas McKean, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, and Mathew Thornton as late signers. In 1776, John Adams stated, “If every man here was a Gerry, the liberties of America would be safe.” He also was a member of the Confederation Congress (1783-1785) where he signed the Articles of Confederation.

He was selected to represent Massachusetts at the 1787 Constitutional Convention where he was chair of the Connecticut Compromise Committee but, in the end, declined to sign the Constitution. He thought the Constitution should include a bill of rights and thus opposed the ratification of the Constitution. Nevertheless, Gerry served two terms in the House of Representatives (1789-1793) where he supported the passage of a bill of rights. When John Adams became President in 1796, he selected Gerry, along with John Marshall and Charles Pinckney, to be commissioners to France to settle maritime disputes. This episode became known as the XYZ Affair and Adams recalled him. He was elected Governor of Massachusetts (1810-1811) where he signed a Congressional redistricting bill that assisted the Democratic Republicans. The map looked like a salamander. Thus the term “Gerrymander” for which Gerry is mostly remembered.

Rufus King

State: Massachusetts

Age at Convention: 32

Date of Birth: March 24, 1755

Date of Death: April 29, 1827

Schooling: Harvard 1777

Occupation: Public Security Interests, Lending and Investments, Mercantile, Manufacturing, and Shipping, Investor, Lawyer

Prior Political Experience: Lower House of Massachusetts State Legislature 1783-1785, Confederation Congress 1784-1787

Committee Assignments: Second Committee of Representation, Chairman of the Third Committee of Representation, Committee of Assumption of State Debt, Committee of Slave Trade, Committee of Leftovers, Committee of Style

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25, and except for four days in mid-August, was present for the duration and signed the Constitution. He served on the most committees and was a warm supporter of a strong central government. William Pierce stated that “Mr. King is a man much distinguished for his eloquence and his parliamentary talents. … He may with propriety be ranked among the Luminaries of the present Age.”

New Government Participation: Attended the Massachusetts ratification convention, supported ratification of the Constitution. Was elected as a Senator for the State of New York (1789 – 1796), served as Minister to Great Britain (1796 – 1803 & 1825 – 1826), and reelected to the Senate (1813 – 1825). Federalist Party Candidate for Vice President 1804 & 1808, President 1816.

Biography from the National Archives: King was born at Scarboro (Scarborough), MA (present Maine), in 1755. He was the eldest son of a prosperous farmer-merchant. At age 12, after receiving an elementary education at local schools, he matriculated at Dummer Academy in South Byfield, MA, and in 1777 graduated from Harvard. He served briefly as a general’s aide during the War for Independence. Choosing a legal career, he read for the law at Newburyport, MA, and entered practice there in 1780.

King’s knowledge, bearing, and oratorical gifts soon launched him on a political career. From 1783 to 1785 he was a member of the Massachusetts legislature, after which that body sent him to the Continental Congress (1784-86). There, he gained a reputation as a brilliant speaker and an early opponent of slavery. Toward the end of his tour, in 1786, he married Mary Alsop, daughter of a rich New York City merchant. He performed his final duties for Massachusetts by representing her at the Constitutional Convention and by serving in the commonwealth’s ratifying convention.

At age 32, King was not only one of the most youthful of the delegates at Philadelphia, but was also one of the most important. He numbered among the most capable orators. Furthermore, he attended every session. Although he came to the convention unconvinced that major changes should be made in the Articles of Confederation, his views underwent a startling transformation during the debates. With Madison, he became a leading figure in the nationalist caucus. He served with distinction on the Committee on Postponed Matters and the Committee of Style. He also took notes on the proceedings, which have been valuable to historians.

About 1788 King abandoned his law practice, moved from the Bay State to Gotham, and entered the New York political forum. He was elected to the legislature (1789-90), and in the former year was picked as one of the state’s first U.S. senators. As political divisions grew in the new government, King expressed ardent sympathies for the Federalists. In Congress, he supported Hamilton’s fiscal program and stood among the leading proponents of the unpopular Jay’s Treaty (1794).

Meantime, in 1791, King had become one of the directors of the First Bank of the United States. Reelected to the U.S. Senate in 1795, he served only a year before he was appointed as Minister to Great Britain (1796-1803).

King’s years in this post were difficult ones in Anglo-American relations. The wars of the French Revolution endangered U.S. commerce in the maritime clashes between the French and the British. The latter in particular violated American rights on the high seas, especially by the impressment of sailors. Although King was unable to bring about a change in this policy, he smoothed relations between the two nations.

In 1803 King sailed back to the United States and to a career in politics. In 1804 and 1808 fellow-signer Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and he were the Federalist candidates for President and Vice President, respectively, but were decisively defeated. Otherwise, King largely contented himself with agricultural pursuits at King Manor, a Long Island estate he had purchased in 1805. During the War of 1812, he was again elected to the U.S. Senate (1813-25) and ranked as a leading critic of the war. Only after the British attacked Washington in 1814 did he come to believe that the United States was fighting a defensive action and decided to lend his support to the war effort.

In 1816 the Federalists chose King as their candidate for the presidency, but James Monroe beat him handily. Still in the Senate, that same year King led the opposition to the establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Four years later, believing that the issue of slavery could not be compromised but must be settled once and for all by the immediate establishment of a system of compensated emancipation and colonization, he denounced the Missouri Compromise.

In 1825, suffering from ill health, King retired from the Senate. President John Quincy Adams, however, persuaded him to accept another assignment as Minister to Great Britain. He arrived in England that same year, but soon fell ill and was forced to return home the following year. Within a year, at the age of 72, in 1827, he died. Surviving him were several offspring, some of whom also gained distinction. He was laid to rest near King Manor in the cemetery of Grace Episcopal Church, Jamaica, Long Island, NY.

Nathaniel Gorham

State: Massachusetts

Age at Convention: 49

Date of Birth: May 27, 1738

Date of Death: June 11, 1796

Schooling: Local schools

Occupation: Merchant and Speculator, Public Security and Interests, Real Estate

Prior Political Experience: Colonial Legislature 1771-1775, State Upper House of Massachusetts 1780, Provincial Congress 1774-1775, Commonwealth Board of War 1778-1781, Massachusetts Constitutional Convention 1779-1780, Lower House of Massachusetts 1781-1787 and Speaker 1781-1785, Judge of Middlesex County court of common please 1785-1796, Confederation Congress 1782-1783 & 1785-1787, President of Confederation Congress June 1786-January 1787

Committee Assignments: Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, Committee of Detail, Second Committee of Representation, Committee of Trade, Committee of State Commitments

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 28, and except for one day, July 14, was present for the duration and signed the Constitution. He is remembered for his role as the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole. He was a warm supporter of a strong central government. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Gorham is … high in reputation, and much in the esteem of his countrymen, he is eloquent and easy in public debate, but has nothing fashionable or eloquent in his style.”

New Government Participation: Attended the Massachusetts ratification convention, supported ratification of the Constitution. He did not serve in the new government.

Biography from the National Archives: Gorham, an eldest child, was born in 1738 at Charlestown, Massachusetts, into an old Bay Colony family of modest means. His father operated a packet boat. The youth’s education was minimal. When he was about 15 years of age, he was apprenticed to a New London, Connecticut, merchant. He quit in 1759, returned to his hometown and established a business which quickly succeeded. In 1763 he wed Rebecca Call, who was to bear nine children.

Gorham began his political career as a public notary but soon won election to the colonial legislature (1771-75). During the Revolution, he unswervingly backed the Whigs. He was a delegate to the provincial congress (1774-75), member of the Massachusetts Board of War (1778-81), delegate to the constitutional convention (1779-80), and representative in both the upper (1780) and lower (1781-87) houses of the legislature, including speaker of the latter in 1781, 1782, and 1785. In the last year, though he apparently lacked formal legal training, he began a judicial career as judge of the Middlesex County court of common pleas (1785-96). During this same period, he sat on the Governor’s Council (1788-89).

During the war, British troops had ravaged much of Gorham’s property, though by privateering and speculation he managed to recoup most of his fortune. Despite these pressing business concerns and his state political and judicial activities, he also served the nation. He was a member of the Continental Congress (1782-83 and 1785-87), and held the office of president from June 1786 until January 1787.

The next year, at age 49, Gorham attended the Constitutional Convention. A moderate nationalist, he attended all the sessions and played an influential role. He spoke often, acted as chairman of the Committee of the Whole, and sat on the Committee of Detail. As a delegate to the Massachusetts ratifying convention, he stood behind the Constitution.

Some unhappy years followed. Gorham did not serve in the new government he had helped to create. In 1788 he and Oliver Phelps of Windsor, Connecticut, and possibly others, contracted to purchase from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 6 million acres of unimproved land in western New York. The price was $1 million in devalued Massachusetts scrip. Gorham and Phelps quickly succeeded in clearing Indian title to 2,600,000 acres in the eastern section of the grant and sold much of it to settlers. Problems soon arose, however. Massachusetts scrip rose dramatically in value, enormously swelling the purchase price of the vast tract. By 1790 the two men were unable to meet their payments. The result was a financial crisis that led to Gorham’s insolvency—and a fall from the heights of Boston society and political esteem.

Gorham died in 1796 at the age of 58 and is buried at the Phipps Street Cemetery in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

Roger Sherman

Roger Sherman

Roger Sherman (1721-1793) was born at Newton, near Boston. He died in New Haven, and was buried in Grove Street Cemetery. He married Elizabeth Hartwell in 1749 and they had seven children. She died in 1760. He then married Rebecca Prescott with whom he had eight children.

When he was two, the family moved from Newton to the frontier town of Dorchester, now Stoughton. His education was very limited, although he did have access to his father’s library. Later as a teenager he attended a new grammar school, and learned the cobbler’s trade from his father. He also met Samuel Dunbar, Harvard trained parish Minister of Stoughton who helped Sherman with mathematics, the sciences, literature, and philosophy.

In 1743, Sherman joined an elder brother in New Milford, Connecticut where they opened the first store in town. He was appointed surveyor of New Haven County and became a leader in the community. New Milford did not have a newspaper, so Sherman wrote and published a very popular Almanac each year from 1750 to 1761. Although he never had a legal education, Sherman was admitted to the Bar of Litchfield in 1754 and, from 1755-1761, represented New Milford in the colonial legislature, and was also a justice of the peace and a county judge. And four years later, he became an associate justice of the Superior Court of Connecticut. In 1761, a very successful landowner and businessman, he moved to New Haven and became a benefactor of Yale.

He was appointed commissary to the Connecticut Troops at the start of the Revolutionary war and elected to the First and Second Continental Congress and to the Confederation Congress in 1781, and 1783-1784.

Sherman was an active and respected delegate who attempted to balance the urgency for intercontinental agreements while retaining the vibrant local institutions to which Americans were attached. He was on the five-member committee in 1776 with Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Robert Livingston to draft the Declaration of Independence. And he simultaneously fulfilled his state duties. Sherman was still a judge on the Connecticut and in 1783, he helped to codify the statutory laws of Connecticut. He served as mayor of New Haven (1784-1786). He also served on the committee forming the Articles of Confederation.

Sherman was selected by Connecticut to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 where he defended the rights of the smaller states and the partly national-partly federal Connecticut. Compromise. (Madison’s Notes of the Debates at the Convention credit him with delivering one hundred and thirty-eight speeches). As if that weren’t enough, Sherman wrote essays on behalf of the ratification of the Constitution as well voting in favor of ratification at the Connecticut Ratifying Convention. He was elected to the First Congress as both Representative(1789-1791) and Senator (1791-1793). He was very influential in securing the adoption of the Bill of Rights.

Many of the most notable figures of the revolution, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, admitted a deep admiration for Roger Sherman and his work.

Oliver Ellsworth

State: Connecticut

Age at Convention: 42

Date of Birth: April 29, 1745

Date of Death: November 26, 1807

Schooling: College of New Jersey (Princeton) 1766

Occupation: Lawyer, Public Security Interests, Lending and Investments, Mercantilist

Prior Political Experience: State Upper House in Connecticut from 1780-1785, Served on Connecticut Superior Court 1785-1807, Council of Safety 1779, Committee of Pay 1775, Continental Congress 1777-1780, Confederation Congress 1781-1783

Committee Assignments: Elected First Representation Committee but was “indisposed,” Committee of Detail

Convention Contributions: Arrived on May 28. Departed last week in August and never returned. On June 29, Ellsworth claimed “that we were partly national; partly federal,” and introduced the Resolution which became known as the Connecticut Compromise. William Pierce stated that “he is a Gentleman of a clear, deep, and copious understanding; eloquent and connected in public debate; and always attentive to his duty.”

New Government Participation: Wrote letters influencing the adoption of the Constitution, played a major part in drafting the Judiciary Act in the First Congress as Connecticut’s First Senator (1789 – 1796), served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1796 – 1798). Washington nominated after the Senate refused to confirm the appointment of John Rutledge as Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court.

Biography from the National Archives: Oliver Ellsworth was born on April 29, 1745, in Windsor, CT, to Capt. David and Jemima Ellsworth. He entered Yale in 1762 but transferred to the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) at the end of his second year. He continued to study theology and received his A.B. degree after 2 years. Soon afterward, however, Ellsworth turned to the law. After 4 years of study, he was admitted to the bar in 1771. The next year Ellsworth married Abigail Wolcott.

From a slow start Ellsworth built up a prosperous law practice. His reputation as an able and industrious jurist grew, and in 1777 Ellsworth became Connecticut’s state attorney for Hartford County. That same year he was chosen as one of Connecticut’s representatives in the Continental Congress. He served on various committees during six annual terms until 1783. Ellsworth was also active in his state’s efforts during the Revolution. As a member of the Committee of the Pay Table, Oliver Ellsworth was one of the five men who supervised Connecticut’s war expenditures. In 1779 he assumed greater duties as a member of the council of safety, which, with the governor, controlled all military measures for the state.

When the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in 1787 Ellsworth once again represented Connecticut and took an active part in the proceedings. During debate on the Great Compromise, Ellsworth proposed that the basis of representation in the legislative branch remain by state, as under the Articles of Confederation. He also left his mark through an amendment to change the word “national” to “United States” in a resolution. Thereafter, “United States” was the title used in the convention to designate the government.

Ellsworth also served on the Committee of Five that prepared the first draft of the Constitution. Ellsworth favored the three-fifths compromise on the enumeration of slaves but opposed the abolition of the foreign slave trade. Though he left the convention near the end of August and did not sign the final document, he urged its adoption upon his return to Connecticut and wrote the Letters of a Landholder to promote its ratification.

Ellsworth served as one of Connecticut’s first two senators in the new federal government between 1789 and 1796. In the Senate he chaired the committee that framed the bill organizing the federal judiciary and helped to work out the practical details necessary to run a new government. Ellsworth’s other achievements in Congress included framing the measure that admitted North Carolina to the Union, devising the non-intercourse act that forced Rhode Island to join, drawing up the bill to regulate the consular service, and serving on the committee that considered Alexander Hamilton’s plan for funding the national debt and for incorporating the Bank of the United States.

In the spring of 1796 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and also served as commissioner to France in 1799 and 1800. Upon his return to America in early 1801, Ellsworth retired from public life and lived in Windsor, CT. He died there on November 26, 1807, and was buried in the cemetery of the First Church of Windsor.

William Jackson

State: South Carolina

Date of Birth: March 9, 1759

Date of Death: December 17, 1828

Age during Convention: 28

The Rule of Secrecy

On May 25, the Constitutional Convention began its work by creating a Committee to propose “rules for conducting business.” On May 28, the Committee reported sixteen rules and on May 29 they reported six further rules. One of these was the rule of secrecy. According to Madison’s Notes, the exact language of the secrecy rule was: “That nothing spoken in the house be printed, or otherwise published or communicated without leave.”

The delegates adopted these rules without debate. And for the most part they adhered to the rule of secrecy. The issue of what would happen after the Convention adjourned was not addressed. Certainly Madison informed Thomas Jefferson about the main features of the deliberations. There was at least one Founder in each of the state ratifying conventions, and these conventions were open to the public with the deliberations reported widely in the press. Madison seems to have taken the vow of secrecy to the limit; his copious Notes weren’t available until after his death despite numerous requests that he make them available to help in constitutional interpretation.

Why secrecy? There seems to be an instinctive case against secrecy since democracy and openness are often deemed to be synonymous. There is the further suspicion that secret gatherings are designed by the wicked few to shaft the innocent many. This is in large part the conclusion of twentieth century Progressive Historiography that makes a point of equating meeting in secret with smoked filled rooms and elitist betrayal of virtuous majorities. They point to the secrecy rule, and the thick drapes over closed windows in Independence Hall during the hot Philadelphia summer, as evidence of an undemocratic founding. But anyone who has seen politicians in front of the camera knows that openness and posturing also go together and that being pressured by outside forces is not always conducive to wise deliberation and choice. Thus even contemporary society sees the need for executive sessions and private discourse.

I think the model the Founders had in mind was “the trial by jury model” where the jurors deliberated in secret in order to be candid with each other and to be free to change their mind for the right reason, namely, because they were persuaded to do so. There is also something to be said to being part of an uninterrupted conversation. It isn’t so much that politics seeks darkness rather than light; rather it is from darkness that light emerges.

The New Jersey Plan

On June 11, Roger Sherman proposed a compromise: rather than have proportional representation of the people in both the House and the Senate, why not agree to proportional representation in the House and equal representation for each state in the Senate? The rejection of this compromise, led the New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, and Delaware delegations, and Mr. Martin from Maryland, to propose the New Jersey Plan.

Madison’s Notes for June 15th records the following: “Mr. Dickinson said to Mr. Madison you see the consequence of pushing things too far.” The 11 Resolutions of the New Jersey Plan restored the single chamber structure of the Articles, where each state was represented equally regardless of the size of its population. As far as powers were concerned, the power to tax and the power to regulate interstate commerce were added to the powers that the union had under the Articles.

It is tempting to see the introduction of the New Jersey Plan as an attempt by the small states to fight off the impending victory of the large state supported Virginia Plan. But this is to simplify too much. There were some “large minded” men from small states—Dickenson for example—who were willing to meet the Madisonians half way, but to no avail.

What are the principles, if any, that undergird this Plan? On June 16, for example, Pinckney observed, rather cynically, that no principles were involved: “the whole comes down to this, as he conceived. Give N. Jersey an equal vote, and she will dismiss her scruple, and concur in the Natil. system.” But Pinckney, to the contrary notwithstanding, there are two “scruples” involved.

The first scruple concerns the rule of law. On February 28, 1787, the Confederation Congress endorsed the meeting of a Grand Convention, “for the sole purpose of revising the articles of confederation and reporting to Congress and the several state legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall, when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union.” The defenders of the New Jersey Plan pointed to this mandate and suggested that the Virginia Plan was illegal. The second principled position was the question of prudence, namely, the improbability that the Virginia Plan will be adopted. The defenders of the New Jersey Plan argued that it would be more likely to be adopted by the electorate than the never before imagined Virginia Plan. On June 16, Lansing, in support of Patterson, stated: “The Scheme is itself totally novel. There is no parallel to it to be found.”

The New Jersey Plan supporters had to contend with the question, why are states qua states entitled to equal representation? There are two answers. 1) The colonies became the States and the States have been equally represented in every continental scheme from the start, so why the move to alter tradition? 2) The Declaration of Independence declared the independence, equality, and sovereignty of each state. And the Treaty of Paris recognized the independence of the states as part of the principles of the peace.

The Virginia Plan

On May 29, Edmund Randolph introduced the Virginia Plan containing 15 Resolutions.

Echoing, Madison’s Vices of April 1787, he itemized five reasons why the Articles of Confederation must be radically altered.

  1. “It does not provide against foreign attacks.”
  2. “It does not secure Harmony to the States.”
  3. “It is incapable of producing certain blessings to the States.”
  4. “It cannot defend itself against encroachments.”
  5. “It is not superior to State constitutions.”

The single most important reason why the delegates were gathered was because of what Madison referred to as the multiplicity, mutability, and injustice of legislation at the state level. To correct these deficiencies, the Virginia Plan removed the state legislatures both structurally, and in terms of powers, from any place in the new continental arrangement. Most importantly,

  1. The National Legislature should consist of two branches.
  2. The people of each State should elect the First Branch of the National Legislature. The Second Branch of the National Legislature should be elected by the first.
  3. The National Legislature shall have power “to legislate in all cases to which the separate States are incompetent,” and “to negative all laws passed by the States, contravening in the opinion of the National Legislature the articles of Union.”
  4. The National Legislature shall elect a National Executive.
  5. The Executive and a number of National Judiciary will form a Council of Revision. This Council will review laws passed by the National Legislature and have the power to reject the laws, unless the National Legislature can pass the act again.
  6. The National Legislature will create the National Judiciary. The structure will consist of one or more supreme tribunals and inferior tribunals. Judges will be appointed for life, during good behavior.
  7. State Legislatures, Executives, and Judges are to be bound by oath to support the Articles.
  8. The new plan for government should be ratified by the people, through assemblies of representatives chosen by the people.

The “oracle” Montesquieu had argued that for a people to remain free, they must reside in small, homogeneous communities. Public virtue was needed to secure a republic and this sentiment was endangered in large, heterogeneous communities. It is the unique contribution of Madison to challenge this traditional theory of self-government head on. In fact, he stands it on its head! His first verbal articulation of this position occurs on June 6 where he argues that majority faction is the mortal disease of popular government and traditional solutions to factious politics will no longer work. He thus directly challenges the traditional claim that people are happier in small republics. Just the opposite; unless we spread people out over an extended orbit and filter their opinions, passions, and interests through a scheme of representation, then popular government will come to a violent end. This speech is the precursor to the famous Federalist 10 essay and is part of the political theory underlying the Virginia Plan.

There is a division of opinion in the scholarly literature concerning the motivation behind the introduction of the Virginia Plan. Some scholars credit Madison for his strategic brilliance in shifting the attention away from revising the Articles of Confederation to this new and bold plan. Other interpreters point out that it was introduced by Virginia, the largest state, that would benefit in terms of representation at the expense of the smaller states who received equal representation under the Articles of Confederation. A number of political theorists portray the Virginia Plan as making the novel case for “the large republic” theory over against the traditional “small republic” theory articulated by Roger Sherman on June 6. What is clear from both Randolph’s arguments on May 29 and Madison’s position on June 6 is that the Virginians saw state legislatures, in both large and small states, as dangerous to liberty and justice. What is also clear is that Madison sees no principled reason for the equal representation of states qua states.