The American Founding

<Debate and Ratification

Introduction to Out-of-doors Debate

After the signing of the Constitution on September 17th, 1787, a robust debate grew among supporters of the document and those, for various reasons, who were opposed to its ratification as written, or at all. This “out of doors,” to use the language of the times, debate took place in the newspapers, taverns, parlors, and homes of Americans across the 13 states, and served as the public backdrop to the considerations, debates, and eventual decisions of the ratification conventions that would determine the fate of the Constitution and the republic it proposed.

The “out of doors” literature is rich, varied, and immense. On the pro-Constitution side, of course, are the eighty-five essays collectively known as The Federalist. They have acquired an authoritative status virtually equal to the Constitution itself.

But these essays were not the only, or even the most influential, of the pro-Constitution essays. The “Other Federalists” include such heavyweights as James Wilson, Rufus King, Oliver Ellsworth, Roger Sherman, Timothy Pickering, John Marshall, and John Dickinson.

The opponents of the new Constitution (variously described as Anti-Federalists, antifederalists, and our preferred usage, Antifederalists) also wrote a vast and varied literature. Accordingly, this website must be selective in its coverage lest in its efforts to be comprehensive it turns people away because of the enormity of the writing.

The Antifederalist literature is particularly difficult to collect under one accessible roof. For example, no three Antifederalist authors sat down and produced the Antifederalist Papers. And while it is tempting to try to match up individual Antifederalist writings with numbers in The Federalist, this ultimately proves to be a daunting and unproductive exercise. It is far more rewarding to match up major themes than it is to match up individual essays. Thus, Brutus is excellent when it comes to the theme of the Judiciary, as is Cato when the Executive is under consideration. One certainly gets the feel that Hamilton has these two authors in mind when writing the Executive and Judiciary essays. Probably The Federal Farmer writes the best opposition essays on representation in the House and Senate. Again, one gets the impression that Madison was keenly aware of the Federal Farmer essays as he wrote Federalist 55, 56, and 57.

The New York Journal published the sixteen Brutus essays between 18 October 1787 and 10 April 1788. He is presumed to be a New York Antifederalist since, among other things, three quarters of the essays were addressed to the citizens or the people of New York. Robert Yates is the possible author, although Abraham Yates, Thomas Tredwell, and Melancton Smith have also been suggested.

The first five essays are among the best representations of the general Antifederalist critique of the Constitution. Essays six through ten, published in late December and January, cover the legislative branch. The New York Journal also published The Federalist essays 23-26 by Hamilton during this period thus encouraging scholars to see a direct Brutus-Publius confrontation. Five of the last six essays are a critique of the Judiciary and it is probable that Hamilton‘s defense of the independent judiciary in Federalist 78 is a response to Brutus.

The eight letters of Cato were published in The New York Journal between September 1787 and January 1788. The first letter appeared in the 27 September 1787 issue. This issue produced another first: this marked the first time the full text of the Constitution was published in the paper. The presumed author is Governor George Clinton of New York although scholars have disputed his authorship. In the first essay, Cato urges that his readers attach importance to “measures not to men.” Essay three reiterates a familiar Antifederalist critique of Federalist 10: a large and extensive territory is ripe for consolidation and the collapse of republicanism. Cato’s essays are most often associated with his warnings on the Presidency and this is the subject matter of Essay 4. The remaining essays deal with a critique of the House and the Senate.

A third major Antifederalist out-of-doors writer alluded to above was The Federal Farmer. He is presumed to be Richard Henry Lee, although this authorship has been challenged. He wrote five original letters in October 1787 in which he argued 1) that the proposed plan would lead to consolidation of the States under one government and that 2) the powers of the general government were ill defined. He devoted a number of additional letters to representation in the legislative branch and the need for a Bill of Rights.

“Out-of-Doors” Debate Materials

An Essay-by-Essay Summary of The Federalist including a paragraph by paragraph summary of the leading essays. Includes direct links to each of the 85 essays.

An Essay-by-Essay Summary of the Leading Antifederalists.

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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.”

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.

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.

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.

Timothy Pickering

State: Pennsylvania (though he lived in Massachuetts for most of his life)

Age at Ratifying Convention: 43

Affiliation: Federalist

Vote at Ratifying Convention: Yea

Date of Birth: July 17, 1745

Date of Death: January 29, 1829

Schooling: Harvard, 1763

Occupation: Lawyer, Merchant, Farmer

Prior Political Experience: Massachusetts Colonial Legislature, 1776.

Other Political Activities: United States Postmaster General, 1791-1795; United States Secretary of War, 1795; United States Secretary of State, 1795-1800; United States Senate (MA), 1803-1811; United States House of Representatives (MA), 1813-1817.

John Marshall

State: Virginia

Age at Ratifying Convention: 32

Affiliation: Federalist

Vote at Ratifying Convention: Yea

Date of Birth: September 24, 1755

Date of Death: July 6, 1835

Schooling: Home-schooled by parents; Brief legal training at the College of William and Mary

Occupation: Lawyer, Judge

Prior Political Experience: Virginia House of Delegates, 1783-1789, 1795-1796.

Other Political Activities: United States House of Representatives, 1799-1800; United States Secretary of State, 1800-1801; Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1801-1835.

Richard Henry Lee

Richard Henry Lee

Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794), brother of F.L. Lee, was born to an aristocratic family at Stratford Hall, in Westmoreland county, Virginia. He died at Chantilly and his grave is in the Lee family cemetery near Hague, Virginia. His first wife died in 1768 leaving him four children. He remarried in 1769 and fathered five more children.

He attended a private school in England, and returned to Virginia in 1751. The Lee family had been involved in Virginia politics for a long time. Richard Henry followed in that tradition. In 1757 Lee was appointed Justice of the Peace, and was shortly thereafter elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses where he served until 1775. He opposed the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Act of 1766. He was amongst those radical members of the Burgesses who met at the Raleigh Tavern, in Willmington when the house was dissolved by the Royal Governor. Lee and others in attendance adopted a resolution that declared that “an attack made on one of our sister Colonies, to compel submission to arbitrary taxes, as an attack made on all British America.”

In 1773, Lee, Henry, and Jefferson created the Virginia Committee of Correspondence and invited other colonies to do likewise. In 1774, Massachusetts invited the colonies to meet in September 1774 in Philadelphia as the First Continental Congress.

In 1774 he was elected along with Henry, and four other delegates, to attend the First Continental Congress. John Adams wrote that “the great orators here” in the First Congress “are Lee, Hooper and Patrick Henry.” He was also elected to the Second Continental Congress. Lee, seconded by John Adams, introduced the Resolutions for Independence to the committee of the whole on June 7, 1776. On June 11, a five member committee was created to provide a draft of the Declaration. On June 13, he returned to Virginia due to family illness and was thus absent on July 4 and on August 2! He was one of seven delegates who signed later.

He served in Congress through the course of the War, while also serving in the House of Burgesses. In 1783 he was selected as president of the Confederation Congress that operated under the Articles of Confederation that he helped draft. Lee was one of sixteen signers of both the Declaration and the Articles of Confederation.

Lee was elected to attend the Annapolis Convention, but he declined the invitation. He was selected to represent Virginia at the Constitutional Convention, but also declined this appointment. When the Convention sent the Constitution to the Confederation Congress, Lee as head of the Confederation refused to send the document to the states with the explicit approval of Congress. Lee opposed ratification of the federal constitution without amendments, as he thought it endangered the rights of the states and the rights of the people. He was elected the first State Senator from Virginia under the new federal government, but retired in 1792 to his home in Chantilly due to illness. He owned fifty slaves but, like many of the signers, he had an anti-slavery disposition. As early as 1769, Lee proposed high tax to discourage the slave trade.

George Clinton

State: New York

Age at Ratifying Convention: 49

Affiliation: Antifederalist

Nom de Plume: Cato

Vote at Ratifying Convention: Abstained

Date of Birth: July 26, 1739

Date of Death: April 20, 1812

Occupation: Lawyer, Politician

Prior Political Experience: Delegate to the Continental Congress, 1775-1776; Governor of New York, 1777-1795, 1801-1804.

Other Political Activities: New York State Assembly, 1801-1802; Vice-President of the United States, 1805-1812.