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The Constitutional Convention: Act II, The Connecticut Compromise

Scene 1: Consideration of Revised Virginia Plan

June 20: Lansing questions legality and practicality of the Amended Plan

Resolution 1 and 2:

Revised. Debated the issue of a two-branch legislature.

Resolution 2:

Revised. Defeated (6 – 4 – 1) a motion to consider vesting the powers of legislation in a one-branch Congress. Maryland divided.

Sherman argued that “the disparity of the States in point of size… was the main point of difficulty.” Following L. Martin, he argued that “each State like each individual had its peculiar habits, urges, and interests. ”But “if the difficulty on the subject of representation can not be otherwise got over, he would agree to have two branches, and a proportional representation in one of them, provided each State had an equal voice in the other.”

June 21: Specifics of House Representation discussed

Resolution 2:

Revised. Resumed discussion of the National Legislature and resolved that it should have two branches (7 – 3 – 1). Maryland divided. New York, New Jersey, and Delaware voted “no.”

Resolution 3:

Revised. Reconsidered method of electing First Branch. Defeated a motion for election by State Legislatures (6 – 4 – 1). Agreed to popular election (9 – 1 – 1). Maryland divided. New Jersey voted “no.” Wilson considered “the election of the First Branch by the people not only as the Cornerstone, but as the foundation of the fabric.”

Resolution 3b:

Revised. Discussed length of term of First Branch. Agreed (7 – 3 – 1) to strike “three years” and agreed nem con on two years. Maryland divided. Sherman thought “representatives ought to return home and mix with people.”

June 22: Specifics of House Representation discussed

Resolution 3c:

Revised. Defeated a motion to permit First House to determine its pay (7 – 2 – 2). New York and Georgia divided. New Jersey and Pennsylvania opposed.

Resolution 3d:

Revised. Defeated a move to strike the National Treasury as the source of pay (5 – 4 – 2). New York and Georgia divided.

Resolution 3:

Revised. Agreed on minimum age of 25 for members of House (7 – 3 – 1). New York divided.

Resolution 3:

Revised. Discussed making members ineligible for another state or national office during their own term of office plus one year after leaving office. Defeated motion to strike (4 – 4 – 3). New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware divided.

June 23: Ineligibility requirements for members of Congress

Resolution 3:

Revised. Defeated (5 – 5 – 1) a motion by Butler to provide House members adequate compensation from the National Treasury. Georgia divided.

Resolution 3:

Revised. Agreed (8 – 2 – 1) to strike ineligibility of House members for other Federal Offices. Massachusetts divided. Pennsylvania and Georgia voted “no.”

June 25: The purpose of the Senate

Resolution 4:

Revised. Agreed (5 – 5 – 1) to change “Second Branch of the National Legislature” to “Second Branch of the United States Legislature.”

Resolution 5:

Revised. Agreed (9 – 2) to election of the Second Branch by State Legislatures. Pennsylvania and Virginia voted “no.”

Resolution 4b:

Revised. Agreed unanimously to minimum age of 30 for Senators.

Pinckney delivers an “American Exceptionalism” speech: “the people of this country are not only very different from the inhabitants of any State we are acquainted with in the modern world; but I assert that their situation is distinct from either the people of Greece or Rome, or of any State we are acquainted with among the ancients.”

Ellsworth was practical.

June 26: Specifics of Senate Representation discussed

Resolution 4:

Revised. Resumed discussion of Senate terms. Nine-year terms with triennial rotation defeated (8 – 3). Sherman’s six-year terms with biennial rotation proposal approved (7 – 4).

Resolution 4:

Revised. Agreed (10 – 1) that members should “receive a compensation for the devotion of their time to the Public Service.” South Carolina voted “no.”

Resolution 4:

Revised. Disagreed (6 – 5) that State Treasuries should pay Senators.

Resolution 4:

Revised. Discussed and agreed unanimously on eligibility for other Federal and State offices.

Madison explained that the main purpose of the Senate was “to protect the people against the transient impressions into which they themselves may be led.” Madison links “longevity” in the Senate with “longevity” of the American System. The problem is the emergence of “a leveling spirit” and the solution is to find a “republican” remedy. See Federalist 63 where Madison argued on behalf of “the cool and deliberate sense of the community.” Sherman presented the opposing argument: “Government is instituted for those who live under it… Frequent elections are necessary to preserve the good behavior of rulers.” Hamilton “did not mean to enter particularly into the subject.” But he did! “He acknowledged himself not to think favorably of Republican Government; but addressed his remarks to those who did think favorably of it. In order to prevail on them to tone their Government as high as possible.”

June 27: Resolutions 7 and 8 discussed

Resolution 6:

Revised. Postponed.

Resolution 7:

Revised. Discussed “the right of suffrage in the first branch.”

Resolution 8:

Revised. Discussed “the right of suffrage in the second branch” to be the same as the First Branch.

Luther Martin delivered a three-hour “desultory” speech, the substance of which was “that an equal vote in each State was essential to the federal idea, and was founded in justice & freedom, not merely in policy.” More: “the propositions on the table were a system of slavery for 10 States.”

June 28: Luther Martin resumes his “discourse” on the role of States

Resolution 7:

Revised. Resumed discussion on representation in the First Branch.

Resolution 8:

Revised. Resumed discussion on representation in the Second Branch.

Luther Martin continued his speech from the previous day, “contending that the General Government ought to be formed for the States, not individuals.” Madison remarks: “This was the substance of the residue of his discourse which was delivered with much diffuseness and considerable vehemence.” Franklin, disturbed by “the small progress we have made after 4 or 5 weeks,” calls for “prayers imploring the assistance of heaven.” Williamson responded: “the Convention had no funds.”

Scene 2: Contours of Compromise – Partly National, Partly Federal

June 29: Ellsworth: “we were partly national; partly federal”

Resolution 7:

Revised. Approved (6 – 4 – 1) proportional representation in the House. Maryland divided. Connecticut in favor.

Resolution 7:

Revised. Approved (9 – 2) a motion to postpone consideration of the rest of Resolution 7, representation by States in Second Branch. Maryland divided.

Madison: “too much stress was laid on the rank of the States as political societies… He entreated the gentlemen representing the small States to renounce a principle which was confessedly unjust which could never be admitted, and if admitted must infuse mortality into a constitution which he wished to last forever.” Ellsworth: “we were partly national; partly federal.” He trusted “on this middle ground a compromise would take place. He did not see that it could take place on any other. And if no compromise should take place, our meeting would not only be in vain but worse than in vain.”

June 30: Loose talk of division and disunion

Defeated (5 – 2 – 1) resolution to ask New Hampshire to send its delegates. Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Georgia absent. Maryland divided. New York and New Jersey opposed.

Resolution 8:

Revised. Ellsworth introduces “Connecticut Compromise Motion”: equal representation in Second Branch with proportional representation in First Branch. Ellsworth: “We are razing the foundations of the building. When we need only to repair the roof.” Sherman declared: “we are now at a full stop.” Madison claims that equal State representation in the Senate would infuse “mortality” into the union. Moreover, the great divide in American politics is “having or not having slaves” rather than between large and small States. Davie suggested, “we were partly federal, partly national in our Union.”

The loose talk of division came from Gunning Bedford who was unconvinced that there was a middle way “between a perfect consolidation and a mere confederacy of the States.”

July 2: Creation of the Gerry Committee

Resolution 8:

Revised. Tied (5 – 5 – 1) on Ellsworth’s motion giving each State one vote in Senate and proportional representation in House. Yates and Lansing voted “yes.” Georgia divided. Massachusetts voted no. Maryland voted yes; Jenifer was temporarily absent. Davie failed to carry North Carolina. This is G. Morris returns after an 18-day absence.

Resolution 8:

Revised. Voted to commit the question (9 – 2).

Resolution 8:

Revised. Voted to commit to committee of one member from each state (10 – 1). Pennsylvania voted “no.” Madison failed to carry Virginia. Gerry chaired committee made up of Gerry, Ellsworth, Yates, Patterson, Franklin, Bedford, L. Martin, Mason, Davie, Rutledge, and Baldwin. Ellsworth: from the State Governments could he “derive the greatest happiness he could expect in this life.” Franklin: “both sides must part with some of their demands.” Bedford: “There was no middle way between a perfect consolidation and a mere confederacy of the States.” Davie: “we were partly federal, partly national in our Union.”

Madison reminded the delegates that “the States were divided into different interests not by their difference of size, but by other circumstances; the most material of which resulted partly from climate, but principally from the effects of their having or not having slaves.”

“That time may be given to the committee, and to such as chuse to attend to the celebrations of the Anniversary of Independence,” the Convention adjourned until Thursday.

July 3: Gerry Committee met to work on the questions of the previous day.

Scene 3: Independence Day Celebration July 4: “When in the Course of Human Events”

Independence Day observed. Delegates attend Race Street Church (also known as First Reformed Church) on Fourth and Race Streets to hear annual oration on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence given by Mr. Mitchell, a student of law. William L. Pierce and William Few left over the 4th of July break; they decided to return to New York and represent Georgia in the Confederation Congress.

Scene 4: The Gerry Committee Compromise Proposal Discussed

July 5: The Compromise Proposal has three components

Received Report from the Gerry Committee:

  1. Representation in First Branch by population (1:40,000).
  2. Representation in Second Branch to give each state an equal vote.
  3. Money Bills to originate in First Branch and not subject to amendment in Second Branch.

Gerry’s principled defense of Report: “We were neither the same nation nor different nations. We ought not therefore to pursue the one or the other of these ideas too closely.” Mason: “there must be some accommodation.”

July 6: Debating the merits of proportional representation

Gerry Committee Report:

Agreed (7 – 3 – 1) to commit the question of representation of 1:40,000 in the First Branch to the Morris Committee made up of G. Morris, Gorham, Randolph, Rutledge, and King. Maryland divided. New York, New Jersey, and Delaware voted “no.” Agreed (5 – 3 – 3) to retain money bills provision. Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina voted “no.” Massachusetts, New York, and Georgia divided.

Pinckney argued that “the number of inhabitants appeared to him the only just and practicable rule” of representation. Thus “blacks ought to stand on an equality with whites.” Mason “was a friend to proportional representation in both branches; but supposed that some points must be yielded for the sake of accommodation.”

July 7: Sherman reinforces case for equal representation of States in the Senate

The Gerry Committee Report was discussed. The question of equal vote for each state in Second House was taken up and agreed (6 – 3 – 2) to retain this provision. Massachusetts and Georgia divided. Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina voted “no.” Gerry: “the new Government would be partly national, partly federal.”

July 9: Distributing 56 seats in the House to the 13 States

The Gerry Committee Report was reconsidered.

The G. Morris five-member Committee suggested approval of the population formula (1:40,000). The second paragraph of the Gerry Committee Report was approved (9 – 2). New York and New Jersey voted “no.” The first paragraph was referred to an eleven-member committee (9 – 2). New York and North Carolina voted “no.” Gorham from the Morris Committee: “The number of blacks and whites with some regard to supposed wealth was the general guide.”

July 10: North-South, Large-Small Discussion

Received report from the Eleven Member Committee allocating 65 representatives among the 13 States for the House.
Delegates Yates and Lansing from New York leave the Convention and explained their reasons to Governor Clinton of New York. King “was fully convinced that the question concerning a difference of interests did not lie where it had hitherto ben discussed, between the great and small States; but between the Southern and Eastern.”

July 11: The Census and Representation

Inconclusive discussion on periodical censuses. Defeated (7 – 3) a motion to strike out 3/5 for the substitute Butler-Pinckney “all” motion. G. Morris “could never agree to give such encouragement to the slave trade.” Only Delaware, North Carolina, and South Carolina voted in favor of the Butler-Pinckney count slaves as 5/5 motion. “Mr. Mason could not agree to the motion, notwithstanding it was favorable to Virginia because it was unjust.”

Defeated (6 – 4) a motion “to include 3/5 of the blacks.” G. Morris was compelled “to declare himself reduced to the dilemma of doing injustice to the Southern States or to human nature, and he must therefore do it to the former.”

This day marked the absence of the New York delegation.

July 12: “Blacks equal to the whites in the ratio of representation?”

Approved (5 – 4 – 1) a motion to have a census within 6 years of the First Congress. Defeated (7 – 3) a motion for succeeding censuses every 20 years. Agreed (8 – 2) on census every 10 years. Connecticut and New Jersey “no.” Defeated (8 – 2) motion “for rating blacks as equal to whites instead of as 3/5.” Pinckney argued this “was nothing more than justice.”General Pinckney “was alarmed at what was said yesterday concerning the Negroes.” Davie “was sure that North Carolina would never confederate on any terms that did not rate them at least as 3/5.” Approved (6 – 2 – 2) a motion to proportion direct taxes, including 3/5, to representation. Massachusetts and North Carolina divided. New Jersey and Delaware “no.”

July 13: Representation in the Senate

Approved (5 – 4 – 1) a motion to proportion direct taxes to the number of representatives until the first census. Pennsylvania divided. Agreed (9 – 0 – 1) that the Legislature can regulate the number of representatives in accordance with the number of inhabitants. Delaware divided. G. Morris and Butler have a pointed exchange over slavery. Morris was willing to take “friendly leave of each other” rather than to bend on the 3/5 clause. Butler responds “the security the Southern States want is that their negroes may not be taken from them which some gentlemen within or without doors, have a very good mind to do.”

Confederation Congress passes Northwest Ordinance.

July 14: Does partly national, partly federal make sense?

Defeated (5 – 4 – 1) a motion to limit representation of new western states. Discussed equal vote for each State in Second House with money bills originating in First House. Madison argues against the “partly federal, partly national” accommodation. Pinckney moved “that instead of equality of votes” there should be proportional representation in the Senate. Defeated (4 – 6).

Scene 5: Decision Day on the Connecticut Compromise

July 16: Connecticut Compromise accepted (5 – 4 – 1)

Agreed (5 – 4 – 1) to Gerry Committee Report: House Proportional, Senate Equal Representation for each State, and money bills originating in the First Branch and not amendable by the Second Branch. This is also known as the Connecticut Compromise. Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia voted “no.” Massachusetts was divided. According to Randolph, if New York had been present, the vote would have been (6 – 4 – 1).

How does a 5 – 4 – 1 vote represent a compromise? Was it a “mere compromise,” or a “principled compromise?”

Resolution 6b:

Revised. Began consideration of the proposal to give Congress the authority in all cases to which the separate states are incompetent.

Scene 6: Return to the Amended Virginia Plan; Committee of Detail Created

July 17: The Supreme Law of the Land and the Independence of the Presidency

The delegates from large States caucused to decide whether to challenge equal representation in the Senate. They decided not to challenge the compromise.

Resolution 6b:

Revised. Resumed consideration of the powers to be given Congress. Agreed (6 – 4) to motion to include power to legislate in all cases for the general interests of the Union and in those cases where States are separately incompetent.

Resolution 6c:

Revised. Defeated (7 – 3) the Congressional negative of State Laws. Madison thought the Congressional negative an “essential” part of the attempt by the Virginia Plan to control State-generated majority tyranny. L. Martin considered the negative to be “improper.” Another “chasm” for Madison. Martin fills the chasm with the Supremacy Clause.

Resolution 6c:

Revised. Motion by L. Martin to make laws and treaties supreme law of the respective States approved nem con. This is the origin of the Supremacy Clause.

Resolution 6c:

Revised. Began consideration of Executive. Agreed (10 – 0) on a single executive. Defeated (9 – 1) election by citizens of the United States. Defeated (8 – 2) election by electors appointed by State Legislature. Approved (10 – 0) election by Legislature. Postponed decision on seven-year term. Defeated ineligibility requirement (6 – 4). Defeated motion to substitute hold office “during good behavior” rather than seven years (6- 4). Defeated motion to strike seven years (6 – 4).

July 18: Discussion of Resolutions 11-16

Resolution 9:

Revised. Agreed to reconsider ineligibility of Executive (8 – 0) (New Jersey and Georgia not voting). Agreed to Executive Veto with 2/3 override.

Resolution 11:

Revised. Began consideration of Judiciary. Defeated (6 – 2) motion for appointment by Executive. Motion for Executive nomination and appointment on advice and consent of Second House defeated (4 – 4).

Resolution 12-16:

Revised. Agreed to let Legislature create inferior tribunals, nem con. Agreed “that the jurisdiction shall extend to all cases arising under the national laws and to such other questions as may involve the national peace and harmony,” nem con. Agreed to admit new States with the consent of less than the whole of the National Legislature. Began consideration of continuing the Confederation during the transitional period. Took up Guarantee of Republican Government for States.

July 19: Reconsideration of the Independent Presidency

Resolution 9:

Revised. New Jersey and Georgia present and voting. Massachusetts continues to be divided. G. Morris moved to reconsider the appointment, duration, and eligibility of the Executive. Agreed (10 – 0). Agreed (6 – 3 – 1) to Ellsworth’s motions to appointment of Executive by electors chosen by State Legislatures (8 – 2). Defeated (8 – 2) ineligibility for re-election. Defeated (5 – 3 – 2) 7-year term. Agreed (9 – 1) to 6-year term.

The Massachusetts delegation was by now regularly divided between Gerry and Strong on the one side and King and Gorham on the other side.

July 20: More disputation over the Independent Presidency

Resolution 9:

Revised. Took up apportionment of electors among the States with a minimum of one and a maximum of three per State. Defeated (7 – 3) motion to add an elector for New Hampshire and Georgia. Agreed (6 – 4) to Gerry’s allocation of one to three per each State.

Resolution 9:

Revised. Made Executive removable by impeachment (8 – 2). Franklin saw impeachment as the republican peaceful alternative to assassination under despotism.

Resolution 9:

Revised. Agreed on fixed compensation, nem con. Agreed (9 – 1) to be paid out of National Treasury.

July 21: The Council of Revision revisited

Resolutions 10, 11:

Revised. Wilson and Madison argued unsuccessfully on behalf of reinstating original Council of Revision. Rejected (4 – 3 – 2) motion to join Judiciary with Executive in the exercise of veto power (New Jersey not voting, Pennsylvania and Georgia divided). Agreed (9 – 0) on qualified Executive Veto. Resumed consideration of Judicial appointments .Defeated (6 – 3) Executive appointment unless Senate disagrees. Approved (6 – 3) selection by Senate alone.

July 23: Resolutions 17-19 debated/Pinckney’s reminder on slavery

New Hampshire delegates John Langdon and Nicholas Gilman arrived.

Resolution 17-19:

Revised. Agreed unanimously on requiring oaths by both National and State officials to support the Articles of Union. Began discussion of ratification. Discussion of Resolution 19 of the Amended Virginia Plan of June 13: “The amendments which shall be offered to the Confederation by the Convention, ought at a proper time or times, after the approbation of Congress to be submitted to an assembly or assemblies of representatives, recommended by the several Legislatures, to be expressly chosen by the People to consider and decide thereon.” Defeated (7 – 3) motion by Ellsworth and Paterson to amend Resolution 19 to have the new Constitution referred to State Legislatures for ratification. Agreed (9 – 1) to referral to conventions of the people.

Resolution 9:

Revised. Agreed (7 – 3) to reconsider election of the Executive. Agreed to refer Revised Resolutions to a Committee of five members to be named the following day. Gen. Pinckney reminded the Convention that if the Committee should fail to insert some security to the Southern States against an emancipation of slaves, and taxes on exports, he should be bound by duty to his State to vote against their Report. It was agreed nem con that the committee consist of 5 members, to be appointed the next day.

July 24: Creation of the Committee of Detail/Controversy over the Presidency

Chose Rutledge, Randolph, Gorham, Ellsworth and Wilson for the Committee of Detail. Note one delegate each from Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. And then one left over. See same formula in the composition of the Committee of Style.

Resolution 9:

Revised. Reconsidered choice of Executive by electors. Approved (7 – 4) appointment by national legislature.

July 25: More discussion on the Presidency

Defeated (6 – 5) resolution to let members have copies of the Revised Resolutions of the Virginia Plan during the break.

Resolution 9:

Revised. Resumed discussion on election of the Executive. Madison compares and contrasts the four proposals for electing the Executive.

July 26: Constitutional Convention adjourns with the creation of a 5-member Committee of Detail

Resolution 9:

Revised. Resumed discussion on election of the Executive and approved (7 – 3) a 7-year term with ineligibility for re-election. Agreed (6 – 3 – 1) to the whole resolution on the Executive.

Wilson reminds participants “We are providing a constitution for future generations, and not merely for the peculiar circumstances of the moment.” Adjourned to Monday, August 6, 1787.

Intermission:
Committee of Detail at Work

July 27 – August 6: The Convention was in adjournment while the Committee of Detail was at work. By August 4th, the Committee draft was at the printers.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

William R. Davie

State: North Carolina (Born in England, immigrated 1763)

Age at Convention: 30

Date of Birth: June 20, 1756

Date of Death: November 29, 1820

Schooling: College of New Jersey (Princeton) 1776

Occupation: Lawyer, Lending and Investments, Planter and Slave Holder, Solider, Educator

Prior Political Experience: Lower House of North Carolina 1784-1789

Committee Assignments: First Committee of Representation

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25, departed August 11, and never returned to the Convention. Davie supported Ellsworth’s proposition that “We were partly federal, partly national in our Union.” William Pierce stated that “he was silent in the Convention, but his opinion was always respected.”

New Government Participation: Attended both of the ratification conventions of North Carolina, and supported the ratification of the Constitution. President John Adams appointed him as a peace commissioner to France in 1799.

Biography from the National Archives: One of the eight delegates born outside of the thirteen colonies, Davie was born in Egremont, Cumberlandshire, England, on June 20, 1756. In 1763, Archibald Davie brought his son William to Waxhaw, South Carolina, where the boy’s maternal uncle, William Richardson, a Presbyterian clergyman, adopted him. Davie attended Queen’s Museum College in Charlotte, North Carolina, and graduated from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) in 1776.

Davie’s law studies in Salisbury, North Carolina, were interrupted by military service, but he won his license to practice before county courts in 1779 and in the superior courts in 1780. When the War for Independence broke out, he helped raise a troop of cavalry near Salisbury and eventually achieved the rank of colonel. While attached to Pulaski’s division, Davie was wounded leading a charge at Stono, near Charleston, on June 20, 1779. Early in 1780 he raised another troop and operated mainly in western North Carolina. In January 1781 Davie was appointed commissary-general for the Carolina campaign. In this capacity he oversaw the collection of arms and supplies to Gen. Nathanael Greene’s army and the state militia.

After the war, Davie embarked on his career as a lawyer, traveling the circuit in North Carolina. In 1782 he married Sarah Jones, the daughter of his former commander, Gen. Allen Jones, and settled in Halifax. His legal knowledge and ability won him great respect, and his presentation of arguments was admired. Between 1786 and 1798 Davie represented Halifax in the North Carolina legislature. There he was the principal agent behind that body’s actions to revise and codify state laws, send representatives to the Annapolis and Philadelphia conventions, cede Tennessee to the Union, and fix disputed state boundaries.

During the Constitutional Convention, Davie favored plans for a strong central government. He was a member of the committee that considered the question of representation in Congress and swung the North Carolina delegation’s vote in favor of the Great Compromise. He favored election of senators and presidential electors by the legislature and insisted on counting slaves in determining representation. Though he left the convention on August 13, before its adjournment, Davie fought hard for the Constitution’s ratification and took a prominent part in the North Carolina convention.

The political and military realms were not the only ones in which Davie left his mark. The University of North Carolina, of which he was the chief founder, stands as an enduring reminder of Davie’s interest in education. Davie selected the location, instructors, and a curriculum that included the literary and social sciences as well as mathematics and classics. In 1810 the trustees conferred upon him the title of “Father of the University” and in the next year granted him the degree of Doctor of Laws.

Davie became Governor of North Carolina in 1798. His career also turned back briefly to the military when President John Adams appointed him a brigadier general in the U.S. Army that same year. Davie later served as a peace commissioner to France in 1799.

Davie stood as a candidate for Congress in 1803 but met defeat. In 1805, after the death of his wife, Davie retired from politics to his plantation, “Tivoli,” in Chester County, South Carolina. In 1813 he declined an appointment as major-general from President Madison. Davie was 64 years old when he died on November 29, 1820, at “Tivoli,” and he was buried in the Old Waxhaw Presbyterian Churchyard in northern Lancaster County.

Hugh Williamson

State: North Carolina (Born in Pennsylvania)

Age at Convention: 51

Date of Birth: December 5, 1735

Date of Death: May 22, 1819

Schooling: College of Philadelphia 1757, M.A. 1760, University of Utercht M.D. 1772

Occupation: Lending and Investments, Real Estate and Land Speculation, Public Security Interests, Doctor, Merchant, Math Professor at College of Philadelphia, Author

Prior Political Experience: State Upper House of North Carolina 1782-1785, Confederation Congress 1782-1785 & 1787-1789, Elected to Annapolis Convention 1786, Surgeon General of North Carolina 1779-1782

Committee Assignments: Third Committee of Representation, Committee of Assumption of State Debt, Committee of Slave Trade, Committee of Trade, Committee of Leftovers

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25, was present through the signing of the Constitution. His most important role at the Convention was his guidance of North Carolina to support the Connecticut Compromise. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Williamson is a Gentleman of education and talents.”

New Government Participation: Supported the ratification of the Constitution and attended the Second Ratification Convention of North Carolina 1789. Served two terms as a U. S. Representative for North Carolina (1789 – 1793).

Biography from the National Archives: The versatile Williamson was born of Scottish-Irish descent at West Nottingham, Pennsylvania, in 1735. He was the eldest son in a large family, whose head was a clothier. Hoping he would become a Presbyterian minister, his parents oriented his education toward that calling. After attending preparatory schools at New London Cross Roads, Delaware, and Newark, Delaware, he entered the first class of the College of Philadelphia (later part of the University of Pennsylvania) and took his degree in 1757.

The next 2 years, at Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, Williamson spent settling his father’s estate. Then training in Connecticut for the ministry, he soon became a licensed Presbyterian preacher but was never ordained. Around this time, he also took a position as professor of mathematics at his alma mater.

In 1764, Williamson abandoned these pursuits and studied medicine at Edinburgh, London, and Utrecht, eventually obtaining a degree from the University of Utrecht. Returning to Philadelphia, he began to practice but found it to be emotionally exhausting. His pursuit of scientific interests continued, and in 1768 he became a member of the American Philosophical Society. The next year, he served on a commission that observed the transits of Venus and Mercury. In 1771, he wrote An Essay on Comets, in which he advanced several original ideas. As a result, the University of Leyden awarded him an LL.D. degree.

In 1773, to raise money for an academy in Newark, DE., Williamson made a trip to the West Indies and then to Europe. Sailing from Boston, he saw the Tea Party and carried news of it to London. When the British Privy Council called on him to testify as to what he had seen, he warned the councilors that the colonies would rebel if the British did not change their policies. While in England, he struck up a close friendship with fellow-scientist Benjamin Franklin, and they cooperated in electrical experiments. Moreover, Williamson furnished to Franklin the letters of Massachusetts Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson to his lieutenant governor that created a sensation and tended to further alienate the mother country and colonies.

In 1775, a pamphlet Williamson had written while in England, called “The Plea of the Colonies,” was published. It solicited the support of the English Whigs for the American cause. When the United States proclaimed their independence the next year, Williamson was in the Netherlands. He soon sailed back to the United States, settling first in Charleston, South Carolina, and then in Edenton, North Carolina. There, he prospered in a mercantile business that traded with the French West Indies and once again took up the practice of medicine.

Williamson applied for a medical post with the patriot forces, but found all such positions filled. The governor of North Carolina, however, soon called on his specialized skills, and he became surgeon-general of state troops. After the Battle of Camden, South Carolina, he frequently crossed British lines to tend to the wounded. He also prevented sickness among the troops by paying close attention to food, clothing, shelter, and hygiene.

After the war, Williamson began his political career. In 1782, he was elected to the lower house of the state legislature and to the Continental Congress. Three years later, he left Congress and returned to his legislative seat. In 1786, he was chosen to represent his state at the Annapolis Convention but arrived too late to take part. The next year, he again served in Congress (1787-89) and was chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Attending faithfully and demonstrating keen debating skill, he served on five committees, notably on the Committee on Postponed Matters, and played a significant part in the proceedings, particularly the major compromise on representation.

After the convention, Williamson worked for ratification of the Constitution in North Carolina. In 1788, he was chosen to settle outstanding accounts between the state and the federal government. The next year, he was elected to the first U.S. House of Representatives, where he served two terms. In 1789 he married Maria Apthorpe, who bore at least two sons.

In 1793, Williamson moved to New York City to facilitate his literary and philanthropic pursuits. Over the years, he published many political, educational, economic, historical, and scientific works, but the last earned him the most praise. The University of Leyden awarded him an honorary degree. In addition, he was an original trustee of the University of North Carolina and later held trusteeships at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the University of the State of New York. He was also a founder of the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York and a prominent member of the New-York Historical Society.

In 1819, at the age of 83, Williamson died in New York City and was buried at Trinity Church.

Gunning Bedford, Jr.

State: Delaware (born in Philadelphia, PA)

Age at Convention: 40

Date of Birth: 1747

Date of Death: March 30, 1812

Schooling: College of New Jersey (Princeton) with honors 1771

Occupation: Lawyer, Attorney General of Delaware

Prior Political Experience: Lower House State Legislature of Delaware 1784-1785, Confederation Congress 1783-1785, Delegate to Annapolis Convention (did not attend), Attorney General for Delaware 1779-1789

Committee Assignments: First Committee of Representation

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 28, absent for entire month of August and returned to sign the Constitution. Spoke very little at Convention, but when he did speak it was on behalf of the rights of small states. William Pierce stated that “he is warm and impetuous in his temper, and precipitate in his judgment… and very corpulant.”

New Government Participation: Attended Delaware ratification convention, supported ratification of the Constitution. President Washington nominated, and Senate confirmed him to be a Federal District Judge for Delaware (1789 – 1812).

Biography from the National Archives: Bedford was born in 1747 at Philadelphia and reared there. The fifth of seven children, he was descended from a distinguished family that originally settled in Jamestown, VA. He usually referred to himself as Gunning Bedford, Jr., to avoid confusion with his cousin and contemporary Delaware statesman and soldier, Col. Gunning Bedford.

In 1771 signer Bedford graduated with honors from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), where he was a classmate of James Madison. Apparently while still in school, Bedford wed Jane B. Parker, who bore at least one daughter. After reading law with Joseph Read in Philadelphia, Bedford won admittance to the bar and set up a practice. Subsequently, he moved to Dover and then to Wilmington. He apparently served in the Continental Army, possibly as an aide to General Washington.

Following the war, Bedford figured prominently in the politics of his state and nation. He sat in the legislature, on the state council, and in the Continental Congress (1783-85). In the latter year, he was chosen as a delegate to the Annapolis Convention but for some reason did not attend. From 1784 to 1789 he was attorney general of Delaware.

Bedford numbered among the more active members of the Constitutional Convention, and he missed few sessions. A large and forceful man, he spoke on several occasions and was a member of the committee that drafted the Great Compromise. An ardent small-state advocate, he attacked the pretensions of the large states over the small and warned that the latter might be forced to seek foreign alliances unless their interests were accommodated. He attended the Delaware ratifying convention.

For another 2 years, Bedford continued as Delaware’s attorney general. In 1789 Washington designated him as a federal district judge for his state, an office he was to occupy for the rest of his life. His only other ventures into national politics came in 1789 and 1793, as a Federalist presidential elector. In the main, however, he spent his later years in judicial pursuits, in aiding Wilmington Academy, in fostering abolitionism, and in enjoying his Lombardy Hall farm.

Bedford died at the age of 65 in 1812 and was buried in the First Presbyterian Churchyard in Wilmington. Later, when the cemetery was abandoned, his body was transferred to the Masonic Home, on the Lancaster Turnpike in Christiana Hundred, DE.

William Few

State: Georgia (Born in Baltimore, MD)

Age at Convention: 39

Date of Birth: June 8, 1748

Date of Death: July 16, 1828

Schooling: Self-taught lawyer

Occupation: Politician, Public Security Interests, Real Estate Speculation, Farmer, Lawyer

Prior Political Experience: Georgia State Constitutional Convention 1776, Georgia Surveyor General 1776, Georgia State Executive Council 1777-1778, Georgia Indian Commissioner 1779, Georgia Lower House State Legislature 1777 & 1779 & 1783, Georgia Provincial Congress 1776, State Upper House Legislature 1777-1778, Continental Congress 1780-1781, Confederation Congress 1785-1788

Committee Assignments: Committee of Trade

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25, served in Confederation Congress during July, returned through the signing of the Constitution. He did not play an active role at the Convention. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Few possesses a strong natural Genius, and from application has acquired some knowledge of legal matters.”

New Government Participation: Attended the Georgia ratification convention, and supported ratification of the Constitution. Served as Senator (1789-1793) for Georgia. Received appointment for Federal District Judge of Georgia (1796-1799).

Biography from the National Archives: Few was born in 1748. His father’s family had emigrated from England to Pennsylvania in the 1680s, but the father had subsequently moved to Maryland, where he married and settled on a farm near Baltimore. William was born there. He encountered much hardship and received minimal schooling. When he was 10 years of age, his father, seeking better opportunity, moved his family to North Carolina.

In 1771 Few, his father, and a brother associated themselves with the “Regulators,” a group of frontiersmen who opposed the royal governor. As a result, the brother was hanged, the Few family farm was destroyed, and the father was forced to move once again, this time to Georgia. William remained behind, helping to settle his father’s affairs, until 1776 when he joined his family near Wrightsboro, Ga. About this time, he won admittance to the bar, based on earlier informal study, and set up practice in Augusta.

When the War for Independence began, Few enthusiastically aligned himself with the Whig cause. Although largely self-educated, he soon proved his capacity for leadership and won a lieutenant-colonelcy in the dragoons. In addition, he entered politics. He was elected to the Georgia provincial congress of 1776 and during the war twice served in the assembly, in 1777 and 1779. During the same period, he also sat on the state executive council besides holding the positions of surveyor-general and Indian commissioner. He also served in the Continental Congress (1780-88), during which time he was reelected to the Georgia Assembly (1783).

Four years later, Few was appointed as one of six state delegates to the Constitutional Convention, two of whom never attended and two others of whom did not stay for the duration. Few himself missed large segments of the proceedings, being absent during all of July and part of August because of congressional service, and never made a speech. Nonetheless, he contributed nationalist votes at critical times. Furthermore, as a delegate to the last sessions of the Continental Congress, he helped steer the Constitution past its first obstacle, approval by Congress. And he attended the state ratifying convention.

Few became one of his state’s first U.S. senators (1789-93). When his term ended, he headed back home and served again in the assembly. In 1796 he received an appointment as a federal judge for the Georgia circuit. For reasons unknown, he resigned his judgeship in 1799 at the age of 52 and moved to New York City.

Few’s career continued to blossom. He served 4 years in the legislature (1802-5) and then as inspector of prisons (1802-10), alderman (1813-14), and U.S. commissioner of loans (1804). From 1804 to 1814 he held a directorship at the Manhattan Bank and later the presidency of City Bank. A devout Methodist, he also donated generously to philanthropic causes.

When Few died in 1828 at the age of 80 in Fishkill-on-the-Hudson (present Beacon), he was survived by his wife (born Catherine Nicholson) and three daughters. Originally buried in the yard of the local Reformed Dutch Church, his body was later reinterred at St. Paul’s Church, Augusta, GA.

William L. Pierce

State: Georgia (Born in Virginia)

Age at Convention: 47

Date of Birth: 1740

Date of Death: December 10, 1789

Schooling: Attended William and Mary

Occupation: Soldier, Merchant

Prior Political Experience: Lower House of Georgia State Legislature 1786, Confederation Congress 1787

Committee Assignments: None

Convention Contributions: Attended May 31 to June 30, with the exception of a one week absence in mid-June. Left on July 2 to represent Georgia in the Confederation Congress and never returned. He is best known for his character sketches of the delegates at the Convention, since Pierce left on July 2 these sketches are prior to the Connecticut Compromise and the subsequent conversation on the Committee of Detail report. William Pierce stated that “My own character I shall not attempt to draw, but leave those who may choose to speculate on it, to consider it in any light that their fancy or imagination my depict.”

New Government Participation: Died in the first year of the new government.

Biography from the National Archives: Very little is known about William Pierce’s early life. He was probably born in Georgia in 1740, but he grew up in Virginia. During the Revolutionary War Pierce acted as an aide-de-camp to Gen. Nathanael Greene and eventually attained the rank of brevet major. For his conduct at the battle of Eutaw Springs, Congress presented him with a ceremonial sword.

The year Pierce left the army, 1783, he married Charlotte Fenwick of South Carolina. They had two sons, one of whom died as a child. Pierce made his home in Savannah, where he engaged in business. He first organized an import-export company, Pierce, White, and Call, in 1783, but it dissolved less than a year later. He made a new start with his wife’s dowry and formed William Pierce & Company. In 1786 he was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives and was also elected to the Continental Congress.

At the Constitutional Convention Pierce did not play a large role, but he exerted some influence and participated in three debates. He argued for the election of one house of the federal legislature by the people and one house by the states; he favored a 3-year term instead of a 7-year term in the second house. Because he agreed that the Articles had been insufficient, he recommended strengthening the federal government at the expense of state privileges as long as state distinctions were not altogether destroyed. Pierce approved of the resulting Constitution, but he found it necessary to leave in the middle of the proceedings. A decline in the European rice market adversely affected his business. Soon after he returned to Savannah he went bankrupt, having “neither the skill of an experienced merchant nor any reserve capital.” Only 2 years later, on December 10, 1789, Pierce died in Savannah at age 49 leaving tremendous debts.

Pierce’s notes on the proceedings of the convention were published in the Savannah Georgian in 1828. In them he wrote incisive character sketches that are especially valuable for the information they provide about the lesser-known delegates.

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.

John Rutledge

State: South Carolina

Age at Convention: 48

Date of Birth: September 1739

Date of Death: July 23, 1800

Schooling: Middle Temple 1760

Occupation: Planter, Slave Holder, Lawyer, Judge

Prior Political Experience: Lower House of South Carolina 1782, State Constitutional Convention of South Carolina 1776, South Carolina Chancery Court 1784-1791, Governor of South Carolina 1776-1782, First Continental Congress 1774, Confederation Congress 1782-1783

Committee Assignments: First Committee of Representation, Second Committee of Representation, Third Committee of Representation, Chairman of Committee of Detail, Chairman of Committee of State Commitments

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. Rutledge was willing to support a stronger central government as long as slavery remained under the control of each State. William Pierce stated that “he is undoubtedly a man of abilities, and a Gentleman of distinction and fortune.”

New Government Participation: Attended the South Carolina ratifying convention and supported the ratification of the Constitution. President Washington nominated and the Senate confirmed him as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1789-1791). President Washington again nominated him as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Senate did not confirm him.

Biography from the National Archives: John Rutledge, elder brother of Edward Rutledge, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born into a large family at or near Charleston, South Carolina, in 1739. He received his early education from his father, an Irish immigrant and physician, and from an Anglican minister and a tutor. After studying law at London’s Middle Temple in 1760, he was admitted to English practice. But, almost at once, he sailed back to Charleston to begin a fruitful legal career and to amass a fortune in plantations and slaves. Three years later, he married Elizabeth Grimke, who eventually bore him 10 children, and moved into a townhouse, where he resided most of the remainder of his life.

In 1761, Rutledge became politically active. That year, on behalf of Christ Church Parish, he was elected to the provincial assembly and held his seat until the War for Independence. For 10 months in 1764, he temporarily held the post of provincial attorney general. When the troubles with Great Britain intensified about the time of the Stamp Act in 1765, Rutledge, who hoped to ensure continued self-government for the colonies, sought to avoid severance from the British and maintained a restrained stance. He did, however, chair a committee of the Stamp Act Congress that drew up a petition to the House of Lords.

In 1774, Rutledge was sent to the First Continental Congress, where he pursued a moderate course. After spending the next year in the Second Continental Congress, he returned to South Carolina and helped reorganize its government. In 1776 he served on the committee of safety and took part in the writing of the state constitution. That year, he also became president of the lower house of the legislature, a post he held until 1778. During this period, the new government met many stern tests.

In 1778, the conservative Rutledge, disapproving of democratic revisions in the state constitution, resigned his position. The next year, however, he was elected as governor. It was a difficult time. The British were invading South Carolina, and the military situation was desperate. Early in 1780, by which time the legislature had adjourned, Charleston was besieged. In May it fell, the American army was captured, and the British confiscated Rutledge’s property. He ultimately escaped to North Carolina and set about attempting to rally forces to recover South Carolina. In 1781, aided by Gen. Nathanael Greene and a new Continental Army force, he reestablished the government. In January 1782 he resigned the governorship and took a seat in the lower house of the legislature. He never recouped the financial losses he suffered during the war.

In 1782-83, Rutledge was a delegate to the Continental Congress. He next sat on the state chancery court (1784) and again in the lower house of the legislature (1784-90). One of the most influential delegates at the Constitutional Convention, where he maintained a moderate nationalist stance and chaired the Committee of Detail, he attended all the sessions, spoke often and effectively, and served on five committees. Like his fellow South Carolina delegates, he vigorously advocated southern interests.

The new government under the Constitution soon lured Rutledge. He was a Presidential elector in 1789 and Washington then appointed him as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, but for some reason he apparently served only a short time. In 1791 he became chief justice of the South Carolina supreme court. Four years later, Washington again appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court, this time as Chief Justice to replace John Jay. But Rutledge’s outspoken opposition to Jay’s Treaty (1794), and the intermittent mental illness he had suffered from since the death of his wife in 1792, caused the Federalist-dominated Senate to reject his appointment and end his public career. Meantime, however, he had presided over one term of the Court.

Rutledge died in 1800 at the age of 60 and was interred at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Charleston.

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney

State: South Carolina

Age at Convention: 41

Date of Birth: February 25, 1746

Date of Death: August 16, 1825

Schooling: Oxford 1764 and Middle Temple

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

Prior Political Experience: Provincial Assembly 1769, Lower House of South Carolina State Legislature 1776 & 1778 & 1782, Upper House 1789

Committee Assignments: Committee of Assumption of State Debts, Committee of Slave Trade

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 25 and was present through the signing of the Constitution. William Pierce stated that “he has received the advantage of a liberal education, and possess a very extensive degree of legal knowledge.”

New Government Participation: Attended the South Carolina ratifying convention and supported the ratification of the Constitution. Served as the Minister to France (1796 – 1798). Major General U.S. Army 1798-1800. Federalist Party Presidential candidate 1804 & 1808.

Biography from the National Archives: The eldest son of a politically prominent planter and a remarkable mother who introduced and promoted indigo culture in South Carolina, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was born in 1746 at Charleston. Only 7 years later, he accompanied his father, who had been appointed colonial agent for South Carolina, to England. As a result, the youth enjoyed a European education.

Pinckney received tutoring in London, attended several preparatory schools, and went on to Christ Church College, Oxford, where he heard the lectures of the legal authority Sir William Blackstone and graduated in 1764. Pinckney next pursued legal training at London’s Middle Temple and was accepted for admission into the English bar in 1769. He then spent part of a year touring Europe and studying chemistry, military science, and botany under leading authorities.

Late in 1769, Pinckney sailed home and the next year entered practice in South Carolina. His political career began in 1769, when he was elected to the provincial assembly. In 1773 he acted as attorney general for several towns in the colony. By 1775 he had identified with the patriot cause and that year sat in the provincial congress. Then, the next year, he was elected to the local committee of safety and made chairman of a committee that drew up a plan for the interim government of South Carolina.

When hostilities broke out, Pinckney, who had been a royal militia officer since 1769, pursued a full-time military calling. When South Carolina organized its forces in 1775, he joined the First South Carolina Regiment as a captain. He soon rose to the rank of colonel and fought in the South in defense of Charleston and in the North at the Battles of Brandywine, PA, and Germantown, PA. He commanded a regiment in the campaign against the British in the Floridas in 1778 and at the siege of Savannah. When Charleston fell in 1780, he was taken prisoner and held until 1782. The following year, he was discharged as a brevet brigadier general.

After the war, Pinckney resumed his legal practice and the management of estates in the Charleston area but found time to continue his public service, which during the war had included tours in the lower house of the state legislature (1778 and 1782) and the senate (1779).

Pinckney was one of the leaders at the Constitutional Convention. Present at all the sessions, he strongly advocated a powerful national government. His proposal that senators should serve without pay was not adopted, but he exerted influence in such matters as the power of the Senate to ratify treaties and the compromise that was reached concerning abolition of the international slave trade. After the convention, he defended the Constitution in South Carolina.

Under the new government, Pinckney became a devoted Federalist. Between 1789 and 1795 he declined presidential offers to command the U.S. Army and to serve on the Supreme Court and as Secretary of War and Secretary of State. In 1796, however, he accepted the post of Minister to France, but the revolutionary regime there refused to receive him and he was forced to proceed to the Netherlands. The next year, though, he returned to France when he was appointed to a special mission to restore relations with that country. During the ensuing XYZ affair, refusing to pay a bribe suggested by a French agent to facilitate negotiations, he was said to have replied “No! No! Not a sixpence!”

When Pinckney arrived back in the United States in 1798, he found the country preparing for war with France. That year, he was appointed as a major general in command of American forces in the South and served in that capacity until 1800, when the threat of war ended. That year, he represented the Federalists as Vice-Presidential candidate, and in 1804 and 1808 as the Presidential nominee. But he met defeat on all three occasions.

For the rest of his life, Pinckney engaged in legal practice, served at times in the legislature, and engaged in philanthropic activities. He was a charter member of the board of trustees of South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina), first president of the Charleston Bible Society, and chief executive of the Charleston Library Society. He also gained prominence in the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of former officers of the War for Independence.

During the later period of his life, Pinckney enjoyed his Belmont estate and Charleston high society. He was twice married; first to Sarah Middleton in 1773 and after her death to Mary Stead in 1786. Survived by three daughters, he died in Charleston in 1825 at the age of 79. He was interred there in the cemetery at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church.

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.

Caleb Strong

State: Massachusetts

Age at Convention: 42

Date of Birth: January 9, 1745

Date of Death: November 7, 1819

Schooling: Harvard 1764

Occupation: Lawyer, Public Security Interests

Prior Political Experience: State Lower House of Massachusetts 1776 & 1784, Upper House of Massachusetts 1780-1782, Massachusetts Constitutional Convention 1779, Attended State Constitutional Convention of Massachusetts 1779-1780

Committee Assignments: None

Convention Contributions: Arrived May 28, departed the Convention August 23 and never returned. Caleb Strong moderated the Massachusetts position with respect to a strong central Government. He supported the Connecticut Compromise. William Pierce stated that “he is a lawyer of some eminence … [but] … as a speaker he is feeble and without confidence.”

New Government Participation: Attended the Massachusetts ratification convention and supported ratification of the Constitution. Served as one of the first Senators for Massachusetts (1789-1796).

Biography from the National Archives: Strong was born to Caleb and Phebe Strong on January 9, 1745 in Northampton, Massachusetts. He received his college education at Harvard, from which he graduated with highest honors in 1764. Like so many of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Strong chose to study law and was admitted to the bar in 1772. He enjoyed a prosperous country practice.

From 1774 through the duration of the Revolution, Strong was a member of Northampton’s committee of safety. In 1776 he was elected to the Massachusetts General Court and also held the post of county attorney for Hampshire County for 24 years. He was offered a position on the state supreme court in 1783 but declined it.

At the Constitutional Convention, Strong counted himself among the delegates who favored a strong central government. He successfully moved that the House of Representatives should originate all money bills and sat on the drafting committee. Though he preferred a system that accorded the same rank and mode of election to both houses of Congress, he voted in favor of equal representation in the Senate and proportional in the House. Strong was called home on account of illness in his family and so missed the opportunity to sign the Constitution. However, during the Massachusetts ratifying convention, he took a leading role among the Federalists and campaigned strongly for ratification.

Massachusetts chose Strong as one of its first U.S. senators in 1789. During the 4 years he served in that house, he sat on numerous committees and participated in framing the Judiciary Act. Caleb Strong wholeheartedly supported the Washington administration. In 1793, he urged the government to send a mission to England and backed the resulting Jay’s Treaty when it met heated opposition.

Caleb Strong, the Federalist candidate, defeated Elbridge Gerry to become Governor of Massachusetts in 1800. Despite the growing strength of the Democratic party in the state, Strong won reelection annually until 1807. In 1812 he regained the governorship, once again over Gerry, and retained his post until he retired in 1816. During the War of 1812 Strong withstood pressure from the Secretary of War to order part of the Massachusetts militia into federal service. Strong opposed the war and approved the report of the Hartford Convention, a gathering of New England Federalists resentful of Jeffersonian policies.

Strong died on November 7, 1819, 2 years after the death of his wife, Sarah. He was buried in the Bridge Street Cemetery in Northampton. Four of his nine children survived him.

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.

Luther Martin

State: Maryland (Born in New Jersey)

Age at Convention: 39

Date of Birth: February 20, 1748

Date of Death: July 10, 1826

Schooling: College of New Jersey (Princeton) with Honors (1766)

Occupation: Planter, Slave Holder, Lawyer, Attorney General

Prior Political Experience: Confederation Congress 1784-1785, Lower House of Maryland State Legislature 1787, Attorney General of Maryland 1778-1805, 1818-1822

Committee Assignments: First Committee of Representation, Committee of Slave Trade

Convention Contributions: Arrived June 9, departed for five days between August 6 and August 13, left the Convention on September 3. He is known for his warm opposition to the development of a strong central government, and his denunciation of any protection of the presence of slavery. William Pierce stated that “he was educated for the Bar … and he never speaks without tiring the patience of all who hear him.”

New Government Participation: Attended the Maryland ratification convention, opposed the ratification of the Constitution. He held no post in the New Government, however he defended the State of Maryland in the famous Supreme Court case, McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819.

Biography from the National Archives: Like many of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Luther Martin attended the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), from which he graduated with honors in 1766. Though born in Brunswick, NJ., in 1748, Martin moved to Maryland after receiving his degree and taught there for 3 years. He then began to study the law and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1771.

Martin was an early advocate of American independence from Great Britain. In the fall of 1774 he served on the patriot committee of Somerset County, and in December he attended a convention of the Province of Maryland in Annapolis, which had been called to consider the recommendations of the Continental Congress. Maryland appointed Luther Martin its attorney general in early 1778. In this capacity, Martin vigorously prosecuted Loyalists, whose numbers were strong in many areas. Tensions had even led to insurrection and open warfare in some counties. While still attorney general, Martin joined the Baltimore Light Dragoons. In July 1781 his unit joined Lafayette’s forces near Fredericksburg, VA., but Martin was recalled by the governor to prosecute a treason trial.

Martin married Maria Cresap on Christmas Day 1783. Of their five children, three daughters lived to adulthood. His postwar law practice grew to become one of the largest and most successful in the country. In 1785 Martin was elected to the Continental Congress, but this appointment was purely honorary. His numerous public and private duties prevented him from traveling to Philadelphia.

At the Constitutional Convention Martin opposed the idea of a strong central government. When he arrived on June 9, 1787, he expressed suspicion of the secrecy rule imposed on the proceedings. He consistently sided with the small states and voted against the Virginia Plan. On June 27 Martin spoke for more than 3 hours in opposition to the Virginia Plan’s proposal for proportionate representation in both houses of the legislature. Martin served on the committee formed to seek a compromise on representation, where he supported the case for equal numbers of delegates in at least one house. Before the convention closed, he and another Maryland delegate, John Francis Mercer, walked out.

In an address to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1787 and in numerous newspaper articles, Martin attacked the proposed new form of government and continued to fight ratification of the Constitution through 1788. He lamented the ascension of the national government over the states and condemned what he saw as unequal representation in Congress. Martin opposed including slaves in determining representation and believed that the absence of a jury in the Supreme Court gravely endangered freedom. At the convention, Martin complained, the aggrandizement of particular states and individuals often had been pursued more avidly than the welfare of the country. The assumption of the term “federal” by those who favored a national government also irritated Martin. Around 1791, however, Martin turned to the Federalist party because of his animosity toward Thomas Jefferson.

The first years of the 1800s saw Martin as defense counsel in two controversial national cases. In the first Martin won an acquittal for his close friend, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, in his impeachment trial in 1805. Two years later Martin was one of Aaron Burr’s defense lawyers when Burr stood trial for treason in 1807.

After a record 28 consecutive years as state attorney general, Luther Martin resigned in December 1805. In 1813 Martin became chief judge of the court of oyer and terminer for the City and County of Baltimore. He was reappointed attorney general of Maryland in 1818, and in 1819 he argued Maryland’s position in the landmark Supreme Court case McCulloch v. Maryland. The plaintiff, represented by Daniel Webster, William Pinckney, and William Wirt, won the decision, which determined that states could not tax federal institutions.

Martin’s fortunes declined dramatically in his last years. Heavy drinking, illness, and poverty all took their toll. Paralysis, which had struck in 1819, forced him to retire as Maryland’s attorney general in 1822. In 1826, at the age of 78, Luther Martin died in Aaron Burr’s home in New York City and was buried in an unmarked grave in St. John’s churchyard.

John Langdon

John Langdon

State: New Hampshire

Age at Convention: 46

Date of Birth: June 26, 1741

Date of Death: September 18, 1819

Schooling: Local schools, Honorary LLD from Dartmouth 1805

Occupation: Ship builder/owner, Public Security Interest, Leading and Investments, Merchant

Prior Political Experience: Continental Congress 1775-1776, New Hampshire Legislature 1777-1781 & 1786-1787, New Hampshire Senate 1784, Confederation Congress 1787, Governor of New Hampshire in 1785

Committee Assignments: Committee of Slave Trade, Committee of Trade, Committee of Assumption of State Debt

Convention Contributions: Arrived July 23, present through the signing of the Constitution. Arrived too late to participate in the debate over representation of states. Helped draft the compromise on the slave trade. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Langdon possess a liberal mind, and a good plain understanding.” [Editor’s Note: Mr. Pierce left the Convention on July 2 and never returned. Mr. Langdon did not arrive until July 23. Accordingly, it is difficult to tell when and how Mr. Pierce’s character sketch was written.]

New Government Participation: Supported the ratification of the Constitution. Served as Senator (1789 – 1801) for New Hampshire. Secretary of the Navy during the War of 1812.

Biography from the National Archives: Langdon was born in 1741 at or near Portsmouth, NH. His father, whose family had emigrated to America before 1660, was a prosperous farmer who sired a large family. The youth’s education was intermittent. He attended a local grammar school, worked as an apprentice clerk, and spent some time at sea. Eventually he went into the mercantile business for himself and prospered.

Langdon, a vigorous supporter of the Revolution, sat on the New Hampshire committee of correspondence and a nonimportation committee. He also attended various patriot assemblies. In 1774 he participated in the seizure and confiscation of British munitions from the Portsmouth fort.

The next year, Langdon served as speaker of the New Hampshire assembly and also sat in the Continental Congress (1775-76). During the latter year, he accepted a colonelcy in the militia of his state and became its agent for British prizes on behalf of the Continental Congress, a post he held throughout the war. In addition, he built privateers for operations against the British—a lucrative occupation.

Langdon also actively took part in the land war. In 1777 he organized and paid for Gen. John Stark’s expedition from New Hampshire against British Gen. John Burgoyne and was present in command of a militia unit at Saratoga, NY, when the latter surrendered. Langdon later led a detachment of troops during the Rhode Island campaign, but found his major outlet in politics. He was speaker of the New Hampshire legislature from 1777 to 1781. In 1777, meantime, he had married Elizabeth Sherburne, who was to give birth to one daughter.

In 1783 Langdon was elected to the Continental Congress; the next year, to the state senate; and the following year, as president, or chief executive, of New Hampshire. In 1784 he built a home at Portsmouth. In 1786-87 he was back again as speaker of the legislature and during the latter year for the third time in the Continental Congress.

Langdon was forced to pay his own expenses and those of Nicholas Gilman to the Constitutional Convention because New Hampshire was unable or unwilling to pay them. The pair did not arrive at Philadelphia until late July, by which time much business had already been consummated. Thereafter, Langdon made a significant mark. He spoke more than 20 times during the debates and was a member of the committee that struck a compromise on the issue of slavery. For the most part, his sympathies lay on the side of strengthening the national government. In 1788, once again as state president (1788-89), he took part in the ratifying convention.

From 1789 to 1801 Langdon sat in the U.S. Senate, including service as the first President pro tem for several sessions. During these years, his political affiliations changed. As a supporter of a strong central government, he had been a member of the Federalist Party, but by the time of Jay’s Treaty (1794) he was opposing its policies. By 1801 he was firmly backing the Democratic-Republicans.

That year, Langdon declined Jefferson’s offer of the Secretaryship of the Navy. Between then and 1812, he kept active in New Hampshire politics. He sat again in the legislature (1801-5), twice holding the position of speaker. After several unsuccessful attempts, in 1805 he was elected as governor and continued in that post until 1811 except for a year’s hiatus in 1809. Meanwhile, in 1805, Dartmouth College had awarded him an honorary doctor of laws degree.

In 1812 Langdon refused the Democratic-Republican Vice-Presidential nomination on the grounds of age and health. He enjoyed retirement for another 7 years before he died at the age of 78. His grave is at Old North Cemetery in Portsmouth.

Nicholas Gilman

State: New Hampshire

Age at Convention: 32

Date of Birth: August 3, 1755

Date of Death: May 2, 1814

Schooling: Local schools

Occupation: Businessman of family store, real estate and land speculations, lending and investments, public security interests, politician, soldier

Prior Political Experience: Confederation Congress (1786-1788)

Committee Assignments: Committee of Leftovers

Convention Contributions: Arrived July 23, present through the signing of the Constitution. Arrived too late to participate in the debate over representation of states. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Gilman is modest, gentile and sensible. There is nothing brilliant or striking in his character, but there is something respectable and worthy in the Man.” [Editor’s Note: Mr. Pierce left the Convention on July 2 and never returned. Mr. Gilman did not arrive until July 23. Accordingly, it is difficult to tell when and how Mr. Pierce’s character sketch was written.]

New Government Participation: Supported the ratification of the Constitution. Served as Representative (1789-1797) for New Hampshire. New Hampshire U. S. Senator (1804-1814).

Biography from the National Archives: Member of a distinguished New Hampshire family and second son in a family of eight, Nicholas Gilman was born at Exeter in 1755. He received his education in local schools and worked at his father’s general store. When the War for Independence began, he enlisted in the New Hampshire element of the Continental Army, soon won a captaincy, and served throughout the war.

Gilman returned home, again helped his father in the store, and immersed himself in politics. In the period 1786-88 he sat in the Continental Congress, though his attendance record was poor. In 1787 he represented New Hampshire at the Constitutional Convention. He did not arrive at Philadelphia until July 23, by which time much major business had already occurred. Never much of a debater, he made no speeches and played only a minor part in the deliberations. He did, however, serve on the Committee of Leftovers. He was also active in obtaining New Hampshire’s acceptance of the Constitution and in shepherding it through the Continental Congress.

Gilman later became a prominent Federalist politician. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1789 until 1797, and in 1793 and 1797, he was a presidential elector. He also sat in the New Hampshire legislature in 1795, 1802, and 1804, and in the years 1805-8 and 1811-14, he held the office of state treasurer.

Meantime, Gilman’s political philosophy had begun to drift toward the Democratic-Republicans. In 1802, when he was defeated for the U.S. Senate, President Jefferson appointed him as a bankruptcy commissioner, and 2 years later as a Democratic-Republican he won election to the U.S. Senate. He was still serving there when he passed away at Philadelphia, while on his way home from Washington, DC, in 1814 at the age of 58. He is interred at the Winter Street Cemetery at Exeter.

The Connecticut Compromise

The Virginia Plan, introduced on May 29, was “wholly national.” Of particular importance is the absence of any structural representation for the states. According to Resolutions 3, 4, and 5, the general government shall have a bicameral legislative structure with neither branch elected by the states and with neither representing the states.

On June 11, the delegates overwhelmingly agreed that the lower house should be based on population and elected by the people. By a 6-5 vote, the delegates rejected a proposal by Roger Sherman that supported popular representation in the lower house and equal representation for the states in the upper branch. Thus on June 15, William Paterson submitted the New Jersey Plan, one that scrapped all the popular representation provisions of the Virginia Plan.

On 19 June, the New Jersey Plan was defeated 7-3-1. For the remainder of June, however, the delegates returned repeatedly to the compromise proposal of June 11. And on June 29, Ellsworth reintroduced the motion of June 11: equal representation for the states in the upper house with proportional representation in the lower house.

For the first time, the case for the representation of the states was elevated from one of convenience to one of principle. Ellsworth declared, “We were partly national; partly federal. He trusted that on this middle ground a compromise would take place.” On June 30, the youngest delegate, Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey—until then a pretty staunch nationalist—spoke for the first time: “We were partly federal, partly national in our Union,” he declared. “And he did not see why the Govt. might (not) in some respects operate on the States, in others on the people.”

On July 2, the Ellsworth proposal was defeated on a tie vote: 5-5-1. Nevertheless, a Committee of 11—one delegate from each state—was created to seek a compromise on the representation question. The composition of the committee reveals that Madison’s attempt to exclude the states from the structure of the general government had been halted in its tracks. Gerry was chosen over King from Massachusetts, Yates over Hamilton from New York, Franklin over Wilson from Pennsylvania, Davie over Williamson from North Carolina, Rutledge over Pinckney from South Carolina, and Mason over Madison from Virginia.

From July 5 to July 7, the Gerry Committee defended equal representation for the states in the Senate and popular representation in the House. We need to put theoretical niceties to one side, Gerry said, and think about “accommodation.” “We were… in a peculiar situation. We were neither the same Nation nor different Nations. If no compromise should take place what will be the consequence.”? Mason concurred: “There must be some accommodation.” Paterson, also on the committee, urged adoption of the report for “there was no other ground of accommodation.”

The key to the Compromise was winning over such former wholly national supporters like Gerry and Mason. An often-overlooked component of the Compromise was the agreement that money bills would originate in the House and could not be amended in the Senate. This feature was vital in winning over Mason and Gerry, as well as Randolph who introduced the wholly national Virginia Plan. These three delegates were willing to buy into the partly national (popular representation in the House), partly federal (equal representation for the states in the Senate) arrangement if the principle of no taxation without popular representation was adhered to.

On July 16, the delegates agreed (5-4-1) to the Gerry Committee Report, also known as the Connecticut Compromise. The losing delegates, Madison, Wilson, G. Morris, Pinckney, and King, decided not to challenge the outcome.