Seizing Madison's description of the new Government as partly National and partly Federal, Henry brought to bear all his power of satire. He was "amused" at Madison's "treatise of political anatomy.... In the brain it is national; the stamina are federal; some limbs are federal, others national." Absurd! The truth was, said Henry, that the Constitution provided for "a great consolidation of government." Why not abolish Virginia's Legislature and be done with it? This National Government would do what it liked with Virginia.
As to the plan of ratifying first and amending afterwards, Henry declared himself "at a loss what to say. You agree to bind yourselves hand and foot—for the sake of what? Of being unbound. You go into a dungeon—for what? To get out.... My anxiety and fears are great lest America by the adoption of this system [the Constitution], should be cast into a fathomless bottom."
Tradition has it that during this speech Henry, having frozen his hearers' blood by a terrific description of lost "liberty," with one of his sudden turns set both Convention and spectators into roars of laughter by remarking with a grimace, and as an aside, "why, they'll free your niggers."[1229] And then, with one of those lightning changes of genius, which Henry alone could make, he solemnly exclaimed, "I look on that paper [the Constitution] as the most fatal plan that could possibly be conceived to enslave a free people."[1230]
Lee, in reply, spoke of the lobbying going on outside the Convention. "Much is said by gentlemen out of doors," exclaimed Lee; "they ought to urge all their objections here." He taunted Henry, who had praised the militia, with not having been himself a soldier. "I saw what the honorable gentleman did not see," cried Lee, "our men fight with the troops of that King whom he so much admires."[1231]
When the hot-blooded young soldier had finished his aggressive speech, Randolph could no longer restrain himself. Henry's bold challenge of Randolph's change of front had cut that proud and sensitive nature to the heart. "I disdain," thundered he, "his aspersions and his insinuations." They were "warranted by no principle of parliamentary decency, nor compatible with the least shadow of friendship; and if our friendship must fall, let it fall, like Lucifer, never to rise again!" It was not to answer Henry that he spoke, snarled Randolph, "but to satisfy this respectable audience." Randolph then explained his conduct, reading part of the letter[1232] that had caused all the trouble, and dramatically throwing the letter on the clerk's table, cried "that it might lie there for the inspection of the curious and malicious."[1233] Randolph spoke for the remainder of the day and consumed most of the next forenoon.[1234]
No soldier had yet spoken for the Anti-Constitutionalists; and it perhaps was Lee's fling at Henry that now called a Revolutionary officer to his feet against the Constitution. A tall, stiff, raw-boned young man of thirty years arose. Poorly educated, slow in his mental processes,[1235] James Monroe made a long, dull, and cloudy speech, finally declaring of the Constitution, "I think it a dangerous government"; and asking "why ... this haste—this wild precipitation?" Long as Monroe's speech was, he reminded the Convention that he had "not yet said all that I wish upon the subject" and that he would return to the charge later on.[1236]
Monroe did not help or hurt either side except, perhaps, by showing the members that all the Revolutionary veterans were not for the Constitution. Neither members nor spectators paid much attention to him, though this was no reflection on Monroe, for the Convention did not listen with patience to many speakers except Henry. When Henry spoke, every member was in his seat and the galleries were packed. But only the most picturesque of the other speakers could hold the audience for longer than half an hour; generally members walked about and the spectators were absent except when Henry took the floor.[1237]
As usual, the Constitutionalists were ready with their counter-stroke. Wythe in the chair recognized a tall, ungainly young man of thirty-two. He was badly dressed in a loose, summer costume, and his blazing black eyes and unkempt raven hair made him look more like a poet or an artist than a lawyer or statesman.[1238] He had bought a new coat the day the Convention met; but it was a most inexpensive addition to his raiment, for it cost but one pound, Virginia currency, then greatly depreciated.[1239] He probably was the best liked of all the members of the Convention. Sociable to extreme good-fellowship, "his habits," says Grigsby, "were convivial almost to excess";[1240] and it is more than likely that, considering the times, these habits in his intimate social intercourse with his fellow members helped to get more votes than his arguments on the floor, of which he now was to make the first.[1241] His four years' record as a soldier was as bright and clean as that of any man from any State who had fought under Washington.
So when John Marshall began to speak, he was listened to with the ears of affection; and any point the opposition had made by the fact that Monroe the soldier had spoken against the Constitution was turned by Marshall's appearance even before he had uttered a word. The young lawyer was also accounted an "orator" at this time,[1242] a fact which added to the interest of his fellow members in his speech.
The question, Marshall said, was "whether democracy or despotism be most eligible."[1243] He was sure that the framers and supporters of the Constitution "intend the establishment and security of the former"; they are "firm friends of the liberty and the rights of mankind." That was why they were for the Constitution. "We, sir, idolize democracy." The Constitution was, said he, the "best means of protecting liberty." The opposition had praised monarchy, but, deftly avowed Marshall, "We prefer this system to any monarchy"; for it provides for "a well regulated democracy."