It is significant to find the "well-born," wealthy, learned, and cultivated Mason taking this tone. It shows that the common people's dislike of a National Government was so intense that even George Mason pandered to it. It was the fears, prejudices, and passions of the multitude upon which the enemies of the Constitution chiefly depended; and when Mason stooped to appeal to them, the sense of class distinction must have been extreme. His statement also reveals the economic line of cleavage between the friends and foes of the Constitution.
It was in this speech that Mason made his scathing "cat and Tory" comparison. He knew those who were for the Constitution, "their connections, their conduct, their political principles, and a number of other circumstances. There are a great many wise and good men among them"; but when he looked around and observed "who are the warmest and most zealous friends to this new government," it made him "think of the story of the cat transformed to a fine lady: forgetting her transformation and happening to see a rat, she could not restrain herself, but sprang upon it out of the chair."[1255]
Mason denounced Randolph for the latter's apostasy. "I know," said Mason, "that he once saw as great danger in it as I do. What has happened since this to alter his opinion?" Of course, the Confederation was defective and reform needed; but the Constitution was no reform. Without previous amendments, "we never can accede to it. Our duty to God and to our posterity forbids it,"[1256] declared the venerable author of Virginia's Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the State.
Henry Lee answered with fire and spirit, first rebuking "the irregular and disorderly manner" in which the opposition had carried on the debate. As to the cat story, Mason ought to know "that ridicule is not the test of truth. Does he imagine that he who can raise the loudest laugh is the soundest reasoner?" And Mason's "insinuations" about the "well-born" being elected to Congress were "unwarrantable." He hoped that "we shall hear no more of such groundless aspersions." Lee's speech is valuable only as showing the rising spirit of anger which was beginning to appear even in Virginia's well-conducted, parliamentary, and courteous debate.[1257]
The Anti-Constitutionalists were now bringing all their guns into action. The second Revolutionary soldier to speak for the opposition now arose. William Grayson was almost as attractive a military figure as Henry Lee himself. He had been educated at Oxford, had studied law in the Inner Temple; and his style of speech was the polished result of practice in the English political clubs, in Congress, and at the bar.[1258] There were few men in America with more richly stored or better trained minds. He was a precise Latinist and a caustic wit. When, during the debate, some of the Constitutionalist speakers used Latin phrases with a wrong pronunciation, Grayson, sotto voce, would correct them. Once he remarked, loud enough to be heard by the other members whom he set roaring with laughter, that he was not surprised that men who were about to vote away the liberties of a living people should take such liberties with a dead language.
Grayson now brought into action the heaviest battery the Anti-Constitutionalists had in reserve. He did not blame Virginia's delegates to the Federal Convention, said Grayson suavely. It was unfortunate "that they did not do more for the general good of America"; but "I do not criminate or suspect the principles on which they acted." Of course, the Confederation had defects; but these were "inseparable from the nature of such [Republican] governments." The Constitutionalists had conjured up "phantoms and ideal dangers to lead us into measures which will ... be the ruin of our country." He argued that we were in no danger from our default in paying foreign loans; for most European nations were friendly. "Loans from nations are not like loans from private men. Nations lend money ... to one another from views of national interest. France was willing to pluck the fairest feather out of the British crown. This was her hope in aiding us"—a truth evident to every man in the Convention. Such loans were habitually delayed,—for instance, "the money which the Dutch borrowed of Henry IV is not yet paid"; these same Dutch "passed Queen Elizabeth's loan at a very considerable discount," and they "made their own terms with that contemptible monarch," James I.
The people had no idea, asserted Grayson, that the Federal Convention would do more than to give the National Government power to levy a five per cent tariff, but since then "horrors have been greatly magnified." He ridiculed Randolph's prophecy of war and calamity. According to Randolph, "we shall be ruined and disunited forever, unless we adopt this Constitution. Pennsylvania and Maryland are to fall upon us from the north, like the Goths and Vandals of old; the Algerines, whose flat-sided vessels never came farther than Madeira, are to fill the Chesapeake with mighty fleets, and to attack us on our front; the Indians are to invade us with numerous armies on our rear, in order to convert our cleared lands into hunting-grounds; and the Carolinians, from the South (mounted on alligators, I presume), are to come and destroy our cornfields, and eat up our little children! These, sir, are the mighty dangers which await us if we reject [the Constitution]—dangers which are merely imaginary, and ludicrous in the extreme!"
At bottom, thought Grayson, the controversy was between two opinions—"the one that mankind can only be governed by force; the other that they are capable" of governing themselves. Under the second theory, which Grayson favored, all that was necessary was to "give congress the regulation of commerce" and to "infuse new strength and spirit into the state governments."
This, he remarked, was the proper course to pursue and to maintain "till the American character be marked with some certain features. We are yet too young to know what we are fit for." If this was not to be done and we must have a government by force, then Grayson "would have a President for life, choosing his successor at the same time; a Senate for life, with the powers of the House of Lords; and a triennial House of Representatives, with the powers of the House of Commons in England."[1259] Consider the Judiciary. Suppose a man seized at the same time under processes from Federal and State Courts: "Would they divide the man in two, as Solomon directed the child to be divided who was claimed by two women?"
Evidently Grayson was making a strong impression as the day grew to a close, for Monroe, seconded by Henry, moved that the Convention adjourn that Grayson might go on next day; and Madison, plainly nervous, "insisted on going through the business regularly, according to the resolution of the house." Grayson consumed most of the next forenoon, displaying great learning, but sometimes drawing the most grotesque conclusions. For example, he said that Congress might grant such privileges that "the whole commerce of the United States may be exclusively carried on by merchants residing within the seat of government [now the District of Columbia] and those places of arms which may be purchased of the state legislature." The Constitution did not give equality of representation; for "the members of Delaware will assist in laying a tax on our slaves, of which they will pay no part whatever." In general, Grayson's conclusion was that "we have asked for bread and they have given us a stone."[1260]