Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3.

by Benson John Lossing

Day after day and week after week the debates continued, sometimes with great courtesy, and sometimes with considerable acrimony, until the tenth of September, when all plans and amendments which had been adopted by the convention were placed in the hands of a committee for revision and arrangement. Hamilton, who had returned to the convention at the middle of August, was placed upon that committee, having for his associates Messrs. Madison, King, Johnson, and Gouverneur Morris. To the latter was intrusted the task of giving the finish to the style and arrangement of the instrument. It was then reported to the convention, taken up clause by clause, discussed, somewhat amended, and ordered to be engrossed. On the fifteenth it was agreed to as amended, by all the states present, and on the seventeenth a fair copy was brought in to receive the signatures of the members.

Many times, during that long session of almost four months, there were serious apprehensions of failure, the views of members differed so essentially upon important points. One of the most exciting of these questions which elicited zealous debates, was a proposition for the general government to assume the debts of the respective states. The debts of the several commonwealths were vastly unequal, and the proposition was therefore distasteful to several. For example, those of Massachusetts and South Carolina amounted to more than ten and a half millions of dollars, while those of all the other states did not exceed, in the aggregate, fifteen millions.

But the most serious subject for difference was that of representation in the senatorial branch of the national legislature, the smaller states claiming, and the larger ones opposing, the exercise of the rule of equality. For a long time an equal division of votes on that point had been reiterated, and most of the members began to feel assured that no compromise could be effected. But the matter was finally adjusted by mutual concessions, and a plan for the construction of the senate upon the basis of an equal number of representatives from each of the states, large and small, was adopted.

Frequently during the session of the convention, Washington had serious apprehensions concerning the result. He perceived with much anxiety a disposition to withhold power from the national legislature, which, in his opinion, was the chief cause of the inadequacy of the confederation to fulfil its mission. “Happy indeed will it be,” he wrote to David Stuart on the first of July, “if the convention shall be able to recommend such a firm and permanent government for this Union, that all who live under it may be secure in their lives, liberty, and property; and thrice happy would it be if such a recommendation should obtain. Everybody wishes, everybody expects something from the convention; but what will be the final result of its deliberations the book of fate must disclose. Persuaded I am, that the primary cause of all our disorders lies in the different state governments, and in the tenacity of that power which pervades the whole of their systems. Whilst independent sovereignty is so ardently contended for, whilst the local views of each state, and separate interests by which they are too much governed, will not yield to a more enlarged scale of politics, incompatibility in the laws of different states, and disrespect to those of the general government, must render the situation of this great country weak, inefficient, and disgraceful. It has already done so, almost to the final dissolution of it. Weak at home, and disregarded abroad, is our present condition, and contemptible enough it is.”

“Thirteen governments,” he wrote on the fifteenth of August, “pulling against each other, and all tugging at the federal head, will soon bring ruin on the whole; whereas, a liberal and energetic constitution, well checked and well watched, to prevent encroachments, might restore us to that degree of respectability and consequence to which we had the fairest prospect of attaining.” And again: “I confess that my opinion of public virtue is so far changed, that I have my doubts whether any system, without means of coercion in the sovereign, will enforce due obedience to the ordinances of a general government, without which everything else fails.”

Although Washington took no part in the debates of the convention, his opinions, concurrent with those of Hamilton, were firmly and strongly expressed, and had great influence. The constitution as finally framed and adopted did not receive his unqualified approval. He had decided objections to several of its features; but he accepted it as a whole, as the best that could be obtained under the circumstances, firmly persuaded that it was a great step in advance of the confederation, and that experience in its workings would suggest necessary amendments, for which ample provision was made. In fact, the instrument did not wholly please a single member of the convention. It was, to a considerable extent, a patchwork of compromises, and many doubted its being ratified by a majority of the states.

Hamilton regarded the constitution as adopted with feelings of disappointment. It lacked the strength that he desired it to possess; but, like Washington, he yielded his private sentiments and impulses to the consideration of the public good. His own plan, which he had urged with all his eloquence and energy, differed radically from the one adopted; yet, with a nobleness of spirit which challenges our highest admiration, he sacrificed the pride of opinion, and when the constitution had passed the ordeal of severest criticism and amendment by the convention, he avowed himself ready to sign it, and urged others, who hesitated, to do the same “No man's ideas are more remote from the plan than my own,” he said; “but is it possible to deliberate between anarchy and confusion on one side, and the chance of good on the other.”

A large majority of the members desired that the instrument should go forth to the people, not only as the act of the convention, but with the individual sanction and signatures of their representatives. Franklin, desirous of having it promulgated with such sanction, arose with a written speech in his hand when the engrossed copy was brought in, in which, with pleasant words, he endeavored to allay the irritated temper of some of the delegates, and procure for the constitution unanimous signature. Mr. Wilson read the speech, and it was closed with a form suggested by Gouverneur Morris, which might be signed without implying personal approval of the instrument: “Done by consent of the states present. In testimony whereof, we have subscribed,” et cetera.

The appeals of Hamilton and Franklin, a few approving words of Washington, and the example of Madison and Pinckney, secured the signatures of several dissatisfied members; and all present, except Mason and Randolph of Virginia, and Gerry of Massachusetts, signed the constitution.[10] The absence of the colleagues of Mr. Hamilton (Yates and Lansing), who had left the convention in disgust on the first of July, caused New York to be regarded as not officially present; but, to secure for the proceedings the weight of a name so important as that of Hamilton, in the place that should have been filled by his state, was recited “Mr. Hamilton of New York.”

“There is a tradition,” says Curtis, “that when Washington was about to sign the instrument, he rose from his seat, and holding the pen in his hand, after a short pause, pronounced these words: 'Should the states reject this excellent constitution, the probability is that an opportunity will never again offer to cancel another in peace—the next will be drawn in blood.' While the members were signing, Doctor Franklin, looking toward the chair occupied by Washington, at the back of which a sun was painted, observed to the persons near him: 'I have often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that sun behind the president, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: at length I have the happiness to know it is a rising, not a setting sun.'”