"Though still young, he has rendered the greatest services to Virginia, to the American Confederation, and to liberty and humanity in general. He contributed much, with Mr. White, in reforming the civil and criminal codes of his country. He distinguished himself particularly in the convention for the acceptation of the new federal system. Virginia balanced a long time in adhering to it. Mr. Madison determined to it the members of the convention by his eloquence and logic. This republican appears to be about thirty-eight years of age. He had, when I saw him, an air of fatigue; perhaps it was the effect of the immense labors to which he has devoted himself for some time past. His look announces a censor, his conversation discovers the man of learning, and his reserve was that of a man conscious of his talents and of his duties.
"During the dinner, to which he invited me, they spoke of the refusal of North Carolina to accede to the new Constitution. The majority against it was one hundred. Mr. Madison believed that this refusal would have no weight on the minds of the Americans, and that it would not impede the operations of Congress. I told him that though this refusal might be regarded as a trifle in America, it would have great weight in Europe; that they would never inquire there into the motives which dictated it, nor consider the small consequence of this State in the confederation; that it would be regarded as a germ of division, calculated to retard the operations of Congress; and that certainly this idea would prevent the resurrection of American credit.
"Mr. Madison attributed this refusal to the attachment of a great part of the inhabitants of that State to their paper money and their tender act. He was much inclined to believe that this disposition would not remain a long time."
In October the Virginia Assembly met. Two thirds of its members were opposed to the new Constitution, and at their head was Patrick Henry, his zeal against it not in the least abated because he had been defeated in the late convention. The acceptance of the Constitution by that representative body could not be recalled. But the Assembly could, at least, protest against it, and was led by Henry to call upon Congress to convene a second national convention to do over again the work of the first. The legislature was to elect senators for the first Senate under the new government; and it was also to divide the State into districts for its representation in the lower house of Congress. In ordinary fairness, as the State had, in a popular convention, so recently accepted the Constitution, the party then in the majority was entitled to at least one of the representatives in the Senate. But Henry nominated both, and could command votes enough to elect them. In modern party usage this would seem quite unobjectionable; indeed, a modern politician who should not use such an advantage for his party would be considered as unfit for practical politics. But a hundred years ago it was thought sharp practice, and a fair proportion of Henry's partisans refused to be bound by it. One of Henry's nominees was elected by a majority of twenty over Madison; but in the case of the other that majority was reduced more than half, and a change of five more votes would have elected Madison.
He had, however, neither expected nor wished to be sent to the Senate, while he did hope to be elected to the House of Representatives. The Senate was intended to be the more dignified body, requiring in its members a certain style of living for which wealth was indispensable. Madison had not the means to give that kind of social support to official position; but he could afford to belong to that body where a member was not the less respectable because his whole domestic establishment might be a bachelor's room in a boarding-house.
Virginia was, as he wrote to Washington, "the only instance among the ratifying States in which the politics of the legislature are at variance with the sense of the people, expressed by their representatives in convention." This had enabled Henry and a majority of his friends to elect senators who, representing "the politics of the legislature," did not represent "the sense of the people" in regard to the national Constitution. But in the election of members of the House of Representatives, the sense of the people was to be again appealed to, and a new way must be devised for asserting the supremacy of legislative power. The cleverness of Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, many years later, under similar circumstances, introduced a new word into the language of the country, and, it was supposed at the time, a new device in American politics. But what has since been known as "Gerrymandering" was really the invention of Patrick Henry. This method of arranging counties into congressional districts in accordance with their political affinities, without regard to their geographical lines, Henry attempted to do with Mr. Madison's own county. By joining it to distant counties it was expected that an anti-Federal majority would be secured large enough to insure his defeat. The attempt to elect him to the Senate was, Madison wrote to Jefferson, "defeated by Mr. Henry, who is omnipotent in the present legislature." He adds that Henry "has taken equal pains, in forming the counties into districts for the election of representatives, to associate with Orange such as are most devoted to his politics, and most likely to be swayed by the prejudices excited against me." The scheme, however, was unsuccessful, perhaps partly because of the indignation which so dishonorable a measure to defeat a political opponent excited throughout the State. Madison entered upon an active canvass of his district against James Monroe, who had been nominated as a moderate anti-Federalist, and defeated him. It was winter time, and in the exposure of some of his long rides his ears were frozen. In later life he sometimes laughingly pointed to the scars of these wounds received, he said, in the service of his country.
Thus Henry's "Gerrymander," like many another useful and curious device, brought neither profit nor credit to the original inventor. Had Henry acted in the broader spirit of the modern politician, who sees that he serves himself best who serves his party best, he would have disposed of every Federal county in the State as he disposed of Orange. As it was, he only aroused a good deal of indignation and defeated himself by openly aiming to gratify his personal resentments. Had he scattered his shot for the general good of the party, he would, perhaps, have brought down his particular bird.