“The Vice-President rose a second time and declared that he had mentioned it to the Secretary; that he could not possibly conceive that any person could take offense at it. I had to get up again and declare that, although I knew of it being mentioned from the Chair, yet my opposition did not proceed from any motive of contempt; that, although it was a painful task, it was solely a sense of duty that raised me.
“The Vice-President stood during this time; said he had been long abroad and did not know how the temper of people might be now. Up now rose [George] Reed [Senator from Delaware] and declared for the paragraph. He saw no reason to object to it because the British speeches were styled ‘most gracious.’ If we choose to object to words because they had been used in the same sense in Britain, we should soon be at loss to do business. I had to reply: ‘It is time enough to submit to necessity when it exists. At present we are not at loss for words. The words, speech or address, without any addition will suit us well enough.’ The first time I was up Mr. Lee followed me with a word or two by way of seconding me; but when the Vice-President, on being up last, declared that he was the person from whom the words were taken, Mr. Lee got up and informed the Chair that he did not know that circumstance as he had been absent when it happened. The question was put and carried for erasing the words without a division.”
VI.
Adams Explains.
After the adjournment of the Senate that day the Vice-President drew Maclay aside and explained that he was for an efficient government, that he had the greatest respect for the President; and gave his ideas on “checks to government and the balances of power.” Maclay protested that he “would yield to no person in respect to General Washington,” that he was not wanting in respect to Adams himself; that his wishes for an efficient government were as high as any man’s and begged “him to believe that I did myself great violence when I opposed him in the chair and nothing but a sense of duty could force me to it.”
Commenting on this day’s debate Maclay records: “Strange, indeed, that in that very country [America] where the flame of freedom had been kindled, an attempt should be made to introduce these absurdities and humiliating distinctions which the hand of reason, aided by our example was prostrating in the heart of Europe. I, however, will endeavor (as I have hitherto done) to use the resentment of the Representatives to defeat Mr. Adams and others on the subject of titles. The pompous and lordly distinctions which the Senate have manifested a disposition to establish between the two Houses have nettled the Representatives and this business of titles may be considered as a part of the same tune. While we are debating on titles I will, through the Speaker, Mr. Muhlenberg and other friends, get the idea suggested of answering the President’s address without any title, in contempt of our deliberations, which still continue on that subject. This, once effected, will confound them [the Senators] completely and establish a precedent they will not dare to violate.”
On Saturday, May 2, the day following the debate on “His Most Gracious Speech,” the Senate met and several of the members congratulated Maclay on the stand he had taken. Langdon “shook hands very heartily with me,” but some of the other New England Senators were “shy.” Senator William Paterson of New Jersey “passed censure on the conduct of the Vice-President” and “hinted as if some of the Senate would have taken notice of the ‘gracious’ affair if I had not. I told him I was no courtier and had no occasion to trim, but said it was a most disagreeable thing to contend with the Chair and I had alone held that disagreeable post more than once.”
VII.
Politics and Titles.
On Friday, May 8, on motion of Ellsworth, the report of the Joint Committee on Titles was taken up by the Senate and the great battle was fairly under way. Two days before this Maclay noted that “the title selected from all the potentates of the earth for our President was to have been taken from Poland, viz., ‘Elective Majesty.’ What a royal escape!”
Surprise, naturally, might be expressed that Lee, elected as a “Republican enemy to an aristocratic constitution,” should have taken the lead in advocating titles. Light is thrown on the situation from the following entry in Maclay’s journal under date of May 15, 1789: “Lee has a cultivated understanding, great practice in public business.... He has acted as a high priest through the whole of this idolatrous business.... Had it not been for Mr. Lee I am firmly convinced no other man would have ventured to follow our Vice-President. But Lee led, Ellsworth seconded him, the New England men followed and Ralph Izard [Senator from South Carolina] joined them but really haud passibus aequis, for he was only for the title of ‘Excellency,’ which had been sanctified by use.
