UNITED STATES SENATOR ROBERT JACKSON GAMBLE.
Vice-President of the Society
for South Dakota.
“It is easy to see what his [Lee’s] aim is. By flattering the President of the Senate he hopes to govern all the members from New England and with a little assistance from Carolina or Georgia, to be absolute in the Senate. Ellsworth and some more of the New England men flatter him in turn, expecting he will be with them on the question of residence [of Congress]. Had it not been for our Vice-President and Lee I am convinced the Senate would have been as adverse to titles as the House of Representatives. The game that our Vice-President and Mr. Lee appear to have now in view is to separate the Senate as much as possible from the House of Representatives. Our Vice-President’s doctrine is that all honors and titles should flow from the President and Senate only.”
VIII.
The Great Debate of May 8, 1789.
But whatever Lee’s motives may have been, it is indisputable that he threw his great weight and splendid abilities in favor of titles. In the momentous debate of May 8 he declared that all the world, civilized and savage, called for titles; that there must be something in human nature that occasioned this general consent and, therefore, he conceived it was right. “Here he began,” records Maclay, “to enumerate many, many nations who gave titles—such as Venice, Genoa and others. The Greeks and Romans, it was said, had no titles, ‘but’ (making a profound bow to the Chair) ‘you were pleased to set us right in this with respect to the Conscript Fathers the other day.’ Here he repeated the Vice-President’s speech of the 23d ultimo almost verbatim all over.
“Mr. Ellsworth rose. He had a paper in his hat which he looked constantly at. He repeated almost all that Mr. Lee had said but got on the subject of kings—declared that the sentence in the primer of fear God and honor the king was of great importance; that kings were of divine appointment; that Saul, the head and shoulders taller than the rest of the people, was elected by God and anointed by his appointment.
“I sat after he had done for a considerable time to see if anybody would rise. At last I got up and first answered Lee as well as I could with nearly the same arguments, drawn from the Constitution, as I had used on the 23d ult. I mentioned that within the space of twenty years back, more light had been thrown on the subject of governments and on human affairs in general than for several generations before; that this light of knowledge had diminished the veneration for titles and that mankind now considered themselves as little bound to imitate the follies of civilized nations as the brutalities of savages; that the abuse of power and the fear of bloody masters had extorted titles as well as adoration, in some instances from the trembling crowd; that the impression now on the minds of the citizens of these states was that of horror for kingly authority.
“Izard got up. He dwelt almost entirely on the antiquity of kingly government. He could not, however, well get farther back than Philip of Macedon. He seemed to have forgot both Homer and the Bible. He urged for something equivalent to nobility having been common among the Romans, for they had three names that seemed to answer to honorable or something like it, before and something behind. He did not say Esquire. Mr. Carroll rose and took my side of the question. He followed nearly the track I had been in and dwelt much on the information that was now abroad in the world. He spoke against kings.
“Mr. Lee and Mr. Izard were both up again. Ellsworth was up again. Langdon was up several times but spoke short each time. Paterson was up but there was no knowing which side he was of. Mr. Lee considered him as against him and answered him—but Paterson finally voted with Lee. The Vice-President repeatedly helped the speakers for titles. Ellsworth was enumerating how common the appellation of President was. The Vice-President put him in mind that there were presidents of fire companies and of a cricket club. Mr. Lee, at another time, was saying he believed some of the states authorized titles by their constitutions. The Vice-President, from the chair, told him that Connecticut did it. At sundry other times he interfered in a like manner. I had been frequently up to answer new points during the debate.
“I collected myself for a last effort. I read the clause in the Constitution against titles of nobility; showed that the spirit of it was against not only granting titles by Congress but against the permission to foreign potentates granting any titles whatever; that as to kingly government, it was equally out of the question as a republican government was guaranteed to every State in the Union; that they were both equally forbidden fruit of the Constitution. I called the attention of the House to the consequences that were likely to follow; that gentleman seemed to court a rupture with the Lower House. The Representatives had adopted the report [rejecting titles] and were this day acting on it or according to the spirit of the report. We were proposing a title. Our conduct would mark us to the world as actuated by the spirit of dissension; and the characters of the [two] Houses would be as aristocratic and democratical.”