Part 24 (2/2)
Two days afterward, by which time, doubtless, Madison's letter had reached Mount Vernon, Washi+ngton wrote to Benja the result of the convention:--
”Our accounts from Richmond are thatthe final decision exhibited a solemn scene, and that there is every reason to expect a perfect acquiescence therein by the nified that, though he can never be reconciled to the Constitution in its present forive it every constitutional opposition in his power, yet he will submit to it peaceably”[401]
Thus, about the end of June, 1788, there cainia a lull, which lasted until the 20th of October, at which tiislature assembled for its autumnal session Meantime, however, the convention of New York had adopted the Constitution, but after a ht, and by a majority of only three votes, and only in consequence of the pledge that every possible effort should be reat amendments that were at last called for by a determined public demand One of the efforts contemplated by the New York convention took the forovernors of the several States, urging almost pathetically that ”effectuala convention” to propose those a ”the apprehensions and discontents” then so prevalent[402]
This circular letter ”rekindled,” as Madison then wrote to Jefferson, ”an ardor a the opponents of the federal Constitution for an ieneral convention,Mr Henry and his friends in Virginia enter with great zeal into the scheton, nearly a islature, it is plainly indicated that his rievously burdened by the anxieties of the situation, and that he was disposed to put the very worst construction upon the expected conduct of Patrick Henry and his party in the approaching session:--
”Their expedient will now probably be an attempt to procure the election of so overn disputes, to impede or frustrate its operation I assure you I ale circuame to play in the assembly of this State; and the effect it may have in others should be counteracted if possible”[404]
No sooner had the assembly met, than Patrick Henry's ascendency became apparent His sway over that body was such that it was described as ”oress not quite a ton informed Madison that ”the accounts from Richmond” were ”very unpropitious to federal measures” ”In one word,”
he added, ”it is said that the edicts of Mr H are enregistered with less opposition in the Virginia asserand monarch by his parliaments He has only to say, Let this be law, and it is law”[405] Within ten days fro of the session, the House showed its sensitive response to Patrick Henry's leadershi+p by adopting a series of resolutions, the chief purpose of which was to ask Congress to call i to the States the required amendments In the debate on the subject, he is said to have declared ”that he should oppose every overnment, unless accompanied with measures for the amendment of the Constitution”[406]
Some phrases in one of his resolutions were most offensive to those members of the House who had ”befriended the new Constitution,” and who, by implication at least, were held forth as ”betrayers of the dearest rights of the people” ”If Mr Henry pleases,” so wrote a correspondent of Washi+ngton, ”he will carry the resolution in its present terms, than which none, in h, as he is so, he may perhaps be induced to alter it”[407]
In accordance with these resolutions, a forress for a national convention was prepared by Patrick Henry, and adopted by the House on the 14th of November Every word of that document deserves now to be read, as his own account of the spirit and purpose of a measure then and since then so profoundly and so cruelly ood people of this co ratified the Constitution subislature has, in conformity to that act, and the resolutions of the United States in Congress assee it into effect Having thus shown themselves obedient to the voice of their constituents, all America will find that, so far as it depends on theovernment will be carried into iinia would be but in part coarded, if ent no further In the very moment of adoption, and coeval with the ratification of the new plan of governeneral voice of the convention of this State pointed to objects no less interesting to the people we represent, and equally entitled to your attention At the same time that, from motives of affection for our sister States, the convention yielded their assent to the ratification, they gave the most unequivocal proofs that they dreaded its operation under the present forovernment under this impression, painful must have been the prospect, had they not derived consolation fro speedily amended In this resource, therefore, they placed their confidence,--a confidence that will continue to support them whilst they have reason to believe they have not calculated upon it in vain
”Inknown to you the objections of the people of this Coovernment, we deem it unnecessary to enter into a particular detail of its defects, which they consider as involving all the great and unalienable rights of freemen: for their sense on this subject, we refer you to the proceedings of their late convention, and the sense of this General assembly, as expressed in their resolutions of the day of
”We think proper, however, to declare that in our opinion, as those objections were not founded in speculative theory, but deduced from principles which have been established by the es, so they will never be removed until the cause itself shall cease to exist The sooner, therefore, the public apprehensions are quieted, and the government is possessed of the confidence of the people, the er its duration
”The cause of amendments we consider as a common cause; and since concessions have been er the republic, we trust that a co those provisions which, experience has taught us, are necessary to secure frohts of human nature
”The anxiety hich our countrymen press for the accomplishment of this iressional discussion and recoe, would, we fear, be less certain of success Happily for their wishes, the Constitution hath presented an alternative, by ad the submission to a convention of the States To this, therefore, we resort, as the source from whence they are to derive relief from their present apprehensions We do, therefore, in behalf of our constituents, in the ress, that a convention be immediately called, of deputies from the several States, with full power to take into their consideration the defects of this Constitution, that have been suggested by the state conventions, and report such amendments thereto, as they shall find best suited to promote our common interests, and secure to ourselves and our latest posterity the great and unalienable rights of mankind”[408]
Such was the purpose, such was the teress, and written by Patrick Henry, on behalf of i the supposed defects of the Constitution Was it not likely that this appeal would be granted? One grave doubt haunted the mind of Patrick Henry If, in the elections for senators and representatives then about to occur in the several States, very great care was not taken, it ress would be composed of men ould obstruct, and perhaps entirely defeat, the desired a his part towards the prevention of such a result, he deterinia, and as many as possible of its representatives, should be persons who could be trusted to help, and not to hinder, the great project
Accordingly, when the day cainia, he just stood up in his place and named ”Richard Henry Lee and Williaht to be elected as senators; and, furtherht not to be elected as senator Whereupon the vote was taken; ”and after some time,” as the journal expresses it, the committee to examine the ballot-boxes ”returned into the House, and reported that they hadfound a majority of votes in favor of Richard Henry Lee and William Grayson, Esquires”[409] On the 8th of December, 1788, just one month afterward, Madison himself, in a letter to Jefferson, thus alluded to the incident: ”They made me a candidate for the Senate, for which I had not allotted my pretensions The attempt was defeated by Mr Henry, who is oislature, and who added to the expedients coainst ation in the Senate was thus ation in the lower house? That, also, was an affair to be sharply looked to Above all things, James Madison, as the supposed foe of a an election Therefore the coates, which was appointed for the very purpose, aressional districts, so carved out those districts as to proood cause, and especially to secure, as was hoped, the defeat of its great enemy
Of this committee Patrick Henry was not a member; but as a majority of its members were known to be his devoted followers, very naturally upon him, at the tinoble device in politics,--a device which, when introduced into Massachusetts several years afterward, also by a Revolutionary father, ca” Surely it was a rare bit of luck, in the case of Patrick Henry, that the wits of Virginia did not anticipate the wits of Massachusetts by describing this trick as ”henryly ie in the coinage of a base hich should designate a base thing,--one of the favorite, shabby manoeuvres of less scrupulous American politicians[411]
Thus, however, within four weeks fro through the legislature, in the exact forinia's de accomplished, he withdrew from the service of the House for the reency of his professional engagements at that time The journal of the House affords us no trace of his presence there after the 18th of Noveislature continued in session until the 13th of Deceress beyond local topics To all these facts, rather bitter allusion is overnor of New Hampshi+re, written from Mount Vernon, on the 31st of January, 1789, by the private secretary of Washi+ngton, Tobias Lear, who thus reflected, no doubt, the mood of his chief:--
”Mr Henry, the leader of the opposition in this State, finding hiument in the state convention, and outnuth, and pointed his whole force against the government, in the assembly He here met with but a feeble opposition He led on his almost unresisted phalanx, and planted the standard of hostility upon the very battlelish, he ruled a istered by that body with less opposition than those of the Grand Monarque have met with from his parliaments He chose the two senators He divided the State into districts,taking care to arrange matters so as to have the county, of which Mr Madison is an inhabitant, thrown into a district of which a overnment, and by that ress He wrote the answer to Governor Clinton's letter, and likewise the circular letter to the executives of the several States
And after he had settled everything relative to the government wholly, I suppose, to his satisfaction, hethe little business of the State to be done by anybody who chose to give thereat was the effect of these strategic islature of Virginia in the autuanization of the first Congress of the United States, in the spring of 1789 Not until the 5th of May could ti the least attention to the subject of ainia, presented to the House of Representatives the solemn application of his State for a new convention; and, after some discussion, this document was entered on the journals of the House[413] The subject was then dropped until the 8th of June, when Madison, who had been elected to Congress in spite of Patrick Henry, and who had good reason to kno dangerous it would be for Congress to trifle with the popular deetting the House to devote that day to a preliain laid aside for nearly six weeks, and again got a slight hearing on the 21st of July
On the 13th of August it was once ht to the reluctant attention of the House, and then proved the occasion of a debate which lasted until the 24th of that month, when the House finished its work on the subject, and sent up to the Senate seventeen articles of a the Senate; and of these twelve, only ten received from the States that approval which was necessary to their ratification This was obtained on the 15th of Deceress, in itself proposing a to the chiefs of that party which, in the several States, had been cla es in the Constitution than could be expected froress, had set their hearts on a new convention,--which, undoubtedly, had it been called, would have reconstructed, from top to bottom, the work done by the convention of 1787 Yet it should be noticed that the ten aress, einia;”[415] and that it was distinctly due, in no sency of the popular feeling in Virginia, under the stiress was induced by Madison to pay any attention to the subject In the matter of aet all that they demanded, nor in the way that they deet, they would not then have got at all, had they not deh the channel of a new convention, the dread of which, it is evident, drove Madison and his brethren in Congress into the prompt concession of amendments which they themselves did not care for Those amendments were really a tub to the whale; but then that tub would not have been thrown overboard at all, had not the whale been there, and very angry, and altogether too troublesoe head of his which could batter as well as spout