imply that Hamilton might have used his official power in behalf of
Duer. In reply to a letter from Duer (after his disastrous failure)
making some request which is not explained by Mr. Lodge, the Secretary
says: “Your letter of the 11th got to hand this day. I am affected
beyond measure at its contents, especially as it is too late to have any
influence upon the event you were apprehensive of, Mr. Wolcott’s
instructions having gone off yesterday.”[247] Wolcott was Hamilton’s
subordinate in the Treasury Department, and evidently he had issued some
instructions which affected Duer’s fortunes. Wolcott was the auditor of
the Treasury whose duty it was under the act of September 2, 1789, “to
receive all public accounts and after examination to certify the
balance, and transmit the accounts with the vouchers and certificates to
the Comptroller for his decision thereon.” This connection with Duer is
the sole piece of evidence of what might be termed the possible use of
the Secretary’s office in a private matter. The nature of this is not
clear, and the plan was not carried out.
The conclusion to be reached from this evidence is that Hamilton did not
have in 1787 any more than a petty amount of public securities which
might appreciate under a new system; that he did have some western land;
but that an extensive augmentation of his personal fortune was no
consideration with him. The fact that he died a poor man is conclusive
evidence of this fact. That he was swayed throughout the period of the
formation of the Constitution by large policies of government—not by any
of the personal interests so often ascribed to him—must therefore be
admitted. Nevertheless, it is apparent from the additional evidence
given here that it was no mere abstract political science which
dominated his principles of government. He knew at first hand the stuff
of which government is made.
_William C. Houston_, of New Jersey, was of no consequence in the
Convention, and little is known of his economic interests. He was a
Princeton graduate, and was for a time professor of mathematics and
natural philosophy. He entered the practice of law at Trenton, and from
1784 until his death in 1788 he was clerk of the Supreme Court of his
state. On account of ill health he was unable to remain through the
sessions of the Convention. A search among the New Jersey loan office
records in the Treasury Department failed to reveal Houston as a holder
of securities; but the records for that state are incomplete and
Houston’s death in 1788 would have prevented his appearing on the
Treasury Records of the new government. A William Houston is recorded in
the New York books for small amounts of deferred sixes,[248] but,
although William Churchill Houston had a son by that name, the identity
of the son and the public creditor cannot be established.
Houston was, however, interested in the possibilities of western land
speculations, for his biographer relates that he “joined with others in
procuring for John Fitch, the steamboat inventor, the office of Deputy
Surveyor. After the treaty of peace with England, the question of how
the lands northwest of the Ohio should be disposed of was mooted in
Congress. It was thought that they would be sold to pay the debts of the
confederacy. Fitch was a land jobber and supposed that a good operation
might be made by a presurvey of the country, so that when the Land
Offices were opened, warrants might be taken out immediately for choice
tracts. He found no difficulty in forming a company to forward such an
enterprise. It was composed of Dr. John Ewing, Rev. Nathaniel Irwin, Wm.
C. Houston.... These gentlemen put £20 each in a fund to pay
expenses.”[249] How far this venture was carried and whether Houston
acquired lands through it is not related. As a member of the Congress
under the Articles of Confederation, he doubtless learned of the
advantages to be gained in the West.
_William Houstoun_, of Georgia, took some part in the proceedings of the
Convention, but he was of little weight. He was the son of a royal
officer in the government of Georgia; and he received his education in
England and studied law at the Inner Temple. His colleague Pierce
records that “Mr. Houstoun is an Attorney at Law, and has been a member
of Congress for the state of Georgia. He is a gentleman of family, and
was educated in England. As to his legal or political knowledge, he has
little to boast of.”[250] The meagre biographical details available do
not permit a statement of his economic interests; and the paucity of the
records of the Georgia loan office in the Treasury Department makes it
impossible to say whether he was among the beneficiaries through the
appreciation of public securities. An index to a volume of Treasury
Records not found (Vol. XXVI, folio 44) contains the name of William
Houstown, but whether this holder of public debt and the member of the
Convention were identical cannot be determined.
_Jared Ingersoll_, of Pennsylvania, was the son of Jared Ingersoll of
Connecticut, sometime agent of that colony as commissioner in England
and later admiralty judge in Pennsylvania. He graduated at Yale and
studied in the Middle Temple. At the bar in Philadelphia he “soon rose
to first rank. His practice was larger than any others. His opinions
were taken on all important controversies, his services engaged in every
great litigation.”[251] Ingersoll was a man of considerable wealth, but
he does not seem to be involved in the large transactions in public
securities which engaged the attention of his intimate friends in the
Convention.[252] He does not appear on the Pennsylvania books as a
holder of securities. If he held any, his transactions must have been
with the Treasury direct, and this would have been very convenient as it
was located in Philadelphia during the funding process. Ingersoll was a
son-in-law of Charles Pettit, one of the security operators in
Philadelphia.[253]
_Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer_, of Maryland, is reported by Pierce to
have been “a gentleman of fortune” in his state.[254] He was a planter
and a slave-holder; the census of 1790 records his holding twenty slaves
on one plantation under an overseer, but the number on his own
plantation is illegible.[255] It is probable also that he held a small
amount of public securities at the establishment of the new government.
He died in the latter part of the year 1790, but his son,[256] Daniel
Jenifer, Jr., appears on the loan office records as the holder of nearly
six thousand dollars’ worth of paper in December, 1790,[257] which he
disposed of the following year.[258]
_William Samuel Johnson_, of Connecticut, was a son of Samuel Johnson, a
clergyman of Stratford, Connecticut, and a gentleman of some means. He
was a graduate of Yale, and entered the practice of law. He refused to
aid in the Revolutionary cause, because he could not “conscientiously”
take up arms against England, and he lived in retirement until the War
was over. After the establishment of independence he resumed the
prominent position in public life which he had enjoyed before the
struggle; and according to his biographer he took “the highest rank in
his profession and became the renowned and high-minded advocate who was
always crowded with cases and had his clients in New York as well as in
every part of Connecticut.”[259] He added to his own patrimony by
marrying the daughter of a “wealthy gentleman” of Stratford.
Johnson was a member of the first Senate under the new Constitution, and
he was included by Jefferson in the list of men “operating in
securities.”[260] It is highly probable that he did not aid the
Revolutionary cause by investing his money in the original paper; and he
does not appear on the Treasury Books for large amounts of stock,[261]
but there is every reason for believing that he carried on extensive
operations through his son Robert Charles Johnson. The latter was
speculating extensively in New York and Connecticut immediately after
the establishment of the new government, and two entries show a credit
to the father through the son.[262] The loan office books under the date
of December 13, 1791, credit Robert Charles Johnson, of Stratford,
Gentleman, with nearly fifty thousand dollars’ worth of sixes and
threes.[263] Connecticut loan office receipts confirm this evidence of
his extensive holdings. The New York loan office also shows large
transactions in the name of Robert Charles Johnson.[264]
_Rufus King_, of Massachusetts, was born in Scarborough, Maine, then in
the province of Massachusetts, March 24, 1755. His father, in 1740, was
“in prosperous business as a trader and factor for Ebenezer Thornton,
one of the principal merchants in Boston for whom he purchased and
prepared large quantities of timber.” On settling at Scarborough, his
father became “both a farmer and a merchant, and in each capacity was so
successful as to become the owner of three thousand acres of land
divided into several valuable farms and to be the largest exporter of
lumber from Maine.” Rufus was educated at Harvard. When his father died
in 1775 he left a good estate which was divided among several children.
Rufus King was also fortunate in his marriage; his wife was Mary Alsop.
Her father at first sympathized with the movement against Great Britain,
but, “taking umbrage at the manner in which the New York convention had
conveyed their adhesion to the Declaration of Independence to the
Congress, and besides unwilling to close the door of reconciliation with
Great Britain,”—he retired to Middletown, Connecticut, and stayed until
after the War was over, when he returned to New York, resumed business,
and became president of the Chamber of Commerce. According to King
himself, his wife “was the only child of Mr. John Alsop, a very
respectable and eminent merchant in this city [New York]. Mr. Alsop
declined business in 1775 with a very handsome fortune.”[265] King thus
had extensive mercantile and other business interests which were largely
managed for him by others, so that he was able to devote most of his
time to politics.
Nevertheless, he did not neglect matters of private economy. Robert and
Gouverneur Morris were engaged in 1788 in a plan to associate a number
of Americans in a project to purchase up the debt (or portions thereof)
of the United States due to France. Wadsworth, General Knox, Osgood, and
Colonel Duer were involved in it. It was first proposed to send
Gouverneur Morris as minister to Holland to further the scheme. The
originators of the plan finally hit upon the appointment of Rufus King.
King replied to the overture: “I told Col. Duer that I was not
indisposed to a foreign appointment—that the honor and duties of such an
office wd. be my sovereign rule of Cond. and that if in perfect
consistence with the duties and dignity of the office, I cd. promote the
interest of my friends, it wd. be a great satisfaction to me. But that I
desired not to be considered as giving an answer any way at present,
that ... the opinions of Mr. Jay and Col. Hamilton were of consequence
in my mind. That previous to any decision on my part I must be
ascertained of their opinions.”[266]
Whether King engaged in this ambitious project or not, there is evidence
to show that he was a considerable holder of government paper shortly
after its establishment. It may be that a part of his fortune had been
invested originally in public securities, although this is not apparent
from the early loan office books in the Treasury Department. Jefferson
puts King down among the holders of bank stock and public
securities;[267] and he is correct in his statement. King was director
in the first United States bank.[268] He was also a large holder of
government securities—one entry records more than $10,000 worth to his
credit.[269] King thought that speculations should be reserved to the
experienced, and rejoiced in the hope that one of the crashes would
teach the ordinary industrious citizens “contentment in their proper
avocations.”[270]
_John Langdon_, of New Hampshire, was born on the family farm near
Portsmouth in 1740, and “after a mercantile education in the counting
room of Daniel Rindge, he entered upon a sea-faring life, but was driven
from it by the revolutionary troubles.” He must have prospered, however,
before the War blighted his trade, for when the news of the fall of
Ticonderoga reached Exeter, he rose in the legislature of which he was
the speaker and said: “I have a thousand dollars in hard money; I will
pledge my plate for three thousand more. I have seventy hogsheads of
Tobago rum which will be sold for the most they will bring. They are at
the service of the state. If we succeed ... I will be remunerated; if we
do not then the property will be of no value to me.”[271]
After the war, Langdon’s various mercantile and commercial enterprises
took on new life, and there is every evidence that in his worldly
affairs he was uniformly prosperous. A French report to the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs on the Congress of 1788 speaks of John Langdon as a man
of great wealth and pressing commercial interests: “M. L. a fait une
grande fortune dans le commerce, c’est le Rob. Morris de son Etat,
faisant une grande dépense et s’attachant beaucoup de citoyens par ses
libéralités.”[272]
John Langdon-Elwyn, grandson of John Langdon, in whose family were
preserved the valuable private papers of the elder Langdon, wrote,
sometime in the early part of the nineteenth century, a pamphlet on his
celebrated grandfather. The author of this useful brochure “was nineteen
years of age at the time of his grandfather’s death. A critical observer
of men and affairs, his opportunities as a member of the family of
Governor Langdon give the production of his pamphlet a special
significance.”[273] This writer characterizes John Langdon as “a man
that loved money, at an age when it gets the upper hand, that was prone
to banking and funding, to whom such atmospheres were familiar and
congenial, that knew how to make it and keep it, and felt no envy of
others that did so too.”[274]
That Langdon was deeply concerned in the financial operations connected
with the new government is evidenced in many sources. According to his
grandson, quoted above, “He voted for this bank [the first United States
Bank]; and was we suppose an original subscriber of some account.... We
believe he had been concerned in the Bank of North America: the first
real National Bank: He was an intimate friend of Robert Morris.”[275]
Maclay also adds his testimony to that of Langdon’s grandson. When he
was a Senator, Langdon lodged in New York with a Mr. Hazard who followed
the business of buying up government certificates of public debt which
had been “issued in place of the paper money of the old Congress and
bore interest for their face value,” and had depreciated to even as low
as seven cents on the dollar. Maclay writes, “Mr. Hazard told me he had
made a business of it; it is easy to guess for whom. I told him, ‘You
are then among the happy few who have been let into the secret.’ He
seemed abashed and I checked by my forwardness much more information
which he seemed disposed to give.”[276]
The loan office books of New Hampshire show that Langdon was a large
creditor of the new government, and indeed he was one of the heavy
original contributors who risked their fortunes on the outcome of the
War.[277] One entry in the New Hampshire ledger credits him with more
than $25,000 worth of sixes and threes;[278] and there are other entries
as well. His brother, Woodbury Langdon, was also among the holders of
public paper.
With that patriotism to his state and thrift in her interest that
characterized his colleague, Gilman, Langdon sought to give the
commonwealth some advantage in the various speculations in securities.
On January 7, 1791, he wrote to the President of New Hampshire advising
him of the approaching passage of the National Bank bill and advising
that the state use its continental securities and some cash to buy stock
in the new Bank. He says that the stock “would undoubtedly sell for
specie at par at any time ...; and in all probability it would soon sell
above par, the state would therefore run no risque of looseing.”[279]
_John Lansing_, of New York, was a lawyer at Albany and the mayor of
that city. William Pierce, in his notes on the Convention, speaks of him
in the following language: “His legal knowledge, I am told, is not
extensive nor his education a good one. He is however a man of good
sense, plain in his manners, and sincere in his friendships.”[280]
Lansing was one of the stout opponents of the Constitution and left the
Convention early. He was there long enough however to learn (what was
not a very deep secret) the certain effect of an efficient government on
continental securities; for in January, 1791, immediately after the
establishment of the new financial system, he appeared at the New York
loan office with paper to fund to the amount of over seven thousand
dollars.[281] All the members of the Lansing family in Albany seem to
have taken advantage of the opportunity to augment their fortunes.[282]
_William Livingston_, of New Jersey, was a member of the distinguished
Livingston family which was among the largest proprietors in New York.
He graduated at Yale, and in 1745 married Miss French “whose father had
been a large proprietor of land in New Jersey.” He entered the practice
of law in 1748 “and soon became a prominent member of the bar and
employed in most of the important legal controversies of that day in New
York and New Jersey.” He apparently accumulated a comfortable fortune,
but had lost a portion of it in 1773 by the failure of his debtors, and
the necessity of accepting depreciated continental currency.[283]
Whether Livingston held any of the securities of the confederacy, it is
impossible apparently to determine, for his death in the summer of 1790,
before the funding system went into effect, would have precluded his
appearing on the Ledger records. It is probable, however, that he did
not entertain views in regard to the relation of public and private
affairs different from those of his eminent colleagues. This theory will
seem justified when it is understood that his son and heir, Brockholst
Livingston, a New York lawyer, was among the heaviest security holders
in that city; and in view of the wide-reaching ramifications of his
operations and his connections with Le Roy and Bayard was reckoned among
the princely speculators of his day. One entry in 1791 credits him with
about $70,000 worth; another in the same year, in conjunction with Le
Roy and Bayard, with nearly $30,000.[284] At a slightly later date, 1792
and 1793, his 6 per cents alone amount to more than $100,000,[285] and
he appears frequently in the records of other states. How much of this
was his own paper and how much was for friends who did not wish to
appear among the records cannot be determined.
_James Madison_, of Virginia, was a descendant of one of the old landed
families of Virginia whose wealth consisted principally of plantations
and slaves, and whose personal property was relatively small in amount.
Madison’s father “was a large landed proprietor occupied mainly with the
care and management of his extensive rural concerns.” Madison graduated
at Princeton and studied law, but the practice of his profession did not
appeal to him. His inclinations were all toward politics, for which he
was prepared by long and profound researches in history, law, and
political economy. He was constantly in public life, and seems to have
relied upon the emoluments of office and his father’s generosity as a
source of income. The postponement of his marriage until 1794 enabled
him to devote himself to political pursuits rather than commercial or
economic interests of any kind. He does not appear to have been a holder
of public securities; for the small amounts credited to James Madison on
the books of the Treasury Department[286] seem to have belonged to his
father, also named James Madison.[287]
Having none of the public securities, Madison was able later to take a
more disinterested view of the funding system proposed by Hamilton; and
the scramble of politicians and speculators which accompanied the
establishment of the new government did more than anything else to
disgust him with the administration party and drive him into opposition.
Writing to Jefferson in July, 1791, he said: “The subscriptions [to the
Bank] are consequently a mere scramble for so much public plunder, which
will be engrossed by those already loaded with the spoils of
individuals.... It pretty clearly appears, also, in what proportions the
public debt lies in the Country, what sort of hands hold it, and by whom
the people of the United States are to be governed. Of all the shameful
circumstances of this business, it is among the greatest to see the
members of the legislature who were most active in pushing this job
openly grasping its emoluments. Schuyler is to be put at the head of the
Directors, if the weight of the New York subscribers can effect it.
Nothing new is talked of here. In fact, stock-jobbing drowns every other
subject. The Coffee-House is in an eternal buzz with the gamblers.”[288]
_Alexander Martin_, of North Carolina, was a graduate of Princeton, and
practised law. He was for a time governor of his state. Later he served
in the United States Senate, and supported Adams and the alien and
sedition laws; but was defeated for election in 1799.[289] Martin was
among the well-to-do planters and slave-owners of his state;[290] but
his tastes do not seem to have turned to dealings in public securities,
for the Index to the holders of the public debt preserved in the
Treasury Department does not contain his name, and a search among the
papers of North Carolina fails to reveal any record of his transactions.
_Luther Martin_, of Maryland, was a descendant of English ancestors who
had obtained “large grants of land in New Jersey [and] removed their
domestic establishment there when a greater part of the colonial domain
was a dense wilderness.” He was a graduate of Princeton and took up the
practice of law. Being the third of nine children, and having little or
no assistance from his parents, who were in pinched circumstances, he
was thrown upon his own resources. He commenced his career in Virginia
“where he soon acquired a full and lucrative practice, amounting, as he
informs us, to about one thousand pounds per annum; which, however, was
after a period diminished by the disturbance growing out of the American
Revolution.”[291]
Luther Martin’s fortune was never very large, although he had among his
clients men of great wealth and influence, like Robert Morris.[292] The
census of 1790 records his owning only six slaves,[293] and his holdings
of public securities were apparently meagre—a few thousand dollars at
most. One entry of sixes and threes on June 15, 1791, credits him with
$1992.67, and he occasionally appears in other records.[294] He was
always more or less in sympathy with poor debtors, and was unwilling to
preclude altogether the issue of paper money or moderate impairments of
contract. He was accordingly a bitter opponent of the adoption of the
Constitution in his state.[295]
_George Mason_, of Virginia, was born in 1725. He was the son of a rich
slave owning and planting family of Dogue’s Neck, and on account of the
early death of his father he came into his vast estate on attaining his
majority.[296] His family fortunes were augmented by speculations in
western lands. He married the daughter of a Maryland merchant, from whom
a large estate came into his family.[297] He was a member of the Ohio
Company which was organized in 1749, and obtained a grant of “six
hundred thousand acres of land, lying mostly west of the mountains and
south of the Ohio.”[298] In 1754 he also secured a patent for about
fifteen hundred acres of land in Northern Neck.[299] He was constantly
increasing his holdings,[300] and in 1769 “he seems to have come into
possession of two thousand acres of land in the district of
Kentucky.”[301] As a member of the Virginia legislature he drew a bill
“to encourage the making of hemp, woollen, linen, and other
manufactures.”[302]
His property at the time of the establishment of the Constitution was
unquestionably large, for at his death in 1792 “he devised to his sons
alone, some fifteen thousand acres, the greater part of his own
acquisition, of the very best land in the Potomac region. Most of these
estates were well improved, with large and comfortable mansions and all
necessary outbuildings. But he left to be divided among his children
what was solely acquired by himself: sixty thousand of among the finest
acres in Kentucky, some three hundred slaves, more than fifty thousand
dollars’ worth of other personal property, and at least thirty thousand
dollars of debts due on his books, while his own indebtedness was
absolutely nothing.”[303] Very little of this personal property seems to
have been in public securities, for a search in the records of the
Treasury Department shows one small entry of a few hundred dollars’
worth of threes and sixes to his credit.[304]
Mason frankly admitted his personal interest in certain landed property
to be among his many objections to the Constitution—which he refused to
approve and the adoption of which he bitterly opposed. Speaking on the
dangers from the supremacy of the federal courts, in the Virginia
ratifying convention, he said: “I am personally endangered as an
inhabitant of Northern Neck. The people of that part will be obliged, by
the operation of this power, to pay the quit rent of their lands....
Lord Fairfax’s title was clear and undisputed. After the revolution we
taxed his lands as private property. After his death, an act of Assembly
was made, in 1782, to sequester the quit rents due, at his death, in the
hands of his debtors. Next year an act was made restoring them to the
executor of the proprietor. Subsequent to this, the treaty of peace was
made, by which it was agreed that there should be no further
confiscations. But after this an act of Assembly was passed,
confiscating his whole property. As Lord Fairfax’s title was
indisputably good, and as treaties are to be the supreme law of the
land, will not his representatives be able to recover all in the federal
court? How will gentlemen like to pay an additional tax on lands in the
Northern Neck?”[305]
Mason proposed to limit the judicial power in such a manner that it
should “extend to no case where the cause of action shall have
originated before the ratification of this Constitution, except in suits
for debts due the United States, disputes between states about their
territory, and disputes between persons claiming lands under grants of
different states.” He expressed a fear that under the Constitution as it
stood the titles to all the country between the Blue Ridge and Alleghany
Mountains would be upset in the federal courts and that the vast Indiana
purchase would be rendered a subject of dispute.[306]
_James McClurg_, of Virginia, was an accomplished man of letters and
distinguished physician of his native state. He was born there in 1747,
studied at the college of William and Mary, and finished his training in
medicine at Edinburgh and Paris. He established himself in the practice
first at Williamsburg, and about 1783 he settled in Richmond, where he
took first rank as a physician, scholar, and man of the world.[307]
McClurg’s knowledge of government was not academic. He knew the subject
practically, as well as theoretically; for as early as November 23,
1790, he was engaged in operations in federal securities.[308] And on
February 17, 1791, he presented to the local loan office Virginia
certificates to the amount of $26,819, all of which, except a few
hundred pounds originally subscribed by himself, he had evidently bought
for speculation.[309] McClurg was also an investor in stock in the first
United States Bank and one of the directors.[310]
_James McHenry_, of Maryland, received a classical education in Ireland,
the country of his birth, and came to Baltimore in 1771. He studied
medicine with Dr. Benjamin Rush at Philadelphia and became an army
surgeon during the War. He was for a time secretary to Washington and
later to Lafayette, and from 1783 to 1786 he was a member of Congress
from Maryland.[311]
McHenry was the son of Daniel McHenry, a Baltimore merchant, who
achieved “considerable financial success”[312] and was in business with
his son, John, a brother of James, until his death in 1782. John and
James began buying town property, and when the former died in 1790, the
latter inherited the entire estate, as John had never married. The death
of James’ father, says Steiner, left him financially independent.
McHenry’s personal property must have been considerable. A casual letter
of August 4, 1792, shows that one Dickinson owed him an amount secured
by a bond for £5000.[313] He was one of the original stockholders of the
Insurance Company of North America organized in 1792.[314] It is not
apparent that he was among the original holders of federal securities,
but an entry in 1797 records an old account to the amount of $6970.90,
brought forward.[315]
McHenry’s early mercantile interests left a deep impression on him, and
he sympathized with the efforts made in his state to secure an adequate
protective tariff. Indeed, he was among the signers of the memorial from
Baltimore laid before Congress on April 11, 1789, praying for the
protection and encouragement of American manufactures.[316]
_John Francis Mercer_, of Maryland, was born in Virginia and graduated
at William and Mary College in 1775. He served in the army and after the
war studied law with Jefferson. He moved to Maryland in 1786. He seems
to have been a man of some fortune, for he held six slaves,[317] and a
moderate amount of public securities.[318] His sympathies, however, were
with the popular party in Maryland. He joined with Luther Martin in
violent opposition to the adoption of the Constitution. In 1801 he was
elected governor of the state, and as governor he attacked the property
qualifications on voters under the constitution of the commonwealth, at
length securing the repeal of the provisions.
_Thomas Mifflin_, of Pennsylvania, was born in Philadelphia in 1744 and
graduated at the College of Philadelphia, where he distinguished himself
as a student of the classics. His father introduced him to a mercantile
life by placing him in the counting house of William Coleman, one of the
most eminent merchants of his native city. “When he was twenty-one years
of age he visited Europe to improve his knowledge of commercial affairs,
and after his return home he entered into business with his brother, the
connection continuing until after the Revolution.”[319]
Mifflin was deeply interested in the protection of American
manufactures. He was prominently identified with the Philadelphia
Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures and Useful Arts, organized
in the summer of 1787. In fact, he presided at the meeting at which it
was established in August of that year, during the sessions of the
Convention.[320]
General Mifflin was a holder of public securities, but it does not
appear that his paper aggregated more than a petty sum. He and Jonathan
Mifflin are down for a few hundred dollars’ worth of continental paper
in 1788;[321] and he held in his own name another small account in
1791.[322] It is, therefore, apparent that General Mifflin appreciated
the position of the powerful class of security holders who looked to the
Convention for relief, and had a more than abstract interest in the
establishment of public credit.
_Gouverneur Morris_, of Pennsylvania, was born in 1752 at the family
manor house at Morrisania. He “belonged by birth to that powerful landed
aristocracy whose rule was known by New York alone among all the
northern colonies.” He graduated at King’s College, entered the practice
of law, and very soon began to take a hand in colonial politics,
attacking with great vehemence the propositions of the paper money
party. “He criticised unsparingly the attitude of a majority of his
fellow-citizens in wishing such a measure of relief, not only for their
short-sighted folly, but also for their criminal and selfish dishonesty
in trying to procure a temporary benefit for themselves at the lasting
expense of the community.”[323]
He was a member of the Continental Congress and was regarded as a
considerable expert in financial affairs. He assisted Robert Morris in
the establishment of the Bank of North America, and seems to have been
able, in the midst of his public engagements, to augment his private
fortunes and to engage in divers economic enterprises. At the time of
the formation of the Constitution, he had accumulated enough to purchase
the family estate from his elder brother, and “he had for some time been
engaged in various successful commercial ventures with his friend Robert
Morris, including an East India voyage on a large scale, shipments of
tobacco to France, and a share in iron works on the Delaware river, and
had become quite a rich man.”[324] He declared in the Convention that he
did not hold any public securities, and the records seem to bear out his
assertion, although his name does appear on an index to a volume of
Treasury Records not found.
Of all the members of the Convention, _Robert Morris_ of Pennsylvania,
had the most widely diversified economic interests. He was born of
humble parents in Liverpool in 1734, and came to America at an early
age. The death of his father, about 1750, left him a small estate of a
few thousand dollars, which stood him in good stead in his relations
with the Willings, whose counting house he had entered to learn
mercantile arts, in which he showed an early proficiency.[325]
In the course of his long career he owned and directed ships trading
with the East and West Indies, engaged in iron and several other
branches of manufacturing, bought and sold thousands of acres of land in
all parts of the country, particularly in the west and south, and
speculated in lots in Washington as soon as he learned of the
establishment of the capital there. He was instrumental in organizing
the Bank of North America in Philadelphia, with Thomas Willing, his
partner, as first President, and Thomas Fitzsimons, an associate in his
land and speculative enterprises, as one of the directors,[326] and was
in short a merchant prince, a captain of industry, a land speculator, a
financier, and a broker combined.[327] Had he been less ambitious he
would have died worth millions instead of in poverty and debt, after
having served a term in a debtor’s cell.
It is impossible to gauge correctly the extent of his land speculations,
for they ran into the millions of acres. Before and after the adoption
of the Constitution, he was busy interesting his colleagues in every
kind of enterprise that promised to be profitable. James Marshall, a
brother of John Marshall, was his chief agent, and carried on operations
for him in the United States and Europe. Marshall was given the power of
attorney by Morris and his wife to sell enormous quantities of lands and
other properties, and received from his principal letters of
introduction to European capitalists and persons of prominence,
including Mr. Pinckney, the representative of the United States in
France.[328]
The exact extent of Morris’ speculations in the securities of the new
government is a matter beyond the scope of the present inquiry, but it
is sufficient for our purposes to know that he held practically every
kind of continental security, that his deals in stocks mounted upward
into the tens of thousands of dollars,[329] and that in the Convention
and in the first Senate under the Constitution, of which he was a
member, he was uniformly strenuous in his support of public credit. No
man of his time had such wide-reaching interests or involved in his
personal affairs so many eminent men, like Hamilton, John Marshall,
Thomas Fitzsimons, Thomas Willing, Gouverneur Morris, John Langdon, and
Robert Clymer, all closely identified with the new system of government.
It may be truly said therefore that Morris was an effective
representative of the speculative land operators, the holders of
securities, the dealers in public paper, and the mercantile groups
seeking protection for manufactures—in short every movable property
interest in the country. It was fortunate for the new government to have
in its support a man whose economic power and personal acquaintanceship
extended from New Hampshire to Georgia. It seems fair to say that no man
contributed more to the establishment of our Constitution and the
stability of our national institutions than Robert Morris, “the Patriot
Financier.”
Washington, therefore, showed his acumen when, as first President of the
United States, he selected Morris for the office of Secretary of the
Treasury; but the latter, on account of the pressing nature of his
private business, was unable to accept the post thus tendered. Indeed,
he wisely concluded that he could be more serviceable to the new
government in his capacity as senator from Pennsylvania; and in this
position he lent his powerful support to the funding system, the new
Bank, and the establishment of a protective tariff. “Morris and Hamilton
together worked out a tariff bill,” says Oberholtzer.[330] “But for the
influence of the Senator from Pennsylvania the measure, important
because it would provide the national government with ample revenues,
and because it had protective features of utility in the development of
the country industries, could not have passed Congress in the form which
would have commended it to the Secretary of the Treasury.... All
witnesses agree that Robert Morris was a stupendous political force in
Washington’s administration, and his influence did not decrease when, in
December, 1790, the capital was removed to Philadelphia, where he
resumed his princely entertainment of public men, surrendering his home
on Market Street to Washington, and becoming the President’s most
intimate friend and closest companion.”
_William Paterson_ was born in the north of Ireland, came to this
country in 1747, graduated at Princeton in 1763, and received his
license to practise law in 1769. His father was a merchant, and he was
himself for a time engaged in the mercantile business.[331] A by no
means extensive search has failed to bring out any of Paterson’s later
economic interests.
_William Pierce_, of Georgia, does not seem to have made any
considerable impression on his age, for the biographical material
relating to him is meagre indeed. His economic interests do not appear
to have been looked into, although it is known that he was “in business
in Savannah as the head of the house of William Pierce and
Company.”[332] His private fortune was probably not large, for he
applied to Madison in 1788 for a position as collector in his
district.[333]
_Charles Cotesworth Pinckney_ was the son of “Chief Justice Pinckney, a
man of great integrity and of considerable eminence under the Provincial
Government.” He received a fine classical and legal education in
England. He began the practice of law in the provincial courts in 1770,
and very soon “began to acquire business and reputation.” After the
Revolutionary war “his business was large and its profits
commensurate—reaching in one year the amount of four thousand guineas, a
considerable sum for that day.” He became “a considerable landholder in
the city of Charleston. He had numerous tenants living on his
property.... His benevolence was of the most enlarged character, and was
experienced not only by the poor and such as were dependent on him, but
in his liberal support of churches, seminaries of learning, and every
object of public utility.”[334] He also held a country estate at
Pinckney Island, and is recorded in the first census as the owner of
forty-five slaves.[335]
Pinckney had a large practice for the merchants of Charleston, and his
knowledge of maritime law must have been extensive.[336] Through this
direct experience, he must have learned the importance of a national
commercial system, not only to merchants and manufacturers, but also to
those having occasion to appear in the courts. In the midst of the local
conflict between the creditors and debtors, he took a firm stand against
any weakening of public and private credit.
The significance and importance of the public credit he understood from
first-hand knowledge, for his holdings of public securities were large
when compared with the average holdings in the South. Shortly after the
establishment of Hamilton’s funding system, Pinckney is credited with
over ten thousand dollars’ worth of sixes and threes on the loan office
books of his state.[337]
_Charles Pinckney_, like his distinguished cousin, was also an eminent
lawyer in Charleston and enjoyed a large practice with the merchants. He
was likewise a land-owner on a considerable scale, for the census of
1790 records the number of his slaves as fifty-two.[338]
Charles Pinckney was also identified with the conservative forces of the
state in their fight against the debtor or paper money party, and he
thoroughly understood the meaning of the sacredness of private and
public obligations. He was a holder of government securities on a large
scale, his transactions early in the history of the new system amounting
to more than fourteen thousand dollars.[339] In common with the men of
his party he naturally feared the effect of popular lawmaking upon the
value of personalty.[340]
_Edmund Randolph_ was a grandson of Sir John Randolph, an English
gentleman of ancient and honorable lineage. Through an uncle he
inherited “three farms ... negroes, and other property;” but this estate
was burdened with debt.[341] As a lawyer, however, he enjoyed a
magnificent practice which furnished him a considerable revenue. When
charged with having defrauded the Treasury of the United States during
his official service as Secretary of State, he advanced as a counter
claim the fact that the condition of his fortune was evidence that he
could not have engrossed any large government funds. He reported on that
occasion (1801) that in money claims he had £14,200 Virginia currency
which he traced “to the best of all resources, the independent labors of
my own hands.”[342] About that time, his other property which had come
to him by way of inheritance amounted to “some seven thousand acres of
land, several houses, and near two hundred negroes. The slaves had long
been an incumbrance on account of his refusal to sell their increase and
his inability while at Philadelphia to hire them properly.”[343]
Indeed, Randolph was apparently never very prosperous. He held ten or
fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of public securities about the time of
the establishment of the new government;[344] but he seems to have been
in debt to Hamilton for a considerable sum that gave him some
embarrassment. On April 23, 1793, he wrote to Hamilton asking an
extension of time on the paper, saying: “I am extremely thankful to you
for your readiness to accommodate me on the subject of the bills.... The
sum which I want to sell is much less than £2600 stg. It is only £1300;
as I prefer waiting for a rise....”[345]
_George Read_, of Delaware, was the grandson of a “wealthy citizen of
Dublin.” His father had migrated to America and established himself as
“a respectable planter” in Delaware. George studied law under John
Moland, a distinguished attorney in Philadelphia, and began business for
himself in Newcastle in 1754 where he soon acquired a lucrative
practice.[346] Although he surrendered all claim to his father’s estate
on the ground that he had received his portion in his education,[347]
Read managed to accumulate a modest competence.
Of his economic position, so far as it was reflected in his style of
living, a descendant writes: “The mansion of Mr. Read commanded an
extensive view of the river Delaware.... It was an old-fashioned brick
structure, looking very comfortable but with no pretensions to
elegance.... Here Mr. Read resided for many years in the style of the
colonial gentry who, when having no more than the moderate income of Mr.
Read, maintained a state and etiquette which have long disappeared....
How could this be, Mr. Read not being affluent? His income would buy
more then than now, and he had a small farm ... and besides he generally
owned his servants.” In addition to his income from official positions
and his practice, Read possessed some capital for investment, because he
appears among the subscribers to the stock of the Bank of North America
issued in 1784.[348]
A small part of his worldly goods he had invested in the securities of
the Continental Congress in 1779, during the dark days of the Revolution
when the chances of ever recovering it were slight indeed. He was among
those who risked their lives and fortunes in the Revolutionary cause,
and has the honor of being one of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence. The loan office of Delaware records that in March and
April, 1779, Read subscribed for $2000 worth of certificates, and that
Mary Read subscribed for $11,500 worth of the same paper.[349] The
incompleteness of the records of Delaware in the Treasury department
prevents the tracing of these securities, but an entry of 1797 shows
Read as holding a small account (old) of threes.[350] At all events,
Read had felt personally the inconveniences of depreciated paper, and
knew the value of a stable government to every owner of personal
property.
_John Rutledge_, of South Carolina, was the son of Dr. John Rutledge, a
native of Ireland who settled in Carolina about 1735. He was educated
under a classical tutor and pursued the study of law in the Temple. He
opened his practice in Charleston in 1761, and a biographer relates that
“instead of rising by degrees to the head of his profession, he burst
forth at once the able lawyer and accomplished scholar. Business flowed
in upon him. He was employed in the most difficult causes and retained
with the largest fees that were usually given.”[351]
Rutledge was elected president of South Carolina, under the first
constitution, and when a new frame of government was made by the
legislature, in some respects more democratic, he vetoed it, preferring
“a compound or mixed government to a simple democracy, or one verging
towards it.”[352] “However unexceptionable democratic power may appear
at first view,” said Rutledge, “its defects have been found arbitrary,
severe, and destructive.”
He resigned because he was unable to prevent the adoption of the new
constitution; but he was soon elected governor under it; and inasmuch as
it provided that no person could be governor unless he held in his own
right, on his election, “a settled plantation or freehold ... of the
value of at least ten thousand pounds currency, clear of debt,” it must
be assumed that Rutledge was the owner of a considerable plantation and
a number of slaves. Indeed, the census of 1790 records the number at
twenty-six, which, though small, was considerable for a man whose
interests were not primarily in planting.[353] Unlike his other
colleagues from South Carolina, John Rutledge does not seem to have
invested in securities, though several members of the Rutledge family
appear on the records.
_Roger Sherman_, the shoemaker of New Milford,[354] Connecticut, was one
of the very few men of the Convention who had risen from poverty to
affluence largely through his own efforts, and had none of the
advantages of education and support which a family patrimony can give.
But as his biographer remarks of him: “In regard to worldly
circumstances, Mr. Sherman was very happily situated. Beginning life
without the aid of patrimonial wealth or powerful connections, with
nothing but his good sense and good principles, he, by his industry and
skilful management, always lived in a comfortable manner, and his
property was gradually increasing.”[355]
In common with other far-seeing business men of his day, Sherman seems
to have invested a portion of his accumulations in public securities,
for shortly after Hamilton’s fiscal system went into effect he funded
nearly eight thousand dollars’ worth of paper at the loan office of his
native state.[356]
_Richard Dobbs Spaight_, of North Carolina, was of respectable origin.
His father had been secretary of the colony under the crown, and his
mother was a sister of Dobbs, a royal governor of the colony. He came
into his father’s estate early; he studied in Ireland, and finished his
education at the University of Glasgow. At the time of the Convention,
he was, according to Pierce, a “worthy man, of some abilities, and
fortune.”[357] He was among the large planters of his state, and is
recorded to have held seventy-one slaves.[358] He seems to have taken no
share in the public security transactions. At least a search in the
incomplete records does not reveal him as an original holder—but an old
account of 3 per cents for the sum of a few dollars, shows that he was
not unaware of the relations of public credit to stable
institutions.[359] It was largely through his influence that Washington
went to North Carolina to aid in the fight for the adoption of the
Constitution by that state.
_Caleb Strong_, of Massachusetts, was the descendant of an old and
honorable family of Northampton, the place of his birth. He was educated
at Harvard and entered the practice of law.[360] He early began a public
career for which he showed remarkable aptitudes, and was rewarded by
election to the convention which drafted the constitution of his state,
to the federal Convention, to the first United States Senate, and later
to the office of governor of the commonwealth. Whether he inherited a
fortune or accumulated considerable wealth in the practice of law is not
recorded by his biographer, Senator Lodge,[361] but he took advantage of
his superior knowledge of public affairs, and bought up £3271:0:6 worth
of certificates of issues up to May, 1787, which he funded into federal
securities in September, 1791.[362]
_Washington_, of Virginia, was probably the richest man in the United
States in his time, and his financial ability was not surpassed among
his countrymen anywhere. He possessed, in addition to his great estate
on the Potomac, a large amount of fluid capital which he judiciously
invested in western lands, from which he could reasonably expect a large
appreciation with the establishment of stable government and the advance
of the frontier.
Perhaps the best way to illustrate his economic interests is to give the
data from the schedule of his property attached to his will, drawn up in
1799. He possessed in Virginia, counting the enormous holdings on the
Ohio, and the Great Kenhawa, more than 35,000 acres, valued at $200,000;
in Maryland, 1119 acres, at $9828; in Pennsylvania, 234 acres, at $1404;
in New York, about 1000 acres, at $6000; in the Northwest Territory,
3051 acres, at $15,255; in Kentucky, 5000 acres, at $10,000; property in
Washington, at $19,132; in Alexandria, at $4000; in Winchester, at $400;
at Bath, $800. He held $6246 worth of United States securities; and of
this holding he said: “These are the sums which are actually funded; and
though no more in the aggregate than 7566 dollars, stand me in at least
ten thousand pounds, Virginia money; being the amount of bonded and
other debts due me and discharged during the war when money had
depreciated in that rate—and was so settled by the public authority.” He
held $10,666 worth of shares in the Potomac Company presented to him by
the state of Virginia (which he left to establish a national
university); $500 worth of James River Company shares; $6800 worth of
stock in the Bank of Columbia, and $1000 worth of stock in the Bank of
Alexandria. His own slaves were to be emancipated on the death of his
wife. His live-stock he estimated at $15,653—making a grand total at a
conservative estimate of $530,000.[363]
Washington was also a considerable money lender and suffered from the
paper money operations of the Virginia legislature. He “had bonds and
mortgages to ‘nigh £10,000’ paid off in depreciated paper currency worth
at times as little as 2/6 in the pound, and when he attended the federal
Convention he was in arrears for two years’ taxes through having been
unable to sell the products of his farms.”[364]
If any one in the country had a just reason for being disgusted with the
imbecilities of the Confederation it was Washington. He had given the
best years of life to the Revolutionary cause, and had refused all
remuneration for his great services. He was paid his personal expenses
to the amount of $64,355.30 in paper that steadily depreciated. M. Otto
writing to Vergennes on February 10, 1787, says of Washington’s losses:
“I have before me a letter of this honored man in which he complains of
being obliged to sell at a rate of twenty for one the certificates which
Congress sent to him in payment for the arrearages due him.”[365]
_Hugh Williamson_, of North Carolina, was the son of “an industrious
tradesman” of Dublin, who settled in America about 1730—five years
before Hugh was born. The latter received a fine education and graduated
at the College of Philadelphia in 1757. About this time his father died,
leaving him sole executor of the estate, the settlement of which
required the greater part of two years.[366] He studied divinity, but
later turned to medicine and went to Edinburgh to pursue his studies in
that subject. He practised for a time in Philadelphia, but afterward
went South to reside.
During the Revolutionary War he engaged in mercantile speculations in
Charleston and later at Edenton, “from which he afterward traded to the
neutral islands in the West Indies.” While continuing his mercantile
connections with his brother, “then also engaged in the West India
trade, he determined to resume the practice of medicine; this he did
with the same success as he had done formerly at Philadelphia.” He was
an opponent of the emission of paper money in North Carolina and
published an essay against fiat currency.
He happily combined a theoretical and practical knowledge of finance,
for he seems to have accumulated a large amount of public securities. He
appears frequently on the records of the Treasury Department; for
example in December, 1791, for $2444.84 worth of sixes and threes.[367]
Furthermore, his correspondence with Hamilton and others shows that he
had “the smallest of two large trunks” full of 6 per cents, threes, and
deferred stock which he had delivered to Hamilton for transfer to the
New York loan office, in 1793.[368]
Williamson also engaged in western land speculations, and was not
unaware of the advantage to that class of property which the new
Constitution afforded. On June 2, 1788, he wrote to Madison from New
York, “For myself, I conceive that my opinions are not biassed by
private interests, but having claims to a considerable quantity of land
in the Western Country, I am fully persuaded that the value of those
lands must be increased by an efficient federal government.”[369] After
his long and assiduous public services, Williamson settled in New York,
where he engaged in historical writing and the management of the
considerable fortune which he had accumulated in the midst of his
pressing public duties.[370]
_James Wilson_, of Pennsylvania, was born in Scotland in 1742 and
received a fine classical education there. He came to America in 1766,
began the study of law with John Dickinson, and was admitted to the bar
in 1767. He developed a lucrative practice at Carlisle, where he first
settled; but in 1778 he removed to Philadelphia where he established a
close connection with the leading merchants and men of affairs including
Robert Morris, George Clymer, and General Mifflin.[371] He was one of
the directors of the Bank of North America on its incorporation in
1781;[372] and he also appears among the original stockholders of the
Insurance Company of North America, organized in 1792.[373]
Wilson’s largest interest seems to have been in public lands, for he was
among the members of the Georgia Land Company, a highly speculative
concern tainted with fraud, to put it mildly, for ten shares, £25,000
cash and 750,000 acres.[374] Haskins says, “James Wilson, of the Supreme
Court of the United States, held shares to the amount of at least one
million acres and it is asserted was influential in securing the
grants.”[375]
Wilson does not appear to have been a large holder of public securities;
for a search in the records of the Pennsylvania loan office preserved in
the Department of the Treasury reveals only a trivial amount of 3 per
cents to his credit, on June 2, 1791.[376] It may be that the extent of
his other operations prevented his taking advantage of the opportunities
offered in this line.
_George Wythe_, of Virginia, was born in 1726 on the shores of the
Chesapeake in the colony of Virginia. “He was descended from a
respectable family and inherited from his father, who was a farmer, an
estate amply sufficient for all the purposes of ease and independence,
although it was seriously impaired by the Revolution.” He studied law,
and “by reason of his extensive learning, correctness of elocution, and
his logical style of argument, he quickly arrived at the head of the
bar.”[377] His second wife “was a lady of a wealthy and respectable
family of Taliafero, residing near Williamsburg.” He was a slave-owner,
but he emancipated his slaves and made provisions to keep them from
want. His public security holding was not large. On March 12, 1791, he
presented Virginia certificates to the amount of £513:2:8 which he had
acquired from their original owners.[378]
_Robert Yates_, of New York, was born in Schenectady, and received a
classical education at New York City. He read law and began the practice
at Albany where he soon built up an extensive business. He was made a
judge of the Supreme Court under the state constitution of 1777, but his
salary was small. “Indeed before the scale of depreciation of
continental money had been settled, he received one year’s salary in
that money at its _nominal_ value, the whole of which was just
sufficient (as he humorously observed) ‘to purchase a pound of green tea
for his wife.’” He refused to enrich himself by speculating in
confiscated estates, a favorite occupation of some of his friends, and
“he died poor.”[379] He opposed the adoption of the Constitution, and
apparently took no part in the transactions in public securities; but
several members of the Yates family, Richard, Adolphus, and Christopher
were large operators.[380]
A survey of the economic interests of the members of the Convention
presents certain conclusions:
A majority of the members were lawyers by profession.
Most of the members came from towns, on or near the coast, that is, from
the regions in which personalty was largely concentrated.
Not one member represented in his immediate personal economic interests
the small farming or mechanic classes.
The overwhelming majority of members, at least five-sixths, were
immediately, directly, and personally interested in the outcome of their
labors at Philadelphia, and were to a greater or less extent economic
beneficiaries from the adoption of the Constitution.
1. Public security interests were extensively represented in the
Convention.[381] Of the fifty-five members who attended no less than
forty appear on the Records of the Treasury Department for sums varying
from a few dollars up to more than one hundred thousand dollars. Among
the minor holders were Bassett, Blount, Brearley, Broom, Butler,
Carroll, Few, Hamilton, L. Martin, Mason, Mercer, Mifflin, Read,
Spaight, Wilson, and Wythe. Among the larger holders (taking the sum of
about $5000 as the criterion) were Baldwin, Blair, Clymer, Dayton,
Ellsworth, Fitzsimons, Gilman, Gerry, Gorham, Jenifer, Johnson, King,
Langdon, Lansing, Livingston,[382] McClurg, R. Morris, C. C. Pinckney,
C. Pinckney, Randolph, Sherman, Strong, Washington, and Williamson.
It is interesting to note that, with the exception of New York, and
possibly Delaware, each state had one or more prominent representatives
in the Convention who held more than a negligible amount of securities,
and who could therefore speak with feeling and authority on the question
of providing in the new Constitution for the full discharge of the
public debt:
Langdon and Gilman, of New Hampshire.
Gerry, Strong, and King, of Massachusetts.
Ellsworth, Sherman, and Johnson, of Connecticut.
Hamilton, of New York. Although he held no large amount personally,
he was the special pleader for the holders of public securities and the
maintenance of public faith.
Dayton, of New Jersey.
Robert Morris, Clymer, and Fitzsimons, of Pennsylvania.
Mercer and Carroll, of Maryland.
Blair, McClurg, and Randolph, of Virginia.
Williamson, of North Carolina.
The two Pinckneys, of South Carolina.
Few and Baldwin, of Georgia.
2. Personalty invested in lands for speculation was represented by at
least fourteen members: Blount, Dayton, Few, Fitzsimons, Franklin,
Gilman, Gerry, Gorham, Hamilton, Mason, R. Morris, Washington,
Williamson, and Wilson.
3. Personalty in the form of money loaned at interest was represented by
at least twenty-four members: Bassett, Broom, Butler, Carroll, Clymer,
Davie, Dickinson, Ellsworth, Few, Fitzsimons, Franklin, Gilman,
Ingersoll, Johnson, King, Langdon, Mason, McHenry, C. C. Pinckney, C.
Pinckney, Randolph, Read, Washington, and Williamson.
4. Personalty in mercantile, manufacturing, and shipping lines was
represented by at least eleven members: Broom, Clymer, Ellsworth,
Fitzsimons, Gerry, King, Langdon, McHenry, Mifflin, G. Morris, and R.
Morris.
5. Personalty in slaves was represented by at least fifteen members:
Butler, Davie, Jenifer, A. Martin, L. Martin, Mason, Mercer, C. C.
Pinckney, C. Pinckney, Randolph, Read, Rutledge, Spaight, Washington,
and Wythe.
It cannot be said, therefore, that the members of the Convention were
“disinterested.” On the contrary, we are forced to accept the profoundly
significant conclusion that they knew through their personal experiences
in economic affairs the precise results which the new government that
they were setting up was designed to attain. As a group of doctrinaires,
like the Frankfort assembly of 1848, they would have failed miserably;
but as practical men they were able to build the new government upon the
only foundations which could be stable: fundamental economic
interests.[383]