KING.
Rufus King, celebrated as a jurist, a statesman, an orator, and a
diplomatist, was sent to the Convention by the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts. Born in her District of Maine, in 1755, and graduated at
Harvard College in 1777, he came very early into public life, and was
rarely out of it until his death, which occurred in 1827, in the
seventy-third year of his age.
His first public service was in the year 1778, as a volunteer in the
expedition against the British in Rhode Island, in which he acted as
aide-de-camp to General Sullivan. In 1780, he commenced the practice of
the law in the town of Newburyport, and was soon after elected from that
town to the legislature of the State. There he distinguished himself by
a very powerful speech in favor of granting to the general government
the five per cent. impost recommended by Congress as part of the revenue
system of 1783.
He was soon after elected a member of Congress from Massachusetts, in
which body he took his seat on the 6th of December, 1784, and served
until the close of the year 1787. He was thus a member both of the
Convention for forming the Constitution and of the Congress which
sanctioned and referred it to the people. He was also a member of the
Convention of Massachusetts, in which the Constitution was ratified by
that State.
Mr. King did not favor the plan of a convention for the revision of the
federal system, until after the meeting at Annapolis had been held; and,
indeed, he did not concur in its expediency, until after the troubles in
Massachusetts had made its necessity apparent. In 1785, as we have seen,
he joined with the other members of the Massachusetts delegation in
opposing it.[436] In the autumn of 1786, when the report of the
Annapolis Convention was before Congress, he expressed the opinion, in
person, to the legislature of Massachusetts, that the Articles of
Confederation could not be altered, except by the consent of Congress
and the confirmation of the several legislatures; that Congress ought,
in the first instance, to make the examination of the federal system,
since, if it was done by a convention, no legislature would have a right
to confirm it; and further, that, if Congress should reject the report
of a convention, the most fatal consequences might follow. For these
reasons, he at that time held Congress to be the proper body to propose
alterations.[437]
At the moment when he was making this address to the legislature, the
disturbances in Massachusetts were fast gathering into that formidable
insurrection, which two months afterwards burst forth in the interior of
the State.[438] Mr. King spoke of these commotions in grave and pointed
terms. He told the legislature that Congress viewed them with deep
anxiety; that every member of the national councils felt his life,
liberty, and property to be involved in the issue of their decisions;
that the United States would not be inactive on such an occasion, for,
if the lawful authority of the State were to be prostrated, every other
government would eventually be swept away. He entreated them to
remember, that, if the government were in a minority in the State, they
had a majority of every State in the Union to join them.[439]
He returned to Congress immediately. But there he found that the
reliance which he had placed upon the ability of the Confederation to
interfere and suppress such a rebellion was not well founded. The power
was even doubted, or denied, by some of the best statesmen in that body;
and although the insurrection was happily put down by the government of
the State itself, the fearful exposure of a want of external power
adequate to such emergencies produced in Mr. King, as in many others, a
great change of views, both as to the necessity for a radical change of
the national government and as to the mode of effecting it. His vote,
in February, was given to the proposition introduced by the delegation
of New York for a national convention; and when that failed, he united
with his colleague, Mr. Dane, in bringing forward the resolution by
which the Convention was finally sanctioned in Congress.[440]
The Convention having been sanctioned by Congress, no man was more ready
than Mr. King to maintain its power to deliberate on and propose any
alterations that Congress could have suggested in the Federal Articles.
He held that the proposing of an entire change in the mode of suffrage
in the national legislature, from a representation of the States alone
to a representation of the people, was within the scope of their powers,
and consistent with the Union; for if that Union, on the one hand,
involved the idea of a confederation, on the other hand it contained
also the idea of consolidation, from which a national character resulted
to the individuals of whom the States were composed. He doubted the
practicability of annihilating the State governments, but thought that
much of their power ought to be taken from them.[441] He declared, that,
when every _man_ in America might be secured in his rights, by a
government founded on equality of representation, he could not sacrifice
such a substantial good to the phantom of _State_ sovereignty. If this
illusion were to continue to prevail, he should be prepared for any
event, rather than sit down under a government founded on a vicious
principle of representation, and one that must be as short-lived as it
would be unjust.[442]
There is one feature of the Constitution with which the name of Mr. King
should always be connected, and of which he may be said, indeed, to have
been the author. Towards the close of the session, he introduced the
prohibition on the States to pass laws affecting the obligation of
contracts. It appears that the Ordinance for the government of the
Northwestern Territory, which had been passed by Congress about a month
previous, contained a similar prohibition on the States to be formed out
of that territory. That any of the jurists who were concerned in the
framing of either instrument foresaw at the moment all the great future
importance and extensive operation of this wise and effective provision,
we are not authorized to affirm. But a clause which has enabled the
supreme national judicature to exercise a vast, direct, and uniform
influence on the security of property throughout all the States of this
Confederacy, should be permanently connected with the names of its
authors.[443]
Mr. King was but little past the age of thirty when the Constitution
was adopted. After that event, he went to reside in the city of New
York, and entered upon the career of distinction which filled up the
residue of his life, as a Senator in Congress, and as Minister to
England. No formal biography of him has yet appeared; but when that duty
shall have been discharged by those to whom it appropriately belongs,
there will be added to our literature an account of a man of the most
eminent abilities and the purest patriotism, whose influence and agency
in the great transactions which attended the origin and first operations
of the government were of the utmost importance.
FOOTNOTES:
[436] Ante, p. 339, note.
[437] Mr. King being in Boston in October, 1786, was desired by the
legislature to attend and give an account of the state of national
affairs. For an abstract of his address, see Boston Magazine for the
year 1786, p. 406.
[438] Ante, p. 266 et seq.
[439] Ibid.
[440] Journals, XII. 15-17.
[441] Madison, Elliot, V. 212, 213.
[442] Madison, Elliot, V. 266.
[443] The Ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory was
drawn by Nathan Dane of Massachusetts. It was reported in Congress July
11th, 1787, and was passed July 13th. The committee by whom it was
reported were Messrs. Carrington and R. H. Lee of Virginia, Kearney of
Delaware, Smith of New York, and Mr. Dane. The clause relating to
contracts was in these words: "And in the just preservation of rights
and property, it is understood and declared, that no law ought ever to
be made or have force in the said territory, that shall in any manner
whatever interfere with or affect private contracts or engagements,
_bona fide_ and without fraud previously formed." On the 28th of August,
Mr. King moved in the Convention to insert the same clause in the
Constitution; but it was opposed, and was not finally adopted until
September 14, when it was incorporated in the phraseology in which it
now stands in the Constitution. (Madison, Elliot, V. 485; Journal of the
Convention, Elliot, I. 311.)