SHALL THE CONFEDERATION BE MADE STRONGER?
We have now arrived at the second period of Patrick Henry's service as
governor of Virginia, beginning with the 30th of November, 1784. For
the four or five years immediately following that date, the salient
facts in his career seem to group themselves around the story of his
relation to that vast national movement which ended in an entire
reorganization of the American Republic under a new Constitution.
Whoever will take the trouble to examine the evidence now at hand
bearing upon the case, can hardly fail to convince himself that the
true story of Patrick Henry's opposition to that great movement has
never yet been told. Men have usually misconceived, when they have not
altogether overlooked, the motives for his opposition, the spirit in
which he conducted it, and the beneficent effects which were
accomplished by it; while his ultimate and firm approval of the new
Constitution, after it had received the chief amendments called for by
his criticisms, has been passionately described as an example of gross
political fickleness and inconsistency, instead of being, as it really
was, a most logical proceeding on his part, and in perfect harmony
with the principles underlying his whole public career.
Before entering on a story so fascinating for the light it throws on
the man and on the epoch, it is well that we should stay long enough
to glance at what we may call the incidental facts in his life, for
these four or five years now to be looked into.
Not far from the time of his thus entering once more upon the office
of governor, occurred the death of his aged mother, at the home of his
brother-in-law, Colonel Samuel Meredith of Winton, who, in a letter to
the governor, dated November 22, 1784, speaks tenderly of the long
illness which had preceded the death of the venerable lady, and
especially of the strength and beauty of her character:--
"She has been in my family upwards of eleven years; and from
the beginning of that time to the end, her life appeared to
me most evidently to be a continued manifestation of piety
and devotion, guided by such a great share of good sense as
rendered her amiable and agreeable to all who were so happy
as to be acquainted with her. Never have I known a Christian
character equal to hers."[341]
On bringing his family to the capital, in November, 1784, from the
far-away solitude of Leatherwood, the governor established them, not
within the city itself, but across the James River, at a place called
Salisbury. What with children and with grandchildren, his family had
now become a patriarchal one; and some slight glimpse of himself and
of his manner of life at that time is given us in the memorandum of
Spencer Roane. In deference to "the ideas attached to the office of
governor, as handed down from the royal government," he is said to
have paid careful attention to his costume and personal bearing before
the public, never going abroad except in black coat, waistcoat, and
knee-breeches, in scarlet cloak, and in dressed wig. Moreover, his
family "were furnished with an excellent coach, at a time when these
vehicles were not so common as at present. They lived as genteelly,
and associated with as polished society, as that of any governor
before or since has ever done. He entertained as much company as
others, and in as genteel a style; and when, at the end of two years,
he resigned the office, he had greatly exceeded the salary, and [was]
in debt, which was one cause that induced him to resume the practice
of the law."[342]
During his two years in the governorship, his duties concerned matters
of much local importance, indeed, but of no particular interest at
present. To this remark one exception may be found in some passages of
friendly correspondence between the governor and Washington,--the
latter then enjoying the long-coveted repose of Mt. Vernon. In
January, 1785, the Assembly of Virginia vested in Washington certain
shares in two companies, just then formed, for opening and extending
the navigation of the James and Potomac rivers.[343] In response to
Governor Henry's letter communicating this act, Washington wrote on
the 27th of February, stating his doubts about accepting such a
gratuity, but at the same time asking the governor as a friend to
assist him in the matter by his advice. Governor Henry's reply is of
interest to us, not only for its allusion to his own domestic
anxieties at the time, but for its revelation of the frank and cordial
relations between the two men:--
RICHMOND, March 12th, 1785.
DEAR SIR,--The honor you are pleased to do me, in your favor
of the 27th ultimo, in which you desire my opinion in a
friendly way concerning the act enclosed you lately, is very
flattering to me. I did not receive the letter till
Thursday, and since that my family has been very sickly. My
oldest grandson, a fine boy indeed, about nine years old,
lays at the point of death. Under this state of uneasiness
and perturbation, I feel some unfitness to consider a
subject of so delicate a nature as that you have desired my
thoughts on. Besides, I have some expectation of a
conveyance more proper, it may be, than the present, when I
would wish to send you some packets received from Ireland,
which I fear the post cannot carry at once. If he does not
take them free, I shan't send them, for they are heavy.
Captain Boyle, who had them from Sir Edward Newenham, wishes
for the honor of a line from you, which I have promised to
forward to him.
I will give you the trouble of hearing from me next post,
if no opportunity presents sooner, and, in the mean time, I
beg you to be persuaded that, with the most sincere
attachment, I am, dear sir, your most obedient servant,
P. HENRY.[344]
GENERAL WASHINGTON.
The promise contained in this letter was fulfilled on the 19th of the
same month, when the governor wrote to Washington a long and careful
statement of the whole case, urging him to accept the shares, and
closing his letter with an assurance of his "unalterable affection"
and "most sincere attachment,"[345]--a subscription not common among
public men at that time.
On the 30th of November, 1786, having declined to be put in nomination
for a third year, as permitted by the Constitution, he finally retired
from the office of governor. The House of Delegates, about the same
time, by unanimous vote, crowned him with the public thanks, "for his
wise, prudent, and upright administration, during his last appointment
of chief magistrate of this Commonwealth; assuring him that they
retain a perfect sense of his abilities in the discharge of the duties
of that high and important office, and wish him all domestic happiness
on his return to private life."[346]
This return to private life meant, among other things, his return,
after an interruption of more than twelve years, to the practice of
the law. For this purpose he deemed it best to give up his remote home
at Leatherwood, and to establish himself in Prince Edward County,--a
place about midway between his former residence and the capital, and
much better suited to his convenience, as an active practitioner in
the courts. Accordingly, in Prince Edward County he continued to
reside from the latter part of 1786 until 1795. Furthermore, by that
county he was soon elected as one of its delegates in the Assembly;
and, resuming there his old position as leader, he continued to serve
in every session until the end of 1790, at which time he finally
withdrew from all official connection with public life. Thus it
happened that, by his retirement from the governorship in 1786, and by
his almost immediate restoration to the House of Delegates, he was put
into a situation to act most aggressively and most powerfully on
public opinion in Virginia during the whole period of the struggle
over the new Constitution.
As regards his attitude toward that great business, we need, first of
all, to clear away some obscurity which has gathered about the
question of his habitual views respecting the relations of the several
States to the general government. It has been common to suppose that,
even prior to the movement for the new Constitution, Patrick Henry had
always been an extreme advocate of the rights of the States as
opposed to the central authority of the Union; and that the tremendous
resistance which he made to the new Constitution in all stages of the
affair prior to the adoption of the first group of amendments is to be
accounted for as the effect of an original and habitual tendency of
his mind.[347] Such, however, seems not to have been the case.
In general it may be said that, at the very outset of the Revolution,
Patrick Henry was one of the first of our statesmen to recognize the
existence and the imperial character of a certain cohesive central
authority, arising from the very nature of the revolutionary act which
the several colonies were then taking. As early as 1774, in the first
Continental Congress, it was he who exclaimed: "All distinctions are
thrown down. All America is thrown into one mass." "The distinctions
between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders
are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American." In the spring of
1776, at the approach of the question of independence, it was he who
even incurred reproach by his anxiety to defer independence until
after the basis for a general government should have been established,
lest the several States, in separating from England, should lapse into
a separation from one another also. As governor of Virginia from 1776
to 1779, his official correspondence with the president of Congress,
with the board of war, and with the general of the army is pervaded
by proofs of his respect for the supreme authority of the general
government within its proper sphere. Finally, as a leader in the
Virginia House of Delegates from 1780 to 1784, he was in the main a
supporter of the policy of giving more strength and dignity to the
general government. During all that period, according to the admission
of his most unfriendly modern critic, Patrick Henry showed himself
"much more disposed to sustain and strengthen the federal authority"
than did, for example, his great rival in the House, Richard Henry
Lee; and for the time those two great men became "the living and
active exponents of two adverse political systems in both state and
national questions."[348] In 1784, by which time the weakness of the
general government had become alarming, Patrick Henry was among the
foremost in Virginia to express alarm, and to propose the only
appropriate remedy. For example, on the assembling of the legislature,
in May of that year, he took pains to seek an early interview with two
of his prominent associates in the House of Delegates, Madison and
Jones, for the express purpose of devising with them some method of
giving greater strength to the Confederation. "I find him," wrote
Madison to Jefferson immediately after the interview, "strenuous for
invigorating the federal government, though without any precise
plan."[349] A more detailed account of the same interview was sent to
Jefferson by another correspondent. According to the latter, Patrick
Henry then declared that "he saw ruin inevitable, unless something was
done to give Congress a compulsory process on delinquent States;" that
"a bold example set by Virginia" in that direction "would have
influence on the other States;" and that "this conviction was his only
inducement for coming into the present Assembly." Whereupon, it was
then agreed between them that "Jones and Madison should sketch some
plan for giving greater power to the federal government; and Henry
promised to sustain it on the floor."[350] Finally, such was the
impression produced by Patrick Henry's political conduct during all
those years that, as late as in December, 1786, Madison could speak of
him as having "been hitherto the champion of the federal cause."[351]
Not far, however, from the date last mentioned Patrick Henry ceased to
be "the champion of the federal cause," and became its chief
antagonist, and so remained until some time during Washington's first
term in the presidency. What brought about this sudden and total
revolution? It can be explained only by the discovery of some new
influence which came into his life between 1784 and 1786, and which
was powerful enough to reverse entirely the habitual direction of his
political thought and conduct. Just what that influence was can now
be easily shown.
On the 3d of August, 1786, John Jay, as secretary for foreign affairs,
presented to Congress some results of his negotiations with the
Spanish envoy, Gardoqui, respecting a treaty with Spain; and he then
urged that Congress, in view of certain vast advantages to our foreign
commerce, should consent to surrender the navigation of the
Mississippi for twenty-five or thirty years,[352]--a proposal which,
very naturally, seemed to the six Southern States as nothing less than
a cool invitation to them to sacrifice their own most important
interests for the next quarter of a century, in order to build up
during that period the interests of the seven States of the North. The
revelation of this project, and of the ability of the Northern States
to force it through, sent a shock of alarm and of distrust into every
Southern community. Moreover, full details of these transactions in
Congress were promptly conveyed to Governor Henry by James Monroe, who
added this pungent item,--that a secret project was then under the
serious consideration of "committees" of Northern men, for a
dismemberment of the Union, and for setting the Southern States
adrift, after having thus bartered away from them the use of the
Mississippi.[353]
On the same day that Monroe was writing from New York that letter to
Governor Henry, Madison was writing from Philadelphia a letter to
Jefferson. Having mentioned a plan for strengthening the
Confederation, Madison says:--
"Though my wishes are in favor of such an event, yet I
despair so much of its accomplishment at the present crisis,
that I do not extend my views beyond a commercial reform. To
speak the truth, I almost despair even of this. You will
find the cause in a measure now before Congress, ... a
proposed treaty with Spain, one article of which shuts the
Mississippi for twenty or thirty years. Passing by the other
Southern States, figure to yourself the effect of such a
stipulation on the Assembly of Virginia, already jealous of
Northern politics, and which will be composed of thirty
members from the Western waters,--of a majority of others
attached to the Western country from interests of their own,
of their friends, or their constituents.... Figure to
yourself its effect on the people at large on the Western
waters, who are impatiently waiting for a favorable result
to the negotiation with Gardoqui, and who will consider
themselves sold by their Atlantic brethren. Will it be an
unnatural consequence if they consider themselves absolved
from every federal tie, and court some protection for their
betrayed rights?"[354]
How truly Madison predicted the fatal construction which in the South,
and particularly in Virginia, would be put upon the proposed surrender
of the Mississippi, may be seen by a glance at some of the resolutions
which passed the Virginia House of Delegates on the 29th of the
following November:--
"That the common right of navigating the river Mississippi,
and of communicating with other nations through that
channel, ought to be considered as the bountiful gift of
nature to the United States, as proprietors of the
territories watered by the said river and its eastern
branches, and as moreover secured to them by the late
revolution.
"That the Confederacy, having been formed on the broad basis
of equal rights, in every part thereof, to the protection
and guardianship of the whole, a sacrifice of the rights of
any one part, to the supposed or real interest of another
part, would be a flagrant violation of justice, a direct
contravention of the end for which the federal government
was instituted, and an alarming innovation in the system of
the Union."[355]
One day after the passage of those resolutions, Patrick Henry ceased
to be the governor of Virginia; and five days afterward he was chosen
by Virginia as one of its seven delegates to a convention to be held
at Philadelphia in the following May for the purpose of revising the
federal Constitution. But amid the widespread excitement, amid the
anger and the suspicion then prevailing as to the liability of the
Southern States, even under a weak confederation, to be slaughtered,
in all their most important concerns, by the superior weight and
number of the Northern States, it is easy to see how little inclined
many Southern statesmen would be to increase that liability by making
this weak confederation a strong one. In the list of such Southern
statesmen Patrick Henry must henceforth be reckoned; and, as it was
never his nature to do anything tepidly or by halves, his hostility
to the project for strengthening the Confederation soon became as hot
as it was comprehensive. On the 7th of December, only three days after
he was chosen as a delegate to the Philadelphia convention, Madison,
then at Richmond, wrote concerning him thus anxiously to Washington:--
"I am entirely convinced from what I observe here, that
unless the project of Congress can be reversed, the hopes of
carrying this State into a proper federal system will be
demolished. Many of our most federal leading men are
extremely soured with what has already passed. Mr. Henry,
who has been hitherto the champion of the federal cause, has
become a cold advocate, and, in the event of an actual
sacrifice of the Mississippi by Congress, will
unquestionably go over to the opposite side."[356]
But in spite of this change in his attitude toward the federal cause,
perhaps he would still go to the great convention. On that subject he
appears to have kept his own counsel for several weeks; but by the 1st
of March, 1787, Edmund Randolph, at Richmond, was able to send this
word to Madison, who was back in his place in Congress: "Mr. Henry
peremptorily refuses to go;" and Randolph mentions as Henry's reasons
for this refusal, not only his urgent professional duties, but his
repugnance to the proceedings of Congress in the matter of the
Mississippi.[357] Five days later, from the same city, John Marshall
wrote to Arthur Lee: "Mr. Henry, whose opinions have their usual
influence, has been heard to say that he would rather part with the
Confederation than relinquish the navigation of the Mississippi."[358]
On the 18th of the same month, in a letter to Washington, Madison
poured out his solicitude respecting the course which Henry was going
to take: "I hear from Richmond, with much concern, that Mr. Henry has
positively declined his mission to Philadelphia. Besides the loss of
his services on that theatre, there is danger, I fear, that this step
has proceeded from a wish to leave his conduct unfettered on another
theatre, where the result of the convention will receive its destiny
from his omnipotence."[359] On the next day, Madison sent off to
Jefferson, who was then in Paris, an account of the situation: "But
although it appears that the intended sacrifice of the Mississippi
will not be made, the consequences of the intention and the attempt
are likely to be very serious. I have already made known to you the
light in which the subject was taken up by Virginia. Mr. Henry's
disgust exceeds all measure, and I am not singular in ascribing his
refusal to attend the convention, to the policy of keeping himself
free to combat or espouse the result of it according to the result of
the Mississippi business, among other circumstances."[360]
Finally, on the 25th of March Madison wrote to Randolph, evidently in
reply to the information given by the latter on the 1st of the month:
"The refusal of Mr. Henry to join in the task of revising the
Confederation is ominous; and the more so, I fear, if he means to be
governed by the event which you conjecture."[361]
That Patrick Henry did not attend the great convention, everybody
knows; but the whole meaning of his refusal to do so, everybody may
now understand somewhat more clearly, perhaps, than before.
FOOTNOTES:
[341] MS.
[342] MS.
[343] Hening, xi. 525-526.
[344] MS.
[345] Sparks, _Corr. Rev._ iv. 93-96. See, also, Washington's letter
to Henry, for Nov. 30, 1785, in _Writings of W._ xii. 277-278.
[346] _Jour. Va. House Del._ for Nov. 25, 1786.
[347] For example, Curtis, _Hist. Const._ ii. 553-554.
[348] Rives, _Life of Madison_, i. 536-537.
[349] Madison, _Letters_, etc. i. 80.
[350] Bancroft, _Hist. Const._ i. 162.
[351] Madison, _Letters_, etc. i. 264.
[352] _Secret Jour. Cong._ iv. 44-63.
[353] Rives, _Life of Madison_, ii. 122.
[354] Rives, _Life of Madison_, ii. 119-120.
[355] _Jour. Va. House Del._ 66-67.
[356] Madison, _Letters_, etc. i. 264.
[357] Rives, _Life of Madison_, ii. 238-239.
[358] R. H. Lee, _Life of A. Lee_, ii. 321.
[359] Sparks, _Corr. Rev._ iv. 168.
[360] _Madison Papers_, ii. 623.
[361] _Madison Papers_, 627.