August 14, 1787: Preventing Corruption

Roger Sherman by unidentified artist after Ralph Earl

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.69.90?destination=node/63231%3Fedan_q%3Droger%2520sherman

"The Constitution should lay as few temptations as possible in the way of those in power."

--Roger Sherman

Tuesday, August 14, 1787

The Convention took up Article VI, Section 9: “The members of each House shall be ineligible to, and incapable of holding any office under the authority of the United States, during the time for which they shall respectively be elected: and the members of the Senate shall be ineligible to, and incapable of holding any such office for one year afterwards.” This prohibition was intended to keep the branches of government separate (Senators can’t simultaneously be federal judges; Representatives can’t hold appointed executive positions under the President) and to reduce corruption (Congress can’t create useless offices with high salaries and then hold those positions).

Charles Pinckney (SC) argued that this provision was degrading, since election indicated that incumbents had the trust of the people, and inconvenient, since it would keep the fittest men out of office. He moved to make Congressmembers ineligible only for paid offices and to allow them to take paid positions once they vacated their congressional seats. Mifflin (PA) seconded.

Mason (VA) vehemently opposed the new motion (he sarcastically suggested removing the whole section to maximally encourage “exotic corruption”), as did Gerry (MA), Sherman (CT), and Ellsworth (CT). Williamson (NC) had “scarcely seen a single corrupt measure in the Legislature of North Carolina, which could not be traced up to office hunting.”

Mercer (MD) supported Pinckney, since he thought the President would be too weak unless Congressmembers were part of his administration. Wilson (PA) and Gouverneur Morris (PA) also supported the motion, with the latter speculating, “Put the case of a war, and the citizen most capable of conducting it happening to be a member of the Legislature.” He made a veiled reference to Washington (VA) having been a member of the Continental Congress in 1775 when he was appointed to head the Continental Army at the beginning of the Revolutionary War: “What might have been the consequence of such a regulation at the commencement, or even in the course, of the late contest for our liberties?”

C. Pinckney’s motion lost in a tied 5–5–1 vote, with New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia in support and Georgia divided.

G. Morris made a motion, seconded by Broom (DE) to carve out an exception for Army and Navy offices. Randolph (VA) admitted that this was the one exemption that he might support. Butler (SC) and C. Pinckney urged to postpone further debate on Article VI, Section 9, until the Senate’s powers were further agreed upon, and their motion passed unanimously.

Article VI, Section 10, “that [Congress]members be paid by their respective States,” was taken up. This measure resembled the status quo, where members of the Confederation Congress were salaried by the state governments.

Ellsworth said he had changed his mind—“too much dependence on the States would be produced by this mode of payment”—and moved that Congressmembers should be paid a fixed salary, adjusting for inflation, out of the federal treasury.

G. Morris, Langdon (NH), Madison, Mason, Broom, Sherman, and Dickinson (DE) supported Ellsworth, with Sherman (one of the few men present from a working class background) going so far as to say that he was “not afraid that the Legislature would make their own wages too high, but too low; so that men ever so fit could not serve unless they were at the same time rich.” His plan was for a “moderate allowance” out of the national treasury which states could choose to supplement for their Congressmembers. Carroll (MD) agreed that the clause as written would make the US Congress too dependent on the states: “The States can now say: If you do not comply with our wishes, we will starve you.”

Butler and Luther Martin (MD) liked giving states the power to leverage Congressmembers using their salaries. Gerry saw merit to the arguments made by both sides. Ultimately, the motion to pay Congressmembers a salary from the federal treasury passed, 9–2, with Massachusetts and South Carolina in opposition.

After a brief haggle, and some failed motions, over what the salary should be set at, the Convention unanimously decided to leave it up to Congress.

Synopsis

• The Convention had a passionate debate over whether Congressmembers should be permitted to simultaneously hold other offices in the United States government and ultimately agreed to postpone a decision.
• The delegates also argued over whether Congressmembers should be paid by their states and then amended the draft Constitution to make those salaries be paid out of the federal treasury.
• Failing to come to quick agreement on what the Congressional salary should be, the Convention decided to let Congress decide that for itself.

Delegates Today

• Gerry (MA) again wrote his wife. He worried after her health, shared social gossip, and discussed family business.
• Washington’s (VA) close associate Henry Knox wrote him from Massachusetts. He had not written before because he feared that the business of the Convention might leak, and the leak be ascribed to Washington. However, the business was now at the point where he could write. While he wished the new government were stronger, he supported it as the best attainable (Knox seems to have been much better informed about what the Convention was doing than the rule of secrecy permitted. His likely informant was King (MA), but possibly Gorham (MA), while certainly not the scrupulous Washington.) On a personal note, he also wrote, “Mrs. Knox and myself recently sustained the severe affliction of losing our youngest child of most eleven months old.... This is the third time that Mrs. Knox has had her tenderest affections lacerated by the rigid hand of death.” Of Knox's twelve children, only three survived their parents.
• Thomas Jefferson wrote Washington from Paris about European politics and a statue of Washington that Jefferson had commissioned from Jean-Antoine Houdon. He approved of Washington’s preference that the statue show him in modern dress, since he thought pretentious people insisting on being depicted in ancient garb like togas were “an object of ridicule.”
• Mifflin (PA) attended the meeting of the Society of Home Manufacture.

Philadelphia Today

• Today was hot, with temperatures in the high 80s.