July 13, 1787: A Two-headed Snake

Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Siffred Duplessis, 1785.

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

"The Doctor [Franklin] showed me a curiosity he had just received, and with he was much pleased. It was a snake with two heads ... he was then going to mention a humorous matter that had that day taken place in Convention, in consequence of his comparing the snake to America, ... but the secrecy of Convention matters was suggested to him, which stopped him, and deprived me of the story he was going to tell."

--Manasseh Cutler, Massachusetts clergyman, politician, and scientist.

Friday, July 13, 1787: The Convention Today
The day began with another attempt by a southern delegate to reduce the congressional representation of a northern state. Williamson (NC) noted that New Hampshire (whose delegates still hadn’t arrived in Philadelphia) was currently assigned three representatives, a number he had specifically supported in the debate on July 10. However, on July 12, the Convention had decided that direct taxation of states would be kept proportionate with representation in Congress. According to Williamson’s reasoning, New Hampshire would probably want less representation if that meant less of a tax burden.

Next, Read (DE) complained that some of the large states had been suspiciously contented with having what seemed to him like less than their fair share of representatives. He accused them of wanting to pay less than their fair share of taxes (taxation and representation being linked at the same proportion), a charge that Gouverneur Morris (PA) and Madison (VA) denied. Madison said that the real division was not between large and small states, but between northern and southern states, which was why he liked the idea of accounting three-fifths of enslaved people in the census, since it was a compromise between southerners, who wanted them to be counted equally with free Americans, and northerners, who didn’t want enslaved people to be counted at all.

Randolph (VA) moved to drop wealth as a factor in fixing each state's representation in Congress and to use free population plus three-fifths of the enslaved population as the only basis for representation. G. Morris opposed this, saying that if slaves were legally considered people then they should be fully represented and if they were legally considered property then they should only be counted as property and that wealth should be a factor in how representation would be apportioned.

G. Morris grew heated as he spoke at length against how the “Southern gentlemen” were determined to make sure that the South (and future western states) would eventually have complete control of Congress. “The consequence of such a transfer of power from the maritime to the interior and landed interest, will... be such an oppression to commerce, that,” Morris said he felt, “obliged to vote for the vicious principle of” giving every state an equal vote in the second house of Congress (something he had previously strongly opposed) in order to ensure that the North still had some political power. He said that if the southern states continued with their demands, it would be best for North and South to take “friendly leave of each other.” He worried that the southern states would ally with future states created in the western frontier, which would rely on the Mississippi River (controlled by Spain at the time). He feared that they and the southern states would provoke a war with Spain, which would ruin the maritime economy of the northeastern states.

To all of this, Butler (SC) responded, “The security the Southern States want is, that their negroes may not be taken from them, which some gentlemen [both within and outside the Convention] have a very good mind to do.” He did not deny that the southern states and the frontier would rapidly gain population, as G. Morris feared.

Wilson (PA) declared that “the majority of people, wherever found, ought in all questions to govern the minority,” which meant that the current thirteen states would be wrong to deny fair representation to future states that would be created in the west. He thought easterners throttling the political power of western pioneers was akin to how Great Britain had treated the Americans during the colonial era. He further opposed basing representation on wealth because he “could not agree that property was the sole or primary object of government and society. The cultivation and improvement of the human mind was the most noble object.” To him, this meant that power should be apportioned solely according to population.

A vote was taken, and nine states agreed (with Delaware’s delegation divided) that representation in the first house of Congress should be based only on population.

Synopsis

• Gouverneur Morris (PA) and Butler (SC) clashed over slavery and representation, with G. Morris accusing the South of being power hungry and self-interested.
• Delegates debated whether the number of representatives a state received in the first house of the legislature should be based solely on population or on both population and wealth.
• A vote was taken, and the Convention agreed by a 9–0–1 margin to base representation only on population.

Delegates Today

• Strong (MA) and Massachusetts clergyman and scientist Manasseh Cutler breakfasted at Gerry's (MA) rented house on Spruce Street. Later that afternoon Gerry accompanied Cutler to visit Franklin (PA). Cutler was enthralled with Franklin and his library and practical inventions. These inventions included a large rocking chair equipped with a fan operated with a simple foot pedal, a long artificial arm and hand that took books from his library shelves, and a letter copying press designed to make a facsimile of written or printed documents.
• Dayton (NJ) wrote Livingston (NJ), whose duties as governor made him temporarily absent, to vent his frustration at the lack of progress in the convention.

Philadelphia Today

• The heat spell broke, giving Philadelphians a pleasant day.
• Manasseh Cutler spent the day sightseeing. He visited the State House (Independence Hall) and its yard, the University of Pennsylvania (he was not impressed), Peale's Museum (he was very impressed), and several houses of worship. Besides calling on Franklin, Strong, and Gerry, he visited Bishop William White of Christ Church.