July 24, 1787: Irresolution

Gouverneur Morris by James Sharples, 1810

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.74.47?destination=edan-search/default_search%3Fedan_local%3D1%26edan_q%3DGouverneur%252BMorris

"It is the most difficult of all, rightly to balance the Executive. Make him too weak—the Legislature will usurp his power. Make him too strong—he will usurp on the Legislature."

--Gouverneur Morris

Tuesday, July 24, 1787: The Convention Today

The Convention made little progress and spent the day tediously rehashing previous arguments, and revisiting previous decisions, over how the President should be elected. This question was inevitably wrapped up in other questions, which were also rehashed: Should the President be eligible for reelection? How long should the President’s term be? Instead of one President should the “national executive” power be lodged in more than one person? Should the President be impeachable?

Houstoun (GA) motioned that the President should be chosen by the national legislature. He doubted capable electors could be found by the state legislatures in more remote locations. Spaight (NC) seconded him.

Gerry (MA) thought this fear was overblown. Choosing the President was a prestigious enough task that capable people would want to do it. If the national legislature chose the President, the only way to make the President independent of the legislature would be to make the President ineligible for reelection, which Gerry strongly opposed.

Strong (MA) argued that turnover from elections would substantially change the national legislature’s makeup and therefore a President chosen by the legislature and eligible for reelection wouldn’t be controlled by the legislature. He thought having state legislatures appoint electors who would choose the President was an unnecessarily complicated system.

Williamson (NC) suggested the President have a seven-year term and be ineligible for reelection. Madison (VA) records, “He did not like the unity in the Executive. He had wished the Executive power to be lodged in three men, taken from three districts, into which the States should be divided.” He thought regional interests in America were so sharply different that having one President would risk him using his veto in a way that favored his region instead of the nation. Moreover, a President would “be an elective king, and will feel the spirit of one. He will spare no pains to keep himself in for life, and will then lay a train for the succession of his children.” Williamson thought America would probably eventually succumb to having a king, but he wanted to forestall it for as long possible. The best way to do that was to remove the possibility of reelection, in which case a term even longer than seven years would be acceptable.

Gerry motioned, and King (MA) seconded, that the state legislatures choose the President.

The Convention passed Houstoun’s motion (having the national legislature choose the President) 7–4, with Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia opposed.

This led Luther Martin (MD) and Gerry to move that the President should be ineligible for reelection.

Ellsworth (CT) wasn’t worried about a reelectable President being controlled by the legislature.

Gerry said the Presidential term should be lengthened to “ten, fifteen, or even twenty years.”

King worried that impeachment was the real way the legislature would control the President. He thought reelectability would strengthen the executive.

In rapid fire, L. Martin, Gerry, King, and Davie (NC) proposed Presidential terms of eleven, fifteen, twenty, and eight years, respectively, with King’s proposal likely being sarcastic, given that he referred to twenty years as “the medium life of princes.”

Wilson (PA) thought all this confusion came from the decision to go back to having the President be chosen by the national legislature. If the Convention really was going with that mode, he wanted the longest possible term of office. He moved to postpone further decision making in the hope that a better method of choosing the President could be determined. Broom (DE) seconded him.

G. Morris deplored the just-passed resolution. In a long speech, he further elaborated that making the President ineligible for reelection would result in him trying to stay in power using military force, resulting in civil war, the winner of which would be “the despot of America.”

The resolution to postpone the debate failed, 4–6.

Wilson suggested that the President be chosen by fifteen randomly picked legislators. He hoped this would reduce the potential for intrigue and make the President less dependent on the legislature. He admitted, “This was not a digested idea, and might be liable to strong objections.” Soon after, he made a motion for this proposal, which Carroll (MD) seconded.

Gerry thought this was a terrible idea. “If the lot should fall on a set of unworthy men, an unworthy Executive must be saddled on the country.” He said any method of choosing the President that involved the legislature was doomed to fail. King worried that the lot might fall on people from one state, who would then be biased (G. Morris said this was quite improbable). Stating, “We ought to be governed by reason, not by chance,” he made a second motion to postpone the debate.

Wilson admitted that his motion wasn’t his favored idea, which was a national election for the Presidency. He seconded King’s motion for a postponement.

This time, the postponement passed unanimously.

A ballot was held to choose five members for a Committee of Detail which would draft the text of the Constitution. The members chosen were Rutledge (SC), Randolph (VA), Gorham (MA), Ellsworth, and Wilson.

Synopsis

• The Convention revisited numerous arguments and decisions that had already been made regarding how the President of the United States would be chosen and how much power the President would wield.
• A motion was passed, 7–4, to have the President be elected by the national legislature. This undid a motion passed just five days earlier, where electors appointed by the state legislatures chose the President.
• The passage of this motion didn’t really end the argument, which eventually the delegates decided to postpone, in hope that they could discover a better way of choosing Presidents.
• Five members were appointed to a Committee of Detail which would draft the text of the Constitution of the United States.

Delegates Today

• Washington (VA) dined at Robert Morris’s and drank tea, “by appointment & particular invitation at Doctor Rush’s.” The emphasis that this was by “particular invitation” probably reflects past problems. During the Revolution, Rush had written Washington an anonymous letter attacking Dr. William Shippen’s administration of the Hospital Department and, when no action was forthcoming, had had some hard words for the General.
• William Gardiner wrote from New York to Langdon (NH), who had just arrived in Philadelphia. Gardiner apparently had a low opinion of New Hampshire’s other delegate, Gilman, noting with apparent sarcasm, “Suppose Mr. Gilman reach'd Phila. nearly as soon as your Honor, he being a Stage passenger. Make no doubt his consummate abilities will contribute to bring mighty things to pass.”

Philadelphia Today

• Philadelphia artist and museum keeper Charles Willson Peale filed his account as an agent with Pennsylvania's Supreme Executive Council for the sale of property confiscated from Tories. It included a charge 2021 pounds, 5 shillings for a portrait of George Washington (VA).
• According to the August 2 New York Daily Advertizer, “while a prosecution was carrying on in the city court against a man charged with larceny, he took an opportunity of slipping by the constable who guarded the bar, and made his escape, just as the court was calling on him to make his defense.”