September 14, 1787: All the Possibilities

John Rutledge by John Trumbull, 1791

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.97.190?destination=node/63231%3Fedan_q%3Djohn%2520rutledge

“That persons impeached be suspended from their offices, until they be tried and acquitted.”

--motion by John Rutledge and Gouverneur Morris, one of many motions that failed today

Friday, September 14, 1787: The Convention Today

The Convention continued their line-by-line examination of the draft Constitution reported by the Committee of Style. This resulted in a dizzying hodgepodge of different motions on a variety of topics.

Williamson (NC) made another proposal to increase the size of the House of Representatives. As previously, this failed, this time 5–6.

Rutledge (SC) and Gouverneur Morris (PA) moved for impeached government officers to be suspended from office until “tried and acquitted.” Madison (VA) and King (MA) thought this would give Congress too much power over the President. The motion failed 3–8.

The Committee of Style’s draft Constitution had Congress appoint the Treasurer of the United States. Rutledge moved for the President to appoint the Treasurer, just as the President appointed all other department heads.

Gorham (MA), King (MA), and Sherman (CT) disagreed with Rutledge. People were used to legislatures appointing treasurers. It made sense, since the treasurer was spending as the legislature directed. G. Morris worried that Congress would be suspicious of, and quick to impeach, a treasurer whom it hadn’t appointed.

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (SC) supported Rutledge, since in their home state the treasurer was appointed by the legislature and “the consequence is, that bad appointments are made, and the Legislature will not listen to the faults of their own officer.”

Rutledge’s motion carried 8–3.

Franklin (PA) moved, and Wilson (PA) seconded, to give Congress the power to build canals.

Sherman was opposed, since all Americans would pay for such canals, but they’d only benefit people who lived near them. Wilson responded that canals could be a source of revenue.

Madison wanted to broaden Franklin’s motion by letting Congress “grant charters of incorporation where the interest of the United States might require, and the legislative provisions of individual States may be incompetent.” Randolph (VA) seconded. Wilson supported.

King was opposed. People from New York City and Philadelphia would use such a provision to try to create a national bank, while others would attempt “mercantile monopolies.”

Wilson thought this concern was too much. Canals would benefit everybody. National banks were unlikely to be a trigger of partisanship. Mercantile monopolies were already theoretically possible, considering Congress’s power to regulate trade.

Mason (VA) liked Franklin’s canal idea, but not Madison’s broader proposal. He feared “monopolies of every sort,” and he didn’t think Congress’s previously created regulatory powers enabled them.

Franklin’s motion failed, 3–8, and, after that, Madison’s motion wasn’t even voted on.

Madison and Charles Pinckney (SC) moved to allow Congress to create a national university, “in which no preferences or distinctions should be allowed on account of religion.”

Wilson supported the motion. G. Morris thought it unnecessary; the Constitution gave Congress this power already without specifying it.

The motion failed 4–6–1.

Mason recognized that there might be a need to have a standing peacetime army but he also thought such an army was so great a danger to American liberty that he moved to add a clause stating that the state militias existed partly to defend against the US Army. Randolph seconded, and Madison supported.

G. Morris, C. Pinckney, and Bedford (DE) all thought this motion would set “a dishonorable mark” on American soldiers. The motion failed 2–9.

C. Pinckney and Gerry (MA) moved to add “that the liberty of the press should be inviolably observed” to the Constitution. Sherman thought it unnecessary, since Congress wasn’t being granted any power to interfere with the press. The motion failed.

Synopsis

• Sensing the near end of the Convention, the delegates made several motions on various, unrelated subjects.
• The most noteworthy motion that passed shifted appointment of the Treasurer of the United States from Congress to the President.
• Several interesting motions failed:
  • The size of the House of Representatives was not increased.
  • Impeached government officers would not be suspended from office until acquitted.
  • One of the stated purposes of the state militias would not be to guard against the US Army.
  • Freedom of the press would not be explicitly guaranteed.
  • Congress would not be given the explicit power to:
    • Fund canals
    • “Grant charters of incorporation”
    • Create a national university

Delegates Today

Washington (VA) dined at City Tavern at an entertainment given for him by the First Troop, City Cavalry. Henry Knox wrote to him from New York “to congratulate you on the termination of your arduous business & to wish you a happy sight of Mrs. Washington and your family.” The items on the bill for the festivities are eye-opening:

“To 55 Gentlemen

• Dinners & fruit Relishes, Olives etc
• 54 Bottles of Madera
• 60 of Claret
• 8 ditto of Old Stock
• 22 Bottles of Porter
• 8 of Cider
• 12 ditto Bee
• 7 Large Bowels of Punch
• Segar’s Spermaceti Candles etc

To Decanters Wine Glass & Tumblers Broken etc.

To 16 Musicians & Servants Dinners

• 16 Bottles of Claret
• 5 ditto Madera
• 7 Bowls of Punch”

So, for 55 revelers and 16 musicians/servants, the party was provided with 135 bottles of wine, 42 bottles of beer, cider, and mead, 8 bottles of whiskey, and 14 punch bowls (yes, the punch was also alcoholic). Enough glass objects were broken that City Tavern felt the need to bill that as well.

Philadelphia Today

• Noah Webster noted “a violent Thunder Gust which cooled the extreme heat.”
• At its daily meeting, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, at the request of the Wardens of the Port of Philadelphia, ordered that the lots on the south side of Lombard Street between Tenth and Twelfth Streets “be appropriated as a burial ground for the interment of strangers and others, who may not have been in communion with a religious society at the time of their decease”