Lion of Liberty (32 page)

Washington's friend Gouverneur Morris, who had written the final draft of the Constitution and its Preamble, condemned Clinton as part of a “wicked industry of those who have long habituated themselves to live on the public and cannot bear the idea of being removed from power and profit of state government, which has been and still is the means of supporting themselves, their families, and dependents.”
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When Congress sent the Constitution to the states in the fall of 1787, the New York State legislature was not in session and not scheduled to reconvene until the new year. Like Patrick Henry, Clinton planned to block the call for a ratification convention as long as he could, but, when that became impossible, his Antifederalist allies in the New York Senate set about undermining the convention by requiring all state officeholders to take an oath “never to consent to any act or thing which has a tendency to destroy or alter the present constitution of the state.”
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The oath did not preclude calling a ratification convention—or attending it. It simply made it illegal to vote for ratification. The concept of the oath, however, so violated the principles of antifederalism and individual liberty that even Clinton's staunchest allies voted against it. They nonetheless agreed to postpone elections for the ratification convention until April 29, a month after the Virginia convention elections.

Calling themselves “Federal Republicans,” Clinton and his Antifederalist allies in New York's farm belt set out to defeat ratification in the remaining
states and provoke rescindment in Pennsylvania, where controversy continued raging over the elections to the ratification convention. Rumors swirled that he was attempting to form a “middle confederacy” tying New York and Virginia and the states in between them—Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey—in an economic union that would isolate New England from the deep South.

Henry responded enthusiastically. “It is a matter of great consolation to find that the sentiments of a vast majority of Virginians are in unison with those of our northern friends,” Henry wrote from Richmond.

Henry conceded that “the numbers” at the Virginia ratification convention were “equal on both sides” and that “the majority, which way so-ever it goes, will be small. . . . Colonel George Mason has agreed to act as chairman of our republican society . . . and we have concluded to send you . . . a copy of the Bill of Rights and of the particular amendments we intend to propose. ...”
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Henry arrived in Richmond brimming with confidence, certain that his four overriding objections to the Constitution would defeat its ratification. First and foremost was the lack of a bill of rights. His second objection was the unlimited power of the new national government to tax the people without the consent of their state legislatures—one of the issues that provoked the Revolutionary War. A third objection was the federal government's power over the military and the right to send it into any state to enforce federal laws—-again, an issue that provoked the Revolutionary War. His fourth major objection—and he was adamant on this point—was the right of the smallest possible majority in Congress to legislate against the interests of Virginia (or any other state, for that matter)—as it almost
did with the Jay-Gardoqui negotiations to cede Mississippi River navigation rights of western farmers to Spain.

Henry went to Richmond with a tactical advantage: The state legislature was to reconvene in only four weeks, on June 30. Most of the delegates at the convention were also members of the legislature and would, by law, have to leave the convention to take their seats as lawmakers. The Federalists led by the diminutive James Madison would have but four weeks to win ratification in the face of Henry's oratorical blasts and the arguments of his formidable allies: the sitting governor Edmund Randolph, former governor Benjamin Harrison, and both of Virginia's popular delegates to Congress, James Monroe and William Grayson, who had helped put an end to the Jay-Gardoqui negotiations with Spain. Henry hoped that among the five of them—and planter George Mason—they could talk the convention to death. Indeed, Henry would come close to doing the job by himself, speaking on seventeen of the convention's twenty-two days, often three times a day and five times on one day. On another, he was the only speaker, standing seven hours to deliver his address.

After a day devoted to organization, the convention opened, with Henry, of course, shooting to his feet. Well-wishers had surrounded his gig when he rode into town, and wherever he went, they surrounded him, walked with him, joked with him, even sang with him—always addressing him with adoring familiarity. Kentucky's fourteen delegates and their followers let loose a chorus of raucous whoops when they came to town and hailed their hero. Nearly half the 100,000 settlers in Kentucky were Virginia transplants who relied on Henry to protect their interests. In tasseled buckskins, buck-tailed hats, rifles slung over their shoulders, and knives in their belts, they drew nervous stares from Tidewater aristocrats in powdered wigs, velvet jackets, ruffled silk shirts, knee breeches, silk hose, and buckle-top shoes.

Fifty-two-year-old Henry stood apart from both the eastern dandies and rough-hewn frontiersmen. Still frail from his recurring illnesses, his coarse black homespun, white neck wrap, and sunken cheeks gave him a Christ-like look to some—although other, less charitable onlookers compared him to “a scarecrow with a wig.” It was no surprise that he was first to rise after the convention had fixed the rules of order and heard the contents of the Constitution.
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“Mr. Chairman,” he began,

Henry went on to accuse the authors of the Constitution of having usurped powers and staged a coup d'état by violating the mandate of Congress. Congress had called the Constitutional Convention, he reminded Virginians, “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein.” Instead, he charged, they effectively set out to overthrow the Confederation and replace it with a national government.

Henry questioned the motives of delegates at the Constitutional Convention: “I would demand the cause of their conduct . . . even from that illustrious man who saved us by his valor.” His unmistakable reference to Washington drew gasps of outrage from Federalists.

Henry's ally, Governor Edmund Randolph, then took the floor for what Henry expected would be the coup de grace for ratification. Henry and Mason gave Randolph a warm nod of approval, but the governor fixed his eyes on the president, reminding him that, as a member of the Constitutional Convention,

George Mason's face turned red with anger at Randolph's evident mockery of Mason's dramatic refusal to sign the Constitution in Philadelphia.

Randolph then looked at Henry: “I shall now follow the honorable gentleman in his enquiry,” he continued in mocking tones. “The honorable gentleman . . . inquires why we assumed the language of “We, the People.” I ask why not? The government is for the people. . . . Is it unfair? Is it unjust? I take this to be one of the least and most trivial objections that will be made to the Constitution. ...” As Henry's eyes bulged red with rage, Randolph shocked the convention by abruptly switching political allegiance: “In the whole of this business, I have acted in the strictest obedience to my conscience, in discharging what I conceive to be my duty to my country. I refused my signature . . . I would still refuse; but as I think that those eight states which have adopted the Constitution will not recede, I am a friend to the Union.”
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Randolph's speech left the entire hall in stunned silence—Federalists as well as Antifederalists. It left Henry and Mason irate—and Henry deeply
hurt. No one had ever mocked him before in private, let alone in public. To be mocked by a member of the Tidewater aristocracy was doubly painful. For years, Henry had believed that his service in the Assembly and as governor, along with his marriage to Dolly and his ties to her family, had bridged the social divide between the old Virginia aristocracy and backcountry folk like himself. With Randolph's sudden espousal of the Constitution, Henry now believed that Tidewater aristocrats intended to use the new national government to recapture powers they had held under the British monarchy in the House of Burgesses. In recalling Randolph's betrayal a few years later, Jefferson would characterize the governor as “the poorest chameleon I ever saw, having no color of his own and reflecting that nearest him.”
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As Henry seethed with anger, however, the lion in him bared his oratorical claws, ready to spring at his prey.

Chapter 14

Randolph's attack proved the beginning of a concerted Federalist plan to discredit Henry by mocking him with excessive praise: “I feel every power of my mind moved by the language of the honorable gentleman yesterday,” declared General Henry (“Lighthorse Harry”) Lee, a hero at the battle of Guilford Courthouse and a close friend and confidant of Washington.

Accusing Henry of failing to examine the Constitution objectively, Lee sneered, “The gentleman sat down as he began, leaving us to ruminate on the horrors which he opened with . . . but, sir, this system is to be examined on its own merit. . . . Mr. Chairman, was it proper to appeal to the fear of this house? . . . I trust he is come here to judge and not to alarm.”

A night's sleep left Henry ready to repel the Federalists, however, and he sprang to his feet the next day to punish Randolph and Lee. He glanced up at the coagulum of adoring buckskins in the gallery and, like the young backcountry lawyer in nearby Saint John's Church two decades earlier, he felt the same rush of “unearthly fire.” As then, “the tendons of his neck stood out white and rigid like whipcords.”
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As then, he began softly, this time with a snide grin: “I am much obliged to the very worthy gentleman for his encomium,” he mocked Lee. “I wish I was possessed of talents, or possessed of any thing that might enable me to elucidate on this great subject. . . .” He paused to send an understanding wink to buckskins in the gallery. “I rose yesterday to ask a question,” he explained. “I thought the meaning . . . was obvious. . . .” His voice rose: