Mr. President (45 page)

That title is sometimes bestowed on James Wilson, who made the
motion for a single executive, first introduced the notion of presidential electors, named the office, and served on the Committee of Detail, which gave the presidency some sense of definition in early August. Further, to the delight of modern authors, he pushed doggedly for popular elections, a notion that was shunned by most of his peers but is common currency today. Wilson presaged the modern presidency, it is said, although that is reading history backward.

While Wilson did much to shape the executive office, his story masks that of Gouverneur Morris. In part, that is because of their differences in style. Wilson adopted concrete positions and held them firmly, making his participation easier to follow and recount. Morris, by contrast, was admittedly all over the map. Fickle, he is called, too clever by half. In the words of one recent author, “For lawyerly sophism, Morris had few peers.” This reputation tempts commentators to dismiss him out of hand. One recent author wrote that Morris, “having temporarily taken leave of his senses,” suggested that each presidential elector vote for two candidates, one from outside the elector’s home state—a seemingly sensible proposition at the time and one that found its way into the Constitution.
⁴

There was reason to Morris’s madness, but that reason requires close scrutiny to detect. Inconsistency does not preclude influence. When Morris suddenly repudiated life tenure for the president in favor of repeatable two-year terms, other delegates listened, even if later commentators have not. Morris’s argument on July 19 altered the thrust of the convention, albeit but briefly. On August 24 and 31, he maneuvered cleverly to recapture ground he had gained but then lost. Within the Committee of Eleven he held sway, and when a report emerged that turned the presidency on its head, the convention finally acquiesced. None of this can be captured by saying, “Gouverneur Morris believed this,” or “Gouverneur Morris believed that,” the way Wilson is treated. The static view must give way to a more dynamic approach.

This is not to say Morris was more of a “father” to the presidency than Wilson, or vice versa. That sort of tiering is pointless and even counterproductive, concealing the collective nature of the enterprise and the interactive dialogue that fosters ideas and generates solutions. The Constitutional Convention was in fact a deliberative body, and understanding deliberations, which are inherently fluid, calls for a fluid narrative.

Accounts of the origins of the presidency cannot be rigidly structured. Debates bordered on the farcical at times, and they demand our patience. Through the chaos we search for a story line, and as we do, we find human actors, protagonists who appear to drive the agenda and without whom the story cannot be told. Gouverneur Morris is one of these, as is James Wilson. The dramatic tension cannot be disclosed without paying attention to George Mason, Edmund Randolph, James Madison, Elbridge Gerry, John Rutledge, and others who make key appearances. These are the players, and as we watch them interact, the story reveals itself. There are no shortcuts, just as there were no pat solutions to the troublesome problems the framers faced. When undertaking this book, I had no idea that a peg-legged, haughty lawyer viewed today as too clever by half would play such a role, but there he was, day after day, espousing his agenda and conniving for its acceptance. His ideas evolved with the situational dynamics of the moment, but in the end his actions helped determine much of the presidency as we know it.

Gouverneur Morris does not own this story; in fact, after the convention he virtually disappears, even as the debates continue. Others would determine whether or not the Constitution would be ratified, who could remove appointees, who would shape foreign policy, and how far executive authority might extend in myriad situations. But to discuss the origins of the presidency within the walls of the Pennsylvania State House in the summer of 1787 without accounting for Gouverneur Morris’s influence will inevitably lead, and has always led, to distortions of the historical record.

I have eliminated some of the capitalization within quotations to make the words and thoughts of the authors appear less archaic. Although most scholars prefer to retain all original capitalization, I see no useful purpose in this practice, which often reflects idiosyncratic handwriting or casual contemporary transcription and has little if any significant effect on content. On the other hand, I retain all the original spelling, which contributes to our understanding of the etymology of words and therefore has historical import.

I do preserve capitalization when it appears to conform to conventional usage at the time. In reading documents contemporary to the founding era, I have noted some patterns in capitalization, an informal grammar of sorts. Words denoting governmental constructs, bodies, or offices (e.g., “Government,” “National,” “State,” “Union,” “Colonies,” “Executive,” “Monarchy,” “King,” “President,” “Magistrate,” “Chief Magistrate,” “Legislature,” “Assembly”) were generally capitalized. So too were words denoting geographic constructs and directions (e.g., “Continent,” “Country,” “East,” “Western”) and individuals to whom deference was given (e.g., “Chairman,” “Gentlemen”). When a word is capitalized within a source document that conforms to such unwritten rules, I let the capitalization stand. I have also maintained the original when the text suggests that the author purposely used capitalization for emphasis. In this manner I have tried to strike a middle ground between seemingly random capitalization, which would slow readers down and perhaps interfere with comprehension, and a complete modernization of texts, which would falsely suggest there were no linguistic differences between those times and ours.

Previously, when source documents were difficult to access, it was
important for scholars not to alter quotations in any way, but readers today who wish to consult sources directly will have little trouble doing so. All quotations in this book are cited; many sources can be located on the Internet and most are available in printed collections at almost any university.

I have retained the original capitalization when quoting from documents that the nation has enshrined: the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution.

1.
Madison to Washington, April 16, 1787, in Madison,
Papers
, 9:384–85.

  1
. Richard L. Bushman,
King and People in Provincial Massachusetts
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 24.

  2
.
Boston Gazette
, December 29, 1760.

  3
. Bushman,
King and People
, 21.

  4
.
Boston News-Letter
, January 1, 1761.

  5
. Bushman,
King and People
, 22.

  6
. John Dickinson,
Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania
, letter 3, Online Library of Liberty,
http://​oll​.libertyfund​.org​/?option​=com_staticxt​&staticfile​=show​.php%3Ftitle​=690​&chapter​=102302​&layout​=html​&Itemid​=​27
.

  7
. William Lincoln, ed.,
The Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775, and of the Committee of Safety, with an Appendix, Containing the Proceedings of the County Conventions
(Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1838), 601–5. Resolves from the other rebellious counties in Massachusetts (606–60) also contained angry phrases coupled with deference to the king.

  8
. King George III to Lord North, November 18, 1774, in
The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as Told by the Participants
, ed. Henry S. Commager and Richard B. Morris (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958), 1:61; Robert Middlekauff,
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 262; Washington,
Papers
, Revolutionary War Series, 1:90, 171, 274, 280, 447; 2:161, 187, 282, 392, 585. Only when referring to British soldiers in Canada did Washington use the term “King’s troops” (Washington,
Papers
, Revolutionary War Series, 2:73).