Mr. President (7 page)

In South Carolina in 1780, with British forces staged to take over Charleston, the legislature granted its chief executive, John Rutledge, the “power to do everything necessary for the public good except the taking away the life of a citizen without legal trial.” When the British then made advances into Virginia, Governor Thomas Jefferson called the legislators together and asked for additional powers, such as the authority to draft slaves to build military fortifications. His proposals were modest, however, when compared with others’. Under attack and very nervous, Virginia’s assemblymen seriously debated whether to “have a dictator appointed,” with the “power of disposing of the lives and fortunes of the citizens thereof without being subject to account.” Although legislators rejected the notion of an all-powerful executive, they did grant Jefferson’s successor, Thomas Nelson, the authority to impress food and supplies, call forth militias and dispatch them at his will, and imprison or banish suspected Tories.
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The desperation of war placed similar pressures on the confederated quasi-government in Philadelphia. Back in December 1776, as he struggled to keep Washington’s army in the field to defend the young nation’s capital, Robert Morris had proposed that Congress “pay good executive men to do their business as it ought to be & not lavish missions away by their own mismanagement. I say mismanagement because no men living can attend the daily deliberations of Congress & do executive part of business at the same time.” The following year Congress gave a tentative nod to Morris’s ideas by establishing a few key “boards” and appointing some men who were not delegates, but the boards possessed little money or authority, and like Congress itself they depended ultimately on the state governments.

Increasingly, as the war lengthened and deepened, Robert Morris’s call for full-time executive officers, however repugnant to republican ideals, received serious consideration. In 1780, Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s aspiring aide-de-camp who had taken upon himself the study of politics and government, presented a comprehensive plan to strengthen the confederacy and reorganize Congress. In a letter to James Duane, an influential delegate to Congress, Hamilton reiterated Robert Morris’s basic complaint—“Congress is properly a deliberative corps and it forgets itself when it attempts to play the executive”—and then outlined distinct executive departments with individuals at the helm. He even suggested which individuals would be best at these new
posts: General Philip Schuyler (his soon-to-be father-in-law) as president of war, Alexander McDougall as president of marine, and Robert Morris as financier. Here was a structure that emphasized efficient management, but even Hamilton at this point stopped short of the ultimate centralization of power, a single man above the department heads, a chief executive.
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Hamilton’s timing was perfect, for Congress was in a collective state of despair. The war, with no apparent end, was only part of the problem; equally significant was the total collapse of the economy. The value of currency issued by Congress, backed by nothing in particular, spiraled downward. By the close of 1780 a Continental dollar could not even buy a penny’s worth of goods. Few sensible investors were willing to loan money or advance goods to Congress, a body that had no viable way to raise funds other than begging from its constituent states.

Lacking both money and credit, Congress had to act decisively. On February 7, 1781, delegates resolved to create three “civil executive departments” that would be headed, as Alexander Hamilton and others had suggested, by individuals, not committees or boards. The first office listed was “Financier,” followed by “Secretary at War” and “Secretary of Marine.” The priority was clear. Without a workable financial system, nothing else was possible.
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Less than two weeks later, Congress unanimously elected Robert Morris, who had ushered Congress through hard times back in the winter of 1776–77, to serve as financier. When Morris expressed reluctance, Congress enticed him with the offer of extraordinary powers. He could make all his own appointments, with no input from Congress. Everybody in the government who handled money in any capacity would serve at his pleasure. He could borrow money from foreign governments and import or export goods, all on the nation’s tab. He could deal with foreign ministers, thereby running his own department of foreign affairs. Without congressional oversight, he could issue private contracts to supply the army. Soon, he also assumed control of the Marine Department.
The
Financier, as he was called, accepted the powers and used them, and he produced results. He stimulated the flow of money through a national bank, and he restored confidence in governmental notes by backing them with his own personal credit, which people still trusted.

If the Financier’s powers sound to us today dangerously close to
one-man rule, that’s how many at the time viewed it as well. Late in 1781, Joseph Reed commented wryly to Nathanael Greene:

The Financier’s “reign” (as some called it) ended in 1784 for two reasons. First, despite all his powers, Morris was never able to achieve his primary goal, giving Congress the power to tax. Without that, the federal government could never rest on a firm and lasting financial footing. Second, the war had come to an end, and with it people’s tolerance for allocating exceptional powers to any executive officer. In the words of the Financier’s outspoken assistant, Gouverneur Morris (no family relation to Robert), peace was “not much in the interest of America,” for it lessened the need for strong government. “War,” on the other hand, “is indeed a rude, rough nurse to infant states.”
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The coming of peace shifted the political tide back toward the pure republicans, those who opposed any centralization of political authority. The focal points of power and politics in the postwar years were the states, not Congress. With the disappearance of an immediate military threat, a lack of funds, no clear mandate, and scant authority under the Articles of Confederation, congressional delegates felt they had more important business to transact, both public and private, back in Virginia, Massachusetts, or wherever they resided. Sometimes Congress could not even convene for lack of a quorum. “Congress continue to be thin, and of course do little business of importance,” James Madison, a congressman from Virginia, wrote to George Washington on April 16, 1787.
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Madison penned these words four years after the war officially ended and three years after the Financier left office. In the interim, Congress’s influence and reputation had continued to slide. In the fall of 1786, when authorities in Massachusetts appealed for federal help to suppress what they labeled a domestic insurrection, Congress, without
money and lacking the authority to call up a peacetime army, came up empty. Yet ironically, as weak as it was, Congress was vilified for failing to cure the nation’s ills, while those wanting to strengthen its hand were accused of power mongering. So Congress was caught in a bind, too feeble to act yet suspected of being too strong.

There was a way out, people like James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Robert Morris, and Gouverneur Morris reasoned. If Americans overhauled the existing rules of the confederation, they could form a stronger union that was better equipped to govern at home and attain influence abroad. To give that government more “vigor” and “energy,” as these men and others said at the time, they would need to reverse the retreat from executive authority, but they had to tread lightly. Even the faintest hint of monarchy, or the least resemblance to the hated royal governorships, could jeopardize any plan to create a new government.

Shortly before 10:00 on the first morning of June, forty-three astute statesmen, seasoned by the tumultuous Revolution that had dominated political life over the previous two decades, filed into the east chamber of the Pennsylvania State House, normally occupied by the state assembly. The room was large and airy, forty feet on a side, more than twice the height of a man, and generally bright unless the shutters were closed. Tall multipaned windows dominated the walls flanking the entrance. On cool days, and there were still a few of these, the room was warmed by two fireplaces on the paneled wall facing the door.
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Since the convention had opened a week before, delegates now approached seats they had already claimed, comfortable Windsor chairs arranged around small writing tables, each with quill and ink at the ready. The secretary, Major William Jackson, a former member of Washington’s staff and agent for Robert Morris, took his place at the front, just below and to the side of the president’s chair, while James Madison, who was recording a more personal and detailed account than Jackson’s, sat as usual “in front of the presiding member, with the other members on my right & left hands.” This was the most “favorable position for hearing all that passed,” Madison explained in the preface to his invaluable
Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787
. George Washington assumed his seat in a mahogany Chippendale
chair, topped by a frieze of the sun and its rays, which had been fashioned by a local craftsman during the Revolutionary War. The doorkeeper closed the entryway. A lagging delegate from Georgia came forward to present his credentials. Then Washington read the order of the day, which was quite simple: the convention would transform itself into a committee of the whole to resume discussion of a working draft to reshape the federal government.

This would be their sixth session and their third day of active deliberations. To understand the dramatic events of June 1, the day the American presidency was first discussed by a public body, we need some familiarity with the terrain they had already explored.

The previous Friday, May 25, delegates had convened and unanimously chosen George Washington as their president. They presented credentials from the eleven states they represented, chose a committee to prepare the rules, and then retired for the weekend to settle into their temporary lodgings.

On Monday, May 28, they decided on some rules. Since the delegates were hardly strangers to deliberative bodies, they had little difficulty agreeing on the customary blend of democracy (no member would be permitted to speak a second time “upon the same question” before every other member had been given a chance) and deference (upon adjournment, “every member shall stand in his place, until the President pass him”).

Then, on Tuesday, they imposed one more behavioral regulation: “That nothing spoken in the house be printed, or otherwise published, or communicated, without leave.” Enforced secrecy, unlike the other rules, defied the prevailing ethic of the times. Throughout the Revolutionary era, Americans had insisted on transparency in their deliberative bodies, but these men wanted to speak their minds freely, without regard to how their words might be portrayed, understood, or misunderstood by the public.

The convention then began to address substantive matters. Edmund Randolph, governor of Virginia, the largest state in the confederation, announced that since Virginia had been the first to call for a convention, its delegation would lay matters on the table for proper consideration. Randolph and his colleagues had arrived in Philadelphia earlier than the rest, and while waiting for the others, they had drafted a coordinated list of proposals for altering the Articles of Confederation.
Randolph, as head of the delegation, then read aloud fifteen resolutions, known collectively as the Virginia Plan, to be accepted, rejected, or amended as the convention might see fit.

On Wednesday, May 30, delegates started discussing Randolph’s resolutions, item by item. The first proposal set out its basic premise, “that the Articles of Confederation ought to be so corrected & enlarged as to accomplish the objects proposed by their institution; namely, common defence, security of liberty and general welfare.” Hold it right there, Gouverneur Morris said. The convention should come right out and state its true intention: to transform the confederation into a genuine government. Randolph, in agreement, moved to delete the words “the Articles of Confederation ought to be so corrected & enlarged” and substitute in their stead: “A national government ought to be established consisting of a supreme Legislative, Executive & Judiciary.”

The key words here, “national” and “supreme,” differentiated the new government sharply from the old one. According to Morris, the confederation was “a mere compact resting on the good faith of the parties,” not a government per se, which must involve a “compulsive operation.” “In all communities there must be one supreme power, and one only,” he argued, and that power should be a supreme, national government.

Six states voted with Morris and Randolph, one against, and one divided. The consequences of the decisive vote, taken so early in the proceedings, were monumental. Having abandoned the Articles of Confederation, delegates would no longer have to bow to any of its provisions; instead, they could create a new government on an open slate. Morris and his fellow “nationalists”—delegates favoring a unitary national government rather than a confederation of states—had just staged a revolution in favor of strong government.
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With this new framing, delegates proceeded to tackle items two through six of the Virginia Plan, which addressed the composition, selection, and authority of a proposed national legislature. Some issues, such as the small-state/large-state debate over representation in Congress, were deemed too divisive and hence tabled, but the convention did settle the matter of who should be allowed to vote for representatives to the lower house of the legislature. This was tricky. Most delegates agreed with Elbridge Gerry, who held that “the evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy,” and Roger Sherman, who proclaimed,
“The people immediately should have as little to do as may be about the government. They want information and are constantly liable to be misled.” Yet they also understood that in any republic the people must have
something
to do about their government. James Madison, searching for a broad consensus, managed to synthesize these views in a manner the convention could accept. In several states, he noted, the first branch of the legislature appointed the second, which in turn appointed a governor or council, and these made still further appointments. This process of “successive filtrations” could be adapted to the national government. If delegates allowed people to vote directly for their representatives, the delegates would then be able to leave the people out of the mix in selecting higher officials—including executive officers.