Читать книгу The Way Back - F. H. Buckley - Страница 13
ОглавлениеPHILADELPHIA WAS NOT UNUSUALLY HOT IN THE SUMMER of 1787, as is often supposed. The weather was cooler than normal and it often rained, as it did on the morning of Monday, June 18 when Alexander Hamilton stepped out from Miss Daley’s boardinghouse. His walk would take him the three blocks to the Pennsylvania State House, where the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were meeting (the name Independence Hall came later), and where he served as a representative from New York.
Hamilton strode into the Assembly Room, past the guards, and took his seat at the table on the left, at the back of the room. Was he a little nervous? He was young, only 32—or possibly only 30, for his birth to a single mother on the West Indian island of Nevis was so obscure that historians cannot agree when it happened. Before him, on the dais, stood George Washington, the Convention’s president, for whom Hamilton had served as aide-de-camp during the Revolution. The other delegates included Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, George Mason, John Dickinson, Gouverneur Morris, and James Wilson. When he learned their names, Jefferson described them as “demigods” in a letter to John Adams.1 It was an audience that might intimidate a person with more age and experience than Hamilton, who was about to deliver one of the most remarkable speeches in American history.
The Convention was then at a standstill. On May 29, Edmund Randolph, Virginia’s Governor, had presented what came to be called the Virginia Plan, which would have replaced the decentralized government of the Articles of Confederation with a strongly national constitution. The plan, drafted principally by James Madison, was supported by the large states of Virginia and Pennsylvania. On June 15 the small-states delegates responded with the rival New Jersey plan, which was much more decentralized. Until that point Hamilton had been silent. Now, on June 18, he would rise to speak.
Neither the Virginia nor the New Jersey plan would do, he said. He was particularly opposed to the New Jersey plan, but even the Virginia plan left too much power to the states. It was, “pork still, with a little change of the sauce.”2 In principle, said Hamilton, we might as well abolish the states, and in any event the national government should be given the power to veto their laws. By this point, the small state delegates were likely apoplectic, but Hamilton hadn’t finished (he went on for five or six hours in all). In what followed he gave the most ringing endorsement for aristocratic government by any major American politician, then or now.
He began by praising the British constitution. Many of the delegates had good things to say about it, but Hamilton went further and doubted whether anything short of a constitutional monarchy would do for America. A republic could serve up nothing suitable for the man who would be president, and “the English model was the only good one on this subject.”
The Hereditary interest of the King was so interwoven with that of the Nation, and his personal emoluments so great, that he was placed above the danger of being corrupted from abroad.3
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by this. Monarchy prevailed everywhere else, and historian Gordon Wood has observed that, “we shall never understand events of the 1790s until we take seriously, as contemporaries did, the possibility of some sort of monarchy developing in America.”4 Still, this was much further than any of the other delegates would go, and Hamilton knew an American king wouldn’t do. What he suggested instead was a lifetime appointment for the president during good behavior, a republican government but one as close to monarchism as republican principles would permit. Call the president an elective monarch, if you want, said Hamilton. That’s just what the country needs. He would also have given senators lifetime appointment, during good behavior, which was his way of engrafting a British House of Lords onto a republican constitution. “Having nothing to hope for by a change,” the senators would then form a barrier against the “pernicious innovations” of democracy.5
Hamilton wasn’t the only delegate who was fearful of democracy. Many thought that the defects of the Articles of Confederation could be traced to an “excess of democracy,”6 with its “turbulence and follies.”7 Nor was Hamilton without friends. Washington relied on him,8 and Gouverneur Morris might silently have agreed with much of what he said. For the rest of delegates, however, Hamilton’s aristocratic government was anathema, even when adorned in republican robes. Hamilton, they thought, would be quite prepared to accept the corruption they thought endemic to monarchies, with the fawning courtiers that surround a prince and the kings who trade off favors for support. That was what they had seen of colonial government, and they meant to have something better with a republic, a form of government in which they thought that private interests would be trumped by the public good.9 What the delegates would have hated is the crony nation America has become, where ambassadorships are bought and sold in return for campaign contributions, and pay-for-play is the order of the day as much as ever it was in eighteenth century Britain.
Hamilton was so far outside the mainstream that when he finished his speech no one seconded it or even thought it necessary to speak against it. A few days later a delegate reviewed the various plans that had been presented, and of Hamilton said that, “though he has been praised by every body, he had been supported by none.”10 Hamilton recognized that he had marginalized himself, and chose to absent himself for much of the rest of the debate. He left on June 29, popped in on August 13, and returned to Philadelphia only on September 6, at the Convention’s close. What the delegates adopted became our Constitution, but no one who reads their debates would ever think of consulting Hamilton on how to interpret it.
Hamilton had come from the humblest of backgrounds, and it was ironic that of all the delegates he should defend aristocratic rule. It was equally ironic that the Virginia delegates should have objected to this, for their state had created a minor aristocracy in the Old Dominion, and the myth of a Cavalier Virginia was not entirely without foundation. The second generation of arrivals to the colony in the mid-seventeenth century included the younger sons of well-born Englishmen, who over the next century elbowed their way into social and financial eminence. The proudly self-assertive Tidewater planters along the James, the Rappahannock, and the Potomac, the slave-owning members of the Established Church, the Carters, Byrds, Lees, Fitzhughs, Beverleys, and Washingtons, aspired to the condition of English gentility in their homes, offices and manners.11 There were no Blenheim Palaces in Virginia, but the Carter’s Grove, Sabine Hall and Shirley plantations of the Carters, the Westover of the Byrds, the Stratford of the Lees, and the Mount Vernons left no doubt that their owners were masters of large fortunes.
Some concessions were made for local conditions, to be sure. The colonial Tidewater gentry dispensed with their periwigs and lace-ruffled cuffs in the hot Virginia summers, but at other times dressed like English gentry. Venturing forth, their carriages carried them down the sandy streets of Williamsburg, with postilions, drivers, and footmen dressed in the distinctive livery of their respective houses. Sword on hip, the planters bandied jests just short of the point where a duel was required, and sometimes past that point, as where someone was called a lout or a Scot. Or perhaps, for those more concerned to insist upon their honor, when they quarreled over the pronunciation of a word.12 Their sons idled away the time in dancing, gambling, and horse-racing. Until 1784 Virginia asserted a claim over all the lands westward to the Mississippi, from Memphis to Manitoba. Had it not abandoned its territorial ambitions, the national pastime today might be riding to hounds and not baseball.
Great families augmented their wealth through profitable marriages, producing the thickest of family connections amongst them. The Byrds intermarried with the Carters and Culpeppers, and the Washingtons were connected to the Lees, Beverleys, Randolphs, and Jeffersons. By the nineteenth century, the Virginian’s love of family had turned into ancestor worship. John Randolph of Roanoke, Thomas Jefferson’s cousin and a descendant of Pocahontas, lovingly recorded the names of all his ancestors and relatives in a book. “I am an aristocrat,” he said. “I love liberty. I hate equality.”13 Even today one can while away an idle afternoon by asking a Virginia docent if Robert E. Lee was a fifth as well as a double-third cousin of George Washington.
Virginia lacked banks, and great landowners became a source of capital in an economy fueled by the promissory notes they gave to the younger men they sponsored. Those a notch down on the financial or social order would look up to wealthy patrons, for open-handed liberality was prized as an aristocratic virtue; and in this way networks of interest were created throughout what was an essentially hierarchical society.14 Rising men, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, looked for “friends” amongst the great planters, people such as Lord Fairfax to whom they could turn for credit, advice, and advancement. For the planters who mentored them, the relationship offered the prestige and power that came from an entourage of dependents. In this way, the Tidewater planters became what Gordon Wood describes as the strongest aristocracy that America has ever known.15
Children of the gentry were taught to be conscious of their position and to respect their superiors. The sixteen-year-old George Washington dutifully copied out 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, to remind him of what was expected of a Virginia gentleman.
1. Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.
19. Let your Countenance be pleasant but in Serious Matters Somewhat grave.
25. Superfluous Complements and all Affectation of Ceremony are to be avoided, yet where due they are not to be Neglected.
26. In Pulling off your Hat to Persons of Distinction, as Noblemen, Justices, Churchmen &c make a Reverence, bowing more or less according to the Custom of the Better Bred, and Quality of the Person.
29. When you meet with one of Greater Quality than yourself, Stop, and retire especially if it be at a Door or any Straight place to give way for him to Pass.
36. Artificers & Persons of low Degree ought not to use many ceremonies to Lords, or Others of high Degree but Respect and highly Honor them, and those of high Degree ought to treat them with affability & Courtesy, without Arrogance.16
People so self-conscious of their dignity are not given to familiarity or levity, and Washington was no exception. During the Convention, Hamilton dared Gouverneur Morris to greet Washington and pat him on the shoulder. Morris accepted the challenge, and at a reception walked up to Washington, bowed and, laying his hand on Washington’s shoulder, said, “My dear General, I am very happy to see you looking so well.” Washington withdrew the offending hand, stepped back and glared at Morris until he retreated. Perhaps Washington had remembered the sixty-fourth of his Rules of Civility:
Break not a Jest where none take pleasure in mirth. Laugh not aloud, nor at all without Occasion, deride no mans Misfortune, though there Seem to be Some cause.
Later Morris told Hamilton that, though he had won a bet, he would never repeat the attempt at familiarity.17
While their plantations kept the Virginia gentry busy, they aspired to an aristocratic idleness.18 They were forced to deal with the merchants and tradesmen who lived in their towns, but had little love for them. “Let your Discourse with Men of Business be Short and Comprehensive,” was Washington’s Rule 35. To finance their purchase of Hepplewhite chairs and all the latest clothing from London, the planters sold future interests in their tobacco crops to the Scottish factors of Norfolk and Alexandria, and after a financial crisis in the early 1770s found themselves indebted to the hilt to a set of creditors increasingly anxious about the direction American politics was taking. Their impudent demands for payment dismayed the planters, who had been accustomed to easy credit, and for whom the Revolution amounted to a welcome bankruptcy petition in which debts to British creditors were effectively discharged. No one profited from this more than the planters, for Virginians accounted for nearly half (£1.4 million) of all American debts owed to British creditors at the Revolution, and it has even been argued that this helps explain why the most aristocratic of all the colonies rebelled.19 The debt crisis is only a part of the story, however, and perhaps a small part. Something else had happened to the way the Virginians understood the relation between man and the state.
George Mason was there first. In June 1776, as the delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia debated whether to declare independence, back in Richmond Mason provided the justification for the break from Britain in the Virginia Declaration of Rights:
Section 3—Government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; . . . And . . . when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community has an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.20
These ideas had been expressed before, by Algernon Sidney and John Locke, amongst others. The Declaration of Rights was a legislative act, however, and that was new.21
Word of Mason’s Declaration spread quickly throughout the state. Thomas Jefferson, at the Philadelphia Congress, learned of it and employed its theory of a right to self-determination in drafting the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson would also have noted the statement of individual rights in section 1 of the Virginia Declaration.
All men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Jefferson’s draft dropped Mason’s reference to property rights, added a nod to the unnamed Creator and provided a different spelling for “inalienable,” but otherwise simply cleaned up Mason’s prose.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Style matters. The Declaration of Independence is deservedly remembered, the Virginia Declaration of Rights not, and not just because of the difference in political importance. Mason needed an editor, and got a superb one in Jefferson, who himself benefited from Benjamin Franklin’s pen. Nevertheless, the importance of Mason’s draft as the inspiration for the language of the Declaration of Independence can scarcely be minimized.22
Mason and Jefferson took their republicanism to the next level by seeking to subvert aristocratic institutions. Section 4 of Mason’s Virginia Declaration took aim at aristocracy’s claim of political preference.
No man, or set of men, is entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services; which, not being descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, or judge to be hereditary.
Jefferson too sought to eradicate aristocratic privileges. After serving in the Continental Congress, he returned to Virginia, where he served in the House of Delegates. One of his first acts as a Virginia politician was to sponsor a bill to reform the state’s private laws, and he took particular aim at the system of primogeniture. This was a presumptive rule under which, if a person died without a will, all his property descended to his first-born son. The point was to preserve the integrity of family fortunes, and made an otherwise unappealing first-born son a very eligible bachelor in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Primogeniture was received in Virginia as part of its common law inheritance, even though it was much resented by younger sons such as Jefferson. Whether the rule really made a difference has been doubted, since a father could avoid it through an explicit devise in a will to his younger children.23 Nevertheless, default rules have an expressive effect, signaling what the state regards as a reasonable rule of succession, and it was this that Jefferson wished to change in 1776. What he sought, he later recalled, was a “republican” code of laws, one in which “every fibre would be eradicated of ancient or future aristocracy.”24
Mason was a wealthy planter from Virginia’s Northern Neck, and a confidante of Washington. Jefferson’s father owned a smaller farm, but his mother was a Randolph and he was related to many of the First Families of Virginia. How was it, then, that the two were so hostile to aristocracy? It’s not as though we’d think either of them to be democrats today. The right to vote was severely limited, and Virginia adopted universal suffrage only in 1851, when landowning qualifications were abolished. Even then, women could not vote, nor could Mason’s and Jefferson’s slaves, of course.
Voters could not elect governors either, since they were chosen by the legislators under the 1776 Virginia Constitution that Mason had drafted and for which Jefferson had signaled his approval. “It would be as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief Magistrate to the people,” said Mason, “as it would, to refer a trial of colours to a blind man.”25 Madison proposed the same thing in his Virginia Plan at the 1787 Philadelphia Convention. Senators would be chosen by the House of Representatives, and Presidents would be chosen from Congress, which Madison described as a “policy of refining the popular appointments by successive filtrations.”26 The lower orders would take their places in the state legislatures, while “the purest and noblest characters” in society would occupy the more senior places in the federal government.27 That indeed was how the Framers thought that presidents would almost always be chosen, in the Constitution they gave us.28
All this would seem like an aristocratic form of government to us. But the Framers did not see themselves as aristocrats. They knew they would survive the filtration process, but they did not think their traits were heritable. Our own descendants, said George Mason, will in a short time be distributed “throughout the lowest classes of Society.”29 Those who wished well for their children would therefore want a constitution that worked for everyone, for the character and talents of one’s children were hidden behind a veil of ignorance.
In the fullness of time, the Framers’ constitution would become democratic. The president would come to be popularly chosen, and after the Seventeenth Amendment senators also would be elected by the people. The 1848 Seneca Falls Declaration echoed the Declaration of Independence in its demand for equality for women,30 and the promise of equality in the Declaration of Independence was the promissory note that Martin Luther King, Jr. presented for payment at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. The Framers’ constitution was a sealed train, speeding through the night and emerging into the light on arrival.
