The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (132 page)

Madison recorded the reaction to Franklin’s speech: “The motion was seconded by Colonel Hamilton with the view, he said, of merely bringing so respectable a proposition before the committee, and which was besides enforced by arguments that had a certain degree of weight. No debate ensued, and the proposition was postponed for the consideration of the members. It was treated with great respect, but rather for the author of it than from any apparent conviction of its expediency or practicality.”

Another
Franklin proposal received equally short shrift. A month into the convention the body had made frustratingly little progress. Franklin noted that the delegates had searched history for guidance and looked to the governments of other countries. “How has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings?” At the onset of the troubles with Britain, the Continental Congress, meeting in this very
room, had daily requested divine help in finding its way. “Our prayers were heard, sir, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed the frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favour.” Without Heaven’s help the delegates would not be where they were, attempting what they were attempting. “Have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need its assistance?” Franklin remarked that he had lived a long time. “And the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth,
that God governs in the affairs of men.
And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?” The sacred texts declared that “except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” Franklin said, “I firmly believe this.” Without heavenly aid, the delegates would build no better than the builders of Babel, divided by petty, partial interests. “Our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a bye-word down to future ages.” Humanity might well despair of establishing government by reason, and leave it to war and conquest. Accordingly, Franklin moved to start each session with a prayer and to secure the services of one or more of the clergy of Philadelphia for the purpose.

This statement was as open as Franklin ever got in public about his religious beliefs. (And it was only partially public, the delegates having pledged themselves to confidentiality.) The delegates probably did not appreciate the unusual candor in Franklin’s remarks; in any case they ignored them. His motion received a second, but Hamilton and others worried that, however laudable the practice of prayer might be, to commence it at this late date would convey a sense of desperation. Franklin responded that the past omission of a duty did not justify continued omission and that the public was just as likely to respond positively as negatively to word that their delegates were seeking God’s blessing on their labors.

His argument failed. After Hugh Williamson of North Carolina pointed out that the convention lacked funds to pay a chaplain, Edmund Randolph offered an amendment to Franklin’s motion. Randolph suggested hiring a preacher to give a sermon on Independence Day, less than a week off, and thereafter to open the sessions with a prayer.

Franklin accepted the amendment, but the delegates put off discussion by recessing for the day, and the proposition died. Franklin remarked with some wonder, at the bottom of the written copy of his speech, “The convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary!”

Most delegates
had more earthly matters in mind. The nature of the executive vexed the convention for weeks. At one extreme stood Alexander Hamilton, the former protégé of Washington—ambitious, arrogant, intolerant of those less gifted than he. A certain mystery surrounded his West Indian birth; John Adams, ever uncharitable, called him the “bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar.” He was small and lithe, with delicate features that made him look even younger than his thirty-two years. Yet the fire that burned inside him made him seem, to Jefferson at least (after Hamilton aimed his flames Jefferson’s way), “an host within himself.” Even on best behavior, as at the convention, he put people off. William Pierce, while granting that Hamilton was “deservedly celebrated for his talents,” added, “His manners are tinctured with stiffness, and sometimes with a degree of vanity that is highly disagreeable.”

Patriotic and courageous during the war, Hamilton nonetheless retained a decided partiality toward the British system of government. “I believe the British government form the best model the world ever produced,” Hamilton told the convention. The secret of the British government was its strength, which allowed it to provide individual security. The British recognized a fundamental facet of human nature. “All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact.” The people were turbulent and fickle; they rarely knew where their interests lay. “Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness in the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.”

Hamilton’s confidence in benign rule by society’s betters led him to conclude that executive power ought to be vested in a single man, elected for life. “It may be said that this constitutes an elective monarchy.” Let the fainthearted call it what they wished. “Pray, what is a monarchy? May not the governors of the respective states be considered in that light?” Hamilton allowed for impeachment of the executive in cases of egregious malfeasance; in this respect, he said, the executive-for-life fell short of being a monarch. But he endorsed the basic principle of monarchy, that the holder of the office ought to be irresponsible to the people.

Only then would he be free of the people’s unruly passions. Earlier speakers had suggested a long term for the executive, perhaps seven years. Hamilton deemed this insufficient. “An executive is less dangerous to the liberties of the people when in office during life, than for seven years.”

Franklin held just the opposite view. Not only did he rest far less faith in the British system—having, unlike Hamilton, observed its operations closely at first hand—but he had less confidence in what Hamilton (and many others) deemed the better elements in society. To place entire executive authority in one man was to court trouble. Even assuming the best of goodwill on the part of the executive, what would happen when he got sick? Physical frailty might not worry Hamilton and others in the prime of life, but, as Franklin could assure them, life lasted beyond one’s prime. Eventually, of course, the executive would die; though Hamilton proposed a scheme for electing a successor, after many years under one man the government could not escape disruption.

Moreover, judgments varied from man to man, and each executive would seek to make his own mark. “A single person’s measures may be good. The successor often differs in opinion of those measures, and adopts others; often is ambitious of distinguishing himself by opposing them, and offering new projects. One is peaceably disposed, another may be fond of war, &c. Hence foreign states can never have that confidence in the treaties or friendship of such a government, as in that which is conducted by a number.”

The only conclusion Franklin could draw was that executive power was too potent to be entrusted to a single person. “The steady course of public measures is most probably to be expected from a number.”

Ultimately
the convention split the difference between Hamilton and Franklin, opting for a single executive of limited term. On another issue—the one on which the entire constitutional project threatened to founder—compromise finally came as well, but with greater difficulty.

Under the Virginia plan, election to the lower house of the legislature would be according to population, with larger states—such as Virginia—having greater representation than smaller states. Because the upper house would be chosen by the lower house, this advantage to the larger states would inform the actions of the legislature as a whole. The delegates from the larger states thought this only just, not least since they
were expected to pay the largest portion of the expenses of the central government.

Predictably, delegates from the smaller states objected. Under the Articles of Confederation, each state possessed equal weight within the legislature, and the small-state delegates intended to preserve this principle. Indeed, the instructions of the delegates from Delaware forbade them from countenancing any tampering with equal representation by states. Accordingly, when the delegation from New Jersey proposed an alternative to the Virginia plan—an alternative enshrining the one-state, one-vote principle—the smaller states rallied to it.

Upon the question of representation hinged the essence of the new government. If representation remained by states, then the new government would remain, to a large degree, a government of the states, along the lines of the Confederation. By contrast, if representation shifted to population, then the new government would be a government of the people. The states might retain their existence, but they would have hardly more meaning than counties in England.

This was exactly what James Madison believed they should have. “Some contend that states are sovereign,” Madison declared, “when in fact they are only political societies.” The states had never possessed sovereignty, which from the start of the Revolution had been vested in Congress. “The states, at present, are only great corporations, having the power of making by-laws, and these are effectual only if they are not contradictory to the general confederation. The states ought to be placed under the control of the general government—at least as much as they formerly were under the king and British Parliament.”

These were fighting words, or promised to be. Gunning Bedford of Delaware demanded, “Are not the large states evidently seeking to aggrandize themselves at the expense of the small? They think no doubt that they have right on their side, but interest has blinded their eyes.” Bedford accused the large states of adopting “a dictatorial air” toward the smaller, of suggesting they could make a government of their own without the small states. “If they do,” Bedford warned, “the small ones will find some foreign ally of more honour and good faith, who will take them by the hand and do them justice.”