Signing Their Rights Away (15 page)

Thomas FitzSimons had a lengthy and impressive resume in the world of finance, but this hard-won experience didn’t keep him from losing his entire fortune.

One of seven signers born outside America, FitzSimons emigrated from Ireland to the bustling city of Philadelphia, where his father quickly established a business. FitzSimons wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps, so to learn the ropes he clerked in the mercantile business. His professional plans were helped considerably by his love life. After marrying Catherine Meade, who came from a fine family in town, FitzSimons partnered with his new brother-in-law George to become part of the “company” in George Meade and Co. The firm
was successful at trading with the West Indies, and FitzSimons quickly established himself as a smart financier.

He was active in the Irish Catholic community and, in 1771, became vice president of the fraternal organization of the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick. In 1774, Parliament passed the Coercive Acts—legislation that punished American colonists for their role in the Boston Tea Party. One of these acts closed the port of Boston, which made an importer-exporter like FitzSimons shiver in his buckle-shoes. As anti-British sentiment heated up, he became involved with Philadelphia protests and the community began to perceive him as a leader.

What makes FitzSimons’s ascent all the more remarkable is his religion: he was Catholic at a time when anti-Catholic sentiment pervaded the colonies. Most colonists viewed Catholics as agents of the papacy. In many parts of the colonies, they were prohibited from worshipping in public, holding office, practicing law, and voting. In fact, to keep Catholics out of public office, colonies would sometimes require new hires to take the so-called religious Test Oath. Doing so as a Catholic often meant denouncing several tenets of the faith (including the sacrament of Communion and adoration of saints).

Yet somehow FitzSimons navigated around these prejudices to become what many believe was the first-ever Roman Catholic elected to a public office in the colonies. His patriotism, combined with his business savvy, earned him spots on Pennsylvania’s committee of correspondence (a letter-writing, intelligence-gathering ring established by patriots) as well as a seat on the provincial (or rebel) congress.

FitzSimons helped organize his colony’s militia in 1775 and marched to New Jersey to support George Washington’s troops in 1776 and 1777. When his days as a captain ended, he continued contributing to the Revolution as a member of the new nation’s Navy board and the committee of safety, a military-governmental group of volunteers charged with defending the public. His business provided supplies for the troops and donated thousands of British pounds to the
almost-always-broke Continental Army. Yet, despite the war, he kept the cash rolling in.

In the years after the conflict, FitzSimons became concerned about the fiscal health of the colonies, worrying especially about inflation. Working with fellow Constitution signer Robert Morris, he organized the first Bank of North America and served on its board for more than twenty years.

In 1782 and 1783, FitzSimons served in the Congress of the Confederation. He also served on the Pennsylvania Council of Censors, an organization that guarded against violations of the state’s constitution, as well as the state legislature. In 1786, he was sent to the Annapolis Convention, the meeting at which the delegates decided that the Articles of Confederation needed a good overhaul.

So when the Constitutional Convention came to pass and the new states tackled the revision of the Articles, FitzSimons was there. He didn’t speak much, but there was little doubt about his position. He was a strong nationalist who fell in line with the other businessmen supporting large-state interests. He sided with Gouverneur Morris, who believed that property ownership should be a requirement for voting for Congress. FitzSimons also wanted government to regulate trade and commerce. Not surprisingly, he preferred the Virginia Plan (which favored large states) and opposed the New Jersey Plan (which favored small ones), though he was supportive of the Great Compromise. FitzSimons was one of only two Catholics to sign the Constitution (the other was Daniel Carroll, a cousin of the Declaration of Independence’s only Catholic signer, Charles Carroll of Carrollton). Incidentally, his name appears as FitzSimons on the Constitution, but it’s been spelled elsewhere as Fitzsimons and Fitzsimmons, depending on who is wielding the pen.

FitzSimons served in the new government as a three-term representative to Congress and was active in the growing Federalist Party. When he was defeated for reelection in 1794, James Madison called it a “stinging change for the aristocracy.”

He remained active in finance and philanthropy, serving as president of the Insurance Company of North America, a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, and several times as the president of the Chamber of Commerce. And he cochaired a big farewell dinner for George Washington when the beloved first president left office. Clearly, no amount of anti-Catholic prejudice could overshadow his mercantile prowess and generous wallet. Not one to forget his roots, he was also a big—if not the biggest—financial supporter of the construction of St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia.

FitzSimons was, in other words, well positioned to leave a spectacular legacy to the country—until he was bit by the land-speculation bug. The notion of purchasing lands on the western frontier with devalued securities might seem ill advised in hindsight, but many with money (including fellow Constitution signers William Blount and Nathaniel Gorham) thought it was an excellent gamble. Making matters worse was that FitzSimons, ever the soul of generosity, loaned hundreds of thousands of dollars to friends, including fellow signer Robert Morris. When Morris saw his investments disappear, FitzSimons was dragged down into the fiscal mire as well. He lost his fortunes and died without recouping them.

Upon FitzSimons’s death, in 1811, when he was about seventy years old,
The Philadelphia Gazette
wrote that he “was justly considered one of the most enlightened and intelligent merchants in the United States … after many and great losses he died in the esteem, affection and gratitude of all classes of his fellow citizens.” He is buried on the grounds of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia.

The Signer Who Couldn’t Keep Up with Fashion

BORN
: October 27, 1745

DIED
: October 31, 1822

AGE AT SIGNING
: 37

PROFESSION
: Lawyer

BURIED
: Old Pine Street Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

What good is a new constitution if you can’t take it out for a spin?

After the document was ratified by the states, the new Supreme Court began applying its principles to a number of important cases. One decision so enraged Congress that it quickly created a new amendment (the eleventh) to prevent similar decisions in the future. And the man at the center of the action was Jared Ingersoll, a thin-as-a-rail Philadelphia lawyer who had signed the Constitution less than a decade earlier.

Ingersoll was born in Connecticut, the son of a wealthy loyalist lawyer who supported even the most unpopular acts of Parliament, including the Stamp Act. The elder Ingersoll took on the post of tax collector during the mid-1760s. One night, as he was riding on
horseback, he was stopped on the road by an angry mob of five hundred patriots who demanded his resignation. With pitchforks and torches waving in his face, he wisely followed their advice and quit on the spot. Soon afterward, he moved his family to Philadelphia.

Young Jared graduated from Yale in 1766 and, for a short time, clerked for his father. Neither father nor son supported the colonists in the Revolutionary War, so they decided that Jared would leave the powder keg behind and go abroad for school. He studied law at London’s Middle Temple, a prestigious law school, and then took time to explore Europe, particularly France.

But in 1778 a curious thing happened: Ingersoll returned home and declared himself a patriot. To this day, historians aren’t really sure what caused this abrupt political conversion. Was there something in the attitudes of his instructors and fellow students that made him sympathize with the American cause? Had he been persuaded by Ben Franklin, who was then working as a U.S. minister in France? Did he merely mature and view politics differently from his father? Or did he switch sides for a more pragmatic reason? Maybe he was concerned about fitting in with his old friends back home. Whatever the reason, he returned full of disdain for Mother England.

Once back on colonial shores, Ingersoll married Elizabeth Pettit, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, had four children, and settled into the life of a respectable Philadelphia lawyer, even as the war raged around him. Known for his stiff, almost military posture, he was reserved and conservative by nature, but an adroit speaker in the courtroom. “Woe betided the adversary that took a false position, or used an illogical argument, or misstated a fact against him,” wrote one of his former clerks. “He fastened upon the mistake with the grasp of death, and would repeat and reiterate and multiply his assaults upon it, until there did not remain a shadow of excuse for the blunder.”

And yet when Ingersoll attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he scarcely said a word. “There is a modesty in his character that keeps him back,” observed Georgia delegate William Pierce. Ingersoll
spoke up just once, on the very last day, when he seconded Ben Franklin’s motion that the framers sign the Constitution without delay. (Clearly, he was ready to go home.) The document wasn’t perfect, Franklin had said, but it was the best they could produce, and Ingersoll agreed.

After the convention, Ingersoll, who believed in a strong national government, landed important legal posts in the Federalist government of Pennsylvania, though he would never rise to the level of Supreme Court justice. In 1791, when he applied to argue cases before the nation’s highest court, his application was rejected because of insufficient professional stature. Some historians wonder if government officials weren’t rapping him on the knuckles for the sins of his father, or for his own early stance as a loyalist.