Signing Their Rights Away (29 page)

AGE AT SIGNING
: 51

PROFESSION
: Doctor, merchant, minister, scientist

BURIED
: Trinity Churchyard, New York, New York

In the eighteenth century, the night skies were a constant source of wonder, and many founding fathers studied them carefully—especially Hugh Williamson, the last man to sign the Constitution for the state of North Carolina. He never claimed to have witnessed an extraterrestrial, but he was nonetheless convinced that the heavens were teeming with intelligent life.

Williamson was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, to a pair of Scotch-Irish parents who had immigrated to America to run a clothing business. Young Hugh was studious and serious, but, judging from his zigzagging career path, he could have used a good guidance counselor. He began divinity studies in 1759 and worked for about two years as a licensed Presbyterian minister, though he was never
formally ordained. Then he switched to mathematics and landed a professorship at his alma mater, the future University of Pennsylvania. Three years after that, he quit that post and dashed over to the Continent, where he studied medicine in Scotland, England, and the Netherlands. By about 1768, as the colonies were embroiled in taxation disputes with the motherland, Williamson was back in Philadelphia, working as a doctor and observing the stars in his spare time.

A frequent correspondent of fellow astronomy geek Ben Franklin, Williamson studied comets and announced to the world that their tails were not fire, but a reflection of sunlight. (Today we know that comet tails are in fact gas and dust, which, yes, reflect sunlight.) Extrapolating from his theory, Williamson wrongly concluded that all planets and comets had mild enough climates to permit life. “Having ventured the opinion that every planet and every comet in our system is inhabited,” he wrote, “we have only taken a very imperfect view of the astonishing works of the divine architect.”

He quickly did some math and arrived at the conclusion that there are no fewer than “five millions of worlds, all inhabited by rational beings.” The hugeness of that number impressed him, and he made the same observation that generations of scientists have since also made when contemplating the vastness of the universe: “How do we seem to dwindle into littleness! How small, how few, are the ephemerons of this little globe, when compared with the countless myriads who inhabit five millions of worlds!” Because he was a devout man, Williamson drew a swift connection between science and God. “All these worlds, and every one of their inhabitants, are under the constant care of the Divine Being,” he wrote. “Not one of them is neglected. ‘Great and marvelous’ are his works, how terrible his power!!”

Williamson had many interests beyond astronomy. In the early 1770s, he became a trustee of the Academy of Newark, Delaware, which wanted to become a full-fledged college. The school appointed Williamson as fund-raiser, and he traveled throughout the colonies and England to raise money. Over the course of his journey,
Williamson observed growing political unrest. He witnessed the Boston Tea Party, and, when later he arrived in London, he was summoned to testify before the British Privy Council, an advisory body to the Crown. He warned the council that further pressure on the colonists would result in rebellion.

Williamson then proceeded to do something extremely foolhardy and treasonous. While still in England, he posed as a British official, bluffed his way into intercepting letters from the Massachusetts royal governor, and passed them on to Ben Franklin, who published them as proof that the governor was conspiring with Parliament to curtail the rights of colonists. Franklin, who was living in England at the time, would take the blame for stealing the letters; until his death, no one ever knew that Williamson had in fact been the spy.

Williamson headed home in 1777, but by then war was raging and his ship was seized by British troops. He and another man managed to elude capture by swiping a lifeboat, lowering it to the water, and rowing themselves to shore. He abandoned his life in Philadelphia and relocated to the town of Edenton, North Carolina, where he worked as a merchant and physician. He soon entered the state militia as a military surgeon and, following a rout by British forces in South Carolina, volunteered to cross enemy lines to care for American prisoners of war. On that mission and others, Williamson distinguished himself by keeping a careful eye on food, water, and hygiene. He managed to keep those troops in his care free from contagion for the duration of his service, no mean feat in the Carolina swamps.

His new neighbors chose him to serve in North Carolina’s legislature in 1782, a year before the war ended. His colleagues there sent him to Congress and the convention in May 1787. He seemed a good match for the other profound thinkers who had assembled to hammer out a new constitution; Thomas Jefferson praised Williamson’s “acute mind” and “high degree of erudition.” Indeed, Williamson was the most active and vocal of the three North Carolina delegates. As the group debated the composition of Congress under the new constitution, he insisted
that the “aristocratic” branch—then code for the future U.S. Senate—should hold the nation’s purse strings and vote on taxes; he didn’t think the common people represented by the lower branch—the House—would wisely spend tax revenue. This proposal was shot down by George Mason of Virginia, who asked, in effect:
Where would the money come from? The common people, that’s who! Aristocrats will soon forget where the money is coming from, spend poorly, and there will be tyranny
. Although this proposal was rejected, we know at least one of Williamson’s contributions to the Constitution made it all the way to the final draft: the six-year term for U.S. senators.

By then a prickly fifty-three-year-old bachelor who did not suffer fools and flatterers gladly, Williamson found love with a wealthy twenty-one-year-old New Yorker named Maria Apthorp. They married in 1789, but Apthorp died only a few years later, after the birth of the couple’s second son. The tragedy may have blunted Williamson’s relentless productivity; after three years in the new Congress under President George Washington, he moved back to his late wife’s beloved Manhattan to educate his sons and indulge his own love of learning.

In his retirement, Williamson dabbled in science, wrote books and research papers, volunteered at hospitals, engaged in philanthropy, and never stopped staring up at the stars. When Maria’s father died in 1797, Williamson dutifully handled financial affairs on behalf of the large Apthorp family, and eventually he bought for his sons a section of the two-hundred-acre estate in Bloomingdale, a rural suburb in what is now the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The framer lived another twenty-four years, until his death in 1819, at age eighty-three. He is buried in his wife’s family plot in New York City, right at the head of Wall Street. The stone covering the spot bears the Apthorp name and makes no mention of the versatile man who loved religion, stars, math, and statesmanship, all with equal passion.

XI. South Carolina

The Signer Who Attempted Suicide

BORN
: September, 1739

DIED
: July 18, 1800

AGE AT SIGNING
: About 48

PROFESSION
: Lawyer

BURIED
: St. Michael’s Church Cemetery, Charleston, South Carolina

He defended Charleston during the Revolutionary War, chaired the committee that created the first draft of the U.S. Constitution, and even enjoyed a short stint as chief justice of the Supreme Court. But none of these achievements could shield John Rutledge from the tragic depression that would make him try to take his own life.

The Rutledge, Pinckney, and Middleton dynasties were to South Carolina what the Kennedys would later be to Massachusetts: moneyed first families of politicians and lawmakers. This trio of South Carolina families—which associated socially and intermarried—contributed five signers to the two most significant documents in American history. Of the lot, John Rutledge was perhaps the most eloquent and legally brilliant. His life, both political and personal,
took its fair share of nose-dives over the years, but through it all he remained dedicated to the country whose government he played a crucial part in framing. How else can you explain the fact that he named his son States?