Signing Their Rights Away (34 page)

Abraham Baldwin, a mousy chaplain-turned-lawyer, was the chief actor in the most dramatic moment of the Constitutional Convention. Though he’d gone to Philadelphia on behalf of Georgia, he was a born-and-bred Connecticut Yankee. But when his big moment arrived, he managed to set aside all of his allegiances and act for the good of the nation.

To most other delegates, the state of Georgia was something of a mystery. It was sizable enough on a map, but it was populated sparsely with only 25,000 people, most of them settled at the prosperous coast. By rights, Georgia should have been voting en bloc with the small states on the important but divisive issue of congressional representation. But, from day one at the convention, Georgia and the other “small” southern states—North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Maryland—debated as though they had a large population the size of, say, Virginia’s. They couldn’t make that claim just yet, but they certainly had plenty of room to grow.

And new citizens were arriving every day. Then, as now, people moved in droves to the Sun Belt in search of better climates and opportunities. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, none of the Georgia delegates had been born in Georgia. Eleven years later, none of the men representing Georgia at the Constitutional Convention had been born there, either, including Abraham Baldwin.

Baldwin was the son of an ambitious Connecticut blacksmith and widower who was willing to sink heavily into debt to ensure that his twelve children received a good education. At age thirteen, Abraham, the second son, went to Yale to study theology and, after graduating in 1772, stayed on there to tutor other students. When the Revolutionary War broke out, he endured a miserable winter preaching the gospel to Washington’s troops, who were encamped at Morristown, New Jersey. In his spare time, he read law books. When his serviced ended, Baldwin’s life was at a crossroads. Yale offered him a high-paying job as a professor of theology, but he turned it down, choosing law instead. He practiced a year in Connecticut but felt dissatisfied, stifled. The little state was bursting with lawyers, many better trained than he.

So Baldwin headed south to Georgia, settling in the rural backwoods near Augusta, where he bonded with the locals. As his father had been, Baldwin’s new neighbors were self-reliant tradesmen and farmers who didn’t have much money. Some of them may have owned a few slaves, but they shared little in common with the flashy owners of the vast plantations near Savannah. Baldwin was elected to the state legislature only three months after arriving in Augusta and, soon after, was chosen for Congress. By the time he was sent to the Constitutional Convention, he’d been a full-fledged Georgia resident for a mere three years.

Baldwin had no farm or business investments. He did not dabble in land speculation. There was no inheritance waiting for him. (In
fact, when his father died, there were only more debts to be paid.) His law practice did fine, but his most regular income seems to have come from jobs in Congress and the state. Since he had so little money, we can only assume that Baldwin lived rather frugally. It probably helped that he had no family of his own to support. He became known for mentoring young men, paying for their schooling and helping them get a start in business. At age thirty-two, he was one of the convention’s three bachelors, along with Nicholas Gilman of New Hampshire and Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer of Maryland.

As a delegate, Baldwin spoke only a few times, but he was chosen for all the important committees. His big moment came after it had been agreed that the number of congressmen in the House would be determined by the population of each state. With that decided, the small states demanded equal representation in the Senate. Every time the topic was discussed, the big states appeared to have more votes. On June 30, Delaware’s Gunning Bedford angrily denounced his colleagues from the more-populous states. The conventioneers adjourned for a Sunday cool-down. When they returned on Monday, July 2, the entire body took a vote:
Should the Senate have equal suffrage?

Down the list of delegates they went, voting north to south. In the end, the decision fell to Baldwin, the last man to cast a vote. In the past, he’d been pushed around by his three fellow Georgia delegates, who always sided with the big states. But two of those men, convention scribe William Pierce and Methodist William Few, were absent, having left to deal with congressional business in New York.

Georgia delegate and aristocrat William Houstoun voted no, in support of the big states. Then all eyes turned to Baldwin, a man who pinched pennies and managed to pay off his dead father’s debts and send his siblings to school on an income of only $9 a day; a man who had little in common with the fat-cat planters; a man who saw his constituents as the equals of his Yankee forbears; a man who knew that underpopulated, vulnerable Georgia desperately needed
the protection of a strong government.

Baldwin voted
yes
.

Georgia was tied, and thus voided. For the first time, the votes of the big and the small states were even, and thus the two sides were
equal
in the eyes of the convention.

It was as if the scales had fallen from everyone’s eyes. The delegates now realized that, for the sake of the union, they
had
to compromise. The small states must have their way on something, or there would be no true United States of America. The deadlock was finally broken.

After the convention, Baldwin served as his state’s representative to Congress. His levelheadedness was prized, and in 1788 he was asked to help James Madison draw up the Bill of Rights in committee. His voters sent him to the U.S. Senate twice, in 1798 and 1804, but he didn’t live to finish his second term. Struck down by an unknown illness, he lay dying in a bed at his sister’s house in Washington, D.C., while friends and family fussed over him. Though sick, he enjoyed telling them how, until then, he’d never missed a day in Congress. On the eighth day, he died; he was only fifty-three years old. Baldwin was buried first on the grounds of his sister’s estate, but his body was later moved to a cemetery in downtown Washington, D.C.

A strong proponent of education, he is fondly remembered by Georgians for creating what would later become the University of Georgia, the first such school chartered by a state.

Appendix I.

Text of the U.S. Constitution

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article 1.

Section 1

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section 2

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five and Georgia three.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the
Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Section 3

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.

No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.