Signing Their Rights Away (4 page)

BORN
: August 3, 1755

DIED
: May 2, 1814

AGE AT SIGNING
: 32

PROFESSION
: Merchant, politician

BURIED
: Exeter Cemetery, Exeter, New Hampshire

Politics can be ugly—especially when you’re pretty. Nicholas Gilman, the blond-haired, blue-eyed delegate from New Hampshire, suffered plenty of abuse from his colleagues because of his handsome features and cocky attitude. But look at it another way: if you were handsome in an age when most people sported rotting teeth, pronounced small-pox scars, and countless other afflictions, you might ooze overconfidence, too.

Gilman was born in Exeter to a family that figured prominently in the settling of New Hampshire. (His boyhood home, known as the Ladd-Gilman House, is open to visitors.) Like his father and grandfather, who served in the French and Indian War, Gilman left the family general store at age twenty to enter the military, accepting a post as an administrative officer in a New Hampshire regiment that saw action at
Ticonderoga, Saratoga, Monmouth, and, in 1781, the decisive battle of Yorktown—regarded as the last major conflict of the war. After the death of his colonel, young Captain Gilman was selected by George Washington to determine the number of British troops that would be surrendered by the defeated General Cornwallis.

Upon the death of the Gilman family patriarch, in 1783, the last year of the war, his three sons inherited various slices of his business. The oldest was bequeathed the ships; the youngest, Nathaniel, was left the general store; and middle son Nicholas received a modest inheritance of cash and land. Casting about for a career, Nicholas chose politics. In 1786, he was selected by his home state to serve in the Congress of the Confederation, but something about him rubbed fellow politicians the wrong way. Maybe it was his lack of political experience; maybe it was his less-than-stellar attendance; maybe it was the way he carried on like he owned the place. His colleagues referred to Gilman with the derisive nickname “Congress”—as in, “How’s it going, Congress?” or “Fancy a pint at the pub afterward, Congress?”

Yet, despite his unpopularity, Gilman was chosen by his state to attend the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Why would New Hampshire send a man few believed was up to the task? One likely answer is that they didn’t
want
to change the federal constitution, and so they sent someone who couldn’t possibly accomplish anything. In fact, New Hampshire wasn’t even willing to cover the costs of Gilman’s trip, and fellow delegate John Langdon generously picked up the tab. The two men arrived at the convention in July, after most of the important decisions had been made.

At thirty-one years old, Gilman likely felt overwhelmed upon arriving at the convention. When you’re surrounded by some of the greatest legal and political minds in the states, good looks don’t count for much. Georgia delegate William Pierce (who ultimately didn’t sign the Constitution but penned some pretty wicked thumbnail descriptions of his fellow delegates) noted that “there is nothing brilliant or striking in [Gilman’s] character.” Another contemporary described him as a
“young man of pretensions; little liked by his colleagues.” Gilman’s lack of participation certainly didn’t help matters. If you scan the meticulous records kept by James Madison, you will find not one word uttered by him during the entire convention. No wonder a modern historian unhesitatingly characterizes Gilman as “mediocre.”

We would argue that Gilman redeemed himself by promoting the Constitution to his fellow citizens. The day after signing, he wrote to a friend to say that so much was riding on it being adopted by the states. According to him, the document would decide “whether we shall become a respectable nation or a people torn to pieces by commotions and rendered contemptible for ages.” His enthusiasm helped ensure New Hampshire’s place of honor as the ninth state to sign, upon which the U.S. Constitution became a binding document.

Under the new government, Gilman continued his service as a U.S. representative, serving in the House for seventeen years. In 1802, at age forty-seven, he failed in his bid for the Senate. Also around that time, he squabbled with his older brother, John Taylor Gilman, who was running for reelection as governor of New Hampshire on the Federalist ticket. Gilman threw his support behind his sibling’s opponent, a member of Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican party.

It always helps to have a handsome man on your side. John Taylor Gilman lost the election, and New Hampshire welcomed its new governor, John Langdon, the same man who had paid the younger Gilman’s way to Philadelphia eighteen years earlier, on the eve of a more perfect union. As a reward for his loyalty, the party swept Gilman into office as senator. He served nine years but died suddenly while on the road during his second term. He was fifty-eight years old and left behind no immediate family.

An interesting footnote: despite his celebrated good looks and a resume that would have made any debutante swoon, Gilman never married and is one of three bachelor signers of the Constitution.

II. Massachusetts

The Signer who Considered a Monarchy

BURN
: May 27, 1738

DIED
: June 11, 1796

AGE AT
SIGNING:
49

PROFESSION:
Merchant

BURIED
: Phipps Street Burying Ground, Charlestown, Massachusetts

Change the nation and die a wealthy man, and you’ve got a decent shot of entering the history books. Change the nation and fall into financial ruin—as Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts did—and, well, your chances for posterity diminish greatly.

In the here-today-gone-tomorrow annals of American history, tales of great fortune and unexpected impoverishment are not uncommon. But what makes Gorham’s tale so unique is that his ruin was aided by the ratification of the very document he worked so hard to create.

Unlike most of his fellow signers, Gorham grew up in a background we’d describe today as middle class. As a child he lived in Charlestown, Massachusetts, where his father operated a packet boat used to deliver mail, among other things. Gorham attended the
local public school and then left his home to apprentice as a merchant in New London, Connecticut, where he worked for his keep. Later, he returned to Charlestown to set up his own shop, a mercantile firm, and at age twenty-five he married Rebecca Call, with whom he had nine children.

Like many successful businessmen with good-guy reps and friendly, approachable demeanors, Gorham decided to enter politics. He started out in 1771 as a public notary and became a member of his colony’s legislature. The revolution heated up early on in Massachusetts, and Gorham was committed to the patriot cause. In 1774 he became a member of a rebel legislature, where he helped establish the framework for a government that would assume control after the royal governor was booted out. During the Revolutionary War, Gorham served on the Board of War, from 1778 to 1781, and in 1780 he attended the Massachusetts constitutional convention, where his state created its own constitution, one whose draft has been largely attributed to John Adams.

As the war was winding down, the former colonies were still testing the waters of their newfound yet tenuous unity. From 1782 to 1783, Gorham attended the Congress of the Confederation. He returned in 1785 and was elected its president in 1786. This position was, at the time, the highest a person could hold in the nation. Thus, Nathaniel Gorham, the packet boater’s son, was “President of the United States in Congress Assembled,” which, under the Articles of Confederation, was the closest thing the nation had to a president.

The experience shaped Gorham’s views considerably. In 1786, Shay’s Rebellion—a violent uprising among poor farmers deeply in debt and angry about the state of the new American government—took place in Massachusetts. This rebellion had a profound effect on many powerful men, including Gorham, who believed that more citizens would revolt if the national government wasn’t strengthened. The Articles of Confederation just weren’t cutting it.