Within days after the Constitutional Convention adjourned in Philadelphia, the Constitution was published to the people of Virginia. But from the outset it was evident that a bumpy road lay ahead before, or if, the Constitution would be ratified in that State. No sooner had the Convention adjourned on September 17, that Governor Edmund Randolph was writing to Richard Henry Lee explaining why he had not signed the Constitution. The next day Randolph sent a copy of the Constitution to Virginia’s Lt. Governor, Beverley Randolph. The accompanying letter noted that “although the names of Col. Mason and myself are not subscribed, it is not therefore to be concluded, that we are opposed to its adoption.” He added that he would rather explain his reasons in person rather than in a letter.
As governor of Virginia and one of its representatives to the Constitutional Convention, Randolph had presented to the Convention the Virginia Plan which had become the basis for its deliberations. Only two other delegates had refused to sign the Constitution – Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts and George Mason, Randolph’s colleague from Virginia. Gerry had not been elected to his State’s ratifying convention and did not play a major role in its deliberations. Mason, however, would be a significant spokesman against the Constitution in Virginia, especially as an advocate for a Bill of Rights. Randolph’s role was yet to be determined.
On September 18, George Mason also wrote a letter to Lee who was in New York representing Virginia in the Confederation Congress. Within the week, Lee would be “forming propositions for essential alterations” to the Constitution which he formally introduced on September 27. He sent copies to other opponents of the Constitution, including Gerry, Randolph, and Samuel Adams (although Adams would later vote for ratification in Massachusetts). Lee complained that the Convention had exceeded its authority by proposing an entirely new form of government, when its instructions had been limited to “amending” the Articles of Confederation. Moreover, he added, Article XIII of the Articles, requiring unanimous consent for amendments, had been violated because the Constitution required only nine States for a new government to be formed.
George Washington was also writing letters. Having returned to Mount Vernon after chairing the Convention, he drafted a letter to Patrick Henry, Benjamin Harrison and Thomas Nelson. “In the first moments after my return,” he began, “I take the liberty of sending you a copy of the Constitution which the Federal Convention has submitted to the People of these States.” He chose to “accompany it with no observations;” their “own judgment will at once discover the good and the exceptional parts of it.” Admitting he wished it “had been made more perfect,” nevertheless he “sincerely believed it is the best that could be obtained at this time – and as a constitution door is open for amendment hereafter – the adoption of it under present circumstances of the Union is in my opinion desirable.”
For Washington, “the political concerns of this Country are, in a manner, suspended by a thread…if nothing had been agreed on by the Convention, anarchy would soon have ensued – the seeds being ripely sown in every soil.” To the contrary, Richard Henry Lee was less concerned than Washington about the defects of the Articles and more alarmed by “encroachments of power upon the indispensable rights of human nature.” Writing to Mason, Lee asserted that the plan of the majority in Congress was to “push the business on with great dispatch, and with as little opposition as possible; that it might be adopted before it has stood the test of reflection and due examination.”
In Congress, Lee took a leading role opposing the Constitution. Although Congress refused to consider Lee’s proposed amendments and rejected his recommendation that the letter transmitted to the States with the Constitution indicate that the Convention had violated Article XIII of the Articles, Lee and his allies were able to score a significant victory - Congress would send the Constitution to the States with the recommendation that they hold conventions to consider its ratification, but Congress would not endorse the Constitution and opposition to it would be deleted from its journals.
Born into an influential, elite planter family and educated in the law in England, Lee was the personification of the aristocratic gentleman. His passion for politics and public service surfaced early when at the age of twenty-five he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses where he became an outspoken opponent of the international slave trade and even introduced legislation to “put an end to that iniquitous and disgraceful traffic within the colony of Virginia.” Lee went so far as to condemn slavery itself, declaring that blacks were “equally entitled to liberty and freedom by the great law of nature.” Nevertheless, like many other slave owners who decried the “peculiar institution” but found it economically disadvantageous to free them, Lee did not free any of his slaves.
As an activist against the Stamp Act, Lee had forged political alliances with Sam Adams, organized the Virginia Committee of Correspondence, and was elected to the First Continental Congress where he was among the first to advocate separation from Great Britain. On June 7, 1776, representing Virginia in the Second Continental Congress, Lee introduced the resolution declaring that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.” Adopted by Congress on July 2, Lee’s motion formalized the colonies’ separation from the British Empire.
In 1787, Lee was instrumental in guiding the Northwest Ordinance through the Confederation Congress. The law organized the vast Ohio territory and provided that “there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory.” As early as 1778, Lee had even supported extending to propertied women “their right of voting.”
Concerned that an energetic national government would endanger the peoples’ liberties, and alarmed that the people themselves were losing their republican virtue, Lee had refused to participate in the Constitutional Convention. Months later, in June 1788, he was prepared to be a leader against the Constitution in Virginia’s ratification convention. However, even Lee would be eclipsed as Virginia’s most vocal and passionate opponent of the Constitution in Virginia – that role would fall to the “Lion of Liberty,” Patrick Henry.