On Thursday, the Directors of the Library Company of Philadelphia voted to “furnish the gentlemen who compose the convention now sitting with such books as they may desire during their continuance at Philadelphia, taking receipts for the same.” Signed by W. Rawle, secretary of the Board of Directors, a letter notified “His Excellency the President of the Convention” of its action.
The Library Company of Philadelphia was founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin as a subscription library supported by its shareholders. At the time, nearly all standard books on any subject had to be shipped in from Europe, making them both expensive and difficult to acquire. Earlier, Franklin had organized the “Junto,” a discussion group of young men seeking to advance themselves and each other socially, economically, and intellectually. Finding themselves lacking access to learned authorities on many topics, Franklin conceived of pooling their resources. Fifty subscribers invested forty shillings each and promised to pay ten shillings a year thereafter to buy books and maintain the library.
It was Franklin’s opinion that “libraries have improved the general conversation of Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defense of their privileges.” Seven signers of the Declaration are members of the Library Company of Philadelphia and own shares. Some have served as Directors.
Later, history will record that the Library Company of Philadelphia was the largest public library in America until the 1850s and all of the books acquired over more than two and a half centuries are still on its shelves.
After directing Secretary Jackson to send a letter to the Company thanking them for their “polite attention,” the Convention once again took up the question of equality of the States in the second branch of the legislature, specifically whether such language should remain in the Report of the Committee of Eleven. The debate was surprisingly brief, and the vote was 6 – 3 – 2. However, as James Madison noted, “several votes were given in the affirmative or were divided because another final question was to be taken on the whole Report.”
Elbridge Gerry then rose, suggesting “it would be proper to proceed to enumerate and define the powers to be vested in the general government before a question on the Report should be taken up as to the rule of representation in the second branch.” James Madison responded quickly. “It would be impossible,” he said, “to say what powers could be safely and properly vested in the government before it was known in what manner the States were to be represented in it.”
William Paterson, author of the defeated New Jersey Plan, persists in opposition to any compromise reducing the power of the small States. They “would never be able to defend themselves without an equality in the second branch,” he insisted. “There is no other ground of accommodation. His resolution is fixed. He would meet the large States on that ground and no other.”
The only delegate to speak at length today on any subject was Gouverneur Morris. He attended the first session on May 25 and left the Convention several days later to attend to his mother’s funeral in New York. He returned on July 2 and immediately began making his positions known.
Morris opposes “the Report because it maintains the improper constitution of the second branch.” Nevertheless, he claims to have “no resolution unalterably fixed except to do what should finally appear to him right.”
Reacting to Gerry’s comments made yesterday that the new government should be partly national and partly federal and “that it ought in the first quality to protect individuals; in the second the States,” Morris objected strenuously. “The States,” he said, “were originally nothing more than colonial corporations. On the declaration of independence, a government was to be formed. The small States, aware of the necessity of preventing anarchy, and taking advantage of the moment, extorted from the large ones an equality of votes. Standing now on that ground, they demand under the new system greater rights as men, than their fellow citizens of the large States.”
His stinging rebuke of the small States was not finished. “The proper answer to the small States,” he posited, “is that the same necessity of which they formerly took advantage does not now exist, and that the large States are at liberty now to consider what is right, rather than what may be expedient.” To bolster his arguments against federations, he described the problems of unity faced by Germany, the Netherlands, and the Grecian States.
Following Morris’s monologue, Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, both from Connecticut, moved to postpone the proposition until receiving a report from the committee of five. The motion passed 6 – 5, just before adjournment, making this one of the shortest sessions to date.
While the delegates appreciate the borrowing privileges extended to them by the Library Company of Philadelphia, some seem to have abused the privilege. We will learn later that on October 2, 1788 the Directors noted that Luther Martin had not returned “Jones’ Asiatic Poems.” As late as March 5, 1789 Rufus King had not returned the two volumes of “Grosse’s Voyages” and “Andrew’s Letters on France.”;
Both delegates “blamed their servants for neglecting to return the books and offered restitution.”