Delegates continue to arrive but not in the numbers needed to achieve the required quorum of seven States. New Jersey was the first to name delegates and recently added two more, including William Livingston. Assuming Abraham Clark and William Paterson will arrive in the middle of next week, and with David Brearley already here, New Jersey will soon have a majority of its delegates and be counted among the States needed for the quorum.
Livingston is an attorney and represented New Jersey in the Continental Congress from July 1774 to June 1776 when he left to command the New Jersey militia. Two months later he was elected governor and has been re-elected continuously since then. He is an active abolitionist and a fierce defender of religious freedom. Before the War, he had just begun settling into the life of a gentleman farmer on his estate appropriately named Liberty Hall, a bucolic surrounding in which to raise his thirteen children, each having been born before he was swept into public life by revolutionary politics. In 1774, Livingston and his wife, Susannah, presided over the marriage of their daughter, Sarah, to a young attorney named John Jay who later became President of the Continental Congress.
Livingston has notified Brearley that he will attend the convention as soon as the State Assembly adjourns, about three weeks from now, but if his attendance is required before then he will “cheerfully take the place of any one of you that shall choose to return home and if our delegation should during the sitting be unavoidably reduced to two.” It is best, he wrote, that New Jersey not “for a single day be unrepresented” at the convention.
David Brearley is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey. Sending the State’s chief executive and chief justice demonstrates the seriousness with which New Jersey is approaching the convention. He and Livingston have collaborated for many years, beginning with their avid support of the revolutionary cause. At one point Brearley was captured by the British and held for high treason, then freed by a band of patriots. When hostilities broke out, he joined the New Jersey militia, rising from captain to colonel.
Brearley led a modest life as a country lawyer until his appointment to the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1779. He was only thirty-five years old.
It is rumored that William Pierce is waiting to receive his credentials before leaving New York where he is representing Georgia in the Continental Congress. Little is known about him except that he served as an aide-de-camp for General Nathanael Greene, rising to the rank of major, and that he has financial problems driven by business and personal debts.
This morning the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser printed a list of “the Delegates appointed the Federal Convention: the names of those who have already arrived in this City, are printed in italic.” It notes that Connecticut was to have met “in the beginning of this month, at which time…their delegates would be appointed” and “Rhode Island has not made any appointment yet.”
The Journal’s report about Rhode Island is accurate according to the information it has. However, the Journal is most likely unaware of a letter recently sent to “the Chairman of the General Convention” from “Several Gentlemen of Rhode Island,” signed by thirteen of them on behalf of “the Merchants, Tradesmen, etc.” Acknowledging the final decision of their State to decline sending delegates to the convention, the authors explained the purpose of their letter was “to prevent any impressions unfavorable to the commercial interest of this State, from taking place in our Sister States from the circumstance of our being unrepresented in the National Convention.” While they carefully avoided advocacy of any specific positions related to the impending deliberations, they do hope the convention’s efforts will “strengthen the Union, promote commerce, increase the power and establish the credit of the United States.” Sentiment in Rhode Island is very divided.
Local newspapers have heralded the convention since it was announced the convention would be held here in Philadelphia rather than New York City. On May 11, the Journal signaled the importance of the event: “As the time approaches for opening the business of the Federal Convention, it is natural that every lover of his country should experience some anxiety for the fate of an expedient so necessary, yet so precarious. Upon the event of this great council, indeed, depends everything that can be essential to the dignity and stability of the National character…All the fortunes of the future are involved in this momentous undertaking.”
Yesterday, the Pennsylvania Mercury began publishing excerpts of volume one of John Adams’s recently published “Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” and will continue every Friday hereafter. The first of a three-volume work, it surveys ancient and modern forms of government, venturing beyond theory into practical politics, including identifying “a defect and a misfortune natural to every democratical constitution,” that is, “the reluctance of citizens” to exercise their civic obligations.
Adams knew his work would stir controversy. He was correct. Thomas Jefferson agrees with parts of it but concludes it “would do great good in America. It’s learning and it’s good sense.” David Ramsey, learned friend and historian wishes “the sentiments were graven on the heart of every legislator in the United States.” But James Madison is not impressed. “Men of learning find nothing new in it,” he quipped. “Men of taste many things to criticize.”
Coverage of the convention by newspapers from New Hampshire to Georgia will keep the people informed, but they will rely much on our own newspapers here in Philadelphia.