Today’s edition of The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser reported that “so great is the unanimity, we hear, that prevails in the Convention, upon all great federal subjects, that it has been proposed to call the room in which they assemble – Unanimity Hall.”
Whatever its source, the paper has it wrong and is completely the opposite of what William Blount wrote to his brother, John Gray Blount, later this evening. William left the Convention for New York to attend Congress on July 3. Yesterday he received a letter from his fellow North Carolina delegate, William Davie. Its contents he shared with his brother. “Since you left,” Davie wrote, “we have progressed obliquely and retrograded directly, so that we stand on the same spot you left us.” Blount shared his own misgivings with John. “When I left,” he wrote, “much progress was not made…I still think we shall ultimately end not many years just being separate and distinct governments perfectly independent of each other.”
This morning, the Convention opened with “reconsideration of the vote rendering the executive re-eligible for appointment a second time.” Luther Martin quickly moved to reinstate language making the executive ineligible. Gouverneur Morris then rose with a well-prepared presentation. “The subject is of so much importance,” he said, “that I hope to be indulged in an extensive view of it.” He began by noting “it is a maxim in political science that republican government is not adapted to a large extent of country, because the energy of the executive magistrate cannot reach the extreme parts of it. Our country is an extensive one. We must either renounce the blessings of the union or provide an executive with sufficient vigor to pervade every part of it.”
One great object of the executive, Morris continued, is to check the legislature. It should be the “guardian of the people, even of the lower classes, against legislative tyranny, against the great and wealthy who in the course of things will necessarily compose the legislative body.” The Senate is meant to be a check on the first branch of government, not on legislative tyranny itself – it is a part of the legislature. “The executive therefore ought to be so constituted as to be the great protector of the mass of the people,” he continued.
To this end, Morris opposes making the executive ineligible. “It will destroy the great incitement to merit public esteem by taking away the hope of being rewarded with a re-appointment. Then he issued a warning. The “love of fame,” is a “great spring to noble and illustrious actions. Shut the civil road to glory and he may be compelled to seek it by the sword. It will tempt him to make the most of the short space of time allotted him, to accumulate wealth and provide for his friends.” And impeachment? It would simply make the executive dependent on the legislature, rendering him a “tool of faction.”
Morris proceeded to summarize his position. If the executive is to be “the guardian of the people, let him be appointed by the people.” If he is to be “a check on the legislature, let him not be impeachable.” Let him “be of short duration, that he may with propriety be re-eligible.” To the charge that he cannot be possibly known to the people at large, “it cannot be possible,” he said, “that a man shall have sufficiently distinguished himself to merit this high trust without having his character proclaimed by fame throughout the empire.”
After laying out thorough arguments for his positions, Morris moved that the entire resolution on the executive laid out in the Report be reconsidered. His motion passed unanimously after considerable discussion. Edmund Randolph prefers the executive not be eligible for re-appointment. Contrary to what Morris asserted, Randolph believes eligibility for re-appointment will actually make the executive even more dependent on the legislature. Rufus King reflected on a remark made earlier by Roger Sherman. “He who has proved himself to be most fit for an office ought not to be excluded by the constitution from holding it again,” he said. He was now “much disposed to think that in such cases the people at large would choose widely.”
William Paterson agreed with King and proposed that the executive “be appointed by electors chosen by the States in a ratio that would allow one elector to the smallest and three to the largest States.” The idea of electors began to gain momentum. Oliver Ellsworth moved that “electors be appointed by the State legislatures – one for each State not exceeding 200,000 inhabitants; two for each about that number and not exceeding 300,000; and three for each State exceeding 300,000.” Elbridge Gerry is drawn to the idea of electors, but prefers they be chosen by the executives of the States. That not being agreeable to the delegates, he proposed adjusting the ratio of electors from each State.
By the end of the day, the Convention voted that the executive should be chosen by electors (6 – 3 – 1) and that electors should be selected by State legislatures (8 – 2). The ratio of electors for each State was postponed.
Martin’s original motion that opened today’s deliberations, that is, that the executive “shall be ineligible a second time,” failed by 2 - 8. Only the Carolinas voted “yes.”
The Report of the Committee of the Whole proposes the executive serve a term of seven years. The ineligibility restriction now removed, arguments for a shorter term gained support. Following a very brief discussion, all but Delaware endorsed six years.
Decisions about the role of the executive, the manner of his selection, and his tenure are fundamental to the new order and especially sensitive for the simple reason that most delegates are keenly aware that the first person to fill that position is sitting silently among them. George Washington himself is not ignorant of this sentiment. Later, Pierce Butler will record that “many members looked to General Washington as their first president.”