The Convention is at an impasse. Unable to agree on representation in the proposed national legislature, it voted yesterday to create a committee composed of one representative from each State to devise and recommend a compromise. It also voted to adjourn until Thursday, in part to give the committee time to do its work.
Prior to adjourning, the Convention elected members of the committee by ballot, each delegate casting a single vote rather than votes being cast by each State, both procedures authorized by Convention rules. Members of the Committee of Eleven include passionate small State advocates Luther Martin (Maryland), Gunning Bedford (Delaware), William Paterson (New Jersey), and Oliver Ellsworth (Connecticut) and moderate large State delegates Elbridge Gerry (Massachusetts), Benjamin Franklin (Pennsylvania), and George Mason (Virginia). The remaining members are Robert Yates (New York), William Davie (North Carolina), John Rutledge (South Carolina), and Abraham Baldwin (Georgia).
Although not a member of the committee, George Washington attended at least part of today’s meeting. Last night he “dined with some of the members of Convention at the Indian Queen” and “walked afterward in the State House yard.” As President of the Convention, Washington presides but has not engaged in debate, at least on the Convention floor. His mere presence and unspoken authority have an incalculable effect, but his influence is also felt in other, more subtle ways. Dinner with delegates last evening and observing the committee meeting today reflect that influence. There is no record of those meetings or what Washington may have said but it is unlikely that he did not engage in some discussion about the current deadlock. Certainly, he is aware of the significance of his ruling yesterday denying a “re-vote” on the issue that continues to bitterly divide the Convention and led to the creation of the Committee of Eleven.
In his “character sketches” William Pierce noted that Washington, “having conducted these States to independence and peace now appears to assist in framing a government to make the people happy.” Like Gustavas Vasa, he continued, “he may be said to be the deliverer of his country; like Peter the Great he appears as the politician and the statesman; and like Cincinnatus he returned to his farm perfectly contented with being only a plain citizen, after enjoying the highest honor of the Confederacy – and now only seeks for the approbation of this countrymen by being virtuous and useful.”
Washington’s diary reports that on the way to the State House he “set for Mr. Peale who wanted my picture to make a print or Metzotinto by.” A “metzotinto” or “mezzotinto” is a method of engraving a copper or steel plate by scraping and burnishing areas to produce effects of light and shadow. An artist as well as a member of the Pennsylvania militia, Charles Willson Peale fought in the battles of Princeton and Trenton and cared for the eight-one men under his command at Valley Forge, constantly making sketches for his nearly seven hundred portraits of military, political, religious and business leaders of his time. This morning, he sketched Washington in the general’s familiar blue and buff uniform with three stars on each epaulet. Still in uniform, Washington walked a few short blocks to the State House to observe the deliberations of the “Grand Committee.” In the meantime, Roger Sherman has replaced Ellsworth, who was “kept away by indisposition.”
The Committee elected Elbridge as chairman and proceeded immediately to its task. Yates noted that “by the proceedings in the convention they were so equally divided on the important question of representation in the two branches, that the idea of a conciliatory adjustment must have been in contemplation of the house in the appointment of this committee, but still how to affect this salutary purpose is the question.”
After considerable debate and a lengthy discourse by Yates about “his attachment to the national government on federal principles,” Benjamin Franklin made a motion which, “after some modification was agreed to, and made the basis of the report of the committee.” The motion was agreed to “on condition that both [propositions] shall be generally adopted.
The report provides “that in the first branch of the legislature…each State be allowed one member for every 40,000 inhabitants, of the description reported in the seventh resolution of the committee of the whole house [counting all free inhabitants and three-fifths of the slaves]; that each State not containing that number, shall be allowed one member. That all bills for raising or apportioning money, and for fixing salaries of the officers of government of the United States, shall originate in the first branch of the legislature and shall not be altered or amended by the second branch; and that no money shall be drawn from the public treasury but in pursuance of appropriations to be originated in the first branch.” And finally, “that in the second branch of the legislature, each State shall have an equal vote.”
The proposal is a true compromise. The small States would, indeed, be equal in the second branch. Proportional representation would be established for the first branch, satisfying the large States, while guaranteeing at least one representative for small States which might not meet the 40,000-population threshold. Counting three-fifths of the slaves for representation placates delegates from southern States; protecting the public purse by assigning origination of taxing and spending bills to “the people’s house” serves republican principles of self-government and trust in the people.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of thirteen American colonies declaring their independence from Great Britain, many of its most heroic and memorable events captured on canvas by Charles Willson Peale. The Convention is in recess but perhaps the spirit of unity that energized the revolution will infuse deliberations in the Convention in the coming days.