Contested Conventions by Melvin Yazawa

Contested Conventions by Melvin Yazawa

Author:Melvin Yazawa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press


CHAPTER FOUR

Virginia Matters

In early February 1788, Thomas Jefferson proposed a strategy for ratifying the Constitution that he thought would “have all its good, and cure its principal defect.” To James Madison, he wrote, “I sincerely wish that the 9 first conventions may receive, and the 4 last reject it. The former will secure it finally, while the latter will oblige them to offer a declaration of rights in order to complete the union.” Jefferson repeated this same proposal to others at greater length and with seemingly greater conviction. “I wish with all my soul that the nine first conventions may accept the new constitution, because it will secure to us the good it contains,” he told Alexander Donald, a Richmond tobacco merchant and sometime correspondent, “but I equally wish, that the four latest conventions, which ever they be, may refuse to accede to it, till a declaration of rights be annexed.” Their refusal would “command the offer of such a declaration, and thus give the whole fabric perhaps as much perfection as any one of that kind ever had.” In Paris, serving as the American minister to France, Jefferson informed the secretary to the American legation in London, William S. Smith, that if he were in America, he “would advocate” the Constitution “warmly till nine should have adopted and then as warmly take the other side to convince the remaining four that they ought not to come into it till the declaration of rights is annexed to it.”1

Jefferson soon abandoned his own scheme, convinced perhaps by Madison’s opposition to the idea of a declaration of rights, especially as a precondition to ratification, but more likely because he realized it jeopardized the Constitution itself. At the time Jefferson first made his proposal, five states had already ratified the Constitution. Delaware, New Jersey, and Georgia had done so unanimously, and Pennsylvania and Connecticut had ratified by margins of two to one and three to one, respectively. And Jefferson was “glad to hear that the new constitution is received with favor” because its advantages over the Articles of Confederation were “great and important.” The contest in Massachusetts revealed, however, that ratification would not be easily accomplished and that the strategy he proposed actually played into the hands of the most ardent Antifederalists. In the Virginia convention, Patrick Henry reminded the delegates of the “opinion of Mr. Jefferson our common friend.” Jefferson’s advice, Henry said, was for nine states to ratify and for four to reject the unamended Constitution. If, as “the most authentic accounts” predicted, New Hampshire became the ninth state, “where then will four states be found to reject, if we adopt it?” And if Virginia ratified under these circumstances, Henry warned, “the counsel of this enlightened and worthy countryman of ours will be thrown away.” Of greater importance to Henry was a more pragmatic consideration. If Virginia adopted the Constitution unconditionally, “what states will be left, of sufficient respectability and importance, to secure amendments by their rejection?” In other words, Jefferson’s



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