The First Congress by Fergus M. Bordewich

Author:Fergus M. Bordewich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

CHAPTER 16

A Southern Position

I feel ashamed of the body to which I belong.

—Benjamin Goodhue, June 1790

By June, the Pennsylvanians were losing their once-smug self-confidence, having realized that they didn’t have enough votes to snare the permanent capital for themselves. Although they presented a united front, their bargaining power was diluted by their internal division over assumption, with some members of the delegation supporting it and others opposed. But they were also well aware that no other faction was strong enough to get its way without their support. So they continued to dicker. “The New Yorkers are alarmed again,” reported Representative Thomas Hartley. “They offer to give the Permanent Residence to Pennsylvania—Temporary Residence at New York for only two years—but this is all deception—we must go on steadily with the Virginians—Temporary is all we can aim at, at present.”

The New Englanders were particularly frustrated. Assumption seemed to be reeling out of their grasp as the residence question pushed itself forward. “There is such caballing and disgracefully mixing National with local questions that I am heart sick of our situation,” wrote Benjamin Goodhue. “I feel ashamed of the body to which I belong.” On June 10, the Senate moved to tack assumption to the funding bill. But Morris and his allies refused to go along, lest the funding bill itself be lost as a result. “Their declaration is plain proof that Philadelphia stands in the way of the state debts,” fumed Fisher Ames. “It is barely possible for any business to be more perplexed & entangled than this has been. We are sold by the Pennsylvanians, and the assumption with it. This despicable Grog shop contest, whether the taverns of N. York or Philadelphia shall get the custom of Congress, keeps us in discord & covers us all with disgrace.”

The sense that the republic’s fate hung in the balance (as well as a desire for free entertainment) brought spectators crowding into the House chamber to witness what everyone recognized was one of the great dramas of the First Congress. Not all of them treated the spectacle with the gravity that members considered their due, offering a competing cacophony to the soaring and plummeting oratory below: the incessant cracking of nuts. “Those who are fond of almonds, walnuts and brown hullers will be so good as to have them cracked at home every morning, so that when they make their exhibition in the gallery they may proceed to eating, as the platoon firing of teeth against the corps of nut shells prevents the spectators from hearing some of the best speakers in the house,” complained one local newspaper. Once they’d eaten their fill, the New-York Daily Gazette advised, they should please pocket the shells “as the noise of pedestrial troops proudly crushing them to atomi produces the most inharmonious sounds that could possibly be invented.”

Almost daily, new alliances formed, broke apart, and re-formed in a different way. In the House, the Virginians and the Marylanders, who had long lobbied for a site on

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.