Signing Their Rights Away Page 12

  By now he was an affable, aristocratic sixty-four-year-old bachelor. The third oldest signer, after Ben Franklin and Roger Sherman, Jenifer attended nearly all the sessions but kept his comments to a minimum. Even though Maryland was a small state in size and population, Jenifer preferred the Virginia Plan, whereas his most prominent fellow delegate, a hard-drinking Baltimore attorney named Luther Martin, championed the New Jersey Plan. (During the most significant votes on representation, Jenifer and Martin were the only Maryland delegates in attendance; the others were likely called away to attend to other business.)

  With Jenifer’s and Martin’s votes canceling each other out, Maryland’s vote was often tied and, therefore, useless in advancing the dialogue on larger issues. Jenifer thought that the nation must have a durable, strong union and that that the federal government should have the power to tax. As an expert in governmental finance, he knew how vital sources of funding were to carrying out state business. But he was wise enough to know that the small states needed to get their way on the issue of representation or they would abandon the convention altogether.

  The delegates spent most of July 2 trying to decide the make-up of the future Senate. They had already agreed that representatives in the House would be chosen according to each state’s population, but then the small states began demanding equal votes in the Senate. Jenifer disagreed, but one can only assume he didn’t feel too strongly about the issue because, when the time came to take a vote, he disappeared. He lingered outside the state house, certainly knowing that, without his nay vote, Martin would throw the entire state of Maryland behind equal suffrage. Minutes after the vote was taken, Jenifer ambled back into the room.

  And that wasn’t the only time Jenifer wouldn’t get his way. On another occasion, he insisted that U.S. representatives be elected to three-year, not two-year, terms. He thought seeking election every two years would be exhausting and drive away the best office seekers. (The convention ignored his advice, and U.S. representatives still serve two-year terms.)

  Jenifer would later marvel at how beautifully the delegates came together to create the Constitution. “The first month we only came to grips,” he said. “And the second it seemed as though we would fly apart forever, but we didn’t—we jelled.”

  Jenifer signed the Constitution, but his opponent Martin refused, reportedly saying, “I’ll be hanged if the people support the Constitution!” Jenifer needled his convention buddy: “You should stay in Philadelphia so they don’t get you with their rope!” In the end, Maryland became the seventh state to ratify the new Constitution.

  The wise-cracking old land man retired to his sizable plantation estate, Stepney, where he died at the age of sixty-seven, only three years after his time in Philadelphia. Since he never did marry, Jenifer left his estate to his nephew, the plainly named Daniel, with instructions to free his slaves about six years after their master’s death. Today, no one knows where the signer with the interesting middle name is buried. It’s possible he was laid to rest on family property or perhaps was entombed in a famous churchyard in the Port Tobacco area that lost its headstones in a massive flood. His whereabouts, like his own odd name, are mysteries for the ages.

  The Signer Who Helped Create Washington, D.C.

  BORN: July 22, 1730

  DIED: May 7, 1796

  AGE AT SIGNING: 57

  PROFESSION: Merchant

  BURIED: Location unknown; believed to be in St. John’s Catholic Cemetery, Forest Glen, Maryland

  At the time of the Constitutional Convention, the nation’s government was headquartered in New York City. Daniel Carroll gets a lot of the credit for moving it to the area now known as Washington, D.C. The decision was quite a controversial one back in the day, largely because Carroll’s family owned much of the land that would later become the District of Columbia.

  Carroll was born in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. His father—like many of the Carroll clan—was a rich planter with lots of land. He was one of seven children; his younger brother John became the first Catholic bishop and archbishop in the United States.

  Hailing from one of the wealthiest families in all of the thirteen colonies did not insulate Carroll from the prejudices suffered by members of the Catholic faith, rich and poor alike. At this time in America’s history, Catholics were often forbidden to practice law, build churches, or hold public office. In some colonies, Catholics who intended to assume public office were forced to take a Test Oath, renouncing their faith. Because teaching children in Catholic schools was also discouraged, Carroll was educated privately before being shipped off to France to complete his studies, an option his family could easily afford. He enrolled in a Jesuit school for six years before returning to the colonies at the age of eighteen.

  Several years later Carroll’s father died, leaving behind a great inheritance. Carroll then married his cousin Eleanor, thus keeping the fortune in the family while increasing his own holdings substantially, for Eleanor came with a not-too-shabby dowry of £3,000. A successful tobacco exporter, Carroll boosted his portfolio by purchasing and selling land and slaves. He also dabbled in land speculation, as did many of his fellow signers. But, luckily for him, his interest in lands west of the Appalachians did not result in complete financial ruin.

  The year 1776 brought not only the start of the Revolutionary War but also the institution of the Maryland Constitution, which allowed Catholics to vote and hold office. Carroll entered the state legislature in 1777. He was not a particularly vocal or outspoken supporter of the war; some say he may even have been reluctant. Maryland hosted few battles, so residents were less likely to identify themselves as fierce loyalists or die-hard patriots. We do know, however, that Carroll purchased supplies for the army and continued to work in public office. In 1781, toward the end of the war, he was elected to Congress and ratified the Articles of Confederation on behalf of Maryland, the last of the thirteen new states to accept the governing document. In a sense, Carroll’s signature put the articles into effect. That same year he entered the first Maryland state senate, where he served for many years.

  He remained in Congress until 1784, when he joined with an old friend by the name of George Washington to work on the Potomac Company. The firm sought to enhance navigation of the Potomac River by means of a canal that would help link the Mid-Atlantic states to land in the west. Since Carroll had plenty of land holdings around the river, he was eager to see the project through.

  In 1787, Carroll’s famous—and famously loaded—cousin Charles of Carrollton, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was asked to be a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. When he declined the invitation, the opportunity fell to Daniel. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea and complained of health problems. He wrote, “I dare not think of residing in Phila. in the summer months.… Moderate (but constant dayly) exercise, temperance and attention, have in a great measure conquer’d my nervous complaints, without the aid of Medicine.”

  Nevertheless, Carroll made the trip, although he arrived two months after the opening session. Though he was dreading summer in Philadelphia, he didn’t let the heat and humidity stifle his performance. He apparently spoke about twenty times.

  Carroll was a classic small-state nationalist. He also approved of Alexander Hamilton’s idea of a strong central financial system and felt that the federal government should assume various state debts that had lingered since the war.

  And, unlike many a signer with a fat wallet, Carroll was a big believer in democracy and had plenty of faith in the Everyman. Case in point: he didn’t want Congress to choose the president but favored citizens electing the nation’s highest office directly. He couldn’t rally enough delegates to back this idea, but he eventually supported a system of presidential electors who would be chosen by the people, which would be a key component of the Electoral College system.

  Carroll was one of only two Catholic signers (the other was Thomas FitzSimons of Pennsylvania). After the signing, Carroll
did not take part as a delegate to his state’s ratification convention, but he did help convince Maryland to ratify. He wrote articles in newspapers extolling the virtues of the new framework, calling it “the best form of government which has ever been offered to the world.” He also felt that all thirteen states should be required to ratify the Constitution, but his fellow delegates overruled him. Nine were required to put the Constitution into effect, which occurred once New Hampshire ratified in 1789.

  Carroll ran as a Federalist and won an appointment to the House of Representatives in the new government. Talk of amending the Constitution had already begun. He, along with Connecticut’s Oliver Ellsworth and signers James Madison and William Paterson, began drafting amendments, the first ten of which became the Bill of Rights. Carroll, the Catholic signer, played a major role in drafting the first, and perhaps best-known, amendment, which guarantees, among other things, religious freedom. “Many sects have concurred in opinion that they are not well secured under the present Constitution,” he said. He also contributed to the Tenth Amendment, the one that says all rights not granted to the feds are reserved for the states and the people. The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution in 1791.

  Carroll remained in the new government until 1791. He then accepted an appointment from his pal, President George Washington, to work with two other men to oversee the surveying, designing, and construction of a new federal district, which would become home to the nation’s new capital. Its location, along the Potomac, was certainly fortuitous for Carroll: he owned most of the land that was designated to become Washington, D.C. This fact is largely forgotten today, but it wasn’t at the time—indeed, many people questioned his impartiality.

  Carroll resigned in 1795 because of poor health and died at the age of sixty-five at his home near Rock Creek. There were so many Carrolls—and a fair number of Daniels among them—that the precise location of his grave is unknown; it is believed to be in St. John’s Catholic Cemetery in Forest Glen, Maryland.

  IX. Virginia

  The President of the Constitutional Convention

  BORN: February 22, 1732

  DIED: December 14, 1799

  AGE AT SIGNING: 55

  PROFESSION: Planter

  BURIED: Mount Vernon Estate, Mount Vernon, Virginia

  No, he never chopped down that cherry tree. That pleasant fiction was concocted by a preacher seeking to instill good moral values in America’s youth. But the false teeth? George Washington definitely had those. By the time he was president he’d lost all but one of his original teeth, and so he made do with ill-fitting dentures fashioned of all kinds of crazy stuff: hippo, walrus, or elephant ivory studded with pig teeth, cow teeth, elk teeth, and even human teeth from the mouths of slaves. The falsies worked passably well, but he became self-conscious about speaking or smiling in public. That deadpan look he wears on the dollar bill was the uncomfortable result.

  But don’t let the dour image fool you: the father of his country was a gregarious, athletic man who loved good times, drinking, gambling, cockfights, horse races, dancing, and salty jokes. He also knew how to present a dignified self-image to the world, especially when his troops, foreign dignitaries, and the American people were watching.

  Washington, the first man to sign the U.S. Constitution, was the eldest of six children of a Virginia plantation owner named Augustine and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington. Dad died when the children were young, and eleven-year-old George helped his domineering, nagging mother raise his siblings. A relatively poor child who lacked the resources to attend college, young George was mentored by his older stepbrothers. As a teen, he longed to go to sea, but his mother forbade it. He ended up becoming a surveyor and mapmaker who used his earnings and connections to acquire land. He became fascinated with the promise of frontier territories in the west and began dreaming of their possibilities. In his spare time, he rode horses, hunted, and wandered the woods in search of adventure. Despite a desire to see the world, he grew up to become a man somewhat kept, bound, hemmed in, or trapped by a life of duty and service.

  Washington joined the Virginia militia when he was only about seventeen years old and served bravely during the French and Indian War in the 1750s, when Britain was battling France for control of North America. As a young lieutenant colonel, he won his first skirmish against the French in a Pennsylvania town in 1754, but later had to surrender his entire force when the French tracked them down. Released and allowed to return home, he resigned his post rather than accept a demotion. He enlisted again as an aide to British general Edward Braddock, and, though sick, he led the troops in retreat after Braddock was mortally wounded. In battle, he miraculously escaped injury countless times. Two horses were shot out from under him and bullets tore his jacket and hat to shreds, but he was unharmed. Yet, when Washington twice tried to attain an officer’s post in the British army, he was rebuffed. He angrily returned home to serve in his colony’s militia. A practical, tidy, and moody man with a mathematical mind and surveyor’s appreciation for precision, he soon grew impatient with the disorganized way he felt the government was running the militia.

  Washington quit and married a young widow, Martha Dandridge Custis, and adopted her two children. Enriched by Martha’s own wealth and plantation, the young family settled at Mount Vernon, a family home Washington had inherited upon the death of his older stepbrother Lawrence. Throughout the rest of his life, even when he was at war, Washington would work at remaking the estate in his own image, establishing fields of crops, gardens, and distillery and pushing the plantation’s boundaries from two thousand to eight thousand acres. (Today the famous home hosts a million tourists each year.) For a while, he embarked on the life of a fashionable Virginia planter. He dabbled in politics at the House of Burgesses, which met in Williamsburg. Though not as radical as other patriots, Washington felt that all English gentlemen were entitled to the rights abrogated by the king and Parliament and, if necessary, should be prepared to defend those rights by force. In 1775, after the shots had rung out in Lexington and Concord, he was sent to the first Continental Congress, which chose him to lead the Continental Army. And it was just as well, too. The thought of restless Washington languishing in Congress while John Adams and the others squabbled is enough to make one want to take a hatchet to a hundred fruit trees.

  Washington didn’t have much to work with when he took over the fledgling nation’s military, but he did the best he could. Although unimpressed with the recruits, he decided they were at least worthy of training. He was a man who had once swum across a freezing river and who had crawled on his belly to scout retreat lines; he was willing to endure miserable conditions and expected the same of his men. Knowing that he was being watched, he gave them the role model that he himself would have wanted. He arrived for work in a gorgeous custom-made uniform and kept it looking spiffy throughout the battles. When times called for it, he could be tough, ordering habitual deserters hanged and others whipped.

  You could say he was a good model to the congressmen back home in Philadelphia, though some schemed to oust him. Washington was nothing if not loyal to the rebel cause. When offered military wages, he declined them. He did accept roughly $65,000 in Continental currency to cover his wartime expenses, but even that money—printed on paper—lost value the longer he held it.

  Only forty-three years old when he took over as commander in chief, Washington had much to learn and made a few early blunders in his defense of Brooklyn and Manhattan. By the numbers, he lost more battles than he won, but that didn’t really matter, did it? He was a quick study who learned how to opportunistically pounce when he could seize the advantage. Though his troops were frequently outsupplied and outnumbered (20,000 U.S. troops to 50,000 British troops and mercenaries), Washington managed to train them into an efficient and nimble fighting force. If you had to pinpoint his military style, you could say that he worried his opponents incessantly with small battles, striking and retreating, until he found the right moment
to launch a decisive attack. After he mopped Yorktown with Cornwallis’s troops in 1781, the battle that won the war, Washington could have used his power to seize control of the weak U.S. government, as many of his angry unpaid soldiers wanted to do. He could have crowned himself king. But no. He addressed his troops with a few sentimental words and left them all weeping like babies. Any chance of rebellion was quashed on the spot.

  When the war was over, Washington happily returned to his beloved home to rebuild his neglected finances. He managed to have a little fun, too, obsessively canoeing waterways in search of a passage to his property out west. When among friends, he let down his hair and attended parties and dinners; some historians, studying his papers, conclude that he almost never ate a meal alone. Clearly the six-foot-two general with the size thirteen shoes loved people.

  Though his finances took a hit during the war, he was regarded as one of the richest men in America. But his wealth was mostly tied up in land and slaves. After the war, grateful states showed their thanks by awarding him massive tracts of land, and he added to these holdings with expensive impulse transactions. Once, on a trip to upstate New York with then governor George Clinton, he saw a huge parcel that he simply had to have. Though still owing money on other land he’d purchased, Washington proceeded to borrow $6,000 from Clinton and bought the property. Though it took him four years to repay the loan, he managed to turn a profit by selling the land in small pieces.