Signing Their Rights Away Read online

  But the convention was only half the battle.

  Back home in Virginia, Madison had to confront antinationalists and political power players, such as George Mason, Patrick “I smelt a rat” Henry, and Richard Henry Lee, all of whom were against ratifying the Constitution. Madison fought hard at home and, with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, helped author the “Federalist Papers,” a series of essays published in New York newspapers and beyond that explained and defended the concepts inherent in the Constitution. Virginia became the tenth state to ratify, squeaking by with a vote of 89 to 79.

  Madison was eager to serve as a senator in the new government, but Patrick Henry would have none of it. After Henry publicly criticized him as “unworthy of the confidence of the people,” Madison fell short in votes.

  Madison then turned his attention to the House of Representatives, where once again Henry tried to thwart him, but this time Madison prevailed; he beat James Monroe and served in the new government from 1789 to 1797. While there, he worked to fulfill the promise he had made during Virginia’s ratification battle: to get cracking on a Bill of Rights. He served as chair of the committee that drafted that document. He helped organize the executive branch of government and the federal taxation system. He began to sour on Alexander Hamilton’s policies and found himself increasingly sympathetic to those of his friend and Virginia neighbor, Thomas Jefferson. (Monticello and Montpelier are less than thirty miles apart.) The pair united, and together they created the Democratic-Republican Party.

  All of this studying, writing, and politicking hadn’t left Madison with much time for socializing, and it’s doubtful that many women found his quiet, almost skittish behavior very appealing. Nevertheless, he had the spectacular good sense to marry Dolley Payne, a woman who had lost her first husband to yellow fever. The two were the ultimate odd couple—she was vivacious and outgoing; he was, well, not. But theirs appears to have been a true love.

  When Jefferson took office as president in 1801, he appointed Madison his secretary of state. It was a tricky time for diplomacy. There were still troubles with theft and piracy on the high seas, diplomacy and sanctions seemed to be doing little good, and folks feared another war was brewing—this time involving the North African Barbary States. During this time, Dolley often played hostess at the White House, since Jefferson had lost his wife, Martha. It turned out to be good practice for Dolley; when Madison became the country’s fourth president, serving from 1809 to 1817, she took on the role as one of the most celebrated first ladies (and, as every schoolkid knows, the first to serve ice cream in the White House).

  But times were tough. The Napoleonic Wars were raging in Europe, and tensions with Britain erupted into the War of 1812. The First Lady demonstrated her heroism when the British army invaded Washington D.C.; she wrote her sister several letters describing what would turn out to be an invaluable act of bravery and level-headedness: “I have pressed as many cabinet papers into trunks as to fill one carriage; our private property must be sacrificed, as it is impossible to procure wagons for its transportation.… Our kind friend, Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure, and is in a very bad humor with me, because I insist on waiting until the large picture of General Washington is secured, and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall.… I have ordered the frame to be broken and the canvass taken out.” And so it is thanks to Dolley Madison that some of the White House’s most precious papers, as well as Gilbert Stuart’s famed portrait of George Washington, have survived.

  The Treaty of Ghent brought a wimpy end to the stalemate of a war, though Andrew Jackson’s triumph in the battle of New Orleans—which technically occurred after the conflict’s end—perhaps gave the United States a false feeling of victory.

  Madison retired to Montpelier but remained politically active. He was cochair of the Virginia Constitutional Convention, took on the post of foreign-policy advisor to President James Monroe, and served as rector (or president) of the University of Virginia. He dedicated time to editing his journals, including his notes from the Constitutional Convention, leaving instructions that they not be published until after his death. They were published in 1836 and remain the best guide to the extraordinary events of that remarkable summer in 1787.

  The house and grounds of Madison’s Montpelier, in Virginia, are open to the public and currently undergoing renovations. The Octagon House in Washington, D.C., where the Madisons lived after the burning of the White House and where the Treaty of Ghent was signed, is also open to visitors.

  X. North Carolina

  The Signer Who … Oh, There’s No Way to Dance Around the Issue, This Guy Was a Crook

  BORN: March 26, 1749

  DIED: March 21, 1800

  AGE AT SIGNING: 38

  PROFESSION: Planter, politician

  BURIED: First Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, Tennessee

  Scoundrel. Rogue. Rascal. Scalawag. Rapscallion. There are so many delicious words in the English language to describe the less-savory side of William Blount that it can be easy to forget that—regardless of his motives—this shady signer was instrumental in getting North Carolina to ratify the Constitution.

  Raised at Blount Hall, a large cotton and tobacco plantation near then colonial capital of New Bern, North Carolina, Blount (pronounced blunt) was the eldest of a large brood. His father, Jacob, was a prosperous merchant who was active in land acquisition. The Blount children were taught primarily by tutors and their parents. Blount lost his mother, Barbara Gray, when he was fourteen years old; as the eldest in the family, he stayed close to his father and learned all there was to know about buying and selling property. These lessons would contribute equally to his successes as well as his failures.

  In 1776, with the Revolutionary War raging, Blount was appointed regimental paymaster for the Third North Carolina Regiment and, later, chief paymaster of state forces and deputy paymaster general for North Carolina. Under General Horatio Gates, head of the southern armies, Blount served as a chief commissary agent, a handy post for a budding wheeler-dealer in which he handled purchasing and supplies. After the brief but brutal and bloody defeat at Camden, South Carolina, Gates hightailed it from the battlefield; he left behind not only weapons but, supposedly, £300,000 in paper currency, a sum intended for the soldier’s payroll, which Blount later reported to the federal government as, ahem, “missing.”

  Blount married Mary Grainger in 1778, and in 1780 he left the military and began his political career as part of the North Carolina state legislature. He was appointed to the Continental Congress in 1782 but the next year decided to return home, serving again as part of the state legislature and working to expand his already considerable land holdings.

  Blount, with his brother John Gray Blount, had his hands in literally millions of acres, and together they worked via the North Carolina legislature to open to settlement the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. Trading posts were established, and Blount secured an appointment as an agent dealing with the Native American tribes on the frontier, in hopes of ensuring that any treaties struck would favor his extensive interests in the area. Blount wasn’t always successful in convincing other members of the commission to give up more land to speculators, but that didn’t stop him from getting creative with his purchases. He used aliases, took land that wasn’t legally his, and deceived Native Americans along the way. These actions certainly didn’t make him a leading candidate for any ethics awards, but they did keep him popular among settlers who had similar goals but lacked Blount’s talent for chicanery.

  In 1786, Blount was back in the Continental Congress and traveled to New York to talk up the importance of encouraging migration toward the frontier; he even put mentions in newspapers in London and New York encouraging folks to do just that—a ploy that would increase the value of his own holdings. The next year, he then served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. He didn’t speak much during the convention, nor did he hold much faith in the future of the United S
tates. Though delegates were forbidden to do so, Blount sent home letters in which he discussed the deliberations, expressing his pessimism in this way: “We shall ultimately and not many years hence be separated and distinct governments perfectly independent of each other.” Although reluctant at first to sign the Constitution, he later explained away why he did so, hedging that his signature was not technically a mark of approval but merely proof of his presence at the proceedings.

  Eventually, Blount came to support the idea of a strong central government, if only because it would ease the way for westward expansion. But North Carolina would prove to be a tough anti-Federalist nut to crack—citizens of the state were demanding a Bill of Rights. Blount’s lobbying in favor of ratification didn’t win him many fans; he was not elected as a delegate to the state’s convention in 1788, and ratification was handily rejected. But by the next year, after ratification by nine other states and with the Constitution officially in effect, Blount’s arguments suddenly seemed more compelling. Another convention was held, this time with Federalists driving the conversation. On November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the twelfth state, leaving as the last holdout only Rhode Island, which hadn’t even participated in the Constitutional Convention.

  The next year, President Washington appointed Blount governor for the Territory of the United States South of the River Ohio, a region that included Tennessee and parts of western North Carolina. Blount was also superintendent of Indian affairs for the southern department and, in that role, negotiated treaties with such tribes as the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw. He organized militia and also swore in a twenty-three-year-old upstart named Andrew Jackson as attorney general for the western part of territory. His opportunities on the development front were staggering. Let the wild land-speculating rumpus begin!

  In 1792 Blount began constructing Blount Mansion in Knoxville, which he decided would be the territory’s new capital. In 1796, he was president of the convention that made Tennessee the sixteenth state and was elected one of its first two senators. Knoxville served as state capital until 1817.

  Then things went horribly wrong.

  Blount and his brother had millions of acres to their name (or any of the fictitious monikers they used at the time). With ongoing wars in Europe causing immigration to dry up, land values took a swan dive. Ever crafty, Blount became involved in a nutty plan to incite Native American wars with Spanish territories in Louisiana, Florida, and beyond. In the letter that sealed his fate, he wrote that his role would be “at the head of the business on the part of the British.” Whoops. He instructed his correspondent to burn this incriminating letter after reading it; instead, the missive found its way into the hands of President John Adams, who turned it over to the Senate, which charged Blount with treason and conspiracy. The House impeached him, and the Senate promptly gave Blount the boot. He tried fleeing Philadelphia but was stopped and his possessions were seized. He posted bond and was set to stand trial before the U.S. Senate but escaped to North Carolina, where he hid from his government and his creditors.

  Eventually, Blount made his way home to Tennessee, where he remained as popular as ever. So much so that, when the impeachment trial was about to begin, the Senate was forced to send a sergeant at arms down to Knoxville to arrest the wily fugitive and drag him back to Philadelphia; Blount wined him, dined him, and declined him. He hired attorneys—including his fellow Constitution signer Jared Ingersoll—to represent him at the trial, but the Senate ended up dismissing all charges.

  Though Blount was the first person ever impeached in the United States, his popularity at home remained intact, and he served in the Tennessee legislature until his death, in 1800, at age fifty. Today you can visit his stately home, Blount Mansion, in Knoxville, Tennessee.

  The Other Signer Who Died in a Duel

  BORN: March 25, 1758

  DIED: September 6, 1802

  AGE AT SIGNING: 29

  PROFESSION: Planter, politician

  BURIED: Clermont Estate Cemetery, New Bern, North Carolina

  Richard Dobbs Spaight was a true son of North Carolina. Of the five men sent to represent the Tar Heel State at the Constitutional Convention, only two had been born there. William Blount was the scoundrel. Spaight was the hero—a man the people would someday elevate to the office of governor. And, like many storied sons of the South, he died a tragic if honorable death.

  Spaight was born in the coastal town of New Bern, North Carolina. His mother, Margaret Dobbs, was the sister of the royal governor, and his wealthy planter father, Richard, was the governor’s secretary. One by one they all died—the governor, his sister, and her husband—and the poor little rich kid was shipped off to Great Britain by his guardians. When the Revolutionary War broke out, young Spaight was studying at the University of Glasgow, but upon graduation he made the trek back home to serve on the patriot side as an administrative officer to the North Carolina militia. He fought in the battle of Camden, South Carolina, a major defeat for the colonies, and achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel. Blessed with youth, looks, wealth, and a fine war record, he went into local politics and was sent to Congress at the end of the war. Spaight, who owned seventy-one slaves, drew Thomas Jefferson’s ire when he worked to kill a bill that would have ended slavery in the western half of the growing nation. Jefferson never forgave him and would later speak of him as the man who let slavery spread westward. Before the age of thirty, Spaight was speaker of his state legislature, a post that sent him to the Constitutional Convention.

  Like many of the delegates, Spaight was an aristocrat and had little faith in the common people to elect their leaders; he also suggested that the president and senators each serve seven years, an idea that was quickly nixed. (U.S. presidents are elected for terms of four years, senators for six.) But when he suggested that senators be chosen by state legislatures, the convention seized upon the idea. And that was how senators were chosen until 1913, when the Seventeenth Amendment was adopted and provided for them to be elected directly by the American people. Spaight also wanted the president to be chosen by Congress, an idea borrowed from the Virginia Plan. The framers, generally fearful of mob rule, tended toward inserting checks into the system to correct for a bad popular decision. Hence, they created an electoral college, which would be based on a proportion of the popular vote, to select the president. Spaight never missed a session of the convention and signed the Constitution on September 17.

  But for almost two years North Carolina waffled on ratifying the document. To bring about resolution, Spaight convinced his friend George Washington to visit and use his considerable influence to sway votes. Spaight himself probably would have spent more time campaigning for ratification, but he was forced to take a breather from politicking because of poor health. No one knows what ailed him. He was only twenty-nine when the convention concluded and may have suffered from a disease, congenital defect, or health condition not identifiable by medical techniques of the day. He tried traveling to the West Indies to recuperate but returned home by 1792, when he was elected to be his state’s first locally born governor. An honest, conscientious leader, he moved the state capital to Raleigh and was instrumental in the founding of the university at Chapel Hill. When his term ended in 1795, the thirty-seven-year-old former governor married Mary Leach, a Yankee woman from Pennsylvania. They had three children.

  For the next few years, Spaight tried his best to stay active in state and national politics, but his mysterious health issues continued to interfere. He was elected to the House of Representatives for one term, and then a second, but was forced to take leaves of absence. He finally threw in the towel in 1801, after supporting Thomas Jefferson for president. He resigned himself to staying close to home in the state senate. His Federalist opponent, John Stanly, who landed the seat Spaight vacated in Congress, proceeded to badmouth his predecessor. Spaight was not sickly, Stanly claimed, but had merely used his health as an excuse to avoid taking a stand on controversial issues. The a
iling Spaight—he of the perfect convention attendance—defended himself with angry handbills distributed to voters.

  The situation got ugly and ended with the two men meeting at dawn with pistols drawn. Although today duels may seem like a foolish way to settle an argument, in colonial times they were a handy means of preventing a disagreement from blossoming into an all-out feud between families. Duels also preserved men’s honor. If they showed up, fired their pistols, and made it obvious they didn’t want to kill anyone, they could emerge with their reputations intact.

  But sometimes the duelers were out for blood—and such was the case when Spaight met Stanly in New Bern, North Carolina.

  Spaight’s biographers claim that he was so sickly he could barely hold his pistol. He was no match for the healthier Stanly, who fired four shots, hitting his opponent with his last round. Spaight died the next day, leaving behind his wife and children. He was only forty-four years old. Stanly faced a murder rap but was pardoned by the governor. All told, three significant founding fathers lost their lives in duels: Button Gwinnett, a Georgia signer of the Declaration of Independence; Alexander Hamilton; and the little-known Spaight.

  The late governor was buried on the grounds of his mother-in-law’s 2,500-acre estate, Clermont. Unfortunately, Union soldiers plundered and burned the plantation house to the ground in 1862. According to local legend, Yankee looters also desecrated Spaight’s grave; they stole his casket, spilled his skeleton onto the ground, and hung his skull on the gatepost. His coffin was allegedly used to ship the body of a Union soldier back north. Today the family plot, which contains the graves of eleven Spaight family members, is located on a lonely country road—and is enclosed on all sides by a tall brick wall and a heavy iron gate.