Founding America: Documents from the Revolution to the Bill of Rights (102 page)

This paragraph was rejected.

The Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora Nations, members of the Iroquois Confederacy that inhabited what became upstate New York.

John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore and royal governor of Virginia from 1771 to 1776.

John Hancock (1737-1793).

Samuel Quincy ( 1735-1789), a Boston loyalist.

James Harrington (1611-1677), author of the republican political tract
The Commonwealth of Oceana ( 1656),
published during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744), English poet and essayist.

English political writers from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, all supporters of republican principles of government.

From Alexander Pope’s poem “An Essay on Man” (1734).

Words crossed out here and below were written by Jefferson but later removed from the document by Congress.

Words in brackets here and below were written in the margin by Jefferson and approved by Congress for inclusion in the finished document.

Evidently a reference to Silas Deane ( 1737-1789), the Continental Congress’s agent to France, who en route to that country reached Bermuda in early May 1776.

Samuel Chase ( 1741-1811 ), Maryland representative in the Continental Congress.

Benjamin Harrison ( 1726-1791 ), Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress.

James Wilson ( 1742-1798) of Pennsylvania.

Robert Treat Paine ( 1731-1814) of Massachusetts.

John Witherspoon (1723-1794), delegate from New Jersey, was also the president of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University.

Benjamin Rush ( 1746-1813) of Pennsylvania.

Stephen Hopkins (1707-1785), delegate from Rhode Island.

In the early 1780s, the northern and western boundaries of Pennsylvania had yet to be surveyed, and the exact location of Lake Erie relative to that state remained uncertain.

Hamilton refers to the hereditary office that had become the effective monarchy of the united provinces of the Netherlands.

Philip John Schuyler ( 1733-1804) of Albany soon became Hamilton’s father-in-law.

Alexander McDougall ( 1731-1786) of New York City had been a prominent leader of the Sons of Liberty before 1776 and later served as a general in the Continental Army.

In 1780 the Continental Congress began asking particular states to supply specific material needs of the Continental Army.

John Law ( 1671-1729), Scottish economist who founded the Mississippi Company, which became one of the great speculative bubbles of the early eighteenth century.

John Holroyd ( 1735-1821 ), first earl of Sheffield.

Of these 542 are on the eastern shore [Jefferson’s note].

Of these, 22,616 are eastward of the meridian of the north of the Great Kanhaway [Jefferson’s note].

To bid, to set, was the ancient legislative word of the English ... [Jefferson’s note].

June 4, 1781 [Jefferson’s note].

Crawford [Jefferson’s note]. Jefferson refers to the published experiments of Adair Crawford, a British physician and chemist.

The instrument proper to them is the Banjar, which they brought hither from Africa, and which is the original of the guitar, its chords being precisely the four lower chords of the guitar [Jefferson’s note].

Poet Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784), born in Africa, was captured, enslaved, and sold to a Boston family who reared her in Christianity and educated her in arts and letters.

gnatius Sancho ( 1729-1780) was born on a slave ship, carried to England as a toddler, and given to three spinster sisters at Greenwich. He eventually gained the patronage of the Montagu family, who employed him as a butler and educated him. He became a poet, playwright, and composer.

Jefferson refers to the main character in the novel
Tristram Shandy
( 1759-1767), by Laurence Sterne, which Jefferson reputedly always carried.

“Regarding the heretic who is to be burned” (Latin); reference to an English statute of 1401 that condemned those found in possession of an English translation of the Bible to be burned at the stake.

Declaration of Rights, Article 16 [Madison’s note].

Declaration of Rights, Article 1 [Madison’s note].

ditto, Art. 16 [Madison’s note].

Declaration of Rights, Art. 16 [Madison’s note].

At the spring 1787 elections, Governor James Bowdoin (1726-1790) was defeated for reelection, presumably for his decision to suppress Shays’ Rebellion, in which farmers and the poor rebelled against high taxes.

Edmund Randolph (1753-1813), governor of Virginia.

William Paterson ( 1745-1806), of the New Jersey delegation.

(this plan had been concerted among the deputations or members thereof, from Cont. N. Y N. J. Del. and perhaps Mr Martin from Maryd. who made with them a common cause on different principles. Cont. and N. Y were agst. a departure from the principle of the Confederation, wishing rather to add a few new powers to Congs. than to substitute, a National Govt. The States of N. J. and Del. were opposed to a National Govt. because its patrons considered a proportional representation of the States as the basis of it. The eagourness displayed by the Members opposed to a Natl. Govt. from these different [motives] began now to produce serious anxiety for the result of the Convention.—Mr. Dickenson said to Mr. Madison you see the consequence of pushing things too far. Some of the members from the small States wish for two branches in the General Legislature, and are friends to a good National Government ; but we would sooner submit to a foreign power, than submit to be deprived of an equality of suffrage, in both branches of the legislature, and thereby be thrown under domination of the large States.) [James Madison’s note]

(This copy of Mr. Patterson’s propositions varies in a few clauses from that in the printed Journal furnished from the papers of Mr. Brearley a Colleague of Mr. Patterson. A confidence is felt, notwithstanding, in its accuracy. That the copy in the Journal is not entirely correct is shewn by the ensuing speech of Mr. Wilson (June 16) in which he refers to the mode of removing the Executive by impeachment & conviction as a feature in the Virga. plan forming one of its contrasts to that of Mr. Patterson, which proposed a removal on the application of a majority of the Executives of the States. In the copy printed in the Journal, the two modes are combined in the same clause; whether through inadvertence, or as a contemplated amendment does not appear.) [James Madison’s note]

Oliver Ellsworth ( 1745-1807), representative from Connecticut; later the principal author of the Judiciary Act of 1789 and chief justice of the Supreme Court.

James Wilson (1742-1798), delegate from Pennsylvania, was later a justice of the first Supreme Court.

Literally, “adjournment without a day [set]” (Latin); a permanent adjournment of the Convention.

General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney ( 1746-1825), a delegate from South Carolina.

Jacob Broom ( 1752-1810) represented Delaware.

Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814), delegate from Massachusetts and later vice president during James Madison’s second administration.
john Rutledge ( 1739-1800) of South Carolina.

Rufus King ( 1755-1787) of Massachusetts.

In the printed copy of the draft, the number VI was repeated in error. We have here renumbered articles VII to the end and include the original, incorrect, numbers in brackets.

Charles Pinckney ( 1757-1824) of South Carolina.

Pierce Butler (1744-1842), delegate from South Carolina.
tin this and the following document, square brackets are used to indicate later insertions to Madison’s notes from the journals, and angled brackets are used to identify later additions or clarifications to the delegate’s speeches.

Roger Sherman (1721-1793) represented Connecticut.

George Mason ( 1725-1792), representative of Virginia.

On the remark by Mr. King that
“make”
war might be understood to “conduct” it which was an Executive function, Mr. Elseworth gave up his objection [and the vote of Cont was changed to—ay] [James Madison’s note].

Gouverneur Morris ( 1752-1816) of Pennsylvania.

Nathaniel Gorham ( 1738-1796), delegate from Massachusetts.

John Dickinson (1732-1808), a Delaware delegate.

William Samuel Johnson ( 1727-1819) of Connecticut.

Richard Henry Lee.

George Mason; see note on p. 387.

melancton Smith, a delegate to Congress from New York.

The same idea, tracing the arguments to their consequences, is held out in several of the late publications against the New Constitution [Hamilton’s note].

I mean for the union [Hamilton’s note].

By this Madison means the Senate, which has a “qualified connexion” with the executive through the “advise and consent” it gives in making appointments and treaties.

New York has no council except for the single purpose of appointing to offices; New Jersey has a council, whom the governor may consult. But I think, from the terms of the constitution, their resolutions do not bind him [Hamilton’s note].

De Lolme [Hamilton’s note]. The reference is to political philosopher Jean Louis De Lolme (1740-1806).