Legacy (3 page)

The leg don't get better. Advise Colonel Hamilton. And make plans to fill my spot at the next meeting in Philadelphia on 14 May next. Remember the two obligations we undertook. Fashion a strong new form of government but protect Virginia's interests. You can safely follow Colonel Hamilton in such matters.

Still fulminating against nurses, doctors and revolutionaries, he died at the end of March 1787, less than seven weeks before fifty-five other patriots much like himself convened to see what steps might be taken to rescue the United States from disintegration.

Simon Starr 1759-1804

I've always had difficulty explaining to my wife and my friends the curious role played by Simon Starr in the writing of the Constitution. Because he was a most excellent man and one of the found- ers who attended every session of the Convention, Nancy likes to imagine him standing before the members and orating with such persuasion that he modified the course of debate. Alas, it wasn't that way, so on Friday morning before I left for my duties in the basement of the White House, I scanned my grandfather Richard's copy of the informal notes Simon left regarding his role in the Convention, and asked her to refresh her memory while I headed for the lion's den. By the time I reached the White House, word had circulated that I was to testify before the Senate Committee on Monday, so while Nancy spent her spare time with the Constitution battles of 1787, 1 was immersed in the political battles of 1987. Of course, all my military co-workers dropped by inconspicuously to wish me well, and at least three used exactly the same words: 'Hang in there, champ,' as if I were a boxer getting hell pasted out of me. I felt that way, a reaction not

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diminished when Zack phoned me rather breat lessly: 'Norman, can you meet me at your place Immediately?' 'It's only eleven.' 'I said immediately,' and when I reached hom he was fretting impatiently on the stoop becaus Nancy wasn't in. Friday was her day at the mil tary hospital, where she read to men who ha been blinded in one action or another around th world. Once inside, he asked, before sitting dow 'Soldier, do you have a dress uniform? Goo bring it out. Now, what fruit salad can we slap o it? I want everything.' He said that since I was going to appear befor the Senate as a man who might be accused ( secret misbehaviour, he wanted me to stand fort in what he called 'blazing patriotic glory which meant he wished to check my ribbons, a sixteen. 'Are these first three of significanceT 'They are.' 'That amazing job you did on the swamp insta lation in Vietnam?' 'That's the second one.' 'The first? You do something I missedT 'The swamp was routine. Barely deserves medal. This one was for real. Saving a corporal life under ... well, unusual circumstances.' 'Care to specifyT 'It was earned. President Nixon said so whe he pinned it on. jabbed right into my skin. Quit clumsy.' Zack sat at the table for several minute staring at my medals and arranging the four tiei in different patterns. Abruptly he asked: 'Could see your Almanac againT and when I handed it t

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him, he said almost brusquely: 'Find me those pages about your ancestors. 9 It required only a few minutes for him to reassure himself about the Starr names, after which he spent several minutes idly scanning familiar phrases in the Declaration and the Con- stitution. With a bold gesture that indicated he had made up his mind, he slammed the book shut, strode to the door, and left. But from the street he called back: 'Your uniform. Get it dry-cleaned.'

On 9 May 1787, when Simon Starr left his family plantation in northern Virginia and started his five-day horse-back ride to the Constitutional Con- vention in Philadelphia, he carried with him the letter of instruction his father had sent from his deathbed in western Massachusetts: 'Make plans to fill my spot and fashion a strong new form of government. But protect Virginia's interests.' More than most delegates, Simon appreciated how difficult it would be to fulfill these two commands. in the first place, his elders in Virginia had made it clear that he and the other delegates were authorized merely 'to correct and improve our present Articles of Confederation, and under no circumstances to meddle with any new form of government.' For him to achieve what his father had wanted, a strong central government, would require ignoring these instructions. In the second place, he realized that a new union could not be established unless the three big states - Massachusetts in the North, with its manufacturing; Pennsylvania in the middle, with its commerce; Virginia in the South, with its tobacco and cotton plantation - found some way

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to protect their majority interests while ensuring the small states like Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Delaware a respectable voice in whatever form of government emerged. Up to now, it had been one state-one voice, but with the big states constantly accumulating more power and responsibility, such an imbalance could not continue. Rhode Island did not carry the weight of Virginia in population, trade or wealth, and to claim that she did was folly. He was perplexed as to how this impasse would be resolved, but he was sure of one thing: he would never allow Virginia's rights to be trampled. Simon was twenty-eight years old that spring, a graduate of the College of New Jersey at Princeton, red-headed, quick to anger, interested in all aspects of American life. He had served as foot soldier in the latter years of the Revolution, rising to the rank of captain, but he had known none of the commanding figures of that period. In recent years, however, he had corresponded with two of the most brilliant men in Virginia or the nation, George Mason and George Wythe, the dazzling professor of law at William and Mary College. Simon was literate, informed, patriotic, and determined to conduct himself with distinc- tion at the convention. As he left that May he assured his wife and young son: 'I'll be back for the fall harvest,' and as he rode down the long lane to the highway, he

called out the same message to the slaves who lined the pathway to bid him farewell. In his compact canvas saddle panniers he carried four books he had come to treasure at college: Thucydides' account of the Greek wars,

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John Locke's treatise on government, a book by Adam Smith on the commerce of nations, a saucy novel by Joseph Fielding. In his head he carried about as good an education as was then available in either the United States or Great Britain, but in both Princeton and Virginia he had been careful to mask any pretension to superiority. He was an earnest young man of solid ability who would always show deference to his elders. As one of the two youngest members of the Convention he would feel himself at a disadvantage, but he intended to associate himself with older men of talent and make his contribution through support- ing them. He rode into Philadelphia, a burgeoning city of some forty thousand, in the late afternoon of Sun- day, 13 May 1787, and without difficulty found Market Street, the main east-west thoroughfare, which he pursued toward the Delaware River until he came to Fourth Street. Here, in accor- dance with instructions, he turned south till he saw ahead, swaying in the evening breeze, the reassuring signboard of the Indian Queen Tavern. He tied his horse, took down his two panniers, and strode inside to announce himself to the innkeeper: 'Simon Starr of Virginia, for the room assigned to my father, Jared Starr.' At the mention of this name, several men who had been idly talking showed great interest and moved forward to meet the newcomer. In the next exciting moments he met members of the Virginia delegation, including four men of distinction: Edmund Randolph, James Madison, and the two older scholars with whom he'd been in corre- spondence, George Mason and George Wythe. Looking carefully at each as he was introduced,

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he said: 'And General Washington's a Virginian, too. Add him to you gentlemen, and Virginia's to be strongly represented,' and Madison said qui- etly: 'We planned it that way.' 'I rode hard to get here for tomorrow's opening session,' Starr said, to which Madison replied, with a touch of asperity: 'No need. There'll be no session.' 'WhyT and young Starr learned the first basic fact about the Convention: 'Takes seven of the thirteen states to form a legal quorum. Only four are here now.' 'When will the others arriveT and-Madison said sourly: 'Who knowsT Eleven days were wasted in idleness as del- egates straggled in, and each evening Madison informed those already in attendance of the situa- tion: 'Two more states reported today. Perhaps by the end of next week.' If the nation was, as the Virginia delegation believed, in peril, the men des- ignated to set it right seemed in no hurry to start. And shortly, there was sobering news: 'Rhode Island has refused to have anything to do with our Convention and will send no delegates.' This meant that only twelve states would do the work. One night during the waiting period Starr returned to the Indian Queen, to see a group of delegates speaking with a newcomer, a slender, handsome, self-contained young man of thirty, so compelling in his manner that Simon whispered to a friend: 'Who's thatT and when the man said:

'Alexander Hamilton, just in from New York,' Starr gasped so loudly that the newcomer turned, gazed at him with penetrating eyes, and said, almost grandly: 'YesT 'I'm Jared Starr's son.'

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And now the rather icy reserve which Hamilton had been showing melted in the sun of remembered friendship. Elbowing his way out of the crowd, he hurried to Simon, embraced him warmly with both arms, and cried: 'When I learned of your father's death I felt mortally stricken. A man rarely finds such a trusted friend.' They spent three hours together that first night, with Hamilton probing in a dozen different direc- tions to determine Starr's attitudes, and as the evening waned, it became clear that the two men had even more in common than Hamilton had had with old Jared Starr. Both believed in a strong kind of central government, in the right of large states to exercise large powers, and particularly in the sanctity of property. But toward the end of that first exploration Simon heard several of Hamilton's opinions which could be interpreted as an inclination toward a monarchical form of government: 'Simon, the world is divided into those with power and those without. Control of government must rest with the former, because they have most at hazard. Whatever kind of supreme ruler we devise, he should serve for life and so should the members of the stronger house, if we have more than one. That way we avoid the domination of the better class by the poorer.' 'Poorer? Do you mean moneyT Hamilton bit on his knuckle: 'Yes, I suppose I do. But I certainly want those with no money to have an interest in our government. But actually vot- ing? No, no. That should be reserved for those with financial interests to protect.' When Simon accompanied Hamilton to the door of the Indian Queen, he experienced a surge of devotion for this brilliant young man, so learned,

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so sure of himself, so clear-minded in his vision of what his adopted nation needed: 'Father told me that you were the best man he'd ever met, Colonel Hamilton. Tonight I understand why.' Then, hesi- tantly, he added: 'If I can help you in the days ahead, please let me know. You can depend on my support.' In the next week, when the delegates chafed because a quorum had still not reached Philadelphia, Simon remained close to his Vir- ginia delegation and watched with what care they raid their plans to assume intellectual and politi- cal control of the Convention. The three awesome minds, Mason, Madison and Wythe, perfected a general plan they had devised for a wholly new government, and it was agreed that at the first opportunity on opening day, the imposing Edmund Randolph would present it as a working paper around which the other delegates would have to frame their arguments. 'If we put up a good plan,' Madison said, 'we'll probably lose two-thirds of the minor details, but the solid structure will still remain.' At the close of the Convention, a hundred and sixteen days later, Simon Starr would draft a per- ceptive memorandum regarding his major experi- ences; these notes would not record the great debates or the machinations by which the new government was formed, but they would depict

honestly one young man's reactions to the men who gathered in Philadelphia that hot summer, and no entry was more illuminating than his sum- mary of the people involved:

Only twelve states nominated delegates and they authorized a total of 74 men to come to

Philadelphia. Of these, only 55 bothered to appear for any of the sessions, and of these, only 41 stayed to the bitter end, but of these, only 39 were willing to sign our finished document.

One of his entries that was widely quoted in later years dealt with the composition of the member- ship, and although the comments on those who ,r were there could have been provided by othe observers, his list of those who were conspicuous by their absence was startling:

I was surprised at how many delegates had col- lege degrees like my own. Harvard, Yale, Kings College in New York, the College of Phila- delphia, and four of us from Princeton were expected, but I was startled to find among them men from Oxford in England, the Inns of Court in London, Utrecht in Holland, and St Andrews in Scotland. We were not a bunch of illiterate farmers. We were, said some, 'the pick of the former colonies.'

But I was equally impressed by the luminous names I expected to see in our group and didn't. Patrick Henry was missing and so were the two Adamses from Massachusetts. Tom Jefferson was absent in France. John Marshall wasn't i here, nor James Monroe nor John Jay. John Hancock, my father's friend, wasn't here, nor famous Dr Benjamin Rush. And I expected to see the famous writer and political debater Noah Webster, but he wasn't here.

who, eleven years before, had dared to sign the Declaration of Independence: these were the men who along with Simon's father had placed their lives in jeopardy to defend the principle of free- dom. One by one, these eight introduced them- selves to Simon, reminding him of the high esteem in which his father had been held, and he was deeply moved by the experience. Two of the veter- ans earned a special place in his affections:

I was disappointed on opening day to find that Benjamin Franklin was not present, but on the morning of the second day I heard a commotion in the street outside our meeting hall and some cheering. Running to glimpse what might be happening, I saw coming down the middle of the street an amazing sight, a glassed-in ornate sedan chair of the kind used by European kings. It hung suspended from two massive poles which rested on the shoulders of eight huge prisoners from the local jail. Inside, perched on pillows, rode an old, baldheaded man who looked like a jolly bullfrog. It was Dr Franklin, most eminent of the delegates, and the oldest at eighty-one. Gout, obesity and creaking joints made it impossible for him to walk, hence the sedan chair. When the six prisoners carried him into the hall, someone alerted him that I was present. Calling 'Halt!' to the prisoners, .he beckoned me to approach, and when I did he reached out with both hands to embrace me, and tears came into his eyes: 'Son of a brave man, be like him.'