The signing of the Constitution on September 17,1787, ended one debate and began another. Although Oliver Ellsworth and his fellow delegates had emerged from Philadelphia with a new plan of government, they agreed that the Constitution would not become effective until nine of the thirteen states adopted it. The dynamic of the ratification debate would be different. For one, it brought the Constitution and its proponents into the public eye. Although there was some communication between delegates, ratification was a more decentralized process than the framing of the Constitution had been. For the former, the delegates gathered in one place; for the latter, they dispersed to their respective states.
Following the Convention, several of the framers, including Ellsworth, authored pro-Constitution newspaper essays. In keeping with contemporary practice , the widely circulated tracts were published pseudonymously. ( Likewise, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison combined forces with John Jay, who was not a delegate, under the pseudonym “Publius” to publish their now famous Federalist essays prior to taking center stage at the New York and Virginia ratification conventions, respectively.)
The preceding excerpts are found on page 95 and 96 of the Founding Federalist, The Life of Oliver Ellsworth, Chapter Four, entitled LANDHOLDER.
These past eight weeks I retreated somewhat from the angst of another presidential election season that is upon us. Not completely mind you. I still watched a debate and some watered down interviews: I still followed some social media to extract a hint of news: C-span became my go to for clearing the fog of opinions from my mind. To be honest, since the turn of this century I have come to believe our Country has socially, culturally, and politically bifurcated. We have devolved to the point that many are more comfortable with cultist behavior. Behavior apparently devoid of grace to listen to another opinion. Both sides, Progressive Democrats and Maga Republicans, reside in silos that echo and re echo their own points of views.
For those of you who follow my monthly posts focused on what literature I have read that month along with my trips to my metaphorical Lighthouse, you’ll have noticed I did not publish in August. No excuse except to share that I was recuperating from a medical procedure that showed me, like many things my age, more time is needed to find my usual smile. My smile is my shield I use to face the rigors of aging. However I still read, and, as I alluded to earlier, watched a little too much TV. As I sat in my go to recliner I noticed two books on my book shelf.
The book, Founding Federalist, The Life of Oliver Ellsworth authored by Michael C. Toth had been on my book shelf for a few years; a gift from my oldest son who has taken time to explore and chart our family tree. (The book I am finishing up now is another gift from him, Walden and Other Writings. Essays by Henry David Thoreau.)
I was curious how our country appeared to come together relatively quickly after a war with Britain that lasted seven years until the victory at Yorktown Virginia and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. No more than 45% of the colonists supported the war and at least 33% of the colonists fought for the British, (Slaughter, 2014, Independence: the Tangled Roots of the American Revolution). The date July 4th, 1776 is important to us and school children to this day because the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on that date and announced their intention to secede from Britain.
Toth’s book, Founding Federalist, understandably follows Oliver Ellsworth’s life from his birth in Windsor Connecticut in 1745 until his death in in 1807. As is my practice I will not reiterate here all the details of Ellsworth’s dedicated life to his family, his village of Windsor Connecticut and of course to the birth of our nation, still known by his wish as the United States of America! I will summarize and reiterate that Michael C. Toth, brings light for a modern audience one of the most important constitutional framers, (noted on back cover by David Frum, Frum Forum).
This month I turned to this book hoping for a clue, a reason we came together and gave birth to, what I believe is the foundation of our Country, a living Constitution! I had enough education in our history to know that the original thirteen colonies were geographically separated. Even with a ship or a horse, it took days, weeks and longer for anyone to travel or receive a post, never mind read a newspaper from another colony. Of course the answer for that problem was to agree to meet in a geographically central place, Philadelphia, convene a convention, send a representative the local colonial legislatures could agree upon, and debate, debate debate! What gave a group of delegates, all very strong personalities such as Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and George Washington, to name just a few, the ability to find common ground? Toth’s preface sums up one reason; Oliver Ellsworth participated in the framing, ratification and implementation of the early American government, yet this founder has been very much forgotten. He is obscure, in part, because he was neither a firebrand nor the leader of a powerful faction. He was moderate, a conciliator, a principled man who often sought compromise. Nevertheless , as a forger of consensus he played a significant role in creating our union.…. Indeed, few men of the founding generation mustered the intellectual courage to go toe to toe with James Madison in debate. At the Constitutional Convention, with the future plan of the U.S. government hanging in the balance, Ellsworth did just that. And he won.
As I wrote earlier, I was drawn into this detailed account of Toth’s biography of Oliver Ellsworth’s life because of a question raised by the circumstances of the election before us today. My question is as follows: What was the underlying force or key to bringing a disparate group of colonists separated by miles and miles of wilderness and different cultures where 33% of their neighbors did not want to secede from Britain, never mind support a Continental Congress and Washington’s underfunded military? What a surprise it must have been that after 5 years of fighting, the Patriots actually won! ( Thank you France and Lafayette!)
If you were to study Ellsworth’s life serving his state, the congress during the war, as a senator in the first congress, as the second Supreme Court Chief Justice and finally as a diplomat to France at a time when our great ally a few decades earlier was becoming a threat to our nascent maritime trade, you would see that the backdrop to his life was the birth of our nation. Now I don’t want this short essay to leave you to believe that I believe one man, Oliver Ellsworth, and his astute power of conciliation and compromise was the sole reason we became the United States of America. What became evident to me is that powerful personalities such as Washington, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton and so many others showed their strength at conciliation and compromise too!
This month I am not traveling to my metaphorical lighthouse. I found my answer in Michael C. Toth’s book Founding Federalist, The Life of Oliver Ellsworth. Throughout this reading, the leaders of our country had courage to listen to other ideas, points of view. They had the courage and empathy to be conciliatory and to inspire compromise! Do we have that type of national leader in our Congress and Executive Branch today? Not that I can see. If you see one please enlighten me.
Another question I have this election year is why did our Founding Father’s saddle us with an Electoral College that can anoint a President who has not garnered a majority of the popular vote? The first Electoral College was formed to give the States of different sizes in population a more equal say about who our next president would be. The power to elect members to the College was left in the States control. Now of course, those elected were people who had the ability to travel and were, for the most part, aware of different potential candidates and could somewhat convey that knowledge back to residents in their State. The formula used to convey a State’s total of electoral votes, I believe, was based on a census total within congressional districts within said State. Those electors would then be sent to cast their constituents’ popular majority presidential choice. The number of elector’s to this day are calculated by a State’s population by an agreed upon area within said state.. I learned from historian Heather Cox Richardson, the practice of awarding electoral votes divided by a state’s congressional districts was quickly changed. After Thomas Jefferson lost the election to John Adams and had to settle on being Adam’s Vice President he requested the State of Virginia consider changing their state law and reward all their electors to the presidential candidate who simply garners the most votes state wide. Virginia complied with his request and Jefferson was able to gather a few more electoral votes than John Adams and thus become our third President. Today, 48 states incorporate into their state laws Virginia’s model of winner takes all the electors. The only two States that have congressional district electors assigned to the candidate with the majority of votes in said district, is Maine and Nebraska. In the election of 2016 the candidate who won the majority of the popular votes lost the election to the candidate who gathered the required 270 electors. Richardson helped me understand that this has happened more than four times since the election of Andrew Jackson. Most recently in the elections of 2000 and 2016.
My humble opinion is a strong democracy should be led by a president who has earned the votes of the majority of the people in said country!
Thank you for reading.
Be in peace and joy!
Mark