James Madison Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: Charles Cotesworth Pinckney]

In reply to Pinckney, however, Morris grew bolder. "It was high time,"

he said, "to speak out." He came there "to form a compact for the good of America. He hoped and believed that all would enter into such compact. If they would not, he was ready to join with any States that would. But as the compact was to be voluntary, it is in vain for the Eastern States to insist on what the Southern States will never agree to. It is equally vain for the latter to require what the other States can never admit, and he verily believed the people of Pennsylvania will never agree to a representation of negroes;" of negroes, he meant, counted as human beings, not for their own representation, but, as s.h.i.+ps might be counted, for the increased representation of those who held them as property. The next day he "spoke out" still more plainly. "If negroes," he said, "were to be viewed as inhabitants, ... they ought to be added in their entire number, and not in the proportion of three fifths. If as property, the word 'wealth' was right,"--as the basis, that is, of representation. The distinction that had been set up by Madison and others between the Northern and Southern States he considered as heretical and groundless. But it was persisted in, and "he saw that the Southern gentlemen will not be satisfied unless they see the way open to their gaining a majority in the public councils....

Either this distinction [between the North and the South] is fict.i.tious or real; if fict.i.tious, let it be dismissed, and let us proceed with due confidence. If it be real, instead of attempting to blend incompatible things, let us at once take a friendly leave of each other."

But could they take "a friendly leave of each other"? Should a union be secured on the terms the South offered? or should it be declined, as Morris proposed, if it could not be a union of equality? The next day Madison again set forth the real issue, quietly but unmistakably. "It seemed now," he said, "to be pretty well understood that the real difference of interests lay, not between the large and small, but between the Northern and Southern States. The inst.i.tution of slavery and its consequences formed the line of discrimination." There is sometimes great power, as he well knew, in firm reiteration. So long as slavery lasted, the lesson he then inculcated was never forgotten.

Thenceforward, as then, "the line of discrimination," in Southern politics, lay with "slavery and its consequences." One side would abate nothing of its demands; there could be no "friendly leave" unless the determination, on the other side, to overcome the desire for union and take the consequences was equally firm.

When the question again came up, however, Morris had not lost heart. His talk was the talk of a modern abolitionist:--

"He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious inst.i.tution. It was the curse of Heaven on the States where it prevailed. Compare the free regions of the Middle States, where a rich and n.o.ble cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of the people, with the misery and poverty which overspread the barren wastes of Virginia, Maryland, and the other States having slaves. Travel through the whole continent, and you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery.... Proceed southwardly, and every step you take through the great regions of slavery presents a desert increasing with the increasing proportion of these wretched beings.

Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them citizens, and let them vote. Are they property? Why then is no other property included?

The houses in this city [Philadelphia] are worth more than all the wretched slaves who cover the rice swamps of South Carolina.... And what is the proposed compensation to the Northern States for a sacrifice of every principle of right, of every impulse of humanity? They are to bind themselves to march their militia for the defense of the Southern States, for their defense against those very slaves of whom they complain. They must supply vessels and seamen in case of foreign attack. The legislature will have indefinite power to tax them by excises and duties on imports, both of which will fall heavier on them than on the Southern inhabitants; for the Bohea tea used by a Northern freeman will pay more tax than the whole consumption of the miserable slave, which consists of nothing more than his physical subsistence and the rags that cover his nakedness.... Let it not be said that direct taxation is to be proportioned to representation. It is idle to suppose that the general government can stretch its hand directly into the pockets of the people scattered over so vast a country....

He would sooner submit himself to a tax for paying for all the negroes in the United States than saddle posterity with such a Const.i.tution."

So much of this as was not already fact was prophecy. Yet not many weeks later this impa.s.sioned orator put his name to the Const.i.tution, though it had grown meanwhile into larger pro-slavery proportions. There was undoubtedly some sympathy with him among a few of the members; but the general feeling was more truly expressed a few days later by Rutledge of South Carolina, in the debate on the continuance of the African slave trade. "Religion and humanity," he said, "had nothing to do with this question. Interest alone is the governing principle with nations. The true question at present is, whether the Southern States shall or shall not be parties to the Union. If the Northern States consult their interest, they will not oppose the increase of slaves, which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers." The response came from Connecticut, Oliver Ellsworth saying: "Let every State import what it pleases. The morality or wisdom of slavery are considerations belonging to the States themselves. What enriches a part enriches the whole,"--especially Newport and its adjacent coasts, he might have added, with its trade to the African coast.

But a Virginian, George Mason, had another tone. He called the traffic "infernal." "Slavery," he went on, "discourages arts and manufactures.

The poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the emigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen a country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities."

These were warnings worth heeding. But Ellsworth retorted with a sneer: "As he had never owned a slave, he could not judge of the effect of slavery on character." He said, however, that, "if it was to be considered in a moral light, we ought to go farther, and free those already in the country." But, so far from that, he thought it would be "unjust toward South Carolina and Georgia," in whose "sickly rice swamps" negroes died so fast, should there be any intermeddling to prevent the importation of fresh Africans to labor, and, of course, to perish there. Perhaps it was this shrewd argument of the Connecticut delegate that suggested, half a century afterward, to a Mississippi agricultural society, the economical calculation that it was cheaper to use up a gang of negroes every few years, and supply its place by a fresh gang from Virginia, than rely upon the natural increase that would follow their humane treatment as men and women. His colleague, Roger Sherman, came to Ellsworth's aid. It would be, he thought, the duty of the general government to prohibit the foreign trade in slaves, and, should this be left in its power, it would probably be done. But he would not, if the Southern States made it the condition of consenting to the Const.i.tution that the trade should be protected, leave it in the power of the general government to do that which he acknowledged that it should and probably would do.

Delegates from Georgia and the Carolinas declared that to be the condition,--among them C. C. Pinckney of South Carolina. "He should consider," he said, "a rejection of the clause as an exclusion of South Carolina from the Union." Nevertheless he said to the people at home, when they came together to consider the Const.i.tution: "We are so weak that by ourselves we could not form a union strong enough for the purpose of effectually protecting each other. Without union with the other States, South Carolina must soon fall." On the part of that State it had been a game of brag all along. The first lesson in the South Carolinian policy was given in the Const.i.tutional Convention. Of the result, this was Pinckney's summing up to his const.i.tuents:--

"By this settlement we have secured an unlimited importation of negroes for twenty years; nor is it declared that the importation shall be then stopped; it may be continued. We have a security that the general government can never emanc.i.p.ate them, for no such authority is granted.... We have obtained a right to recover our slaves, in whatever part of America they may take refuge, which is a right we had not before. In short, considering all circ.u.mstances, we have made the best terms, for the security of this species of property, it was in our power to make. We would have made better if we could, but on the whole I do not think them bad."

A more moderate and a more significant statement could hardly have been made.

On the foreign slave trade Madison had little to say, but, like most of the Southern delegates north of the Carolinas, he was opposed to it.

"Twenty years," he said, "will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be more dishonorable to the American character than to say nothing about it in the Const.i.tution." The words are a little ambiguous, though he is his own reporter. But what he meant evidently was, that any protection of the trade would dishonor the nation; for at another point of the debate, on the same day, he said that "he thought it wrong to admit in the Const.i.tution the idea that there could be property in men." Such property he was anxious to protect as the great Southern interest, so long as it lasted; but he was not willing to strengthen it by permitting the continuance of the African slave trade for twenty years longer under the sanction of the Const.i.tution. But he held it to be, as he wrote in "The Federalist," "a great point gained in favor of humanity that a period of twenty years may terminate forever within these States a traffic which has so long and so loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern policy." He added, "The attempt that had been made to pervert this clause into an objection against the Const.i.tution, by representing it as a criminal toleration of an illicit practice," was a misconstruction which he did not think deserving of an answer.

It was, in fact, a bargain which he had not approved of, and did not now probably care to talk about. It was made at the suggestion of Gouverneur Morris, who moved that the foreign slave trade, a navigation act, and a duty on exports be referred for consideration to a committee. "These things," he said, "may form a bargain among the Northern and Southern States." When the committee reported in favor of the slave trade, C. C.

Pinckney proposed that its limitation should be extended from 1800 to 1808. Gorham of Ma.s.sachusetts seconded the motion, and it was carried by the addition of the votes of New Hamps.h.i.+re, Ma.s.sachusetts, and Connecticut to those of Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

The committee also reported the subst.i.tution of a majority vote for that of two thirds in legislation relating to commerce. The concession was made without much difficulty, a Georgia delegate and three of the four South Carolina delegates favoring it, two of the latter frankly saying they did so to gratify New England. It was, C. C. Pinckney said, "the true interest of the Southern States to have no regulation of commerce;"

but he a.s.sented to this proposition, and his const.i.tuents "would be reconciled to this liberality," because, among other considerations, of "the liberal conduct [of the New England States] towards the views of South Carolina." There was no question of the meaning of this sudden avowal of friendly feeling. Jefferson relates in his "Ana," on the authority of George Mason, a member of the convention, that Georgia and South Carolina had "struck up a bargain with the three New England States, that if they would admit slaves for twenty years, the two southernmost States would join in changing the clause which required two thirds of the legislature in any vote."

The settlement of these questions was an opportune moment for the introduction of that relating to fugitive slaves. Butler of South Carolina immediately proposed a section which should secure their return to their masters, and it was pa.s.sed without a word. As Pinckney said in the pa.s.sage already quoted, when he went back to report to his const.i.tuents, "it is a right to recover our slaves, in whatever part of America they may take refuge, which is a right we had not before."

It is notable how complete and final a settlement of the slavery question "these compromises," as they were called, seemed to be to those who made them. They were meant to be, as Mr. Madison called them, "adjustments of the different interests of different parts of the country," and being once agreed upon they were considered as having the binding force and stability of a contract. The evils of slavery were set forth as an element in the negotiation, but no question of essential morality was raised that brought the system within the category of forbidden wrong. Whatever results might follow would be limited, it was thought, by the terms of the contract; whereas, in fact, the actual results were not foreseen, and could not be guarded against, except by the refusal to enter into any contract whatever.

On all other questions involving political principles,--the just relations of the federal government and the governments of the States; the relations between the larger and the smaller States; the regulation of the functions of the executive, the legislative, and the judicial departments of government,--on all these the framers of the Const.i.tution brought to bear the profoundest wisdom. When one reflects upon the magnitude and character of the work, Madison's conclusion seems hardly extravagant, that "adding to these considerations the natural diversity of human opinions on all new and complicated subjects, it is impossible to consider the degree of concord which ultimately prevailed as less than a miracle." There were, nevertheless, the gravest and most anxious doubts how far the Const.i.tution would stand the test of time; yet as a system of government for a nation of freemen it remains to this day practically unchanged. But where its architects thought themselves wisest they were weakest. That which they thought they had settled forever was the one thing which they did not settle. Of all the "adjustments" of the Const.i.tution, slavery was precisely that one which was not adjusted.

Madison's responsibility for this result was that of every other delegate,--no more and no less. Neither he nor they, whether more or less opposed to slavery, saw in it a system so subversive of the rights of man that no just government should tolerate it. That was reserved for a later generation, and even that was slow to learn. To the fathers it was, at worst, only an unfortunate and unhappy social condition, which it would be well to be rid of if this could be done without too much sacrifice; but otherwise, to be submitted to, like any other misfortune.

While it did exist, however, Madison believed it should be protected, though not encouraged, as a Southern interest. The question resolved itself into one of expediency,--of union or disunion. What disunion would be, he knew, or thought he knew. Perhaps he was mistaken.

Disunion, had it come then, might have been the way to a true union. "We are so weak," said C. C. Pinckney, "that by ourselves we could not form a union strong enough for the purpose of effectually protecting each other. Without union with the other States, South Carolina must soon fall." But he was careful to say this at home, not in Philadelphia. In the convention, Madison wrote a month after it adjourned, "South Carolina and Georgia were inflexible on the point of the slaves." What was to be the union which that inflexibility carried was not foreseen.

It was the children's teeth that were to be set on edge.

CHAPTER IX

ADOPTION OF THE CONSt.i.tUTION

Madison's labors for the Const.i.tution did not cease when the convention adjourned, although he was not at that moment in a hopeful frame of mind in regard to it. Within a week of the adjournment he wrote to Jefferson: "I hazard an opinion that the plan, should it be adopted, will neither effectually answer its national object, nor prevent the local mischiefs which excite disgusts against the state governments."

But this feeling seems to have soon pa.s.sed away. Perhaps, when he devoted himself to a careful study of what had been done, he saw, in looking at it as a whole, how just and true it was in its fair proportions. He now diligently sought to prove how certainly the Const.i.tution would answer its purpose; how wisely all its parts were adjusted; how successfully the obstacles to a perfect union of the States had been, as he thought, overcome; how carefully the rights of the separate States had been guarded, while the needed general government would be secured. Whether there should be an American nation or not depended, as he had believed for years, upon whether a national Const.i.tution could be agreed upon. Now that it was framed he believed that upon its adoption depended whether there should be, or should not be, a nation. In September, as he wrote to Jefferson, he was in doubt; in February he wrote to Pendleton: "I have for some time been persuaded that the question on which the proposed Const.i.tution must turn is the simple one, whether the Union shall or shall not be continued. There is, in my opinion, no middle ground to be taken."

Those who would have called a second convention to revise the labors of the first had no sympathy from him. He not only doubted if the work could be done so well again; he doubted if it could be done at all. With him, it was this Const.i.tution or none. "Every man," he said in "The Federalist," referring to a picture he had just drawn of the perils of disunion,--"every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves liberty, ought to have it ever before his eyes, that he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America, and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving it." This "means" was the Const.i.tution.

Of the eighty papers of "The Federalist" he wrote twenty-nine; Hamilton writing forty-six, and Jay only five. These famous essays, of wider repute than any other American book, are yet more generally accepted upon faith than upon knowledge. But at that time, when the new Const.i.tution was in the mind and on the tongue of every thoughtful man, they were eagerly read as they followed each other rapidly in the columns of a New York newspaper. They were an armory, wherein all who entered into the controversy could find such weapons as they could best handle. What governments had been, what governments ought to be, and what the political union of these American States would be under their new Const.i.tution, were questions on which the writers of these papers undertook to answer all reasonable inquiries, and to silence all cavils.

Madison would undoubtedly have written more than his two fifths of them, had he not been called upon early in March to return to Virginia; for the work was of the deepest interest to him, and the popularity of the papers would have stimulated to exertion one as indolent as he was industrious.

But the canva.s.s for the election of delegates to the Const.i.tutional Convention of Virginia called him home. He had been nominated as the representative of his county, and his friends had urged him to return before the election, for there was reason to fear that the majority was on the wrong side. Henry, Mason, Randolph, Lee, and others among the most influential men of Virginia, were opposed to the Const.i.tution.

There must be somebody in the convention to meet strong men like these, and Madison was urged to take the stump and canva.s.s for his own election. Even this he was willing to do at this crisis, if need be, though he said it would be at the sacrifice of every private inclination, and of the rule which hitherto from the beginning of his public career he had strictly adhered to,--never to ask, directly or indirectly, for votes for himself.

It is quite possible, even quite probable, that Mr. Madison had little of that gift which has always pa.s.sed for eloquence, and is, indeed, eloquence of a certain kind. If we may trust the reports of his contemporaries, though he wanted some of the graces of oratory, he was not wanting in the power of winning and convincing. His arguments were often, if not always, prepared with care. If there was no play of fancy, there was no forgetfulness of facts. If there was lack of imagination, there was none of historical ill.u.s.tration, when the subject admitted it.

If manner was forgotten, method was not. His aim was to prove and to hold fast; to make the wrong clear, and to put the right in its place; to appeal to reason, not to pa.s.sion, nor to prejudice; to try his cause by the light of clear logic, hard facts, and sound learning; to convince his hearers of the truth, as he believed in it, not to take their judgment captive by surprise with harmonious modulation and grace of movement. Not his neighbors only, but the most zealous of the Federalists of the State, sent him to the convention. It was there that such eloquence as he possessed was peculiarly needed. The ground was to be fought over inch by inch, and with antagonists whom it would be difficult, if not impossible, to beat. There was to be contest over every word of the Const.i.tution from its first to its last. "Give me leave," cried Patrick Henry in his opening speech, "to demand what right had they to say 'We the people' instead of 'We the States'?" He began at the beginning. It was the gage of the coming battle; the defenders were challenged to show that any better union than that already in existence was needed, and that in this new Const.i.tution a better union was furnished.

As month after month pa.s.sed away while the Const.i.tution was before the people for adoption, the anxiety of the Federalists grew, lest the requisite nine States should not give their a.s.sent. But when eight were secured there was room to hope even for unanimity, if Virginia should come in as the ninth. Should she say Yes, the Union might be perfect; for the remaining States would be almost sure to follow her lead. But should she say No, the final result would be doubtful, even if the requisite nine should be secured by the acquiescence of one of the smaller States. This answer could not, of course, depend altogether upon one man, but it did depend more upon Madison than upon anybody else.

The convention was in session nearly a month. At the end of a fortnight he was not hopeful. "The business," he wrote to Was.h.i.+ngton, "is in the most ticklish state that can be imagined. The majority will certainly be very small, on whatever side it may finally lie; and I dare not encourage much expectation that it will be on the favorable side." But his fears stimulated rather than discouraged him. He was always on his feet; always ready to meet argument with argument; always prompt to appeal from pa.s.sion to reason; quick to brush aside mere declamation, and to bring the minds of his hearers back to a calm consideration of how much was at stake, and of the weight of the responsibility resting on that convention. Others were no less earnest and diligent than he; but he was easily chief, and the burden and heat of the day fell mainly upon him. Probably when the convention a.s.sembled the majority were opposed to the Const.i.tution; but its adoption was carried at last by a vote of eighty-nine to seventy-nine. Thenceforth opposition in the remaining States was hopeless.

New Hamps.h.i.+re--though the fact was not known in Virginia--preceded that State by a few days in accepting the Const.i.tution, so that the requisite nine were secured before the convention at Richmond came to a decision.

But it was her decision, nevertheless, that really settled, so far as can be seen now, the question of a permanent Union. Had the vote of Virginia been the other way it is not likely that Hamilton would have carried New York, or that North Carolina and Rhode Island would have finally decided not to be left in solitude outside. What the history of the nine united States only, with four disunited States among them, might have been, it is impossible to know, and quite useless to conjecture. The conditions which some of the States attached to the act of adoption, the addition of a Bill of Rights, proposed amendments to the Const.i.tution, and the suggestion of submitting it to a second convention, were matters of comparatively little moment, when the majority of ten delegates was secured at Richmond. These were questions that could be postponed. "The delay of a few years," Madison wrote to Jefferson, "will a.s.suage the jealousies which have been artificially created by designing men, and will at the same time point out the faults which call for amendment."

Immediately after the adjournment of the Richmond Convention he returned to New York, where the confederate Congress was still in session. That body had little to do now but decide upon the time and place of the inauguration of the new government. Madison had entered upon his thirty-eighth year, and we get an interesting glimpse of him as he appeared at this time of his life to an intelligent foreigner. "Mr.

Warville Brissot has just arrived here," he wrote to Jefferson in August, 1788. This was Brissot de Warville, a Frenchman of the new philosophy,--whose head, nevertheless, his compatriots cut off a few years later,--then traveling in America to observe the condition and progress of the new republic. His tour extended to nearly all the States; he met with most of the distinguished men of the country; and he made a careful and intelligent use of his many opportunities for observation. On his return to France he wrote an entertaining volume,--"New Travels in the United States of America,"--still to be found in some old libraries. What he says of Madison is worth repeating, not only for the impression he made upon an observant stranger, but as the evidence of the contemporary estimate of his character and reputation, which De Warville must have gathered from others.

"The name of Madison," he writes, "celebrated in America, is well known in Europe by the merited eulogium made of him by his countryman and friend, Mr. Jefferson.

"Though still young, he has rendered the greatest services to Virginia, to the American Confederation, and to liberty and humanity in general. He contributed much, with Mr. White, in reforming the civil and criminal codes of his country. He distinguished himself particularly in the convention for the acceptation of the new federal system. Virginia balanced a long time in adhering to it. Mr. Madison determined to it the members of the convention by his eloquence and logic. This republican appears to be about thirty-eight years of age. He had, when I saw him, an air of fatigue; perhaps it was the effect of the immense labors to which he has devoted himself for some time past. His look announces a censor, his conversation discovers the man of learning, and his reserve was that of a man conscious of his talents and of his duties.

"During the dinner, to which he invited me, they spoke of the refusal of North Carolina to accede to the new Const.i.tution. The majority against it was one hundred. Mr. Madison believed that this refusal would have no weight on the minds of the Americans, and that it would not impede the operations of Congress. I told him that though this refusal might be regarded as a trifle in America, it would have great weight in Europe; that they would never inquire there into the motives which dictated it, nor consider the small consequence of this State in the confederation; that it would be regarded as a germ of division, calculated to r.e.t.a.r.d the operations of Congress; and that certainly this idea would prevent the resurrection of American credit.

"Mr. Madison attributed this refusal to the attachment of a great part of the inhabitants of that State to their paper money and their tender act. He was much inclined to believe that this disposition would not remain a long time."

In October the Virginia a.s.sembly met. Two thirds of its members were opposed to the new Const.i.tution, and at their head was Patrick Henry, his zeal against it not in the least abated because he had been defeated in the late convention. The acceptance of the Const.i.tution by that representative body could not be recalled. But the a.s.sembly could, at least, protest against it, and was led by Henry to call upon Congress to convene a second national convention to do over again the work of the first. The legislature was to elect senators for the first Senate under the new government; and it was also to divide the State into districts for its representation in the lower house of Congress. In ordinary fairness, as the State had, in a popular convention, so recently accepted the Const.i.tution, the party then in the majority was ent.i.tled to at least one of the representatives in the Senate. But Henry nominated both, and could command votes enough to elect them. In modern party usage this would seem quite un.o.bjectionable; indeed, a modern politician who should not use such an advantage for his party would be considered as unfit for practical politics. But a hundred years ago it was thought sharp practice, and a fair proportion of Henry's partisans refused to be bound by it. One of Henry's nominees was elected by a majority of twenty over Madison; but in the case of the other that majority was reduced more than half, and a change of five more votes would have elected Madison.

He had, however, neither expected nor wished to be sent to the Senate, while he did hope to be elected to the House of Representatives. The Senate was intended to be the more dignified body, requiring in its members a certain style of living for which wealth was indispensable.

Madison had not the means to give that kind of social support to official position; but he could afford to belong to that body where a member was not the less respectable because his whole domestic establishment might be a bachelor's room in a boarding-house.

Virginia was, as he wrote to Was.h.i.+ngton, "the only instance among the ratifying States in which the politics of the legislature are at variance with the sense of the people, expressed by their representatives in convention." This had enabled Henry and a majority of his friends to elect senators who, representing "the politics of the legislature," did not represent "the sense of the people" in regard to the national Const.i.tution. But in the election of members of the House of Representatives, the sense of the people was to be again appealed to, and a new way must be devised for a.s.serting the supremacy of legislative power. The cleverness of Elbridge Gerry of Ma.s.sachusetts, many years later, under similar circ.u.mstances, introduced a new word into the language of the country, and, it was supposed at the time, a new device in American politics. But what has since been known as "Gerrymandering"

was really the invention of Patrick Henry. This method of arranging counties into congressional districts in accordance with their political affinities, without regard to their geographical lines, Henry attempted to do with Mr. Madison's own county. By joining it to distant counties it was expected that an anti-Federal majority would be secured large enough to insure his defeat. The attempt to elect him to the Senate was, Madison wrote to Jefferson, "defeated by Mr. Henry, who is omnipotent in the present legislature." He adds that Henry "has taken equal pains, in forming the counties into districts for the election of representatives, to a.s.sociate with Orange such as are most devoted to his politics, and most likely to be swayed by the prejudices excited against me." The scheme, however, was unsuccessful, perhaps partly because of the indignation which so dishonorable a measure to defeat a political opponent excited throughout the State. Madison entered upon an active canva.s.s of his district against James Monroe, who had been nominated as a moderate anti-Federalist, and defeated him. It was winter time, and in the exposure of some of his long rides his ears were frozen. In later life he sometimes laughingly pointed to the scars of these wounds received, he said, in the service of his country.

Thus Henry's "Gerrymander," like many another useful and curious device, brought neither profit nor credit to the original inventor. Had Henry acted in the broader spirit of the modern politician, who sees that he serves himself best who serves his party best, he would have disposed of every Federal county in the State as he disposed of Orange. As it was, he only aroused a good deal of indignation and defeated himself by openly aiming to gratify his personal resentments. Had he scattered his shot for the general good of the party, he would, perhaps, have brought down his particular bird.