CHAPTER XII.

KING.

RUFUS KING, celebrated as a jurist, a statesman, an orator, and a diplomatist, was sent to the Convention by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Born in her District of Maine, in 1755, and graduated at Harvard College in 1777, he came very early into public life, and was rarely out of it until his death, which occurred in 1827, in the seventy-third year of his age.

His first public service was in the year 1778, as a volunteer in the expedition against the British in Rhode Island, in which he acted as aide-de-camp to General Sullivan. In 1780, he commenced the practice of the law in the town of Newburyport, and was soon after elected from that town to the legislature of the State. There he distinguished himself by a very powerful speech in favor of granting to the general government the five per cent. impost recommended by Congress as part of the revenue system of 1783.

He was soon after elected a member of Congress from Massachusetts, in which body he took his seat on the 6th of December, 1784, and served until the

close of the year 1787. He was thus a member both of the Convention for forming the Constitution and of the Congress which sanctioned and referred it to the people. He was also a member of the Convention of Massachusetts, in which the Constitution was ratified by that State.

Mr. King did not favor the plan of a convention for the revision of the federal system, until after the meeting at Annapolis had been held; and, indeed, he did not concur in its expediency, until after the troubles in Massachusetts had made its necessity apparent. In 1785, as we have seen, he joined with the other members of the Massachusetts delegation in opposing it.1 In the autumn of 1786, when the report of the Annapolis Convention was before Congress, he expressed the opinion, in person, to the legislature of Massachusetts, that the Articles of Confederation could not be altered, except by the consent of Congress and the confirmation of the several legislatures; that Congress ought, in the first instance, to make the examination of the federal system, since, if it was done by a convention, no legislature would have a right to confirm it; and further, that, if Congress should reject the report of a convention, the most fatal consequences might follow. For these reasons, he at that time held Congress to be the proper body to propose alterations.2

1 Ante, p. 339, note.

2 Mr. King being in Boston in October, 1786, was desired by the legislature to attend and give an

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account of the state of national affairs. For an abstract of his address, see Boston Magazine for the year 1786, p. 406.

At the moment when he was making this address to the legislature, the disturbances in Massachusetts were fast gathering into that formidable insurrection, which two months afterwards burst forth in the interior of the State.1 Mr. King spoke of these commotions in grave and pointed terms. He told the legislature that Congress viewed them with deep anxiety; that every member of the national councils felt his life, liberty, and property to be involved in the issue of their decisions; that the United States would not be inactive on such an occasion, for, if the lawful authority of the State were to be prostrated, every other government would eventually be swept away. He entreated them to remember, that, if the government were in a minority in the State, they had a majority of every State in the Union to join them.2

He returned to Congress immediately. But there he found that the reliance which he had placed upon the ability of the Confederation to interfere and suppress such a rebellion was not well founded. The power was even doubted, or denied, by some of the best statesmen in that body; and although the insurrection was happily put down by the government of the State itself, the fearful exposure of a want of external power adequate to such emergencies produced in Mr. King, as in many others, a great change of views, both as to the necessity for a radical change of the national government and as to the mode of

1 Ante, p. 266 et seq.

2 Ibid

effecting it. His vote, in February, was given to the proposition introduced by the delegation of New York for a national convention; and when that failed, he united with his colleague, Mr. Dane, in bringing forward the resolution by which the Convention was finally sanctioned in Congress.1

The Convention having been sanctioned by Congress, no man was more ready than Mr. King to maintain its power to deliberate on and propose any alterations that Congress could have suggested in the Federal Articles. He held that the proposing of an entire change in the mode of suffrage in the national legislature, from a representation of the States alone to a representation of the people, was within the scope of their powers, and consistent with the Union; for if that Union, on the one hand, involved the idea of a confederation, on the other hand it contained also the idea of consolidation, from which a national character resulted to the individuals of whom the States were composed. He doubted the practicability of annihilating the State governments, but thought that much of their power ought to be taken from them." He declared, that, when every man in America might be secured in his rights, by a government founded on equality of representation, he could not sacrifice such a substantial good to the phantom of State sovereignty. If this illusion were to continue to prevail, he should be prepared for any event, rather than sit down under a government founded on a vicious prin

1 Journals, XII. 15 – 17.

2 Madison, Elliot, V. 212, 213.

ciple of representation, and one that must be as short-lived as it would be unjust.1

It ap

There is one feature of the Constitution with which the name of Mr. King should always be connected, and of which he may be said, indeed, to have been the author. Towards the close of the session, he introduced the prohibition on the States to pass laws affecting the obligation of contracts. pears that the Ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory, which had been passed by Congress about a month previous, contained a similar prohibition on the States to be formed out of that territory. That any of the jurists who were concerned in the framing of either instrument foresaw at the moment all the great future importance and extensive operation of this wise and effective provision, we are not authorized to affirm. But a clause which has enabled the supreme national judicature to exercise a vast, direct, and uniform influence on the security of property throughout all the States of this Confederacy, should be permanently connected with the names of its authors.2

Madison, Elliot, V. 266. 2 The Ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory was drawn by Nathan Dane of Massachusetts. It was reported in Congress July 11th, 1787, and was passed July 13th. The committee by whom it was reported were Messrs. Carrington and R. H. Lee of Virginia, Kearney of Delaware, Smith of New York, and Mr. Dane. The clause re

lating to contracts was in these words: "And in the just preservation of rights and property, it is understood and declared, that no law ought ever to be made or have force in the said territory, that shall in any manner whatever interfere with or affect private contracts or engagements, bonâ fide and without fraud previously formed." On the 28th of August, Mr. King moved in the Conven