Washington, of Virginia, was probably the richest man in the United States in his time, and his financial ability was not surpassed among his countrymen anywhere. He possessed, in addition to his great estate on the Potomac, a large amount of fluid capital which he judiciously invested in western lands, from which he could reasonably expect a large appreciation with the establishment of stable government and the advance of the frontier.
Perhaps the best way to illustrate his economic interests is to give the data from the schedule of his property attached to his will, drawn up in 1799. He possessed in Virginia, counting the enormous holdings on the Ohio, and the Great Kenhawa, more than 35,000 acres, valued at $200,000; in Maryland, 1119 acres, at $9828; in Pennsylvania, 234 acres, at $1404; in New York, about 1000 acres, at $6000; in the Northwest Territory, 3051 acres, at $15,255; in Kentucky, 5000 acres, at $10,000; property in Washington, at $19,132; in Alexandria, at $4000; in Winchester, at $400; at Bath, $800. He held $6246 worth of United States securities; and of this holding he said: “These are the sums which are actually funded; and though no more in the aggregate than 7566 dollars, stand me in at least ten thousand pounds, Virginia money; being the amount of bonded and other debts due me and discharged during the war when money had depreciated in that rate—and was so settled by the public authority.” He held $10,666 worth of shares in the Potomac Company presented to him by the state of Virginia (which he left to establish a national university); $500 worth of James River Company shares; $6800 worth of stock in the Bank of Columbia, and $1000 worth of stock in the Bank of Alexandria. His own slaves were to be emancipated on the death of his wife. His live-stock he estimated at $15,653—making a grand total at a conservative estimate of $530,000.[363]
Washington was also a considerable money lender and suffered from the paper money operations of the Virginia legislature. He “had bonds and mortgages to ‘nigh £10,000’ paid off in depreciated paper currency worth at times as little as 2/6 in the pound, and when he attended the federal Convention he was in arrears for two years’ taxes through having been unable to sell the products of his farms.”[364]
If any one in the country had a just reason for being disgusted with the imbecilities of the Confederation it was Washington. He had given the best years of life to the Revolutionary cause, and had refused all remuneration for his great services. He was paid his personal expenses to the amount of $64,355.30 in paper that steadily depreciated. M. Otto writing to Vergennes on February 10, 1787, says of Washington’s losses: “I have before me a letter of this honored man in which he complains of being obliged to sell at a rate of twenty for one the certificates which Congress sent to him in payment for the arrearages due him.”[365]
Hugh Williamson, of North Carolina, was the son of “an industrious tradesman” of Dublin, who settled in America about 1730—five years before Hugh was born. The latter received a fine education and graduated at the College of Philadelphia in 1757. About this time his father died, leaving him sole executor of the estate, the settlement of which required the greater part of two years.[366] He studied divinity, but later turned to medicine and went to Edinburgh to pursue his studies in that subject. He practised for a time in Philadelphia, but afterward went South to reside.
During the Revolutionary War he engaged in mercantile speculations in Charleston and later at Edenton, “from which he afterward traded to the neutral islands in the West Indies.” While continuing his mercantile connections with his brother, “then also engaged in the West India trade, he determined to resume the practice of medicine; this he did with the same success as he had done formerly at Philadelphia.” He was an opponent of the emission of paper money in North Carolina and published an essay against fiat currency.
He happily combined a theoretical and practical knowledge of finance, for he seems to have accumulated a large amount of public securities. He appears frequently on the records of the Treasury Department; for example in December, 1791, for $2444.84 worth of sixes and threes.[367] Furthermore, his correspondence with Hamilton and others shows that he had “the smallest of two large trunks” full of 6 per cents, threes, and deferred stock which he had delivered to Hamilton for transfer to the New York loan office, in 1793.[368]
Williamson also engaged in western land speculations, and was not unaware of the advantage to that class of property which the new Constitution afforded. On June 2, 1788, he wrote to Madison from New York, “For myself, I conceive that my opinions are not biassed by private interests, but having claims to a considerable quantity of land in the Western Country, I am fully persuaded that the value of those lands must be increased by an efficient federal government.”[369] After his long and assiduous public services, Williamson settled in New York, where he engaged in historical writing and the management of the considerable fortune which he had accumulated in the midst of his pressing public duties.[370]
James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, was born in Scotland in 1742 and received a fine classical education there. He came to America in 1766, began the study of law with John Dickinson, and was admitted to the bar in 1767. He developed a lucrative practice at Carlisle, where he first settled; but in 1778 he removed to Philadelphia where he established a close connection with the leading merchants and men of affairs including Robert Morris, George Clymer, and General Mifflin.[371] He was one of the directors of the Bank of North America on its incorporation in 1781;[372] and he also appears among the original stockholders of the Insurance Company of North America, organized in 1792.[373]
Wilson’s largest interest seems to have been in public lands, for he was among the members of the Georgia Land Company, a highly speculative concern tainted with fraud, to put it mildly, for ten shares, £25,000 cash and 750,000 acres.[374] Haskins says, “James Wilson, of the Supreme Court of the United States, held shares to the amount of at least one million acres and it is asserted was influential in securing the grants.”[375]
Wilson does not appear to have been a large holder of public securities; for a search in the records of the Pennsylvania loan office preserved in the Department of the Treasury reveals only a trivial amount of 3 per cents to his credit, on June 2, 1791.[376] It may be that the extent of his other operations prevented his taking advantage of the opportunities offered in this line.
George Wythe, of Virginia, was born in 1726 on the shores of the Chesapeake in the colony of Virginia. “He was descended from a respectable family and inherited from his father, who was a farmer, an estate amply sufficient for all the purposes of ease and independence, although it was seriously impaired by the Revolution.” He studied law, and “by reason of his extensive learning, correctness of elocution, and his logical style of argument, he quickly arrived at the head of the bar.”[377] His second wife “was a lady of a wealthy and respectable family of Taliafero, residing near Williamsburg.” He was a slave-owner, but he emancipated his slaves and made provisions to keep them from want. His public security holding was not large. On March 12, 1791, he presented Virginia certificates to the amount of £513:2:8 which he had acquired from their original owners.[378]
Robert Yates, of New York, was born in Schenectady, and received a classical education at New York City. He read law and began the practice at Albany where he soon built up an extensive business. He was made a judge of the Supreme Court under the state constitution of 1777, but his salary was small. “Indeed before the scale of depreciation of continental money had been settled, he received one year’s salary in that money at its nominal value, the whole of which was just sufficient (as he humorously observed) ‘to purchase a pound of green tea for his wife.’” He refused to enrich himself by speculating in confiscated estates, a favorite occupation of some of his friends, and “he died poor.”[379] He opposed the adoption of the Constitution, and apparently took no part in the transactions in public securities; but several members of the Yates family, Richard, Adolphus, and Christopher were large operators.[380]
A survey of the economic interests of the members of the Convention presents certain conclusions:
A majority of the members were lawyers by profession.
Most of the members came from towns, on or near the coast, that is, from the regions in which personalty was largely concentrated.
Not one member represented in his immediate personal economic interests the small farming or mechanic classes.
The overwhelming majority of members, at least five-sixths, were immediately, directly, and personally interested in the outcome of their labors at Philadelphia, and were to a greater or less extent economic beneficiaries from the adoption of the Constitution.
1. Public security interests were extensively represented in the Convention.[381] Of the fifty-five members who attended no less than forty appear on the Records of the Treasury Department for sums varying from a few dollars up to more than one hundred thousand dollars. Among the minor holders were Bassett, Blount, Brearley, Broom, Butler, Carroll, Few, Hamilton, L. Martin, Mason, Mercer, Mifflin, Read, Spaight, Wilson, and Wythe. Among the larger holders (taking the sum of about $5000 as the criterion) were Baldwin, Blair, Clymer, Dayton, Ellsworth, Fitzsimons, Gilman, Gerry, Gorham, Jenifer, Johnson, King, Langdon, Lansing, Livingston,[382] McClurg, R. Morris, C. C. Pinckney, C. Pinckney, Randolph, Sherman, Strong, Washington, and Williamson.
It is interesting to note that, with the exception of New York, and possibly Delaware, each state had one or more prominent representatives in the Convention who held more than a negligible amount of securities, and who could therefore speak with feeling and authority on the question of providing in the new Constitution for the full discharge of the public debt:
Langdon and Gilman, of New Hampshire.
Gerry, Strong, and King, of Massachusetts.
Ellsworth, Sherman, and Johnson, of Connecticut.
Hamilton, of New York. Although he held no large amount personally, he was the special pleader for the holders of public securities and the maintenance of public faith.
Dayton, of New Jersey.
Robert Morris, Clymer, and Fitzsimons, of Pennsylvania.
Mercer and Carroll, of Maryland.
Blair, McClurg, and Randolph, of Virginia.
Williamson, of North Carolina.
The two Pinckneys, of South Carolina.
Few and Baldwin, of Georgia.
2. Personalty invested in lands for speculation was represented by at least fourteen members: Blount, Dayton, Few, Fitzsimons, Franklin, Gilman, Gerry, Gorham, Hamilton, Mason, R. Morris, Washington, Williamson, and Wilson.
3. Personalty in the form of money loaned at interest was represented by at least twenty-four members: Bassett, Broom, Butler, Carroll, Clymer, Davie, Dickinson, Ellsworth, Few, Fitzsimons, Franklin, Gilman, Ingersoll, Johnson, King, Langdon, Mason, McHenry, C. C. Pinckney, C. Pinckney, Randolph, Read, Washington, and Williamson.
4. Personalty in mercantile, manufacturing, and shipping lines was represented by at least eleven members: Broom, Clymer, Ellsworth, Fitzsimons, Gerry, King, Langdon, McHenry, Mifflin, G. Morris, and R. Morris.
5. Personalty in slaves was represented by at least fifteen members: Butler, Davie, Jenifer, A. Martin, L. Martin, Mason, Mercer, C. C. Pinckney, C. Pinckney, Randolph, Read, Rutledge, Spaight, Washington, and Wythe.
It cannot be said, therefore, that the members of the Convention were “disinterested.” On the contrary, we are forced to accept the profoundly significant conclusion that they knew through their personal experiences in economic affairs the precise results which the new government that they were setting up was designed to attain. As a group of doctrinaires, like the Frankfort assembly of 1848, they would have failed miserably; but as practical men they were able to build the new government upon the only foundations which could be stable: fundamental economic interests.[383]