Sesquicentennial of the United States Constitution. 1787-1789, 1937-1939

SESQUICENTENNIAL OF THE
UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
1787-1789 1937-1939
PREPARED BY
GEORGIA SESQUICENTENNIAL COMMISSION
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ISSUED BY
STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
ATLANTA, GEORGIA

GEORGIA SESQUICENTENNIAL COMMISSION
GOVERNOR E. D.RIVERS, Chairman W. W. BREWTON, Director
M. D. COLUNS, State Superintendent of Schools

1787.1789

1937.1939

SESQUICENTENNIAL
OF THE
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

Celebrated September 17, 1937 - April 30, 1939

The Sesquicentennial of the Constitution of the United States marks one hundred and fifty years since its formation, and ratification by a sufficient number of States to put it into operation. The word sesquicentennial means one and one-half times one hundred, which is, of course, one hundred and fifty. The word is from the Latin. Sesqui- is a Latin prefix meaning "one-half more." Its significance, hence, is one and a half times any given unit. Centennial is from the Latin, meaning a hundred (centum) ; so if the unit taken be a hundred, the prefix multiplying it by one and a half would make one hundred and fifty. The centennial of the Constitution was celebrated in 1887. It is now 1937, one hundred and fifty years since the Constitution was formed, and we celebrate the sesquicentennial.

The period fixed by the President of the United States for the country-

at-large, and by the Governor of Georgia, for this State, for celebrating the

sesquicentennial of the Constitution of the United States, extends from

September 17, 1937, to April 30, 1939. This period begins with the 150th

anniversary of the day the Constitution was signed in Philadelphia, Sep-

tember 17, 1787; and ends with the 150th anniversary of the day George

Washington, the first President of the United States (which office was first

created by the Constitution), was inaugurated in New York, April 30,

1789. The ide'l controlling the fixing of the period was that of taking the

day the Const:tution was signed as the beginning date, and then taking

the day the Constitution was launched (the day it went into effect) as the

ending date. The Constitution went into effect on March 4, 1789, the date

fixed by the States in Congress under the Confederation ( .

on-

federation) ; but on that date a quorum of the first C

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Constitution (which superseded the Articles of Confederation) was not present, and there was a delay from day to day for more than a month before the vote electing Washington President could be canvassed, his election declared by Congress on April 6, 1789, and his inauguration held after his notification and arrival at the seat of the Federal government (New York) on April 30, 1789.
The Sesquicentennial, extending thus from September 17, 1937, to April 30, 1939, embraces also the 150th anniversary of the dates when most of the States ratified the Constitution. Two of the original thirteen States adopted the Constitution after the inauguration of Washington (North Carolina and Rhode Island), and hence their adoption dates are not included in the celebration. The dates when the Constitution was ratified or adopted by the original States were as follows:
Delaware, December 7, 1787 Pennsylvania, December 12, 1787 New Jersey, December 18,1787 Georgia, January 2, 1788 Connecticut, January 9, 1788 Massachusetts, February 6, 1788 Maryland, April 28, 1788 South Carolina, May 23, 1788 New Hampshire, June 21, 1788 Virginia, June 26, 1788 New York, July 26, 1788 North Carolina, November 21, 1789 Rhode Island, May 29, 1790
So that it is seen that the United States under the Constitution had been in existence three-quarters of a year before North Carolina ratified, and considerably more than a year before Rhode Island adopted. However, North Carolina had been a member of the convention which formed the Constitution, and her ratification wac: her stamp of approval of the work of her deputies therein who had signed the Constitution. There were twelve States in the convention. Rhode Island did not attend, and hence did not sign the Constitution. She acceded to the new Union under the Constitution, however, and adopted the Constitution on the date above stated.
Georgia is thus seen to have been the first of the States to ratify in 1788 and fourth to ratify from the beginning of the list. Most of the ratifications were in 1788. Hence 1938 will be the year when the sesquicentennial of most of the ratifications takes place. On January 2, 1938, there will be delegates f,rom all the original thirteen States here in Georgia to
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participate in our celebration of the sesquicentennial of our ratification of the Constitution. Information additional to the historical facts herein will be published relating to the programs of the various events in which our State participates. As the sesquicentennial of the other ratification dates, as given above, arrives, Georgia will send delegates to those States to join in their respective celebrations.
So the opening of the celebration has to do with the sesquicentennial of the signing of the Constitution. As already indicated, only twelve States were in the convention which framed the Constitution, the State of Rhode Island having refused to attend. The convention was in Philadelphia, and extended from May 25th to September 17th, 1787, its deliberations being concluded by the signing of the Constitution. The convention was scheduled to open on "the second Monday in May," which was May 14th, but a quorum of seven States (a majority of States) not being present on the appointed date, it did not actually begin business until the 25th. At its close, the Constitution 'agreed upon by the deputies was signed by thirty-nine names. They appear in two columns, six States to the column. The signatures (disregarding abbreviations) are as follows:
DELAWAR'E: George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom-5.
MARYLAND: James McHenry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll-3.
VIRGINIA: George Washington, John Blair, James Madison, Jr.-3.
NORTH CAROLINA: William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson-3.
SOUTH CAROLINA:' John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler-4.
GEORGIA: William Few, Abraham Baldwin-2.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman-2.
MASSACHUSETTS: Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King-2.
CONNECTICUT: William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman-2.
NEW YORK: Alexander Hamilton-I.
NEW JERSEY: William Livingston, David Brearley, William Pater. son, Jonathan Dayton-4.
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PENNSYLVANIA: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris-8.

It is thus seen that there were 39 signatures to the Constitution. However, there were 16 other deputies who attended the Federal convention but who did not sign, thirteen of these leaving the convention before its close. The three of these who remained but refused to sign were Edmund Randolph and Georga Mason, of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts. Furthermore, there were 10 deputies chosen to attend the convention but who declined to go. There were, consequently, 65 deputies selected by the twelve States to make a new Federal government, or revise the one already in existence under the Articles of Confederation, but only 55 attended. Three of the 55 were substitutes for deputies who had declined to attend, and one of the 55 signed the Constitution by proxy. Most of those who declined the commission believed, like Patrick Henry, that a stronger general government would endanger liberty by consolidating in one place powers that ought to remain with the individual States. Others, like George Walton, of Georgia, declined because of press of other duties. The only States whose full lists of designated deputies signed the Constitution were South Carolina, Delaware and Pennsylvania; the only other States whose full original lists attended were Maryland, New York and Connecticut. Thus we see that half of the States in the convention appeared by all of their first selected deputies, and that the other half did not; but none of the States required the presence of its full delegation in order to be represented. North Carolina and Virginia sent substitutes for deputies who declined to attend. Washington was chosen by the convention as its president. However, he often was not in the chair, as most of the work Was done in committee of the whole house when some other member was chairman. He took little part in the debate.

Georgia designated six deputies to the Federal convention; two of these signed the Constitution, two others attended but did not remain to its end, and two others did not attend at all. They were:

Georgia's Deputies

WILLIAM FEW, a signer ABRAHiA.ly.r BALDWIN, a signer WILLIAM PIERCE, attended WILLIAM HOUSTOUN, attended GEORGE WALTON, did not attend NATHANIEL PENDLETON, did not attend.

These deputies were chosen by an ordinance passed by the General Assembly of Georgia, at Augusta, the seat of the State government, on February 10, 1787. The credentials of each deputy accepting were pre-

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ceded by the words: "The State of Georgia, by the Grace of God, free, sovereign and independent"; and were signed by George Mathews, "captain-general, governor and commander-in-chief in and over the state aforesaid," on April 17, 1787. The ordinance provided that any two or more of those appointed could represent the State in the convention. The Governor's certificate to the ordinance, and his credentials to the accepting depu. ties, recited that the matter was done "in the year of our Lord 1787 and of our sovereignty and independence the eleventh," the latter having reference to the eleven years since the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. Following are vital statistics conceming Georgia's deputies:
WILLIAM FEW was born in Baltimore County, Maryland, on June 8, 1748. He died and was buried at Fishkill-on-Hudson, New York, on July 16, 1828. He moved to Georgia in 1776 and became a colonel of a Richmond County regiment in the Revolutionary War. He practiced law at Augusta; was a member from Georgia of Congress under the Confederation in 178082 and again in 1785-88. He was one of Georgia's first United States Senators, 1789. (James Gunn was the other.) He was a judge in Georgia, 1794-97; but moved to New York City in 1799 where he soon became Mayor. He was a member of the New York Legislature, 1801-04. From 1804 to 1814 he was a director of the Manhattan Bank, and in 1814 became president of the City Bank of New York. With Baldwin, he had been an original trustee of the University of Georgia in 1784; and he had been a member of Georgia's convention at Augusta in 1788 when, on January 2nd, the State ratified the Constitution of the United States.
ABRAHAM BALDWIN was born in Guilford, Connecticut, on November 22, 1754. He died and was buried in Washington, D. C., on March 4, 1807. He graduated at Yale in 1772, and became a chaplain in the Continental army during the Revolution. He moved to Savannah, Georgia, in 1784, and became a member of the General Assembly. He has been called the father of the first chartered State University, having been an original trustee in 1784 of the University of Georgia. Establishment of this pioneer institution has been attributed largely to Baldwin's leadership, he being a continuous trustee from the first, while some of the original trustees did not continue until the practical founding of the institution. He was its first president. Baldwin was one of three commissioners which arranged in 1802 the cession by Georgia to the United States of her western domain which today comprises most of the States of Alabama and Mississippi. He represented Georgia in the Congress of the Confederation, 1786-88; and in the lower house of the first Congress under the Constitution, 1789, holding this office until 1799 when he became United States Senator from Georgia, which office he held at the time of his death. As Senator, he saw the removal of the capital of the United States from Philadelphia to Washington in 1800. Baldwin County, Georgia, is named in his honor.
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WILLIAM PIERCE was born in Georgia in 1740. He died and was buried in Savannah in 1806. During the Revolution he was aide-de-camp to General Nathanael Greene, and received Congressional award of a sword for gallantry in the war. In 1786-87 he was a member from Georgia of Congress under the Confederation. His best known work in the Federal convention of 1787 was the writing of a series of personal sketches of many of its members. These sketches are still preserved in the Library of Congress and have long been source material for biographers.

WILLIAM HOUSTOUN, brother of John Houstoun, who was Governor of Georgia and for whom Houston County was named, was born in Georgia and died in this State. The dates are not available, nor is the spot of his interment. The Houstouns were very prominent in State affairs, however, and a very careful research into this deputy's history would likely reveal highly valuable facts pertaining to the ante and post Revolutionary eras. Both Houstouns were original trustees of the University of Georgia.

GEORGE WALTON, a signer of the Declaration of Independence for Georgia, was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, in 1741. He died at his home, "College Hill," near Augusta, Georgia, on February 2, 1804. He held a long list of public offices and was one of the most noted men of his day anywhere in America. He was interred in Rosney Cemetery, Augusta, but on July 4, 1848, his remains were moved to a monument erected in Augusta to the memory of Georgia's signers of the Declaration. In 1776 he was in the second continental congress from Georgia, signing the Declaration on July 4th of that year. He was Governor of Georgia in 1779, and again in 1789. His service in the Revolutionary War was signal. Colonel ofche First Georgia regiment of militia, he was wounded in 1778 at Savannah. A cannon ball broke his leg, he fell from his horse, and was taken prisoner. The British at first refused to exchange so valuable a prisoner for anyone lower in rank than a brigadier general, but in 1779 did exchange Walton for a British naval captain whom the Americans held prisoner. In 1783 the State Legislature elected him Chief Justice of the State, which he held six years. He was afterwards three times a Superior Court judge, and was so at the time of his death. His pressing duties as Chief Justice was the reason he assigned for refusing to attend the Federal convention that framed the Constitution. He was United States Senator from Georgia in 1795. He several times represented the United States in negotiating Indian treaties, and was a commissioner on the boundary between Georgia and South Carolina in 1786. He helped make the Georgia Constitution of 1789. His family was most illustrious, his brother, John Walton, being a signer for Georgia of the Articles of Confederation. Walton County also perpetuates the name.

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NATHANIEL PENDLETON was born in New Kent County, Virginia, in 1746, and died on his farm at Hyde Park, New York, on October 20, 1821. The name is illustrious in American history, though few facts are available on the life of this subject. Pendleton is supposed to have moved to Georgia at the invitation of General Nathanael Greene, who made him an aide-de-camp in the Revolution. He received Congressional thanks for bravery at Eutaw Springs in 1781. He became a United States judge, and was recommended to President Washington for the post of Secretary of State to succeed Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, but was opposed, it is said, by Alexander Hamilton, who was Secretary of the Treasury; which, if true, is an interesting fact, since later, on July 11, 1804, Pendleton was Hamilton's second in his fatal duel with Aaron Burr at Weehawken Heights, New Jersey. Pendleton had moved to New York in 1796. He is believed to have shared the apprehensions of Patrick Henry upon the granting of more power to any central government than the one under the Confederation had enjoyed, and to have declined to attend the convention that formed the Constitution for this reason. This position could have explained the antipathy between him and Hamilton, who was a strong centralist originally but who greatly modified his attitude toward men of other views later. Pendleton was eminent at the New York bar during the Burr-Hamilton feud (which grew out of rivalry over the Governorship of that State) before retiring to his landed estate at Hyde Park.
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