Tempest at Dawn (69 page)

Despite his illness, Franklin had remained standing
after he signed, shaking hands with delegates and whispering an
occasional aside. While the last members were signing, tears
glistened in Franklin’s eyes. With an obvious struggle to control
his emotions, he began to speak in a stronger than normal
voice.

“
Gentlemen, have you observed the half sun
painted on the back the president’s chair? Artists find it
difficult to distinguish a rising from a setting sun. In these many
months, I have been unable to tell which it was. Now, I’m happy to
exclaim that it is a rising, not a setting sun.”

Once the last signature was in place, no one wanted
to spend another moment in this room that had dominated their lives
for so many months. Besides, John Dickinson had left a banknote
with George Read to pay for a celebratory dinner at the City
Tavern.

Because of the momentous day, Franklin had abandoned
his rented prisoners and intended to walk out of the State House.
Madison grabbed one elbow, and Wilson took the opposite side to
help the old man out of the chamber. Madison hoped he could protect
Franklin from being jostled by the bubbling delegates, but
Washington took a point position in front of their little group,
and the crowd parted like the Red Sea.

“
I want to thank you gentlemen for helping an
enfeebled and diminished old man,” Franklin said.

“
I witnessed your diminished capacity these
many months,” Madison said. He became puzzled when this somehow
evoked a hearty chuckle from Franklin.

The doctor glanced between Madison and Wilson. “I’m
usually assisted by the inmates of Walnut Street Prison. It occurs
to me that you men have been prisoners in this chamber.” Franklin
chuckled again. “With the power vested in me by the State of
Pennsylvania, I pardon and set you free.”

At that precise moment, with theatrics that seemed
natural to Washington, the sentries threw open the doors to the
State House, and Madison was assaulted by bright sunlight and a
deafening roar. Hundreds of people cheered, clapped, and whistled
at the sight of Gen. George Washington framed by the great double
doors of the State House.

The threesome stopped a respectful distance behind
Washington. This crowd was not going to part so easily. In fact,
the sentries had skipped down the three steps and joined arms to
hold back the surge of people.

“
Our rambunctious session on Saturday told our
fair citizens that we had concluded our business,” Franklin
observed.

“
Are you riding with the general?” Madison
asked.

“
Relax, boys. The general will know the exact
moment to step off the stoop.”

True to Franklin’s prediction, Washington gauged the
crowd’s mood perfectly, and when he stepped down, they gave the men
a narrow path to Washington’s beautiful new carriage.

As they followed in the general’s footsteps, the
people continued to cheer and applaud. A woman leaned her head past
Madison to yell, “Dr. Franklin, what is it to be? A republic or a
monarchy?”

The doctor hesitated in his step and looked over the
throng of anxious people. His answer came in a firm, loud
voice.

“
A republic—if you can keep it.”

“
Hello, Mr. Madison. Nice weather.”

“
Thank goodness. I get frightful
seasick.”

Sherman looked to the sky. “I believe we’ll
have a smooth sail.”

“
Portentous?”

“
I suspect the luck of our president.
Even the weather does his bidding.”

“
Still an ordinary citizen. I can’t
wait for this inaugural celebration to be over.”

Sherman and Madison, part of the
Congressional Welcoming Committee, stood at the railing of a barge
that was nearly fifty feet long. Thirteen pilots in crisp white
suits rowed the freshly whitewashed barge toward Elizabeth Town,
New Jersey.

The general had left Mount Vernon on
April 18
^,
and in six days, had
traveled two hundred and eighty miles through five states, soon to
be six when he entered New York. Washington was due on the opposite
shore in a few hours, and the barge would float him and his
entourage the fifteen miles back to Manhattan. As they plowed along
the Hudson, a multitude of ships, sloops, and barges took positions
alongside to witness the event.

Federal Hall, the temporary seat of the new
government, sat at the corner of Wall and Broad streets. The First
Congress had been meeting there since early April, but they had
marked time by establishing parliamentary rules and electing
officers. Their only real accomplishment had been to plan the
inauguration. The original date to induct the new president had
been March 4, but Congress didn’t have a quorum until April, so
their first order of business had been to reset the date to April
30.

“
Clinton looks as if he’s in charge of
this event,” Sherman said.

“
He has no right,” Madison said. “We
barely nudged by his obstructionism.”

George Clinton and John Adams monopolized
the greeting end of the barge. Adams, as the elected vice
president, deserved the place of honor. Clinton, a massive man who
had been a massive nuisance, had elbowed his way to the front.

Ratification had been fought in the
newspapers first. After the convention, Madison had immediately
returned to New York and found himself drafted to write
The Federalist
essays with Hamilton
and John Jay. George Mason wrote
Objections to the Proposed Federal Constitution
and said that the convention was a conclave of “monarchymen.”
Luther Martin wrote
The Genuine
Information
and
disclosed some of their
sensitive voting. To the joy of printers in all thirteen states,
the Federalists and Anti-Federalists fought this second revolution
with words instead of swords. A few heroes of the first revolution,
like Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee, opposed the
new Constitution and made the contest agonizingly tight.

The strongest Anti-Federalist argument was
that the Constitution granted unrestrained power to a national
government. The strongest Federalist argument was that the
Anti-Federalists had no alternative design. Within five months,
Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Connecticut, and
Massachusetts ratified—six of the nine needed states. In April and
May, Maryland and South Carolina ratified, but even though the
number had grown to eight, the vital states of Virginia and New
York wavered. New York tried delaying for political leverage but
rushed into the union after Virginia ratified in June. The hottest
debates occurred at the Virginia Ratification Convention, with
every contestant convinced that the outcome in Richmond would
dictate the outcome for the nation.

“
I haven’t had a chance to
congratulate you on ratification,” Sherman said. “It’s a shame you
didn’t have the honor of being the ninth state.”

Madison smiled. “New Hampshire beat us
by three days, but we didn’t know it. We believed the future of
America rested on
our
vote.”

“
It did. Your ratification moved our
corpulent friend up there, and I can’t imagine a United States
divided by Virginia or New York.” Sherman squeezed back to let
someone move past. “I heard debates were contentious.”

“
Henry’s a great speaker.”

“
Someone once told me that although
Patrick Henry had been speaking for three hours and had to urinate
so bad it hurt, he stayed because he was afraid he’d miss
something.”

“
Thank God, logic and need won in the
end.”

“
You’re being modest.” Sherman leaned
his buttocks against the railing. “Is it true Henry called the
wrath of God down on you?”

Madison laughed. “Literally. He had been
speaking all morning, and in his summation, he called on God to
punish those who would inflict this tyranny on his beloved country.
At that very instant, a great crack of thunder echoed through the
hall, and a deluge followed within minutes. Frightening.”

“
You should be president. The general
defeated only the British Empire.”

“
No, thank you.” Madison shook his
head as if trying to fling off a bug that had just landed in his
hair. “The general has his hands full with an unruly bunch like
us.”

Roger Sherman and James Madison had been
elected to the first House of Representatives. Other members of the
Federal Convention, now commonly called the Constitutional
Convention, had also secured important posts in the new government.
Elbridge Gerry, Abraham Baldwin, and several others had been
elected to the House of Representatives. Rufus King, Oliver
Ellsworth, William Paterson, Robert Morris, George Read, William
Blount, Pierce Butler, and others had secured appointments from
their state legislatures to the Senate. Charles Pinckney had won
his race for governor of South Carolina.

It was common knowledge that Washington
would appoint Alexander Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury, and
James Wilson and John Rutledge would get seats on the Supreme
Court. The enigmatic Gouverneur Morris had ventured off to France
and the French Revolution, an offspring of the subversive American
spirit that had caught the European capitals unaware.

“
We may prove the least of the
general’s challenges,” Sherman said.

“
Foreign intrigue?”

“
I was referring to his
cabinet.”

“
Jefferson and Hamilton. You might be
right.”

“
And Randolph.” Edmund Randolph was to
be attorney general.

“
We needed his support for
ratification,” Madison said defensively. “Did you know Clinton
wrote him a letter inviting him to form a devilish pact? He didn’t
know the general had already seduced our dear governor back to the
side of virtue and light.”

Sherman took a long look toward the
approaching shoreline of New Jersey. “Sometimes I think we were
both pawns.”

“
Excuse me?”

“
The general pulled our
strings.”

“
Not mine,” Madison
demurred.

“
Perhaps not, but for someone who
spoke only once, he orchestrated events to a remarkable
degree.”

“
To what purpose?”

“
Union.”

Madison seemed contemplative. “An honorable
goal. One I shared.”

“
As did I. At least after the first
weeks.” Sherman tried to catch Madison’s flitting eyes. “You were
masterful in
The
Federalist
papers.”

“
Thank you, but again, I was but a
part.”

“
No. The papers you wrote were
incisive.”

“
As were the others. Hamilton hid his
objections.”

“
As you did your Southern
roots.”

“
Hamilton’s admonition. He wanted New
Yorkers, but Duer wrote poorly and Jay became ill. Were you
Letters of a Landholder
?”

“
That was Oliver. I helped
some.”

“
I expect you did.” Madison’s eyes
settled for a moment. “No wonder you recognized Washington’s
behind-the-scene maneuvers.”

Sherman had to laugh. “Our papers were
prosaic; yours were brilliant.”

Madison smiled with genuine joy. “Jefferson
said they were the best commentary on government ever written. My
father wrote that Publius had done a magnificent job.”

“
What did he say when you revealed you
were Publius?”

“
I haven’t told him.”

“
Why not?”

“
He would withdraw the praise.”
Madison looked toward shore. “Steady.” The barge bumped against the
shore with enough force to cause both men to stumble
forward.

“
Damn,” Madison said. “Clinton’s
handhold kept him from tumbling into the mud.”

Sherman, and several men within earshot,
burst out laughing when they imagined Clinton greeting the future
president in a mud-splattered suit. Madison looked embarrassed to
have caused the gaiety, but Sherman patted his shoulder to let him
know that a respite of humor was hardly inappropriate.

Within minutes, a rider galloped from the
woods and sharply pulled his horse up sideways to expertly stop the
animal parallel to the front of the barge. “They’re a half hour
behind me.”

The barge pilots immediately went to work.
Wood planks had been positioned on the bed of the barge. These were
now scooted out and laid on the beach to make a hard surface entry
for the general’s carriage. The welcoming committee of city and
state dignitaries and congressional representatives disembarked and
lined the wooden pathway. Governor Clinton took the position of
honor at the head of the reception line.

In less than thirty minutes, a lone rider
trotted from the woods. Washington, sitting rigidly astride a great
white mare, led the procession that included his empty carriage.
Sherman and Madison joined the other dignitaries in sharp applause
as the general dismounted with an élan born of a countless number
of official receptions. Washington formally greeted each man with a
deft combination of dignity and brotherhood.

When he reached Madison, the general shed
some of the stiffness and clasped Madison with both hands. “Thank
you, Jemmy. You’re a true patriot.” Madison managed only a nod of
acknowledgement.