Chapter 33 4. Aftermath and aftermath

After the Constitution came into force, the federal government began to be established and functioning. On April 30, 1789, Washington was sworn in at Federal Hall at the junction of Wall Street and Broadway and became the first President of the United States of America.Vice President-elect Adams, who arrived in the temporary capital New York earlier, insisted that the founding president should have the etiquette of a European monarch, and asked Washington to choose from various titles, but Washington replied, "Mr. President".In fact, the Constituent Assembly considered this issue, and the proposal was called "Your Excellency", and all the representatives agreed.But this clause was removed when it was finalized.Washington kept his promises, and the president of the United States was called "Sir" from now on, not "Your Excellency", let alone "Your Majesty".

Yet despite Washington's low profile, he is revered as the "Father" of the United States of America.Likewise, the other 54 delegates who participated in the Constitutional Convention were also honored as the "Fathers" of the United States.However, these gentlemen did not seem to have any sense of "father of the nation" at that time, and the country and the people did not express their gratitude to them and paid them huge rewards.On the contrary, like Madison, like Langdon, they still live on debt or pay for meetings out of their own pockets.They are just doing their duty as a citizen and a representative.Therefore, after the Constituent Assembly, they all dispersed and went their separate ways.No one considered taking the opportunity to occupy a "seat" for themselves in the government, and some even refused or did not seek to be an official in the newly established federal government, such as Yates, Lan Xin, Dickinson, Robert Morris, Luther Martin , Gorham, Mason, Weiss, McClung, Mifflin, Halstone.

Many of these "Fathers of the Nation" ended in misery. In 1789, when Washington was elected president, he nominated Robert Morris as Secretary of the Treasury, but he declined, preferring to engage in land trade. In 1798, Robert Morris failed to speculate and went bankrupt, and was thrown into a debtor's prison in Philadelphia. He was released only after the passage of the Bankruptcy Act of 1801.In the end, the old revolutionary who signed the three great documents of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Federal Constitution could only spend his old age in poverty, and it is said that no one can figure out How much debt does he have.

The fate of Robert Morris was the same as that of Gorham, who had served as the chairman of the committee of the whole constitution of the constitutional convention.Gorham also refused to be a politician and businessman, and finally became insolvent and died of poverty at the age of 58.Wilson, who performed outstandingly during the Constitutional Convention, was not successful in politics and business.After the establishment of the new government, he wanted to be the chief justice of the Federal Supreme Court, but Washington only appointed him as one of the six justices, and he was almost impeached as a result.Later, he engaged in land speculation and failed again and again.Fearing arrest for debts, Wilson fled from Philadelphia to New Jersey and then to North Carolina in 1798, suffering a severe mental breakdown. He died 3 months later at the age of 56.

The final drafter of the Constitution, Guweno Morris, devoted himself to business after the Constitutional Convention. He went to France in 1789 and stayed in Europe for 10 years.After returning to China, Guweno Morris settled in New York and married his housekeeper Nanxue.This Nan Xue was considered a "bad woman" at the time, because she was suspected of having an affair with others and killed her illegitimate son, and later murdered her master Richard Randolph.However, Guweno Morris, 60, is satisfied with marrying the 30-year-old woman, saying that the reason why he has been single for a long time is to find a "good woman who loves old people".Guweno Morris spent his later years in the care of this woman, but he did not forget to attack Madison, his ally in the Constitutional Convention.By the way, the lawyer who defended Nan Snow in the case of murdering his illegitimate child was John Marshall who later ruled in the case of "Mable v. Madison", but he was not yet the Supreme Court of the United States. of Chief Justice.

After the Constitutional Convention, many representatives participated in the work of the federal government.Dayton (New Jersey), Carol (Maryland), Fitzsimmons (Pennsylvania), Cramer (Pennsylvania), Gilman (New Hampshire), and Madison served as the first term in the House of Representatives.Butler (South Carolina), Bassett (Delaware), Johnson (Connecticut), Strong (Massachusetts), Gerry (Massachusetts), Longton (New Hampshire), Faew (Georgia).Sherman of Connecticut served first in the U.S. House of Representatives and then in the U.S. Senate, where he died.Baldwin of Georgia served in the House of Representatives for 10 years and in the Senate for eight years.Both Paterson (New Jersey) and Aylesworth (Connecticut) served as first U.S. senators, and both later served as justices of the Supreme Court, with Aylesworth also serving as chief justice.The first Chief Justice of the Federal Supreme Court was Hamilton's ally John Jay, the second was South Carolina Constitutional Representative Rutledge (he was also one of the first Supreme Court justices), and the third was Al. Swarth. In 1800 Aylesworth resigned due to illness and was replaced by John Marshall.In addition, Braley of New Jersey and Bedford of Delaware also served as federal district judges in 1789.

Madison originally wanted to be a U.S. senator, but unfortunately the Virginia Assembly did not elect him.He had no choice but to return to his hometown constituency to compete with his future presidential successor, Monroe, for the seat of the Federal House of Representatives.The ambitious Hamilton served as the Commonwealth's first Treasurer.Washington originally wanted to ask Robert Morris to take up this position, but Robert Morris said that to solve the federal financial crisis, it was Hamilton.So Hamilton took office to show his talents. At that time, there were not many members of the government, and they were all chosen at the moment.Secretary of War Henry Knox, Commander of Artillery during the Revolutionary War, Edmund Randolph, whom we were familiar with when inspecting the Chief.Vice President and Secretary of State were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.These are two more figures who can be called the founding leaders. Although they did not participate in the Constitutional Convention, they were the drafters of the "Declaration of Power" and "Declaration of Independence".Poem Adams drafting the Declaration of Rights in 1774.Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence in 1776.On June 7 of this year, the head of the Virginia delegation, Richard Henry Lee (the man who later took the lead in opposing the ratification of the Federal Constitution in Virginia) and the Adams brothers of Massachusetts (the "American Revolutionary" who later took the lead in opposing the ratification in Massachusetts) "Father" Samuel Adams and the current Vice President John Adams, after discussing, proposed to the Second Continental Congress a motion to declare the independence of the "United Colonies". To this end, the Continental Congress appointed a 5-member committee to draft the " Declaration of Independence. These five men were: Benjamin Franklin in Pennsylvania, Robert Livingston in New York, Roger Sherman in Connecticut, John Adams in Massachusetts, and Thomas Jefferson in Virginia. But Adams asked Jefferson to write, Said “Your writing is ten times better than mine.” So Jefferson became the drafter of the Declaration of Independence.

Such two people should be said to be brothers and sisters.But after they entered the government, they gradually parted ways, and finally turned against each other.First, Jefferson and Hamilton couldn't get it together, and Washington was mostly on Hamilton's side, so Jefferson threw off his black hat in a fit of anger.Later, partisanship emerged in the political world. Adams and Hamilton became Federalists, and Jefferson and Madison became Republicans (Democratic Republicans, which have nothing to do with the current Republican Party). Therefore, Madison and Hamilton also became political enemies.

In 1792, when Washington was re-elected as president, the Republican Party launched a competition for vice president between New York Chief Executive George Clinton, who opposed the ratification of the Constitution, and Adams, and Adams won. In 1796, Washington was no longer the president, and the Republican Party launched Jefferson and Adams to run for the presidency.As a result, Adams received 71 votes and Jefferson received 68 votes. Adams became president and Jefferson became vice president. In 1800, in the fourth general election of the United States, Jefferson ousted Adams with a majority of 75 to 65.

In this general election, not only Jefferson and Adams, two old friends, turned their faces, but also within the Republican Party, Jefferson and his partner Burr were also fighting each other.In the end, with the help of the Federalist Hamilton, Jefferson won with a majority of votes, which resulted in Hamilton's death (see Chapter 6, Section 2 of this book).Incidentally, one of the Constitutional Delegates was also murdered, Mr. Speight (North Carolina).He was shot dead in a duel with Federalist John Stanley at the age of 44.By the way, after killing Hamilton, Burr went west, colluded with foreign countries, and probably committed treason, but was brought to court by Jefferson.The defense lawyer who rescued Burr was the Maryland representative Luther Martin (the presiding judge was John Marshall) who was a dissident at the Constitutional Convention.This Mr. Martin, in spite of his notable cases, drank too much and fell into poverty in his later years, and Burr gave him a small handout.

Running alongside Adams in 1800 against Jefferson and Burr was Charles Cotsworth Pinckney, South Carolina's constitutional representative, General Pinckney.This General Pinckney is also interesting.After the establishment of the federal government, Washington successively nominated him to be the commander of the army, the judge of the Supreme Court, the secretary of the army, and the secretary of state, but he declined all of them.Adams asked him to be the ambassador to France, and he readily accepted, but was rejected by the French government. After losing to Jefferson and Burr as the vice presidential candidate in 1800, he challenged Jefferson as the presidential candidate in 1804 and lost 14 to 162.By the sixth general election in 1808, General Pinckney once again appeared as the Federalist presidential candidate, and again lost 47 to 122 to the Republican presidential candidate Madison.Charles Cotsworth Pinckney became the "loser" of the presidential campaign. In the seventh presidential election in 1812, the Federalists did not push General Pinckney to be the presidential candidate, but asked George Clinton to come out, and the vice-presidential candidate was Ingersoll, the representative of the Constitution of Pennsylvania.On the Republican side, the presidential candidate is President Madison, and the vice presidential candidate is Massachusetts Representative Gerry, who firmly opposed the establishment of a vice president at the Constitutional Convention 25 years ago.As a result, Madison and Gerry won, but Gerry only served as vice president for a year or two before he suffered a stroke and died on the way to the Senate. In 1816, the Federalists made a last effort to put forward Rufus King, the constitutional representative of Massachusetts, as their presidential candidate, losing 34 to 183 to Madison's successor, Monroe.Rufus King was a vice-presidential candidate in 1804 and 1808, backing General Pinckney for president, and both failed miserably.It seems that among the constitution-making representatives, only Washington and Madison have presidential appointments (both were re-elected twice), and the "official luck" of others is not very good.Incidentally, Madison, like Washington, married widows with children.By the way, Madison was also the last of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention to die on June 27, 1836, at the age of 86, which can be described as the end of his life.Madison left a will to have his notes from the Constitutional Convention published.This is what we now have in Debate: Minutes of the United States Constitutional Convention. More than two hundred years have passed.All the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention are long gone.But the "Federal Constitution", as their collective political testament, has gained more and more power and far-reaching influence.It even became the second "Bible" of the United States - the secular "Bible", and also became a reference for many countries to make constitutions and constitutions.This, probably can comfort those spirits in the sky!