- Click here.
The rules governing the convention were determined. Click on the link to go over them.
These stuck out to me:
“Every member, rising to speak, shall address the President; and, whilst he shall be speaking, none shall pass between them, or hold discourse with another, or read a book, pamphlet, or paper, printed or manuscript. And of two members rising to speak at the same time, the President shall name him who shall be first heard.
. . . “A member may be called to order by any other member, as well as by the President; and may be allowed to explain his conduct, or expressions, supposed to be reprehensible. And all questions of order shall be decided by the President, without appeal or debate.
. . . A letter from sundry persons of the State of Rhode Island, addressed to the Chairman of the General Convention, was presented to the Chair by Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS; and, being read, was ordered to lie on the table for further consideration
. . . Mr. BUTLER moved that the House provide against interruption of business by absence of members, and against licentious publications of their proceedings.
Here's more about Gouverner Morris:
Morris' father, Lewis Morris, was a wealthy landowner and judge. Gouverneur Morris was born on the family estate, Morrisania, on the north side of the Harlem river, which was at the time in Westchester County, but is now part of the Bronx. Morris, a gifted scholar, enrolled at King's College, now Columbia University in New York City, at age 12. He graduated in 1768 and received a Master's degree in 1771. He studied law with Judge William Smith and attained admission to the bar in 1775.
. . . In 1779, he was defeated for re-election to Congress, largely because his advocacy of a strong central government was at odds with the decentralist views prevalent in New York. Defeated in his home state, he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to work as a lawyer and merchant.
. . . It is said by some that Morris was "an aristocrat to the core," who believed that "there never was, nor ever will be a civilized Society without an Aristocracy".[9] It is also alleged that he thought that common people were incapable of self-government because he feared that the poor would sell their votes to the rich and that voting should be restricted to property owners. Duff Cooper wrote of Morris that although he "had warmly espoused the cause of the colonists in the American War of Independence, he retained a cynically aristocratic view of life and a profound contempt for democratic theories."
Here's more about Pierce Butler:
Pierce Butler was born on July 11, 1744, in Garryhundon, County Carlow, Ireland. He was the third son of Sir Richard Butler, 5th Baronet, of Cloughgrenan (1699–1771) and his wife Henrietta Percy.
. . . As one of the largest slaveholders in the United States, he defended American slavery for both political and personal motives, even though he had private misgivings about the institution and particularly about the African slave trade. He introduced the Fugitive Slave Clause into a draft of the U.S. Constitution, which gave a federal guarantee to the property rights of slaveholders. He supported counting the full slave population in state totals for the purposes of Congressional apportionment. The Constitution's Three-Fifths Compromise counted only three-fifths of the slave population in state totals, but still led to Southern states having disproportionate power in the U.S. Congress.
. . . Military operations in the final months of the Revolutionary War left Butler a poor man. Many of his plantations and ships were destroyed, and the international trade on which the majority of his income depended was in shambles. He traveled to Europe when the war ended in an effort to secure loans and establish new markets. He enrolled his son Thomas in a London school run by Weeden Butler, and engaged a new minister from among the British clergy for his Episcopal church in South Carolina.[1][2]
In late 1785 Butler returned to the United States. He became an outspoken advocate of reconciliation with former Loyalists and of equal representation for the residents of the backcountry. Testifying to his growing political influence, the South Carolina legislature asked Butler to represent the state at the Constitutional Convention that met in Philadelphia in 1787.[1] At the convention, he urged that the president be given the power to initiate war; however, he did not receive a second proponent for his motion and all the other delegates overwhelmingly rejected his proposal.[3][4]
Butler's experiences as a soldier and planter-legislator led to his forceful support for a strong union of the states. At the same time, he looked to the special interests of his region. He introduced the Fugitive Slave Clause (Article 4, Section 2), which established protection for slavery in the Constitution. In addition, while privately criticizing the international trade in African slaves, he supported the passage in the Constitution that prohibited regulation of the trade for 20 years. He advocated counting the full slave population in the states' totals for the purposes of Congressional apportionment, but had to be satisfied with the compromise to count three-fifths of the slaves toward that end. It ensured that the Southern planter elite exerted a strong influence in national politics for decades.
Butler displayed inconsistencies that troubled his associates. He favored ratification of the Constitution, yet did not attend the South Carolina convention that ratified it. Later, he was elected by the South Carolina state legislature to three separate terms in the United States Senate, but changed his party allegiance: beginning as a Federalist, he switched to the Jeffersonian party in 1795. In 1804 he declared himself a political independent.
Vice President Aaron Burr was Butler's guest at his St. Simons plantations in September 1804. Burr was, at the time, lying low after shooting Alexander Hamilton in the July 1804 duel. The states of New York and New Jersey had each indicted the Vice President for murder in the wake of the post-duel controversy. Burr had traveled during August, to Butler's plantation under the pseudonym Roswell King, which was Butler's overseer's name. During Burr's stay in early September, one of the worst hurricanes in history hit the area, and Burr's first-hand description documents both his stay and this event. Butler's politics and public involvement mirror the political rise and fall of his friend Burr.
