September 8, 1787: Ready for a Second Draft

Part of the National Park Service's day-by-day account of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, September 1787.

Alexander Hamilton, by Jacques Reich, about 1899–1920. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

"The House of Representatives was on so narrow a scale, as to be really dangerous, and to warrant a jealousy in the people for their liberties."
— Alexander Hamilton

In the Convention: Saturday, September 8, 1787

Impeaching a president

The draft allowed a president to be impeached for treason and bribery. Mason (Virginia) thought that too narrow: treason, as the Constitution defined it, "will not reach many great and dangerous offences," and "attempts to subvert the Constitution may not be treason." He moved to add "maladministration", seconded by Gerry (Massachusetts).

• Madison (Virginia) found the word too vague: it would leave the president's term at Congress's pleasure.
• Gouverneur Morris (Pennsylvania) thought it unnecessary: a president guilty of maladministration would lose re-election, due every four years.

Mason replaced "maladministration" with "other high crimes and misdemeanors", which passed without recorded debate.

"Bribery" has a clear legal meaning and "treason" is defined in the Constitution, but "high crimes and misdemeanors" — taken word for word from British laws for removing executive and judicial officers — is imprecise. In English precedent an officer could be impeached for acts that broke no law. On the NPS account, then, the phrase covers any corrupt conduct that leads Congress to judge a president no longer fit for the public trust.

Madison wanted the Supreme Court, not the Senate, to try presidential impeachments. That failed 2–9, with Pennsylvania and Virginia in favour.

A second draft

A series of motions tidied up odds and ends, making the draft's wording and intent clearer. With that, a month after they began, the delegates finished working through the first draft, and appointed a Committee of Style to write a second one with every approved change: Johnson (Connecticut), Hamilton (New York), Gouverneur Morris, Madison and King.

A bigger House?

Just before adjourning, Williamson (North Carolina), seconded by Madison, moved to reconsider the number of seats in the House of Representatives, to increase it. Sherman (Connecticut) objected, since the Constitution already let Congress enlarge the House. Hamilton was strongly for it: he backed "a vigorous government" but thought it "essential that the popular branch of it should be on a broad foundation," and feared the Senate and president would grow too close and corrupt, with only a larger House to balance them. The motion narrowly failed, 5–6, with Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina in favour.

In short

• "Other high crimes and misdemeanors" joined treason and bribery as grounds for impeaching a president.
• With the first draft done, a five-member Committee of Style was named to write the second.

The delegates' day

• Johnson dined with Mifflin (Pennsylvania), spent the evening with the Committee of Style, and bought 40 shillings' worth of books.
• Washington (Virginia) dined with the club at Springsbury. Elizabeth Powel sent him a reflecting lamp for the hall at Mount Vernon; knowing his reluctance to accept even small gifts from his closest friends, she pointed out that such lamps saved oil and money. His thank-you note was brief and unusually playful: "The benefits which will flow from the general use of such Lamps are too apparent for the light of them to be long hid from the American World… but that which stamps the highest value thereon, is the hand from which it comes."
• Franklin (Pennsylvania) received a letter from Katteuha, a Cherokee leader with the formal title of "Beloved Woman", urging peace between their peoples. Woman is the mother of all, she wrote, and men "ought to mind what a woman says, and look upon her as a mother"; she hoped the Americans had a beloved woman of their own to set her children right, and that Franklin and "all the Beloved men in Congress" would heed a talk delivered "from the Bottom of my heart."

Philadelphia today

• Like the day before, it was clear and pleasant.
• A writer in the Pennsylvania Herald complained that on a recent walk along the wharves he had counted sixteen ships loading and unloading under British colours and "but one solitary American, which was loading with lumber for the West Indies."

Sources

• National Park Service, Independence National Historical Park, "September 8, 1787: Ready for a Second Draft," from The Constitutional Convention: A Day by Day Account for September 1787. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/constitutionalconvention-september8.htm
• Quotations are from the Convention's records and letters of 1787; the rest is rewritten in hubnx's own words.