At the moment when he was making this address to the legislature, the disturbances in Massachusetts were fast gathering into that formidable insurrection, which two months afterwards burst forth in the interior of the State. Mr. King spoke of these commotions in grave and pointed terms. He told the legislature that Congress viewed them with deep anxiety; that every member of the national councils felt his life, liberty, and property to be involved in the issue of their decisions; that the United States would not be inactive on such an occasion, for, if the lawful authority of the State were to be prostrated, every other government would eventually be swept away. He entreated them to remember, that, if the government were in a minority in the State, they had a majority of every State in the Union to join them.2

He returned to Congress immediately. But there he found that the reliance which he had placed upon the ability of the Confederation to interfere and suppress such a rebellion was not well founded. The power was even doubted, or denied, by some of the best statesmen in that body; and although the insurrection was happily put down by the government of the State itself, the fearful exposure of a want of external power adequate to such emergencies produced in Mr. King, as in many others, a great change of views, both as to the necessity for a radical change of the national government and as to the mode of

1 Ante, p. 266 et seq.

2 Ibid.

effecting it. His vote, in February, was given to the proposition introduced by the delegation of New York for a national convention; and when that failed, he united with his colleague, Mr. Dane, in bringing forward the resolution by which the Convention was finally sanctioned in Congress.1

The Convention having been sanctioned by Congress, no man was more ready than Mr. King to maintain its power to deliberate on and propose any alterations that Congress could have suggested in the Federal Articles. He held that the proposing of an entire change in the mode of suffrage in the national legislature, from a representation of the States alone to a representation of the people, was within the scope of their powers, and consistent with the Union; for if that Union, on the one hand, involved the idea of a confederation, on the other hand it contained also the idea of consolidation, from which a national character resulted to the individuals of whom the States were composed. He doubted the practicability of annihilating the State governments, but thought that much of their power ought to be taken from them.2 He declared, that, when every man in America might be secured in his rights, by a government founded on equality of representation, he could not sacrifice such a substantial good to the phantom of State sovereignty. If this illusion were to continue to prevail, he should be prepared for any event, rather than sit down under a government founded on a vicious prin

1 Journals, XII. 15-17.

2 Madison, Elliot, V. 212, 213.

ciple of representation, and one that must be as short-lived as it would be unjust.1

It ap

There is one feature of the Constitution with which the name of Mr. King should always be connected, and of which he may be said, indeed, to have been the author. Towards the close of the session, he introduced the prohibition on the States to pass laws affecting the obligation of contracts. pears that the Ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory, which had been passed by Congress about a month previous, contained a similar prohibition on the States to be formed out of that territory. That any of the jurists who were concerned in the framing of either instrument foresaw at the moment all the great future importance and extensive operation of this wise and effective provision, we are not authorized to affirm. But a clause which has enabled the supreme national judicature to exercise a vast, direct, and uniform influence on the security of property throughout all the States of this Confederacy, should be permanently connected with the names of its authors."

1 Madison, Elliot, V. 266. 2 The Ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory was drawn by Nathan Dane of Massachusetts. It was reported in Congress July 11th, 1787, and was passed July 13th.

The committee by whom it was reported were Messrs. Carrington and R. H. Lee of Virginia, Kearney of Delaware, Smith of New York, and Mr. Dane. The clause re

lating to contracts was in these words: "And in the just preservation of rights and property, it is understood and declared, that no law ought ever to be made or have force in the said territory, that shall in any manner whatever interfere with or affect private contracts or engagements, bonâ fide and without fraud previously formed." On the 28th of August, Mr. King moved in the Conven

Mr. King was but little past the age of thirty when the Constitution was adopted. After that event, he went to reside in the city of New York, and entered upon the career of distinction which filled up the residue of his life, as a Senator in Congress, and as Minister to England. No formal biography of him has yet appeared; but when that duty shall have been discharged by those to whom it appropriately belongs, there will be added to our literature an account of a man of the most eminent abilities and the purest patriotism, whose influence and agency in the great transactions which attended the origin and first operations of the government were of the utmost importance.

tion to insert the same clause in the Constitution; but it was opposed, and was not finally adopted until September 14, when it was incorporated in the phraseology in

which it now stands in the Constitution. (Madison, Elliot, V. 485; Journal of the Convention, Elliot, I. 311.)

CHAPTER XIII.

CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY.

CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY of South Carolina, the eldest son of a chief justice of that Colony, distinguished both as a soldier and a civilian, was educated in England, and read law at the Temple. He returned to his native province in 1769, and commenced the practice of his profession; which, like many of the young American barristers of that day, he was obliged to abandon for the duties of the camp, when the troubles of the Revolution began. He became colonel of the first regiment of the Carolina infantry, and served under General Moultrie in the defence of the fort on Sullivan's Island. This gallant resistance having freed the South, for a time, from invasion, Pinckney repaired to the Northern army, and was made aide-de-camp to General Washington; in which capacity he served at the battles of the Brandywine and Germantown. He afterwards acquired great distinction in the defence of South Carolina against the British under Sir Henry Clinton.

On the return of peace, he devoted himself to the law, in which he became eminent. He belonged to that school of public men, who had been trained in