25 The Revelations of Zachariah Johnson

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, WAS THE DAY OF THE FINAL VOTE. THE MEN filed edgily into the New Academy. Madison, wanting to kill off any lingering resistance, rose and declared that any prior amendments would produce “such unnecessary delays” and would be “so pregnant with such infinite dangers” that he could not “contemplate it without horror.” He wanted the men to recognize and make a stark choice, and told them so: There was, he said, only “uncertainty and confusion” on the one hand, and “tranquility and certainty” on the other.¹

The convention had strained the members, and it showed. The dignified and polite General Adam Stephen rose with obvious distress. Mournfully, he asked, “What has become of that genius” in Philadelphia? A military man groping for eloquence, he said, “Yonder she is in mournful attire, her hair dishevelled, distressed with grief and sorrow—supplicating our assistance, against gorgons, fiends and hydras, which are ready to devour her, and carry desolation throughout her country.”²

After this mawkish soliloquy, the assembly was in a mood for simplicity, and in one of the great unheralded moments of American constitutional history, a man named Zachariah Johnson now chose to stand and speak his mind. He had rarely spoken before. Very little is known about Johnson, but his remarks would reveal both a personality and a philosophy that mirrored the hopeful, uncertain, and ultimately conscientious common citizen far better than Henry’s forced attempt. “Mr. Chairman,” Johnson began, “I am now called upon to decide the greatest of all questions—a question which may involve the felicity or misery of myself and posterity.” He gathered himself. In an obvious reference to Patrick Henry, he condemned “the strained construction which has been put, by the gentlemen on the other side, on every word and syllable, in endeavouring to prove oppressions which can never possibly happen.” Channeling the collective turn against Henry’s florid rhetoric and torrid passions, Johnson announced, “My judgment is convinced of the safety and propriety of this system.”3

He concluded, “It is my lot to be among the poor people. The most that I can claim, or flatter myself with, is to be of the middle rank. I wish no more, for I am contented. But I shall give my opinion unbiassed, and uninfluenced—without erudition or eloquence, but with firmness and candor. And in so doing, I will satisfy my conscience.”

There could have been no clearer validation of Madison’s Method. Johnson’s plain reliance on his own reason and his conviction connected the delegates, as if by invisible heartstrings, to their undisputed guide. Johnson ended with an emotional reflection. “If this constitution be bad,” he said, “it will bear equally as hard on me, as on any member of the society. It will bear hard on my children, who are as dear to me, as any man’s children can be to him. Having their felicity and happiness at heart, the vote I shall give in its favor, can only be imputed to a conviction of its utility and propriety.”⁴

Zachariah Johnson was an avatar for all those men Madison had actually persuaded through his Method, starting with the Constitutional Convention, going through the Federalist Papers campaign, and now ending with the ratification.

And with that heartfelt statement, by a plain man speaking plainly from his conscience, it was clear to the entire assembly that young James Madison would defeat the great Patrick Henry.

THAT DEVELOPMENT HAD BECOME CLEAR TO HENRY AS WELL. IN THE convention’s closing minutes, he spoke with the equanimity of the peaceably vanquished. He begged the “pardon of this house” for having “taken up more time than came to my share.” If he lost the vote, he said, “I shall have those painful sensations, which arise from a conviction of being overpowered in a good cause.” And here everyone waited to see what would come next. Unequivocally, overflowing with emotion, he told them what they needed to hear: “Yet I will be a peaceable citizen!”

But he allowed an ominous note to linger. “I wish not to go to violence,” but he would “wait,” he promised, with “hopes that the spirit which predominated in the revolution, is not yet gone,” and with the expectation of seeing the government “changed so as to be compatible with the safety, liberty and happiness of the people.”5

Henry, it was clear, might lose the day. But he would not give up. On the contrary.

A VOTE ON PRIOR AMENDMENTS—ON THE CONDITIONAL RATIFICATION of the Constitution—was approved. The vote was called for “aye,” and eighty hands rose, including Harrison, Mason, and Henry. The “no” vote was then called. Eighty-eight hands went up.

The effort to kill the Constitution through amendments was dead. Mason asked for the names to be recorded. They included Edmund Randolph, Edmund Pendleton, John Marshall, Zachariah Johnson—and James Madison.⁶

Now, at last, the real question: whether or not to ratify the Constitution. The vote was again called. For “aye,” eighty-nine men raised their hands. Mason, defeated, again moved for the names to be recorded. They again included Randolph, Pendleton, Marshall, Johnson—and Madison. The Federalists had prevailed by a margin of eighty-nine to seventy-nine. Their margin was five votes—precisely one less than Madison, scarred and expert veteran of political warfare, had ever allowed himself to hope for.⁷

AFTER HIS GREAT VICTORY, MADISON OPTIMISTICALLY WROTE TO WASHINGTON that there was “no doubt that acquiescence if not cordiality will be manifested by the unsuccessful party.” But he noted that “Two” of the anti-Federalists had visibly betrayed their disappointment, “marked in their countenances.”⁸ One was almost certainly Patrick Henry.

Two days later, his suspicion growing, Madison wrote Hamilton that Henry’s hatred of the Constitution would “produce every peaceable effort to disgrace & destroy it.”⁹ Henry was already “shaking off the yoke.”¹⁰ Yes, Henry would only oppose the Constitution in a “Constitutional” way, he predicted—he would not lead a violent secession to rip the nation apart. But he had already begun angling for a second convention that could replace and undermine the first. That, Madison growled, would be a “pestilent tendency.”¹¹

Still, he began to relax, at least a little. About a month later, resting in New York, where the Constitution was ratified by a majority of five states, he wrote to his father that he had been “perfectly free from my bilious symptoms.”12

And no wonder. The nation was beginning to applaud him, as the people digested the majesty of what young Madison had accomplished. In August, a letter from Williamsburg arrived, praising his “immortal Honor.” The sender wrote, “I confess I have always attributed to you the Glory of laying the Foundation of this great Fabric of government.”¹³ Word traveled back to Witherspoon as well. Madison soon found in his mail a large envelope. He opened it carefully to unfold a diploma from Princeton with an honorary degree of doctor of laws and a letter from Witherspoon praising Madison’s “honour by his publick Conduct.” His teacher proudly wrote, “It has been my peculiar Happiness to know perhaps more than any, your Usefullness in an important Station.” Witherspoon concluded, “There was none to whom it gave more Satisfaction than to, Sir, your most obedient humble Servant.”¹⁴

But while Madison was finally receiving some garlands for his labors from those who loved him, his enemies were feeling the insult of his triumph more keenly than ever. Back at Leatherwood, Patrick Henry was fulminating about the young upstart to anyone who would listen.

BY SEPTEMBER, RANDOLPH WROTE MADISON THAT HENRY “GROWS IN violence against the constitution,” and that he had only accelerated his plot for another constitutional convention.¹⁵ The outrageous prospect tormented the Federalists. George Washington wrote Madison that to be “ship-wrecked in sight of the Port would be the severest of all possible aggravations to our misery.”¹⁶ But the worst part of Henry’s vengeance, for Madison, would be personal.