The rain clears out, taking all the humidity with it, and the next day breaks bright and clear. I’m up to see it. I help Mrs. Carver set up near Second and Market and then meet Elise on the south side of Market at Fourth, where her stand will be. When I get back to Franklin’s, I go straight to the cellar to split the day’s wood.
I’m finished by six and working in the library with Franklin by six-thirty. We work hard through the morning, catching up, and then walk together through sunny, rain-washed streets to the convention.
“I saw you from my window, loading up the cart. Are you to become part of this business?” Franklin asks as we wait on a corner for a carriage to pass. You can answer, by the way. I think you’ve made enough progress learning our ways that you may begin to talk in public.”
Finally! I think. Indeed, I’ve been working hard to learn to walk, talk and move like a man from 1787. I’ve picked Washington and Hamilton as my models, trying to move as gracefully as the General and to speak with as much straightforwardness as Hamilton.
I say to Franklin, “I’m just giving whatever assistance I can. Do you disapprove?”
“Not the work itself. Possibly your motives. Although ‘disapprove’ is not the word I would choose. ‘Worry’ puts a better name to it.”
“Worry?”
“Yes. I see how you look at Elise. We all do: Elise, Sally, even the children. A romance would be most unwise.”
“Really?” I say, my temper starting to rise. “And why, pray tell, would that be?”
“Well … aside from the fact that such a romance would contravene the law and outrage society, there is also the fact that you will be leaving. I know that as surely as I know the names of my children. If Elise grows to have feelings for you, to depend on you, what will she be left with when you are gone?”
Despite my new-found permission to speak, I can only fume. Mostly because I know he’s right.
***
No matter how tired we might get, the pace never lets up, especially not at the convention. It seems like “The Connecticut Compromise” has put the delegates in a mood to get things done. Over the next two weeks they make a number of decisions as they hurry to set the basic framework of the government.
For instance, they agree the executive will be a single person instead of a committee; and that there will be a Supreme Court and lesser courts to decide cases involving the laws passed by Congress.
They also decide that federal law will supercede conflicting state laws.
There’s a great deal of debate over how to elect the president, and who should elect him. Some want the people to vote. Others argue the people will never know enough to select the best man, or that they’ll be so prejudiced for candidates from their own states that no one will ever gain a majority. Those folks want Congress to elect the president.
But others say that will make the president too eager to curry Congress’s favor, especially when he wants to get re-elected; and that the way to make sure no branch of government ever becomes too powerful is to make each branch as independent of the others as possible.
Still others want the selection process to take the differences in population amongst the states into account, much like proportional voting in the House.
As a compromise, they agree to have the president chosen by electors selected by the people, with each state receiving the number of electors equal to its total of congressmen and senators. And since a state’s total number of House seats depends, in part, on its slave population, slavery will also affect presidential elections.
I have to work really hard to keep myself from shaking my head in disgust. I still remember my promise to Franklin.
When it comes to selecting the Supreme Court, the delegates decide the president will appoint the various justices with the Senate’s “advice and consent,” or approval.
The delegates then debate how their finished product—the Constitution—should be ratified. Some want to submit it to the state legislatures, since the Articles of Confederation require the legislatures to consent to any changes to it. Others want the citizens of each state to elect delegates to special ratifying conventions so that the Constitution will derive its authority directly from the people.
By an overwhelming majority, the convention decides to do some of both: submit the Constitution first to the existing Congress up in New York—whose members were chosen by the state legislatures—and then to the people by means of conventions.
On July 26, the delegates finish debating the Virginia Plan. It is now time to actually write down what they have decided. In other words, it is time to produce a first draft of the Constitution.
To do this, they create the Committee of Detail and appoint to it lawyers John Rutledge from South Carolina, Governor Edmond Randolph of Virginia, Oliver Ellsworth from Connecticut, James Wilson from Pennsylvania, and merchant and legislator Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts. The convention recesses until August 6 to allow the committee to do its work.
***
Suddenly, my days are mostly my own. Franklin still has work for me: letters and the autobiography, but that takes up only a few hours every day. And that autobiography is not his favorite activity. He’ll stop in a second to talk to Sally or play with one of his grandchildren, or even to re-read a book that catches his eye from the shelves. I soon learn that all I have to do to get him to stop work is offer a game of chess.
Despite Franklin’s warning, I use some of my time to help Elise and Mrs. Carver. I almost have to. That first morning caused all sorts of commotion because Elise, in her excitement, completely forgot everyone’s breakfast. And didn’t she hear about it from Sally when she got home after selling all her soup!
The result? Elise has to agree to take care of breakfast and all her morning chores before going to the market.
That leaves Mr. Carver and me to take up the slack: opening every morning and serving until Elise gets there. Fortunately, Mr. Carver is also on break from the State House. When the convention resumes, he won’t have to be there until 9:00 a.m. and I won’t have to be there until even later. We decide to split the work 50-50, him taking one day and me the next.
On one of my mornings, I’ve got my back turned to the counter as I feed the fire to keep the soup hot. I hear three sharp raps and turn. Lucas, the black who works for Swinbourne, stands before me, massive in his red shirt and fringed leather leggings.
“Gimme one,” he orders, staring at me, perfectly still, like a tiger lying in wait. His very presence fills me with such unease that I feel unable to talk.
I fix a bowl, hand it to him, and point to the sign I’d made that says “3 cents a bowl, every bowl, no filling again!” I hold out my hand to collect, praying he won’t notice the tremble.
He ignores it and digs into the soup, finishing it in about four slurps.
“Elise,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Where she at?”
My unease spikes to full-on alarm. I’m certain he’s there to drag Elise back to the master she escaped in Saint-Domingue. I also know there is nothing I can say to help the situation. All I can do is shrug.
“Elise,” he repeats.
I shrug again. His stare never leaves my face.
“Tell her Lucas Rush was here. Mrs. Carver sent me to see about her family. She can find me at Mrs. Carver’s stall.”
He tosses thee pennies on the counter and leaves.
Elise arrives a little later. When I tell her about Lucas, she cries: “Where? Where is he? I must see him immediately!”
“Wait!” I say. “Elise, you should not deal with him. He’s a bounty hunter. He catches slaves and takes them back.”
“What? Are you crazy? He is Mr. Carver’s friend. The one who saved him in the war. Now he makes his living hunting and trapping. I heard Mr. Carver say so.”
“And I am telling you that I have seen him handling run-away slaves … twice!”
“You? You are just a boy! You do not know what you see!”
That hurts.
“Fine! Have it your way. But maybe you should think about this. What if he’s looking for you? What if he is working for the man who owned you on Saint-Domingue?”
“How would Claude know where to look? Or who to look for? No one knows I went to France. Or that I came to Philadelphia with Doctor Franklin. And my name is not what it was.”
“Still—”
“No! I must find my mother and my son. If Mr. and Mrs. Carver think this is the best way for me to do that, then meeting this man is what I must do. Stay here while I go.”
“Please?”
“Please? Please what?” she asks impatiently.
“It would be nice if you asked ‘please,’ instead of ordering me around, especially since I’m not being paid.”
“Yes, you are right. I am sorry,” she says, and then walks off to meet Rush. I never did get my “please.”
She is back a half an hour later.
“He says he can find them!” she says excitedly. “He knows people in the Carolinas, many people, since that is where he is from.”
“Did you talk to him about if he’s a bounty hunter?”
“No! Why would I do that? Should I insult the man who can find my family? Or the Carvers? All because of something you thought you saw?”
I can see arguing won’t change her mind. So, I think up a new “impediment,” as Franklin might say.
“How much does he want?”
“Nothing! Since I am a friend of the Carvers, he has said he will do it for nothing.”
“You know what nothing’s worth?”
“Quoi?” she asks, looking at me as if I’m a stranger.
“Nothing.”
***
When I get back to Franklin’s, I find him in the library, reading the first draft of the Constitution a messenger has just delivered. Recess is over. The convention resumes tomorrow.