Moderates: Hugh Williamson and Pierce Butler

Like moderate nationalists, the moderates favored the Virginia Plan over the New Jersey Plan and opposed equal representation in the Senate.  However, while moderate nationalists looked upon a stronger central government as positive and creative, the moderates saw threat as well as promise in it.  They agreed that that the central government should have authority over individuals as well as states, but they wanted to preserve more state agency in it.  In particular, moderates indignantly opposed the federal veto of state laws.  Most also believed that states should pay federal representatives.  Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts (yes, he of the Gerrymander) is the best known of the moderates today.  The others came from the Deep Southern states of North Carolina or South Carolina – medium states that aspired to be large.

Hugh Williamson (North Carolina):

Like others in this category, Hugh Williamson's most significant nationalist position was that he opposed equal representation in the Senate.  Just as states give greater representation to larger counties, Congress should give greater representation to larger states.  He was willing to see the issue sent to committee, but he did not like the proposed Great Compromise, as he did not consider giving the House sole authority to originate money bills as any significant concession by small states.  On the other hand, after the Great Compromise was reached, when some delegates proposed to allow the Senate to originate money bills, he threatened to take back equality in the Senate.

In most other regards, Williamson was less of a nationalist.  Like most moderates, he believed members of Congress should be paid by states.  He considered the happiness of the people to depend on the continued existence of states and believed that if state officials were required to take an oath to uphold the federal constitution, then federal officials should be required to take an oath to uphold state constitution.  When Gouverneur Morris made the rash remarks quoted above, Williamson attempted to be conciliatory.  “He did not conceive the [Mr. Gov’r Morris] meant that the sword ought to be drawn against the smaller states.  He only pointed out the probable consequences of anarchy in the U.S.”

Pierce Butler (South Carolina):

South Carolina had four delegates who made a significant contribution to the convention, more than any other state.  One of these was Pierce Butler.  Butler had initial misgivings about the Virginia Plan.  He feared that it took too much power from the states, particularly with the vague phrase giving the National Legislature power “in all cases to which the State Legislatures were individually incompetent,” which could run into an extreme and destroy “all balance and security of interests among the States which it was necessary to preserve.”  He did, however, believe that a bicameral legislature and separations of powers would make it safer to give increased powers to the new government than the old Continental Congress.  Like other moderates, Butler opposed equal representation in the Senate and did not consider giving the House sole authority to originate money bills to be a significant concession in exchange.*   However, he did not want to base the Senate on population, but on wealth.  Population was too changeable to be a fixed standard, whereas property was the great object of government, the great cause of war and the great means of carrying it on.  Like Williamson, he favored having states pay Congressional representatives.  Butler did not think federal trial courts (as opposed to appellate courts) were necessary.

Though generally distrustful of the central government, Butler favored submitting the whole militia to the general authority, which had the care of the general defense.  That last, incidentally, is part of a general pattern by Butler that I hope to discuss later – although general distrustful of the central government, he made an exception wherever military security was at stake.

*This was a concern among most of the South Carolina delegation.  Apparently the South Carolina legislature limited money bills to the lower house, and serious problems arose as a result.

Moderate Nationalists: Charles Pinckney of South Carolina

Given the state's later history, it may seem surprising that the final moderate nationalist was Charles Pinckney of South Carolina.  Yet the South did not become firmly established as a bastion of state's rights until it became clear that it would be a permanent minority region.  At the time of the Constitutional Convention, the South was undoubtedly a minority region, but it was not clear that its status would be permanent.  In the earlier stages of the Convention, when the larger states supported the more centralized Virginia Plan and the small states the less centralized New Jersey Plan, three states consistently voted along with the large states of Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania for a more centralized government -- North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.  The answer appears to be that population was growing more quickly in the South than the North, so the South expected demographics to favor it.  Besides, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland were geographically small and therefore had little room to grow.  The Deep Southern states had plenty of land to expand into.  Though not large states, they voted as aspiring large states.  The South became firmly committed to states' rights only when industrial development in the North gave it an ever-growing population advantage, making clear that these aspirations would not come about.

South Carolina had four major delegates, more than any other state.  Interestingly, although the overall delegation consistently voted for the more centralized Virginia Plan and against equality in the Senate, only Charles Pinckney* was its only delegate who truly rates in the nationalist category.  Pinckney appears to have proposed his own plan of government, but no record survives of what it was.  The one thing that is clear about the plan is that he did not believe the national legislature would be able to make good laws for the whole, so states must remain to "prevent confusion."

Like other moderate nationalists, Pinckney opposed giving all states equal representatives in the Senate, but believed the full proportionality would make the Senate too large.  Instead, he proposed having each state have one, two, or three Senators, depending on its size.  Interestingly, at least one reason he opposed full equal representation was so that the southern states could protect their interests.  Alternately, he proposed each state having half as many Senators as Representatives (odd numbers rounded up).  He did not see giving the House sole authority to originate money bills as a serious concession in return for equality in the Senate.

Pinckney also favored giving Congress the power to charter corporations; establish seminaries of learning; grant patents; create public institutions to encourage agriculture, commerce, trades and manufactures; but not to regulate elections.  However, his strongest expression of nationalism was his support for a federal veto of state laws.  He considered such a rule indispensably necessary to defend the national prerogative and keep states in due subordination, and to keep them from violating federal laws and treaties, which they had done before.  Long after everyone else had abandoned the federal veto, Pinckney once again proposed it, this time by a 2/3 vote.  This proposal was met with many objections, including how it would be done.  Would all state laws be transmitted to the national legislature, would they be repealable by the national legislature, or would state executives be federally appointed, with such a veto.  "Mr. PINKNEY declared that he thought the State Executives ought to be so appointed with such a controul, & that it would be so provided if another Convention should take place."  Apparently, then he joined with Hamilton in favoring federally appointed state governors with an absolute veto, similar to royal governors of colonies.  This point never even reached the debate stage.

NEXT UP:  Moderate nationalists.