James McHenry

Well, the interesting thing is, um, you know, the, my last name is McHenry.

And the first McHenry, uh, first person in my family to come to the Americas was, uh, Dr. James McHenry.

He wasn't a doctor when he landed, but he became a doctor.

Mm-hmm.

That's awesome

...

so, you know, it's like, uh, Fort McHenry is named after Dr. James McHenry.

I'm the first son of the first son of the first son all the way back to, to James.

Maryland.

James McHenry.

Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer.

Daniel Carroll.

He spent those last weeks of 1783 creating something that would become the Land Ordinance of 1784, mapping out how the western territories would be divided into new equal states.

And then in December, Congress appointed Jefferson, Elbridge Gerry, and James McHenry as a committee to arrange the ceremony for Congress's acceptance of George Washington's resignation of his military commission.

So when Washington came before Congress just before Christmas of 1783, it was Jefferson himself who wrote the formal response that was delivered by the president of Congress, praising Washington's historic surrender.

And while he was planning one of the biggest events at the time, he also remained devoted and connected to his family.

On identical terms, the immigrant and the native in the same sentence with no distinction, which means the Constitution made Alexander Hamilton of Nevis, by the way, he wasn't born in America, eligible to be president.

And James Wilson of Scotland, Robert Morris of Liverpool, Thomas Fitzsimmons, and James McHenry, William Paterson, and Pierce Butler, all of Ireland.

The seven foreign-born men who signed the Constitution wrote a presidential eligibility clause that made them all eligible for the presidency, and the screen they actually set against foreign influence in the same sentence was 14 years of residence.

That's a clock, not a bloodline.

Then he began to speak, and the speech ran through the afternoon, and three notebooks in the room took him down.

Madison's from the front seat, Dr. McHenry's from Maryland's table, and Judge Yates from New York.

Dr. McHenry recorded the opening verdict.

He observed that the Confederation fulfilled none of the objectives for which it was framed.

Madison recorded the stakes.

Particular states might by the conduct provoke a war without control and neither militia nor droughts being fit for defense on such occasions.

Enlistments only could be successful and these could not be executed without money.

In Dr. McHenry's notes carry the epitaph the governor pronounced over Congress's conduct in the war.

Delaware: George Read, Gunning Bedford Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broomé.

Maryland: James McHenry, Dan of St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll.

Virginia: John Blair, James Madison Jr.

North Carolina: William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson.

Okay.

The secretary of war, James McHenry, kept a journal during the Constitutional Convention, and he wrote, a lady asked Dr. Franklin, well, doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy? A republic, replied the doctor, if you can keep it.

And this later ended up being printed in newspapers in the early 19th century.

And that's when the idea that it happened as he's leaving the statehouse or entering the statehouse.

No patching, no half measures.

On Monday, May 28th, more delegates took their seats, among them, at last, Dr. Franklin himself, along with Nathaniel Gorham and Caleb Strong of Massachusetts, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, Gunning Bedford of Delaware, and James McHenry of Maryland.

George Reith delivered his committee report, and the convention spent the day on its own rules.

Most of them were the ordinary apparatus of a deliberative body, and they set the manners of the room.

On May 29th, the Tuesday the rules were adopted and the doors were closed.

The convention turned at last to the business it had been called for.

James McHenry of Maryland wrote to his wife Peggy that day and told her the only thing the rules still allowed him to tell her.

We are beginning to enter seriously upon the business of this convention.

America's youngest theologian.

But who's ever heard of Abraham Baldwin today? So beyond Abraham Baldwin, take James McHenry.

Now, you may have heard of Fort McHenry.

That's what the Battle of 1812, Fort McHenry, the big flag you just heard this morning, that 30-foot, 42-foot flag.

As Bob was talking about it, that was Fort McHenry named after him because he was a secretary of war for George Washington and John Adams.

So he's the, if you will, the first head set back in that day.

And interesting thing about James McHenry, he's also a founder of the Baltimore Bible Society, which is now known as the Maryland Bible Society.

He found people in his day that didn't have a Bible, didn't know the word of God.