Rufus King

The proposition was left to lie on the table, but the table image stayed in the room.

Rufus King rose.

The report and the motion were both mendable, he argued, but if the equal votes was fixed and unalterable, then the truth should be plainly said.

We were in fact cut asunder already, and it was in vain to shut our eyes against it.

He turned his eyes for the preservation of his rights to the state governments.

Happiness depends on their existence as much as a newborn infant on its mother for nourishment.

It fell to Rufus King to close that Saturday, and he closed it on Mr. Bedford in the words Madison preserved.

It was not he who, with a vehemence unprecedented in that house, had declared himself ready to turn his hopes from a common country and court the protection of some foreign hand.

Nathaniel Gorham.

Rufus King.

Connecticut.

William Samuel Johnson.

Only New York and New Jersey voting no.

Then Rufus King moved the question that ended it.

Should the committee rise and report Governor Randolph's resolutions to the House without alteration? In fact, a question whether Virginia's plan should be adhered to as preferable to New Jersey's.

Massachusetts, aye.

The House took up the reported resolutions that same afternoon, and the first debate was about what the words meant and about the speech nobody had answered.

James Wilson said that by a national government he did not mean one that would swallow up the state governments, as seemed to be wished by some gentlemen.

Then Rufus King stood and pulled the whole argument's vocabulary apart.

The words states, sovereignty, national, federal, he said, had been used inaccurately and delusively.

One power had been our mother country and the other our effective ally in the war for independence, and two parties sprang up in America, one French and the other English.

War with England was regarded as probable when George Cabot and Caleb Strong, senators from Massachusetts, Oliver Ellsworth, senator from Connecticut, and Rufus King, senator from New York, headed a successful movement for procuring a special mission to England.

They acted together and constituted a clique which shaped the policy of the Federalists in the Senate.

All except Ellsworth were Massachusetts men, for King was born there and had not moved to New York until 1788.

When the President refused to send Alexander Hamilton on the special mission, they accepted John Jay's nomination as satisfactory, but his confirmation was opposed in the Senate by Virginia's senators, Monroe and Taylor, and although Taylor's objection was based upon the ground that the Chief Justice of the United States ought not to be delegated to negotiate a treaty which he might later be called upon to judicially review, King and his friends were exasperated by his opposition.

That Jay's mission might have a chance of success, it was necessary that Congress refrain from legislation against Great Britain, but the House passed a bill, which fortunately was defeated in the Senate, to stop all importations of articles of British growth and manufacture until compensation had been made by Great Britain for American losses and the Western posts had been surrendered.

This Rufus King called the Madison, etc., Prohibitory Act, and he laid at Madison's door the blame for every move of the opposition.

A motion was made in the House to sequester British debts, and on May 6th, Monroe and Taylor, as instructed by the Virginia legislature, brought the measure before the Senate.

George Reed of Delaware, seconded by General Pickney, moved to postpone the national government proposition in favor of gentler words, that in order to carry into execution the designs of the states, a more effective government ought to be established.

Rufus King dissected the difference out loud.

The Virginia motion aimed at a government that would act upon the whole people of the United States.

The Delaware motion aimed merely at strengthening the Confederation with some additional powers.

One power had been our mother country and the other our effective ally in the war for independence, and two parties sprang up in America, one French and the other English.

War with England was regarded as probable when George Cabot and Caleb Strong, senators from Massachusetts, Oliver Ellsworth, senator from Connecticut, and Rufus King, senator from New York, headed a successful movement for procuring a special mission to England.

They acted together and constituted a clique which shaped the policy of the Federalists in the Senate.

All except Ellsworth were Massachusetts men, for King was born there and had not moved to New York until seventeen eighty-eight.

That Jay's mission might have a chance of success, it was necessary that Congress refrain from legislation against Great Britain.

But the House passed a bill, which fortunately was defeated in the Senate, to stop all importations of articles of British growth and manufacture until compensation had been made by Great Britain for American losses and the western posts had been surrendered.

This Rufus King called the Madison, et cetera, Prohibitory Act, and he laid at Madison's door the blame for every move of the opposition.

A motion was made in the House to sequester British debts, and on May sixth, Monroe and Taylor, as instructed by the Virginia legislature, brought the measure before the Senate.

New Hampshire, John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman.

Massachusetts, Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King.

Connecticut, William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman.

New York: Alexander Hamilton.

He is a hesitating and laborious speaker, possessing a great degree of confidence, and goes extensively into all subjects that he speaks on without respect to elegance or flower of dictation, and cherishes as his first virtue a love of his country.

Besides him, the Polish Jerry lacked Rufus King, 32 years old.

In his public speaking there is something particularly strong and rich in his expression, clear and convincing of his arguments, rapid and irresistible at times with his eloquence.

He may with propriety be ranked among the luminaries of the present age.

Back in those days, this probably seemed super extreme.

Uh, Rufus King of Massachusetts actually said, I don't care if James Madison's high lofty ideals about really putting it for the people, but as a matter of sovereignty is the important question.

The important question is you put it for the conventions because they might actually get something done.

Two of the States, uh, have single house legislators, but everybody else have a dual house legislator, which means you have to pass both sides.

Each state's legislator is going to now have less power.

So they're not going to want to pass it.

So Rufus King was basically saying, it's just a practical matter.

We want to put it before these conventions.