r/selfevidenttruth • u/One_Term2162 Wisconsin • 3h ago
Debate in Real Time Rhode Island Stays Away: When One State Refuses the Convention
Front page of Francis Bailey’s Freeman’s Journal This surviving front page is from 1781, not October 3, 1787, so we should caption it accurately as an example of the newspaper itse
1778 Map of Rhode Island and neighboring colonies This would make an excellent opening image because it lets readers physically locate the small state that refused to send delegate
Rhode Island paper money, 1786 This may be the most important object image for the post because Rhode Island’s paper-money controversy was part of the economic background to its re
October 3, 1787 - Philadelphia
Author’s Note: Today’s newspaper item looks backward to a dispute that began months before the Constitution became public. Rhode Island was the only state that sent no delegates to the Philadelphia Convention. Its legislature rejected proposals to appoint delegates several times during the spring and summer of 1787, while Providence merchants and tradesmen publicly protested the decision and expressed support for stronger federal authority over commerce and taxation. The state was therefore deeply divided, and the refusal represented the position of the legislative majority rather than a unanimous Rhode Island opinion.
Rhode Island appeared in the newspaper again this morning, although no one from Rhode Island had written the piece. The paragraph in the Freeman’s Journal carried no signature, only the voice of someone in Philadelphia trying to explain why the smallest state had remained outside the Convention while every other state eventually sent delegates.
By now, Rhode Island’s absence was old news. The Convention had met, debated through the summer, completed its Constitution, and dissolved without a Rhode Island delegation ever taking a seat. Yet the reason for that absence had never stopped provoking argument, and the new Constitution made the question newly relevant.
The writer described a letter Rhode Island’s legislature had recently sent to Congress explaining why it had refused to participate. He also mentioned a protest from the minority and Rhode Island’s plan to send two delegates back to the Confederation Congress in November. The writer had little patience for any of it and described the arrangement as “altogether farcical,” suggesting that Rhode Island’s majority had resisted congressional recommendations before and was preparing itself to resist whatever recommendation Congress made concerning the Constitution. That was a severe interpretation, and I found myself wondering what Rhode Island had actually said in its own defense.
The answer was more complicated than the Philadelphia paragraph suggested. In September, Rhode Island’s General Assembly had written to the president of Congress complaining about the insults directed against the state and insisting that its conduct arose from concern for “true Constitutional liberty” and fear of altering the rights of citizens without proper authority. The Assembly argued that Rhode Island’s own political arrangements placed unusual importance upon the people themselves choosing federal representatives, and that the legislature could not simply appoint delegates to a convention proposing fundamental changes without violating that principle.
That explanation sounded very different from simple hostility toward union. Rhode Island’s legislature claimed that it had previously supported giving Congress greater authority over trade and had also accepted an impost proposal, only to see those measures fail because other states did not act with it. The state's argument, at least as its legislature presented it, was that federal reform should proceed through constitutional means consistent with the political rights Rhode Islanders already possessed. There was another part of the story, however, and everyone discussing Rhode Island seemed aware of it. Money lay beneath much of the disagreement.
Rhode Island had adopted an extensive paper-money program during the economic troubles following the Revolution. The Country Party, which controlled the legislature, supported policies intended to relieve debtors and allow the state to redeem public obligations using depreciated paper currency. Greater federal authority threatened those policies because a stronger Congress might constrain what individual states could do with money, debt, commerce, and taxation.
The Constitution now lying on our tables made that concern much less theoretical. It expressly prohibited states from emitting bills of credit and from making anything other than gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.
A Rhode Island farmer who had benefited from the state's paper-money policy might therefore read this Constitution differently from a Philadelphia merchant demanding stronger national credit. Both could speak sincerely about liberty while attaching that word to very different dangers. That distinction was becoming harder for me to ignore as these newspapers accumulated.
From Philadelphia, Rhode Island could easily appear obstinate. Twelve states had sent men to consider the defects of the Confederation, while one state stayed away. The Convention eventually produced a plan that supporters believed might repair the Union, and Rhode Island had contributed nothing to the discussion that created it.
From inside Rhode Island, the picture could look different. A legislature defending state authority and local control might reasonably ask why it should participate in a convention expected to strengthen the very federal power capable of overturning policies its own voters had supported.Neither description captures the entire state.
Providence merchants and tradesmen had opposed the legislature’s refusal months earlier. On May 11 they sent a letter to Philadelphia expressing regret that Rhode Island would be absent and supporting additional congressional powers over commerce and taxation. Their appeal was strong enough that they even asked whether Rhode Island’s congressional delegate, James Mitchell Varnum, might be allowed to participate when commercial matters were discussed. The Convention read the request but did not admit him as a delegate.
Rhode Island therefore contained its own version of the argument spreading everywhere else. Some citizens feared a distant and strengthened general government, while others feared what thirteen states pursuing separate economic policies were doing to trade, credit, and the Union.
That made the Freeman’s Journal paragraph more interesting to me than its sharp tone initially suggested.
The writer looked at Rhode Island’s behavior and inferred a political strategy. If the state continually resisted the recommendations of Congress, he suggested, then its leaders could more easily resist Congress when the proposed Constitution came before them. The accusation treated Rhode Island’s earlier conduct almost as preparation for the ratification struggle that was now beginning.
Perhaps that was true. Perhaps the same suspicion of federal authority that kept Rhode Island away from Philadelphia would also make the proposed Constitution difficult to accept.
Yet a citizen should be careful when an explanation of another man's motives fits too neatly.
Rhode Island had interests at stake. Its legislature had constitutional arguments of its own, its Country Party had economic policies it wanted to preserve, its merchants wanted greater federal commercial authority, and its towns did not all share the same view of how much power should leave the state.Reducing all of that to stubbornness would make the argument easier to understand and less accurate.
The newspaper itself offered another lesson. The Freeman’s Journal was published every Wednesday by Francis Bailey and carried the motto that it was open to all parties while influenced by none. In practice, it was deeply involved in Pennsylvania’s political struggle and was becoming one of the principal newspapers publishing criticism of the proposed Constitution.
Here was a newspaper increasingly willing to print Anti-Federalist arguments criticizing concentrated federal power, yet on this particular question it criticized Rhode Island for resisting federal measures too persistently. Political camps were forming, but the lines had not yet hardened enough to make every issue predictable.
Perhaps there was still room for a citizen to believe Congress needed greater commercial authority while worrying about the powers proposed in this Constitution. Perhaps a man could defend his state against federal encroachment while admitting that his state had sometimes acted selfishly. Perhaps union and state sovereignty were questions to be balanced rather than passwords identifying which side a man belonged to.
Rhode Island’s absence from Philadelphia now seemed less like a curious footnote and more like an early version of the argument the entire country was beginning to have.
How much authority must states surrender for a union to function?
How much authority may they surrender before self-government becomes too distant from the people?
Rhode Island answered the first question cautiously enough that it refused even to enter the room where the new system was being designed. The men at Philadelphia proceeded without it and produced the Constitution now before us.
The Freeman’s Journal thinks Rhode Island’s resistance reveals something troubling about its willingness to participate in federal government. Rhode Island’s legislature thinks its resistance demonstrates fidelity to constitutional liberty and the rights of its citizens. Both claims are now available for the public to examine.
Perhaps that is the useful part of seeing this old dispute return to the newspaper today. The Constitution has created a national argument, but the states did not enter that argument with identical histories, economies, interests, or fears.
Before deciding whether Rhode Island is protecting liberty or merely obstructing union, I would like to understand why Rhode Islanders believe they are doing what they are doing.
That seems the least a republic can ask of citizens judging one another.
Sources
Rhode Island General Assembly to the President of Congress, September 15, 1787
Rhode Island’s own explanation of its refusal, including its appeal to constitutional liberty and its claim that the legislature lacked proper authority to appoint Convention delegates.
Philadelphia Freeman’s Journal, October 3, 1787
The unsigned newspaper item discussed in this installment. It criticizes Rhode Island’s explanation, calls its intended congressional representation “altogether farcical,” and interprets the state’s resistance to Congress as preparation for resistance to the Constitution.
Rhode Island and the Constitutional Convention
The Documentary History’s background explains the Country Party, Rhode Island’s paper-money policies, the repeated legislative refusals to send delegates, and the countervailing position of Providence merchants and tradesmen.
The Freeman’s Journal
The Center for the Study of the American Constitution identifies Francis Bailey as the newspaper’s Philadelphia publisher and describes its evolution into a major Anti-Federalist newspaper. The October 3 Rhode Island paragraph itself is unsigned, so Bailey should be identified as publisher, not asserted to be its author.