Newly Rediscovered Manuscript Sheds Light on the Identity of the “Federal Farmer”

Newly rediscovered manuscript provides evidence that Antifederalist Elbridge Gerry was the “Federal Farmer” (Part 1)

In 1911 Yale Professor Max Farrand published his seminal three-volume work, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787.  At the time, the manuscripts and other records which told the story of the drafting of the Constitution were scattered in archives and private collections around the world. After Farrand compiled the documentary record for the framing of the Constitution his work quickly became the authoritative cannon which is regularly cited by generations of historians, biographers, lawyers and judges. 

For the anniversary of the bicentennial of the Constitution in 1987, James Hutson and Leonard Rapport updated Farrand’s work by publishing The Supplement to Max Farrand’s The Records of the Federal Convention. Hutson was the long-serving chief of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. Rapport was a legendary archivist with the National Archives. Their Supplement  made available “new” materials discovered after 1911. Among the hundreds of records assembled by Hutson and Rapport were ten letters written by Elbridge Gerry to his wife, Ann Thompson Gerry, during the summer and fall of 1787. As set forth below, an additional letter from Elbridge to Ann has been “uncovered” which helps shed light on one of the biggest mysteries of the ratification debate: the identity of the pseudonymous “Federal Farmer.” 

Elbridge Gerry was one of only three delegates who refused to sign the Constitution on  September 17, 1787. During the early weeks of the Constitutional Convention Gerry actively participated in the framing of the Constitution, delivering 113 speeches and making 55 motions. He chaired one of the Convention’s most important committees which was responsible for a critical compromise between large and small states over representation in Congress. Yet, in August he became increasingly disillusioned with the deliberations in Philadelphia. Gerry feared that excessive power was being consolidated in the proposed federal government. Moreover, Gerry protested that the Constitution should be revised to include a Bill of Rights and other amendments. Gerry’s letters to Ann express his growing frustration in the final two months of the Convention and provide a window into the secret deliberations in Independence Hall.

In 1911 Farrand had access to only a handful of Gerry’s manuscripts. Realizing the significance of Gerry’s correspondence with Ann, in 1987 Hutson published ten letters written by Gerry from May through September. Although the “new” 11th letter is believed to reside in private hands, a photocopy was located in the Special Collections at the Morris Library at Southern Illinois University.[1] Working with Archivist Aaron Lisec, StatutesandStories.com is pleased to make a transcript of the letter available for researchers.

In a series of blog posts to follow, StatutesandStories.com will be publishing new evidence that Elbridge Gerry was the Federal Farmer, arguably the most influential Antifederalist pamphleteer. Since the eighteenth century historians have theorized that the author of the Federal Farmer essays was Richard Henry Lee or Melancton Smith. Defying this conventional wisdom, John P. Kaminski has opined that Elbridge Gerry was the Federal Farmer.[2] Kaminski is the longstanding editor of the fifty volume Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Although Kaminski is a leading constitutional scholar, his attribution has not yet been widely embraced.

Newly emerging evidence to be released in the weeks to follow supports Kaminski’s attribution that Gerry was in fact the Federal Farmer. Click here for a recent blog post by Kaminski summarizing his attribution analysis. It is hoped that Gerry’s newly rediscovered 11th letter to Ann – and other evidence being assembled – will resolve one of the longest running mysteries involving the ratification debate: the identity of the Antifederalist author of the Federal Farmer. Indeed, none other than Alexander Hamilton credited the Federal Farmer  as his “most plausible” opponent in a footnote in Federalist 68.

Historians have long recognized that the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights were adopted during a remarkably open and democratic ratification process. Although the Antifederalists “lost” the ratification debate in 1788, they are rightly entitled to be counted among the leaders of the “founding” generation. While the Constitution was drafted by the Federalists, arguably “the spirit of American politics has more often been inspired by the Antifederalists.” [3]

In hindsight it should not be surprising that Elbridge Gerry was the Federal Farmer. Gerry was a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. While he initially welcomed the work of the Constitutional Convention,  his dissatisfaction became palpable in August. In his newly uncovered  “11th” letter to Ann, Gerry could not have been more clear.  In the final weeks of the Constitutional Convention Gerry confided to Ann that he was “determined to leave no stone unturned” to prevent adoption of a Constitution which he predicted would “probably produce the most fatal consequences” to American liberty. The Federal Farmer essays were thus the means by which Gerry sought to “prevent” the measures he feared.

Gerry’s 10 letters to Ann

Gerry’s increasing frustration with his colleagues first appears in a letter to Ann dated August 21st. Gerry wrote that he was “sick” of the Convention and did not expect to support its work:

I am as sick of being here as You can conceive. Most of the Time I am at Home or in convention. I do not think in a Week I am ten hours any where else. We meet now at ten and sit till four: but entre nous, I do not expect to give my voice to the measures. 

On August 26th, Gerry elaborated that the pending draft of the Constitution ran the risk of precipitating a civil war:

I meant my situation as a delegate was uneasy: I am exceedingly distrest at the proceedings of the Convention being apprehensive, and almost sure they will if not altered materially lay the foundation of a civil War.…I never was more sick of any thing than I am of conventioneering: had I known what would have happened, nothing would have induced me to come here. I am and must be patient a little longer.  

On August 29th, Gerry continued to confide to Ann his strident opposition to the working draft of the Constitution, including his wish to depart the Convention.

I am quite distressed about it. If you do not find relief soon, I shall quit the convention, and let their proceedings take their chance. Indeed I have been a Spectator for some time; for I am very different in political principles from my colleagues. I am very well but sick of being here; indeed I ardently long to meet my dear nancy. I think we shall not be here longer than a fortnight, and if it was possible I would leave this place immediately. 

Two days later, on September 1, Gerry reiterated that he would happily depart the Convention if his presence wasn’t necessary to maintain a quorum for the Massachusetts delegation:

I would not remain here two hours was I not under a necessity of staying to prevent my colleagues from saying that I broke up the representation, and that they were averse to an arbitrary System of Government, for such it is at present, and such they must give their voice to unless it meets with considerable alterations. 

In the closing days of the Convention, Gerry confirmed his intent to dissent from the final draft of the Constitution. On September 9th Gerry wrote to Ann that:

I am myself of opinion that Thursday will finish the Business to which I have every prospect at present of giving my negative. 

Ultimately, on September 17th Gerry was one of only three delegates who refused to sign the Constitution. After the Convention adjourned the three dissenting delegates, Elbridge Gerry, George Mason and Edmund Randolph, went public with their objections, which were widely publicized by Antifederalists.[4] For example, copied below is Gerry’s letter to the Massachusetts Ratification Convention, published in the Independent Chronicle on January 31, 1788. Nevertheless, it has remained a mystery as to whether Gerry actively participated in the ratification debate using one of the hundreds of pseudonyms which appeared in newspapers and pamphlets during the ratification battle. 

 

Gerry’s 11th letter to Ann

In addition to evidencing Gerry’s commitment to leave no stone unturned in opposing the Constitution, Gerry’s undated letter to Ann arguably foreshadows his work as an Antifederalist. After the Convention adjourned in September, Gerry traveled to New York where he met with other emerging Antifederalists, including Richard Henry Lee and Arthur Lee of Virginia and Governor George Clinton, Melancton Smith, and John Lamb of New York.[5] Interestingly, the bottom paragraph of Gerry’s 11th letter demonstrates that he was communicating by mail with “Judge Lee,” who sent his sincere regards to the Gerry family. While it is uncertain what Lee and Gerry were discussing, this is tantalizing evidence that nascent Antifederalist leaders were networking and potentially preparing to mobilize, as early as August.[6]

Another heretofore unrecognized piece of evidence in Gerry’s 11th letter is the suggestion that friction was emerging between Gerry and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut.  Gerry asks Ann to inform Mr. Osgood that Gerry predicted that “Mr. Elsworth will be mistaken in his supposition.” Over the course of the following year, Federalist Oliver Ellsworth, writing as A Landholder,  would publicly criticize Gerry’s failure to sign the Constitution. In turn, Gerry responded in newspaper essays defending himself against Landholder’s charges.[7] The concluding salvo in the “long, intertwined newspaper debate” between Gerry an Ellsworth would be written in April of 1788.[8] Uncharacteristically, the disputations between Gerry and Ellsworth would become heated and personal, as will be explored in subsequent posts. 

Gerry’s 11th letter to Ann is undated. Nevertheless, it was doubtless written in late August as Gerry’s frustration at the Convention mounted. Among other things, Gerry’s letter can be dated based on his concern over Ann’s health. In his August 21 letter to Ann, Gerry indicated that he was “happy to hear that you & our infant are well…” Similarly, in his August 26th letter to Ann, Gerry referred to Ann’s letter of August 22, without any mention of Ann’s fainting or indisposition.

Yet, in Gerry’s August 29th letter to Ann he expresses his concern that Ann was “so liable to fainting.”  Gerry writes that “I am quite distressed about it. If you do not find relief soon, I shall quit the convention…”  Similarly in a September 1 letter, Gerry indicates that he “shall prepare myself to leave this city on the arrival of the next post unless you are better.”

The concern over Ann’s health aligns perfectly with the undated 11th letter. Gerry’s undated letter indicates that the reoccurrence of Ann’s “fainting & silence together are alarming.”  While the exact date is unclear, the undated letter was likely written on August 30 (or August 28th) because:

This blog post is the first part of a multi-part series which continues with Part 2: Mystery Solved: Antifederalist Elbridge Gerry was the “Federal Farmer.” Part 2 will introduce the scholarship and attribution debate over the identity of the Federal Farmer. After exploring Elbridge Gerry’s biography and politics, Part 2 will also summarize the emerging evidence supporting Kaminski’s Gerry attribution, including genealogical evidence that Elbridge Gerry was related to Thomas Greenleaf, the New York publisher of the Federal Farmer pamphlets. 

Footnotes

[1]  Gerry’s “10 letters” to Ann were sold by Sothebys in five installments between 1978 to 1981. Before the sale, the Gerry correspondence was previously included in the “Sang Collection.” Fortunately, select manuscripts and/or copies of letters in the Sang Collection were retained at various institutions including Southern Illinois University, the University of Chicago, Brandeis and Yale. Periodically, letters from the Sang Collection reappear in auction catalogs. 

[2]  Kaminski first identified Gerry as the Federal Farmer in a paper presented at a New York history conference in 1988.  John P. Kaminski, “The Role of Newspapers in New York’s Debate Over the Federal Constitution,” in Stephen L. Schechter and Richard B. Bernstein, eds., New York and the Union (Albany, 1990), 280–92. See also 19 DHRC 203.

[3] Saul Cornell refers to the Antifederalists as the “the Other Founders.” Saul Cornell, The Other Founders (University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 1.

[4] “The Anti-Federalist argument was largely defined by a small core of essays,” including Gerry’s “Objections to Signing the National Constitution,” George Mason’s “Objections to the Constitution,” Richard Henry Lee’s letter to Edmund Randolph, “The Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Minority,” and Robert Yates and John Lansing’s “Reasons for Dissent.” Cornell, The Other Founders, 25.

[5] Kaminski, New York and the Union, 286.

[6] In subsequent blog posts, StatutesandStories will evaluate the available evidence exploring what Gerry and Lee might have been discussing. Importantly, Gerry was not a delegate to the Confederation Congress in 1787, in contrast to Richard Henry Lee who would become a leading and outspoken Antifederalist.

[7] In subsequent posts, the goal will be to explore possible “suppositions” by Ellsworth that Gerry might have been referring to in his 11th letter to Ann. In consultation with Professor Kaminski, one possible topic that warrants investigation is the innocuous possibility that Ellsworth, Gerry and Osgood were discussing Congressional requisitions and other political or business matters.

[8] 7 DHRC 1751-56. Click here for a link to Gerry’s Response to Landholder X.