Authors: Denise Kiernan

Signing Their Rights Away (14 page)

BOOK: Signing Their Rights Away

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Morris’s other Philadelphia home, on Market Street, is also long gone, but the site—across from the Independence Visitor’s Center—is now preserved as an African American heritage site and is open to the public. When Philadelphia was the nation’s capital, Morris rented the home to George Washington, who is known to have kept nine slaves there while he was president. A statue of Morris stands just east of Independence Hall, and he is buried at nearby Christ Church.

Despite his early misgivings, Morris lent his signature to all three of the most important documents of the time: the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. Connecticut’s Roger Sherman is the only other man to have done so.

The Signer Whose Home Was Destroyed by the British

BORN
: March 16, 1735

DIED
: January 24, 1813

AGE AT SIGNING
: 48

PROFESSION
: Merchant

BURIED
: Friends Meeting House Cemetery, Trenton, New Jersey

George Clymer was a quiet, unassuming moneybags with no desire to serve in public office. But the new nation could not have survived were it not for men of his keen intelligence—and deep pockets—working behind the scenes.

Clymer cut a handsome figure, with his aquiline nose, wispy hair, and fine features. The son of a sea captain, he was orphaned at an early age and raised by an aunt and uncle. Luckily for him, his uncle, a buddy of Benjamin Franklin, was a wealthy and cultured merchant. Clymer followed in his uncle’s footsteps, devouring every
book in the man’s library and then raking in the cash from shrewd business deals in the import-export business.

He gave people the impression of being a cool cucumber—some would even mistake him for being lazy—but his doctor and friend, Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Rush, said that nothing could be further from the truth. Behind that polished exterior, Rush claimed, was a warm, open-hearted man who had great affection for the patriot cause. Clymer would even support the rights of people vastly different from him, specifically Native Americans and immigrants, on whose behalf he would later negotiate peace and rights settlements. As early as 1773, when Clymer was in his mid-thirties, he chaired the board that organized the Philadelphia Tea Party—virtually unknown to most Americans today—along with other smaller tea parties that took place around the same time; these events pressured merchants who were licensed to sell English tea to renounce their posts as royal consignees.

Also in 1773, Clymer saw some service as captain in a corps of volunteer troops nicknamed the “Silk Stockings,” because so many members were from well-heeled, blueblood families. The group used its military might to force local merchants to stop selling British tea. Clymer further distinguished himself with another important wartime service to his new country: fund-raising. He raised money for military supplies of all types—corn, flour, gunpowder, and tenting materials. And he backed the Revolutionary War by exchanging some of his own gold and silver—the safest of commodities—for risky Continental currency that wouldn’t have been worth the paper it was printed on had the revolution ended in failure. He even served as Continental treasurer during the first year of the war.

One of six signers of the Declaration of Independence who also signed the Constitution, Clymer, along with his family, suffered at the hands of the British during the war. When the Redcoats blitzed through Philadelphia in the fall of 1777, Congress fled, leaving Clymer (and fellow signer Robert Morris) to manage paperwork and keep the financial wheels of government turning. In September
1777, British troops destroyed Clymer’s country estate outside Philadelphia as Clymer’s wife, Elizabeth Meredith, and their children hid in nearby woods and watched the destruction. Thankfully, the damage did not inhibit Clymer’s ability to earn a living—or to lend others money. Twenty years after the Declaration was signed, he was back to his old bankrolling ways, bailing out the University of Pennsylvania from possible bankruptcy, creating banks, and establishing art academies, among other philanthropic ventures.

Clymer was not a lawyer and didn’t say much at the Constitutional Convention. His name appears in Madison’s records only a few times, motioning or voting on matters relating to taxation, slavery, and navigation. During a discussion of the three-fifths compromise, he objected, for instance, to the word
slaves
being used in the Constitution; the framers ended up changing the word to the euphemistic “all other persons,” as if to sweep the entire issue under the rug.

Clymer did serve on important business committees during the summer of 1787. He was a man who believed that those sent to Congress should “think
for
and not
with
his constituents.” True to that dictum, he often ignored his own constituents’ wishes when they conflicted with what he thought was the smart course of action. That might sound hard-hearted, but most modern members of Congress, if they were honest, would probably agree. It’s impractical to ask voters for their opinion on every issue; they vote for the person who will do the best job of representing their interests. In general, Clymer voted at the convention like the man he was—a big shot from a big state.

After the convention, Pennsylvania elected him a U.S. representative to the first Congress; he served out his term and didn’t seek reelection. He was, to his core, a behind-the-scenes man and was duly appointed by Washington to handle the management and collection of excise taxes for the new government. He knew goods, he knew business, he knew taxes. But the excise tax on whiskey turned out to be such an unpopular issue (especially in Pennsylvania, site of the
Whiskey Rebellion) that Clymer sickened of the abuse his department received and stepped down. At Washington’s request, he negotiated peace treaties with Creek and Cherokee tribes in Georgia.

Upon retiring at age fifty-seven, Clymer continued to stay active in social, charitable, and philanthropic works. In 1806, still smarting from the destruction of his prerevolutionary home, he bought another house, Summerseat, in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, which is still standing and open to the public. He died there in 1813, at the age of seventy-three. He is buried in a Quaker cemetery in Trenton, New Jersey, under a modest stone that hails him as a signer of the Constitution but does not mention that he also signed the Declaration of Independence.