Massachusetts Delegation | Quill

United States Bill of Rights 1789 (2021 Edition)

Twelve articles of amendment to the Constitution, introduced in September 1789 by Congress.

Massachusetts Delegation

This is one of the 12 delegations in the convention, accounting for 10 of 92 people who took part.

Members (10):

Name	Visualize	Details	Delegations
Fisher Ames	Visualize	(9 April 1758 – 4 July 1808) Member of Congress, essayist, and renowned orator. Ames was elected in 1788 to the Massachusetts convention for ratifying the federal Constitution. To support his growing family, he invested, successfully, in the burgeoning India trade. Elected president of Harvard College in 1805, Ames declined the office because of his poor health.	Massachusetts Delegation (This negotiation)
Tristram Dalton	Visualize	(28 May 1738 – 30 May 1817) Merchant, U.S. Senator, and delegate to the Continental Congress (but did not attend). Dalton served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and also as its speaker in 1784. He was elected as a delegate to the state convention on the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, in which he advocated for its adoption.	Massachusetts Delegation (This negotiation)
Elbridge Gerry	Visualize	(17 July 1744 – 23 November 1814) Governor of Massachusetts, Congressman, and delegate to the Continental Congress. After completing his studies, Gerry settled his family business trading fish to Spain and Portugal. He signed the Declaration of Independence and attended the Constitutional Convention. During his assignment as Governor of Massachusetts, he helped to enact an electoral law that came to be known as the “Gerrymander Bill.” Massachusetts was subdivided into new senatorial districts in such a way as to consolidate the Federalist vote into a few districts, thus giving Gerry’s Democratic-Republicans an undue advantage. The shape of one electoral district on the map resembled a salamander, and one wit promptly dubbed it a “Gerrymander.” While serving as a U.S. Senator, he introduced the motion in Congress to name Washington D.C. the site of the nation’s capital.	Massachusetts Delegation (U.S. Constitutional Convention 1787 (2021 Edition)) , Massachusetts Delegation (This negotiation)
Benjamin Goodhue	Visualize	(20 September 1748 – 28 July 1814) Merchant, U.S. Representative, and Senator. An active merchant during the Revolutionary War, Goodhue also served on state constitutional conventions and contributed to the creation of the Massachusetts Constitution. He was elected to the First Massachusetts House of Representatives and later to the state Senate. After ratifying the federal Constitution, he was elected to the First U.S. Congress, where he served a total of four terms.	Massachusetts Delegation (This negotiation)
Jonathan Grout	Visualize	(23 July 1737 – 8 September 1807) Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Grout served as a member of the House of Representatives in the First U.S. Congress. He also built the first optical telegraph in America. [‘Jonathan Grout’, Wikipedia]	Massachusetts Delegation (This negotiation)
George Leonard	Visualize	(4 July 1729 – 26 July 1819) Lawyer, jurist, and member of the U.S. House of Representatives. In addition to his membership to the House of Representatives in the First U.S. Congress, Leonard served on Massachusetts state court benches and was a member, at one time or another, of both houses of the state legislature. [‘George Leonard’, Wikipedia]	Massachusetts Delegation (This negotiation)
George Partridge	Visualize	(8 February 1740 – 7 July 1828) Teacher, delegate to the Continental Congress, and Representative in the U.S. House. Partidge served as a delegate to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and then to the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Continental Congress. He was then elected to the First U.S. House of Representatives. Also notable are Partidge's contributions to education. Prior to his political career, he worked as a school teacher. He was a charter member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and bequeathed a large sum of money upon his death to establish a private secondary school.	Massachusetts Delegation (This negotiation)
Theodore Sedgwick	Visualize	(9 May 1746 – 24 January 1813) Pioneer of antislavery jurisprudence, lawyer delegate to the Continental Congress, U.S. Representative, and Senator. As a lawyer, he is recalled chiefly for his successful defence in 1783 of Elizabeth Freeman against the slave master from whom she had fled when he tried to reclaim her. Sedgwick based his case on the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, which declared all men to be “born free and equal.” He not only won the freedom of the woman who would become nurse to his children and die in his house, but, with others arguing similar cases by 1800, effectively eradicated slavery in Massachusetts by denying constitutional protection to the re-enslavement of runaways. While in Congress, he was the major force behind the passage of the first fugitive slave law, which he justified as a legitimate protection of property; he also defended the rights of Quakers to petition for the abolition of slavery and was a member of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society from 1802 until his death.	Massachusetts Delegation (This negotiation)
Caleb Strong	Visualize	Senator	Massachusetts Delegation (This negotiation)
George Thatcher	Visualize	(12 April 1754 – 6 April 1824) Lawyer, jurist, and delegate to the Continental Congress. Thatcher was an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. In 1787, he backed the petition related to the 1793 "Fugitive Slave Act," but the House of Representatives declined to accept it.	Massachusetts Delegation (This negotiation)