Uniting the Nation

Of the men who are referred to colloquially as the Founders, only a few remain in the public consciousness. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton have all been the subject of fat popular histories as well as scholarly works—as have Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, though the latter two were not even present in Philadelphia, during the sultry summer of 1787, for the negotiation and drafting of the Constitution.

Yet, as ISI Books emphasizes with a remarkable series called "Live of the Founders," the young nation's cast of civic-minded men went far beyond the familiar names. To date the publisher has brought out five compact biographies of "forgotten Founders," introducing readers to Maryland's redoubtable Catholic founder, Charles Carroll, and irascible states-rights advocate Luther Martin, New York's Gouverneur Morris, and great Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene.

Founding Federalist: The Life of Oliver Ellsworth

Michael C. Toth
Founding Federalist: The Life of Oliver Ellsworth

In this fifth installment, Michael Toth illuminates the life of Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, who played a crucial role in negotiating the provisions of the Constitution that established the equal apportionment of representatives in the Senate and apportionment based on population in the House—the so-called "Connecticut compromise."

A member of the Continental Congress during the war for independence, Ellsworth (1745-1807) was also a seasoned state legislator and lawyer. Mr. Toth explains that the compromise appealed to his practical instincts, as a lawyer, to get a deal done. It also reflected his respect for the states as independent actors on the national scene. Not everyone agreed with having congressional representatives elected by state, rather than sorted by some other means, but Ellsworth's views prevailed.

As Ellsworth well knew, Americans were more loyal to their states than to the weak central government; having state representation in the national legislature would help ensure the Constitution's passage. "Proportional representation in the House was 'comfortable to the national principle,' " Mr. Toth writes, citing Ellsworth, "while an 'equality of voices' in the Senate 'was comfortable to the federal principle.' " It was Ellsworth who coined the phrase "partly national, partly federal" to describe the compromise at Philadelphia, a phrase used later on by Madison himself in "The Federalist Papers." That Americans today describe their national government as a federal one is, in part, due to Ellsworth.

Mr. Toth's introductory chapter discusses the religious dimensions of Ellsworth's thought. As a young man, Ellsworth was a student of Joseph Bellamy, a leading minister of so-called New Light Calvinism, a form of Protestantism to which Ellsworth adhered throughout his life. As a New Light Calvinist, Ellsworth found religious warrant for promoting consensus among different factions: Bellamy had taught that individuals should strive for a "harmonious existence between different groups of citizens as a signal that the citizenry was acting righteously." Deep religious beliefs thus drove Ellsworth not to divisiveness but to unity.

Mr. Toth rightly dedicates as much time to Ellsworth's post-Philadelphia career as to his earlier years. The Connecticut delegate returned home to fight for the Constitution's ratification in his home state, then served the nation it founded. He was part of the first class of U.S. senators and the third chief justice of the United States (succeeded by John Marshall)—in the latter case, he simultaneously served as John Adams's ambassador to negotiate a peace with Napoleon's France. In all these roles, Ellsworth combined a shrewd practicality with a philosophic and personal devotion to the new nation. By bringing his contributions to the forefront, Mr. Toth enriches the founding narrative.

—Gerald J. Russello is the editor of the University Bookman.

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