Abraham Baldwin

Abraham Baldwin and The Constitutional Convention

Abraham Baldwin was born in North Guilford, Connecticut in 1754. Baldwin was the son of an uneducated blacksmith and had a brother, Henry Baldwin who served on the Supreme Court. Abraham Baldwin attended Yale University and studied to become a teacher and minister. During the Revolutionary War he served in the Continental Army, this experience shaped him to become a strong nationalist and made him believe that a strong centralized government was quintessential, he also felt that the government needed to promote the good and the people of the states. His service led him to become interested in politics and the topic of public education. After the Revolutionary War, Baldwin moved to Augusta, Georgia and created Franklin College which eventually transformed into the University of Georgia. The University of Georgia was one of the first colleges to be religiously tolerant and later on allowed women before many other state universities did so. Being the president of the University of Georgia made Baldwin a very important figure in the realm of public education.

Shortly after Abraham Baldwin moved to Georgia he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. This position as well as his past political and educative achievement allowed him to be one of two of the Georgian representatives at the Constitutional Convention, the other being William L. Pierce. The Constitutional Convention started on May 14th of 1787 and lasted until September 17th. Although Baldwin did not speak much at the convention the fact that he moved from Connecticut to Georgia gave him a rare perspective on the issues at hand. He was especially helpful in making compromises on topics such as Representation in Congress and Slave Importation.

Throughout the Constitutional Convention one of the main issues was whether or not states should be represented by population or equally in Congress. Baldwin's first reported comments of the Convention were on this issue. They came in response to Oliver Ellsworth's speech about granting equal representation to states in the Senate. Baldwin believed that representation should correspond with the population of a state. On July second Baldwin was put on a committee to do a "Great Compromise" between the smaller and larger states on the issue of representation in the Senate. Baldwin originally voted in favor of unequal representation but Georgia was in a tie, so he changed his vote to equal representation. Some political leaders thought he did this just so the small states representatives would not walk out of the convention while others believed it was an act of statesmanship. Another issue at the Constitutional Convention was to tell if the national government should have the ability to abolish all state laws that violated the Constitution or to not allow them to get involved with laws passed by individual states.

Through the analysis of Baldwin's political beliefs, I feel that he would not be in favor of the national government vetoing bills at the state level, if deemed unconstitutional. Baldwin is known to agree with the statement, "he concurred with those who thought it wd. be impossible for the Genl. Legislature to extend its cares to the local matters of the states". This basically is displaying the idea that it would be too tedious and time consuming to allow the national government to patrol laws at the state and local level.

At the Constitutional Convention the topic of slavery was discussed in great depth. The representatives were attempting to decide whether slavery should have regulations placed on importation and migration, as well as seeing if it should be abolished all together or just left as the way it was. The conclusion of the Convention was the latter. Baldwin believed slavery was morally wrong and called it "evil" in one of his statements, he wondered of Georgia would ever end it but supported to continue anyway because it played a pivotal role in the South's economy. Baldwin wondered if Africans were never seen as equal if the rest of the Animal Kingdom would be seen as equals. The statements he made regarding this, indirectly compared African equality to that of animals. He then was appointed to another committee involving Slave Trade and Navigation. Following this he moved on to the Committee on Postponed Matters and on August 25th he changed a resolution to make imported slaves taxed by the "common impost on articles not enumerated".

On the topic of The Bill of Rights, Abraham Baldwin was in favor of giving the American people their freedoms they rightly deserved. Baldwin also helped on a committee and was involved writing The Bill of Rights. After a being somewhat vocal in the discussion of the Electoral College, Abraham Baldwin was not involved with the Constitutional Convention beyond this point. On September 17th, 1787 Abraham Baldwin was one of thirty nine signers of the American Constitution. Abraham Baldwin is a great example of how far an education can take you, his father being illiterate, Baldwin furthered his own education as well as the education of others. He set new standards for the public education system, America had at that time. Baldwin died in 1807. Joel Barlow, who was another prominent political figure at this time said of Baldwin that he "lived without reproach" and was seen as a great man who probably died with no enemies.