.

NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Founding Father Jared Ingersoll


Jared Ingersoll
Founding Father of the United States
Delegate, Continental Congress
Delegate, Constitutional Convention
Pennsylvania Attorney General
Judge of the Philadelphia District Court
U.S. District Attorney for Pennsylvania
Federalist Party nominee for Vice President




(Editor's Note - For a change of pace this winter we will do profiles of some of the Federalists who helped create this great nation. They gave us Liberty. But would they even recognize the centralized authoritarian and socialistic Big Brother nation that calls itself the United States?)


Jared Ingersoll (October 24, 1749 – October 31, 1822) was a Founding Father of the United States, an early American lawyer and statesman from Philadelphia. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress and signed the U.S. Constitution for Pennsylvania.

Ingersoll also served as Pennsylvania state attorney general, 1791–1800 and 1811–1816 and as the United States Attorney for Pennsylvania, 1800-1801

He joined DeWitt Clinton on the Federalist Party ticket for the U.S. presidential election, 1812, but was defeated by James Madison and Elbridge Gerry.

His father was active in colonial affairs. The younger Ingersoll was educated privately and at Yale, where he graduated in 1766. For several years he managed his father's financial affairs in New Haven while the elder Ingersoll lived in Philadelphia, helping to organize a vice-admiralty court at the invitation of colonial authorities.

The younger Ingersoll joined his father in Philadelphia around 1770, read law, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1773. With tensions increasing between the colonies and England, the elder Ingersoll, a Loyalist, encouraged his son to go to London for the further study of law. The son obliged and was admitted to the Middle Temple in the summer of 1773. Upon completing his studies in 1776 he traveled on the Continent and lived for a while in Paris. During this time he became increasingly sympathetic to the Revolutionary cause, creating a breach with his father.

Shortly after the colonies declared their independence, Ingersoll renounced his family's views, made his personal commitment to the cause of independence, and returned home. In 1778 he arrived in Philadelphia as a confirmed Patriot. With the help of influential friends he quickly established a flourishing law practice, and shortly after he entered the fray as a delegate to the Continental Congress (1780–81).

In 1781 Ingersoll married Elizabeth Pettit. Always a supporter of strong central authority in political affairs, he became a leading agitator for reforming the national government in the postwar years, preaching the need for change to his friends in Congress and to the legal community.


Jared Ingersoll was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention.  His fellow delegates from Pennsylvania were George Clymer,  Thomas Fitzsimons,  Benjamin FranklinThomas Mifflin, Gouverneur MorrisRobert Morris , and James Wilson


As a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Ingersoll was known to favor revision of the Articles over the creation of a new document. Only one eyewitness account of his participation is known to exist--preserved in William Pierce's "Notes on Delegates to the Federal Convention."

These brief written observations of his colleagues made by Pierce, a representative from Georgia, included the following commentary on Ingersoll: he was, wrote Pierce, "a very able attorney, and possesses a clear legal understanding. He is well educated in the classics, and is a man of very extensive reading. Mr. Ingersol [sic] speaks well, and comprehends his subject fully." However, Pierce further noted, "there is a modesty in his character that keeps him back."

Despite initial reservations, Ingersoll was among the thirty-nine delegates who approved the new U.S. Constitution on 17 September 1787, joining fellow signers George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin, among other notables.

Once the new national government was created, Ingersoll returned to the law. Except for a few excursions into politics—he was a member of Philadelphia's Common Council (1789), and, as a stalwart Federalist who considered the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800 a "great subversion."

He ran unsuccessfully for Vice President on the Federalist ticket in 1812—his public career centered on legal affairs. He served as attorney general of Pennsylvania (1790–99 and 1811–17), as Philadelphia's city solicitor (1798–1801), and as U.S. district attorney for Pennsylvania (1800–1801). For a brief period (1821–22), he sat as presiding judge of the Philadelphia district court.

Jared Ingersoll died in Philadelphia at the age of 73 and was survived by three children; interment was in the Old Pine Street Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Fourth and Pine Streets. Ingersoll Street in Madison, Wisconsin is named after Jared Ingersoll.


(Jared Ingersoll)          (Let.rug.nl - Jared Ingersoll)          (Jared Ingersoll)




Sometimes it all comes down to one state.

Pennsylvania was the key to the 1812 Presidential election. A change of only 9,827 votes in the state would have thrown the election to the Federalist Party and sent James Madison packing into retirement.
.

With anti-war feelings running high Madison's campaign was in a near free fall. In 1808 Madison won 65% of the vote. By 1812 as an incumbent he managed to only get 50.4% of the popular vote.
.
Founding Father Jared Ingersoll was chosen for Vice President because Pennsylvania was the key to the election. Madison ended up taking the state, but the Federalist Party had dramatic pickups in seats in state legislatures, Congress and the Senate.
 
__________________________________________


Life, Liberty and Property
.
“Citizens choose your sides. You who are for French notions of government; for the tempestuous sea of anarchy and misrule; for arming the poor against the rich; for fraternizing with the foes of God and man; go to the left and support the leaders, or the dupes, of the anti-federal junto. But you that are sober, industrious, thriving, and happy, give your votes for those men who mean to preserve the union of the states, the purity and vigor of our excellent Constitution, the sacred majesty of the laws, and the holy ordinances of religion.” - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - A New York Federalist Newspaper (Spring of 1800)


The Federalist Party was the first American political party. The Federalists operated from the early 1790s to 1816, the era of the First Party System. Remnants of the Party lasted into the late 1820s. The Federalists totally controlled the Federal government until 1801.

The party was formed by Alexander Hamilton, who, during George Washington's first term, built a network of supporters, largely urban bankers and businessmen, to support his Conservative fiscal policies. These supporters grew into the Federalist Party committed to a fiscally sound and nationalistic government. The United States' only Federalist President was John Adams; although George Washington was broadly sympathetic to the Federalist program, he remained an independent his entire presidency.

Read some profiles of the great Federalist leaders who helped build a free United States.

THE FEDERALIST - General William Richardson Davie

THE FEDERALIST - General Thomas Pinckney

THE FEDERALIST - Josiah Quincy III - Federalist Patriot
.
THE FEDERALIST - Robert Goodloe Harper - "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."

THE FEDERALIST - Edmund Randolph - Founding Father

THE FEDERALIST - Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge - George Washington's Spy

THE FEDERALIST - Colonel John Hoskins Stone

THE FEDERALIST - Revolutionary War General Henry Lee

THE FEDERALIST - John Quincy Adams

THE FEDERALIST - Thomas Jefferson and political attack ads

No comments: