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the banquet
@
 the food series
general editor
Andrew F. Smith,
American Forum for Global Education

editorial board
Joseph Carlin, Food Heritage Press
Jessica Harris, Queens College
Karen Hess, Independent Writer
Bruce Kraig, Roosevelt University

A list of books in the series

appears at the back of this book.
 the
Banquet
Dining in the Great Courts
of Late Renaissance Europe
^
ken albala

University of Illinois Press

urbana, chicago, and springfield
 First Illinois paperback, 2017
© 2007 by the Board of Trustees
of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved

The Library of Congress cataloged the cloth edition as follows:

Albala, Ken, 1964–
The banquet : dining in the great courts of
late Renaissance Europe / Ken Albala.
p. cm. — (The Food series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-252-03133-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-252-03133-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Dinners and dining—Europe—History.
2. Food habits—Europe—History. I. Title. II. Series.
tx737.a42   2007
394.1'2094—dc22   2006017927
paperback isbn 978-0-252-08307-5
 contents
@

preface v ii
ack nowledgments x iii
chronology x v

1. Setting the Stage—

Setting the Table 1
2. An Introduction to
Ingredients and Wild Food 27
3. Dairy 45

4. Spices and Garnishes 56

5. Vegetables and Fruit 73

6. Starches and Pasta 90

7. Wine and Alcohol 105

8. Nations 118
9. Staff and Carving 139

10. Condemnation 159

11. Recipes 173

notes 183
glossary 199
bibliography 205
index 213
 preface
@

S ome men are born with titles, some achieve titles, and some have
titles thrust upon them. The last of these explains The Banquet. It
works, though. The word itself derives from a board or bank mounted
by a street performer or mountebank, or set on trestles for dining. Thus
banquets could be staged anywhere, because in Renaissance-era Europe,
homes lacked a fixed room with stationary tables for dining. The term
took an odd twist in England, where it denoted the final portable dessert
course of sweetmeats and fruit. Elsewhere it meant an entire meal, the
grandest that could be imagined at European courts. So important were
these meals that they were recorded for posterity in cookbooks, menus,
and as rules for kitchen organization and table manners. Just as weddings
and gala events are photographed or videotaped today, banquet literature
affords us a snapshot of the past, admittedly edited and embellished, but
nonetheless revealing the aesthetic preoccupations of our forbears. For a
fleeting moment we are able to peer through the brocade curtains of
the past, to catch the wafting scent of cinnamon and ginger, to gaze upon
the glimmering table settings and towering sugar sculptures, and perhaps
even to imagine the vibrant flavors and sultry textures of this brilliant
bygone cuisine. My goal here is thus partly voyeuristic. But because atti-
tudes toward food also reflect deeper thought structures and are essentially
expressions of identity (of self, community, state), then this tale is merely a
history of western Europe told through the lens of food and fine dining. It
is a history of ruling elites in a period that was changing demographically,
politically, and of course, culturally.
Moreover, the cuisine analyzed here is largely unknown to Ameri-
can readers. Aristocratic diners in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
Europe indulged in what are arguably among the most elaborate cre-
ations ever to have emerged from a kitchen. There were monumental
pies flecked with gold leaf, roasted fowl redolent of spices and rose wa-
ter, savory stews brimming with unctuous morsels, truffles, nuts, and
candied citron. It was a cuisine that in some ways will seem familiar:
[ vii ]
 chicken, veal, and fish were favorites, as were vegetables like asparagus
and artichoke. In other ways, it will appear utterly foreign. The flavor
combinations will shock and surprise, as will the predilection for organ
meats and whole calves’ heads. Above all, the sheer volume of food and
the structure of the meal will perplex our modern sensibilities.
This cuisine was anything but monotonous. Aristocratic diners con-
Preface sumed a staggering variety of ingredients, mostly local and seasonal
and much of it wild, but some was imported from the far ends of the
earth. Cooks and banquet managers paid surprising attention to the
freshness of their ingredients and sometimes sought to preserve sim-
ple pristine flavors and aromas. They were also keen judges of food’s
provenance, knowing exactly where to find the best seafood, and the
choicest ­cheeses, fruits, and wines. Many of these foods were assigned
names by place of origin, much as we do today. Food workers invented
new cooking techniques, implements, serving methods, and styles of
presentation that truly elevated the meal to a form of high art.
Cooking in the late Renaissance was also quite different from medieval
cuisine that preceded it, as well as from French haute cuisine that fol-
lowed. Perched between these two grand traditions, the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries have often been overlooked in culinary histories of
Europe. But in these years there appeared some of the largest and most
comprehensive cookbooks ever written. Dining manuals, carving guides,
and what we would call general food reference works—many comparable
to those being published today—were best sellers. There was a thriving
culture of food all across Europe reflective of the general artistic efflo-
rescence of the era, and coinciding precisely with the styles art historians
refer to as mannerism and the baroque.
The neglect among food historians has left the late Renaissance to be
treated either as a coda to the elaborate cuisine of the late Middle Ages
or an actual hindrance to the culinary revolution of the mid-seventeenth
century. Only following La Varenne, when a stock and butter-based cui-
sine replaced the strange sweet-and-sour and spicy (backward) medieval
flavor preferences, could cooking attain perfection, these authors insist.
(Flandrin, Revel, etc.)1 In their view, only when food would taste of itself
should the term gastronomy be applied. The tendency has been to treat
culinary history as a series of advances leading toward the present: here
is the first roux, the first béchamel sauce, the first modern service in
courses. This is a positivist approach that has been abandoned in practi-
cally all historical subdisciplines, and now that culinary history has come
of age, it is time to apprehend the past on its own terms. That is, we
[ viii ]
must evaluate this cuisine as an expression of the culture that produced
it without reference to our taste preferences. Such objectivity will be
absolutely essential as we mentally tuck into some dishes that will, to
our sensibilities, seem perverse if not downright repulsive.
Rather than focus on such oddities for their shock value, the goal here
is to determine why people ate as they did and what it reveals about them,
their aesthetic preferences, values, fears, and prejudices. A good deal of Preface
energy will be devoted to describing ingredients and aristocratic dining
habits in detail. This is not so that one might re-create banquets of the
past, though there is nothing wrong in doing so, but rather to understand
the importance of dining as one among the many resplendent art forms
of the period.
By treating cuisine as an art form, I hope to open further avenues
of inquiry for all periods of culinary history. For one, the language of
gastronomy is fairly threadbare and lacks a good critical vocabulary for
discussing food. Modern professional chefs have their own terminology
for describing recipes and procedures, but historians have little to work
with when comparing stylistic periods, certainly nothing compared to
art historians or music historians. Speaking of cooking as an art, this is
not merely to suggest that cooking is difficult and requires great plan-
ning and imagination and therefore should be considered art rather than
mere skill, but rather that the same aesthetic values inform all artistic
media. It should be possible, therefore, to borrow terms or even invent
them if necessary, in order to explain this cuisine as a distinct style. One
simple example will clarify the need for a precise lexicon. Musicologists
speaking of the madrigal refer to the way several separate voices each
carry their own distinct melody, intertwining and responding to the
others. Polyphony describes this without any further explanation. The
culinary historian, when facing the same stylistic approach to ingredi-
ents that compose a dish, has no such suitable term. Think of several
flavors, each distinct and pronounced, sharply contrasting rather than
melding to form a homogenous and intensified taste experience. The
sharpness of vinegar stands out against the sweetness of sugar, the warm
aroma of nutmeg and cloves, and the richness of stewed wildfowl with
fruit. Polysipid as an adjective or polysavory as a noun directly describes
this style. And not coincidentally, this way of combining discrete ele-
ments in a composition is replaced in music and in cooking at about the
same time, in the course of the seventeenth century. Such neologisms
will be found throughout the text, and the reader is kindly referred to
the glossary if the context alone should prove insufficient.
[ ix ]
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 Speaking of aristocratic dining from the 1520s to the 1660s as a uni-
fied style poses certain problems. Stylistically this period covers both
mannerism and the baroque, before the classical tendencies of the era
of Louis XIV take precedence. These terms will be used throughout the
narrative, as will the phrase late Renaissance, not only because the culinary
arts bring to perfection many of the innovations of the fifteenth-century
Preface Renaissance, but because no other suitable term for this time span ex-
ists. Thus as historians of drama loosely refer to the Tudor and Stuart
periods as Renaissance drama, so too will it be used for cooking, though
not without serious qualification. This period also corresponds nicely to
the history of culinary publication. It follows the appearance of the first
printed cookbook—Martino of Como’s Liber de arte coquinaria, which
was embedded in Platina’s De honesta voluptate of around 1470. This
is, in terms of style, the last of the great medieval cookbooks, but still
points the way to the next period. Its popularity alone through the six-
teenth century warrants some consideration here. The same can be said
of Rupert of Nola’s Catalan cookbook, which is still in most respects a
medieval work. This study ends around the time of La Varenne in France
in the 1660s, not because his cooking was truly as revolutionary as some
claim, but because the latter seventeenth and eighteenth centuries do
witness many decisive changes in the evolution of cooking. Because this
new approach to cooking was not directly felt outside France and to a
certain extent England for several decades, some titles published in the
late seventeenth century have been included—most notably the work of
Bartolomeo Stefani in Mantua in the 1660s, some banquet management
guides, as well as many English cookbooks of the same era, appearing
just before or during the Restoration.
Within this time, from the mid sixteenth to mid seventeenth cen-
tury, were published some of the most ambitious and comprehensive
cookbooks and dining manuals ever written. There were the works of
Christoforo di Messisbugo in Ferrara, Domenico Romoli in Florence,
and then the magisterial Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi. Shortly on its heels
follow the many books on banquet management, the scalco literature by
Giovanni Battista Rossetti, Cesare Evitascandalo, Vittorio Lancelotti,
and Antonio Frugoli, among others. There is also an extensive carving
literature written for trincianti, of which Vincenzo Cervio and Mattia
Geigher are representative. Outside Italy, coverage here will strive to be
as international as possible. There are the works of Lancelot de Casteau
in what is today Belgium, Domingo Hernandez de Maceras and Francisco
Martínez Montiño in Spain, and several extraordinary English cookbook
[  ]
authors such as Robert May and William Rabisha. As with the art of
the period, focusing on any single national cuisine obscures the very
international nature of culinary trends, and this book is intentionally
comparative across national lines. Having said that, readers should be
aware from the outset that this study focuses heavily on Italy, where most
culinary literature was written, and covers Spain, France, and England
and tangentially the Netherlands and Switzerland. German-speaking Preface
regions are only included when the texts are in Latin or when authors
discuss Germany. This is merely the result of my own inability to tackle
sixteenth-century German. There were several cookbooks written, and
Marx Rumpolt’s is the most important of these.
To clarify another point, I use the term dining in its modern sense, but
dining in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries referred to a midday
meal. It shifted in subsequent centuries later and later in the day, so that
the first meal disjejeunare (to un-fast or break fast) eventually became the
evening meal. In the Renaissance the evening meal, supper or cena, was
normally the smaller of the two. Confusingly, a banquet, the grandest of
all meals, was usually held in the evening. The majority of meals analyzed
here will be banquets, in the broader sense of the term, but many will be
smaller suppers and even ordinary meals when authors describe them.
Lastly, there is also what must be considered an ancillary culinary lit-
erature and certain arts that indirectly describe aristocratic eating habits.
There are burlesque poems, depictions of banquets in paintings and espe-
cially food in still life, as well as a vast literature condemning noble customs
either from a medical standpoint or a moral and religious angle. There are
also books on individual ingredients or types of dishes—on wine or salads,
for example. Surprisingly, even titles that purport to explain dining habits
of the ancient Greeks and Romans end up saying a lot about contemporary
practices. Thus this book is designed to take account of any resource of-
fering clues about what wealthy people were eating, or wished they could
eat, even though it focuses on cookbooks and menus.
But what exactly is a banquet? Ottaviano Rabasco in his Il convito of
1615 offers the most complete taxonomy of banquet types. Normally the
banquet was merely an extended elaborate form of dinner, held around
noon, though he stipulates that it could be served earlier, two hours before
noon, at ten o’clock or eleven o’clock if no breakfast or colezione was eaten
first thing in the morning. Banquets could also be held in the evening, but
normally the evening meal, supper or cena, was held a few hours before
sleep, and so was smaller and lighter.2 Menus of the period do consistently
list both banquets and suppers. There were no hard and fast rules about
[ xi ]
 mealtimes though, and sometimes even a lunch or merenda could occur in
the late afternoon. This was actually one of the most typical complaints
of physicians, that courtiers ate practically round the clock, and by the
clock, Rabasco reminds us, there were three that could be followed: “that
of the stomach, that of the [clock] tower, and that of the kitchen.” In
other words, though hunger pressed and the clock struck time, one might
Preface have to just wait until food was prepared.3
Rabasco also distinguishes between private banquets, intimate and
among friends, and grander public banquets. It is the latter that concerns
us most here. This was the time to show off the most exquisite foods, of
highest quality, in great quantity, and particularly showcasing produce
and wines from one’s native region, whether it be “salami from Bologna,
olives, confections or moscatello from Genoa, marzolini in Florence, in
Siena cheese from the Crete, marzipan in Piacenza, etc.”4 Marzolini are
cheeses, as are those from the Crete Senese, presumably something like
pecorino from Pienza.
As for the occasion, weddings were common enough along with bap-
tisms, but first place is accorded victory celebrations, reception of for-
eign princes or ambassadors, and even lesser occasions such as receiving
a doctorate or being ordained.5 The banquet guides make clear, though,
that the most typical form was the public reception of princes and mag-
istrates. Banquets are thus explicitly political in nature, and include both
overt messages honoring guests and more subtle interchanges of mean-
ing, as will be discussed later.
Before describing the details of topics such as kitchen organization,
ingredients, cooking methods, and the experience of fine dining in this
period, it would make sense to begin with a gradual approach to the topic
from a broad perspective, so that readers may grasp how this material will
be discussed. On the one hand, the primary intent is merely to describe
what foods were eaten and how they were cooked; on the other hand,
what these choices reveal about the past is also the topic here. Thus we
must begin with the broader question “why did late Renaissance diners
make the food choices they did?”

[ xii ]
 acknowledgments
@

H onestly, offering thanks is the best part about writing a book. First
there is my pal Andy Smith, series editor, Willis Regier, director,
and all the people at the University of Illinois Press, for signing me on
with not much more than an idea. I am proud to be included in this food
series. Next, an enormous thank you to the International Association of
Culinary Professionals Foundation, Martini and Rossi, and Torani Syrups
for awarding me a juicy grant to research this project in Europe, as well as
to the University of the Pacific for an Eberhardt Research Grant. Thanks
to the eternal city of Rome, which proved more of an inspiration for this
book than I could ever have imagined.
Thanks to the staff of all the marvelous research facilities that invited
me to pore over their cookbooks: the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the
Library of Congress, and the Folger Shakespeare Library, where I was
overjoyed to find so many old friends and mentors still lurking, the State
Library in Sacramento, and a special thanks to Sean Thackrey, winemak-
er, for inviting me to use his astonishing collection of rare wine books.
Thanks to the wonderful staff at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe,
where I found my final two sources just under the wire.
I must also thank the people at Arnaldo Forni Editori for their remark-
able series of facsimiles and prompt service getting them to my desk.
This book would truly have been unthinkable without them. The same
goes for Tom Jaine at Prospect Books and to the fantastic Fons Grewe
Web site, where I found many of the texts used in this study. Thanks to
Thomas Gloning, whose bibliography and Web site proved indispens-
able. As always, a huge thank you goes to the Interlibrary Loan people
at the University of the Pacific and to Robin Imhof for tracking down
obscure books for me.
Then, thanks to all the people who have helped me along the way, col-
leagues in the history department and in modern languages and classics
for help with obscure terms. Thanks to our work study student Joseph
Nguyen for photocopying, downloading, and printing more pages than
[ xiii ]
 would seem humanly possible, and thanks to Marilyn and Terri for their
years of support.
Thanks also to all my friends (I dare not say foodies) on the ASFS
Listserve, whose furtive ideas and rantings inspired my own in ways that
I cannot even begin to recount. Thanks to the many sundry assorted
scholars whose comments in symposia and conferences, from Oxford,
Acknowl­ Australia, and Italy, to Boston and New York, as well as my authors in the
edgments Food Culture series. I have pilfered ideas from all of you. Then, thanks
to those remarkable food historians I have stumbled upon by chance:
Terence Scully, whose translation of Scappi should appear soon, Timothy
Tomasik, who lent me copies of the sixteenth-century French cookbooks,
Rachel Laudan, Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, Johnna Holloway, and Fiona
Lucraft for getting me a copy of Le grande cuisiner. Thanks to Suzanne
Rindell and Alice McLean for reading and responding to ideas.
Lastly, to my family, Joanna, Ethan, and Benjamin, Sadie, Persephone,
and especially Bumblebee and Maxie, with whom I shared many nibbles
and my lap—we will never forget you. Thanks for once again tolerating
my edomania and giving me the time to write. And thanks to my dear
dear friends with whom I absolutely love to eat and drink, especially
Lisa, who patiently listened to practically every idea in its infancy.

[ xiv ]
 chronology
@

italy spain fr ance england

1520
1530
1540 Livre fort excellent
Messisbugo Grand cuisiner
1550 Proper Newe
Booke
1560 Romoli
Willich
1570 Scappi (Swiss)
1580
Rossetti Good Huswifes
Handmaide
1590
Cervio Dawson
1600 Granado Lancelot
Maceras (Belgium)
1610 Evitascandalo Montino
Rabasco Markham
Murrell
1620
Lancelotti
1630 Frugoli
Crisci
1640 Giegher
Vasselli Vonlett
1650 Del Turco La Varenne
Colorsi Cooper
Archimagirus
1660 Liberati Compleat Cook
Stefani May, Rabisha
1670 Mattei Ecole Parfait
De Lune, L. S. R.
Massialot
The Banquet
 chapter 1
@

Setting the Stage—

Setting the Table

T o start, consider all the variables involved in choosing food. Most

people who have ever lived ate whatever they could get their hands
on, but for those who can choose, and especially the elite, there are
quirky personal preferences, considerations of cost and availability, as
well as the complex cultural baggage that dictates what is edible and
what is repulsive. For those with discretionary income, deciding what to
eat was a very complicated affair, involving deep-seated notions of how
food would affect the body and spirit. For those entertaining others it
could be fraught with peril, choosing just the right foods to please every
palate, to display wealth or savoir faire.
Naturally, the factors that enter into food choice are highly variable
and change from place to place, over time, and from person to person.
For some people, concerns about a food’s origin and about agricultural
practices are most important. In the sixteenth century a rare and delicate
peach from one’s own estate, carefully tended and matured to perfection,
was often presented as tangible evidence of a landowner’s pride of place
and mastery over nature. Today, the organic enthusiast may seek out a
similar peach but for very different reasons. Concern for the environ-
ment, one’s health, and the plight of the small farmer may override all
other considerations, even exorbitant cost. In both cases the consumer’s
values are revealed: landholding and power in the former, physical and
environmental health in the latter.
The time and difficulty of food preparation may also inform the indi-
[  ]
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 vidual’s choice. Some opt for the convenience of grabbing a quick snack
on the go, while others value the time and energy devoted to cooking a
meal from scratch as an expression of their devotion to those with whom
they share the meal. Presentation may also be a consideration. Food can
be elegantly plated, garnished with exotic ephemera, or served from a
common bowl passed around the table. The former denotes worldliness
The and taste, the latter familiarity and commensality. Other factors include
Banquet how the food is consumed, what sensory perceptions the dish conveys,
and, of course, what effects are anticipated from eating such a food. Is
it perceived to be fattening or healthy, a sinful indulgence or nutritious?
Lastly, all people have vivid associations with particular foods and meals,
sometimes peculiar to the individual and sometimes shared within a fam-
ily, group, or nationality. A dish may only appear at certain festive occa-
sions, may be nostalgically linked with childhood, or associated with a
particular social group.
Although people may claim they eat certain foods simply because they
enjoy them, food preferences reveal much more than the chemical re-
ception of positive sensory stimuli. Taste and dining preferences point to
broader values, desires, and sometimes explicit food ideologies. Like any
ideology, this term denotes a conscious way of behaving, in this case eating,
intended both to set the individual or group apart from others but also as
a dietary program that promises a kind of transformation of the self. The
dieter is promised a slim figure, popularity, and perhaps romantic love. The
devout Jew who keeps kosher upholds the unique covenant made with
God, and by eating manifests his submission and becomes righteous. The
vegetarian rejects systematic cruelty toward animals and thus becomes eth-
ically just through the abstention from flesh. The extravagant prince earns
the respect and honor of his courtly guests both by spending a fortune and
by dazzling them with the wit and sophistication of his banquet. In each
case the ideology reflects an entire world outlook encompassing aesthetic,
political, and social values. A food ideology should be distinguished from a
cuisine, or generally recognized sets of ingredients, procedures, and flavor
combinations handed down through generations. Eating according to the
tenets of a food ideology enacts the idealized self, changing the individual
from an average consumer into someone distinct and extraordinary. In the
case of the Renaissance banquet, one becomes a courtier only by eating
like one, as well as dressing, speaking, and behaving as a courtier should.
Food choices reveal personality traits as well as cultural aspirations.
They are, most important, indicators of identity both conscious and
subconscious. The intrepid cook who hunts down the most “authentic”
[  ]
ingredients and pulls off an exotic meal for friends flaunts not only cu-
linary skill but the individual’s relationship to and appropriation of the
“other” culture, even if ostensibly denoting a willingness to try strange
new things. Conversely, someone who refuses to taste the odd and un-
familiar probably has other reservations about strange people. The meal
is thus never a routine ingestion of fuel but a complex message being
communicated to others, scripted and otherwise. Even when one dines Setting
alone, eating can be a reaffirmation of the self. Think of the dialogue that the Stage
occurs in the mind of the ravenous health enthusiast confronted with
an indulgent morsel. It may be “I deserve this treat” or “to hell with my
physician’s warnings,” or “I am strong, I can resist you, fiendish piece of
cake.” Whatever the apparent meaning of the meal, there is always some
underlying script, especially when eating with others.
Naturally, people eat many different kinds of meals and choose them
with the intention of communicating the right message to the right audi-
ence. One would not reheat half-eaten leftovers when trying to impress
a potential lover, just as one would not spend a fortune on extravagant
ingredients for a hurried everyday meal eaten in solitude. Every meal has,
in a sense, its own coded message. This is not to say, however, that it is
always readily perceived or interpreted correctly by others. What may be
intended as cozy informality to someone preparing a meal might be inter-
preted as crass effrontery or laziness by an invited guest. Equally, a meal
of roast beef offered to a vegetarian might be construed as a calculated
insult. As with all language, there can be miscommunication. Despite
this, an outsider observing or commenting on an eating event can usually
decode the intended message without too much difficulty.
In the case of meals recorded in the past, the task of the interpreter
is somewhat more complex. The vocabulary of food has changed, the
syntax and much of the grammar too. That is, the ingredients are dif-
ferent, we cook them differently, and serve them in a different order.
Understanding the logic in past food practices is much like translating
an archaic language: a great deal depends on the context. Sometimes
we still miss the jokes. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that
accounts are usually delivered secondhand. They may be through the
eyes of a witness or on the pages of an authority who may be projecting
her own values onto the meal. Naturally, when a banquet planner or chef
describes his own creations, we must always anticipate a certain degree
of hyperbole.
With these cautions in mind, it is still possible to decode eating hab-
its throughout history and, by examining food preferences, ultimately
[  ]
 uncover the values and preoccupations of people with whom we cannot
communicate. For example, consider the message intended by an aristo-
cratic hunter who invites his social inferior to partake in his catch. The
exchange, while ostensibly displaying friendship, may also be reinforcing
deference, dependence, and mutual obligation. The key lies entirely in
the context. Serving a guest a food widely regarded as an aphrodisiac
The sends a different kind of message if in an intimate setting. Ordering an
Banquet outlandish and highly spiced dish to be shared among friends can, again
depending on the context, be intended as a challenge to see who has the
most daring palate. Those who can withstand the hottest or most revolt-
ing food have affirmed their superiority over those who have bowed out.
This is, even if in sublimated form, a reenactment of basic hard-wired
rutting instincts. In fact, in each of these examples, the meal re-stages,
if you will, a central human drive to dominate, to woo, to challenge. Each
is also a kind of play.
Any meal, past or present, thus contains a script. It might be said that
every participant in the eating event is equally an actor. Sometimes the
roles are rigidly cast, particularly in the case of formal aristocratic dining,
but the parts can also be improvised and negotiated in the course of a
meal. In this respect, a meal is a form of theater. In the case of the ban-
quets described here, this is literally the case, replete with an audience,
stage sets, props, and interludes. A state banquet serves as propaganda,
displaying the wealth and power of the host, purveying a message of sta-
bility, order, and hierarchy. But it also functions on much more subtle
levels. Is the produce imported from the far ends of the earth? This may
be intended to display trade networks or the breadth of colonial empires.
Is the meal restrained and frugal? Perhaps a prelate intends to impress
guests with his own piety and self-control. Does the chef try his hardest
to present innovative grand creations, or does he present traditional fare
firmly associated with national identity? All these factors make the meal
a highly structured and carefully staged performance.
Not only the context of the performance but also the associations of
particular foods and preparations are crucial to explaining what the meal
may have meant to those present. Certain foods had explicit meanings
no longer current, just as word meanings subtly shift over time. Melons
and eels, for example, would have struck any elite diner in the sixteenth
century as particularly toothsome but also dangerous foods, which in ex-
cess would lead to illness. A sweet and finely ground chicken and almond
dish (the original blancmange), on the other hand, was considered good
for convalescents, easy to digest, and thus would have been included in
[  ]
a menu where guests might choose to eat “light” fare. The appearance of
eyeballs on a plate or staring at you from within a pie would, of course,
be received with horror today, but does not seem to have bothered the
Renaissance diner. The meaning of food evolves over time, despite the
persistence of associations such as caviar, truffles, and rare wines with
elegance and special occasions.
The actors themselves had a great impact on the underlying message. Setting
Careful consideration of who was performing will also yield clues about the Stage
the subtext of a meal. For example, in the case of the small Italian city-
states from which most dining books in this period originate, it is im-
portant to remember that few of these rulers really held much power.
They might even be considered weak when compared to nation-states
like Spain and France, which had been struggling for dominance of the
peninsula for the first half of the sixteenth century. It was in this setting
that Machiavelli wrote The Prince, as a call to a powerful leader to unite
the peninsula and liberate it from the barbarians. A few of these petty
despotisms had expanded geographically and had greater titles affixed
to their names (the Gonzaga went from Marquises to Dukes in 1530, and
Cosimo de’ Medici became Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1569), but they were
still relatively small compared to kingdoms and The Empire. The papacy
was in no better position as a temporal state. What this suggests is that
their displays of power were not born of self-confidence but out of a real
need to cement relationships and broadcast a message of strength and
stability. But it all masked an underlying fragility, especially for the smaller
cities threatened by their larger neighbors. Ferrara is a perfect example,
and it was indeed swallowed by the Papal States in 1598. It should not be
surprising that it is in such cities that some of the most dazzling banquets
were held, nor that accounts of them were published for everyone to read.
The great banquets of the d’Este, in context, can be read not so much as
dazzling displays of wealth and power but as an attempt merely to com-
municate to other states the impression of strength.
As Machiavelli himself made clear to his would-be liberator of Italy
from the barbarians, everything is a matter of appearance. The sem-
blance of piety, the apprehension of power and ruthlessness, the reputa-
tion of virtue, are all more important than the actual possession of these
traits. The banquet management books sound much the same note,
particularly in their authors’ insistence that the honor of the banquet
manager, or scalco, depends on the performance of the meal, as does
the reputation of the prince himself. This is especially the case when
foreigners are present; everything is carefully calculated to enhance
[  ]
 the standing of the prince, both in the banquet itself and in the printed
accounts that will be carried abroad.
The importance of putting on a good show and publishing the results
may even explain why the truly powerful courts in the sixteenth century
produced few cookbooks or accounts of their banquets. Their power
spoke for itself. Only when the foundations of state threatened to crack
The did the cookbooks and courtly dining guides proliferate. Perhaps it was
Banquet not by chance that such works were first published in seventeenth-cen-
tury Spain, as its glory began to wane. This may be coincidental, but in
any case careful attention to who is throwing the banquet and why, who
is invited and for what reason, can be as revealing as what appears on
the plate.
The very fact that banquet accounts are published is evidence enough
that these are spectacles not only for those present but for the courtly
gossips and avid readers—banquet managers or scalchi at other courts
eager to learn exactly “how to” throw the perfect banquet. Princes them-
selves would have been anxious to “keep up with the d’Este.” Though
they may have been rulers of small, relatively insignificant states, they
still hoped to project an image of taste and sophistication.
Banquets could also become a matter of overt competition. Without
real battles to wage, the Medici, Gonzaga, and papal court fought with
their forks. There were not only catering guides but also cookbooks,
books on manners and comportment, gardening and hunting guides—
books containing all the information necessary for a rising courtier. That
the reader might not yet be sure how to do it explains the proliferation
of works in these genres. These books were a form of propaganda for
the courts that produced them. They were also bestsellers for wannabes
hoping to gain access to these courts and fearful lest they cut an inelegant
caper, commit a faux pas over the pheasant, or, worse, let it fall off the
carving fork into her ladyship’s lap.
Guidebooks were also important because service at table was one of
the primary routes of patronage for aspiring lesser nobles, junior cadets in
obscure and impoverished families, and those on the margins of respect-
ability. Service was the surest way to have your name, face, and well-turned
leg noticed by those in power. Thus a prince was sending a message not
only to his elite guests and foreign dignitaries but to his courtly staff, and
even to the general public when they were invited to gawk. Everything
was an elaborate performance in cooking, serving, and eating. It was also
a mummery or “dumb show” for the real power relations that took place
outside the banquet hall. In ritualistic form the unequal status of diners
[  ]
Random documents with unrelated
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Carolina convention, the same Iredell, after pointing out that the
American concept of the relation of citizen to all governments had
become basic American law, contrasts that fact with the fundamental
law of Great Britain where “Magna Charta itself is no constitution, but
a solemn instrument ascertaining certain rights of individuals, by the
legislature for the time being; and every article of which the
legislature may at any time alter.” (4 Ell. Deb. 148.)
In the Pennsylvania convention, on December I, 1787, one of the
most distinguished lawyers of that generation made a memorable
speech, expressing the universal knowledge that the American
concept had taken forever the place of the Tory concept in
fundamental American law. We commend a careful study of that
speech to those of our public leaders and “constitutional” lawyers,
who for five years have been acting on the assumption that the Tory
concept has again become our fundamental American law. We
average Americans, after living with those earlier Americans, are not
surprised to listen to the statements of Wilson. “The secret is now
disclosed, and it is discovered to be a dread, that the boasted state
sovereignties will, under this system, be disrobed of part of their
power.... Upon what principle is it contended that the sovereign
power resides in the state governments?... The proposed system
sets out with a declaration that its existence depends upon the
supreme authority of the people alone.... When the principle is once
settled that the people are the source of authority, the consequence
is, that they may take from the subordinate governments powers
which they have hitherto trusted them, and place those powers in the
general government, if it is thought that there they will be productive
of more good. They can distribute one portion of power to the more
contracted circle, called state governments; they can also furnish
another proportion to the government of the United States. Who will
undertake to say, as a state officer, that the people may not give to
the general government what powers, and for what purposes, they
please? How comes it, sir, that these state governments dictate to
their superiors—to the majesty of the people?” (2 Ell. Deb. 443.)
We average Americans, legally bound (as American citizens) by
no command (interfering with our human freedom) except from our
only legislature at Washington and then only in those matters in
which we ourselves, the citizens of America, have directly given it
power to command us, now intend insistently to ask all our
governments, the supreme one at Washington and the subordinate
ones in the states of which we are also citizens, exactly the same
question which Wilson asked.
Daniel Webster asked almost exactly the same question of Hayne
and history does not record any answer deemed satisfactory by the
American people. Webster believed implicitly in the concept of
American law stated by those who made our Constitution. Like them,
and unlike our “constitutional” lawyers, he knew that the Tory
concept of the relation of men to their government had disappeared
from American basic law.
“This leads us to inquire into the origin of this government, and the
source of its power. Whose agent is it? Is it the creature of the state
legislatures, or the creature of the people?... It is, sir, the people’s
constitution, the people’s government—made for the people, made
by the people, and answerable to the people. The people of the
United States have declared that this Constitution shall be the
supreme law. We must either admit the proposition, or dispute their
authority. The states are, unquestionably, sovereign, so far as their
sovereignty is not affected by this supreme law. But the state
legislatures, as political bodies, however sovereign, are yet not
sovereign over the people.... The national government possesses
those powers which it can be shown the people have conferred on it,
and no more.... We are here to administer a Constitution emanating
immediately from the people, and trusted by them to our
administration.... This government, sir, is the independent offspring
of the popular will. It is not the creature of state legislatures; nay,
more, if the whole truth must be told, the people brought it into
existence, established it, and have hitherto supported it, for the very
purpose, amongst others, of imposing certain salutary restraints on
state sovereignties.... The people, then, sir, erected this government.
They gave it a constitution, and in that constitution they have
enumerated the powers which they bestow upon it.... Sir, the very
chief end, the main design for which the whole constitution was
framed and adopted, was to establish a government that should not
be obliged to act through state agency, depend on state opinion and
state discretion.... If anything be found in the national constitution,
either by original provisions, or subsequent interpretation, which
ought not to be in it, the people know how to get rid of it. If any
construction be established, unacceptable to them, so as to become
practically a part of the constitution, they will amend it at their own
sovereign pleasure. But while the people choose to maintain it as it
is—while they are satisfied with it, and refuse to change it—who has
given, or who can give, to the state legislatures a right to alter it,
either by interference, construction, or otherwise?... Sir, the
people have not trusted their safety, in regard to the general
constitution, to these hands. They have required other security, and
taken other bonds.” (From Webster’s reply to Hayne, U. S. Senate,
January, 1830. 4 Ell. Deb. 498 et seq.)
We average Americans, now educated in the experience of the
average American from 1776 to the beginning of 1787, find much
merit and comfort in Webster’s understanding of basic American law.
He had a reasoned and firm conviction that Americans really are
citizens and not subjects. His conviction, in that respect, while
opposed to the convictions of our leaders and “constitutional”
lawyers, has seemed to us quite in accord with the convictions of
earlier leaders such as Iredell and Wilson and the others, and also
with the decisions of our Supreme Court.
Briefly stated, it has become quite clear to us that the American
people, from 1776 to 1787, were fixed in their determination to make
our basic American law what the conviction of Webster and the
leaders of every generation prior to our own knew it to be. Let us go
back, therefore, to the Americans in the Philadelphia convention of
1787, who worded the Constitution which is the supreme law of
America, and ascertain how their knowledge of fundamental
American law dictated the wording of their proposed Seventh Article.
 CHAPTER VIII
PHILADELPHIA ANSWERS “CONVENTIONS, NOT
LEGISLATURES”

We recall how clearly the Americans at Philadelphia, in 1787,

knew that any grant of national power to interfere with the freedom of
individuals was the constitution of government. We recall the bitter
conflict of opinion, threatening the destruction of the assembly, over
the manner of choosing the members of the legislature to exercise
whatever powers of that kind the citizens of America might grant. We
recall the great opposition to the proposal of a grant of any power of
that kind and to the particular proposal of each of the enumerated
powers of that kind, all embodied in the First Article.
We have thus come to know with certainty that the minds of the
Americans at Philadelphia, during those strenuous four months,
were concentrated mainly upon a proposal to grant some national
power to interfere with the human freedom of all Americans. In other
words, we have their knowledge that their proposed First Article, by
reason of its grants of such power, would constitute a new nation
and government of men, if those grants were validly made by those
competent to make such grants.
Under which circumstances, we realize that it became necessary
for them to make a great legal decision, in the construction of basic
American law, and, before making that decision, which was
compelled to be the result of judgment and not of will, accurately to
ascertain one important legal fact. Indeed, their decision was to be
the actual conclusion reached in the effort to ascertain that legal fact.
This was the single question to which they must find the right
answer: “Under our basic American law, can legislatures ever give to
government any power to interfere with the human freedom of men,
or must every government in America obtain its only valid powers of
that kind by direct grant from its own citizens?”
It is easy for us to state that they should have known that the
answer to that question was expressly and authoritatively given in
the Statute of ’76. It was there plainly enacted that every just power
of any government must be derived from the direct grant of those to
be governed by its exercise. Yet our own leaders for the last five
years have not even asked the question, much less known the right
answer.
At Philadelphia, in 1787, they did know it. They had no doubt
whatever about it. We shall see that quickly in our brief review of the
record they made at Philadelphia in ascertaining and deciding, as a
legal necessity, to whom their First Article and its enumerated grants
of national power must be sent and, when we boast of how quickly
we knew the answer, we should admit that we did not know it until
after we had lived again with them through their experience of the
preceding ten or twelve years which had educated them, as it has
just educated us, to that knowledge. Furthermore, many of us
average Americans will be unable to explain, until later herein, why,
during the last five years, our own leaders have not known the right
answer. The Statute of ’76 has not been wholly unknown to them.
The record of the Philadelphia Convention and the ratifying
conventions has not been entirely a closed book to them. The
important and authentic statements of Webster and other leaders of
past generations have been read by many of them. If they did not
understand and know the correct answer, as we now realize they
have not known, let us not withhold from the Americans at
Philadelphia our just tribute of gratitude that they did accurately
know, when it was amazingly important to us that they should know.
When those Americans came to answer that question, there were
facts which might have misled them as other similar facts of lesser
importance have undoubtedly misled our leaders.
In 1776, from that same Philadelphia had gone a suggestion that a
constitution of government, with Articles granting power to
government, be made in each former colony. In 1787, there had
gone from that same Philadelphia a proposal that a constitution of a
general government for America be made, with Articles granting
power to that government. The proposal of 1776 had suggested that
the proposed Articles be made by the people themselves, assembled
in conventions. The proposal of 1777 had suggested that the
proposed Articles be made by the legislative governments of the
states. Both proposals, even as to the makers of the respective
Articles, had been acted upon. All the Articles, although some had
been made by the people themselves and others by legislatures, had
been generally recognized as valid law. Some of the men at
Philadelphia in 1787 had been members of the proposing Second
Continental Congress, when the respective proposals of 1776 and
1777 had gone from Philadelphia. When, in 1787, they were called
upon to find and state, as their legal decision, the correct answer to
their important question, it was necessary for them to ascertain, as
between state “legislatures” and the people themselves, in
“conventions,” which could validly make the Articles which had been
worded and were about to be proposed. It would not, therefore, have
been beyond the pale of our own experience if the earlier proposals
had misled them and they had made the wrong answer to the
question which confronted them. Furthermore, as we have already
noted, although we can little realize the influence of such a fact upon
men seeking the correct legal answer to an important question, their
whole proposal was a new adventure for men on an uncharted sea
of self-government. Under all of which circumstances, let us again
pay them their deserved tribute that they went unerringly to the only
correct answer.
We know that the essence of that answer is expressed in the
Seventh Article proposed from Philadelphia. Only one answer was
possible to Americans of that generation. They had been “subjects”
and had become “citizens.” They knew the vital distinctions between
the two relations to government.
The Convention which framed the Constitution was, indeed,
elected by the state legislatures. But the instrument, when it
came from their hands, was a mere proposal, without
obligation, or pretensions to it. It was reported to the then
 existing Congress of the United States, with the request that it
might “be submitted to a convention of delegates, chosen in
each state by the people thereof, under the recommendation
of its legislature, for their assent and ratification.” This mode
of proceeding was adopted; and by the Convention, by
Congress, and by the state legislatures, the instrument was
submitted to the people. They acted upon it in the only
manner in which they can act safely, effectively, and wisely,
on such a subject, by assembling in convention. It is true, they
assembled in their several states; and where else should they
have assembled? No political dreamer was ever wild enough
to think of breaking down the lines which separate the states,
and of compounding the American people into one common
mass. Of consequence, when they [the American people] act,
they act in their states. But the measures they adopt do not,
on that account, cease to be the measures of the people
themselves, or become the measures of the state
governments. From these conventions the Constitution [the
First Article grants of power to interfere with individual
freedom] derives its whole authority. The government
proceeds directly from the people; is “ordained and
established” in the name of the people.... It required not the
affirmance, and could not be negatived, by the state
governments.... To the formation of a league, such as was the
Confederation, the state sovereignties were certainly
competent.
But, when a general government of America was to be given any
national power to interfere with the individual freedom of its citizens,
as in the First Article of 1787 and in the Eighteenth Amendment of
1917,
acting directly on the people, the necessity of referring it to
the people, and of deriving its powers directly from them, was
felt and acknowledged by all. The government of the Union,
then, (whatever may be the influence of this fact on the case,)
is, emphatically, and truly, a government of the people. In form
and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are
 granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them,
and for their benefit. (Marshall in the Supreme Court,
M’Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316.)
Marshall was one of the Americans who had been at Valley Forge
in 1778, and at other places whose sacrifices made it the basic law
of America that all power over American citizens must be derived by
direct grant from themselves. Later, he was prominent in the Virginia
convention where all Americans in Virginia knew and acted upon this
basic law. These facts qualified him to testify, from the Bench of the
Supreme Court, that all Americans then knew and acknowledged the
binding command of that basic law.
Under such circumstances, it was impossible that the Americans
at Philadelphia should not have known and obeyed that law in the
drafting of their proposed Seventh and Fifth Articles. Both of these
Articles, the Seventh wholly, and the Fifth partly, deal with the then
future grant of national power over the people and its only legal gift
by direct grant from the people themselves, assembled in their
“conventions.” Both Articles name the people of America, by the one
word “conventions.”
That Philadelphia should not have strayed from the legal road
clearly marked by the Statute of ’76 was certain when we recall how
large a part Madison played at Philadelphia, and particularly how he
personally worded and introduced, in the closing hours at
Philadelphia, what we know as its Fifth Article. As to his personal
knowledge of this basic law, we recall his letter of April, 1787, where
he said, “To give the new system its proper energy, it will be
desirable to have it ratified by the authority of the people, and not
merely by that of the legislatures.” And we recall his later words,
when urging Americans to adopt the Constitution with its Fifth and
Seventh Articles, he said of the Seventh, “This Article speaks for
itself. The express authority of the people alone could give due
validity to the Constitution,” to its grants of power over the people in
its First Article. (Fed. No. 43.)
That we may fix firmly in our own minds the knowledge which all
Americans then had, which our leaders never acquired or have
entirely forgotten, let us briefly review what the earlier Americans did
at Philadelphia in obedience to that knowledge of basic American
law.
On May 28, Randolph of Virginia “opened the main business” of
the Convention. He proposed fifteen resolutions embodying the
suggestion of what should be in the different Articles. Resolution
Number 15 was that such Articles should be submitted to
“conventions,” “to be expressly chosen by the people, to consider
and decide thereon.” (5 Ell. Deb. 128.)
The first short debate on this Resolution took place on June 5. In it
Madison stated that he “thought this provision essential. The Articles
of Confederation themselves were defective in this respect, resting,
in many of the states, on the legislative sanction only.” The resolution
was then postponed for further consideration. On June 12, “The
question was taken on the 15th Resolution, to wit, referring the new
system to the people of the United States for ratification. It passed in
the affirmative.” (5 Ell. Deb. 183.) This was all in the Committee of
the Whole.
On June 13, that Committee made their full report, in which the
Randolph Resolution Number 15 was embodied in words as
Resolution Number 19 of the report. On June 16, while the
Convention was again sitting as a Committee of the Whole, the great
struggle was on between the conflicting opinions as to how and in
what proportion should be elected the future legislators who were to
exercise the granted powers over Americans. On that day, the
discussion centered on the relative merits of the Randolph national
proposals and a set of federal Articles amending the existing Federal
Constitution. In supporting Randolph, Wilson of Pennsylvania stated
that “he did not fear that the people would not follow us into a
national government; and it will be a further recommendation of Mr.
Randolph’s plan that it is to be submitted to them, and not to the
legislatures, for ratification.” (5 Ell. Deb. 196.)
On July 23, Resolution Number 19 came up for action.
Remembering how insistent many of the delegates were that the
general government should be kept a purely federal one, it is not
surprising to find Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut opening the short
debate with a motion that the Constitution “be referred to the
legislatures of the states for ratification.” But it will also be
remembered that the powers to be granted in the new Articles had
not yet been settled. The nationalists in the Convention, intent on
having some national Articles, knew that the proposed ratification
must be by the people themselves, “felt and acknowledged by all” to
be the only competent grantors of national powers.
Colonel Mason of Virginia “considered a reference of the plan to
the authority of the people as one of the most important and
essential of the resolutions. The legislatures have no power to ratify
it. They are the mere creatures of the state constitutions, and cannot
be greater than their creators.... Whither, then, must we resort? To
the people, with whom all power remains that has not been given up
in the constitutions derived from them. It was of great moment that
this doctrine should be cherished, as the basis of free government.”
(5 Ell. Deb. 352.)
Rufus King of Massachusetts, influenced undoubtedly by the error
of thinking that the Convention meant to act within the Articles of
Confederation, was inclined to agree with Ellsworth “that the
legislatures had a competent authority, the acquiescence of the
people of America in the Confederation being equivalent to a formal
ratification by the people.... At the same time, he preferred a
reference to the authority of the people, expressly delegated to
conventions, as the most certain means of obviating all disputes and
doubts concerning the legitimacy of the new Constitution.” (5 Ell.
Deb. 355.)
Madison “thought it clear that the legislatures were incompetent to
the proposed changes. These changes would make essential
inroads on the state constitutions; and it would be a novel and
dangerous doctrine, that a legislature could change the constitution
under which it held its existence.” (5 Ell. Deb. 355.)
Ellsworth’s motion to send to the state legislative governments,
and not to the people themselves, assembled in “conventions,” was
lost by a vote of seven to three. Resolution Number 19, that the new
Articles must be sent to the people themselves was adopted by a
vote of nine to one, Ellsworth and King both voting for it. (5 Ell. Deb.
356.)
This impressive discussion, now continued for over a month of
1787, with its display of accurate knowledge of the distinction
between sending Articles to legislatures and “referring” them to the
people, makes quite amusing what we shall hear later in 1917. It will
come from the counsel of the political organization which dictated
that governments should make the supposed Eighteenth
Amendment. After he kindly tells us that history has proven that
these Americans of 1787 “builded more wisely than they knew,”
meaning “than he knew,” he shall later impart to us the remarkable
information that “the framers in the Constitutional Convention knew
very little, if anything, about referendums.”
The Resolutions, which had now become twenty-three in number,
on July 26, were referred to the Committee of Detail to prepare
Articles in conformity therewith. On August 6, that Committee made
its report of twenty-three worded Articles. In Article XXII was
embodied the requirement that the Constitution should be submitted
“to a convention chosen in each state, under the recommendation of
its legislature, in order to receive the ratification of such convention.”
This provision, the Philadelphia answer and always the only legal
answer to the question as to who can validly grant power to interfere
with individual freedom, was later seen not properly to belong in the
Constitution itself. For which reason, it was taken out of the
Constitution and embodied in a separate Resolution which went with
the Constitution from Philadelphia.
In Article XXI, the first draft of our Article VII, it was provided: “The
ratification of the conventions of —— states shall be sufficient for
organizing this Constitution.” (5 Ell. Deb. 381.)
The month of August was passed in the great debates on the
proposed grants of national power and the other proposed Articles.
When the Convention was drawing to a close on August 30, Articles
XXI and XXII were reached.
 Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania “moved to strike out of Article
XXI the words, ‘conventions of the,’ after ‘ratification,’ leaving the
states to pursue their own modes of ratification.” Rufus King “thought
that striking out ‘conventions,’ as the requisite mode, was equivalent
to giving up the business altogether.” Madison pointed out that, “The
people were, in fact, the fountain of all power.” The motion of Morris
was beaten. An attempt was made to fill the blank in Article XXI with
the word “thirteen.” “All the states were ‘No’ except Maryland.” The
blank was then filled by the word “nine” the vote being eight to three.
The two articles were then passed, the vote thereon being ten to
one. (5 Ell. Deb. 499-502.)
On September 10, the beginning of the last business week of the
Convention, Gerry of Massachusetts moved to reconsider these two
Articles. The short discussion was not in connection with any matter
in which we are now interested. His motion was lost. The entire set
of worded Articles was then referred to a committee for revising the
style and arrangement of the Articles agreed upon. (5 Ell. Deb. 535.)
On Wednesday, September 12, that Committee reported our
Constitution, with its seven Articles, as we know them except for
some slight changes made during the discussions of the last three or
four days of the Convention. In these seven Articles, the language of
the earlier Article XXII did not appear. As it really was the statement
of the correct legal conclusion of the Convention that its proposed
Articles, because they would grant power to interfere with individual
freedom, must necessarily be made by the people themselves, its
proper place was outside the Constitution itself and in a special
Resolution of the same nature as every Congress resolution
proposing an amendment to that Constitution. That was the view of
the Committee and, on Thursday, September 13, the Committee
reported such special Resolutions, in the very words of the former
Article XXII. “The proceedings on these Resolutions are not given by
Mr. Madison, nor in the Journal of the Federal Convention. In the
Journal of Congress, September 28, 1787, Volume 4, p. 781, they
are stated to have been presented to that body, as having passed in
the Convention on September 17 immediately after the signing of the
Constitution.” (5 Ell. Deb. 602.)
 This is the Resolution:
“Resolved, That the preceding Constitution be laid before the
United States in Congress assembled; and that it is the opinion of
this Convention, that it should afterwards be submitted to a
convention of delegates chosen in each state by the people thereof,
under the recommendation of its legislature, for their assent and
ratification; and that each convention, assenting to and ratifying the
same, should give notice thereof to the United States in Congress
assembled.
“Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Convention, that, as soon
as the conventions of nine states shall have ratified this Constitution,
the United States in Congress assembled should fix a day, etc.” (5
Ell. Deb. 541.)
This Resolution is the most authoritative statement of the legal
conclusion reached by these leaders of a people then “better
acquainted with the science of government than any other people in
the world.” The conclusion itself was compelled by accurate
knowledge that the government of “citizens” can validly obtain only
from the citizens themselves, by their direct grant, any power to
interfere with their individual freedom. The expression of that
knowledge, in the Resolution, is, in many respects, one of the most
important recorded legal decisions ever made in America. We
average Americans, educated with those Americans at Philadelphia
through their experience of the years between 1775 and 1787,
cannot misunderstand the meaning and importance of that decision.
Instructed by our review of their actions and their reasoning at
Philadelphia in reaching that conclusion and making that legal
decision, we know, with an accurate certainty, that it was their
declaration to the world and to us that no proposal from Philadelphia
suggested that Americans again resume the relation of “subjects” to
any government or governments.
Our minds impressed with this accurate knowledge that such was
not their purpose, we now prepare to complete our education as
American citizens, not subjects, by reading the Philadelphia story
and language of their Fifth Article, their only other Article which even
partly concerned the future grant of new government power to
interfere with individual American freedom. By reason of our
education, we will then come to the reading of the language of this
Article, as the Americans read it and understood it when they made it
in their “conventions” that followed the proposing convention of
Philadelphia.
Being educated “citizens” and not “subjects,” we ourselves will no
longer, as our leaders have done for five years, mistake the only
correct and legal answer to the indignant outburst of Madison, who
wrote this Fifth Article at Philadelphia. “Was, then, the American
Revolution effected, was the American Confederacy formed, was the
precious blood of thousands spilt, and the hard-earned substance of
millions lavished, not that the people of America should enjoy peace,
liberty, and safety, but that the governments of the individual states,
that particular municipal establishments, might enjoy a certain extent
of power, and be arrayed with certain dignities and attributes of
sovereignty? We have heard of the impious doctrine in the Old
World, that the people were made for kings, not kings for the people.
Is the same doctrine to be revived in the New, in another shape—
that the solid happiness of the people is to be sacrificed to the views
of political institutions of a different form?” (Fed. No. 45.)
The American answer, from the people of America assembled in
the conventions that ratified that Fifth Article, was a clear and
emphatic “No.” The Tory answer of the last five years, from our
leaders and our governments, has been an insistent “Yes.”
No one, however, with any considerable degree of truthfulness,
can assert that there has come from the American people
themselves, during the last five years, any very audible “Yes.” To
whatever extent individual opinions may differ as to the wisdom or
legality of the new constitution of government of men, made entirely
by governments, no unbiased observer has failed to note one
striking fact. By a very extensive number of Americans otherwise
law-abiding, Americans in all classes of society, the new government
edict, the government command to “subjects,” has been greeted with
a respect and obedience strikingly similar to the respect and
obedience with which an earlier generation of Americans received
the Stamp Act and the other government edicts between 1765 and
1776.
When the Americans of that earlier generation were denounced by
the government which had issued those edicts to its “subjects,” one
of the latter, five years before Americans ceased to be “subjects” of
that government, stated: “Is it a time for us to sleep when our free
government is essentially changed, and a new one is forming upon a
quite different system—a government without the least dependence
upon the people?”
It may be but a coincidence that, while our American government
was announcing its recognition of the wide-spread American
disrespect for the new government edict, it is only a few days since
throughout America there resounded many eulogies of the Samuel
Adams, who made that statement in the Boston Gazette of October
7, 1771. In those eulogies, there was paid to him the tribute that he
largely helped to bring about the amazing result of American desire
for individual freedom which culminated in the assembling of the
Americans in the “conventions” which ratified the proposed
Constitution.
We have already sensed that the existence of the supposed
Eighteenth Amendment depends entirely upon an amazing modern
meaning put into the Fifth Article made in those conventions. Let us,
therefore, who are Americans now educated in the experience of the
Americans who assembled in those “conventions,” sit therein with
them and there read the story and the language of the Fifth Article as
they read it when they made it.
 CHAPTER IX
THE FIFTH ARTICLE NAMES ONLY
“CONVENTIONS”

It has been the misfortune of our prominent Americans of this

generation that they read the Fifth Article with preconceived notions
of its meaning. To the error of that method of reading it, we average
Americans will not pay the tribute of imitation. We know that its
meaning to those who made it in the “conventions” of the earlier
century is the meaning which it must have as part of the supreme
law of the land. That we may read it as they read it and get its clear
and only possible meaning, as they got it, we shall briefly review the
story of its wording and its proposal at Philadelphia. That Convention
immediately preceded the assembling of the people in their own
“conventions.” In each of their “conventions,” among the people
assembled, were some who had been prominent at Philadelphia,
such as Madison and Randolph and Mason in Virginia, Hamilton in
New York, Wilson in Pennsylvania and the Pinckneys in South
Carolina. Moreover, between the Philadelphia proposal and the
assembling of these conventions, Madison and Hamilton, proposer
and seconder of the Fifth Article at Philadelphia, had been publishing
their famous essays, now collectively known as The Federalist, in
the New York newspapers to explain the Articles worded at
Philadelphia and to urge their adoption. Under which circumstances,
it is clear that, if we want to read and know the meaning of the Fifth
Article as it was understood in those conventions, the Fifth Article
which named those same “conventions,” we must complete our
education by an accurate and brief review of the story of that Article
at Philadelphia. Only in that way shall we average Americans of
today be in the position in which were the Americans who made that
Article.
 When we read that story of Philadelphia, in relation to the Fifth
Article, one thing stands out with amazing clarity and importance.
We already know how that Convention, until its last days, was
concentrated upon the hotly debated question of its own proposed
grants of national powers in the First Article. In the light of which
continued concentration, it is not surprising to learn that, until almost
the very last days, the delegates forgot entirely to mention, in their
tentative Fifth Article, the existing and limited ability of state
legislatures to make federal or declaratory Articles, and mentioned
only “conventions” of the people, who alone could or can make
national Articles.
The first suggestion of what we now know as the Fifth Article was
on the second day, May 29, when the Randolph Resolution 13 read
“that provision ought to be made for the amendment of the Articles of
union whensoever it shall seem necessary.” This wording was the
exact language of Resolution 17 of the report of the Committee of
the Whole. It was adopted by the Convention on July 23. Three days
later, with the other Resolutions, it was referred to the Committee of
Detail “to prepare and report the Constitution.” On August 6, this
Committee, in the first draft of our Constitution, reported the
following: “Art. XIX. On the Application of the legislatures of two-
thirds of the states in the Union, for an amendment of this
Constitution, the legislature of the United States shall call a
convention for that purpose.”
We see clearly why the delegates, their minds concentrated on
their own proposed grants of national powers, mentioned only the
people themselves, the “conventions” of the “Seventh” and “Fifth”
Articles, who alone can make national Articles, and forgot to mention
legislatures, because the latter never can make national Articles.
That kind of Article was the only thing they were then thinking about.
Naturally, it then escaped their attention that, if they proposed a wise
and proper distribution of national power between the new American
government and the respective existing state governments, almost
every future Article, if not every one, would be of the federal kind,
which legislatures or governments could validly make, as they had
made all the Articles of the existing federation. Clearly for that
reason this Article XIX never even mentioned the existing and limited
ability of legislatures.
Between this report of August 6 and August 30, the Convention
was again entirely occupied with the grants of national power and
the election of the legislators to exercise it or, in other words, with
what is now the First Article. On August 30, Article XIX was adopted
without any debate.
We are now aware that the Convention was within two weeks of its
end and no one had mentioned, in what is now the Fifth Article, the
state governments or legislatures as possible makers of federal
Articles, if and when such Articles were to be made in the future.
It was not until September 10, Monday of the last Convention
week, that Article XIX again came up for action, when Gerry of
Massachusetts moved to reconsider it. His purpose, as he himself
stated it, was to object because it made it possible that, if the people
in two-thirds of the states called a convention, a majority of the
American people assembled in that convention “can bind the Union
with innovations that may subordinate the state constitutions
altogether.” Hamilton stated that he could see “no greater evil, in
subjecting the people in America to the major voice than the people
of any particular state.” He went on to say that he did think the Article
should be changed so as to provide a more desirable “mode for
introducing amendments,” namely, drafting and proposing them to
those who could make them. In this respect he said: “The mode
proposed was not adequate. The state legislatures will not apply for
alterations, but with a view to increase their own powers. The
national legislature will be the first to perceive, and will be most
sensible to, the necessity of amendments; and ought also to be
empowered, whenever two-thirds of each branch should concur, to
call a convention. There could be no danger in giving this power, as
the people would finally decide in the case.” (5 Ell. Deb. 531.)
Roger Sherman of Connecticut then tried to have the Article
provide that the national government might also propose
amendments to the several states, as such; such amendment to be
binding if consented to by the several states, namely, all the states.
For reasons that will appear in a moment, this clear attempt to
enable the states, mere political entities, and their legislatures,
always governments, to do what they might wish with the individual
freedom of the American citizen—thus making him their subject—
was never voted upon. It was, however, seconded by Gerry of
Massachusetts. Its probable appeal to Sherman, always a strong
opponent of the national government of individuals instead of the
federal government of states, was that it would make it difficult to
take away any power from Connecticut, unless Connecticut wished
to give it up. Its appeal to Gerry, consistently a Tory in his mental
attitude to the relation of government and human being, was
undoubtedly the fact that it would permit government or governments
to do what they might wish with individual freedom. It does not
escape the attention of the average American that our governments
and leaders, during the last five years, have not only displayed the
mental attitude of Gerry but have also acted as if the proposal, which
he urged, had been put into what is our Fifth Article. Only on that
theory can we average Americans, with our education, understand
why governments in America have undertaken to exercise and to
vest in our government a national power over us, which power
neither is enumerated in the First Article nor was ever granted by the
citizens of America to their only government; nor can we understand
why our leaders have assumed that governments in America, which
are not even the government of the American citizens, can do either
or both of these things. We know, if governments and leaders do not,
that neither thing can ever be possible in a land where men are
“citizens” and not “subjects.”
 CHAPTER X
ABILITY OF LEGISLATURES REMEMBERED

Living through the days of that Convention, we have now seen

three months and ten days of its sincere and able effort to word a
Constitution which would “secure the Blessings of Liberty” to the
individual American. We have seen them spend most of their time in
the patriotic endeavor to adjust and settle how much, if any, national
power to interfere with individual freedom that Constitution shall give
to its only donee, the new and general government. In other words,
we have seen the mind and thought and will of that Convention
almost entirely concentrated, for those three months and ten days,
upon the Article which is the constitution of government, the First
Article, with its enumerated grants of general power to interfere with
the human rights of the American citizen.
Keeping in mind the object of that intense concentration, the First
Article grants of power of that kind, we average Americans note, with
determined intent never to forget, the effect of that concentration
upon the wording of our Fifth Article up to that tenth day of
September. We note, with determined intent never to forget, that,
from May 30 to September 10, the only maker of future changes
mentioned was the “people” of America, the most important reservee
of the Tenth Amendment, the “conventions” of the American people
named in both the Seventh and the Fifth Articles.
As this fact and its tremendous meaning have never been known
or mentioned in the sorry tale of the five years from 1917 to 1922, we
average Americans are determined to dwell upon it briefly so that we
cannot escape an accurate appreciation of the short remaining story
of the one week at Philadelphia, in 1787, in relation to our Fifth
Article.