Luther Martin

Luther Martin ( born February 9, 1748 in Metuchen, New Jersey, † July 8, 1826 in New York ) was an American politician and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He refused to sign the Constitution of the United States because he felt that it infringes the rights of states. Together with Patrick Henry and George Mason, he is considered one of the leading Anti- Federalists, whose work led to the ratification of the Bill of Rights.

Life

How many members of the Constituent Assembly visited the Martin College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), where he as the best of 35 classmates in 1766 reached its conclusion. Then he drew from his birthplace Metuchen to North Carolina to teach there for three years and to study law. 1771 he was admitted to the bar in Virginia. Martin married Maria Cresap Christmas 1783 ( daughter of Michael Cresap ). Of their five children, three daughters reached adulthood.

Political action

Martin was an early proponent of American independence. In autumn and winter 1771 he took part in several political meetings, including at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, on the recommendations of the Continental Congress were discussed. In the spring of 1778 the State of Maryland Martin appointed Attorney General. In this role, he pursued mainly criminal loyalists, many of whom were in the districts of the State of Maryland. In some counties it came through the tensions between the Patriots and Loyalists in riots, and sometimes outright combat. Martin joined the Baltimore Light Dragoons at, a militia group, the General Lafayette's troops joined near Fredericksburg. However, Martin fought probably never been activated as he was called back to his post by the Governor of Maryland to conduct a method of high treason.

By 1805, he held the function of the Attorney General in Maryland. After that, he was from 1814 to 1816 chief judge of oyer et terminer court in Baltimore and again from 1818 to 1822 Attorney General of Maryland.

Constitution obtainable from Congress

The General Assembly of Maryland, 1785 Martin elected representatives of Maryland at Konföderationskongress, but his public and private commitments kept him on a trip to Philadelphia.

In June 1787 he traveled as an elected representative of Maryland to the Philadelphia Convention. Even at his arrival, he expressed his suspicion about the confidentiality clause, which had been imposed on this meeting. He refused to form a government from in which the small states were dominated by the big states and helped to formulate the New Jersey Plan. On June 27, he held a three-hour speech against the Virginia Plan, which gave his opinion, the small states too little attention, as he foresaw a proportional to population ratio of deputies in both chambers of the legislature. Martin was part of the committee that was to find a compromise on the number of Deputies, and pleaded there for the proposal of a uniform distribution in at least one chamber. Before the end of the congress Martin was convinced that the new government has too much power over the governments of the individual states and would jeopardize their individual rights, so he left the Congress along with another Member of Maryland, John Francis Mercer, having no had received support for a Bill of Rights.

Dispute over the ratification

In a speech to the House of Representatives from Maryland Martin criticized in November 1787 Constituent Congress not only for his purposes, but also for its approach sharp. He broke the confidentiality clause and informed the delegates of Maryland about the fact that the designers of the Constitution had wantonly its mandate to meet in order to work with the " sole and express purpose of " the Articles of Confederation violated.

Instead, the congressman had decided to design an entirely new system of government. For Martin a coup such plans were the same. Although well-known politicians such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin supported the new direction of Congress, Martin warned not " to be of great names dazzle so far, so you would run blindly into his own destruction."

In this speech, and in numerous newspaper articles, Martin attacked in the course of 1788, the proposals for a new system of government, fighting continues against the ratification of the Constitution. He lamented the rise of the national government over the states and condemned what he saw as unfair representation in Congress.

He owned six slaves and was opposed to the proposal to use slaves as population for the calculation of the number of Deputies. He also believed that the lack of a jury at the Supreme Court, the freedom of citizens of the United States hazardous strong. At the congress, Martin complained that the increase of some states and individuals more attention has been paid as to the welfare of the whole country. The adoption of the term " federal" by those who preferred a national government, angry Martin.

Maryland's decision ignored Martins Warning mostly. In April 1788 Maryland ratified the Constitution as a seventh state, but under the condition that a Bill of Rights should be added. In June, New Hampshire as the ninth state to ratify the Constitution, thus came into force. Three years later, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, were added so-called.

Legal career

After the Revolutionary War, Martin continued to work as a lawyer and became one of the most successful and best-known lawyers in the country.

In the first years of the new century, Martin worked as a defender in two controversial nationwide attention cases. In the first he reached the acquittal of his good friend, the Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States Samuel Chase, ran impeachment proceedings against the 1805. Two years later, Martin was one of Aaron Burr's defenders. Burr was charged with treason in 1807.

After 28 years as Attorney General of the State of Maryland Martin resigned in December 1805 by his office that he had exercised the only so long.

In 1813 he was again presiding judge of oyer et terminer court in Baltimore. In 1818 he was again appointed Attorney General of Maryland, and then to represent Maryland in 1819 in the landmark decision McCulloch v. Maryland. The plaintiffs were represented by Daniel Webster, William Pinkney and William Wirt.

Towards the end of his life, Martin's situation deteriorated progressively. He not only lost large parts of its assets, but also began to drink and go crazy. The mid- 1820s he was virtually bankrupt and survived only by the revenues from a special tax, which had to pay all the lawyers in Maryland, just to support him. Finally took him to Aaron Burr, whom he had in 1807 successfully defended in a treason method. Martin was driven by an irrational dislike of Thomas Jefferson, who had called him in 1807 the " Federal Bulldog" and began to sympathize whose orientation actually all contradicted what he had struggled to date with the Federalist Party. Since he was partially paralyzed from 1819, he joined in 1822 by the Office of the Attorney General Maryland back.

On July 8, 1826 Martin Luther died at the age of 78 years in Aaron Burr's home in New York City. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the courtyard of St. John's Church. He died four days after Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two other founding fathers of the United States.