Everything about Daniel Of St Thomas Jenifer totally explained
Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer (1723 –
16 November 1790) was a politician and a
Founding Father of the
United States. Born long before conflicts with
Great Britain emerged, he was a leader for many years in Maryland's colonial government. However, when conflict arose with
Great Britain, he embraced the
Patriot cause, willingly abandoning the ordered society of colonial
Maryland for the uncertainty of revolution.
Early life and colonial career
Jenifer, born at Coates Retirement (now Ellerslie), an estate west of
Port Tobacco in
Charles County, Maryland, was the son of a colonial planter of
Swedish and
English descent. As a young man, he acted as a receiver-general, the local financial agent for the last two proprietors of Maryland.
Jenifer served as justice of the peace for
Charles County and later for the western circuit of Maryland. He sat on a commission that settled a boundary dispute between
Pennsylvania and Maryland (1760) and on the Governor's Council, the upper house of the Maryland legislature that also served as the colony's court of appeals and as a board of senior advisers to the governor (1773–76).
American Revolution
Despite his close ties with the colonial government, Jenifer strongly resented what he and most of the colonial gentry saw as Parliament's arbitrary interference with the colonies' affairs, especially its laws concerning taxation and trade regulation. Years before the struggle for independence began, he'd defended the proprietors of Maryland against those who sought to make Maryland a Royal colony, and when the Revolution came he lent his considerable support as a wealthy landowner to the Patriot cause, despite the fact that many leading Patriots had been his enemies in the proprietorship struggle. He became the president of Maryland's Council of Safety, the Patriot body established to organize Maryland's military forces for the Revolution (1775–77). When, in 1776, a new constitution was framed for the state of Maryland, Jenifer commented on the document's neglect of popular sovereignty: "The Senate doesn't appear to me to be a Child of the people at Large, and therefore won't be Supported by them longer than there Subsists the most perfect Union between the different Legislative branches." He represented his state in the Continental Congress (1778–82) while simultaneously serving as president of the state's first senate (1777–80). As manager of the state's finances between 1782 and 1785, he drew on his experiences as a landholder to help the state survive the critical postwar
economic depression.
During these years, Jenifer became increasingly concerned with national affairs. Along with
James Madison,
John Dickinson, and his good friend
George Washington, he began to explore ways to solve the economic and political problems that had arisen under the weak
Articles of Confederation. Consequently, he attended the
Mount Vernon Conference, a meeting that would lead eventually to the Constitutional Convention.
Constitutional Convention
Like his old friend
Benjamin Franklin, Jenifer enjoyed the status of elder statesman at the
Philadelphia Convention. He took stands on several important issues, although his advanced age restricted his activity in the day-to-day proceedings. Business experience gained while managing a large
plantation had convinced him that an active central government was needed to ensure financial and commercial stability. To that end, he favored a strong and permanent union of the states in which a Congress representing the people had the power to tax. Concerned with continuity in the new government, he favored a three-year term for the
House of Representatives. Too frequent elections, he concluded, might lead to indifference and would make prominent men unwilling to seek office. Jenifer was outvoted on this point, but his reaction was to marvel at the delegates' ability to come to agreement on a plan of government: "The first month we only came to grips, and the second it seemed as though we'd fly apart forever, however we came as close as friends of eighty years in but days."
One of the oldest delegates in
Philadelphia, he used his prestige to work for a strong and permanent union of the states. Contemporaries noted his good humor and pleasant company, which won him many friends at the
Convention. When
Luther Martin, who refused to sign the document, said that he feared being hanged if the people of Maryland approved the
Constitution, Jenifer told him, humorously, that Martin should stay in Philadelphia, so that he wouldn't hang in his home state. Along with
Benjamin Franklin, Jenifer used laughter to help reconcile the opposing views of the delegates and to formulate the compromises that made the Convention a success.
Death and legacy
After the Convention, Jenifer retired to Stepney, his great plantation near
Annapolis, where he died in 1790. In his will, he passed his roughley land holdings to his nephew,
Daniel Jenifer, and instructed that all his slaves be freed six years after his death.
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