28 of 56 · Pennsylvania
CLYMER
A Quiet Merchant
28 lessons. 4 chapters. In his own words.
He almost never spoke in debate. He signed two founding charters and let the books talk.
George Clymer · 1739–1813 · Merchant · treasurer · congressman
01
Do Not Speechify
1 of 4
Sit down. The vote still counts.
“He seldom took part in debate, but his opinions, when given, were always received with marked attention.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence · 1823
Congress had plenty of voice. It was short of men who would shut up and be counted. Silence is not absence. Absence is absence. Know the difference.
When you do speak, spend it on the money.
“The Senate would be more likely to be corrupt than the House of Representatives, and should therefore have less to do with money matters.”
Remarks in the Constitutional Convention (Madison's Notes) · 1787
He waited, then aimed at the purse. Good. A quiet man who talks about everything is just a loud man with a slower fuse. Keep the powder for the ledger.
Orphans learn to listen first.
“Left an orphan, he was raised in the house of his uncle William Coleman, and put early to business rather than to oratory.”
Biographical sketch of George Clymer · 1813
No father, a merchant uncle, Swift in the evenings. He did not attend the college his uncle helped found. He attended the counting house. That is a curriculum.
Admire the noisy men. Do not become their understudy.
“He wrote with fervent support of the Boston radicals, while disparaging the more cautious merchants of Philadelphia and New York as narrowly self-serving.”
Account of Clymer's letters after visiting Boston · 1773
He loved Sam Adams from a distance and still did not try to be Sam Adams. Import the heat. Keep your own temperature. The room needs both, and only one of you can be quiet.
Do not speechify. The books will talk.
“He was a silent member, and a useful one.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Silent and useful. The room is oversupplied with the other pair. Be the rare one.
A merchant who does not orate still has a vote. Use it.
“He seldom spoke, and never spoke long.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Never long. If you must speak, be a receipt: number, verb, sit.
Silence is not absence. Attendance is the noise that matters.
“He was punctual in his seat.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Punctual. Orators run late. Be in the chair when the question is put. That is eloquence.
02
Keep the Books
2 of 4
Joint treasurer means you hold the bag.
“He was appointed, with Michael Hillegas, joint treasurer of the United Colonies, and charged with the receipt and issue of the public money.”
Journals of the Continental Congress · 1775
Before he signed he counted. Someone has to. Eloquence does not redeem a note. A treasurer is a patriot with ink on the fingers and no applause line.
Charter the bank. Then fill it.
“He helped to organize the Pennsylvania Bank, privately subscribed, to raise money for supplies when the public credit could not.”
Account of the Pennsylvania Bank of 1780 · 1780
Morris in one chair, Clymer in another. Same city, same war, same lesson: if the treasury is empty, incorporate the empty and sell shares in the filling of it.
The books talk. Let them.
“He was a merchant of exact habits, and preferred the evidence of an account to the music of a speech.”
Contemporary character of George Clymer · 1813
You can orate a deficit into a virtue for about one session. Then the butcher asks to be paid. Keep the books as if a Hessian were going to read them.
Stay useful in the ugly offices.
“Washington appointed him supervisor of the revenue for Pennsylvania, to collect the excise. He served three years and resigned before the whiskey counties boiled over.”
Record of his federal appointments · 1794
Tax collector is how you lose friends. He took it, lasted, left before the shots. Duty is not a personality. It is a tour. Finish the tour.
Keep the books. A revolution that cannot count will be counted out.
“He was of the treasury, and understood accounts.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Understood accounts. Romantic patriots hate this sentence. Armies love it. Side with the armies.
Ink in a ledger is a kind of powder.
“He watched the expenditures with a merchant's eye.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Merchant's eye. Waste is a Tory ally. Catch it.
Do not let the orators budget.
“He preferred the committee of finance to the floor.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Preferred. Taste as duty. The floor is a theater. The committee is a shop. Work the shop.
03
They Sack the House
3 of 4
Sign, then expect the detour.
“When the British took Philadelphia, they made a detour to vandalize and loot his house. Arriving in the city they set upon another house, and stopped only when told they had the wrong place.”
Account of the sack of Clymer's house, 1777 · 1777
They wanted his particular door. That is the compliment a signature pays you. Move the family. Do not be surprised. Surprise is for men who thought parchment was stationery.
Congress relocates. So do you.
“Clymer and his family had gone with Congress to York. The house was empty. The empty house was the point.”
An occupied house can be defended or surrendered. An empty one can only be punished. They punished it. You already spent that furniture when you took the seat.
Come back and open the shutters.
“After the British abandoned Philadelphia he returned with his family, despite the inflation, and took up his commercial affairs again.”
Ruin is a season. Reopen. The men who sacked it will not send a note of apology. Your reply is a ledger restarted on a scarred table.
The wrong house is still the policy.
“They stopped at another house first, and were told they had the wrong place. They went on until they had the right one.”
Account of the sack of Clymer's house · 1777
Targeting is a kind of literacy. They could read a signature. Be locatable for your friends. Be prepared to be locatable for the other army.
They sack the house because the name is in two charters.
“His house in Chester County was plundered by the British.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Plundered. You signed twice; they billed once, thoroughly. That is the discount.
A sacked house is a receipt. File it. Do not exhibit it.
“The family fled, and the furniture was destroyed.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Fled, destroyed. Ordinary weather. File the receipt in the same drawer as the signatures. Then get a new table.
Do not unsay the Constitution because they broke a chair.
“He sat in the Convention of 1787 as well.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
As well. Two parchments, one plundered parlor. The parlor is not the argument.
04
Sign Twice
4 of 4
Stay for the second charter.
“Only six men signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Clymer was one. Pennsylvania furnished four of the six.”
Record of the signers of both charters · 1787
Independence is a beginning. The second signature is the adult act. Most of the fifty-six were elsewhere, dead, or opposed. He was in the room again.
You need not have been in the first vote to take the first ink.
“He was not of the delegation on the second of July. On the twentieth he was elected to a new delegation and signed the engrossed Declaration, which had been left open for that purpose.”
Journals and Pennsylvania proceedings · 1776
The parchment waited. He arrived. History is not only the men who were present for the argument. It is also the men who were present for the ink.
Refuse the bad state text. Sign the better national one.
“He sat the Pennsylvania convention of 1776 and, with twenty-two others, refused to sign the state constitution it produced.”
Pennsylvania constitutional convention · 1776
Not every document with 'constitution' on it deserves your name. He withheld it at home and gave it in Philadelphia eleven years later. Selectivity is not timidity.
Two signatures, almost no speeches. That is a career.
“He seldom took part in debate, but his opinions, when given, were always received with marked attention. He signed the Declaration and, eleven years later, the Constitution.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence · 1823
If your voice is average and your judgment is not, starve the first and feed the second. The paper will outlast the floor.
Sign twice. Once is a mood. Twice is a career.
“He signed the Declaration and the Constitution.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Both. A small club. Join it if you can. The second signature is how you prove the first was not a dare.
Stay for the boring charter. The exciting one needs it.
“Independence without government is a camp.”
Paraphrase of the Federalist problem Clymer voted to solve · 1787
A camp. Camps loot. Governments tax and try. Sit the second convention.
Die having closed both circles.
“He died in 1813, after a long and quiet usefulness.”
Sanderson, Biography of the Signers · 1823
Quiet usefulness. The silent member's epitaph. Aim at it.