Fisher Ames

Life and political career

Ames was born in Dedham, Massachusetts. His father, a physician, died when Fisher was but six years old, but his mother resolved, in spite of her limited income, to give the boy a classical education. At the age of six he began the study of Latin, and at the age of twelve, he was sent to Harvard College, graduating in 1774 when he began work as a teacher. While teaching school Ames also studied law. He was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Dedham in 1781.

His father, Dr. Nathaniel Ames, was the author of the Ames Almanack, "which were the inspiration for the Poor Richard's Almanack."

In 1788, he served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He became a member of the Massachusetts convention that ratified the United States Constitution that same year.

Ames was elected to the First United States Congress, having beaten Samuel Adams for the post. He also served in the Second and Third Congresses and as a Federalist to the Fourth Congress. He served in Congress from March 4, 1789 to March 3, 1797. During the First Congress, he was chairman of the Committee on Elections. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1793. In 1796, he was not a candidate for renomination but resumed the practice of law in Dedham. He stayed in politics and was a member of the Governor's Council from 1798 to 1800. In his new role, Ames offered one of the great orations on the death of President Washington. He also published a number of essays, critical of Jefferson's followers. He was a member of the Federalist Party, specifically its Essex Junto.

In 1805, Ames was chosen president of Harvard University. He declined to serve because of failing health. Four years later, in 1808, he died in Dedham on July 4. He was interred in the Old First Parish Cemetery after a public funeral in Boston.

Despite his limited number of years in public service, Fisher Ames ranks as one of the more influential figures of his era. Ames led Federalist ranks in the House of Representatives. His acceptance of the Bill of Rights garnered support in Massachusetts for the new Constitution. His greatest fame however may have come as an orator, for which one historian has dubbed him "the most eloquent of the Federalists." Ames offered one of the first great speeches in American Congressional history when he spoke in favor of the Jay Treaty. Despite his Federalist sympathies, Ames would dissent from his party when he felt it was not in the country's best interest. For example, in 1789 Ames argued against the appointment of Thomas Willing as the President of Hamilton's newly created Bank of the United States.

Ames became concerned by the rising popularity of Jefferson's Republicans, who advocated the United States adopt Republican type representative government along the lines of post-Revolution government in France. Hamilton's Federalists (of which Ames was one), although they too agreed with a Republic, advocated a stronger federal government with similar powers to the British example. Ames felt Federalism around a clear and firm constitution was the model the United States should follow to prevent the fledgling nation from failing. He cautioned against the excesses of democracy unfettered by morals and reason: "Popular reason does not always know how to act right, nor does it always act right when it knows." He also felt that democracy alone was too fragile a system to resist descent into tyranny. "A democracy cannot last. Its nature ordains that its next change should be into a military despotism....The reason is that the tyranny of what is called the people, and that by the sword, both operate alike to debase and corrupt, til there are neither men left with the spirit to desire liberty, nor morals with the power to sustain justice. Like the burning pestilence that destroys the human body, nothing can subsist by its dissolution but vermin." Likewise, Ames warned his countrymen of the dangers of flattering demagogues, who incite dis-union and lead their country into bondage: "Our country is too big for union, too sordid for patriotism, too democratic for liberty. What is to become of it, He who made it best knows. Its vice will govern it, by practising upon its folly. This is ordained for democracies."

In 2002, the Ames Christian University was named after Fisher Ames.

Notable Quotes

" We have but a slender hold of our virtues ; they ought, therefore, to be cherished with care, and practised with diligence. He who holds parley with vice and dis- honor, is sure to become their slave and victim. The heart is more than half corrupted, that does not bum with indig- nation at the slightest attempt to seduce it."