Meriwether Smith was an American statesman, he offered a "Scheme of Finance" to Congress, but failed.
Background
Meriwether was born in 1730 at "Bathurst, " Essex County, Virginia, United States, the son of Col. Francis and Lucy (Meriwether) Smith. His father, grandson of Nicholas Smith of Petsworth Parish, Gloucester County, was a member of the House of Burgesses, 1752-58.
Career
From 1774, when he became a member of the Essex County Committee, he was seldom out of public office during the period of the Revolution. He was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1775, of the conventions of 1775 and 1776, of the House of Delegates in 1776, 1778, 1781-82, 1785-88, of the convention of 1788, occasionally of the council, and he was three times (1778, 1779, 1780) elected a delegate to the Continental Congress.
In the Virginia convention of 1776 he was chosen to the important committee on privileges and elections and second on the committee to prepare a declaration of rights. On May 15 he was one of three members, the other two being Edmund Pendleton and Patrick Henry, who drafted resolutions of independence; Pendleton's draft, however, was accepted.
In the Continental Congress, in which he took his seat September 28, 1778, he played an active, and at times a conspicuous, part in the proceedings. Like several other Virginia delegates he declined to espouse the cause of the Lees in the notorious Deane-Lee controversy, and his course in that fiery contest brought down upon him the sharp criticism of Richard Henry Lee and those aligned with him.
Although reelected to Congress in June 1779, he did not take his seat. On his return to Virginia in the autumn of that year he became involved in a controversy with the Assembly over his account as a delegate, a controversy revolving, in part at least, around his commercial connections, but engineered no doubt by his political opponents.
In June 1780, however, he was for a third time elected to Congress and attended from February to September 1781. Some of his colleagues feared that he would again indulge in trouble-making, but his course appears to have been one of acceptable placidity. Always interested in the financial problems of Congress, in April 1781 he offered a "Scheme of Finance, " to which was appended this injunction: "Let Congress adopt and pursue this plan and be great and happy. " Congress honored the scheme with a first reading but chose to seek greatness and happiness by other means.
Smith died at Essex County, Virginia, United States.
Achievements
Politics
Smith opposed the proposition to grant Congress control over commerce, and was among the irreconcilable opponents of the Annapolis convention. Characteristically, in the convention of 1788 he opposed the adoption of the Federal Constitution.
Personality
He impressed with his eccentricities, and was dubbed with such nicknames as "the Oddity of Virginia, " "Fiddle, " "Fiddlehead, " "Base Viol, " "Ugly Instrument, " etc. , the origin of which remains in obscurity.
Quotes from others about the person
"Mr. Smith (alias Dogberry), " Lee wrote to Henry Laurens, "has been famous here for being a very vain and a very troublesome man". Marbois said of him, "He has much sagacity but too much subtlety, and in seeking to penetrate he misses the goal".
Interests
Music & Bands
He impressed members of Congress no less than his Virginia contemporaries with his eccentricities, and was dubbed with such nicknames as "the Oddity of Virginia, " "Fiddle, " "Fiddlehead, " "Base Viol, " "Ugly Instrument, " etc. , the origin of which remains in obscurity.
Connections
He was twice married: first, about 1760, to Alice, daughter of Philip Lee of Maryland and widow of Thomas Clarke; second, August 3, 1769, to Elizabeth, daughter of Col. William Daingerfield of Essex. There were two children by each marriage; a son by the first, George William Smith, succeeded James Monroe as governor of Virginia (December 5, 1811).