Polly Dogood

Upon Grandpapa's Diamonds

Wherein the Author recounts a Present from a King, a Question put to Congress, and a Clause of the Constitution that grew out of both, and wonders why nobody asks any more.

To the Readers of this Publick Blog,

When my Grandpapa Franklin left Paris in 1785, after nine Years as the American Minister to France, King Louis the Sixteenth gave him a Parting Present: the King's own Portrait in miniature, set with four hundred and eight Diamonds.

It was a very handsome Gift, and it put Grandpapa in a Difficulty. The Articles of Confederation forbade any American Officer to accept "any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state." To refuse a King's Gift was an Insult to an Ally. To keep it was against the Law. So he did what an honest Servant of a Republic does. He put the Question to Congress, and let Congress decide. Congress consented, and he kept it.

He was not the first to ask. Five Years earlier Mr. Arthur Lee had been given a Portrait of the same King, also set with Diamonds, and had deposited it with the President of Congress, asking whether he might keep it. A Committee recommended that Congress "approve of his retaining the Picture," and Mr. Jefferson later recorded that this "formed the subsequent rule." The Rule was simple. You may not take a Present from a foreign Power on your own Say-so. You must ask the People's Representatives first.

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How a Picture became a Clause

Two Years later the Framers wrote the Rule into the Constitution, and they added the Remedy Grandpapa had used: "No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."

Mr. Charles Pinckney, who moved it at the Convention on the 23rd of August 1787, gave his Reason plainly: "the necessity of preserving foreign Ministers & other officers of the U. S. independent of external influence." It passed without a Voice against it.

And when Governor Randolph explained the Clause to the Virginia Convention in June of 1788, he told the Story outright. "This restriction is provided to prevent corruption," he said. "An accident which actually happened operated in producing the restriction. A box was presented to our ambassador by the king of our allies." He did not say which Ambassador. It may have been Grandpapa, or Mr. Lee. Either way, the Clause was born in my Family's Parlour, or very near it.

The Framers added a second Clause for the President alone: that beyond his Salary, "he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them." A President was to be paid by the People, and by nobody else, so that nobody else would own him.

What Grandpapa did with the Diamonds

Grandpapa left the Portrait to his Daughter Sarah in his Will, with an Instruction I have always loved. She was "requesting, however, that she would not form any of those diamonds into ornaments, either for herself or daughters, and thereby introduce or countenance the expensive, vain, and useless fashion of wearing jewels in this country."

I will be honest, as I always am about my Family. Sarah did not wear the Diamonds. She sold the outer Ring of them to pay for a Journey to France. Later Heirs sold or gave away more. Today the Portrait sits with the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, missing most of its Stones. The Diamonds did not survive my Family. The Principle did, or so I believed.

What nobody asks

Here is what our present President has accepted, so far as the Publick knows, and the Congress has been asked about none of it.

An Aeroplane from the Royal Family of Qatar, a Boeing worth some $400 million, accepted by his Government in 2025, which entered Service this Summer as Air Force One. No final Decision has been announced about what becomes of it after his Term, though it has been reported that it may pass to his Presidential Library's Foundation.

Money from the Ruling Family of the Emirates. Four Days before his Inauguration, a Company backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the Emirates' national Security Adviser, agreed to buy nearly half of his Family's Crypto-Currency Venture for $500 million, according to reporting in the Wall Street Journal. That Spring, an Investment Fund backed by Abu Dhabi and chaired by the same Sheikh paid for a $2 billion Investment using that Venture's own Coin.

A Dinner for Buyers of his Coin, at his own Golf Club, for the two hundred and twenty largest Holders, a Majority of them foreign by the Estimates of those who traced the Purchases.

Towers and Golf Courses in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Vietnam, with Developers who do Business with those Governments.

By the Reckoning of The New Yorker, which calls its Figure conservative, his Family had taken in close to $4 billion from his Presidency by January of this Year.

His Son-in-Law, who now helps negotiate our Business with those same Gulf Kingdoms, took $2 billion from the Saudi Crown's own Fund for his private Investment Firm, and two Members of Congress, at least, have thought to ask about it.

When a Senator asked the Senate last Year to withhold its Consent for the Qatari Aeroplane, the Majority objected, and no Vote was taken. On Thursday a Shareholder filed Suit in a federal Court in Washington, asking it to declare the Emirati Payments unconstitutional. No Court has yet ruled.

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Here is the plainer Version.

My Grandpapa was given one King's Picture, and he asked Congress whether he might keep it. Our present President has been given an Aeroplane, a Fortune and a Kingdom's worth of Partnerships, and he has asked Congress nothing. And Congress, which holds the only Key to that Door, has not even troubled to ask him.

The Clause was written, in Governor Randolph's Words, "to prevent corruption." It cannot prevent anything if the Congress will not use it. On the 3rd of November, send a Congress to Washington that knows the Difference between a Gift and a Bribe, and is not afraid to ask which this is.

P.S. I have been to see the King's Picture in Philadelphia. Only the inner Ring of Diamonds and a single Stone remain. I confess I thought it looked better that way: a Present that had been asked about, kept honestly, and spent on a Journey home. There are worse Things to do with a King's Diamonds. I can think of several, and so, I expect, can you.