Surprise, naturally, might be expressed that Lee, elected as a “Republican enemy to an aristocratic constitution,” should have taken the lead in advocating titles. Light is thrown on the situation from the following entry in Maclay’s journal under date of May 15, 1789: “Lee has a cultivated understanding, great practice in public business.... He has acted as a high priest through the whole of this idolatrous business.... Had it not been for Mr. Lee I am firmly convinced no other man would have ventured to follow our Vice-President. But Lee led, Ellsworth seconded him, the New England men followed and Ralph Izard [Senator from South Carolina] joined them but really _haud passibus aequis_, for he was only for the title of ‘Excellency,’ which had been sanctified by use. [Illustration: UNITED STATES SENATOR ROBERT JACKSON GAMBLE. Vice-President of the Society for South Dakota. ] “It is easy to see what his [Lee’s] aim is. By flattering the President of the Senate he hopes to govern all the members from New England and with a little assistance from Carolina or Georgia, to be absolute in the Senate. Ellsworth and some more of the New England men flatter him in turn, expecting he will be with them on the question of residence [of Congress]. Had it not been for our Vice-President and Lee I am convinced the Senate would have been as adverse to titles as the House of Representatives. The game that our Vice-President and Mr. Lee appear to have now in view is to separate the Senate as much as possible from the House of Representatives. Our Vice-President’s doctrine is that all honors and titles should flow from the President and Senate only.” VIII. THE GREAT DEBATE OF MAY 8, 1789. But whatever Lee’s motives may have been, it is indisputable that he threw his great weight and splendid abilities in favor of titles. In the momentous debate of May 8 he declared that all the world, civilized and savage, called for titles; that there must be something in human nature that occasioned this general consent and, therefore, he conceived it was right. “Here he began,” records Maclay, “to enumerate many, many nations who gave titles—such as Venice, Genoa and others. The Greeks and Romans, it was said, had no titles, ‘but’ (making a profound bow to the Chair) ‘you were pleased to set us right in this with respect to the Conscript Fathers the other day.’ Here he repeated the Vice-President’s speech of the 23d ultimo almost verbatim all over. “Mr. Ellsworth rose. He had a paper in his hat which he looked constantly at. He repeated almost all that Mr. Lee had said but got on the subject of kings—declared that the sentence in the primer of _fear God and honor the king_ was of great importance; that kings were of divine appointment; that Saul, the head and shoulders taller than the rest of the people, was elected by God and anointed by his appointment.