The Founders at Home: The Building of America, 1735-1817

by Myron Magnet

  65TJ to J. Correa de Serra, 25 November 1817 (Mayo, op. cit., p. 326).

  CHAPTER 9: James Madison: Theory

  1Paul Jennings, A Colored Man’s Reminiscences of James Madison (Brooklyn: George C. Beadle, 1865), pp. 18–19.

  2Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990), pp. 19, 31.

  3JM, Autobiography (MS, Library of Congress), p. 1; JM to William Bradford, 9 November 1772, James Madison, Writings, Jack N. Rakove, ed. (Library of America, 1999 [LoA], p. 3).

  4JM to William Bradford, 24 January 1774 (LoA, pp. 5, 7); Ketcham, op. cit., p. 38.

  5JM to William Bradford, 24 January 1774 (LoA, p. 9).

  6Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 63, 68–73; JM, Amendments to the Virginia Declaration of Rights, 29 May–11 June 1776 (LoA, p. 10); JM, Autobiography, p. 3.

  7JM, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 20 June 1785 (LoA, pp. 30–36); Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 161–65.

  8Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 165, 167; JM to Edward Livingston, 10 July 1822 (LoA, p. 788); JM, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 20 June 1785 (LoA, p. 32).

  9JM, “Monopolies, Perpetuities, Corporations, Ecclesiastical Endowments,” Detached Memoranda, 1819 (LoA, pp. 762–66).

  10JM, Autobiography, p. 4.

  11George Washington to Henry Laurens, 23 December 1777 (Washington LoA, p. 282).

  12Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson (New York: Random House, 2010), p. 62.

  13JM to Thomas Jefferson, 27 March 1780 (LoA, p. 11).

  14Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 85–86, 116, 141–42, 105.

  15Ibid., p. 90.

  16Ibid., pp. 104–5.

  17Ibid., pp. 93–95.

  18John Jay, Extracts from Mr. Jay’s History of his Spanish Mission, in William Jay, The Life of John Jay (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833, reprint Bridgewater, VA: American Foundation Publications, 2000), I:100.

  19David McCullough, John Adams (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), pp. 238, 241.

  20Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 120–21, 128–29; Gaillard Hunt, ed., The Writings of James Madison (New York and London: Putnam, 1900), I:208.

  21Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 121–22.

  22Ibid, pp. 122–25.

  23Ibid., pp. 154–57.

  24JM, “Monopolies, Perpetuities, Corporations, Ecclesiastical Endowments,” Detached Memoranda, 1819 (LoA, p. 764).

  25Federalist 63 (LoA, p. 350); Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention on Control of the Military, 16 June 1788 (LoA, p. 389).

  26Hunt, op. cit., I:67.

  27JM to Thomas Jefferson, 10 April 1781 (LoA, p. 13); Ketcham, op. cit., p. 113.

  28Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 117–18.

  29Ibid., pp. 171–72, 174–75.

  30Walter Stahr, John Jay: Founding Father (New York: Hambledon and Continuum, 2006), pp. 213–17.

  31Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., p. 72; JM to Thomas Jefferson, 12 August 1786 (LoA, p. 56).

  32JM to Thomas Jefferson, 12 August 1786 (LoA, pp. 53–55); Ketcham, op. cit., p. 172.

  33JM to Thomas Jefferson, 12 August 1786 (LoA, p. 55).

  34Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., p. 128; Ketcham, op. cit., p. 184.

  35JM to Thomas Jefferson, 19 March 1787 (LoA, p. 64); JM, Federalist 37 (LoA, p. 196).

  36JM to George Washington, 7 December 1786 (LoA, p. 59); JM to Thomas Jefferson, 6 June 1787 (LoA, p. 96).

  37Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 30 August 1787 (Jefferson LoA, p. 909).

  38Catherine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966), p. 30; JM, A Sketch Never Finished Nor Applied, 1830 (LoA, pp. 840–41).

  39Ketcham, op. cit., p. 203; JM, Speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention on Ratification and Amendments, 24 June 1788 (LoA, p. 402); Bowen, op. cit., p. 263.

  40JM, A Sketch Never Finished Nor Applied, 1830 (LoA, p. 842); JM to Thomas Jefferson, 24 October 1787 (LoA, p. 144).

  41The Virginia Plan (LoA, pp. 89–91).

  42JM, Federalist 51 (LoA, p. 295); JM, Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention on the Control of the Military, 16 June 1788 (LoA, p. 389); Bowen, op. cit., pp. 70–71.

  43JM, Vices of the Political System of the United States, April 1787 (LoA, pp. 75–78); JM, Federalist 48 (LoA, p. 281); JM, Speech in the Federal Convention on the Proposed Compromise on State Representation, 5 July 1787 (LoA, p. 122); JM, Federalist 55 (LoA, p. 316).

  44JM, Federalist 51 (LoA, pp. 294–96).

  45JM, Federalist 10 (LoA, pp. 161–62).

  46JM to Thomas Jefferson, 24 October 1787 (LoA, p. 150).

  47JM, Federalist 10 (LoA, p. 161).

  48Ibid., p. 162.

  49Ibid., p. 163.

  50Ibid., p. 167; Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., pp. 146–47.

  51JM, Federalist 10 (LoA, p. 163).

  52Ibid., p. 164.

  53JM, Vices of the Political System of the United States, April 1787 (LoA, p. 78).

  54JM, Federalist 14 (LoA, p. 173).

  55Perhaps he took the hint from Scottish Enlightenment thinker David Hume’s essay, “The Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth.”

  56JM to Thomas Jefferson, 24 October 1787 (LoA, p. 145); JM, Federalist 10 (LoA, pp. 166–67).

  57JM, Federalist 55 (LoA, pp. 319–20).

  58JM, Federalist 63 (LoA, p. 347); JM, Speech in the Federal Convention on the Senate, 26 June 1787 (LoA, pp. 110–11); Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, enlarged edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), p. 290.

  59JM, Federalist 63 (LoA, p. 345); JM, Speech in the Federal Convention on the Senate, 26 June 1787 (LoA, p. 110); JM, Federalist 63 (LoA, p. 346); JM, Federalist 62 (LoA, pp. 342–43).

  60JM to Caleb Wallace, 23 August 1785 (LoA, p. 43).

  61JM, Speech in the Federal Convention on the Suffrage, 7 August 1787 (LoA, pp. 132–33).

  62JM, Observations on the “Draught of a Constitution for Virginia,” 15 October 1788 (LoA, p. 411).

  63JM to George Washington, 16 April 1787 (LoA, pp. 80–81).

  64Ketcham, op. cit., p. 197.

  65JM to Thomas Jefferson, 24 October 1787 (LoA, pp. 143–44).

  66JM, Speech in the Federal Convention Opposing Equal Representation in the Senate, 14 July 1787 (LoA, p. 124).

  67Bowen, op. cit., p. 93.

  68Ibid., pp. 75, 84; Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography (Jefferson LoA, pp. 28–31).

  69JM, Speech in the Federal Convention Opposing Equal Representation in the Senate, 14 July 1787 (LoA, p. 124).

  70JM, Vices of the Political System of the United States, April 1787 (LoA, p. 72).

  71JM, Federalist 20 (LoA, pp. 190, 188).

  72JM, Federalist 37 (LoA, pp. 199–200).

  73JM, Federalist 14 (LoA, p. 173).

  74JM to Edmund Randolph, 10 January 1788 (LoA, p. 192).

  75JM, Federalist 62 (LoA, p. 339).

  76JM, Speech in the Federal Convention Opposing Equal Representation in the Senate, 14 July 1787 (LoA, p. 125).

  77JM, Speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention on Ratification and Amendments, 24 June 1788 (LoA, p. 406); JM, Speech in the Federal Convention Opposing Equal Representation in the Senate, 14 July 1787 (LoA, p. 125).

  78JM, Federalist 54 (LoA, pp. 310–13).

  79JM, Speech in the Federal Convention on the General and State Governments, 21 June 1787 (LoA, p. 108).

  80JM, Federalist 14 (LoA, p. 170).

  81JM, Federalist 45 (LoA, p. 264).

  82JM, Speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention on Ratification and Amendments, 24 June 1788 (LoA, p. 404).

  83Bowen, op. cit., p. 79.

  84JM, Remarks in the Federal Convention on the Power to Negative State Laws, 8 June 1787 (LoA, p. 100).

  85Joseph Addison, “The Spacious Firmament on High”; JM Autobiography, p. 1; Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 40–41.

  86Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Man,” Epistle III, 11, 293–94.

  87JM, Federalist 51 (LoA, p. 29
5).

  88“An Essay on Man,” Epistle I, 11, 247–54.

  CHAPTER 10: James Madison: Practice

  1Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990), p. 277.

  2Jack Rakove, James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic, 3rd edition (New York: Longman, 2006), p. 93.

  3Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson (New York: Random House, 2010), p. 189.

  4Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 277–78, 280, 283, 286–87; Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., p. 191.

  5JM, Speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention on Ratification and Amendments, 24 June 1788, in James Madison, Writings, Jack N. Rakove, ed. (Library of America, 1999 [LoA]), p. 405.

  6Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 66–67.

  7JM to Richard Peters, 19 August 1789 (LoA, p. 471); Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., p. 197.

  8JM to Thomas Jefferson, 17 October 1788 (LoA, pp. 420–22).

  9Ketcham, op. cit., p. 276; JM to George Eve, 2 January 1789 (LoA, pp. 427–28).

  10JM, Speech in Congress Proposing Constitutional Amendments, 8 June 1789 (LoA, pp. 437–38).

  11Ibid. (LoA, p. 443); Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., p. 198.

  12JM, Remarks in Congress on Proposed Constitutional Amendments, 15 August 1789 (LoA, p. 470).

  1383 U.S. 36.

  14Ketcham, op. cit., p. 118.

  15JM, Autobiography (MS, Library of Congress), p. 9; Ketcham, op. cit., p. 308.

  16Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 307–9.

  17Ibid., pp. 311–12.

  18JM, Autobiography, p. 9.

  19Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., p. 223.

  20Ibid., p. 205.

  21Richard Brookhiser, Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, The Rake Who Wrote the Constitution (New York: Free Press, 2003), p. 199; David B. Mattern and Holly C. Shulman, ed., The Selected Letters of Dolley Payne Madison (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003 [DPM]), p. 197; John C. Hamilton, Life of Alexander Hamilton (Boston: Houghton, Osgood, 1879), VII, 686.

  22Wood, op. cit., p. 147.

  23JM to William Bradford, 9 November 1772 (LoA, p. 4).

  24JM, “Republican Distribution of Citizens,” National Gazette, 5 March 1792 (LoA, pp. 511–13).

  25JM, “Fashion,” National Gazette, 22 March 1792 (LoA, pp. 513–14).

  26The oil portrait, by Boston-born, London-based Mather Brown, is in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.

  27JM, “The Union: Who Are Its Real Friends?” National Gazette, 2 April 1792 (LoA, pp. 517–18).

  28JM, Speech in Congress Opposing the National Bank, 2 February 1791 (LoA, pp. 480–81).

  29Ibid. (LoA, pp. 482–89).

  30JM, “The Union, Who Are Its Real Friends?” (LoA, p. 518).

  31Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 226–27.

  32JM to Henry Lee, 25 June 1824 (LoA, pp. 803–4); JM, Speech in Congress on the Jay Treaty, 6 April 1796 (LoA, p. 574).

  33JM, Veto Message to Congress, 3 March 1817 (LoA, pp. 718–20); JM, Speech in Congress Opposing the National Bank, 2 February 1791 (LoA, p. 482); JM to Thomas Jefferson, 8 February 1825 (LoA, p. 808). Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to build only post roads for the mail, not a network of roads and canals for commerce.

  34JM, Federalist 44 (LoA, pp. 255–56); Alexander Hamilton, Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 23 February 1791 (Hamilton LoA, pp. 613–14).

  35Ketcham, op. cit., p. 291.

  36Ibid., pp. 419–22; Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., p. 392.

  37Wood, op. cit., p. 144.

  38Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 620–21, 637).

  39Wood, op. cit., p. 243.

  40Ibid., pp. 93, 263.

  41Ibid., p. 250.

  42JM, Report on the Alien and Sedition Acts, 7 January 1800 (LoA, p. 651); Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 394–95; Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., p. 336.

  43Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., pp. 344–45.

  44Ibid., pp. 336–67, 328.

  45Ketcham, op. cit., p. 396.

  46Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., p. 340.

  47JM to Edward Everett, 28 August 1830 (LoA, pp. 851–52); JM to James Robertson, 27 March 1832 (LoA, p. 853); LoA, p. 950.

  48JM, Virginia Resolutions Against the Alien and Sedition Acts, 21 December 1798 (LoA, pp. 590–91).

  49JM, Report on the Alien and Sedition Acts, 7 January 1800 (LoA, pp. 647–48).

  50JM, Virginia Resolutions Against the Alien and Sedition Acts, 21 December 1798 (LoA, p. 589).

  51Ketcham, op. cit., p. 399.

  52JM to Edward Everett, 28 August 1830 (LoA, pp. 842–44).

  53JM to Nicholas P. Trist, May 1832 (LoA, p. 860).

  54Ketcham, op. cit., p. 646; JM to William Cabell Rives, 12 March 1833 (LoA, p. 865).

  55JM, Advice to My Country, 1834 (LoA, p. 866).

  56Irving Brant, The Fourth President: A Life of James Madison (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970), p. 646.

  57Catherine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966), p. 13.

  58Ketcham, op. cit., p. 89.

  59Bowen, op. cit., p. 29.

  60Ketcham, op. cit., p. 360.

  61Ibid., p. 258.

  62January 1, 1788, quoted in Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., p. 166.

  63Ketcham, op. cit., p. 407.

  64Ibid., pp. 88, 108–9.

  65Ibid., pp. 663, 110.

  66Ibid., p. 376.

  67Catherine Allgor, A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (New York: Henry Holt, 2006), p. 27; Ketcham, op. cit., p. 378.

  68DPM, p. 16.

  69Allgor, op. cit., p. 232.

  70DPM, pp. 10–14.

  71Ibid., pp. 14–15.

  72Catharine Coles to DPM, 1 June 1794 (DPM, p. 27).

  73JM to DPM, 22 August 1794 (DPM, p. 28).

  74DPM to Eliza Collins Lee, 16 September 1794 (DPM, pp. 31–32).

  75JM to Thomas Jefferson, 2 September 1793 (LoA, p. 547); Ketcham, op. cit., p. 343.

  76Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., pp. 291, 302.

  77Ketcham, op. cit., p. 355.

  78Ibid., p. 666.

  79Thomas Jefferson to Judge Spencer Roane, 6 September 1819 (Jefferson LoA, p. 1425); Ketcham, op. cit., p. 411.

  80Allgor, op. cit., pp. 46–48; Ketcham, op. cit., p. 408.

  81David McCullough, John Adams (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), p. 553.

  82Wood, op. cit., p. 558.

  83Ibid., pp. 315–16.

  84Ibid., p. 359.

  85Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 284–85.

  86Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, C. B. Macpherson, ed. (Baltimore: Penguin, 1968), p. 160.

  87Ketcham, op. cit., p. 432.

  88Wood, op. cit., p. 288.

  89Allgor, op. cit., p. 59; Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 446–47.

  90DPM, p. 45.

  91Allgor, op. cit., p. 84.

  92Ibid., pp. 84–86.

  93Ibid., pp. 86–88.

  94Ibid., p. 85.

  95Ibid., p. 90.

  96Ibid., pp. 96–98.

  97Ibid., p. 91.

  98Wood, op. cit., p. 351.

  99Ibid., pp. 351–52.

  100Ibid., pp. 308, 254.

  101JM, “Who Are the Best Keepers of the People’s Liberties?” National Gazette, 22 December 1792 (LoA, pp. 532–33).

  102Wood, op. cit., p. 10.

  103Ibid., pp. 329, 318–19.

  104Ibid., pp. 327–28.

  105Ibid., pp. 396–97.

  106Allgor, op. cit., p. 178.

  107Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 498–99.

  108Allgor, op. cit., pp. 67–71, 156.

  109DPM, p. 46.

  110Allgor, op. cit., p. 144.

  111Ibid., p. 200.

  112DPM, p. 96.

  113Allgor, op. cit., p. 174.

  114DPM, p. 94.

 
; 115Ibid., pp. 95–97.

  116Allgor, op. cit., p. 243.

  117Ibid., p. 195.

  118DPM, p. 96.

  119Allgor, op. cit., p. 183.

  120Ibid., p. 190.

  121Ibid., pp. 247–48; Wood, op. cit., pp. 662–63.

  122Wood, op. cit., p. 276.

  123Thomas Jefferson, First Annual Message, 8 December 1801 (Jefferson LoA, p. 504).

  124Wood, op. cit., pp. 293, 298.

  125Ibid., pp. 292–93.

  126Ibid., pp. 620–23, 625.

  127“Administrative History,” Papers Relating to the British Seizure of American Ships, 1793–1801 (Special Collections, Witchita State University Libraries).

  128Wood, op. cit., p. 640.

  129Ibid., pp. 621, 646; Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 451, 456.

  130Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 452–53; Wood, op. cit., pp. 641–43, 647.

  131Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 456–57, 463.

  132Wood, op. cit., p. 655.

  133Ibid., pp. 656–57.

  134Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 465–66.

  135Ibid., pp. 474–75; JM, First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1809 (LoA, p. 681).

  136Wood, op. cit., pp. 664–67, 684.

  137Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., p. 508.

  138JM, War Message to Congress, 1 June 1812 (LoA, pp. 685–92).

  139Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 508–9, 513, 537; Wood, op. cit., pp. 660–61, 695.

  140Wood, op. cit., pp. 299–300; Ketcham, op. cit., p. 532.

  141Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 481–82.

  142Ibid., p. 521.

  143Wood, op. cit., p. 664.

  144Ketcham, op. cit., p. 532.

  145Ibid., p. 566; Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Short History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), p. 20.

  146Wood, op. cit., p. 672.

  147Ibid., pp. 673, 684, 692.

  148Ibid., p. 677.

  149Burstein and Isenberg, op. cit., pp. 487–91; Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 500–501.

  150Richard Rush to Benjamin Rush, 20 June 1812, quoted in Henry Adams, History of the United States During the First Administration of Madison, Part 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890), p. 229.

  151Hickey, op. cit., pp. 23–24; Wood, op. cit., p. 679.

  152Hickey, op. cit., pp. 26–27.

  153Ibid., pp. 27–28.

  154Wood, op. cit., pp. 635–39, 681–82, 684–86.

  155Ibid., pp. 683–84, 688–90; Ketcham, op. cit., pp. 573–74; Allgor, op. cit., p. 311.

  156DPM to Edward Coles, 13 May 1813 (DPM, p. 176).

  157DPM to Lucy Payne Washington Todd, 23 August 1814 (DPM, pp. 193–94).