American Experiment

by James Macgregor Burns

  [Alexander Hamilton on the question Americans must decide]: Federalist No. 1, Edward Mead Earle, ed., The Federalist (Modern Library, 1937), p. 5.

  [Early Americans on their country as mission or venture]: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Address to the American Historical Association, Washington, DC, Dec. 29, 1976, reprinted under the title “America: Experiment or Destiny?” American Historical Review, Vol. 82, No. 3 (June 1977), pp. 505-22.

  A Rage for Liberty

  [Franklin’s home and addition in Philadelphia]: Franklin to M. le Veillard, April 15, 1787, in Albert Henry Smyth, ed. The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (Macmillan, 1907), Vol. 9, pp. 558-62; on aspects and artifacts of his home, see Robert D. Crompton, “Franklin’s House off High Street in Philadelphia,” Antiques, Vol. 102, No. 4 (October 1972), pp. 680-83; George B. Tatum, Penn’s Great Town (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961), p. 158 and illustration No. 15.

  [Description of Franklin]: quoted in Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (Viking Press, 1938), p. 750.

  [The Philadelphia of Franklin’s time]: Edwin Wolf 2nd, Philadelphia: Portrait of an American City (Stackpole, 1975); George B. Tatum, Philadelphia Georgian (Wesleyan University Press, 1976).

  [Independence Hall]: David W. Belisle, History of Independence Hall (James Challen &Son, 1859). [Franklin on “hanging together”]: John H. Hazelton, The Declaration of Independence: Its History (Dodd, Mead, 1906), p. 209.

  [Liberty as a precious jewel]: cited in Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Belknap Press: 1967), pp. 62, 114.

  [Hamilton on the “rage for liberty”]: quoted in John C. Miller, Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox (Harper & Brothers, 1959), p. 113.

  [Saxon origin of liberty]: Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (University of North Carolina Press, 1969), pp. 31, 228.

  [Congregationalism vs. Baptists]: Bailyn, pp. 264-66. [Baptists and Quakers vs. John Adams]: ibid., 268-69. [Virginia Declaration of Rights]: ibid., p. 260.

  [Benjamin Franklin on “publick liberty “]: quoted in Clinton Rossiter, Seedtime of the Republic (Harcourt, Brace, 1953), p. 299.

  [John Adams on liberty and property]: from Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, quoted in Francis W. Coker, Democracy, Liberty, and Property (Macmillan, 1942), p. 125. [Continental Congressman on dilemma of liberty and luxury]: quoted in Wood, p. 65.

  [Slavery in America, 1770s and 1780s]: Donald L. Robinson, Slavery in the Structure of American Politics, 1765-1820 (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971). Chs. 3 and 4; [Samuel Johnson on “yelps for liberty “]: quoted in Robinson, p. 80. See also Edmund S. Morgan, “Slavery and Freedom: The American Paradox,” Journal of American History, Vol. 59, No. 1 (June 1972), pp. 5-29.

  [American self-image in the eighteenth century]: quotations from Wood, p. 99; Bailyn, pp. 138-39.

  [“Evils and calamities” making for crisis]: John Jay to George Washington, June 27, 1786, John Jay Papers, Columbia University; also in Henry P. Johnston, ed., Correspondences and Public Papers of John Jay (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1891), Vol. 3, pp. 203-5.

  [The “mortal diseases”]: James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, March 19, 1787, in Robert A. Rutland, ed., Papers of James Madison (University of Chicago Press, 1975), Vol. 9, p. 318.

  [Wood on shift to institutional concern]: Wood, p. 463.

  [John Quincy Adams on the crisis as one of credit and contracts]: quoted in Robert A. East, John Quincy Adams: The Critical Years: 1785-1794 (Bookman Associates, 1962), pp. 85-86.

  [Contingency in history]: Sidney Hook, The Hero in History (John Day, 1943); Edward Hallett Carr, What Is History? (Alfred A. Knopf, 1962); Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox (Simon and Schuster, 1970). The Americans’ “experiments” in different forms and powers of government have been described in detail by Wood, esp. Parts II-IV.

  [“Almost every pen” at work]: quoted in Wood, p. 6. [Madison’s correspondence with fellow Virginians]: see esp. George Washington to Madison, March 31, 1787, Rutland, Vol. 9, pp. 342-44; Madison to Edmund Randolph, April 15, 1787, ibid, pp. 378-80; Madison to Washington, April 16, 1787, ibid., pp. 382-87. See also relevant letters, ibid.Vol. 10. [Madison’s suspicions of Patrick Henry and George Mason]: ibid., Vol. 9, p. 331, pp. 50, 55.

  Madison’s Vices of the Political System of the United States is reprinted in Rutland, Papers, pp. 348-57. I have drawn information and whole sentences on Madison’s final weeks in New York and journey to Philadelphia from my The Deadlock of Democracy (Prentice-Hall, 1963), Ch. 1, and sources referred to therein.

  Philadelphia: The Continental Caucus

  [Pinckney’s trip to Philadelphia]: Marvin R. Zahniser, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (University of North Carolina Press, 1967), p. 87. [Gerry’s trip]: George Athan Billias, Elbridge Gerry: Founding Father and Republican Statesman (McGraw-Hill, 1976), p. 156. [Johnson’s trip]: George C. Groce, Jr., William Samuel Johnson (Columbia University Press, 1937), pp. 139, 172-73; see also Committee on Historical Publications, Roads and Road-Making in Colonial Connecticut (Yale University Press, 1933), Tercentenary Commission of the State of Connecticut, Pamphlet Series 1-15.

  [Washington’s arrival in Philadelphia]: Clinton Rossiler, 1787: The Grand Convention (Macmillan, 1966), pp. 159-60.

  [Mason on Madison’s early activities]: Burns, p. 14. [Blending of politician and scholar]: ibid., p. 15.

  [Some major works on the character and background of delegates to the 1787 convention]: Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (Macmillan, 1929); Robert E. Brown, Charles Beard and the Constitution (Princeton University Press, 1956); Merrill Jensen, The New Motion (Alfred A. Knopf, 1950); Forrest McDonald, We the People (University of Chicago Press, 1958); Edmund S. Morgan, The Birth of the Republic. 1763-89 (University of Chicago Press, 1956); Cecilia M. Kenyon, “Men of Little Faith: The Anti-Federalists on the Nature of Representative Government,” William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 12, No. 1 (January 1955). Pp. 3-43; Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Founding Fathers: Young Men of the Revolution (American Historical Association, 1962); Arthur Taylor Prescott, Drafting the Federal Constitution (Louisiana State University Press, 1941), a topical analysis.

  [Gladstone on Constitution]: John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations (Little, Brown, 1943), p. 450.

  [Biographical data on the delegates]: Rossiter, Ch. 8.

  [Regulators in the Massachusetts elections]: Hall, Ch. 8.

  [Madison on “wicked measures”]: Madison to Edmund Pendleton, April 22, 1787, in Gaillard Hunt, ed., The Writings of James Madison, Vol. II (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1901), P· 354

  [Malcontents as “scum”]: Wood, pp. 476, 498.

  [Main sources on proceedings of the federal convention]: Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Vols. I-IV (Yale University Press, 1966); Gaillard Hunt, ed. , The Journal of the Debates in the Convention Which Framed the Constitution of the United States (as recorded by James Madison), Vols. I—II (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908); Jonathan Elliot, comp., The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution … , Vols. I-V (Lippincott, 1836), known as Elliots Debates.

  [Randolph’s proposals.]: Farrand, Vol. I, pp. 20, 21.

  [Pinckney on question of abolition of state governments]: ibid., pp. 33-34.

  [Pierce on James Wilson]: Farrand, Vol. 3, pp. 91-92.

  [Pierce on Paterson]: Ibid., p. 90.

  [Paterson’s speech]: Farrand, Vol. 1, pp. 242 ff.

  [Rutledge on gentlemen’s shyness in regard to the national executive]: ibid., p. 65. Pinckney, Sherman, Gerry, and Wilson discussion: ibid., pp. 65-66.

  [Gerry on choosing the executive]: ibid., p. 80.

  [National judiciary discussion]: ibid, pp. 119 ff.

  [Appointment of judges]: ibid, pp. 118 ff.; Vol. 2, pp. 41 ff.

  [Paterson on slaves as lacking personal liberty]: quoted in Robinson, p. 192 (note Robinson�
�s interpretation of Paterson’s statement).

  [Robinson on white workers’ attitude toward slaves]: ibid, p. 28.

  [Rossiter on the delegates and slavery]: Rossiter, p. 267.

  [Franklin on sawing boards to make them fit]: Farrand, Vol. 1, pp. 489, 499.

  [Lafayette to John Jay, August 4, 1787]: John Jay Papers.

  [Hamilton on the need for a powerful national government]: Farrand, Vol. 1, pp. 282-311.

  2. The Third Cadre

  [Franklin’s remark at convention’s end]: Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (Yale University Press, 1966), Vol. II, p. 648 (Sept. 17, 1787).

  [Washington taking leave]: John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Diaries of George Washington (Houghton Mifflin, 1925), Vol. 3, p. 237.

  [Roger Sherman on the power of Congress not extending to the press]: Charles Warren, The Making of the Constitution (Little, Brown, 1937), p. 508.

  [Transmission of Constitution by Congress to states]: Clinton Rossiter, 1787: The Grand Convention (Macmillan, 1966), p. 275. [Lee’s comment on the “unanimous” transmission]: Richard Henry Lee to George Mason, Oct. 1, 1787, in James Curtis Ballagh, ed., The Letters of Richard Henry Lee (Macmillan, 1914), Vol. 2, p. 439.

  [Anti-Federalist (Melancton Smith) on twenty assemblies being equally respectable]: Paul Leicester Ford, ed., Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1888), p. 115.

  [Alexander Hamilton, Madison, and the Federalist]: John C. Miller, Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox (Harper & Brothers, 1959), Ch. 12; see also James Madison to George Washington, Nov. 18, 1787, in Robert A. Rutland, ed., Papers of James Madison (University of Chicago Press, 1975), Vol. 10, p. 254; Irving Brant, James Madison: Father of the Constitution (Bobbs-Merrill, 1950), pp. 170-71; Jacob E. Cooke, ed., The Federalist (Wesleyan University Press, 1961), Introduction, pp. xi-xviii; Marvin Meyers, “Founding and Revolution: A Commentary on Publius-Madison,” in Stanley Elkins and Eric McKilrick, eds., The Hofstadter Aegis (Alfred A. Knopf, 1974). PP 3-35.

  [Dropping of the Federalist by one newspaper]: Cooke, p. 600.

  [Publishers on demand for Federalist]: Cooke, p. xiv.

  [Federalist as America’s greatest contribution to political philosophy]: ibid., jacket cover.

  The Anti-Federalists

  [The anti-Federalist network]: Robert Allen Rutland, The Ordeal of the Constitution (University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), Ch. 3. See also Jackson Turner Main, The Antifederalists (University of North Carolina Press, 1961), passim.

  [Madison on “respectable names” among his adversaries]: Madison to Archibald Stuart, Oct.

  30, 1787, Rutland, Madison Papers, Vol. 10, p. 232.

  [Ratification of the Constitution in Pennsylvania]: the definitive source is Merrill Jensen, ed., Ratification of the Constitution by the States—Pennsylvania, Vol. 2 of The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution (State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976).

  [Remarks of Robert Whitehill]: ibid, pp. 393-98.

  [Shuffling and stamping of feet in the Connecticut convention]: Rutland, Ordeal, p. 85.

  [Ratification in Massachusetts]: Van Beck Hall, Politics Without Parties: Massachusetts, 1780-1791 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1972), Chs. 9 and 10; Rutland, Ordeal, Chs. 5 and 6; George A. Billias, Elbridge Gerry (McGraw-Hill, 1976), Ch. 14; Robert Ernst, Rufus King (University of North Carolina Press, 1968); John C. Miller, Sam Adams (Stanford University Press, 1936); Samuel Bannister Harding, Contest over the Ratification of the Federal Constitution in the State of Massachusetts (Longmans, Green, 1896).

  [Gerry’s style as too sublime]: Ford, p. 1.

  [Federalist and anti-Federalist invective]: quoted in Rutland, Ordeal, p. 73.

  [Richard Henry Lee to Samuel Adams on toiling in the “Vineyard of liberty”]: Richard Henry Lee to Sam Adams, Oct. 5, 1787, and Sept. 2 (?), 1787, Samuel Adams Papers, New York Public Library.

  [Incident in Sheffield]: Rutland, Ordeal, p. 79.

  [Gerry incident]: Rutland, Madison Papers, Vol. 10, pp. 345, 376, 400-1; Billias, pp. 213-14; Rutland, Ordeal, p. 96.

  [Nasson on liberty]: Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1788 (William White, 1856), pp. 235-36. On the third-cadre leaders in Massachusetts, see also Harding, pp. 63-65.

  [Maine observer]: quoted in Rutland, Ordeal, p. 118.

  [Ratification in Maryland]: Philip A. Crowl, “Anti-Federalism in Maryland, 1787- 1788,” William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 4, No. 4 (October 1947), pp. 446-69.

  The Course Is Set

  [Ratification in Virginia]: Rutland, Madison Papers, passim; Fitzpatrick, Washington Diaries, passim; John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington (Government Printing Office, 1939), passim; Robert D. Meade, Patrick Henry: Practical Revolutionary (Lippincott, 1969).

  [Patrick Henry’s speech to Virginia convention]: quoted in Meade, p. 356.

  [A friend’s warning to Madison to come home to run for election ]: Joseph Spencer to Madison, Feb. 28, 1788, Rutland, Madison Papers, Vol. 10, pp. 540-41.

  [Madison’s answer to Henry]: Gaillard Hunt, ed., The Writings of James Madison (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), Vol. 5, pp. 125-26.

  [Anti-Federalist on “energy” and “liberty”]: Rutland, Ordeal, p. 231.

  [Henry’s final speech]: ibid., pp. 248-49.

  [Vote of the Allegheny men in favor of the Constitution]: Dorothy Davis, John George Jackson (McClain Printing, 1976), pp. 13-18, 346 n. 44.

  [Monroe to Jefferson on Washington’s influence]: Rutland, Ordeal, p. 253.

  [Ratification in New York]: Miller, Hamilton, Ch. 14; E. Wilder Spaulding, His Excellency George Clinton (Macmillan, 1938), Ch. 13; anon, (taken in shorthand), The Debates and Proceedings of the Convention of the State of New York (Francis Childs, 1788); Frank Monaghan, John Jay (Bobbs-Merrill, 1935); Linda Grant DePauw, The Eleventh Pillar: New York and the Federal Constitution (Cornell University Press, 1966).

  [Invective against anti-Federalists “daily going about to poison the tenants”]: quoted in Rutland, Ordeal, p. 204.

  [Hamilton’s appeal to Scotsmen]: Harold C. Syrett, ed., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (Columbia University Press, 1962), Vol. 4, pp. 645-46.

  [A Clintonian on opponents’ invective]: quoted in Rutland, Ordeal, p. 203.

  [Hamilton on elections going wrong]: Hamilton to Gouverneur Morris, May 19, 1788, Syrett, p. 651.

  [A Clintonian on the “wellborn” lacking influence]: James M. Hughes to John Lamb, June 18, 1787; John Jay Papers, Columbia University.

  [John Jay to Washington on Virginia victory]: July 4, 1788, John Jay Papers.

  [Madison insists on “one adoption”]: Miller, Hamilton, p. 214.

  [AntiFederalists’amendments]: John Jay to Washington, July 18, 1787, and July 23, 1787, John Jay Papers.

  [The parade in New York City]: Miller, Hamilton, p. 213.

  Vice and Virtue

  [“Women of the republic”]: term from Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic (University of North Carolina Press, 1980).

  [Women’s roles during this period]: see Kerber, esp. Chs. 4 and 9; Mary Sumner Benson, Women in Eighteenth-Century America: A Study of Opinion and Social Usage (Columbia University Press, 1935); Pauline Maier, The Old Revolutionaries (Alfred A. Knopf, 1980).

  [Mercy Otis Warren]: Vera O. Laska, “Remember the Ladies”—Outstanding Women of the American Revolution (Commonwealth of Massachusetts Bicentennial Commission, May 1976), pp. 36-60; Notable American Women; Kerber, Chs. 3 and 8.

  [Warren as a playwright who probably never saw a play]: Laska, p. 45.

  [Warren’s rationale for wider participation by women]: quoted in Kerber, pp. 83-84.

  [Warren’s authorship of attack on the Constitution]: Mercy Warren to Catharine Macaulay, Sept. 28, 1787, and Dec. 18, 1787, Mercy Warren Letterbook, Massachusetts Historical Society; Charles Warren, “Elbridge Gerry, James Warren, Mercy Warren and the Ratification of the Federa
l Constitution in Massachusetts,” Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, Vol. 64 (June 1932), pp. 143-64.

  [Warren’s attack]: “Observations on the new constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions. By a Columbian Patriot,” Richard Henry Lee, ed. (Quadrangle Books, 1962), pp. 1-19.

  [Quotations from “Observations …”]: pp. 1, 8, 19, 3, resp.

  [Warren on “liberty delights the ear”]: Mercy Warren to Catharine Macaulay, July 29, 1779, Mercy Warren Letterbook, Massachusetts Historical Society.

  [Framers defend social pluralism]: Madison to Jefferson, Oct. 24, 1787, Hunt, Vol. 5, pp. 17-41.

  [Governmental tyranny]: George W. Carey, “Separation of Powers and the Madisonian Model: A Reply to the Critics,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 72, No. 1 (March 1978), pp. 151-64.

  [Pinckney on the one order of Commons]: Charles C. Tansill, ed., Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union of the American States (Government Printing Office, 1927). p. 273.

  [Problem of representation in the Constitution]: Jean Yarbrough, “Thoughts on the Federalist’s View of Representation,” Polity, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Fall 1979), pp. 65-82; see also Robert A. Goldwin, ed., Representation and Misrepresentation (Rand McNally, 1968); Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, I776-1787 (University of North Carolina Press, 1969), passim; The Federalist, passim; Richard W. Krouse, “Two Concepts of Democratic Republicanism: Madison and Tocqueville on Pluralism and Party in American Politics,” paper prepared for delivery at the 1977 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., Sept. 1977.

  [Values of Federalists and anti-Federalists]: Irving Kristol, ed., The American Commonwealth (Basic Books, 1976), esp. Martin Diamond, “The Declaration and the Constitution: Liberty, Democracy and the Founders,” pp. 39-55;Jean Yarbrough, “Republicanism Reconsidered: Some Thoughts on the Foundation and Preservation of the American Republic,” Review of Politics, Vol. 41. No. 1 (January 1979), pp. 61-95; George W. Carey and James McClellan, “Towards the Restoration of the American Political Tradition,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 38, No. 3 (August 1976), pp.110-27.