by Chris DeRose
statue of
Washington, William
Washington Bible
Waters, Philip
Watson, Gregory
Wayne, General
Western lands
Whipple, Abraham
White, Alexander
Wilson, James
Winchester Gazette
Winston, Isaac
Witherspoon, John
“World Turned Upside Down, The,”
Wyncoops, Henry
Wythe, George
a The Washington Bible, as it is known today, was used at the inaugurations of Presidents Harding, Eisenhower, Carter, and George H. W. Bush, and at the funerals of Presidents Lincoln, Taylor, Jackson, and Washington himself, as well as on other important occasions, including the laying of the cornerstone for the United States Capitol and the dedication of the Washington Monument.
b On August 23, 1784, a convention was held at which the counties of Washington, Greene, and Sullivan, North Carolina, declared independence, forming their own constitution and government. North Carolina had given these counties to Congress in partial payment of their debt. The leaders of the self-proclaimed State of Franklin negotiated with Congress and Spain to preserve their independence, but ultimately gave in and accepted the authority of North Carolina, which promptly ceded the counties back to Congress. Tennessee would eventually include these counties and others to the west. John Sevier, governor of the Republic of Franklin, became Tennessee’s first governor. See James Gilmore, John Sevier (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887).
c Delaware had never been a separate colony from Pennsylvania. “The Lower Counties” had their own colonial legislature but were still part of Pennsylvania. The two shared a Royal Governor, and it was not extraordinary that they should have a common executive as separate states. L. S. Mayo, John Wentworth, Governor of New Hampshire : 1767-1775 (Harvard University Press, 1921), 5.
d Veto power was a rarity in 1787. Presidents of the Continental Congress and Congress of the Confederation had no such authority, nor did the governors of most states. Americans, including Madison, feared the veto power that Royal Governors had had over colonial legislatures. The South Carolina Constitution of 1776 was the first to give the governor veto power, but when the executive finally used it, the backlash forced him to resign. The veto was then eliminated from the South Carolina Constitution in 1778.7 The Virginia Governor had no role in legislation. But Madison believed that the Virginia governor, like most of his counterparts in other states, was too weak and that the executive should play some role in the legislative process.
e It is worth noting that Virginia, the most populous state, had only around fourteen residents for every one in Delaware. Today, California has over sixty-three residents for each resident of Wyoming. Philadelphia Convention delegates seem to have believed that population gaps would diminish, not increase enormously in the future. But over 220 years after the Convention, the residents of the smallest state have sixty-three times the senatorial representation of those who live in the largest.
f One party to the case in question was none other than James Madison. In Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice Marshall ruled part of the Judiciary Act unconstitutional, in the first exercise of federal judicial review.
g Senators would not be directly elected until 1913, with the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment.
h In the 1960s, the Supreme Court ruled that districts for the House of Representatives must adhere to the “one man, one vote” principle, and each must be roughly equal in population.
i Meeting in the newly renamed Federal Hall, which had been built in 1700 as New York’s City Hall. For a young nation with few places of historic significance, this was an exception. In 1765, the “Stamp Act Congress” had met here, and for the past four years the Congress of the Confederation; it would now serve for the two most significant sessions of Congress. The nation’s capital moved to Philadelphia in 1790. Federal Hall remained standing until 1800, when it was torn down and sold as scrap for $400.
j The only one of Madison’s amendments never to be ratified guaranteed one representative in the House of Representatives for every thirty thousand people. If it had passed, the U.S. House would now stand at one thousand members, instead of its current 435.
The other of Madison’s twelve proposed amendments not passed in 1791 would be ratified in 1992. It was a simple, one-sentence amendment that prevented salary increases for members of Congress from taking effect until an intervening election of the House of Representatives. There had been a great deal of concern about Congress’s ability to increase its own pay, and this amendment would have put some check on that power by forcing the entire House and a third of the Senate to face the voters before receiving the salary bump. When the rest of the Bill of Rights went into effect, only six states had adopted the amendment affecting congressional pay. It was nearly forgotten until 1982, when it was championed by Gregory Watson, a twenty-year-old college student at the University of Texas at Austin who wrote a paper suggesting that ratification was still possible. For his efforts, Watson was awarded a C in a class on government, but he engaged in an aggressive campaign to win passage of the amendment, writing letters to the legislatures in every state in America. One state after another joined the bandwagon until 1992, when the amendment on congressional pay increases became the Twenty-Seventh Amendment to the Constitution, the last law written by James Madison to be passed—202 years after its introduction.
k The younger Hamilton represented Eliza Jumel in her divorce suit against Aaron Burr, the man who had killed his father. Such an instance of legal representation is unique in the annals of American history.
l In the transportation of his casket from New York, an accident aboard the sloop claimed the life of Alexander Hamilton’s grandson.
Copyright © 2011 by Chris DeRose
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
DeRose, Chris (Christopher)
Founding rivals : Madison vs. Monroe, the Bill of Rights and the election that saved a nation / by Chris DeRose.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-596-98282-6
1. United States—Politics and government—1783-1789. 2. United States. Congress—Elections, 1789. 3. United States. Constitution. 1st-10th Amendments 4. Madison, James, 1751-1836—Political and social views. 5. Monroe, James, 1758-1831--Political and social views. I. Title.
E302.1.D47 2011
973.5—dc23
2011019432
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