27701Notes (Madison Papers)
For many years everyone interested in the Declaration of Rights, including JM, believed that Mason’s first draft of it was a paper in his hand, bearing the caption, “Copy of the first Daught [ sic ] by GM.” This paper has been reproduced in facsimile at least twice—once between p. 240 and p. 241 of Vol. I of Kate M. Rowland, Life of George Mason , and again in Virginia Cavalcade , I [1951],...
27702The General Assembly Session of May 1784 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
The sword had been sheathed, so the problems faced by the Commonwealth of Virginia and her sister states in 1784 were no longer a life-and-death matter. As James Madison rode down to Richmond in May his thoughts must have been on the still-unsolved dilemma that had confronted Congress from almost the outset: finance. The cost of running the small bureaucracy that kept the Confederation...
27703Editorial Note: Resolutions on Private Debts Owed to British Merchants (Madison Papers)
Among the leading public men of revolutionary Virginia JM’s rising eminence is the more noticeable because of his youth and the advantages attending it. As a man in his mid-twenties when the war began, unmarried and under no obligation to provide for a family, he had not been upon the scene long enough to become encumbered with the prewar debts that were the constant fret of almost all...
27704Editorial Note: Madison’s Notes for Debates on the General Assessment Bill (Madison Papers)
Once the Revolution began, most Virginians accepted all fundamental breaks with the past save one—the established church. Clearly it was preservation of the old, comforting traditions of the Anglican church and not the institution of established religion per se that interested many men who ordinarily had the most advanced ideas about individual rights. Thus the maintenance of even the most...
27705The General Assembly Session of October 1785 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
The Virginia legislative session of 1785 was a complicated interplay of power politics and constitutional issues. Even before the delegates and senators met in Richmond, the people were excited by the issues which would be discussed. Petitions concerning slavery and emancipation raised tempers on a subject which would long occupy the General Assembly. The attempt to gain state funds to support...
27706Madison’s Authorship of The Federalist, 22 November 1787–1 March 1788 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
After the adjournment of the Federal Convention and his return to Congress in New York, JM did not expect to participate actively in the campaign to ratify the proposed Constitution. Privately disappointed with the outcome of the convention, he nevertheless wished the new plan well and was an interested observer of its reception in the various states. Although the initial reaction was almost...
27707The Virginia Convention, 2–27 June 1788 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
In contrast to the absolutism of eighteenth-century Europe, the nation forming in America between 1775 and 1789 took a popular course and thereby introduced republicanism on a large scale along with all the uncertainty that attends an appeal to the people. JM’s career as a political theorist was climaxed at the Federal Convention, but his ability to meet the opposition on the hustings and in...
27708Madison’s Election to the First Federal Congress, October 1788–February 1789 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
The first federal election in Virginia took place in an atmosphere of bitterness that carried over from the preceding June, when the Federalists had scored a narrow victory for unconditional ratification of the Constitution. At the autumn meeting of the General Assembly, Patrick Henry and his Anti-federalist followers were firmly in control and eagerly seized the opportunity presented by the...
27709Madison at the First Session of the First Federal Congress, 8 April–29 September 1789 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
The United States officially began its existence as a federal republic with the meeting of the First Congress in March 1789. During the preceding fourteen years the Continental Congress had been the American central government. Now there was a three-branched federal mechanism, designed at Philadelphia in 1787 to cure the chronic ailments of its predecessor. The demands placed on the First...
27710A Note on the Sources of Madison’s Speeches in the Second and Third Sessions of the First Congress, 25 January 1790–8 … (Madison Papers)
As explained in the preceding volume, the editors have followed contemporary sources rather than the Annals of Congress Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, 1789–1824 (42 vols.; Washington, 1834–56). in presenting the texts of JM’s speeches in Congress ( PJM William T. Hutchinson et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (vols. 1–10, Chicago, 1962–77; vols. 11—,...
27711Madison in the Third Congress, 2 December 1793–3 March 1795 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
During the last days of the Second Congress, JM made his longest speech of the session in support of William Branch Giles’s resolutions censuring Alexander Hamilton’s official conduct as secretary of the treasury ( PJM Robert A. Rutland et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series (1 vol. to date; Charlottesville, Va., 1984—). , 14:456–68 and nn.). The result was predictable....
27712Madison in the Fourth Congress, 7 December 1795–3 March 1797 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
More than a month after the ending of the second session of the Third Congress, JM left Philadelphia to return to Montpelier, where he arrived on or about 21 April 1795. At the same time, John Beckley, clerk of the House of Representatives and JM’s political associate, departed from Philadelphia for New York, where he arranged for the publication of a pamphlet written by JM at the request of...
27713The Case of Robert Randall and Charles Whitney, 28 December 1795–13 January 1796 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
In September 1795 John Askin and six other British merchants in Detroit formed a partnership with three Americans, Robert Randall of Philadelphia and Ebenezer Allen and Charles Whitney of Vermont. Their intention was to extinguish the Indian title and obtain preemption rights to some twenty million acres of land in an area that included the Michigan peninsula as well as the northern regions of...
27714Madison’s Aurora General Advertiser Essays, 23 January–23 February 1799 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
In his 12 January 1799 letter to Jefferson , JM enclosed “a few observations,” which the editors believe were published under the title of “Foreign Influence” in the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser on 23 January 1799. Similarly, on 8 February, JM forwarded to Jefferson “a few more observations,” and the editors have concluded that these appeared in the same newspaper on 23 February...
27715The Election of 1800, October 1800–February 1801 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
In 1834 JM recalled the “Crisis” in government during the Adams administration and the part he had played in Jefferson’s “election to the Chief Magistracy” in 1800. His role in those events, he declared, was well known, but since the letters received at Montpelier that survive far outnumber those sent during this period, it is more difficult now to determine just how involved JM was in the...
27716The Recently Rediscovered Letters of Edmund Pendleton, 25 March 1782–30 January 1795 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
The following is the first of 37 letters from Edmund Pendleton to JM that either have never been previously published or have been published only in the form of a partial extract. Twenty-five of the letters fall into the former category and 12 into the latter. These letters are part of a larger collection of 155 letters and other documents that Pendleton wrote to JM and to his father, James...
27717Madison and the Hiatus at the State Department, 4 March–2 May 1801 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
In mid-December 1800 Jefferson wrote JM and asked him to come to Washington before 5 March to “assuage the minority [in Congress], & inspire in the majority confidence & joy unbounded, which they would spread far & wide on their journey home.” In his reply JM expressed his concern to Jefferson about the still-unsettled presidential election and his reluctance to appear in Washington “before...
27718Avoiding the Maelstrom of Saint-Domingue, 1 May–1 June 1801 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
During the undeclared naval war with France, Congress had prohibited trade with Saint-Domingue and other French colonies. (In 1801 Saint-Domingue embraced the entire island now occupied by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.) The act of 9 February 1799 contained a clause allowing the president to open trade with any French island or port when the interests of the United States warranted such a...
27719Dispatching a Naval Squadron to the Mediterranean, 20–21 May 1801 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
On 20 and 21 May 1801 JM signed letters announcing the sailing of an American naval expedition to the Mediterranean. Circular letters went to the American ministers in Europe and to consuls in the Mediterranean, while special instructions were sent to the consuls in Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers. This flurry of correspondence had the purpose of instructing these agents to assist the expedition...
27720The George Joy Correspondence: The Presidential Years, 8 March 1809–30 March 1816 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
The case of George Joy and his 127 letters to JM offers a special problem in editorial discretion. Born in Massachusetts to a prominent merchant in the British colonial service, Joy was a young man when the Revolution broke out in Boston. While he did not share his father’s Loyalism, he and the entire family fled the upheaval, first visiting British-occupied New York (where George apparently...
27721The Embargo and New England: A Presidential Dilemma, 15 March 1809 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
The winter months of 1808–9 witnessed extreme discontent in New England, with loyal Democratic Republicans trying to contain opposition to the Embargo and outraged Federalists insisting that the Embargo was unconstitutional, unenforceable, and even tyrannical. At Welles, in the Maine district, angry freeholders assembled on the first anniversary of the Embargo enactment and said the day marked...
27722Madison’s First Public Crisis: Olmstead v. the Executrices of the Late David Rittenhouse, 6 April–6 May 1809 (Editorial … (Madison Papers)
What began as a contested capture-at-sea prize action during the Revolution had grown by 1809 into a much-publicized test of state will and federal authority. Republicans anxious to demonstrate that the federal government in their hands would respect the rights of states found the case embarrassing; Federalist newspapers gleefully pounced upon it as an example of their opponents’ hypocrisy....
27723Presidential Proclamation Restoring Commerce with Great Britain, 15–19 April 1809 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
After years of frustration and internal division, the virtues of patience and firmness suddenly seemed to have showered blessings on the Madison administration even before the inaugural bunting had been stored away. Instructions for a temporary relaxation of England’s hostile American policy, including a willingness to pay for the Chesapeake damages and a withdrawal of the most offensive...
27724Madison, Francis James Jackson, and Robert Smith, 9 October–11 November 1809 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
The role played by JM in shaping Robert Smith’s correspondence with Francis James Jackson poses editorial problems of unusual difficulty. These problems do not require the removal of obstacles to an understanding of JM’s views about the conduct of the British minister during his short and unfortunate mission; they raise, instead, ultimately unanswerable questions about the extent to which JM...
27725Madison and Lafayette’s Louisiana Lands, 26 October 1809 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
A full account of the American efforts to recompense the marquis de Lafayette for his Revolutionary War services has yet to appear. The business was a long and complicated one, as was JM’s involvement in it. This commenced in 1802 while JM was secretary of state and continued into his second presidential term. Not even retirement from the presidency in 1817, however, would entirely relieve JM...
27726Madison and the Collapse of the Spanish-American Empire: The West Florida Crisis of 1810, 20 April 1810 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
The letter of Samuel Fulton to JM, 20 April 1810 , introduces one of the more dramatic developments JM witnessed during his terms as secretary of state and president of the United States—the revolutions for independence in the Spanish-American colonies. At the beginning of 1808 Spain still ruled an American empire stretching from California to Cape Horn; twenty years later it retained only...
27727The Madisons’ Travels in Virginia during the British Occupation of Washington, 24–26 August (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
Circumstances dictated that the planned cabinet rendezvous in Fredericktown (now Frederick), Maryland, mentioned at the end of Madison’s 24 August 1814 memorandum on his conversations with John Armstrong, would not take place. After returning to Washington following the Battle of Bladensburg, JM crossed the Potomac River to Virginia, as did Dolley Madison. Their whereabouts between this time...
27728Mordecai Noah’s Mission to Algiers: Spanish-American Relations and the Fate of a Jewish Consul in Madison’s … (Madison Papers)
According to the report on U.S. relations with Algiers that James Monroe sent to Madison on 20 Feb. 1815, two American prisoners previously held in that regency had been “ransomed,” while “every effort to obtain the release of the others” had “proved abortive.” Although Monroe did not mention it here, these ransom attempts, both successful and failed, were the result of a single operation...
27729Madison and “Americanus”, April-May (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
The letters of “Americanus,” addressed to JM and printed in the Philadelphia Democratic Press in April and May 1816, occupy a significant place in the history of white-Indian relations and in the politics of the 1816 and 1824 presidential elections. The immediate impetus to the publication of the letters was the report on Indian affairs submitted to the Senate by Secretary of War William...
27730Sketch for an Autobiography (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
In January 1816 the entrepreneurial Philadelphia bookseller and publisher Joseph Delaplaine informed JM that he had commissioned the Philadelphia painter Joseph Wood to make a portrait of the president, from which Delaplaine intended to make an engraving. Delaplaine then asked JM to provide him with a “sketch” of his life, “Birth—parentage—Education—Offices—Profession—&c &c & other things.” It...
27731Address to the Agricultural Society of Albemarle, 12 May 1818 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
At the 12 May 1818 meeting of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle, “the President took the chair, and delivered an address upon the nature and principles of the objects which the Society have in view, pointing out at the same time many prevailing errors in the present general system of Agriculture” (Rodney H. True, ed., “Minute Book of the Albemarle [Virginia] Agricultural Society,” printed...
27732Madison’s Detatched Memoranda, ca. 31 January 1820 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
This document presents a number of puzzles for the editors of James Madison’s papers. The manuscript is in Madison’s hand and it appears to have been written over the course of a relatively short period of time. The paper is of good quality and of uniform appearance, suggesting that the pages came from a single source. There are numerous emendations, deletions, and additions, most of which are...
27733Madison and Richard Cutts’s Financial Difficulties: Editorial Note (Madison Papers)
This letter is the first serious indication of Richard Cutts’s financial problems, which eventually led to his bankruptcy and JM’s involvement in Cutts’s personal affairs. Cutts, a former U.S. congressman (1801–12) from Saco, Massachusetts, District of Maine, had married Dolley Madison’s beloved sister, Anna, in 1804. A member of a prosperous merchant and ship-building family, Cutts engaged in...
27734Madison and the Allegory of Jonathan and Mary Bull: Editorial Note (Madison Papers)
Sometime during the Missouri Crisis of 1819–21, most probably during the winter of 1821, James Madison wrote this allegory on slavery. Using a form that dated from the American Revolution, but which owed its popularity to one of Madison’s friends, James Kirke Paulding, Madison created a dialogue on slavery between Jonathan Bull, representing the northern states, and Mary Bull, representing...
27735Madison’s Response to John Armstrong’s Review (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
The memorandum of documents printed below is the first indication that JM was beginning to gather material to answer allegations made by John Armstrong in an essay entitled “Appendix—Negotiation for Louisiana,” published in the New York Literary and Scientific Repository, and Critical Review in October 1821. The task would ultimately result in a compilation, entitled “Review of a Statement...
27736James Madison and His Stepson, John Payne Todd, Editorial Note (Madison Papers)
A month before Madison left the presidency in March 1817, John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson: “I pitty our good Brother Madison. You and I have had Children and Grand Children and great grand Children. Though they have cost us Grief, Anxiety, often Vexation, and some times humiliation; Yet it has been cheering to have them hovering about Us; and I verily believe they have contributed largely...
27737James Madison’s Preface to the Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
“Take care of me when dead,” Thomas Jefferson famously asked James Madison in one of the last letters that passed between the two elder statesmen. Specifically, Jefferson mentioned two issues. First, he hoped that Madison would assume leadership of the nascent University of Virginia, expressing “comfort to leave that institution under your care.” Second, Jefferson stated that it would be “a...
27738James Madison and the Early Years of the University of Virginia (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
Addressing John Adams’s concern that James Madison might fall victim to boredom in retirement, Thomas Jefferson offered assurances that Adams’s fears were unfounded. “Such a mind as [Madison’s] can never know ennui,” Jefferson explained. “Besides,” Jefferson continued, “there will always be work enough cut out for him to continue his active usefulness to his country.” The particular work...