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...