42. I have offered a fuller treatment of what we might call the Madison Problem in American Creation, 87–126. For a different view, see Gordon S. Wood, “Is There a Madison Problem?” in Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different (New York, 2006), 141–72. For the tragic consequences of Madison’s shift to a states-rights position, see Susan Dunn, Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison, and the Decline of Virginia (New York, 2007).
43. The following thoughts are mine alone. But three of the most distinguished historians of the founding era have influenced my interpretive instincts, often in ways they may not have intended. They are Bernard Bailyn, To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders (New York, 2003); Edmund S. Morgan, Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America (New York, 1998); and Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1992).
44. TJ to Samuel Kercheval, 12 July 1816, most conveniently available in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., The Portable Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1975), 558–59.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph J. Ellis is the author of many works of American history, including Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize; and American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, which won the National Book Award. He recently retired from his position as the Ford Foundation Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College and lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with his wife and their youngest son.
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