James Madison: A Life Reconsidered

by Lynne Cheney

  11.PMC, 1:89, to Bradford, June 10, 1773; 1:86, from Bradford, May 27, 1773.

  12.PMC, 1:96, to Bradford, Sept. 25, 1773.

  13.Little, Imprisoned Preachers and Religious Liberty in Virginia, 163.

  14.PMC, 1:106, 101, 112–13, to Bradford, Jan. 24, 1774, Dec. 1, 1773, and April 1, 1774; “James Madison’s Autobiography,” 198.

  15.PMC, 1:105, to Bradford, Jan. 24, 1774.

  16.Walter Berns, “Religion and the Founding Principle,” in Moral Foundations of the American Republic, 219–20; Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 170; Meade, Old Churches, 2:99–100.

  17.Witherspoon, “Lectures on Moral Philosophy,” in Works, 3:395; PMC, 14:427, for the National Gazette, Dec. 20, 1792; Hume, Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, 2:452.

  18.Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, 269, 353; Ferling, Leap in the Dark, 94–107.

  19.PMC, 1:105, to Bradford, Jan. 24, 1774; Brant, Madison, 1:137; PMC, 1:101, to Bradford, Dec. 1, 1773.

  20.Force, American Archives, ser. 4, 1:350–51.

  21.PMC, 1:121, to Bradford, Aug. 23, 1774; 1:126, from Bradford, Oct. 17, 1774.

  22.PMC, 1:126, from Bradford, Oct. 17, 1774; 1:145 and n8, to Bradford, May 9, 1775; 1:131, 133n1, from Bradford, Jan. 4, 1775; 1:160, to Bradford, July 28, 1775.

  23.PMC, 1:131, from Bradford, Jan. 4, 1775; 1:129, 135, to Bradford, Nov. 26, 1774, and Jan. 20, 1775.

  24.PMC, 1:135, to Bradford, Jan. 20, 1775; Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 1:204; PMC, 1:144, to Bradford, May 9, 1775; Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, 141–42.

  25.Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, 149–61.

  26.Brant, Madison, 1:180; PMC, 1:147 and n1, “Address to Captain Patrick Henry and the Gentlemen Independents of Hanover,” May 9, 1775; PMC, 1:145, to Bradford, May 9, 1775. Strengthening the case that Madison wrote the address is the fact that he referred readers of his autobiography to it: “James Madison’s Autobiography,” 199.

  27.PMC, 1:152, 162n11, to Bradford, June 19 and July 28, 1775.

  28.PWR, 1:3, to Martha Washington, June 18, 1775.

  29.Ferling, Leap in the Dark, 146.

  30.Brant, Madison, 1:162–63; Crary, “Tory and the Spy.”

  31.PMC, 1:161, to Bradford, July 28, 1775.

  32.Eckenrode, Revolution in Virginia, 50–54; “Williamsburg—the Old Colonial Capital,” 49; Theobald, “Monstrous Absurdity”; “Magazine,” Colonial Williamsburg, http://www.history.org/almanack/places/hb/hbmag.cfm; PMC, 1:153, to Bradford, June 19, 1775.

  33.PMC, 1:153, to Bradford, June 19, 1775; Alexander Purdie, Virginia Gazette, Nov. 24, 1775; Olmert, Official Guide to Colonial Williamsburg, 92; Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 57–58; PWR, 2:611, to Richard Henry Lee, Dec. 26, 1775.

  34.Pybus, Epic Journeys of Freedom, 18–20.

  35.PMC, 1:153, to Bradford, June 19, 1775.

  36.John Hughlings Jackson, Selected Writings, 1:390, 399; Devinsky, Epilepsy, 19, 31.

  37.PMS, 1:394, to Wilson Cary Nicholas, July 10, 1801; PMC, 3:10, from the Reverend James Madison, March 9, 1781; Devinsky, Epilepsy, 19–20; De Coppet Collection, Madison to Delaplaine, memo, Sept. 1816; Devinsky to author, e-mail, Sept. 22, 2013.

  38.“James Madison’s Autobiography,” 199; Rives Papers, George Tucker, untitled memoir of James Madison.

  39.Paine, Common Sense, 36–37.

  40.Ibid., 24.

  41.Ibid., 19–20.

  Chapter 3: GREAT MEN

  1.Ketcham, Madison, 63.

  2.Grigsby, Virginia Convention of 1776, 19n, 15; “Edmund Randolph’s Essay on the Revolutionary History of Virginia,” VMHB, April 1935, 126–27; Charles D. Lowery, “Edmund Pendleton,” in James Madison and the American Nation, 335.

  3.Grigsby, Virginia Convention of 1776, 76–78; McCullough, 1776, 40–41; “Edmund Randolph’s Essay on the Revolutionary History of Virginia,” VMHB, Oct. 1935, 308.

  4.Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, 23–33; “Edmund Randolph’s Essay on the Revolutionary History of Virginia,” VMHB, April 1935, 120, and Oct. 1935, 308.

  5.Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 95–97; Grigsby, Virginia Convention of 1776, 17–18.

  6.“Edmund Randolph’s Essay on the Revolutionary History of Virginia,” VMHB, Jan. 1936, 42–43.

  7.Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 97; Alexander Purdie, Virginia Gazette, May 17, 1776.

  8.Rowland, Life of George Mason, 1:226, 204–5.

  9.Ibid., 226.

  10.PMC, 1:173, “Committee’s Proposed Article on Religion,” May 27–28, 1776; Locke, Works, 5:5–58.

  11.Brant, Madison, 1:247–48; Ketcham, Madison, 72–73; PMC, 1:173, “Committee’s Proposed Article on Religion”; PMC, 1:174–75, “Article on Religion Adopted by Convention,” June 12, 1776.

  12.PJ, 1:133, “Draft of Instructions to the Virginia Delegates in the Continental Congress,” July 1774.

  13.“Edmund Randolph’s Essay on the Revolutionary History of Virginia,” VMHB, Jan. 1936, 43–44.

  14.LC-TJ, to Augustus B. Woodward, April 3, 1825; in notes, PJ, 1:384–85, “The Constitution as Adopted by the Convention,” the editors make the case that Jefferson underestimated how much his draft influenced the constitution of Virginia.

  15.PMC, 8:77, “Notes for a Speech Favoring Revision of the Virginia Constitution of 1776,” June 14 or 21, 1784.

  16.PJ, 1:354, “Second Draft by Jefferson,” before June 13, 1776; PMC, 10:17, “The Virginia Plan,” May 29, 1787.

  17.Alexander Purdie, Virginia Gazette, Oct. 11, 1776.

  18.Alexander Purdie, Virginia Gazette, Oct. 18, 1776; Brant, Madison, 1:298; Ketcham, Madison, 75.

  19.Jefferson, Autobiography, 50–53; LC-JM, to Samuel H. Smith, Nov. 4, 1826.

  20.Alexander Purdie, Virginia Gazette, Dec. 20, 1776, supp., and Dec. 27, 1776; Tyler, Patrick Henry, 203–4.

  21.Thomas, “Politics in Colonial Orange County,” 5, 8–9; Rives, Life and Times of James Madison, 1:180–81.

  22.Brant, Madison, 1:316.

  23.PMC, 1:216, “Session of Virginia Council of State,” Jan. 14, 1778; 1:219–21, “Patrick Henry in Council to Virginia Delegates in Congress,” Jan. 20, 1778.

  24.PMC, 1:216–17, “Session of Virginia Council of State,” Jan. 14, 1778; Official Letters of the Governors of the State of Virginia, 1:227–29, Henry to Gálvez, Jan. 14, 1778.

  25.Lowell H. Harrison, George Rogers Clark and the War in the West, 5–17; Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 189–203.

  26.Brant, Madison, 1:343–44, 348; PMC, 1:285, 287nn2–3, from Mazzei, June 13, 1779.

  27.Brant, Madison, 1:349; PMC, 7:421, to Jefferson, Feb. 17, 1784; 8:15, from Jefferson, March 16, 1784.

  28.Rives, Life and Times of James Madison, 1:190; Brant, Madison, 1:326–27; PMC, 8:9, to Jefferson, March 16, 1784.

  29.Jefferson, Autobiography, 55.

  30.Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 197; Republic of Letters, 1:74–76, “Order Placing Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton of Detroit and Others in Irons,” June 16, 1779; 1:79, 89–90, to Washington, June 19 and July 17, 1779.

  31.PJ, 3:61, from Washington, Aug. 6, 1779.

  32.PMC, 1:222–23, to Madison Sr., Jan. 23, 1778; Randall, Life of Thomas Jefferson, 2:326n; John Clarkson and Augustine Davis, Virginia Gazette, Oct. 30, 1779; PMC, 1:298, to Madison Sr., June 25, 1779.

  33.Republic of Letters, 1:52; Randall, Life of Thomas Jefferson, 1:68.

  34.Rives Papers, Edward Coles to Hugh Grigsby, Dec. 23, 1854; Randall, Life of Thomas Jefferson, 2:326n.

  35.Coolidge Correspondence, letters from Ellen Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 37; PMC, 1:105–6, to Bradford, Jan. 24, 1774; Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation, 266.

  36.Malone, Jefferson, 1:216; Jefferson, Autobiography, 25; PMC, 12:466, to Washington, Jan. 4, 1790.

  37.PJ, 1:241–42, to Randolph, Aug. 25, 1775.

  38.PJ, 1:482, to John Page, July 30, 1
776 (italics added); Edward S. Evans, Seals of Virginia, 37.

  39.Burnaby, Travels Through the Middle Settlements in North-America, 42–43; Malone, Jefferson, 1:101.

  40.Republic of Letters, 1:60, 61n17; LC-JM, to Samuel H. Smith, Nov. 4, 1826.

  Chapter 4: A ROPE OF SAND

  1.PWR, 18:448–49, to Harrison, Dec. 18–30, 1778.

  2.Conway, Omitted Chapters of History Disclosed in the Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph, 41–47.

  3.PMC, 1:319, to Harrison, Dec. 16, 1779.

  4.PMC, 1:304, “Money,” Sept. 1779–March 1780; Francis Bowen, Principles of Political Economy, 374–75.

  5.Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 227.

  6.PMC, 2:6, to Jefferson, March 27, 1780.

  7.PMC, 2:37, to Jefferson, June 2, 1780; Brant, Madison, 2:29–30; Journals of the Continental Congress, 17:477, 492, 571–72, June 1, 6, and 29, 1780; Papers of the Continental Congress, State Papers, 1777–1788, 2:392–93, June 6, 1780; Letters of Delegates to Congress, 15:268, Samuel Huntington to Washington, June 6, 1780; LC-GW, ser. 4, to Continental Congress War Board, June 21, 1780.

  8.PMC, 2:21, to Page, May 8, 1780; 2:20, to Jefferson, May 6, 1780.

  9.PMC, 2:20, to Jefferson, May 6, 1780; Golway, Washington’s General, 1–3, 165–66, 124.

  10.Papers of the Continental Congress, “Letters from General Nathanael Greene,” 1:303–14, to Huntington, June 19, 1780; PMC, 2:45, “Committee Report on Letter from Nathanael Greene,” July 22, 1780; Flexner, George Washington in the American Revolution, 368–69.

  11.Chernow, Washington, 379–82; PMC, 2:111, to Jefferson, ca. Oct. 5, 1780.

  12.Brant, Madison, 2:17; Ketcham, Madison, 88, 107; PMC, 2:123, 124n6, to Jones, Oct. 10, 1780.

  13.PMC, 2:97, “Expense Account as Delegate in Congress,” Sept. 25, 1780; Maxwell, Portrait of William Floyd, 30; Brant, Madison, 2:27; PMC, 3:206, 4:64, 126, to Madison Sr., Aug. 1, 1781, ca. Feb. 12, 1782, and March 30, 1782; 5:87, 170, to Randolph, Aug. 27 and Sept. 30, 1782.

  14.“Randolph and Tucker Letters,” 41–43, Martha Bland to Frances Tucker, March 30, 1781.

  15.Flexner, George Washington in the American Revolution, 360; PMC, 2:81, to Edmund Pendleton, Sept. 12, 1780; 2:89, to Jones, Sept. 19, 1780.

  16.PMC, 2:120, from Jones, Oct. 9, 1780; 2:145, to Jones, Oct. 24, 1780.

  17.PMC, 2:144, from Pendleton, Oct. 23, 1780; 2:157, to Pendleton, Oct. 31, 1780.

  18.Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, 4:184, Arthur Lee to the President of Congress, Dec. 7, 1780; Bland, Papers, 1:xxvii.

  19.Brant, Madison, 2:65–69, 192–200.

  20.Ibid., 70–78; PMC, 2:92n4, from Jones, Sept. 19, 1780; 2:132–34, “Draft of Letter to Jay, Explaining His Instructions,” Oct. 17, 1780.

  21.PMC, 2:224, to Jones, Dec. 5, 1780; 2:195–96, Bland to Jefferson, Nov. 22, 1780.

  22.Bemis, Diplomacy of the American Revolution, 107–8; Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, 4:738–65, Jay to the President of Congress, Oct. 3, 1781.

  23.PMC, 2:191, 136–37, to Jones, Nov. 21 and Oct. 17, 1780.

  24.Brant, Madison, 2:99–101.

  25.PMC, 2:279, to Jefferson, Jan. 9, 1781; Freeman, Washington, 453–55; Neimeyer, America Goes to War, 148–51.

  26.PMC, 2:297, to Pendleton, Jan. 23, 1781.

  27.PMC, 3:10, 13n12, from the Reverend James Madison, March 9, 1781.

  28.PMC, 3:172, from Pendleton, July 6, 1781; 3:207, 209n11, to Madison Sr., Aug. 1, 1781; Thomson, Account of the Life, Lectures, and Writings of William Cullen, M.D., 2:104–5.

  29.Cullen, First Lines of the Practice of Physic, 2:iii, 86–108; De Coppet Collection, Madison to Delaplaine, memo, Sept. 1816. In a description approved by Madison, Edward Coles described Madison’s sudden attacks as “an affection of the breast and nerves.” Grigsby, Virginia Convention of 1776, 84n.

  30.Cullen, First Lines of the Practice of Physic, 2:104, 106, 108; PJ, 4:567–68, from Bland, Feb. 9, 1781.

  31.LC-JM, Washington to Jones, March 24, 1781; Brant, Madison, 2:55.

  32.Letters of Delegates to Congress, 17:38, Thomas Rodney’s notes, post–March 8, 1781; William Baskerville Hamilton, Thomas Rodney, 4, 25.

  33.PMC, 3:71, 73n4, to Jefferson, April 16, 1781; 3:17–18, “Proposed Amendment of Articles of Confederation,” March 12, 1781.

  34.Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 274–75, 281–82; Malone, Jefferson, 1:357.

  35.PMC, 3:178, to Philip Mazzei, July 7, 1781; Brant, Madison, 2:162; PMC, 3:247, to Pendleton, Sept. 3, 1781.

  36.Brant, Madison, 2:165; PMC, 3:296, to Pendleton, Oct. 30, 1781.

  37.Brissot de Warville, New Travels in the United States of America, 102.

  38.Journals of the Continental Congress, 24:291, “The Address and Petition of the Officers of the Army of the United States,” April 29, 1783; PMC, 6:55–56, to Randolph, Jan. 22, 1783.

  39.PMC, 6:142, “Notes on Debates,” Jan. 28, 1783.

  40.Ibid., 143–47.

  41.PMC, 6:273–74, “Notes on Debates,” Feb. 21, 1783.

  42.PMC, 6:292, “Notes on Debates,” Feb. 26, 1783; 6:406, “Amendment to Report on Restoring Public Credit: Editorial Note”; 6:407–8, “Notes on Debates,” March 28, 1783.

  43.PMC, 2:209, to Jones, Nov. 28, 1780; PMC, 7:304, 305n4, to Madison Sr., Sept. 8, 1783.

  44.LC-GW, ser. 3h, to Hamilton, April 4, 1783; Journals of the Continental Congress, 24:295–97, to the Officers of the Army, April 29, 1783.

  45.PMC, 6:481, to Jefferson, April 22, 1783.

  46.PMC, 6:493–94, “Report on Address to the States by Congress,” April 25, 1783.

  47.Monroe, Papers, 2:55–56, to John Francis Mercer, March 14, 1783; Brant, Madison, 2:14.

  48.LC-JM and PMC, 6:221, to Jefferson, Feb. 11, 1783; 6:235–36, from Jefferson, Feb. 14, 1783.

  Chapter 5: LOVE AND OTHER RESOURCES OF HAPPINESS

  1.South Carolina delegate Francis Kinloch, who entered Congress about a week after Madison, had married his fifteen-year-old sweetheart, Mildred Walker, in 1781. Kinloch was just ten years older than his bride, while Madison was sixteen years older than Kitty, or twice her age during their courtship, but examples of much greater age disparities are easy to find. John Witherspoon, famed president of Princeton, was almost three times the age of his second wife when they married.

  2.Maxwell, Portrait of William Floyd, 20.

  3.Ibid., 31.

  4.PMC, 6:459, from Jefferson, April 14, 1783.

  5.PMC, 6:481, 7:18, to Jefferson, April 22 and May 6, 1783.

  6.PMC, 7:177, “Notes on Debates,” June 21, 1783.

  7.Brant, Madison, 2:294–95; PMC, 7:177–78, “Notes on Debates,” June 21, 1783; 7:196, “Proclamation by Elias Boudinot,” June 24, 1783.

  8.PMC, 7:216, 217n2, to Randolph, July 8, 1783; 7:230, to Jefferson, July 17, 1783.

  9.LC-JM, to Jefferson, Aug. 11, 1783; Brant, Madison, 2:283–87; PMC, 7:268, to Jefferson, Aug. 11, 1783. Brant was the first to decipher crossed-out portions of the letter; further decipherments can be found in Letters of Delegates to Congress, 20:539; and this author added a few phrases.

  10.PMC, 7:298–99, from Jefferson, Aug. 31, 1783.

  11.Gay, James Madison, 42–44; Maxwell, Portrait of William Floyd, 13; Torres-Reyes, “William Floyd Estate,” 34–35.

  12.PMC, 7:401, to Jefferson, Dec. 10, 1783 (many words encoded).

  13.PMC, 7:401, 404nn15–16, 418–19, to Jefferson, Dec. 10, 1783, and Feb. 11, 1784; 8:3, to Randolph, March 10, 1784; 7:411–12, from Jefferson, Jan. 1, 1784.

  14.PMC, 7:298, from Jefferson, Aug. 31, 1783; 9:51–53, 78–81, to Jefferson, May 12 and June 19, 1786; 8:514–44, Appendix B: “Meteorological Journal for Orange County, Virginia, in Madison’s Hand”; 9:77, 8:266, 9:49, to Jefferson, June 19, 1786, April 27, 1785, and May 12, 1786.

  15.PMC, 8:11, to Jefferson, March 16, 1784.

  16.Brant, Madison, 2:313; PMC, 8:3, to Randolp
h, March 10, 1784; Madison, Writings, 2:396, “Origin of Constitutional Convention,” 1835.

  17.PMC, 8:37, “The General Assembly Session of May 1784: Editorial Note”; Conway, Omitted Chapters of History Disclosed in the Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph, 56, to Jefferson, May 15, 1784.

  18.Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall, 88–89; Schoepf, Travels in the Confederation, 2:64.

  19.Tyler, Patrick Henry, 267; PJ, 7:257, from Short, May 15, 1784.

  20.PMC, 8:34, to Jefferson, May 15, 1784.

  21.PMC, 8:80, to Madison Sr., June 15, 1784.

  22.PMC, 8:93, to Jefferson, July 3, 1784; 8:178, from Jefferson, Dec. 8, 1784; 8:227, to Jefferson, Jan. 9, 1785.

  23.Breckinridge Family Papers, Archibald Stuart to John Breckinridge, Dec. 7, 1785.

  24.Malone, Jefferson, 1:270–72; PMC, 9:211–12, from Jefferson, Dec. 16, 1786; 9:267, to Jefferson, Feb. 15, 1787; Brant, Madison, 2:357.

  25.Jefferson, Autobiography, 58; PMC, 9:244, to Edmund Pendleton, Jan. 9, 1787; 8:230–31, to Jefferson, Jan. 9, 1785.

  26.Lance Banning, “James Madison, the Statute for Religious Freedom, and the Crisis of Republican Convictions,” in Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 133n23.

  27.PMC, 8:198, “Madison’s Notes for Debates on the General Assessment Bill,” Dec. 23–24, 1784; 8:157–58, to James Monroe, Nov. 27, 1784.

  28.PMC, 8:264, from George Nicholas, April 22, 1785; 8:298–304, “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” June 20, 1785.

  29.PMR, 1:612, “Detatched Memoranda,” ca. Jan. 31, 1820.

  30.Hening, Statutes at Large, 12:84–86, “An Act for Establishing Religious Freedom”; PMC, 8:474, to Jefferson, Jan. 22, 1786.

  31.Martin Marty, “Virginia Statute Two Hundred Years Later,” in Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1–3.

  32.Taylor Diary, March 2, 1786; PMC, 8:542, Appendix B: “Meteorological Journal for Orange County, in Madison’s Hand.”

  33.PMC, 8:113, to Jefferson, Sept. 7, 1784.

  34.Bernier, Lafayette, 18; PMC, 8:121, to Jefferson, Oct. 17, 1784; Franklin, Writings, 7:62, to George Washington, Aug. 1777.