James Madison: A Life Reconsidered

by Lynne Cheney

  35.PMC, 8:114, to Jefferson, Sept. 7, 1784.

  36.PMC, 8:115, to Jefferson, Sept. 15, 1784; Evans Journal, Sept. 15–22, 1784; Brant, Madison, 2:328–29.

  37.Barbé-Marbois, Our Revolutionary Forefathers, 178–85.

  38.PMC, 8:120–21, 121n2, to Jefferson, Oct. 17, 1784; 8:245, 186, from Lafayette, March 16, 1785, and Dec. 15, 1784; 8:345, to Jefferson, Aug. 20, 1785 (many words encoded).

  39.LC-TJ, from Madison, May 15, 1808.

  40.Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 434; PMC, 8:270, to Jefferson, April 27, 1785.

  41.PMC, 8:178, from Jefferson, Dec. 8, 1784.

  42.PMC, 8:270, to Jefferson, April 27, 1785; Brant, Madison, 2:306.

  43.PMC, 8:328, to Randolph, July 26, 1785.

  44.PMC, 9:97, to Jefferson, Aug. 12, 1786.

  45.Ammon, James Monroe, xi; Wirt, Letters of the British Spy, 174; PMC, 8:32, from Jefferson, May 8, 1784.

  46.Brant, Madison, 2:340–42; PMC, 9:97–98, to Jefferson, Aug. 12, 1786; 9:212–13, from Jefferson, Dec. 16, 1786.

  47.Kaminski, George Clinton, 92.

  48.PMC, 9:94–95, to Jefferson, Aug. 12, 1786; Madison, Writings, 2:395, “Origin of the Constitutional Convention,” 1835.

  49.PMC, 8:501, to Jefferson, March 18, 1786; 9:4–22, “Notes on Ancient and Modern Confederacies,” April–June 1786; 10:210, to Jefferson, Oct. 24, 1787.

  50.PMC, 6:425, “Notes on Debates,” April 1, 1783.

  51.PMC, 8:471, “Resolution Authorizing a Commission to Examine Trade Regulations,” Jan. 21, 1786; 9:118, “The Annapolis Convention, Sept. 1786: Editorial Note”; 8:483, to Monroe, Jan. 22, 1786; 9:119, “Lodging Account from George Mann,” Sept. 4–15, 1786.

  52.“The Mount Vernon Compact and the Annapolis Convention,” Maryland State House, http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdstatehouse/html/compact_convention.html.

  53.PH, 2:402, 407, to James Duane, Sept. 3, 1780; Morse, Life of Alexander Hamilton, 1:167; PH, 3:689, “Address of the Annapolis Convention,” Sept. 14, 1786.

  54.PMC, 9:163–64, “Bill Providing for Delegates to the Convention of 1787,” Nov. 6, 1786.

  55.PMC, 9:166, to Washington, Nov. 8, 1786; 9:161–62, from Washington, Nov. 5, 1786.

  56.Flexner, George Washington in the American Revolution, 514n; PMC, 9:170–71, from Washington, Nov. 18, 1786.

  57.PMC, 9:199, to Washington, Dec. 7, 1786; Freeman, Washington, 537; PMC, 9:315, to Washington, March 18, 1787.

  58.Journals of the Continental Congress, 31:606–7, Aug. 30, 1786; PMC, 9:200, to Washington, Dec. 7, 1786.

  59.PMC, 9:259, to Eliza Trist, Feb. 10, 1787; “James Madison’s Autobiography,” 202; PMC, 9:285, to Washington, Feb. 21, 1787; 9:291, “Notes on Debates,” Feb. 21, 1797; Journals of the Continental Congress, 32:72–74, Feb. 21, 1787; Brant, Madison, 2:401–2; PMC, 9:294–95, to Pendleton, Feb. 24, 1787.

  60.PMC, 9:309–11, “Notes on Debates,” March 13, 1787; 9:401, to Jefferson, April 23, 1787 (many words encoded).

  61.PMC, 10:159, from William Grayson, Aug. 31, 1787.

  62.PMC, 9:259, to Eliza Trist, Feb. 10, 1787; 11:43n2, 42, from John Brown, May 12, 1788; 9:383, to Washington, April 16, 1787; 9:348–49, “Vices of the Political System of the United States,” April 1787.

  63.PMC, 9:353–56, “Vices of the Political System of the United States.”

  64.PMC, 9:141, to Monroe, Oct. 5, 1786.

  65.PMC, 9:356–57, “Vices of the Political System of the United States.”

  66.Adair, “That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science,” 348–49; PMC, 9:409, to William Irvine, May 5, 1787.

  Chapter 6: THE GREAT WORK BEGINS

  1.Catherine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia, 16; PMC, 9:415, to Jefferson, May 15, 1787; PWD, 5:237, May 13–14, 1787.

  2.Farrand, Records, 3:23, Mason to George Mason Jr., May 20, 1787; 3:24, Mason to Arthur Lee, May 21, 1787; PMC, 9:318–19, to Jefferson, March 19, 1787; 9:369–70, to Edmund Randolph, April 8, 1787; 9:383–85, to Washington, April 16, 1787.

  3.Karie Diethorn, chief curator, Independence National Historical Park, e-mail, July 6, 2007; DHRC, 1:226, General Assembly to the President of Congress, Sept. 1787; PMC, 9:359, to Madison Sr., April 1, 1787.

  4.Farrand, Records, 1:423, Madison’s notes, June 26, 1787; 3:550, James Madison, “Preface to Debates in the Convention of 1787”; Grigsby, History of the Virginia Federal Convention, 1:95n107.

  5.Farrand, Records, 3:91, William Pierce, “Character Sketches of Delegates to the Federal Convention”; Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, 1:267; Catherine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia, 34–35, Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, 431–32.

  6.PJ, 12:69, to John Adams, Aug. 30, 1787; Farrand, Records, 3:479, Jared Sparks: Journal, April 19, 1830.

  7.Farrand, Records, 3:95, William Pierce, “Character Sketches of Delegates to the Federal Convention”; 1:20, Madison’s notes, May 29, 1787.

  8.PMC, 9:335, from Randolph, March 27, 1787; 9:369, to Randolph, April 8, 1787.

  9.Farrand, Records, 1:38, Yates’s notes, May 30, 1787; Jay, John Jay, 1:821, to Robert Morris, Sept. 16, 1780; Farrand, Records, 1:41, McHenry’s notes, May 30, 1787.

  10.Farrand, Records, 1:41–43, McHenry’s notes, May 30, 1787; 1:34–35, Madison’s notes, May 30, 1787.

  11.Farrand, Records, 1:37–38, Madison’s notes, May 30, 1787.

  12.Farrand, Records, 1:48–50, Madison’s notes, May 31, 1787; Mays, Edmund Pendleton, 2:229.

  13.Farrand, Records, 1:134–36, Madison’s notes, June 6, 1787.

  14.PMC, 10:16, “Resolutions Proposed by Mr. Randolph in Convention,” May 29, 1787; 9:318, to Jefferson, March 19, 1787; 9:370, to Randolph, April 8, 1787; 9:383, to Washington, April 16, 1787. Farrand, Records, 1:54, Madison’s notes, May 31, 1787. “In all cases whatsoever” is underscored in letters to Jefferson and Washington.

  15.Farrand, Records, 1:159, King’s notes, June 7, 1787.

  16.Farrand, Records, 1:164–65, Madison’s notes, June 8, 1787.

  17.Farrand, Records, 3:92, William Pierce, “Character Sketches of Delegates to the Federal Convention”; 1:167, Madison’s notes, June 8, 1787.

  18.Farrand, Records, 1:168, Madison’s notes, June 8, 1787.

  19. Farrand, Records, 3:90, William Pierce, “Character Sketches of Delegates to the Federal Convention”; Journals of the Continental Congress, 32:74, Feb. 21, 1787; Farrand, Records, 1:177–79, Madison’s notes, June 9, 1787.Descriptions of the weather here and elsewhere in this chapter are from Farrand, Records, 3:552, William Samuel Johnson: Diary, 1787, and Supplement to Max Farrand’s The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 325–37, “The Weather during the Convention.”

  20.Farrand, Records, 1:242–45, Madison’s notes, June 15, 1787.

  21.John Quincy Adams, Eulogy on the Life and Character of James Madison, 37; Farrand, Records, 1:242n, Madison’s notes, June 15, 1787.

  22.Farrand, Records, 1:253, 255, Madison’s notes, June 16, 1787.

  23.Farrand, Records, 1:296–301, Yates’s notes, June 18, 1787.

  24.Farrand, Records, 1:292, Madison’s notes, June 18, 1787; 1:432–33, Yates’s notes, June 26, 1787; John Quincy Adams, Memoirs, 4:383, May 31, 1819.

  25.Farrand, Records, 1:317–18, 320, Madison’s notes, June 19, 1787.

  26.Ibid., 322.

  27.Farrand, Records, 1:437, Madison’s notes, June 27, 1787. Martin would successfully defend Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase and former vice president Aaron Burr.

  28.Farrand, Records, 1:445, Madison’s notes, June 28, 1787. New Jersey, which required that three of its delegates be present in order to vote, might have had only two present on June 27; on June 28 it definitely had only two present. See Lloyd, “Quorum Requirements and Elected Delegates by State” and “Constitutional Convention Attendance Record,” in Constitutional Convention.

  29.Farrand, Records, 1:450, Madison’s notes, June 28, 1787; 1:457, Yates’s notes, June 28, 17
87.

  30.Farrand, Records, 1:450–51, 464, Madison’s notes, June 28–29, 1787.

  31.Farrand, Records, 1:485–87, Madison’s notes, June 30, 1787.

  32.Ibid., 488; Farrand, Records, 1:498–502, Yates’s notes, June 30, 1787.

  33.Sparks, Life of Gouverneur Morris, 1:283.

  34.Beeman, Plain, Honest Men, 185–87; Farrand, Records, 3:188, Luther Martin, “Genuine Information.” Maryland’s quorum requirements allowed a vote to be cast even if only a single delegate was present. See Lloyd, “Quorum Requirements and Elected Delegates by State,” in Constitutional Convention.

  35.Beeman, Plain, Honest Men, 186–87.

  36.Pennsylvania Packet, July 6, 1787.

  37.Farrand, Records, 1:526–28, Madison’s notes, July 5, 1787.

  38.Ibid., 529–30; Farrand, Records, 3:56, Washington to Hamilton, July 10, 1787.

  39.Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, 1:270–77.

  40.Farrand, Records, 2:18, Madison’s notes, July 16, 1787.

  41.Ibid.

  42.Ibid., 20.

  43.Farrand, Records, 2:27–29, Madison’s notes, July 17, 1787.

  44.Ibid., 33–35.

  45.Ibid., 34–35.

  46.Brant, Madison, 3:101–2.

  47.Farrand, Records, 1:68–69, 80, 2:99, Madison’s notes, June 1 and 2 and July 24, 1787.

  48.Farrand, Records, 2:109–11, Madison’s notes, July 25, 1787.

  49.Ibid., 111, 114.

  50.Farrand, Records, 2:73–74, 298, Madison’s notes, July 21 and Aug. 15, 1787.

  51.Farrand, Records, 2:318, Madison’s notes, Aug. 17, 1787.

  52.Supplement to Max Farrand’s The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 300–301, Dickinson to George Logan, Jan. 16, 1802; Farrand, Records, 2:114, 497–98, Madison’s notes, July 25 and Sept. 4, 1787. Bennett, “Problem of the Faithless Elector,” 129, notes that “with very few exceptions popular election of electors has been used in every state since the 1830s.”

  53.Farrand, Records, 2:513, 527, Madison’s notes, Sept. 5 and 6, 1787.

  54.Farrand, Records, 2:536–37, Madison’s notes, Sept. 7, 1787.

  55.Farrand, Records, 2:498–99, 539–40, Madison’s notes, Sept. 4 and 7, 1787.

  56.Farrand, Records, 2:221, Madison’s notes, Aug. 8, 1787.

  57.Farrand, Records, 2:415, Madison’s notes, Aug. 25, 1787.

  58.Ibid., 415–17; Goldwin, Why Blacks, Women, and Jews Are Not Mentioned in the Constitution, 15.

  59.Farrand, Records, 2:35, 1:66, Madison’s notes, July 17 and June 1, 1787; 3:127, Randolph to the Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, Oct. 10, 1787.

  60.Farrand, Records, 2:633, Madison’s notes, Sept. 15, 1787; 2:635–36, Gerry’s Objections, Sept. 15, 1787; PMC, 10:215, to Jefferson, Oct. 24, 1787; Farrand, Records, 2:639, “Mason’s Objections to This Constitution of Government,” Sept. 15, 1787.

  61.Farrand, Records, 3:499, Madison to Jared Sparks, April 8, 1831.

  62.Farrand, Records, 2:643, Madison’s notes, Sept. 17, 1787.

  63.Ibid., 648; PMC, 10:163–64, to Jefferson, Sept. 6, 1787 (some words encoded).

  Chapter 7: IF MEN WERE ANGELS

  1.John Quincy Adams, Eulogy on the Life and Character of James Madison, 84.

  2.PMC, 10:10, to Madison Sr., May 27, 1787.

  3.Journals of the Continental Congress, 5:425 and n2, June 7, 1776; Richard H. Lee, Memoir, 1:251.

  4.Farrand, Records, 2:641–43, Madison’s notes, Sept. 17, 1787; PMC, 10:208, to Jefferson, Oct. 24, 1787; 10:232, 325, to Archibald Stuart, Oct. 30 and Dec. 14, 1787.

  5.DHRC, 1:337, Melancton Smith’s notes, Sept. 27, 1787; 1:337–39, “Richard Henry Lee’s Proposed Amendments,” Sept. 27, 1787.

  6.DHRC, 1:335, Melancton Smith’s notes, Sept. 27, 1787; PMC, 10:215, to Jefferson, Oct. 24, 1787; Farrand, Records, 2:637, “Mason’s Objections to This Constitution of Government.”

  7.DHRC, 1:345, Lee to George Mason, Oct. 1, 1787; PMC, 10:189, from Washington, Oct. 10, 1787.

  8.PMC, 10:192, to Ambrose Madison, Oct. 11, 1787; 10:197, to Washington, Oct. 18, 1787; PH, 4:301, Federalist 1, Oct. 27, 1787.

  9.PMC, 10:253, to Washington, Nov. 18, 1787.

  10.PMR, 1:618, “Detatched Memoranda,” ca. Jan. 31, 1820.

  11.PMC, 10:182, 230–31, from Randolph, Sept. 30 and ca. Oct. 29, 1787; 10:252, 290, to Randolph, Nov. 18 and Dec. 2, 1787 (most words encoded).

  12.PMC, 10:310–14, to Jefferson, Dec. 9, 1787.

  13.PMC, 9:248, from Jefferson, Jan. 30, 1787; 9:318, to Jefferson, March 19, 1787; 10:64, from Jefferson, June 20, 1787 (italics added).

  14.PMC, 10:337, from Jefferson, Dec. 20, 1787.

  15.PMC, 10:208, to Jefferson, Oct. 24, 1787; 10:337, from Jefferson, Dec. 20, 1787.

  16.PMC, 10:264–69, Federalist 10, Nov. 22, 1787.

  17.PMC, 10:288, Federalist 14, Nov. 30, 1787.

  18.PMC, 10:264, Federalist 10, Nov. 22, 1787.

  19.PMC, 10:476–77, Federalist 51, Feb. 6, 1788.

  20.PMC, 10:431, Federalist 45, Jan. 26, 1788; 10:396–97, Federalist 41, Jan. 19, 1788.

  21.PMC, 10:424, Federalist 44, Jan. 25, 1788.

  22.Chernow, Hamilton, 261; Kesler, Federalist Papers, xi.

  23.PMR, 1:618, “Detatched Memoranda,” ca. Jan. 21, 1820.

  24.Rossiter, Federalist Papers, vii.

  25.PMC, 10:360, 363–64, Federalist 37, Jan. 11, 1788; 10:461–62, Federalist 49, Feb. 2, 1788.

  26.PMC, 10:261–63, “Madison’s Authorship of The Federalist: Editorial Note”; Adair, “Authorship of the Disputed Federalist Papers,” 102.

  27.PMR, 1:619, “Detatched Memoranda,” ca. Jan. 31, 1820.

  28.PMC, 10:446, from Madison Sr., Jan. 30, 1788; 10:350, from Randolph, Jan. 3, 1788; 10:419, to Washington, Jan. 25, 1788.

  29.PMC, 10:469, from Washington, Feb. 5, 1788; 10:526–27, to Washington, Feb. 20, 1788.

  30.PWD, 5:284–87, March 15–19, 1788; PMC, 10:516, from James Gordon Jr., Feb. 17, 1788.

  31.PMC, 10:541, from Spencer, Feb. 28, 1788; Leland and Greene, Writings of the Late Elder John Leland, 223–24.

  32.Butterfield, “Elder John Leland, Jeffersonian Itinerant,” 190; Leland and Greene, Writings of the Late Elder John Leland, 53.

  33.PMC, 11:5, to Trist, March 25, 1788; Scarberry, “John Leland and James Madison,” 769.

  34.PMC, 11:10, 40–41, from Nicholas, April 5 and May 9, 1788; 11:44–51, to Nicholas, May 17, 1788; DHRC, 10:1250–52, speech of George Nicholas, June 13, 1788.

  35.PMC, 11:19, to Randolph, April 10, 1788; 11:25–26, from Randolph, April 17, 1788.

  36.PMC, 11:9, from Nicholas, April 5, 1788.

  37.PMC, 11:64–65, from Carroll, May 28, 1788; 11:36, from Jefferson, May 3, 1788.

  38.Gish, Virginia Taverns, Ordinaries, and Coffee Houses, 199; Christian, Richmond, Her Past and Present, 32–33; Grigsby, History of the Virginia Federal Convention, 1:99; DHRC, 9:785, Richard Henry Lee to Mason, May 7, 1788; PMC, 11:77, to Washington, June 4, 1788.

  39.DHRC, 9:917, 929–30, speeches of Patrick Henry and Edmund Pendleton, June 4, 1788.

  40.DHRC, 9:931–36, speech of Edmund Randolph, June 4, 1788.

  41.DHRC, 10:1573, William Grayson to Nathan Dane, June 4, 1788; PMC, 11:77, to Washington, June 4, 1788.

  42.DHRC, 9:951–64, speech of Patrick Henry, June 5, 1788.

  43.PWCE, 6:316, from Bushrod Washington, June 7, 1788. DHRC, 9:989–91, speech of James Madison, June 6, 1788. Madison only temporarily forgot Rhode Island, which did not send representatives to the Constitutional Convention. He was soon talking about the way “the smallest state in the Union has obstructed every attempt to reform the government.”

  44.DHRC, 9:1035, speech of James Madison, June 7, 1788; PMC, 11:101–2, to Hamilton and King, June 9, 1788; De Coppet Collection, Madison to Delaplaine, memo, Sept. 1816; LC-JM, to Jonathan Elliott, Nov. 1827. Migraines, t
hought by Hippocrates to result from too much yellow bile, were called “bilious headaches” or “bilious attacks” well into the twentieth century, and the distinction between migraines and epilepsy was not sharply drawn—which may also help explain Madison’s terminology. See Daniel, Migraine, 105; Vining, “Bilious Attacks and Epilepsy,” 122; Gowers, Borderland of Epilepsy, 76–93.

  45.DHRC, 9:1143–44, 10:1206, speeches of James Madison, June 11 and 12, 1788.

  46.DHRC, 9:1052, speech of Patrick Henry, June 9, 1788; PJ, 12:571, to Donald, Feb. 7, 1788; DHRC, 10:1223, speech of James Madison, June 12, 1788.

  47.DHRC, 10:1229, 1242, 1248, speeches of Patrick Henry and James Madison, June 13, 1788.

  48.Brant, Madison, 3:227; PMC, 11:144, to Hamilton, June 16, 1788; 11:153, to Washington, June 18, 1788; DHRC, 10:1687–88, extract of a letter from Richmond dated June 18, 1788, Pennsylvania Mercury, June 26, 1788; 10:1651, Stuart to John Breckinridge, June 19, 1778.

  49.DHRC, 10:1474, 1477, speech of Patrick Henry, June 24, 1788.

  50.DHRC, 10:1499–1504, speech of James Madison, June 24, 1788.

  51.DHRC, 10:1506, speech of Patrick Henry, June 24, 1788; Grigsby, History of the Virginia Federal Convention, 1:316–17; DHRC, 10:1512, Roane memorandum, post-1817.

  52.DHRC, 10:1507, speech of James Madison, June 24, 1788.

  53.DHRC, 10:1538, June 25, 1788.

  54.DHRC, 10:1704, Monroe to Jefferson, July 12, 1788 (most words encoded); 10:1690, Oster to Luzerne, June 28, 1788; Brant, Madison, 3:227.

  55.PMC, 11:170, from Washington, June 23, 1788.

  56.PWD, 5:357, July 4–6, 1788; PMC, 14:300–301, “Memorandum on a Discussion of the President’s Retirement,” May 5, 1792.

  57.PMC, 14:301, “Memorandum on a Discussion of the President’s Retirement,” May 5, 1792; PWP, 1:32–33, to Hamilton, Oct. 3, 1788.

  58.Koch, Jefferson and Madison, 44–54; PMC, 11:197, 227, to Jefferson, July 24 (most words encoded) and Aug. 10, 1788.

  59.PMC, 11:353, from Jefferson, Nov. 18, 1788.

  Chapter 8: SETTING THE MACHINE IN MOTION

  1.Brissot de Warville, New Travels in the United States, 101.

  2.Ibid., 102; Ketcham, Madison, 273; PMC, 11:230, to Washington, Aug. 11, 1788.