Madison and Jefferson

by Nancy Isenberg;Andrew Burstein

  It took the death of his wife to convince Jefferson to leave Monticello, where so many bittersweet memories lingered. Madison, now an old hand in Congress, orchestrated the move and kept after Randolph for two months to persuade Jefferson to agree to a diplomatic posting. This was, in fact, the second attempt to lure Jefferson away. Shortly after the end of his governorship, he had been asked to go to France as a peace commissioner but refused the posting by stating ambiguously that a “temporary and indispensable obligation” would force him to remain in Virginia. This time, as there was no credible obligation, he consented and prepared to leave his native state for the first time in six and a half years. He would head first to Philadelphia to consult with Madison and others, before embarking on his European mission.9

  “To Forget Their Local Prejudices”

  On December 19, 1782, Jefferson jotted in his account book, “set out from Monticello for Philadelphia, France, &c.” Accompanied by Patsy, the eldest of his three daughters, he ferried across the Potomac and traveled by way of Baltimore, arriving on the twenty-seventh in Philadelphia, where he visited a barber for a needed shave and took up lodgings with Madison at the House-Trist boardinghouse. On the thirtieth Madison informed Randolph that Jefferson had gotten down to work, “industriously arming himself for the field of negotiation.”10

  As the congressman and the would-be foreign negotiator shared confidences during their month together in Philadelphia, Madison renewed his interest in Catherine “Kitty” Floyd, the daughter of his fellow boarder, William Floyd of New York. Kitty may have been half his age, but at this time a sixteen-year-old girl was marriageable. Though Patsy Jefferson was but ten, she was much closer in age than Madison was to his intended, and she found friendship with Kitty and her older sister.11

  On January 26, 1783, Jefferson left for the port of Baltimore, along with Major David Salisbury Franks, a Jewish, Montreal-born former aide-de-camp to Benedict Arnold, who was meant to serve as Jefferson’s secretary in Paris. Franks and Jefferson were not well matched, in part because the major was suspected of being complicit in Arnold’s treason (despite having been cleared by a military court). Franks was so eager to overcome the taint of his past association that he was driven to render services to American generals, diplomats, and financiers. From Baltimore, Jefferson confided to Madison, writing in a cipher they had devised, that he thought Franks competent but loose-lipped, a poor trait for one who was to be situated among foreign diplomats. “I have marked him particularly in the company of women,” Jefferson related nervously, “where he loses all power over himself and becomes almost frenzied.” They were testing not just a diplomatic code but a confidential vocabulary about the people who surrounded them. In public, the two Virginians came across as cordial and proper; in private, they could sound hypercritical and even cruel.

  Madison chose figures of speech less colorful than Jefferson’s, but he disparaged with the same degree of candor. He wrote to him: “Congress yesterday received from Adams several letters dated September not remarkable for any thing unless it be a display of his vanity, his prejudice against the French Court and his venom against Doctr. Franklin.” Madison had not as yet met John Adams, but he felt free to conjecture. Replying in code, Jefferson took pleasure in Madison’s tone of derision and answered in kind: “From what you mention in your letter I suppose the newspapers must be wrong when they say that Mr. Adams, had taken up his abode with Dr. Franklin … He hates Franklin, he hates Jay, he hates the French, he hates the English. To whom will he adhere? His vanity is a lineament in his character which had entirely escaped me. His want of taste I had observed. Notwithstanding all this he has a sound head on substantial points, and I think he has integrity.” Jefferson’s faint praise of Adams does not put much of a dent in the litany of hatreds that precedes it.

  Had Jefferson left for Europe as planned, Madison and he would no doubt have continued to write candidly about issues and personalities. As things turned out, though, the vessel Jefferson and Franks intended to sail on was delayed because the predatory Royal Navy was in close proximity. Not long afterward, Jefferson received word that a peace treaty with Great Britain was soon to be finalized and America’s independence recognized. As his mission now appeared unnecessary, he returned to Philadelphia and cemented the bond with Madison over the ensuing six weeks.12

  The year 1783 marked a turning point in the political collaboration of Madison and Jefferson. Until now Madison had relied primarily on the two Edmunds, his dear friend Randolph and the veteran politician Pendleton, to communicate his views on the increasingly intense debates in Congress over the distribution of power in a disjointed republic struggling to make the transition from war to peace. With the widower Jefferson no longer distracted by home life and no longer reluctant to enter the fray, a warm and natural conversation developed between them.

  Colonel Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s wartime aide, joined the New York delegation in Congress in late November 1782, and immediately recognized James Madison as a colleague worth knowing. It seems likely that Jefferson’s arrival on the scene a month later marks the moment when Hamilton and Jefferson met for the first time, quite possibly in the company of Madison. Though a new member of the national legislature, Hamilton was active and forceful in debate. His name appears frequently in Madison’s notes on the deliberations of Congress; the two generally agreed on the issues, but Madison’s commentary also hints that as the weeks passed, he saw Hamilton as deficient in tact and reluctant to compromise.

  The questions of greatest interest to Madison and Hamilton at this moment were how to add revenue to the national government and how to strengthen Congress. They agreed on the desirability of an impost, or duty, on such imported commodities as coffee, wine, and spirits, to be collected from all the states. An impost would enable the United States to repay its war debts. But when Madison’s plan came up for a vote, Hamilton would not go along—in Madison’s words, because he had a plan “which he supposed more perfect,” that is, which invited even greater encroachments on state sovereignty.

  Hamilton wished centralization to exceed what Madison had worked out. He wanted federal revenue collection to be aggressive and far-reaching, with tax collectors appointed by Congress to ensure that their allegiance would be to it rather than to the individual states. All but New York and Rhode Island supported the impost; three years later, when Rhode Island finally came around, New York was still being criticized in the press for resisting “the united views and wishes of almost every other part of our foederal government.” It was hard for those who agreed with Hamilton and Madison to understand how anyone could oppose such a “salutary expedient to retrieve the credit of America” and believe instead that an impost was the same as congressional despotism over the states.13

  Madison followed up with an “Address to the States,” a statement of principle, ostensibly drafted by a committee of three (with Hamilton of New York and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut) but in fact written by Madison alone. He wished that the states would be less self-interested and that Congress would lead in assuming and paying off the states’ war debts—the national debt. Madison was cautious about giving Congress complete power over commercial treaties, cautious as well about sacrificing Virginia’s planter economy to a northern commercial perspective. But in his mind, building up national revenues was a matter entirely separate from state posturing. And so he appealed to the states to commit to the larger cause of restoring the public credit. His choice of words was atypically emotional: “If justice, good faith, honor, gratitude & all the other Qualities which enoble the character of a nation, and fulfil the ends of Government, be the fruits of our establishments,” he wrote, “the cause of liberty will acquire a dignity and lustre, which it has never yet enjoyed.” But if the states refused to cooperate, he warned, “the great cause which we have engaged to vindicate, will be dishonored & betrayed.”14

  Madison’s “Address to the States” was supplemented by Washington’s “Circular to th
e States” six weeks later, in which the military commander insisted that America’s well-being could not be sustained without an unbroken spirit of cooperation among the states, a move “to forget their local prejudices and policies, to make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity, and in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the Community.” Madison had stood up for Washington at times during the war when some of his congressional colleagues expressed doubts about the general’s effectiveness. After Yorktown, when Washington came to Philadelphia and stayed for a few months, he and Madison interacted for the first time and occasionally saw each other socially. Around then, too, Madison recommended to the Virginia Assembly that something be done to honor Washington’s favorite, the triumphant Lafayette. Madison had done everything he could to please Washington by cultivating the young French nobleman. Now, a year and a half after Yorktown, Washington wrote to Madison requesting that Congress consider Major James McHenry, his former aide (subsequently a Lafayette aide), for a ministerial position in London or Paris. Demonstrating Madison’s fast-growing national importance, the illustrious Washington was seeking his favor.15

  One other thing Madison did while Jefferson was on hand in Philadelphia was to propose a permanent resource for Congress: a depository of books on international law, history, world geography, and natural history, for use in politics and diplomacy. For this purpose he tapped a list of 2,640 books cataloged by Jefferson, which Madison amended and expanded to include numerous titles by radical religious skeptics. Unfortunately, the idea of a Library of Congress was ahead of its time; it would not be established until the last year of John Adams’s presidency.16

  Before Jefferson departed Philadelphia in April 1783, the month the “Address to the States” was issued, he observed a spark between the teenaged Kitty Floyd and Madison. In the letters he wrote to Madison while traveling, Jefferson did not fail to send his compliments to “Miss K.” He had been privy to the teasing that went on inside the boardinghouse, which must have made Madison uncomfortable. Jefferson had apparently not pressed Madison about his feelings; but now, at a distance, he admitted that he had expressed to their other housemates his high regard for the match. “I know it will render you happier than you can possibly be in a singl[e] state,” Jefferson assured.

  The cat was out of the bag. Madison had made overtures to the Floyds in April and used their cipher to give Jefferson a blow-by-blow account: “Before you left us I had sufficiently ascertained her sentiments. Since your departure the affair has been pursued. Most preliminary arrangements although definitive will be postponed until the end of the year in congress.” He added a note of gratitude: “The interest which your friendship takes on this occasion in my happiness is a pleasing proof that the disposetions [sic] which I feel are reciprocal.” In his reply, Jefferson “rejoiced” twice: “I rejoice at the information that Miss K. and yourself concur in sentiments. I rejoice as it will render you happier and will give me a neighbor on whom I shall set high value.” Anticipating that the couple would settle in Virginia at the conclusion of Madison’s time in Congress, Jefferson extolled the institution of marriage, though he himself, at this point seven months a widower, would ultimately choose not to remarry.17

  Before returning to Monticello, Jefferson stopped at Edmundsbury, in Caroline County, and visited with Pendleton.18 There was talk of a new Virginia convention. Madison would soon have to leave Congress, according to guidelines, when his third consecutive year there ended; Jefferson planned to go to Philadelphia in his stead. So in June 1783, thinking ahead, Jefferson presented Madison with an amended version of the state constitution, hoping for his friend’s aid in selling it to their fellow Virginians. He wished for Madison to review and comment freely on it, and to discuss its features with capable men in Congress, but not to show it to any other Virginians. Jefferson felt certain he would meet resistance at home.

  This episode reveals something else important. Already in Jefferson’s mind, there was no one else of their generation at Madison’s level of competence whom he could count on to design new policy. The plan was for each to continue the other’s work. Madison had eclipsed Pendleton, Wythe, and even Mason as the pivot on which state-building was to occur.19 Though for the moment the influential, if not always organized, Patrick Henry was relatively quiet, Madison and Jefferson still expected that he would have to be neutralized if their program was to obtain the support of a majority in Richmond.

  One piece of correspondence reveals how Jefferson operated. Trying to stay one step ahead of Henry, he gave George Rogers Clark a guide to who Clark’s friends were and who was secretly undermining him. To do this meant resorting to invective without sounding petulant, a delicate move for any political opportunist. Writing to one whose susceptible nature he had earlier flushed out, Jefferson stepped gingerly across the page. Clark would, of course, know that Henry was meant when Jefferson damned a certain someone as “all tongue without either head or heart,” whose “schemes” were “crooked” (meaning wily and unpredictable). Exposing Henry’s betrayal of Clark, Jefferson feigned surprise at Henry’s hostile turn; he inserted the clause “as far as he has personal courage to shew hostility to any man” to show the courageous soldier that he could write off his political rival with one deft twist of the knife. Jefferson divulged as much of Henry’s apparent duplicity as would serve to make the frontier fighter feel the affront at a distance. The idea was to secure an ally.20

  The Clark letter is meaningful as a template, because this was how Jeffersonian-Madisonian politics would be constructed in coming years: first identifying friends and enemies; then molding opinions, building alliances, and forging plans in coded letters or in small conclaves; and last, presenting those well-formed plans to large deliberative bodies. In general, it would be Jefferson who issued the controlling statements, goading their allies, while the approving Madison maintained a temperate pose in all his prose.

  “His Judgment Is So Sound and His Heart So Good”

  Like the federal constitution that Madison would support in 1787–88, Jefferson’s 1783 plan for the Commonwealth of Virginia endorsed three distinct branches: legislative, executive, and judiciary. It differed from the scheme then in force, because the governor would serve a single five-year term, without any chance at reelection. The Executive Council would remain, and its advice to the governor would be, as Jefferson put it, “a sanction to him.” The council’s “sanction,” or consent, was not meant as a stop to executive authority, however. Jefferson wanted the governor to have more, not less, power than he himself wielded when he was the state’s executive. While opposing giving the governor a direct veto power, he did recommend granting him more control over the militia, an area in which he had felt his hands were tied.

  A liberal feature in Jefferson’s draft was the extension of voting privileges to “all free male citizens of full age and sane mind” after only one year’s residence in the state. But he did not believe the governor should be popularly elected; rather, he should be chosen by the elected members of the two houses. Jefferson did not want the legislature to have any opportunity to reverse his main agenda. It could not, for example, “abridge the civil rights of any person on account of his religious belief” or compel anyone to contribute to a church; it could not “ordain death for any crime but treason or murder”; it could not “prescribe torture.” The slavery provision is especially noteworthy: it made gradual emancipation a top priority. He would constrain the General Assembly from introducing any more slaves to Virginia; and he would not permit it to authorize “the continuance of slavery beyond the generation which shall be living on the 31st Day of December 1800.” All persons born beginning January 1, 1801 would be, without exception, free. In this way the proposal marks Jefferson as an early abolitionist, though he did not elaborate on where freed slaves would be permitted to reside, and he certainly did not advocate a Virginia with self-sustaining black communities.

  The
proposed state constitution was a liberal document, concerned with fair and impartial government. Believing a better power-sharing arrangement could be achieved than that which the 1776 constitution provided for, Jefferson (even before Madison) put forward what amounts to a system of checks and balances. He was full of hope.21

  Madison, still in Philadelphia, was greatly pleased that Jefferson had decided to reenlist in Congress. One way or another they would be crossing paths soon. In the interim, though, he suffered a personal setback when Kitty Floyd called off their engagement. At the behest of Kitty’s father, the renowned portrait artist Charles Willson Peale had composed miniatures of Madison and his intended bride, which the couple ritually exchanged and now had to return to each other. Madison conveyed his disappointment to Jefferson by letter. He had not “calculated” on being jilted, he said—the word calculated itself a calculated means of avoiding emotional expression. It was, rather, “one of those incidents to which such affairs are liable.” Any other description would have to await their next meeting. Madison expected he would visit Monticello in the coming weeks.22

  Instead, Jefferson made his way to Philadelphia. He took a roundabout route of nearly two weeks through the Shenandoah Valley so that he could inspect caves and other natural formations that he would detail in Notes on Virginia. He was accompanied on his journey by his daughter Patsy and two servants, brothers Bob and James Hemings. Bob, now twenty-one, had been fourteen in 1776, when he traveled to Philadelphia as Jefferson’s personal attendant; James, eighteen, served the master in that capacity now, while his older brother began his training as a barber. Both were the biological children of the late John Wayles, who was the late Patty Jefferson’s father. These two slaves had come to Jefferson as part of an inheritance.23