Near the end of the convention, Henry launched into his longest discourse on slavery. The generally placid and greatly esteemed legal scholar George Wythe had had enough. Years before, Wythe had refused to certify Henry’s admission to the bar, doubting the young man’s academic credentials. Now, believing that Henry had nothing of relevance to add to the proceedings, he moved to cut off debate and vote for unconditional ratification.
Newspapers were reporting that the federalists would win by six or eight votes, and their prediction proved remarkably accurate. On June 25, after the convention rejected two lists of proposed amendments submitted by Henry, it voted and, by 89 to 79, Virginia became the tenth state to ratify. A special committee met to draft a list of constitutional amendments that it wished to have incorporated in the future, and on the twenty-seventh, the Virginia Ratifying Convention adjourned.38
The federal moment had arrived, and the press came alive. Though still in its infancy as a channel for shock and awe, the American newspaper effectively covered the clash of well-known personalities. Throughout Virginia’s convention, readers followed the vigorous language of Patrick Henry and pored over the arguments of James Madison. One published letter explained that the Constitution had passed because of the latter’s intellectual reach, “notwithstanding Mr. Henry’s declamatory powers—they being vastly overpowered by the deep reasoning of our glorious little Madison.” Reason had outlasted passion. David had slain Goliath.39
Antifederalists saw a different contest, to be sure, praising Henry’s genius as well as his eloquence. To this loyal opposition, he was victorious even in defeat. When Henry railed against the “bloodsuckers” (tax collectors, excise men) trudging south to drag Virginians into federal court, he reached into the impressionable minds of debtors and small farmers. He showed large planters that they faced financial ruin if unsympathetic federal judges forced them to pay their British creditors. To Kentucky and frontier Virginia delegates, he sounded out a warning: when a northern-dominated Congress threw Virginia’s “Western brethren” into the “arms of Spain” and surrendered all access to the commercial lifeline of the Mississippi River, they would be left high and dry. A French observer remarked of Henry: “He was always attacked, but never conquered.” But he was conquered. He lost out to a Virginian who was not a delegate or even in Richmond at the time of the convention: George Washington, whose presence was felt, and whose support for the Constitution was well known. Monroe told Jefferson: “Be assured his influence carried this government.”40
A month after Virginia ratified, when Madison got around to writing Jefferson, he was in a better mood than he had been up to that point. Yet he remained fatigued, if not alarmed, by all it had taken to turn back the antifederalist challenge. He expressed relief that Mason and Henry “will give no countenance to popular violences,” but neither were they truly reconciled to the results. Informing Jefferson that Henry had brought up the contents of his letter to Alexander Donald as proof of Jefferson’s antifederalism, Madison explained that he had attested to the falsity of those attributions that he knew misrepresented Jefferson’s position. Beyond that, he said, he “took the liberty” to credit Jefferson for his opinions in support of the Constitution.
As their relationship allowed for candor, Madison criticized Jefferson for his recklessness—in language that was gentler than it might have been. He explained that Jefferson’s antifederalist tone was not only recognized by Henry but had spread through Maryland even earlier, “with a like view of impeding the ratification” in that state. The minister’s preference for amendments prior to ratification had revived the antifederalist cause in Maryland, but ratification did take place there, nonetheless, at the end of April. No harm done.41
Before he received Madison’s reprimand, Jefferson had already responded warmly to news that ratification had succeeded in nine states (including Maryland, but prior to Virginia). “I sincerely rejoice at the acceptance of our new constitution,” he wrote Madison. “It is a good canvas, on which some strokes only want retouching.” In Jefferson’s mind, some added strokes of the pen were needed both for Virginia’s sake and also to sustain America’s growing reputation for representative government among the liberal minds of Europe.
In fact, while Madison was dealing with Mason and Henry, Jefferson in Paris had been amicably debating the Constitution with Tom Paine and the Marquis de Lafayette. He had to deal with French displeasure at America’s inability to pay the interest on its loans at a time when the French government itself struggled with an acute financial crisis. Ordinary French people were the ones who suffered the most. The French problem was, for Jefferson, another lesson in what can go wrong when government is deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.42
He was witnessing up close how a government routinely violated individual rights. Naturally he expected America to do better, and for the U.S. Constitution to afford specific protections to individuals through a bill of rights. In writing to Madison, he outlined his reasons for favoring a precise delineation of basic individual rights, fixing on one that had been of deep concern to both of them, freedom of religion, and another that would be of mounting concern in the near future, freedom of the press. In both cases, he explained, government authority would not be compromised. For one, “The declaration that religious faith shall be unpunished, does not give impunity to criminal acts dictated by religious error.” Second, “A declaration that the federal government will never restrain the presses from printing any thing they please, will not take away the liability of the printers for false facts printed.” Jefferson’s prescriptions were moderate ones: freedom of religion did not imply that one’s faith protected him or her against prosecution for criminal behavior inspired by some imagined duty to God; freedom of the press did not imply that libel laws could be circumvented.
While forgiving of Jefferson’s poor judgment in saying things that Henry could exploit in the two letters concerning ratification, Madison remained loose with his own language in those letters to Jefferson in which he passed judgment on political men. In the fall of 1788, as speculation about the new government began to spread, he named some of the likely officers to take their place in a government directed by George Washington. A southern president required a northern vice president, and Madison thought the leading contenders would be John Hancock and John Adams, both from Massachusetts. The two were equally objectionable to Madison, who reserved his choicest words for the latter: “J. Adams has made himself obnoxious to many, particularly in the Southern states.” Besides, his “extravagant self importance” suggested that he had his eye on the presidency. “He would not be a very cordial second to the General,” Madison predicted. “An impatient ambition might even intrigue for a premature advancement.” It seems remarkable, in retrospect, that Madison should believe Adams capable of acting to push Washington out of the way; but his vast experience among delegates and congressmen had made Madison a harsh judge of human nature.43
Occupying different continents, Madison and Jefferson kept different company, so it is hardly surprising that they were not always on the same page. They had come to prioritize issues differently. Jefferson embraced his Americanness most when he found the political society of Europe wanting. To the Philadelphia satirist Francis Hopkinson, he compared the situations of France and the United States with mordant wit worthy of his correspondent: “The king and the parliament are quarrelling for the oyster. The shell will be left as heretofore to the people. This it is to have government which can be felt; a government of energy. God send that our country may never have a government, which it can feel. This is the perfection of human society.” It was going to take time before Madison and he would be able to agree on the proper reach of government. They had been an ocean apart for four full years now.44
As Jefferson was collecting seeds and sampling wines and fixing his gaze on the bubbling political cauldron inside France, Madison faced an uncertain future. He was wondering whether, in the aftermath of two con
ventions, he was destined to sit in the Senate, as Washington wished and as Patrick Henry would do his best to subvert; or if he would stand for a House seat by contesting his friend James Monroe. After all Madison had been through, this was hardly an enviable position to be in at the dawning of a new age in government. But Henry had seen to it that his and Monroe’s home bases would be part of the same congressional district.
“Finesse”
George Washington possessed the confidence of the American people. Immediately after the ratification process was complete, he received letters urging him to accept the presidency that was to be offered him. It was not a question of running. Reading a copy of the Constitution “with An unspeackable Eagerness and Attention,” Lafayette wrote to him that the executive seemed to be more powerful than it should be in a republic; thus, the country would be in good hands only if he should assume the office. “You Cannot Refuse Being Elected,” the French-American general declared. For their part, Fourth of July celebrants in 1788 toasted “Farmer Washington,” as they bade him return to the seat of government. The newspapers clamored for him.45
When the presidential electors cast their votes, Washington was unanimously chosen. He had expressed doubts about his age, and he was afraid of being thought of as lusting for power, but these concerns eventually dissipated. He prepared to leave Mount Vernon for the temporary national capital of New York, aware that he would have to endure celebratory cannon fire and widespread idolatry, as young girls scattered flowers along his route and amateur poets enlarged his victories into godlike triumphs. He was being widely referred to as a “saviour.” Americans were an enthusiastic bunch.
Washington was cool to having John Adams as his vice president, but he appears to have preferred the testy New Englander to New York’s longtime Governor George Clinton, an antifederalist whose friends were aggressively promoting him. Washington knew Clinton well from their wartime association, and together they had purchased some land in upstate New York. But Adams was smarter and more industrious. A student of government with solid experience abroad, he had proven his commitment to American independence many times over.
Destined, in his own mind, to be unpopular, Adams wrote and said what others may have thought but could not articulate with equal relish. This is how he became associated with the desire to foster aristocracy in America when he believed he was merely acknowledging social inequality that already existed. Similarly, he wrote of his irritation with the ever-ballooning superlatives being given to both Franklin and Washington. As a result, he was thought peevish. Madison’s and Jefferson’s disparaging characterizations of Adams were echoed by others within Virginia and beyond its borders. Patrick Henry, as a Virginia elector, cast his second vote for Clinton.46
William Stephens Smith had been one of Washington’s wartime aides-de-camp and was, since 1786, John Adams’s son-in-law. He brought Jefferson up to speed in a letter of February 1789, reporting that Adams would be elected vice president, but that he might accidentally be made president in Washington’s stead. The system of balloting gave the electors two votes but failed to discriminate between the votes for president and vice president—and so deftness was required. Connecticut’s electors withheld two votes from Adams “from an apprehension that if the state of Virginia should not vote for General Washington that Mr. A. would be President, which would not be consistent with the wish of the country and could only arise from the finesse of antifoederal Electors with a View to produce confusion and embarrass the operations of the Constitution.”47
There is irony here on three counts: first, that Adams, not a popular figure to begin with, stood a chance of leapfrogging over Washington; second, that Virginians might elect a New Englander over one of their own; and third, that the balloting system that the framers had failed to perfect would come back to haunt Jefferson a dozen years later during his own quest for the presidency, when, in opposing Adams, his party miscalculated and gave vice-president-designate Aaron Burr an equal number of votes. Their electoral tie in 1800–1801 did exactly what Smith had predicted in 1789, producing “confusion” and “embarrassing the operations of the constitution”; and it brought into play Jefferson’s staunchest opponents, who used “finesse” to extract concessions from the incoming president. The problem of separating the votes for president and vice president would have to be resolved by constitutional amendment in 1804.48
“The Complexion of the New Congress”
Patrick Henry’s animus toward Madison was entirely undisguised. He had promoted to the U.S. Senate two antifederalists with strong credentials, Richard Henry Lee and William Grayson. Not only had Henry threatened to move to North Carolina if Virginia ratified the Constitution, he also called candidate Madison “unworthy of the confidence of the people” and went so far as to charge that if Madison went to the Senate, it would “terminate in producing rivulets of blood throughout the land.”49
Of the 324 votes cast in the Senate race, Lee received a plurality, though not a majority, and Grayson only nine votes more than Madison. One member of the Virginia Assembly was perturbed enough with Henry’s actions that he wrote a letter, ostensibly to a friend, but meant for as many newspapers as would carry it. It bemoaned Henry’s deviousness in attacking Madison. “I feel much for Mr. Maddison,” the assemblyman cried, “but more for my country, for I considered this the trumpet of discord, a daemon which will destroy that domestic peace and happiness, which unanimity of sentiment has hitherto secured to us.” Federalist or antifederalist was not supposed to matter, now that deliberations were past.50
Having succeeded in keeping Madison out of the Senate, Henry redoubled his efforts. Pitting Madison against Monroe, he quite nearly succeeded in barring Madison from the House of Representatives. Madison was forced to participate in staged debates in antifederalist strongholds. While the candidates maintained good relations, Monroe challenged Madison on the need for amendments, an argument that was easy to grasp. Madison understood that his countrymen would require explicit assurances that their liberties were not to be trampled on by a greedy government; he responded to political necessity by addressing concerns about a comprehensive bill of rights. Writing letters to influential friends, he overcame the fears of just enough voters to defeat his friend Monroe.51
The vote tally for Virginia’s fifth congressional district was 1,308 for Madison and 972 for Monroe—Madison won 57 percent of the vote. In the process, he won 62 percent of Jefferson’s Albemarle County, where Monroe was building a modest home for his family. Just a year earlier Jefferson had described his affection for Monroe in a letter to Madison: “Turn his soul wrong side outwards and there is not a speck on it.” He was grave in appearance but amiable in company, ardent and somewhat restless compared to most of his political peers. Even friends saw that he was lacking in originality, and so to divert attention from his intellectual limitations, they stressed Monroe’s sincerity—his speck-free soul. He was workmanlike as well as warm, a combination Jefferson liked when combined with trustworthiness.52
In addressing Jefferson on the national vote, it was unavoidable that Madison would bring up the delicate subject of his own campaign. “It was my misfortune to be thrown into a contest with our friend, Col. Monroe,” he explained. “The occasion produced considerable efforts among our respective friends. Between ourselves I have no reason to doubt that the distinction was duly kept in mind between political and personal views, and that it has saved our friendship from the smallest diminution. On one side I am sure it is the case.” On one side. He did not know for certain what Monroe was writing to Jefferson separately.53
In due course, Madison was able to rebuild his relationship with Monroe. And though Henry’s means of seeking political advantage were fairly crude, he should not have to accept all of the blame for what happened. There was something already present, something in the stubborn egos of both Madison and Monroe, that would rise and challenge their bond more than once. Not insignificantly, each time the fourth and fifth preside
nts were placed in direct competition, the more sensitive Monroe would get the short end of the stick.
In 1789 George Washington was probably the only Virginian with a larger national reputation than James Madison, Jr. The inauguration of the first president took place in New York on April 30 of that year, at the remodeled City Hall on Wall Street. Based on a design by the Frenchman Pierre L’Enfant, the new building was renamed Federal Hall and completed in time for Washington to stand on the balcony and take the oath of office. Festivities concluded with a banquet thrown by George Clinton, whose antifederalism did not interfere with his admiration for Washington. Madison was present in New York from the beginning of the month, as Congress was already in session. He was Washington’s most trusted adviser and, initially, the president’s principal speechwriter.54
Madison had the odd task of preparing the official House response to the inaugural address that he had played a lead role in drafting. In the official rejoinder to his own handiwork, he ceremoniously flattered the chief executive with congressional attestations to the “pre-eminence” of his “merit” and “reverence” for his “wisdom,” assuring Washington that the country regarded him as “the most beloved of her citizens.” It is of no small moment that as the federal Constitution took effect, James Madison was dexterously orchestrating relations between the executive and legislative branches of government.55
He clearly enjoyed his privileged position, finally putting the menace of Patrick Henry behind him. In differentiating between federalist and antifederalist members of the Virginia delegation of the incoming First Congress, he was strikingly positive. He used the word temperate to describe one of those who had opposed the Constitution but was pleased to join the new government; and he described the least contented antifederalist as “not … inveterate.” While he cautiously informed Jefferson, “It is not yet possible to ascertain precisely the complexion of the new Congress,” he was confident that a few “conciliatory sacrifices” would “extinguish opposition to the system.”56 After debate in the House of Representatives began, Madison reported to Jefferson that any fears of congressional votes being split too neatly along sectional lines had been removed, and that so far “members from the same State, or the same part of the Union are as often separated on questions from each other, as they are united in opposition to other States or other quarters of the Continent. This is a favorable symptom.” Those who have traditionally painted Madison as a hardheaded pragmatist tend to ignore these moments of enthusiasm.57
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