by Chris DeRose
But by February of 1787, Madison was back in New York and once again a member of Congress. He and Monroe both regretted that the urgency of Madison’s attendance there had prevented him from visiting Monroe in Fredericksburg.
Monroe trusted Madison above his other friends in New York to help him handle some outstanding issues he had left unresolved there. “A Mr. Coghill in King Street engaged to make some furniture for me,” Monroe explained. He asked Madison to “examine it” and, if it didn’t measure up, “reject it. Tell him I decline taking it, for if it is not of the best kind I had rather have none.” Monroe asked Madison to cover the bill for the furniture with the money he owed Monroe for their land purchase and to “send the furniture to me,” with a bill for anything that exceeded Madison’s debt.21
Madison also checked in on Monroe’s in-laws. They were well, he reported, “but full of complaints against your epistolary failures. I became your apologist as far as I could, but have agreed to give you up if you do not give future proofs of repentance and amendment.”22
Madison presented his credentials to Congress on February 12, 1787, and immediately set to work to have that body sanction the upcoming meeting in Philadelphia. He received pushback from members who felt that such a convention violated the Articles, but Madison could not be discouraged. He succeeded in persuading Congress to approve the Philadelphia Convention. And the congressional recommendation would give legitimacy to the proceedings there, as well as to their final product.
With this important business out of the way, Madison went to judge Monroe’s furniture. But “having little confidence” in his “judgment of cabinet workmanship,” Madison enlisted fellow members of Congress William Grayson of Virginia and William Bingham of Pennsylvania to join him. As they walked through the streets of New York, perhaps they laughed at the absurdity of their task. Three men charged with conducting the nation’s affairs were applying their combined expertise to judge the quality of household furnishings. At least it was a job they could see through to a conclusion, unlike virtually every issue they had to deal with in Congress. They agreed that the workmanship met the terms of the contract. “The aspect of the furniture does not I own entirely please my eye,” Madison wrote Monroe, but “no particular defect appears in the workmanship. It is to be considered too that mahogany is one of the few things which appears worst when new.”23
In his letter reporting to Monroe about the furniture, Madison included updates on the progress toward the convention, including the recommendation by Congress and the fact that New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut would likely be represented there.24 He also updated Monroe on Shays’ Rebellion, then burning in the western lands of Massachusetts. Soldiers who had helped win the Revolution but had not been paid by Congress were being sued and having their property confiscated to pay their debts. Men who had risked their lives for their country were now losing their land because of congressional inaction. Rather than suffer this indignity, some former soldiers banded together to close down courts, halt foreclosure proceedings, and prevent the confiscation of their farms. The rebellion was quashed by the Massachusetts militia, thousands of rebels were arrested, and many were killed. This horrible tragedy would serve as a bloody reminder that the country could not continue to travel the road it was on.
Eight days after arriving in Congress, Madison wrote to Edmund Randolph, now serving as the governor of Virginia. “Nothing of consequence done,” he told his friend.25 His next update to Randolph was similarly bleak. “Our situation is becoming every day more and more critical. No money comes into the federal treasury. No respect is paid to the federal authority; and people of reflection unanimously agree that the existing confederacy is tottering to its foundation.” At least there was consensus on something. Madison feared that a monarchy might even rise up out of the ashes of the confederacy.26
Randolph, a close longtime friend of Madison’s, had served with him during his first term in Congress and in the Annapolis Convention. He was now serving as Madison’s co-conspirator in the plot to get Washington to Philadelphia by any means short of kidnapping. Randolph wrote to Madison that he would “press in warmest terms our friend at Mount Vernon to assent to join us.” He then wrote to Washington, “It is my purpose to take you by the hand.”27 As Washington’s former aide-de-camp and personal attorney, Randolph could allow himself liberties that others would not dare take with the general.
While Congress did nothing, Madison wrote, “The general attention is now directed toward the approaching convention.” Every state had chosen delegates—with the predictable exception of Rhode Island.28
Madison wrote to Washington with unfortunate news and some prophetic analysis: “I hear from Richmond with much concern that Mr. Henry has positively declined his mission to Philadelphia. Besides the loss of his services in that theatre, there is danger I fear that this step has proceeded from a wish to leave his conduct unfettered on another theatre where the result of the convention will receive its destiny from his omnipotence.” 29 Henry would abstain from any role in shaping the Convention, content to sit back and wait for the final result.
There was good news, however, in a letter from Randolph. “General Washington,” Randolph wrote triumphantly, will “agree to go to Philadelphia if his health will permit.” But first the general would go to the Society of the Cincinnati to apologize for refusing their presidency.30
“I am glad to find you are turning your thoughts towards the business of May next,” Madison wrote Randolph. He included his latest thoughts on what was needed to strengthen the national government. Interestingly, though the mandate for the convention was only to revise the Articles, Madison was already contemplating drafting an entirely new document. He envisioned incorporating the best of the Articles into a new constitution, rather than simply revising the old one.31
Madison suggested a bicameral legislature selected by the people or state legislatures, with total authority where uniform measures were necessary, and a veto over the laws of the states, as well as a federal judiciary. Madison was still surprisingly unsure about the proper makeup of the executive. “To give the system proper energy,” Madison suggested having it ratified by the people, not the state legislatures. The legislatures, after all, had been the great obstructionists against all measures aimed at solving problems on the national level. Madison wrote a similarly worded letter to Washington.32
Just as he had for his “Notes on Ancient and Modern Confederacies” before the Annapolis Convention, Madison began meticulous research for the Philadelphia Convention. But he titled his new notes “Vices of the Political System of the United States.”33 Madison listed twelve areas of deficiency, including states’ trespassing on each other’s rights as well as on the prerogatives of the federal government under the Articles; the failure of requisitions from the states to fund the federal government; the lack of concerted action where common interests required it; and a lack of security against internal violence such as Shay’s rebellion.
Meanwhile, Madison helped draft a summons requiring Jay to appear before Congress and report on the status of the Spanish negotiation. 34 Madison was taking up once again the role Monroe had played in Congress in the three years of Madison’s absence—champion of the United States’ rights to the Mississippi, statesman working to assure that the federal government would meet its obligations, banner-bearer for the national interest.
In April of 1787 Jay complied, updating Congress on his talks with Gardoqui and addressing the increasing Spanish-American violence along the river.35 Jay said ominously that the United States had a decision to make: “wage war with Spain, or settle all differences with her by treaty, on the best terms in their power.” If it was to be war, the United States must prepare without delay.36 Congress most certainly did not want war, but could not agree on what it did want. Therefore, the issue remained unresolved.
In the spring of 1787, Monroe won election to the House of Delegates, defeating Mann Page, who had opposed allowi
ng Virginians to pay their state taxes in tobacco.
Monroe’s only surviving letter to Elizabeth comes from this time. The newlyweds were apart for the first time, and finding the separation painful. Monroe and another young delegate, Edward Carrington, were discussing taking a house in Richmond where they and their wives could be together during session. In the meantime, Monroe wrote to Elizabeth urging “fortitude and patience, however painful or afflicting.” But he hoped that the future would hold “little occasion to exercise this kind of fortitude...hope we shall be able . . . to surmount those difficulties which the severities of fortune had imposed on us in our commencement, to avoid a separation for such a length of time.” The temporary separation was necessary because James Monroe was a man of duty; he felt it “essential to my character here and of course to my prospect of extricating ourselves from our present embarrassments, that I show the public I can attend to business. ”37
Madison congratulated Monroe on his victory in the election. “I hear with great pleasure that you are to aid the deliberations of the next assembly,” he wrote.38 He also made arrangements to ship Monroe’s furniture to Norfolk. With that important business behind him, James Madison headed for Philadelphia and the Constitutional Convention.
Madison arrived in Philadelphia on May 3, 1787, staying once again in the guest house of Eliza Trist, at the corner of 5th and Market Streets. He could hardly have failed to remember how happy he had been there at the height of his courtship of Kitty Floyd, in the company of Jefferson and Kitty’s family. The house had been full of cheerful companionship then, and Madison’s life had been filled with happy prospects for the future. The city was quiet now, with Congress long since gone. Delegates to the convention were slow to arrive. In the silence before the convention, Madison was forced to confront his fears. Would it end like Annapolis? Would it all be for absolutely nothing?
Chapter Nine
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
“We all look with great anxiety to the result of the Convention at Philadelphia.”
—JAMES MONROE
The Annapolis Convention had been an utter failure. But hopes for a more perfect union of the states had survived that disaster. A new convention had been planned. The development of a unified national government would rest on the shoulders of delegates to the Philadelphia Convention.
On May 23, Monroe wrote Madison to offer encouragement: “My leisure furnishes me with the opportunity, but the country around does not with materials to form a letter worthy your attention. We all look with great anxiety to the result of the Convention at Philadelphia. Indeed it seems to be the sole point on which all future movements will turn. If it succeeds wisely and of course happily, the wishes of all good men will be gratified. The arrangement must be wise, and every way well concerted, for them to force their way through the states.”1
But Madison was “daily disappointed” by the lack of attendance. “Every reflecting man becomes daily more alarmed at our situation,” he wrote.2 What if poor attendance doomed the Philadelphia Convention to failure as it had doomed Annapolis? Would there be another chance for the United States?
Still Madison, always meticulously prepared and disciplined in the pursuit of his aims, would gain what benefit he could from consulting with those delegates who had arrived. He talked and dined with the delegates present in Philadelphia and worked hard to unite the Virginians around his plan. Madison and his home state delegation met every day in the run-up to the Convention. Their preparation would amplify their influence in the proceedings.
Finally on May 25, 1787, the Convention at Philadelphia reached a quorum.3
Madison was impressed by the caliber of those in attendance and took their prestige as a sign that both they and those who had sent them were taking the Convention seriously. “It contains in several instances the most respectable characters in the US and in general may be said to be the best contribution of talents the states could make for the occasion,” Madison thought. “But the labor is great indeed; whether we consider the real or imaginary difficulties, within doors or without doors.”4
On May 27, Washington was the unanimous choice to chair the Convention. The only other possible choice among the Philadelphia delegates, or anywhere in America, was Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was now eighty-one years old, and the Philadelphia Convention would be his last service to his country. Franklin himself had intended to nominate Washington for chairman, but infirmity had prevented him from attending that day. Instead, the motion nominating the great Virginian originated with another Pennsylvania delegate, signaling a conciliatory beginning to the endeavor.
Washington’s prestige was absolutely necessary to success at Philadelphia. But Madison provided the historical research, the broad knowledge of political philosophy, and above all the thorough preparation and planning that made the ultimate results of the Constitutional Convention possible.
Throughout the Convention, Madison sat directly in front of the chairman, front row and center. He was never absent, even for a day, nor for more than a fraction of an hour.5 And it was his plan for a new constitution for the United States that would be the basis for the delegates’ debate.
As so often in Madison’s career, whenever he deemed it helpful to the cause he was espousing, he would introduce his own proposals through someone else. On May 29, in the first substantive action the Convention had seen, Edmund Randolph of Virginia took the floor to offer fifteen resolutions. The resolutions Randolph offered had been drafted by Madison and reflected his extensive research and his philosophy about the structure and powers of government.
Edmund Randolph, in the words of Georgia delegate William Pierce, was “a force of eloquence . . . a most harmonious voice.” As governor of Virginia, and as a powerful orator, Randolph was the natural choice to present what became known as the Virginia Plan. Randolph opened his address by lamenting that it should fall to him rather than someone with more experience to begin. But as Virginia had originated the call for a convention, the state was obligated to offer its proposal, and as the governor, the task of presenting it had fallen to him.
Randolph discussed the many failings of the Confederation, while praising its creators as having done their very best under difficult circumstances. Randolph declared the need to amend the Articles to make them suitable for the purposes of “common defense, security of liberty, and general welfare.” He then introduced the resolutions one by one.
The Virginia Plan proposed a national legislature with two chambers and representation determined by the number of free inhabitants of the state or else by the state’s financial contribution to the national government. Madison had been consistently frustrated by the fact that delegations from small states, representing but a few people, had such a disproportionate weight in the Confederation Congress compared to his own state, the most populous. An American living in Delaware, he believed, had no more right to representation in the national legislature than one living in Virginia.
The theory of “checks and balances” pervades the Virginia Plan. Madison divided the legislative power, the repository of most national responsibilities, into two branches. Madison’s Virginia experience convinced him that the two chambers should be more or less equal. The Virginia Senate was mostly limited to voting bills up or down or amending legislation. They could not initiate bills or amend bills that related to revenue. As a result, the Virginia Senate was too weak an obstacle in the way of unwise legislation.
Members of the first chamber (later known as the House of Representatives) would be elected directly by the people and would choose members of the second chamber (later known as the Senate) from a pool nominated by state legislatures. Madison envisioned some role for the states in the selection of the second chamber’s members, but he acted to make senators not so wholly reliant on the states as members of Congress under the Articles were.
Each chamber would have the power to originate laws. They would have the same powers as the Congress of the Confederation, as we
ll as new authority in those areas where individual states were incompetent to act separately. The new Congress would have a veto over the laws of state legislatures, and it was empowered to call forth the armed forces of the union against any state that failed in its obligations. These new powers proposed by Madison were the primary cause of and purpose for the meeting.
The veto over state legislatures was not for the purpose of allowing Congress to meddle in internal state affairs, but to keep the states from infringing on the national interest. From Chester County’s adventures in P.O.W. policy to New York’s treating with the Indians and Georgia’s negotiations with Spain, the states had a history of creating anarchy and paralysis in clearly national issues. Madison’s proposed congressional veto over state legislation was a mechanism for preventing further abuses. And the power to use force against the states for noncompliance with federal legislation had long been, in Madison’s mind, the only solution to the chronic impotence of the national government. He lamented that for want of authority to send a single frigate into the port of a recalcitrant state, the nation was perpetually bankrupt. Only federal authority backed by force, Madison believed, would have caused states to comply with requisitions.
Madison’s plan also envisioned a national executive, chosen by the legislature, empowered to execute the laws of the country, and possessed of all the executive authority of the government. Together with members of the judiciary, the executive would form a Council of Revision with the power to veto bills proposed by the national and state legislatures, subject to some ability of Congress to override that decision.6 What Madison was proposing was similar to New York’s Council of Revision, made up of the governor and certain members of the judiciary, which could, by majority vote, veto a bill; the veto could be overridden by a two-thirds majority of the legislature.d