by Chris DeRose
Perhaps most important to Madison was the guarantee of freedom of religion. He had won his election with the support of the dissenters, and their leaders such as George Eve and John Leland. His first campaign promise had been to secure an amendment protecting the freedom of conscience. Without this promise, he would certainly have been defeated by Monroe. In its original form, the First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty read as follows:The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed.
Despite Madison’s enormous prestige, his proposal of the Bill of Rights met with resistance in the House. The incoming fire from Madison’s fellow Federalists came fast and furious. Many believed that amending the Constitution was premature and a distraction from more important matters .13
James Jackson raised a number of issues. “What experience have we had of the good or bad qualities of this Constitution?” he asked. The Constitution “is like a vessel just launched, and lying at the wharf, she is untried, you can hardly discover any one of her properties; it is not known how she will answer her helm, or lay her course; whether she will bear in safety the precious freight to be deposited in her hold.” Congress “may deface a beauty, or deform a well proportioned piece of workmanship.” Besides, there were much more pressing issues before them. If the impost were not passed, the government would be without revenue, in which case “the wheels of government cannot move.”
Jackson dismissed the claims of the Anti-Federalists. He thought their fears could be quieted by legislation without constitutional amendments: “Much has been said by the opponents to this Constitution, respecting the insecurity of jury trials, that great bulwark of personal safety; all their objections may be done away, by proper regulations on this point.”14
Further, Jackson pointed out that his state, Georgia, had ratified the Constitution by a “unanimous vote of a numerous convention.” In fact, Georgians were so enamored of the federal Constitution that they had modeled their own state constitution on it.15 What mandate, he asked, did Madison have to make changes? Jackson suggested a postponement of debate on the amendments until March of 1790.
Madison answered that discussion of this issue had been put off long enough. At least begin the debate, he suggested, and let the people know we are listening to their concerns about the Constitution: “It would stifle the voice of complaint, and make friends of many who doubted its merits.” Debate of Madison’s proposed bill of rights without delay would “inspire a reasonable hope in the advocates for amendments, that full justice will be done to the important subject.”16
Roger Sherman argued that the people had spoken and that the government should go into effect exactly as framed in the Constitution. His state, Connecticut, had ratified the Constitution and did not desire amendments. Meanwhile, “The executive part of this government wants organization; the business of the revenue is incomplete, to say nothing of the judiciary business.” All these important issues, Sherman urged, should not be ignored to placate a small group of people.17
As a Virginia schoolboy, Madison had taken extensive notes on books about history, biography, poetry, and world affairs. One such book was the memoir of the French politician Cardinal de Retz. From de Retz, the young Madison had excerpted this passage of interest: “In some cases it is harder to please those of our own party than to act against our adversaries.” One wonders whether he remembered that quotation during the debate over the Bill of Rights. Madison’s own fellow Federalists were the major obstacle to its passage. And no wonder. Madison, the chief author of the Constitution, who had campaigned for his seat in Congress as a staunch Federalist, was the champion for the Anti-Federalists’ major issue.
Not every Federalist joined the pile-on. John Page of Virginia was more friendly to Madison’s proposal, perhaps because of the grip Anti-Federalism held on their home state. Page thought if he were an Anti-Federalist, he would suspect Congress had no intention of seriously addressing his concerns—now or in the future. If Madison’s bill of rights was not passed by Congress, Page believed the Anti-Federalists would naturally turn to the other method of amendment, a new constitutional convention that would meet upon the call of two-thirds of the state legislatures. This, the Federalists all agreed, would be a disaster. Page warned that “unless you take early notice of this subject,” such a convention would be the consequence.18
Other Federalists, such as John Vining of Delaware, did not share Page’s fears. “The storm has abated,” he observed, “and a calm succeeds.” Good laws, not constitutional amendments, would be the best way to increase confidence in the government, Vining argued.
Madison begged the indulgence of the House and pushed ahead. He wanted the Federalists to show that they were just as devoted to liberty as their adversaries: “It will be a desirable thing to extinguish from the bosom of every member of the community any apprehensions, that there are those among his countrymen who wish to deprive them of the liberty for which they so valiantly fought and honorably bled.” Madison called for his fellow representatives to “evince that spirit of deference and concession for which they have hitherto been distinguished”19 and adopt the amendments. If they would “expressly declare the great rights of mankind secured under this Constitution” then North Carolina and Rhode Island could be brought back into the fold, and “it is a desirable thing, on our part as well as theirs, that a re-union should take place as soon as possible.” With so much to gain, “and if we proceed with caution, nothing to lose,” Madison urged the House forward. Everyone in the room knew that power could be abused; what would the harm be in putting their liberties on a more secure footing?
“I will own,” Madison continued, “that I never considered this provision so essential to the Federal Constitution, as to make it improper to ratify it . . . I always conceived, that in a certain form and to a certain extent, such a provision was neither improper nor altogether useless.” But many of his colleagues disagreed.
Jackson argued that Americans would become “objects of scorn” in the eyes of other nations. Amending the recently adopted Constitution would make the United States look unstable and confused. “We are not content with two revolutions in less than 14 years; we must enter upon a third, without necessity or propriety. ”20 If Congress had no power to regulate free speech, he argued, no amendment was necessary to protect that right. Jackson wanted the government to have a fair trial and, if experience proved it deficient, he would be the first to step forward in favor of amendments.21
Even Elbridge Gerry, an Anti-Federalist who had refused to sign the Constitution in Philadelphia because it lacked a bill of rights, stood up to oppose Madison: “Whatever might have been my sentiments of the ratification of the Constitution without amendments, my sense now is, that the salvation of America depends upon the establishment of this government, whether amended or not.”22 Sherman acknowledged the imperfections in the Constitution, but said, “I do not expect any perfection on this side of the grave in the works of man.”23
The next day, the House was again at work on the impost, which they had received back from the Senate, where it had been amended. Now they had to debate losing autumn’s revenue, rather than spring’s.
During this hiatus in the debate on the amendments, Madison received a letter from William Davie, a leader of the Federalists in North Carolina, which still had not ratified the Constitution. The mere fact that amendments were being considered, Davie wrote, “dispersed almost universal pleasure.” Federalists in that state “hold it up as a refutation of the gloomy prophecies of the leaders of the opposition, and the honest part of our Anti-federalists have publicly expressed great satisfaction.”24 The same thing appeared to be true in Virginia.
The House did not resume debate on Madison’s amendments until August 13.25
During the debate Madison advocated an amendment that would apply to t
he states as well as the federal government. It read, “No state shall infringe the equal rights of conscience, nor freedom of speech, or of the press, nor the right of trial by jury in criminal cases.” But objections to this amendment were made on the grounds that the federal government already interfered too much in the rights of states. And many of the members wanted to protect the official churches of their home states. Madison argued vainly that this was the most valuable amendment on his entire list. “I think these abuses are most likely to take place under the state governments; and if they are to be restrained in any thing, this appears to me the most necessary: we shall do what will be grateful to the people by retaining the clause.”26 But this proposal was defeated. Madison’s vision was not realized until the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, was interpreted as extending the Bill of Rights to state governments.
After more debate and revision, the amendments were agreed to on August 24.27 Madison’s steadfast advocacy and patient refusal to give way had forced their consideration. When the vote came, the members could not vote against freedom of speech and trial by jury. Madison’s original bill of rights was ultimately adopted in substantially the same form in which he introduced it. According to one biographer, “Nothing short of the high standing of Mr. Madison in the public councils, and the deference accorded to his opinions and virtues, could have secured a favorable reception for propositions so counter to the prepossessions of the body to which they were addressed.”28
For the first and not the last time in American history, a measure was adopted when the leader of the opposing party led the charge for it. The modern cliché is “Only Nixon could go to China”—only such a strong anti-communist could regularize relations with that country. The founding-era version might well have been, “Only Madison could pass the Bill of Rights.”
The House sent twelve amendments to the states. The first ten, known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified by the necessary three-fourths of the state legislatures by the close of 1791.j
When Congress first sent the amendments to the states, praise for Madison came in from many quarters. Edmund Pendleton wrote him from Virginia, “I congratulate you on having got through the amendments to the Constitution, as I was very anxious that it should be done before your adjournment. . . . I own also that I feel some degree of pleasure, in discovering obviously from the whole progress, that the public are indebted for the measure to the friends of government, whose elections were opposed under pretense of their being adverse to amendments.”29
Edmund Carrington also wrote after a business trip to the most Anti-Federalist quarters of Virginia, “I can assure you that the people appear to be perfectly quiet and reconciled to the government.”30 Ironically, Carrington noted that the Anti-Federalists, who had expelled him from office simply for being Madison’s friend and who had so bitterly opposed Madison’s election to Congress, had a new hero. “A very considerable change has taken place amongst the Anti’s as to yourself, they consider you as the patron of amendments, and it is no uncommon thing to hear confessions that they had been formerly imposed on, by representations that you were fixed against any alteration whatever.”31
The State Gazette of North Carolina reported on September 24, “The amendments to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by Congress will undoubtedly satisfy the minds of all its enemies. Not a door is left open for complaint, should the amendments be ratified.... Every friend to the Union may now with pleasure anticipate the adoption of the Constitution by this state, and of its again becoming one of its members.” “Rank Anti’s” had now become “Perfect Feds.” The leader of the Anti-Federalists in North Carolina, Willie Jones, was bowing out of the state’s upcoming ratification convention.32 And Fisher Ames, congressman from Massachusetts and a frequent opponent of Madison, wrote in a letter to a friend, “He is our first man.”33
No less an opponent of Madison than Patrick Henry would soon come around. The Bill of Rights was not remotely all that Henry wanted, to be sure. But it was sufficient that he wrote to James Monroe tendering the equivalent of his resignation as opponent-in-chief of the new government. “Although the form of government into which my countrymen determined to place themselves had my enmity, yet as we are one and all embarked, it is natural to care for the crazy machine, at least so long as we are out of sight of a port to refit.”
Monroe was appointed to the United States Senate in November 1790, after the death of Senator Charles Grayson. But he spent most of the First Congress in more pedestrian pursuits. He searched for good plow horses and a new domestic servant to help his wife Elizabeth.34 To earn extra income, Monroe had become a Deputy Attorney General for six counties of the commonwealth of Virginia.35 He also spent long hours riding the judicial circuit from one county courthouse to the next to represent private clients. Monroe endured long separations from his young family.36 He wrote apologetic letters to irate clients over the slow pace of litigation. Monroe wrote to his friend Madison in Congress, but cautioned, “You must not expect any communication of importance from me.”37 While James Madison was winning the adoption of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution, James Monroe had to content himself with winning an indictment against Philip Waters of Fredericksburg for stealing a dun bay mare worth six pounds from William Smock.38
But Monroe’s challenge to Madison in the election of 1789 had set the course for the First Congress. It is otherwise unthinkable that Madison would have staked his election on a promise to seek amendments. The Bill of Rights advanced in the First Congress against the fiercest resistance imaginable, even with the dogged support of Madison. Monroe, or any Anti-Federalist—or any other Federalist, for that matter—would never have been able to get it through. Without Madison, the Bill of Rights would never have become law.
Madison had been elected to the First Congress by only 336 votes. It was in that Congress that the Bill of Rights was passed, cementing the people’s confidence in the new federal government. And the Constitution was saved.
All because of one election.
Epilogue
THE FOURTH OF JULY
February, 1824
The White House
Washington, District of Columbia
As president of the United States, James Monroe was accustomed to receiving plenty of mail. But at sixty-six years old, Monroe’s eyesight was not what it had been when he was a young man.
Perhaps he read the letter by candlelight with a roaring fire to keep him warm on a cold winter evening. Monroe was now in the final year of his public life, which had begun when he was in college during the Revolution. He had done what he could, always, and soon it would be the province of others to protect what he and his generation had won.
We can see his weathered hands unfolding the parchment and holding it close to his face to read its contents. The letter was from an Eleazer Early, a resident of Georgia.
“I remembered,” the letter began, “indeed I could not forget it, that Joel Early and French Strother had attempted to sustain you, now just about 35 winters past, in Culpepper County, for a seat in the first Congress after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, against the same Mr. Madison who has preceded you in the presidency, and that nothing but the snow in the mountains prevented them from giving you such a vote as, in all probability, would have made you the successful candidate. My father continued to relate the circumstances of that eventual struggle to his family and friends, often after his removal to Georgia.”
There is no telling what prompted this letter after the passage of so much time, or how it was received by the president.
It must have brought a smile to Monroe’s face to know that the election of 1789 still had the power to excite and intrigue though so many years had passed. Perhaps he also laughed at the image of old Joel Early, and of his friends cringing as he told and retold the story of that time he helped the president on his bid for Congress.
Any regrets over the result of the
election or his rivalry with his dear friend had faded with time. Monroe was an old man whose dreams had come true. Less than two years after losing to Madison, he was chosen to represent Virginia in the United States Senate. Then Monroe finally fulfilled his wish to explore Europe—in grand style, as Washington’s Ambassador to France, where he and Eliza became friends with the Emperor Napoleon.
Jefferson, who had once sent his protégé on a secret mission in war, would ask Monroe to serve him in another highly sensitive matter in 1802. Monroe traveled to Paris to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase, working closely with James Madison, the Secretary of State.
In the election of 1808, the friends and allies found themselves rivals once more.
Dissatisfaction with Jefferson within his own party extended to his chosen successor, James Madison. And the disaffected Democratic-Republicans coalesced largely behind James Monroe.
Monroe was eager to run. Surely he was as qualified as anyone to serve as president, and he had developed stark differences with the administration on foreign policy.
On January 23, 1808, Democratic-Republican members of Congress met in the Senate chamber to select their nominee for president. Ninety-four representatives attended, and eighty-nine voted. Madison received eighty-three votes to three each for George Clinton and James Monroe.