Madison and Jefferson (125 page)

35.
Mason, June 11, June 17; Henry, June 16, June 17, June 24, Virginia State Ratifying Convention, in Kaminski and Saladino, eds.,
Documentary History of Ratification of Constitution
, 9:905, 1159, 1161, 10:1338, 1341, 1476–77, 1688–90; see also Robin L. Einhorn, “Patrick Henry’s Case against the Constitution: The Structural Problem with Slavery,”
Journal of the Early Republic
22 (Winter 2002): 556–59, 563.

36.
Madison, June 20, June 24; Henry, June 20, Virginia State Ratifying Convention, in Kaminski and Saladino, eds.,
Documentary History of Ratification of Constitution
, 10:1417, 1424, 1503; Einhorn, “Patrick Henry and Slavery,” 555–56.

37.
Randolph raised a pertinent national security question: Would not Virginia need the Union in order to survive? Seven years before, it was shown to be susceptible to military attack, and all the more vulnerable because of its huge slave population. Its white population was scattered. In this way, as they spoke to the convention, Randolph and Madison portrayed themselves as the realists. Randolph, June 6, June 7, June 9; Madison, June 7, Virginia State Ratifying Convention, in Kaminski and Saladino, eds.,
Documentary History of Ratification of Constitution
, 9:973, 977–78, 983, 1016, 1028, 1086; 9:1033–34.

38.
Alan V. Briceland, “Virginia: The Cement of the Union,” in Patrick T. Conley
and John P. Kaminski, eds.,
The Constitution and the States: The Role of the Original Thirteen in the Framing and Adoption of the Federal Constitution
(Madison, Wisc., 1988), 218–21. Another month would pass before New York ratified.

39.
“Extract of a Letter from Richmond, June 18,”
Pennsylvania Mercury
, June 26, 1788.

40.
Henry, June 5, June 7, June 9, June 13, June 24; Mason, June 14, Mason and Henry, June 17, Virginia State Ratifying Convention, in Kaminski and Saladino, eds.,
Documentary History of Ratification of Constitution
, 9:963, 1039, 1051, 10:1245, 1260–70, 1355, 1356–57, 1361, 1476–77; Monroe to TJ, July 12, 1788,
PTJ
, 13:352.

41.
JM to TJ, July 24–26, 1788,
RL
, 1:541–42.

42.
TJ to JM, July 31, 1788,
RL
, 1:543; William Howard Adams,
The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson
(New Haven, Conn., 1997), 264–67.

43.
JM to TJ, October 17, 1788,
RL
, 1:563.

44.
TJ to Hopkinson, May 8, 1788,
PTJ
, 13:145.

45.
Lafayette to Washington, January 1, 1788,
PGW-CS
, 6:5–6; Douglas Southall Freeman,
George Washington: A Biography
(New York, 1948–57), vol. 6, chap. 6. Lafayette’s critique of the Constitution was, almost verbatim, the same as Jefferson’s.

46.
John E. Ferling,
The First of Men: A Life of George Washington
(Knoxville, Tenn., 1988), 314–15; Peter Shaw,
The Character of John Adams
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1976); Joseph J. Ellis,
Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams
(New York, 1993); Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism
(New York, 1993), 532–37.

47.
Smith to TJ, February 15, 1789,
PTJ
, 14:559–60.

48.
History has made it appear that the election of the first president and First Congress was trouble-free. Like Smith, Madison was aware of the constitutional intricacy though he explained the problem to Jefferson in simpler terms: “The votes were unanimous with respect to General Washington … in each of the States. The secondary votes were given, among the federal members chiefly to Mr. J. Adams, one or two being thrown away in order to prevent a possible competition for the Presidency.” To “throw away” votes could not have sounded ideal to Jefferson, who had not wanted an open-ended presidency without term limits. JM to TJ, March 29, 1789,
RL
, 1:606.

49.
Richard R. Beeman,
The Old Dominion and the New Nation, 1788–1801
(Lexington, Ky., 1972), 22–24.

50.
Herald of Freedom
[Boston], December 22, 1788, published in New York and elsewhere. The letter itself was dated November 8.

51.
Beeman,
The Old Dominion and the New Nation
, 24–27; Roger H. Brown,
Redeeming the Republic: Federalists, Taxation, and the Origins of the Constitution
(Baltimore, 1993), 208–10; Robert A. Rutland,
The Presidency of James Madison
(Lawrence, Kan., 1990), 71.

52.
Virginia Gazette
[Winchester], April 2, 1789, in Lampi Collection of American Electoral Returns, 1788–25, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.; TJ to JM, February 5, 1787,
RL
, 1:465.

53.
JM to TJ, March 29, 1789,
RL
, 1:606–7.

54.
On the renovation of City Hall/Federal Hall, see Agnes Addison Gilchrist, “John McComb, Sr. and Jr., in New York, 1784–1799,”
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
31 (March 1972): 14; John P. Kaminski,
George Clinton: Yeoman Politician of the New Republic
(Madison, Wisc., 1993).

55.
“Address of the President to Congress,” April 30, 1789; “Address of the House of Representatives to the President,” May 5, 1789,
PJM
, 12:120–24, 132–33; on historiographical issues and attribution of the first inaugural address, see also
PGW-PS
, 2:152ff.

56.
JM to TJ, March 29, 1789
RL
, 1:606–7; Andrew Burstein, “Jefferson’s Madison versus Jefferson’s Monroe,”
Presidential Studies Quarterly
28 (Spring 1998): 394–408.

57.
JM to TJ, May 9, 1789,
RL
, 1:608–9.

58.
Madison cleverly illustrated the absurdity of titles: “One of the most impotent sovereigns in Europe has a title as high as human invention can devise … ‘High Mightiness.’ ” To carry on this way seemed to him “to border on impiety.” May 13, 1789, 1st Cong, 1st sess.,
Annals of Congress
(New York, 1857), 1:67.

59.
JM to TJ, May 23, 1789; TJ to JM, July 29, 1789,
RL
, 1:613, 627; Randolph to JM, September 26, 1789,
PJM
, 12:421.

60.
“Removal Power of the President,” May 19, 1789,
PJM
, 12:170–71.

61.
JM to Trist, May 21, 1789,
PJM
, 12:175–76.

62.
Ames to G. R. Minot, May 3, 1789, cited in Brant, 3:249.

63.
Henrietta had married Richard Nicholls Colden, whom she met when he was stationed in the Isle of Man as an officer in the Royal Highlanders. Two of Richard’s uncles, Cadwallader and David, were prominent New York Loyalists, whose land was confiscated during the Revolution. Both of Henrietta’s sons, Alexander and Cadwallader, were born in New York early in the war. Her husband died in 1777, after which she returned to England. There she petitioned the government for a stipend, compensation for losses as the wife of a Loyalist. She was well versed in her family’s finances and kept in touch with her husband’s family in America. Returning in 1785, she was listed as head of household in the south ward of New York City in the first U.S. census in 1790. She was also one of the few women to purchase stock in the Ohio Land Company. See JM to TJ, May 23, 1789,
RL
, 1:612–13; JM to Henry Lee, June 21, 1789,
PJM
, 12:251; Henrietta Maria Colden to TJ, November 25, 1790, TJ to Henrietta Maria Colden, January 20, 1790,
TJP
, 18:70–71, 578; on Madison’s fascination with Henrietta Colden, see Samuel Mitchill to his wife, January 3, 1802, in “Dr. Mitchill’s Letters from Washington: 1801–1813,”
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine
58 (1879): 743; Edward Purple,
Genealogical Notes of the Colden Family in America
(New York, 1873), 13; “Letter of David Colden, Loyalist, 1873,”
American Historical Review
25 (October 1919): 76–86; Mary Beth Norton, “Eighteenth-Century American Women in Peace and War: The Case of Loyalists,”
William and Mary Quarterly
33 (July 1976): 390–91; for notice of her arrival in New York City, see
Independent Journal
, July 23, 1785;
Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790
(Washington, D.C., 1908), 132; Anne Hollingsworth Wharton,
Salons Colonial and Republican
(Philadelphia, 1900), 40, 63–64; Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace,
Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898
(New York, 1999), 301.

64.
Randolph to JM, May 19 and August 18, 1789; Washington to JM, ca. September 23, 1789,
PJM
, 12:168, 345, 420.

65.
JM to TJ, May 27, 1789, 1:614.

66.
TJ to JM, July 22–23, 1789,
RL
, 1:625–27; Adams,
Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson
, 288–93; Malone, 2:222–28.

67.
TJ to JM, May 11, July 22–23, July 29, and August 28, 1789,
RL
, 1:610, 625–32; Monroe to JM, July 19, 1789,
PJM
, 12:296–97.

68.
On Madison’s reservations, see Paul Finkelman, “James Madison and the Bill of Rights: A Reluctant Paternity,”
Supreme Court Review
(1990): 302, 307–8, 318–19, 326–27.

69.
TJ to JM, December 20, 1787, and July 31, 1788; JM to TJ, October 17, 1788,
RL
, 1:512–13, 545–46, 564–66.

70.
TJ to JM, March 15, 1789,
RL
, 1:587–88; and see Madison’s speech on June 8, when he introduced his proposed amendments. He argued: “If they are incorporated into the constitution, independent tribunals of justice will consider themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of those rights … Beside this security, there is a great probability that such a declaration in the federal system will be inforced; because the state legislatures will jealously and closely watch the operations of this government, and be able to resist with more effect every assumption of power than any other power can do.” See “Amendments to the Constitution,” June 1789,
PJM
, 12:206–7.

71.
For Madison’s campaign pledges, see JM to George Eve, January 2, 1789, JM to Thomas Mann Randolph, January 13, 1789, and “To the Residents of Spotsylvania County,” January 27, 1789,
PJM
, 11:404–5, 416–17, 428–29; 12:57. Joseph Jones wrote to Madison after seeing his proposed amendments: “They are calculated to secure the personal rights of the people so far as declarations on paper can effect the purpose, leaving unimpaired the great Power of the government—they are of such a nature as to be generally acceptable and of course more likely to obtain the assent of Congress.” See Jones to JM, June 24, 1789,
PJM
, 12:258–59; also JM to Edmund Randolph, June 15, 1789, ibid., 219; on the proposed second convention, see Richard Labunski,
James Madison and the Struggle for a Bill of Rights
(New York, 2006), 129–32.

72.
Madison made this point clear in remarks in Congress on August 15 in defense of the Bill of Rights: “It was wished that some security should be given for those great and essential rights which they had been taught to believe were in danger. I concurred, in the convention of Virginia, with those gentlemen, so far as to agree to a declaration of rights which corresponded with my own judgment, and of the other alterations which I had the honor to bring forward before the present congress.” Madison also noted to Richard Peters, Speaker of the Pennsylvania House: “In many States Constn. was adopted under a tacit compact in favr … In Virga. It would have been
certainly
rejected, had no assurances been given by its advocates that such provisions would be pursued.” See “Amendments to the Constitution,” August 15, 1789; JM to Peters, August 19, 1789,
PJM
, 12:341–42, 347.

73.
“Address of the President to Congress,” June 8, 1789,
PJM
, 12:59, 123; Stuart Leibiger, “James Madison and the Amendments to the Constitution, 1787–1789: ‘Parchment Barriers,’ ”
Journal of Southern History
59 (August 1993): 460.

74.
“Amendments to Constitution,” June 8, 1789,
PJM
, 12:58, 200–203; Kenneth R. Bowling, “ ‘A Tub to the Whale’: The Founding Fathers and the Adoption of the Federal Bill of Rights,”
Journal of the Early Republic
8 (Fall 1988): 235–36; Leibiger, “Parchment Barriers,” 460–61.

75.
“Amendments to the Constitution,” August 17, 1789,
PJM
, 12:58–59, 344.

76.
Bowling, “ ‘Tub to the Whale,’ ” 223, 233, 236–37.

77.
Ibid., 236, 239, 241–42, 244–45, 247; also see Scott D. Gerber, “Roger Sherman and the Bill of Rights,”
Polity
28 (Summer 1996): 526.

78.
JM to Pendleton, August 21 and September 14, 1789; to Randolph, August 21, 1789,
PJM
, 12:348, 402.

79.
TJ to JM, August 28, 1789,
RL
, 1:630–31; Mason to TJ, January 10, 1791,
PTJ
, 18:484–85; Mason to Samuel Griffin, September 8, 1789,
The Papers of George Mason
, ed. Robert Allen Rutland (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1970), 3:1172. Edmund Randolph encouraged Madison to propose amendments, drawing a distinction between those “opposed on principle” and those driven by “virulence.” See Randolph to JM, March 27, 1789,
PJM
, 12:31. Pendleton, too, supported amendments at the ratifying convention, writing Madison that they would have “a good effect in quieting the minds of many well meaning Citizens.” As Madison explained to Richard Peters, he felt vindicated “as an honest man,” having lived up to “assurances” given to delegates at the ratifying convention—not any pledge to his constituents. See George Nicholas to JM, April 5, 1788; JM to Nicholas, April 8, 1788; JM to Edmund Randolph, April 10, 1788; JM to Peters, August 19, 1789; Pendleton to JM, September 2, 1789,
PJM
, 11:9, 12, 19, 347, 368; also see Leibiger, “Parchment Barriers,” 451, 467; Labunski,
James Madison and Struggle for Bill of Rights
, 114–15.