Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow CCCXLVII.: James Madison to Thomas Jefferson. 1 - The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. 3

Return to Title Page for The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. 3

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: History
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

CCCXLVII.: James Madison to Thomas Jefferson. 1 - Max Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. 3 [1911]

Edition used:

The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, ed. Max Farrand (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911). Vol. 3.

Part of: The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 3 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


CCCXLVII.

James Madison to Thomas Jefferson.1

An appeal from an abortive ballot in the first meeting of the Electors to a reassembling of them, a part of the several plans, has something plausible, and, in comparison with the existing arrangement, might not be inadmissible. But it is not free from material objections. It relinquishes, particularly, the policy of the Constitution in allowing as little time as possible for the Electors to be known and tampered with. And beside the opportunities for intrigue furnished by the interval between the first and second meeting, the danger of having one electoral body played off against another, by artful misrepresentations rapidly transmitted, a danger not to be avoided, would be at least doubled.

[1 ]Letters and other Writings of James Madison, III, 361.