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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow CCCLXVI.: James Madison to J. C. Cabell. 1 - The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. 3

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

CCCLXVI.: James Madison to J. C. Cabell. 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.

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CCCLXVI.

James Madison to J. C. Cabell.1

For a like reason, I made no reference to the “power to regulate commerce among the several States.” I always foresaw that difficulties might be started in relation to that power which could not be fully explained without recurring to views of it, which, however just, might give birth to specious though unsound objections. Being in the same terms with the power over foreign commerce, the same extent, if taken literally, would belong to it. Yet it is very certain that it grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged.

[1 ]Letters and other Writings of James Madison, IV, 14-15.