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

TO EDMUND PENDLETON. 1 - James Madison, The Writings, vol. 1 (1769-1783) [1900]

Edition used:

The Writings of James Madison, comprising his Public Papers and his Private Correspondence, including his numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900). Vol. 1.

Part of: The Writings of James Madison, 9 vols.

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


TO EDMUND PENDLETON.1

Philadelphia, April 2, 1782.

Dear Sir,—

The only event with which the period since my last has enabled me to repay your favor of the twenty-fifth ultimo, is the arrival of four Deputies from Vermont, with a plenipotentiary commission to accede to the Confederacy. The business is referred to a committee who are sufficiently devoted to the policy of gaining the vote of Vermont into Congress. The result will be the subject of a future letter.

The thinness, or rather vacancy, of the Virginia line, and the little prospect of recruiting it, are subjects of a very distressing nature. If those on whom the remedy depends were sensible of the insulting comparisons to which they expose the State, and of the wound they give to her influence in the general councils, I am persuaded more decisive exertions would be made. Considering the extensive interests and claims which Virginia has, and the enemies and calumnies which these very claims form against her, she is perhaps under the strongest obligation of any State in the Union, to preserve her military contingent on a respectable footing; and unhappily her line is perhaps, of all, in the most disgraceful condition. The only hope that remains is, that her true policy will be better consulted at the ensuing Assembly, and that as far as a proper sense of it may be deficient, the expostulations of her friends, and clamors of her enemies, will supply the place of it. If I speak my sentiments too freely on this point, it can only be imputed to my sensibility to the honor and interest of my country.

[1 ]From the Madison Papers (1840).