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

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH. 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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TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.1

Dear Sir,

Mr. Webb being detained till this morning, I enclose the gazette of it. You will find a singular extract from Lord North’s budget. The speech was delivered on the eleventh of March. It must have been Mr. Ross’s contract, therefore, and not Mr. Morris’s, which supplied this article. I am just told that the Senate have put their veto on the resolutions of the House of Delegates against the latter. If an existing law, however, prohibits the exportation, and one branch of the Legislature protests against the authority of Congress to dispense with it, the Executive will scarcely suffer the tobacco to be exported. * * * The proviso in the resolutions in favor of the contract of the State agents, furnishes, I find, a copious topic for anti-Virginian critics. It is inconsistent with the laws of the State—with the ordinances of Congress—with the treaty with France—with gratitude to our allies—for tobacco to be shipped to New York, by Mr. Morris, for the advantage of the United States; but if the identical tobocco be shipped by Mr. Ross, for the advantage of Virginia, the inconsistency is done away in the eyes of the House of Delegates of Virginia.

[1 ]From the Madison Papers (1840).