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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. 6.

Author: James Madison
Editor: Gaillard Hunt

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

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GOVERNMENT.1

In monarchies there is a two-fold danger—1st, That the eyes of a good prince cannot see all that he ought to know—2d, That the hands of a bad one will not be tied by the fear of combinations against him. Both of these evils increase with the extent of dominion; and prove, contrary to the received opinion, that monarchy is even more unfit for a great state, than for a small one, notwithstanding the greater tendency in the former to that species of government.

Aristocracies, on the other hand, are generally seen in small states; where a concentration of public will is required by external danger, and that degree of concentration is found sufficient. The many in such cases, cannot govern on account of emergencies which require the promptitude and precautions of a few; whilst the few themselves, resist the usurpations of a single tyrant. In Thessaly, a country intersected by mountainous barriers into a number of small cantons, the governments, according to Thucydides, were in most instances, oligarchical. Switzerland furnishes similar examples.—The smaller the state, the less intolerable is this form of government, its rigors being tempered by the facility and the fear of combinations among the people.

A republic involves the idea of popular rights. A representative republic chuses the wisdom, of which hereditary aristocracy has the chance; whilst it excludes the oppression of that form. And a confederated republic attains the force of monarchy, whilst it avoids the ignorance of a good prince, and the oppression of a bad one. To secure all the advantages of such a system, every good citizen will be at once a centinel over the rights of the people; over the authorities of the federal government: and over both the rights and the authorities of the intermediate governments.

CHARTERS.2

In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example and France has followed it, of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the practice of the world, may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most triumphant epoch of its history, and the most consoling presage of its happiness. We look back, already, with astonishment, at the daring outrages committed by despotism, on the reason and rights of man; we look forward with joy, to the period, when it shall be despoiled of all its usurpations, and bound forever in the chains, with which it had loaded its miserable victims.

In proportion to the value of this revolution; in proportion to the importance of instruments, every word of which decides a question between power and liberty; in proportion to the solemnity of acts, proclaiming the will authenticated by the seal of the people, the only earthly source of authority, ought to be the vigilance with which they are guarded by every citizen in private life, and the circumspection with which they are executed by every citizen in public trust.

As compacts, charters of government are superior in obligation to all others, because they give effect to all others. As truths, none can be more sacred, because they are bound, on the conscience by the religious sanctions of an oath. As metes and bounds of government, they transcend all other land-marks, because every public usurpation is an encroachment on the private right, not of one, but of all.

The citizens of the United States have peculiar motives to support the energy of their constitutional charters.

Having originated the experiment, their merit will be estimated by its success.

The complicated form of their political system arising from the partition of government between the states and the union, and from the separations and subdivisions of the several departments in each, requires a more than common reverence for authority which is to preserve order thro’ the whole.

Being republicans, they must be anxious to establish the efficacy of popular charters, in defending liberty against power, and power against licentiousness; and in keeping every portion of power within its proper limits; by this means discomforting the partizans of anti-republican contrivances for the purpose.

All power has been traced up to opinion. The stability of all governments and security of all rights may be traced to the same source. The most arbitrary government is controuled where the public opinion is fixed. The despot of Constantinople dares not lay a new tax, because every slave thinks he ought not. The most systematic governments are turned by the slightest impulse from their regular path, where public opinion no longer holds them in it. We see at this moment the executive magistrate of Great-Britain, exercising under the authority of the representatives of the people, a legislative power over the West-India commerce.

How devoutly is it to be wished, then, that the public opinion of the United States should be enlightened; that it should attach itself to their governments as delineated in great charters, derived not from the usurped power of kings, but from the legitimate authority of the people; and that it should guarantee, with a holy zeal, these political scriptures from every attempt to add to or diminish from them. Liberty and order will never be perfectly safe, until a trespass on the constitutional provisions for either, shall be felt with the same keenness that resents an invasion of the dearest rights, until every citizen shall be an Argus to espy, and an Ægeon to avenge, the unhallowed deed.

PARTIES.1

In every political society, parties are unavoidable. A difference of interests, real or supposed is the most natural and fruitful source of them. The great objects should be to combat the evil: 1. By establishing political equality among all. 2. By withholding unnecessary opportunities from a few, to increase the inequality of property, by an immoderate, and especially unmerited, accumulation of riches. 3. By the silent operation of laws, which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort. 4. By abstaining from measures which operate differently on different interests, and particularly such as favor one interest, at the expence of another. 5. By making one party a check on the other, so far as the existence of parties cannot be prevented, nor their views accommodated.—If this is not the language of reason, it is that of republicanism.

In all political societies, different interests and parties arise out of the nature of things, and the great art of politicians lies in making them checks and balances to each other. Let us then increase these natural distinctions by favoring an inequality of property; and let us add to them artificial distinctions, by establishing kings and nobles, and plebeians. We shall then have the more checks to oppose to each other; we shall then have the more scales and the more weights to protect and maintain the equilibrium. This is as little the voice of reason, as it is of republicanism.

From the expediency, in politics, of making natural parties, mutual checks on each other, to infer the propriety of creating artificial parties, in order to form them into mutual checks, is not less absurd than it would be in ethics, to say, that new vices ought to be promoted, where they would counteract each other, because this use may be made of existing vices.

BRITISH GOVERNMENT.1

The boasted equilibrium of this government (so far as it is a reality) is maintained less by the distribution of its powers, than by the force of public opinion. If the nation were in favour of absolute monarchy, the public liberty would soon be surrendered by their representatives. If a republican form of government were preferred, how could the monarch resist the national will? Were the public opinion neutral only, and the public voice silent, ambition in the House of Commons could wrest from him his prerogatives, or the avarice of its members, might sell to him its privileges.

The provision required for the civil list, at every accession of a king, shews at once his dependence on the representative branch, and its dependence on the public opinion. Were this establishment to be made from year to year, instead of being made for life (a change within the legislative power) the monarchy, unless maintained by corruption, would dwindle into a name. In the present temper of the nation, however, they would obstruct such a change, by taking side with their king, against their representatives.

Those who ascribe the preservation of the British government to the form in which its powers are distributed and balanced, forget the evolutions which it has undergone.—Compare its primitive with its present form.

A king at the head of 7 or 800 barons, sitting together in their own right, or (admitting another hypothesis) some in their own right, others as representatives of a few lesser barons, but still sitting together as a single House; and the judges holding their offices during the pleasure of the king; such was the British government at one period.

At present a king is seen at the head of a legislature, consisting of two Houses, each jealous of the other, one sitting in their own right, the other representing the people; and the judges forming a distinct and independent department.

In the first case the judiciary is annexed to the executive, and the legislature not even formed into separate branches. In the second, the legislative, executive and judiciary are distinct; and the legislative subdivided into rival branches.

What a contrast in these forms. If the latter be self balanced, the former could have no balance at all. Yet the former subsisted as well as the latter, and lasted longer than the latter, dating it from 1688, has been tried.

The former was supported by the opinion and circumstances of the times, like many of the intermediate variations, through which the government has passed; and as will be supported, the future forms through which it probably remains to be conducted, by the progress of reason, and change of circumstances.

UNIVERSAL PEACE.1

Among the various reforms which have been offered to the world, the projects for universal peace have done the greatest honor to the hearts, though they seem to have done very little to the heads of their authors. Rousseau, the most distinguished of these philanthropists, has recommended a confederation of sovereigns, under a council of deputies, for the double purpose of arbitrating external controversies among nations, and of guaranteeing their respective governments against internal revolutions. He was aware, neither of the impossibility of executing his pacific plan among governments which feel so many allurements to war, nor, what is more extraordinary, of the tendency of his plan to perpetuate arbitrary power wherever it existed; and, by extinguishing the hope of one day seeing an end of oppression, to cut off the only source of consolation remaining to the oppressed.

A universal and perpetual peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts. It is still however true, that war contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason; and if any thing is to be hoped, every thing ought to be tried.

Wars may be divided into two classes: one flowing from the mere will of the government, the other according with the will of the society itself.

Those of the first class can no otherwise be prevented than by such a reformation of the government, as may identify its will with the will of the society. The project of Rousseau, was, consequently, as preposterous as it was impotent. Instead of beginning with an external application, and even precluding internal remedies, he ought to have commenced with, and chiefly relied on, the latter prescription.

He should have said, whilst war is to depend on those whose ambition, whose revenge, whose avidity, or whose caprice may contradict the sentiment of the community, and yet be uncontrouled by it; whilst war is to be declared by those who are to spend the public money, not by those who are to pay it; by those who are to direct the public forces, not by those who are to support them; by those whose power is to be raised, not by those whose chains may be riveted, the disease must continue to be hereditary like the government of which it is the offspring. As the first step towards a cure, the government itself must be regenerated. Its will must be made subordinate to, or rather the same with, the will of the community.

Had Rousseau lived to see the constitution of the United States and of France, his judgment might have escaped the censure to which his project has exposed it.

The other class of wars, corresponding with the public will, are less susceptible of remedy. There are antidotes, nevertheless, which may not be without their efficacy. As wars of the first class were to be prevented by subjecting the will of the government to the will of the society, those of the second class can only be controuled by subjecting the will of the society to the reason of the society; by establishing permanent and constitutional maxims of conduct, which may prevail over occasional impressions and inconsiderate pursuits.

Here our republican philosopher might have proposed as a model to lawgivers, that war should not only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits: but that each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expence of other generations. And to give the fullest energy to his plan, he might have added, that each generation should not only bear its own burdens, but that the taxes composing them, should include a due proportion of such as by their direct operation keep the people awake, along with those, which being wrapped up in other payments, may leave them asleep, to misapplications of their money.

To the objection, if started, that where the benefits of war descend to succeeding generations, the burdens ought also to descend, he might have answered; that the exceptions could not be easily made; that, if attempted, they must be made by one only of the parties interested; that in the alternative of sacrificing exceptions to general rules, or of converting exceptions into general rules, the former is the lesser evil; that the expense of necessary wars, will never exceed the resources of an entire generation; that, in fine the objection vanishes before the fact, that in every nation which has drawn on posterity for the support of its wars, the accumulated interest of its perpetual debts, has soon become more than a sufficient principal for all its exigencies.

Were a nation to impose such restraints on itself, avarice would be sure to calculate the expences of ambition; in the equipoise of these passions, reason would be free to decide for the public good; and an ample reward would accrue to the state, first, from the avoidance of all its wars of folly, secondly, from the vigor of its unwasted resources for wars of necessity and defence. Were all nations to follow the example, the reward would be doubled to each; and the temple of Janus might be shut, never to be opened more.

Had Rousseau lived to see the rapid progress of reason and reformation, which the present day exhibits, the philanthropy which dictated his project would find a rich enjoyment in the scene before him. And after tracing the past frequency of wars to a will in the government independent of the will of the people; to the practice by each generation of taxing the principal of its debts on future generations; and to the facility with which each generation is seduced into assumption of the interest, by the deceptive species of taxes which pay it; he would contemplate, in a reform of every government subjecting its will to that of the people, in a subjection of each generation to the payment of its own debts, and in a substitution of a more palpable, in place of an imperceptible mode of paying them, the only hope of Universal and Perpetual Peace.

GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.1

Power being found by universal experience liable to abuses, a distribution of it into separate departments, has become a first principal of free governments. By this contrivance, the portion entrusted to the same hands being less, there is less room to abuse what is granted; and the different hands being interested, each in maintaining its own, there is less opportunity to usurp what is not granted. Hence the merited praise of governments modelled on a partition of their powers into legislative, executive, and judiciary, and a repartition of the legislative into different houses.

The political system of the United States claims still higher praise. The power delegated by the people is first divided between the general government and the state governments; each of which is then subdivided into legislative, executive, and judiciary departments. And as in a single government these departments are to be kept separate and safe, by a defensive armour for each; so, it is to be hoped, do the two governments possess each the means of preventing or correcting unconstitutional encroachments of each other.

Should this improvement on the theory of free government not be marred in the execution, it may prove the best legacy ever left by lawgivers to their country, and the best lesson ever given to the world by its benefactors. If a security against power lies in the division of it into parts mutually controuling each other, the security must increase with the increase of the parts into which the whole can be conveniently formed.

It must not be denied that the task of forming and maintaining a division of power between different governments, is greater than among different departments of the same governments; because it may be more easy (though sufficiently difficult) to separate, by proper definitions, the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers, which are more distinct in their nature, than to discriminate, by precise enumerations, one class of legislative powers from another class, one class of executive from another class, and one class of judiciary from another class; where the powers being of a more kindred nature, their boundaries are more obscure and run more into each other.

If the test be difficult, however, it must be no means be abandoned. Those who would pronounce it impossible, offer no alternative to their country but schism, or consolidation; both of them bad, but the latter the worst, since it is the high road to monarchy, than which nothing worse, in the eye of republicans, could result from the anarchy implied in the former.

Those who love their country, its repose, and its republicanism, will study to avoid the alternative, by elucidating and guarding the limits which define the two governments; by inculcating moderation in the exercise of the powers of both, and particularly a mutual abstinence from such as might nurse present jealousies, or engender greater.

In bestowing the eulogies due to the particular and internal checks of power, it ought not the less to be remembered, that they are neither the sole nor the chief palladium of constitutional liberty. The people who are authors of this blessing, must also be its guardians. Their eyes must be ever ready to mark, their voice to pronounce, and their arm to repel or repair aggressions on the authority of their constitutions; the highest authority next to their own, because the immediate work of their own, and the most sacred part of their property, as recognizing and recording the title to every other.

SPIRIT OF GOVERNMENTS.1

No Government is perhaps reducible to a sole principle of operation. Where the theory approaches nearest to this character, different and often heterogeneous principles mingle their influence in the administration. It is useful, nevertheless, to analyse the several kinds of government, and to characterize them by the spirit which predominates in each.

Montesquieu has resolved the great operative principles of government into fear, honor, and virtue, applying the first to pure despotisms, the second to regular monarchies, and the third to republics. The portion of truth blended with the ingenuity of this system sufficiently justifies the admiration bestowed on its author. Its accuracy however can never be defended against the criticisms which it has encountered. Montesquieu was in politics not a Newton or a Locke, who established immortal systems, the one in matter, the other in mind. He was in his peculiar science what Bacon was in universal science. He lifted the veil from the venerable errors which enslaved opinion, and pointed the way to those luminous truths of which he had but a glimpse himself.

May not governments be properly divided, according to their predominant spirit and principles into three species of which the following are examples?

First. A government operating by a permanent military force, which at once maintains the government, and is maintained by it; which is at once the cause of burdens on the people, and of submission in the people to their burdens. Such have been the governments under which human nature has groaned through every age. Such are the governments which still oppress it in almost every country of Europe, the quarter of the globe which calls itself the pattern of civilization, and the pride of humanity.

Secondly. A government operating by corrupt influence; substituting the motive of private interest in place of public duty; converting its pecuniary dispensations into bounties to favorites, or bribes to opponents; accommodating its measures to the avidity of a part of the nation instead of the benefit of the whole; in a word, enlisting an army of interested partizans, whose tongues, whose pens, whose intrigues, and whose active combinations, by supplying the terror of the sword, may support a real domination of the few, under an apparent liberty of the many. Such a government, wherever to be found, is an impostor. It is happy for the new world that it is not on the west side of the Atlantic. It will be both happy and honorable for the United States, if they never descend to mimic the costly pageantry of this form, nor betray themselves into the venal spirit of its administration.

Thirdly. A government deriving its energy from the will of the society, and operating by the reason of its measures, on the understanding and interest of the society. Such is the government for which philosophy has been searching, and humanity been fighting, from the most remote ages. Such are republican governments which it is the glory of America to have invented, and her unrivalled happiness to possess. May her glory be compleated by every improvement on the theory which experience may teach; and her happiness be perpetuated by a system of administration corresponding with the purity of the theory.1

REPUBLICAN DISTRIBUTION OF CITIZENS.1

A perfect theory on this subject would be useful, not because it could be reduced to practice by any plan of legislation, or ought to be attempted by violence on the will or property of individuals: but because it would be a monition against empirical experiments by power, and a model to which the free choice of occupations by the people, might gradually approximate the order of society.

The best distribution is that which would most favor health, virtue, intelligence and competency in the greatest number of citizens. It is needless to add to these objects, liberty and safety. The first is presupposed by them. The last must result from them.

The life of the husbandman is pre-eminently suited to the comfort and happiness of the individual. Heatlh, the first of blessings, is an appurtenance of this property and his employment. Virtue, the health of the soul, is another part of his patrimony, and no less favored by his situation. Intelligence may be cultivated in this as well as in any other walk of life. If the mind be less susceptible of polish in retirement than in a crowd, it is more capable of profound and comprehensive efforts. Is it more ignorant of some things? It has a compensation in its ignorance of others. Competency is more universally the lot of those who dwell in the country, when liberty is at the same time their lot. The extremes both of want and of waste have other abodes. ’T is not the country that peoples either the Bridewells or the Bedlams. These mansions of wretchedness are tenanted from the distresses and vice of overgrown cities.

The condition, to which the blessings of life are most denied is that of the sailor. His health is continually assailed and his span shortened by the stormy element to which he belongs. His virtue, at no time aided, is occasionally exposed to every scene that can poison it. His mind, like his body, is imprisoned within the bark that transports him.

Though traversing and circumnavigating the globe, he sees nothing but the same vague objects of nature, the same monotonous occurrences in ports and docks; and at home in his vessel, what new ideas can shoot from the unvaried use of the ropes and the rudder, or from the society of comrades as ignorant as himself? In the supply of his wants he often feels a scarcity, seldom more than a bare sustenance; and if his ultimate prospects do not embitter the present moment, it is because he never looks beyond it. How unfortunate, that in the intercourse, by which nations are enlightened and refined, and their means of safety extended, the immediate agents should be distinguished by the hardest condition of humanity.

The great interval between the two extremes, is, with a few exceptions, filled by those who work the materials furnished by the earth in its natural or cultivated state.

It is fortunate in general, and particularly for this country, that so much of the ordinary and most essential consumption, takes place in fabrics which can be prepared in every family, and which constitute indeed the natural ally of agriculture. The former is the work within doors, as the latter is without; and each being done by hands or at times, that can be spared from the other, the most is made of everything.

The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy. They are more: they are the best basis of public liberty, and the strongest bulwark of public safety. It follows, that the greater the proportion of this class to the whole society, the more free, the more independent, and the more happy must be the society itself.

In appreciating the regular branches of manufacturing and mechanical industry, their tendency must be compared with the principles laid down, and their merits graduated accordingly. Whatever is least favorable to vigor of body, to the faculties of the mind, or to the virtues or the utilities of life, instead of being forced or fostered by public authority, ought to be seen with regret as long as occupations more friendly to human happiness, lie vacant.

The several professions of more elevated pretensions, the merchant, the lawyer, the physician, the philosopher, the divine, form a certain proportion of every civilized society, and readily adjust their numbers to its demands, and its circumstances.

FASHION.1

An humble address has been lately presented to the Prince of Wales by the Buckle Manufacturers of Birmingham, Wassal, Wolverhampton, and their environs, stating that the Buckle Trade gives employment to more than Twenty Thousand persons, numbers of whom, in consequence of the prevailing fashion of Shoestrings & Slippers, are at present without employ, almost destitute of bread, and exposed to the horrors of want at the most inclement season; that to the manufactures of Buckles and Buttons, Birmingham owes its important figure on the map of England; that it is to no purpose to address Fashion herself, she being void of feeling and deaf to argument, but fortunately accustomed to listen to his voice, and to obey his commands: and finally imploring his Royal Highness to consider the deplorable condition of their trade, which is in danger of being ruined by the mutability of fashion, and to give that direction to the public taste, which will insure the lasting gratitude of the petitioners.

Several important reflections are suggested by this address.

I. The most precarious of all occupations which give bread to the industrious, are those depending on mere fashion, which generally changes so suddenly, and often so considerably, as to throw whole bodies of people out of employment.

II. Of all occupations those are the least desirable in a free state, which produce the most servile dependence of one class of citizens on another class. This dependence must increase as the mutuality of wants is diminished. Where the wants on one side are the absolute necessaries; and on the other are neither absolute necessaries, nor result from the habitual œconomy of life, but are the mere caprices of fancy, the evil is in its extreme; or if not,

III. The extremity of the evil must be in the case before us, where the absolute necessaries depend on the caprices of fancy, and the caprice of a single fancy directs the fashion of the community. Here the dependence sinks to the lowest point of servility. We see a proof of it in the spirit of the address. Twenty thousand persons are to get or go without their bread, as a wanton youth, may fancy to wear his shoes with or without straps, or to fasten his straps with strings or with buckles. Can any despotism be more cruel than a situation, in which the existence of thousands depends on one will, and that will on the most slight and fickle of all motives, a mere whim of the imagination.

IV. What a contrast is here to the independent situation and manly sentiments of American citizens, who live on their own soil, or whose labour is necessary to its cultivation, or who are occupied in supplying wants, which being founded in solid utility, in comfortable accommodation, or in settled habits, produce a reciprocity of dependence, at once ensuring subsistence, and inspiring a dignified sense of social rights.

V. The condition of those who receive employment and bread from the precarious source of fashion and superfluity, is a lesson to nations, as well as to individuals. In proportion as a nation consists of that description of citizens, and depends on external commerce, it is dependent on the consumption and caprice of other nations. If the laws of propriety did not forbid, the manufacturers of Birmingham, Wassal, and Wolverhampton, had as real an interest in supplying the arbiters of fashion in America, as the patron they have addressed. The dependence in the case of nations is even greater than among individuals of the same nation: for besides the mutability of fashion which is the same in both, the mutability of policy is another source of danger in the former.

PROPERTY.1

This term in its particular application means “that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual”

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man’s land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties or his possessions.

Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho’ from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.

According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording a just security to property, should be sparingly bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions, in which they have an equal, and in the estimation of some, a more valuable property.

More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man’s religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and inalienable right. To guard a man’s house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man’s conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. A magistrate issuing warrants to a press gang, would be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of the most compleat despotism.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the economical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!

A just security to property is not afforded by that government under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.

If there be a government then which prides itself on maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, the inference will have been anticipated, that such a government is not a pattern for the United States.

If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.

THE UNION.1

Who are its real Friends?

Not those who charge others with not being its friends, whilst their own conduct is wantonly multiplying its enemies.

Not those who favor measures, which by pampering the spirit of speculation within and without the government, disgust the best friends of the Union.

Not those who promote unnecessary accumulations of the debt of the Union, instead of the best means of discharging it as fast as possible; thereby encreasing the causes of corruption in the government, and the pretexts for new taxes under its authority, the former undermining the confidence, the latter alienating the affection of the people.

Not those who study, by arbitrary interpretations and insidious precedents, to pervert the limited government of the Union, into a government of unlimited discretion, contrary to the will and subversive of the authority of the people.

Not those who avow or betray principles of monarchy and aristocracy, in opposition to the republican principles of the Union, and the republican spirit of the people; or who espouse a system of measures more accommodated to the depraved examples of those hereditary forms, than to the true genius of our own.

Not those, in a word, who would force on the people the melancholy duty of chusing between the loss of the Union, and the loss of what the union was meant to secure.

The real Friends to the Union are those,

Who are friends to the authority of the people, the sole foundation on which the Union rests.

Who are friends to liberty, the great end, for which the Union was formed.

Who are friends to the limited and republican system of government, the means provided by that authority, for the attaining of that end.

Who are enemies to every public measure that might smooth the way to hereditary government, for resisting the tyrannies of which the Union was first planned, and for more effectually excluding which, it was put into its present form.

Who considering a public debt as injurious to the interests of the people, and baneful to the virtue of the government, are enemies to every contrivance for unnecessarily increasing its amount, or protracting its duration, or extending its influence.

In a word, those are the real friends to the Union, who are friends to that republican policy throughout, which is the only cement for the Union of a republican people; in opposition to a spirit of usurpation and monarchy, which is the menstruum most capable of dissolving it.1

A CANDID STATE OF PARTIES.1

As it is the business of the contemplative statesman to trace the history of parties in a free country, so it is the duty of the citizen at all times to understand the actual state of them. Whenever this duty is omitted, an opportunity is given to designing men, by the use of artificial or nominal distinctions, to oppose and balance against each other those who never differed as to the end to be pursued, and may no longer differ as to the means of attaining it. The most interesting state of parties in the United States may be referred to three periods: Those who espoused the cause of independence and those who adhered to the British claims, formed the parties of the first period; if, indeed, the disaffected class were considerable enough to deserve the name of a party. This state of things was superseded by the treaty of peace in 1783. From 1783 to 1787 there were parties in abundance, but being rather local than general, they are not within the present review.

The Federal Constitution, proposed in the latter year, gave birth to a second and most interesting division of the people. Every one remembers it, because every one was involved in it.

Among those who embraced the constitution, the great body were unquestionably friends to republican liberty; tho’ there were, no doubt, some who were openly or secretly attached to monarchy and aristocracy; and hoped to make the constitution a cradle for these hereditary establishments.

Among those who opposed the constitution, the great body were certainly well affected to the union and to good government, tho’ there might be a few who had a leaning unfavourable to both. This state of parties was terminated by the regular and effectual establishment of the federal government in 1788; out of the administration of which, however, has arisen a third division, which being natural to most political societies, is likely to be of some duration in ours.

One of the divisions consists of those, who from particular interest, from natural temper, or from the habits of life, are more partial to the opulent than to the other classes of society; and having debauched themselves into a persuasion that mankind are incapable of governing themselves, it follows with them, of course, that government can be carried on only by the pageantry of rank, the influence of money and emoluments, and the terror of military force. Men of those sentiments must naturally wish to point the measures of government less to the interest of the many than of a few, and less to the reason of the many than to their weaknesses; hoping perhaps in proportion to the ardor of their zeal, that by giving such a turn to the administration, the government itself may by degrees be narrowed into fewer hands, and approximated to an hereditary form.

The other division consists of those who believing in the doctrine that mankind are capable of governing themselves, and hating hereditary power as an insult to the reason and an outrage to the rights of man, are naturally offended at every public measure that does not appeal to the understanding and to the general interest of the community, or that is not strictly conformable to the principles, and conducive to the preservation of republican government.

This being the real state of parties among us, an experienced and dispassionate observer will be at no loss to decide on the probable conduct of each.

The anti republican party, as it may be called, being the weaker in point of numbers, will be induced by the most obvious motives to strengthen themselves with the men of influence, particularly of moneyed, which is the most active and insinuating influence. It will be equally their true policy to weaken their opponents by reviving exploded parties, and taking advantage of all prejudices, local, political, and occupational, that may prevent or disturb a general coalition of sentiments.

The republican party, as it may be termed, conscious that the mass of people in every part of the union, in every state, and of every occupation must at bottom be with them, both in interest and sentiment, will naturally find their account in burying all antecedent questions, in banishing every other distinction than that between enemies and friends to republican government, and in promoting a general harmony among the latter, wherever residing, or however employed.

Whether the republican or the rival party will ultimately establish its ascendance, is a problem which may be contemplated now; but which time alone can solve. On one hand experience shews that in politics as in war, stratagem is often an overmatch for numbers; and among more happy characteristics of our political situation, it is now well understood that there are peculiarities, some temporary, others more durable, which may favour that side in the contest. On the republican side, again, the superiority of numbers is so great, their sentiments are so decided, and the practice of making a common cause, where there is a common sentiment and common interest, in spight of circumstantial and artificial distinctions, is so well understood, that no temperate observer of human affairs will be surprised if the issue in the present instance should be reversed, and the government be administered in the spirit and form approved by the great body of the people.

WHO ARE THE BEST KEEPERS OF THE PEOPLE’S LIBERTIES?1

Republican.—The people themselves.—The sacred trust can be no where so safe as in the hands most interested in preserving it.

Anti-republican.—The people are stupid, suspicious, licentious. They cannot safely trust themselves. When they have established government they should think of nothing but obedience, leaving the care of their liberties to their wiser rulers.

Republican.—Although all men are born free, and all nations might be so, yet too true it is, that slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant—they have been cheated; asleep—they have been surprized; divided—the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? that because the people may betray themselves, they ought to give themselves up, blindfold, to those who have an interest in betraying them? Rather conclude that the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it, as well as obey it.

Anti-republican.—You look at the surface only, where errors float, instead of fathoming the depths where truth lies hid. It is not the government that is disposed to fly off from the people; but the people that are ever ready to fly off from the government. Rather say then, enlighten the government, warn it to be vigilant, enrich it with influence, arm it with force, and to the people never pronounce but two words—Submission and Confidence.

Republican.—The centrifugal tendency then is in the people, not in the government, and the secret art lies in restraining the tendency, by augmenting the attractive principle of the government with all the weight that can be added to it. What a perversion of the natural order of things! to make power the primary and central object of the social system, and Liberty but its satellite.

Anti-republican.—The science of the stars can never instruct you in the mysteries of government. Wonderful as it may seem, the more you increase the attractive force of power, the more you enlarge the sphere of liberty; the more you make government independent and hostile towards the people, the better security you provide for their rights and interests. Hence the wisdom of the theory, which, after limiting the share of the people to a third of the government, and lessening the influence of that share by the mode and term of delegating it, establishes two grand hereditary orders, with feelings, habits, interests, and prerogatives all inveterately hostile to the rights and interests of the people, yet by a mysterious operation all combining to fortify the people in both.

Republican.—Mysterious indeed!—But mysteries belong to religion, not to government; to the ways of the Almighty, not to the works of man. And in religion itself there is nothing mysterious to its author; the mystery lies in the dimness of the human sight. So in the institutions of man let there be no mystery, unless for those inferior beings endowed with a ray perhaps of the twilight vouchsafed to the first order of terrestrial creation.

Anti-republican.—You are destitute, I perceive, of every quality of a good citizen, or rather of a good subject. You have neither the light of faith nor the spirit of obedience. I denounce you to the government as an accomplice of atheism and anarchy.

Republican.—And I forbear to denounce you to the people, though a blasphemer of their rights and an idolater of tyranny.—Liberty disdains to persecute.

Dec. 20.

[1 ]From The National Gazette, January 2, 1792.

TO HENRY LEE.

Philadelphia, Jany 1st, 1792.

My dear Sir

. . . . . . . . .

You already know the fate of the apportionment Bill—the subject was revived in the Senate, but I understand has been suspended in order to give an opportunity to the house of Reps. to procede in a second Bill if it pleases—Nothing however has been done in it, and it is difficult to say when or in what form the business will be resumed—The subject most immediately in hand in the House of Reps. is the Post office Bill, which has consumed much time and is still in an unfinished state—you see in the Newspapers historical sketches of its progress—

The Senate have of late been much occupied by the nominations of the President for foreign courts—that is, Mr. Thomas Pinkney for London—Govr Morris, for Paris, & Short for the Hague—a considerable diversity of opinion is said to prevail, and to be the cause of delay in coming to a decision—

The disturbances in Hispaniola continue without abatement, and tis certain that the contagion is reaching Jamaica—

The plan for retrieving our Western affairs is not yet before the Legislature—

I enclose the report of the Secy of the Treasury on Manufactures—What think you of the commentary (pages 36 & 37) on the terms “general welfare”?—The federal Govt has been hitherto limited to the specified powers, by the Greatest Champions for Latitude in expounding those powers—If not only the means, but the objects are unlimited, the parchment had better be thrown into the fire at once—I sent you by Mr Brackenridge a number of Surveys for our friend Baron Steuben, and have acquainted him with a state of the business as far as I could collect it—Whenever you can supply any further information I shall be ready to aid in forwarding it to him—

With the sincerest affection Yrs always.—Mad. MSS.

Lee was then Governor of Virginia. He replied to the letter, January 8

“. . . But really I have discovered no one measure of the genl. got. which has been attended with success, except the fiscal schemes whose completion the moment the abominable principles on which they are built became sanctioned by the national Legislature, were certain.

“I find you was one & first of three in your house appointed to draft an answer to the late presidential speech—Read the first clause of your reply and tell me how you would impute the prosperity of the U. States in any degree, much more in the degree you did, to the laws of Congress. No man loves and venerates the P. more than I do, and to hurt his feelings would be doleful to my heart; but had I been a member of your house, I should certainly in defiance of all other considerations arrest that servile custom of re-echoing whatever is communicated without respect to fact. We owe our prosperity such as it is, for it is nothing extraordinary to our own native vigor as a people & to a continuation of peace, not to the wisdom or care of govt. . Indelibly stained is the wisdom the honor & justice of the govt by those fashionable treasury schemes imitative of the base principles & wicked measures adopted thro necessity in corrupt monarchies and long since reprobated (tho continued) by the wise & good in the countrys where they exist. . . . I deeply lament the sad event, but really I see no redress, unless the govt itself be destroyed. This is risking too much because great evils indubitably must grow from discord & the people must suffer greatly whatever may be the event of such an experiment. The money interest is growing daily more & more formidable, they are industrious, they combine they concert measures, they beset every avenue of information, & they bespatter the character of every individual who dares to utter an opinion hostile to the fiscal measures—So that the chance of successful opposition is more & more doubtful. Men hate to risk without tolerable hopes of success. To this cause I impute the submission of so many well informed heads & honest hearts to the base perversion of the constitution of the U. S.

“Never did practice so flatly contradict theory as the paper & the administration of it so far. . . .”—Mad. MSS.

The reply to the President’s speech, adopted October 27, which Madison had drawn up was perfunctory. The opening clause to which Lee objected read:

“In receiving your Address, at the opening of the present session, the House of Representatives have taken an ample share in the feelings inspired by the actual prosperity and flattering prospects of our country; and whilst, with becoming gratitude to Heaven, we ascribe this happiness to the true source from which it flows, we behold with an animated pleasure the degree in which the Constitution and Laws of the United States have been instrumental in dispensing it.”

Lee wrote again, Jany. 17, 1792:

“. . . In that funding system will undo us, such an unnecessary wanton base infamous plan never was fostered for a moment by a people circumstanced as we were: yet it has not only been fostered but absolutely rivetted upon us—While we deprecate & lament the obnoxious event we must submit to it, because effectual opposition may beget civil discord & civil war.

“I wish to god the debt could be discharged, the banditti paid off, & a like scheme prohibited in future. . . .”—Mad. MSS.

The next letter, January 29, is endorsed by Madison: “Evidence of General H. Lee’s disaffection to the policy & measures of the Federal Government during several of the early years of Washington’s administration, and of his partiality for Freneau’s National Gazette.” It proceeds:

“. . . I admire the constitution, I revere the principles on which it is founded & love affectionately the objects which it contemplated. All that grieves me is, the perverseness of its administration. The effects heretofore produced are spurious, but have been so successful as to render in my judgment a change of constitution in operation certain altho there will be no change for a long time in names. . . .”—Mad. MSS.

The letter contains no direct allusion to Freneau’s paper, but on February 6 he wrote:

“. . . Freneau’s Gazette you mention has not reached me, nor indeed have I for two mails got any papers from him. This precariousness in the reception of his paper will cramp the circulation of it, for which I am exceedingly sorry as it is rising fast into reputation.

“Innes is so pleased with the attention of the editor to political matters and to the independence evidenced in his selection of home information that he has desired me to procure for him the Gazette and to request that all the papers from the beginning be forwarded.

“This you will please to do & give Innes’s address & residence.

“I intend to urge Davies the public printer here to re-publish [illegible] & such other political matters as serve to inform the people.”—Mad. MSS.

[2 ]From The National Gazette, January 19, 1792.

[1 ]From The National Gazette, January 23, 1792.

[1 ]From The National Gazette, January 30, 1792.

[1 ]From The National Gazette, February 2, 1792.

[1 ]From The National Gazette, February 6, 1792.

[1 ]From The National Gazette, February 20, 1792.

[1 ]February 6, 1792, in the debate on the bill to encourage the cod fisheries Madison repeated his constitutional views substantially as in his speech of February 8, 1791.

TO EDMUND PENDLETON.

Philada Feby 21, 1792.

Dear Sir

Your favor of the 8th did not come to hand till this afternoon. I thank you for the very just & interesting observations contained in it. I have not yet met with an opportunity of forwarding the Report on Manufactures; nor has that subject been yet regularly taken up. The constitutional doctrine however advanced in the Report, has been anticipated on another occasion, by its zealous friends; and I was drawn into a few hasty animadversions the substance of which you will find in one of the inclosed papers. It gives me great pleasure to find my exposition of the Constitution so well supported by yours.

The Bill concerning the election of a President & Vice President and the eventual successor to both, which has long been depending, has finally got through the two Houses. It was made a question whether the number of electors ought to correspond with the new apportionment or the existing House of Reps. The text of the Constitution was not decisive, and the Northern interest was strongly in favor of the latter interpretation. The intrinsic rectitude however of the former turned the decision in both houses in favor of the Southern. On another point the Bill certainly errs. It provides that in case of a double vacancy, the Executive powers shall devolve on the Prest pro tempore of the Senate & he failing, on the Speaker of the House of Reps.2 The objections to this arrangement are various, 1. it may be questioned whether these are officers in the constitutional sense. 2. if officers whether both could be introduced. 3. as they are created by the Constitution, they would probably have been there designated if contemplated for such a service, instead of being left to the Legislative selection. 4. Either they will retain their Legislative stations, and then incompatible functions will be blended; or the incompatibility will supersede those stations, & then those being the substratum of the adventitious functions, these must fail also. The Constitution says, Congs. may declare what officers &c. which seems to make it not an appointment or a translation; but an annexation of one office or trust to another office. The House of Reps proposed to substitute the Secretary of State, but the Senate disagreed, & there being much delicacy in the matter it was not pressed by the former.

Another Representation Bill has gone to the Senate modelled on the double idea mentioned in my last. 1 for 30,000 is the ratio fixed both for the late & the proposed Census. The fate of the Bill in the Senate is problematical. The Bill immediately before the H. of Reps is a Militia Bill.

I have nothing to add to the contents of the Newspapers on other subjects foreign or domestic.

With the highest esteem & sincere affn

I remain Dear Sir Yrs

—Mad. MSS.

[1 ]From The National Gazette, March 5, 1792.

TO JAMES MADISON.

Philada March 15, 1792.

Hond Sir

The last letter recd. from you was that of Feby 1. Since my answer to that the state of the roads & rivers has been such as to render the conveyance of letters very tedious if not uncertain, and thence to produce the interval between that date & the present. I now inclose 5nos. of the National Gazette—which continue the intelligence through out the period of my silence—You will find noticed the progress of the business in Cons and particularly the bills that have passed into laws. The representation-bill which as it went to the Senate proposed again the simple ratio of 1 for 30,000 applied to the respective members in each state, and a second census within a short time to be followed by a like ratio, has come back with the latter provision struck out, and the former so altered as to make the number of Reps amount to 120, instead of 112. This is the more extraordinary as the No. 112 was considered before as too great and a ratio of 1 for 33,000 insisted on & the bill sacrificed to it. The secret of the business is that by these different rules the relative number of Eastn & Southn members is varied. The number of 120 is made out by applying 1 for 30,000 to the aggregate population of the U. S. and allowing to fractions of certain amount an additional member.1

The House of Reps have been for several days taken up with the Georgia election, which will probably consume several more, a good deal of the more important business still remains to be done; altho’ there seems to be a pretty general determination to close the session early in next week.

Leiper has not yet sold your Tobo. The price continues so low that he thinks a change must be for the better & ought to be waited for. The price of sugar has rather risen of late, and seems likely to remain high for some time. The state of the public debt has fallen considerably as you will see by the inclosed papers. You had better have complied with my advice with regard to your little interest in that article, and had in my opinion still better send me a power of attorney as to the principal as well as the interest. With my dutiful regards to my mother.—Mad. MSS.

[1 ]From The National Gazette, March 22, 1792.

[1 ]From The National Gazette, March 29, 1792.

[1 ]From The National Gazette, April 2, 1792

[1 ]

TO JAMES MADISON.

Apl 17th 1792.

Hond Sir

Col. Wadsworth2 of Connecticut wishes to procure a Barrel or half Barrel of the best Peach Brandy, & I have undertaken to use my efforts for the purpose. If it can be got at all it is probably in our neighbourhood. I recollect particularly that Col. Geo. Taylor had some that we thought good & which is perhapsto be obtained. If that or any better can be had I shall be glad that one of my brothers would take the trouble of engaging it & having it forwarded. The older the better provided the quality be excellent. If age be wanting, the quality should be such as will be made excellent by age. To secure it against fraud, it is desired that the cask be cased with an outer one; the cask itself to be of wood that will give it no ill taste. The price will not be considered so much as the character of the spirits, it being for the use of the gentleman himself—If no brandy be on hand that will do, perhaps the ensuing fall if the peaches be not destroyed, may supply the defect. In that case it might be well to speak in time to some person & have a barrel distilled with special care for the purpose. The brandy is to be shipped from Fredericksburg addressed to Watson & Greenleaf at New York—for Col. Wadsworth Mr Maury or Mr. Glassell will forward it if sent to either of them. I have nothing to add to the papers enclosed having written a few days ago, & being now in haste.

Yr affec son.—Mad. MSS.

SUBSTANCE OF A CONVERSATION WITH THE PRESIDENT, 5TH MAY, 1792.

In consequence of a note this morning from the President, requesting me to call on him I did so; when he opened the conversation by observing, that having some time ago communicated to me his intention of retiring from public life on the expiration of his four years, he wished to advise with me on the mode and time most proper for making known that intention. He had he said spoken with no one yet on those particular points, and took this opportunity of mentioning them to me, that I might consider the matter, and give him my opinion, before the adjournment of Congress, or my departure from Philadelphia. He had he said forborne to communicate his intentions to any other persons whatever, but Mr. Jefferson, Col. Hamilton, General Knox, and myself, and of late to Mr. Randolph. Col. Hamilton and Genl. Knox he observed were extremely importunate that he should relinquish his purpose, and had made pressing representations to induce him to it Mr. Jefferson had expressed his wishes to the like effect. He had not however persuaded himself that his continuance in Public life could be of so much necessity or importance as was conceived, and his disinclination to it was becoming every day more & more fixed, so that he wished to make up his mind as soon as possible on the points he had mentioned. What he desired was to prefer that mode which would be most remote from the appearance of arrogantly presuming on his re-election in case he should not withdraw himself, and such a time as would be most convenient to the Public in making the choice of his successor. It had he said at first occurred to him, that the commencement of the ensuing Session of Congress would furnish him with an apt occasion for introducing the intimation, but besides the lateness of the day, he was apprehensive that it might possibly produce some notice in the reply of Congress that might entangle him in farther explanations.I replied that I would revolve the subject as he desired and communicate the result before my leaving Philada but that I could not but yet hope there would be no necessity at this time for his decision on the two points he had stated. I told him that when he did me the honor to mention the resolution he had taken, I had forborne to do more than briefly express my apprehensions that it would give a surprize and shock to the public mind, being restrained from enlarging on the subject by an unwillingness to express sentiments sufficiently known to him; or to urge objections to a determination, which if absolute, it might look like affectation to oppose; that the aspect which things had been latterly assuming, seemed however to impose the task on all who had the opportunity of urging a continuance of his public services; and that under such an impression I held it a duty, not indeed to express my wishes which would be superfluous, but to offer my opinion that his retiring at the present juncture might have effects that ought not to be hazarded; that I was not unaware of the urgency of his inclination; or of the peculiar motives he might feel to withdraw himself from a situation into which it was so well known to myself he had entered with a scrupulous reluctance; that I well recollected the embarrassments under which his mind labored in deciding the question on which he had consulted me, whether it could be his duty to accept his present station after having taken a final leave of public life; and that it was particularly in my recollection that I then entertained & intimated a wish that his acceptance, which appeared to be indispensable, might be known hereafter to have been in no degree the effect of any motive which strangers to his character might suppose, but of the severe sacrifice which his friends knew, he made of his inclinations as a man, to his obligations as a citizen; that I owned I had at that time contemplated, & I believed, suggested as the most unequivocal tho’ not the only proof of his real motive, a voluntary return to private life as soon as the state of the Government would permit, trusting that if any premature casualty should unhappily cut off the possibility of this proof, the evidence known to his friends would in some way or other be saved from oblivion and do justice to his character; that I was not less anxious on the same point now than I was then; and if I did not conceive that reasons of a like kind to those which required him to undertake still required him to retain for some time longer, his present station, or did not presume that the purity of his motives would be sufficiently vindicated, I should be the last of his friends to press, or even to wish, such a determination.

He then entered on a more explicit disclosure of the state of his mind; observing that he could not believe or conceive himself any wise necessary to the successful administration of the Government; that, on the contrary he had from the beginning found himself deficient in many of the essential qualifications, owing to his inexperience in the forms of public business, his unfitness to judge of legal questions, and questions arising out of the Constitution; that others more conversant in such matters would be better able to execute the trust; that he found himself also in the decline of life, his health becoming sensibly more infirm, & perhaps his faculties also; that the fatigues & disagreeableness of his situation were in fact scarcely tolerable to him; that he only uttered his real sentiments when he declared that his inclination would lead him rather to go to his farm, take his spade in his hand, and work for his bread, than remain in his present situation; that it was evident moreover that a spirit of party in the Government was becoming a fresh source of difficulty, and he was afraid was dividing some (alluding to the Secretary of State and Secy of the Treasury) more particularly connected with him in the administration; that there were discontents among the people which were also shewing themselves more & more, & that altho’ the various attacks against public men & measures had not in general been pointed at him, yet in some instances it had been visible that he was the indirect object, and it was probable the evidence would grow stronger and stronger that his return to private life was consistent with every public consideration, and, consequently that he was justified in giving way to his inclination for it.

I was led by this explanation to remark to him, that however novel or difficult the business might have been to him, it could not be doubted that with the aid of the official opinions & informations within his command his judgment must have been as competent in all cases, as that of any one who could have been put in his place, and in many cases certainly more so; that in the great point of conciliating and uniting all parties under a Govt which had excited such violent controversies & divisions, it was well known that his services had been in a manner essential; that with respect to the spirit of party that was taking place under the operations of the Govt. I was sensible of its existence but considered that as an argument for his remaining, rather than retiring, until the public opinion, the character of the Govt., and the course of its administration shd be better decided, which could not fail to happen in a short time, especially under his auspices; that the existing parties did not appear to be so formidable to the Govt as some had represented; that in one party there might be a few who retaining their original disaffection to the Govt might still wish to destroy it, but that they would lose their weight with their associates, by betraying any such hostile purposes; that altho’ it was pretty certain that the other were in general unfriendly to republican Govt and probably aimed at a gradual approximation of ours to a mixed monarchy, yet the public sentiment was so strongly opposed to their views, and so rapidly manifesting itself, that the party could not long be expected to retain a dangerous influence; that it might reasonably be hoped therefore that the conciliating influence of a temperate & wise administration would before another term of four years should run out, give such a tone & firmness to the Government as would secure it against danger from either of these descriptions of enemies; that altho’ I would not allow myself to believe but that the Govt would be safely administered by any successor elected by the people, yet it was not to be denied that in the present unsettled condition of our young Government, it was to be feared that no successor would answer all the purposes to be expected from the continuance of the present chief magistrate, that the option evidently lay between a few characters; Mr. Adams, Mr. Jay, & Mr. Jefferson were most likely to be brought into view; that with respect to Mr. Jefferson his extreme repugnance to public life & anxiety to exchange it for his farm & his philosophy made it doubtful with his friends whether it would be possible to obtain his own consent, and if obtained, whether local prejudices in the Northern States, with the views of Pennsylvania in relation to the seat of Govt, would not be a bar to his appointment. With respect to Mr. Adams, his monarchical principles, which he had not concealed, with his late conduct on the representation bill, had produced such a settled dislike among republicans every where, & particularly in the Southern States, that he seemed to be out of the question. It would not be in the power of those who might be friendly to his private character & willing to trust him in a public one, notwithstanding his political principles to make head against the torrent. With respect to Mr. Jay his election would be extremely dissatisfactory on several accounts. By many he was believed to entertain the same obnoxious principles with Mr. Adams, & at the same time would be less open and therefore more successful in propagating them. By others (a pretty numerous class) he was disliked & distrusted, as being thought to have espoused the claims of British Creditors at the expence of the reasonable pretensions of his fellow Citizens in debt to them. Among the Western people, to whom his negotiations for ceding the Mississippi to Spain were generally known, he was considered as their most dangerous enemy & held in peculiar distrust & disesteem. In this state of our prospects which was rendered more striking by a variety of temporary circumstances, I could not forbear thinking that altho’ his retirement might not be fatal to the public good, yet a postponement of it was another sacrifice exacted by his patriotism.

Without appearing to be any wise satisfied with what I had urged he turned the conversation to other subjects; & when I was withdrawing repeated his request that I would think of the points he had mentioned to me, & let him have my ideas on them before the adjournment. I told him I would do so, but still hoped his decision on the main question would supersede for the present all such incidental questions.

Wednesday Evening, May 9, 1792.

Understanding that the President was to set out the ensuing morning for Mount Vernon, I called on him to let him know that as far as I had formed an opinion on the subject he had mentioned to me, it was in favor of a direct address of notification to the public in time for its proper effect on the election, which I thought might be put into such a form as would avoid every appearance of presumption or indelicacy, and seemed to be absolutely required by his situation. I observed that no other mode deserving consideration had occurred, except the one he had thought of & rejected, which seemed to me liable to the objections that had weighed with him. I added that if on farther reflection I shd. view the subject in any new lights, I would make it the subject of a letter tho’ I retained my hopes that it would not yet be necessary for him to come to any opinion on it. He begged that I would do so, and also suggest any matters that might occur as proper to be included in what he might say to Congress at the opening of their next Session; passing over the idea of his relinquishing his purpose of retiring in a manner that did not indicate the slightest assent to it.

Friday, May 25, 1792.

I met the President on the road returning from Mount Vernon to Philada, when he handed me the letter dated at the latter place on the 20th of May,1 the copy of the answer to which on the 21st of June is annexed.—Mad. MSS.

COPY OF A LETTER TO PRESIDENT WASHINGTON.

Orange June 21, 1792.

Dear Sir

Having been left to myself for some days past, I have made use of the opportunity for bestowing on your letter of the 20th Ult, handed to me on the road, the attention which its important contents claimed. The questions which it presents for consideration are—1. at what time a notification of your purpose to retire will be most convenient? 2. what mode will be most eligible? 3. whether a valedictory address will be requisite or advisable? 4. if either, whether it would be more properly annexed to the notification or postponed to your actual retirement.

1. The answer to the first question involves two points: first the expediency of delaying the notification; secondly the propriety of making it before the choice of electors takes place, that the people may make the choice with an eye to the circumstances under which the trust is to be executed. On the first point, the reasons for as much delay as possible are too obvious to need recital. The second, depending on the times fixed in the several States which must be within 34 days preceding the first wednesday in December, requires that the notification should be in time to pervade every part of the Union, by the beginning of November. Allowing six weeks for this purpose, the middle of September, or perhaps a little earlier would seem a convenient date for the act.

2. With regard to the mode, none better occurs than a simple publication in the newspapers. If it were proper to address it through the medium of the general Legislature, there will be no opportunity. Nor does the change of situation seem to admit a recurrence to the State Govts, which were the channels used for the former valedictory address. A direct address to the people who are your only constituents can be made I think with most propriety, thro’ the independent channel of the press, thro’ which they are as a constituent Body usually addressed.

3. On the third question I think there can be no doubt that such an address is rendered proper in itself by the peculiarity & importance of the circumstances which mark your situation; and advisable by the salutary & operative lessons of which it may be made the vehicle. The precedent at your military exit might also subject an omission now to conjectures & interpretations which it would not be well to leave room for.

4. The remaining question is less easily decided. Advantages & objections lie on both sides of the alternative. The occasion on which you are necessarily addressing the people evidently introduces, most easily & most delicately, any voluntary observations that are meditated. In another view a farewell address before the final moment of departure is liable to the appearance of being premature & awkward. On the opposite side of the alternative however a postponement will beget a dryness & an abridgement in the first address little corresponding with the feelings which the occasion would naturally produce both in the author & the objects of it; and tho’ not liable to the above objection, would require a resumption of the subject apparently more forced, and on which the impressions having been anticipated & familiarized, and the public mind diverted perhaps to other scenes, a second address would be received with less sensibility & effect than if incorporated with the impressions incident to the original one. It is possible too that previous to the close of the term, circumstances might intervene in relation to public affairs, or the succession to the Presidency which would be more embarrassing, if existing at the time of a valedictory appeal to the public, than if unknown at the time of that delicate measure.

On the whole my judgment leans to the propriety of blending the acts together; and the more so as the crisis which will terminate your public career will still afford an opportunity, if any immediate contingency shd call for a supplement to your farewell observations. But as more correct views of the subject, may produce a different result in your mind, I have endeavored to fit the draught inclosed to either determination. You will readily observe that in executing it, I have arrived at that plainness & modesty of language which you had in view, & which indeed are so peculiarly becoming the character & the occasion; & that I have had, little more to do as to the matter than to follow the very just & comprehensive outline which you had sketched. I flatter myself, however, that in every thing which has depended on me, much improvement will be made before so interesting a paper shall have taken its last form.

Having thus, Sir, complied with your wishes, by proceeding on a supposition that the idea of retiring from public life is to be carried into execution, I must now gratify my own by hoping that a reconsideration of the measure, in all its circumstances and consequences will have produced an acquiescence in one more sacrifice, severe as it may be, to the desires & interests of your country. I forbear to enter into the arguments which plead for it, in my mind, because it would be only repeating what I have already taken the liberty of fully explaining. But I could not conclude such a letter as the present without a repetition of my ardent wishes & hopes that our country may not at this important conjuncture be deprived of the inestimable advantage of having you at the head of its Counsels.

J. M. Jr

[Draught enclosed in the above.]

The period which will close the appointment with which my fellow-citizens have honored me, being not very distant, and the time actually arrived at which their thoughts must be designating the Citizen who is to administer the Executive Government of the U. S. during the ensuing term, it may be requisite to a more distinct expression of the public voice that I should apprize such of my fellow Citizens as may retain their partiality towards me, that I am not to be numbered among those out of whom a choice is to be made.I beg them to be assured that the resolution which dictates this intimation has not been taken without the strictest regard to the relation which as a dutiful citizen I bear to my country; and that in withdrawing that tender of my service which silence in my situation might imply, I am not influenced by the smallest deficiency of zeal for its future interests, or of grateful respect for its past kindness; but by the fullest persuasion, that such a step is compatible with both.The impressions under which I entered on the present arduous trust were explained on the proper occasion. In discharge of this trust, I can only say, that I have contributed towards the organization & administration of the Government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. For any errors which may have flowed from this source, I feel all the regret which an anxiety for the public good can excite; not without the double consolation however arising from a consciousness of their being involuntary, and an experience of the candor which will interpret them. If there were any circumstances which could give value to my inferior qualifications for the trust, these circumstances must have been temporary. In this light was the undertaking viewed when I ventured upon it. Being moreover still farther advanced into the decline of life, I am every day more sensible that the increasing weight of years, renders the private walks of it in the shade of retirement as necessary as they will be acceptable to me. May I be allowed to add, that it will be among the highest as well as the purest enjoyments that can sweeten the remnant of my days, to partake in a private station in the midst of my fellow Citizens, of that benign influence of good laws under a free Government which has been the ultimate object of all our wishes, and in which I confide as the happy reward of our cares & labors. May I be allowed further to add as a consideration far more important, that an early example of rotation in an office of so high & delicate a nature may equally accord with the republican spirit of our constitution & the ideas of liberty & safety entertained by the people.

(If a farewell address is to be added at the expiration of the term, the following paragraph may conclude the present:)

Under these circumstances, a return to my private station according to the purpose with which I quitted it, is the part wch. duty as well as inclination assigns me. In executing it I shall carry with me every tender recollection which gratitude to my fellow Citizens can awaken; and a sensibility to the permanent happiness of my country that will render it the object of my unceasing vows and most fervent supplications.

(Should no further address be intended, the preceding clause may be omitted, & the present address proceed as follows:)

In contemplating the moment at which the curtain is to drop forever on the public scenes of my life, my sensations anticipate & do not permit me to suspend, the deep acknowledgments required by that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred on me, for the distinguished confidence it has reposed in me, and for the opportunities I have thus enjoyed of testifying my inviolable attachment by the most stedfast services which my faculties could render. All the returns I have now to make will be in those vows which I shall carry with me to my retirement & to my grave, that Heaven may continue to favor the people of the U. S. with the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that their union & brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free constitution, which is the work of their own hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every Department may be stamped with wisdom & with virtue, & that this character may be ensured to it by that watchfulness over public servants & public measures which on one hand will be necessary to prevent or correct a degeneracy, and that forbearance on the other, from unfounded or indiscriminate jealousies which would deprive the public of the best services by depriving a conscious integrity of one of the noblest incitements to perform them; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of America under the auspices of liberty may be made compleat, by so careful a preservation & so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire them the glorious satisfaction of recommending it to the affection, the praise, & the adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.

And may we not dwell with well-grounded hopes on this flattering prospect, when we reflect on the many ties by which the people of America are bound together, & the many proofs they have given of an enlightened judgment and a magnanimous patriotism.

We may all be considered as the children of one common country. We have all been embarked in one common cause. We have all had our share in common sufferings & common successes. The portion of the earth allotted for the Theatre of our fortunes fulfils our most sanguine desires. All its essential interests are the same; whilst the diversities arising from climate, from soil, & from other local & lesser peculiarities, will naturally form a mutual relation of the parts that must give to the whole a more entire independence, than has perhaps fallen to the lot of any other nation.

To confirm these motives to an affectionate & permanent Union & to secure the great objects of it, we have established a common Government, which being free in its principles, being founded in our own choice, being intended as the guardian of our common rights & the patron of our common interests, & wisely containing within itself a provision for its own amendment as experience may point out its errors, seems to promise everything that can be expected from such an institution; and if supported by wise counsels, by virtuous conduct, & by mutual & friendly allowances, must approach as near to perfection as any human work can aspire, & nearer than any which the annals of mankind have recorded.

With these wishes & hopes I shall make my exit from civil life, and I have taken the same liberty of expressing them which I formerly used in offering the sentiments which were suggested by my exit from military life. If, in either instance I have presumed more than I ought on the indulgence of my fellow citizens, they will be too generous to ascribe it to any other cause, than the extreme solicitude which I am bound to feel, & which I can never cease to feel, for their liberty their prosperity & their happiness1 —Mad. MSS.

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.

Orange Septr 13, 1792.

My dear friend

Your favor of the 12 Ult having arrived during an excursion into Albemarle, I did not receive it till my return on yesterday. I lose not a moment in thanking you for it, particularly for the very friendly paragraph in the publication in Fenno’s paper. As I do not get his paper here, it was by accident I first saw this extraordinary manouvre of calumny, the quarter, the motive, and the object of which speak of themselves. As it respects Mr. Jefferson I have no doubt that it will be of service both to him & the public, if it should lead to such an investigation of his political opinions and character as may be expected. With respect to myself the consequence in a public view, is of little account. In any view, there could not have been a charge founded on a grosser perversion of facts, & consequently against which I could feel myself more invulnerable.

That I wished & recommended Mr. Freneau to be appd. to his present Clerkship is certain. But the Department of State was not the only, nor as I recollect the first one to which I mentioned his name & character. I was governed in these recommendations by an acquaintance of long standing, by a respect for his talents, & by a knowledge of his merit & sufferings in the course of the revolution. Had I been less abstemious in my practice from solicitations in behalf of my friends, I should probably have been more early in thinking of Mr. F. The truth is, that my application when made did not originate with myself. It was suggested by another Gentleman1 who could feel no motive but a disposition to patronize merit, & who wished me to co-operate with him. That with others of Mr. Freneau’s particular acquaintances I wished & advised him to establish a press at Philada instead of one meditated by him in N Jersey, is also certain, I advised the change because I thought his interest would be advanced by it, & because as a friend I was desirous that his interest should be advanced. This was my primary & governing motive. That as a consequential one, I entertained hopes that a free paper meant for general circulation, and edited by a man of genius of republican principles, & a friend to the Constitution, would be some antidote to the doctrines & discourses circulated in favour of Monarchy and Aristocracy & would be an acceptable vehicle of public information in many places not sufficiently supplied with it, this also is a certain truth; but it is a truth which I never could be tempted to conceal, or wish to be concealed. If there be a temptation in the case, it would be to make a merit of it.

But that the establishment of Mr. F’s press was wished in order to sap the Constitution, and that I forwarded the measure, or that my agency negociated it by an illicit or improper connection between the functions of a translating Clerk in a public office, & those of an Editor of a Gazette, these are charges which ought to be as impotent as they are malicious. The first is surely incredible, if any charge could be so; & the second is I hope at least improbable, & not to be credited, until unequivocal proof shall be substituted for anonymous & virulent assertions.

When I first saw the publication I was half disposed to meet it with a note to the printer, with my name subscribed. I was thrown into suspense however by reflecting that as I was not named, & was only incidentally brought into view, such a step might be precipitate, if not improper, in case the principal should not concur in such a mode of vindication. 2. that I was not enough acquainted with the turn the thing might take, and the light in which it might be viewed on the spot. 3. that in a case the least doubtful, prudence would not rush into the newspapers. These considerations have been since sanctioned by the opinion of two or three judicious & neutral friends whom I have consulted. The part finally proper however remains to be decided and on that I shall always be thankful for the ideas of my friends most in a condition to judge.1 —Mad. MSS.

[1 ]From The National Gazette, September 26, 1792.

[1 ]From The National Gazette, December 20, 1792. This was the last of Madison’s contributions to the Gazette. He left a volume of the paper, marking with his initials those which he wrote. Mr. Rives, in his Life and Times of Madison, iii., 250, n., gives a list of the articles which is slightly inaccurate.

TO EDMUND PENDLETON.

Philada, Decr 6, 1792.

Dear Sir

I am just favored with yours of the 28th Ult. I wish I could remove your anxiety for the French. The last accounts are so imperfect & contradictory that it is difficult to make anything of them. They come also thro’ the Brussels & English channels, which increases the uncertainty. It appears on the whole that the combination agst the revolution, and particularly agst their new Republic, is extremely formidable, and that there is still greater danger within from the follies and barbarities which prevail in Paris. On the other hand it seems tolerably clear that the nation is united against Royalty, and well disposed to second the Government in the means of defence. At this distance it is impossible to appreciate particular measures, or foresee the turn which things may finally take.

The Newspaper tax noticed by the P has been referred to a Come but no report has yet been made. It is of great importance that some change should take place that will remove the obstruction which has been thrown in the way of information to the people. In all Govts the public censorship is necessary in order to prevent abuses. In such an one as ours, where the members are so far removed from the eye of their Constituents, an easy & prompt circulation of public proceedings is peculiarly essential.

The election of a vice P has excited in this quarter considerable animation and called forth comparative portraits of the political characters of Mr Adams & Govr Clinton the only candidates brought into the field. The former has been exhibited in all its monarchical features; and the latter in the anti federal colors it wore in 1788. There are not sufficient data here to calculate with certainty the event of the contest. The probability is rather favorable to Mr. A., but not in such a degree as to prevent pretty keen apprehensions among his friends. As the opposition to him is levelled entirely agst his political principles, and is made under very great disadvantages, the extent of it, whether successful or not, will satisfy him that the people at large are not yet ripe for his system.

We are informed by the last advices from Europe that the harvest has generally been scanty, & that in England, particularly it has suffered prodigiously from the wetness of the season. From this cause, and the general state of things abroad, a great demand on our stock is anticipated. Wheat is already up at 9s, & flour at 45s of this currency. The rise must soon communicate itself to Virginia & it is to be hoped the farmers will not lose the benefit of it by premature sales. We all regret the detention of Col. Taylor. I hope the cause of it has ceased & that we shall soon have his arrival in proof of it. It is probable that Mr. Jefferson will not remain very long in his public station; but it is certain that his retirement is not to be ascribed to the Newspaper calumnies which may have had that in view. With the greatest affection I remain, Dr sir, Yrs—Mad. MSS.

[1 ]February 6, 1792, in the debate on the bill to encourage the cod fisheries Madison repeated his constitutional views substantially as in his speech of February 8, 1791.

TO EDMUND PENDLETON.

Philada Feby 21, 1792.

Dear Sir

I have nothing to add to the contents of the Newspapers on other subjects foreign or domestic.

With the highest esteem & sincere affn

I remain Dear Sir Yrs

—Mad. MSS.

[1 ]From The National Gazette, March 5, 1792.

TO JAMES MADISON.

Philada March 15, 1792.

Hond Sir

[1 ]

TO JAMES MADISON.

Apl 17th 1792.

Hond Sir

Yr affec son.—Mad. MSS.

SUBSTANCE OF A CONVERSATION WITH THE PRESIDENT, 5TH MAY, 1792.

Wednesday Evening, May 9, 1792.

Friday, May 25, 1792.

COPY OF A LETTER TO PRESIDENT WASHINGTON.

Orange June 21, 1792.

Dear Sir

J. M. Jr

[Draught enclosed in the above.]

(If a farewell address is to be added at the expiration of the term, the following paragraph may conclude the present:)

(Should no further address be intended, the preceding clause may be omitted, & the present address proceed as follows:)

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.

Orange Septr 13, 1792.

My dear friend

[2 ]The succession was deflected from the Secretary of State because Jefferson then held the office.

[1 ]Washington vetoed the bill April 5, 1792, because it made an uneven proportion and allowed eight states more representatives than 1 to every 30,000 of their inhabitants.—Messages and Papers of the Presidents, i., 124.

[2 ]Jeremiah Wadsworth, a representative.

[1 ]The letter said he had not been able to dispose his mind to a longer continuance in office. He looked forward to the fulfilment of his fondest and most ardent wishes to spend the remainder of his days in ease and tranquillity. Nothing short of conviction that dereliction of the chair of state by him would involve the country in serious disputes, could in any wise induce him to relinquish the determination he had formed. He wished Madison to suggest the proper time and mode of announcing his intention, and to prepare the form of the latter; and turn his thoughts to the form of a valedictory address to the public.—Ford’s Writings of Washington, xii., 123.

[1 ]Washington put this letter away, having concluded to serve as President for a second term, and five years later made it the basis of a part of the first draft of his Farewell Address. He sent the draft to Hamilton, who sent him another draft, upon which he built the Address finally adopted. Its first paragraph, announcing his purpose to retire, was substantially as in Madison’s draft; so was the second, promising continued zeal for the country’s welfare. The fifth and sixth were similar to the Madison draft. The expressions in the draft in favor of the Union and the government appeared in the Address in different form. Everything in the draft was in the Address, but the Address had fifty paragraphs and the draft only nine, nor can any of the striking features of the Address be attributed to Madison.—Hunt’s Life of Madison, 220.

[1 ]Henry Lee.

[1 ]The first attacks on the administration by The National Gazette began December 8, 1791, in a piece signed “Americanus,” and were continued thereafter till it ceased to appear, October, 1793, soon after Jefferson left the cabinet. Washington himself was always spared by Freneau. August 16, 1791,Freneau was appointed a translator in the State Department at a salary of $250 per annum, which was half the amount paid the regular clerks. The Gazette did not disclose any secrets of government, and showed no facilities for information greater than any one not in government service might have had.

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1792: GOVERNMENT. 1 - James Madison, The Writings, vol. 6 (1790-1802) [1906]

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GOVERNMENT.1

CHARTERS.2

PARTIES.1

BRITISH GOVERNMENT.1

UNIVERSAL PEACE.1

GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.1

SPIRIT OF GOVERNMENTS.1

REPUBLICAN DISTRIBUTION OF CITIZENS.1

FASHION.1

PROPERTY.1

THE UNION.1

Who are its real Friends?

A CANDID STATE OF PARTIES.1

WHO ARE THE BEST KEEPERS OF THE PEOPLE’S LIBERTIES?1

TO HENRY LEE.

My dear Sir

With the sincerest affection Yrs always.—Mad. MSS.

TO EDMUND PENDLETON.

Dear Sir

I remain Dear Sir Yrs

TO JAMES MADISON.

Hond Sir

TO JAMES MADISON.

Hond Sir

Yr affec son.—Mad. MSS.

SUBSTANCE OF A CONVERSATION WITH THE PRESIDENT, 5TH MAY, 1792.

COPY OF A LETTER TO PRESIDENT WASHINGTON.

Dear Sir

[Draught enclosed in the above.]

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.

My dear friend

TO EDMUND PENDLETON.

Dear Sir

TO EDMUND PENDLETON.

Dear Sir

I remain Dear Sir Yrs

TO JAMES MADISON.

Hond Sir

TO JAMES MADISON.

Hond Sir

Yr affec son.—Mad. MSS.

SUBSTANCE OF A CONVERSATION WITH THE PRESIDENT, 5TH MAY, 1792.

COPY OF A LETTER TO PRESIDENT WASHINGTON.

Dear Sir

[Draught enclosed in the above.]

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.

My dear friend