In January 1790 Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton
published his Report on Public Credit.
On 21 March 1790 Thomas Jefferson went to the temporary capital
in New York City and became Secretary of State.
On April 22 James Madison made this very long speech in the
House of Representatives on Hamilton’s plan for the
United States Government to assume the debts of the states:
It is not without much reluctance that I trouble the
committee with any observations on a subject which
has been so long under discussion and may be
thought to be entirely exhausted.
I must refer for my apology to the uncommon perseverance
with which the advocates for an assumption adhere to their
object, notwithstanding the difficulties which oppose it.
On the supposition that the measure in question were
ever so eligible, if it could be so modified as to be
acceptable to the general sense of the government, and of
its constituents at large, every member ought I think to be
struck with the impropriety of pressing a matter of such
peculiar importance and delicacy by a bare majority.
The proposition now under debate is liable to all
the objections to the former one, as well as to
the many others that have been stated against it.
From the explanation given by the gentleman
from Connecticut, it is evident that this proposition
may in the result assume the shape of the original one.
It may therefore be fairly combated by all those
arguments that were brought either against the
original proposition, or against the very objectionable
manner in which the blanks are proposed to be filled up.
I am not insensible that an assumption of the
state debts is under certain aspects, a measure
not unworthy of a favorable attention.
If it had not at least plausible recommendations,
I do not think it could have obtained so respectable
a patronage here: I am sure it would not have
originated in the quarter which proposed it.
But, Sir, it is a question that must be considered and
reconsidered in all its various points of view, and the
more it has already been investigated, the more objections
have multiplied, and the more solid they have appeared.
The arguments used in favor of the measure have been
supposed weighty, but, Sir, I consider them as unsupported.
It has been contended that the state debts are in their
nature debts of the United States; that they were only from
different offices, and have borne a different denomination,
but that in justice they are the debts of the United States,
and that the individual creditors can of right claim
payment of the same from the general government.
I deny the principle, Sir, and I think it is disproved
by the arguments of the gentlemen themselves.
If the debts of the particular states be nothing more than
the debts of the United States under another denomination,
and if we are bound to provide for them precisely as
for the debts of the United States, let gentlemen
consider whether they are not bound to view them
in this light wherever they may be found.
If they are debts of the United States in the hands of
individual citizens, for the same reason that the other
debts in private hands are debts of the United States,
must they not be debts of the United States also
when in the treasuries of the different states?
Will gentlemen say that what are called the state debts
ought to be viewed in that light when in the hands of
citizens, and that this quality forsakes them the
moment they are received into a state treasury.
If they wish to preserve consistency in their reasoning,
they must say, either that the debts are dissimilar
in the hands of private citizens, or that they are
similar in the hands of the states.
The debts of the particular states cannot in any point of
view be considered as actual debts of the United States;
and the United States are not bound by any past requisition,
or any resolutions now existing to assume them,
till the accounts are settled and the balances ascertained.
We have been told, sir, not only that the assumption
of the state debts by the United States is a matter of
right on the part of the states, and a matter of obligation
on the part of the United States, but likewise that
it is equitable; nay, that it is a matter of necessity.
It has been said that the United States are invested with
the resources of the particular states, and that therefore
they are bound to provide for the debts of those states.
I think I may safely rest the issue of this question on a
question of fact, Whether the states most urgent in this
business are incapacitated from providing for their debts
by the establishment of the present Constitution?
If gentlemen assert that to be the case, I think it is
incumbent upon them to prove, either that the resources
which they have given up would exceed their quota of the
federal requisitions, or that the use of these resources
by the general government will throw a disproportioned
burden upon that particular part of the community.
Let us consider, sir, what is the ratio in which the states,
in their individual capacity, ought to bear the debts of
the United States, and what is the ratio in which they
will contribute under the taxes that it is proposed to levy.
The only evidence by which we can guide ourselves in this
enquiry is a statement from the several custom houses.
I believe indeed, that such a statement
may not be conclusive.
I think it is imperfect; at the same time it is
the best guide in our reach, and probably it will
be sufficient to illustrate the present argument.
The state of New Hampshire, according to this
statement will contribute about one hundredth part
of what will be contributed by the whole.
Her ratio of contribution according to her
representation would be nearly about one twentieth.
Here then, in fact, is a saving of four fifths to that state.
The state may then take this saving and apply it
to the purpose of discharging her domestic debt;
she is relieved in that proportion, and therefore in that
proportion she is more able to provide for her state debt
under the new Constitution than under the old one.
The state of Connecticut will contribute
about one thirty-eighth; her proper quota
would be about one thirteenth.
Here then is a saving of two-thirds to the state of
Connecticut; and in that proportion is her situation
better under the new Constitution than the old.
Taking the States eastward of New York altogether,
that the gentlemen say are rendered incapable
of bearing the burden of the state debts by the
adoption of the new Constitution; I say, take the whole
together, and they will contribute about a sixth only;
whereas they would have had to contribute a fourth,
if this constitution had not been established, and they
had paid their part of the debt of the United States.
In my apprehension, then, sir, as the payment of
the state debts cannot be claimed as a matter of right,
neither can such payment be called for on the principles
of equity, or what is most of all urged, necessity.
But we are told that policy is also in favor of the measure.
A gentleman from Massachusetts has said, that the people
of Massachusetts never would submit to a rejection of the
measure; that it will create a spirit of opposition to the
government; in short, that it will endanger the union itself.
I confess that these are consequences that would be
dreadful to me, if I could suppose they would really
take place, and that evils of greater magnitude would
not ensue from an adoption of the measure.
It is my opinion, sir, that if the refusal to assume the
state debts would produce dangerous consequences to the
union from the discontents that it is apprehended will grow
out of the measure, much more have we to fear from an
assumption, particularly if hazarded by a small majority.
Sir, if we could ascertain the opinions of our constituents,
individually, I believe we should find four fifths of the
citizens of the United States against the assumption;
I believe we should find more; I believe I speak
within bounds when I say, that those who would be
for an assumption would not amount to one-fifth;
this is indeed probable conjecture only.
But on the other hand, let me ask, what evidence
have we that there will be any great disappointment
or discontents from a non-assumption?
The legislature of the state of New Hampshire have lately
been in session; have they asked for this assumption?
No; on the contrary, though they have not instructed their
delegates to vote against it, it appears that it was thought
of, and that the bulk of the members disapproved of it.
The legislature of Massachusetts have been in session;
they were apprized that this matter was under
consideration, and yet there has been no declaration
from them, as far as I know, that can induce us to
believe they wish for it; on the contrary, it would appear
from the measures they have taken to provide for the
payment of their state debt, that they had proceeded on
a supposition that an assumption would not take place.
With respect to several other states, their legislatures
have also been in session, and none of them except
South Carolina have made any declaration on the subject.
If we are to disregard that species of evidence,
and to look back to the expectations of the people,
I do not think that there is a single indication that
this measure was ever thought of by our constituents.
Sir, I may safely say, it was never
expected by the generality of them.
It has been said, too, that
policy recommends the measure.
It has been repeated that if the assumption
does not take place, no part of the revenues drawn
from the Union at large will return to the distant parts of it.
Sir, I thought this argument
had been set aside sometime since.
The very reverse will happen.
The state debts have begun already to travel
towards the central parts of the Union, and
to such an amount as to make it probable, that if
they are provided for by us, nearly the whole will follow.
Should this be the case, I believe such disadvantages
will ensue as will prove the measure very impolitic.
In proportion as the whole money contributed in the
way of taxes shall center near the government,
or in a particular part of the Union, you increase
the evil of discordant interests and local jealousies
which is already too much felt.
But, perhaps, this is not the worst consequence
to be apprehended.
I conceive that a very great part of the proper debt
of the United States will go into the hands of foreigners,
and that we shall be heavily burdened in paying an interest
to them which cannot be expected to remain in the country;
and in proportion as you increase the debt
of the United States, you will increase this evil.
I am of opinion also that the measure is not politic,
because if the public debt is a public evil,
an assumption of the state debts will
enormously increase and perhaps perpetuate it.
It is my idea, Sir, that the United States
and the several states could discharge a debt
of eighty millions with greater ease and in less time
than the United States alone could do it.
I found my opinion on this consideration, that after
the United States shall have resorted to every means
of taxation within their power, there will still remain
resources from which monies may be raised by the states.
Nay, I will go farther, and illustrate the remark by adding,
that after a state shall have extended its power
of taxation to every object falling under general laws,
there would still remain resources from which
further taxes might be drawn within subdivisions
of it by the subordinate authorities of the state.
But Sir, when we consider, that in some parts of the Union
there is an unconquerable aversion to direct taxes,
at least if laid, by the general government;
that in other parts an equal aversion to excises prevails;
how will the United States, so circumscribed as to the
field of taxation be able to draw forth such resources
as are contemplated by the advocates of an assumption?
It has been asserted that it would be politic
to assume the state debts because it would
add strength to the national government.
There is no man more anxious for the success
of the government than I am, and no one who will join
more heartily in curing its defects; but I wish these defects
to be remedied by additional constitutional powers,
if they should be found necessary.
This is the only proper effectual and permanent remedy.
Several gentlemen, Sir, have gone into another
field of argument in favor of this measure.
It has been said that the Constitution itself
requires the assumption.
One of my colleagues has asked a very proper question.
If as we have been told, the assumption originated
in the convention, why were not words inserted
that would have incorporated and made the state debts
part of the debts of the United States?
Sir, if there was a majority who disapproved
of the measure, certainly no argument
can be drawn from this source;
if there was a majority who approved of it,
but thought it inexpedient to make it a part of the
Constitution, they must have been restrained by
a fear that it might produce dissentions and
render the success of their plan doubtful.
I do recollect that such a measure was proposed,
and if my memory does not deceive me,
the very gentleman who now appeals to the Constitution
in support of his argument, disrelished the measure
at that time and assigned for a reason that it would
administer relief perhaps exactly in proportion
as the states had been deficient in making exertions.
It has been also remarked, that the Constitution having been
established for obtaining perfect justice, it cannot be carried
into effect unless full justice is done on this subject,
or in other words, unless the state debts are assumed.
Sir, if we are to take these words in their full extent,
we must not stop merely with securing justice to the
creditors of the government, we should also endeavor
to secure justice to every private creditor whatever.
The gentleman says, that by the Constitution all debts
that existed against the United States at the time of
the adoption of the Constitution are to be as valid now
as they were before its adoption.
What was the situation of the state debts
before the adoption of the Constitution?
Was it understood that they were a part of the debt
of the United States, any further than there might be
found a balance on a final settlement.
Was it ever supposed that they were to be thrown
into one common mass, and that the states should
be called on collectively to provide for them?
What would have been thought of such a proposition?
Would it have been considered as consistent with equity?
Would it have been thought constitutional?
I am persuaded if such a proposition had been made
in the old Congress it never would have found a second;
and for this reason, that the debts of the particular states
were never considered as the debts of the United States.
In whatever light we view the question,
it appears to me that the arguments urged
in support of it are themselves unsupportable.
Much has been said of the situation of particular states
in case these debts should not be assumed.
Much, indeed, has been said of the distresses
and exertions of Massachusetts; but if we are to be
governed by enquiries of this sort, we must extend them
to every part of the Union; and we shall then find that
an assumption will give as much dissatisfaction and
work as much injustice to a majority of the states
as a non-assumption may disappoint
the citizens of Massachusetts.
I do not wish to go into local enquiries,
but the present subject seems in its nature
to make them in some degree unavoidable.
The conduct of gentlemen on the other side,
at least renders the task on this indispensable.
What would be the operations of the measure
with respect to Virginia?
It will not be denied that Virginia sacrificed as much during
the war in one shape or another and contributed as much
to the common defense of the states as any among them,
certainly as much as Massachusetts.
These are facts that can in time be proved.
Since the peace, that state has made great exertions
to comply with the requisitions of Congress.
I might say, Sir, that she was almost
unequalled in her exertions.
Her specie payments into the federal treasury since the
peace exceed 600,000 dollars, whereas those of
Massachusetts are only between 2 and 300,000 dollars.
In indents Massachusetts has indeed paid most,
but by no means in such proportion as to
balance the difference in the specie payments.
The exertions of Virginia to discharge the debt
she involved herself in by the war, have also been
very great; she is not behind any of the states—
she is before most of them; there can be no doubt
but that she has certainly discharged more
of her debts than Massachusetts, and as little doubt
in the opinion of the best informed, that
whenever a final settlement shall take place,
that state will be found a creditor to the United States.
If during the war she has made as great exertions
and has suffered as much as any of the states;
if she has since the peace paid her full proportion of
the supplies to the federal treasury, at the same time
exerting herself to the utmost to discharge her state debt,
and if finally she will probably be found to be in advance
to the union, and would therefore if justice could
at once be done, be now entitled to a reimbursement—
what must be said by the citizens of that State,
if instead of a reimbursement,
they are called upon to make further advances.
Sir, I may add here, that their contributions to the
federal treasury under the proposed system of revenue
will exceed the ratio by which they would contribute
by taxes laid in proportion to their representation.
I do not wish to extend this investigation any farther
than has been already done; but were I to do it,
the evidence would be more striking, that the payments
from those parts of the union that would receive least
benefit from the assumption, would be greater than from
those that would receive the immediate benefit of it.
One of my colleagues seems to be of opinion that
the measure will be favorable to the interest of Virginia;
but he seems to me to have grounded his opinion
on the erroneous supposition that the proposed plan will
embrace the whole of the debts as they existed at the close
of the war, or that the state of Virginia will contribute less
on the plan of deriving revenue from consumption than
she would if derived according to the constitutional ratio.
I believe, on the contrary, that if the assumption
should take place as originally proposed,
that there would be a claim on Virginia for five millions,
whereas if there is no assumption, her citizens will have to
provide for about three millions only; and thus, instead of
bearing her proper burden, which is about one seventh,
she would have to bear a burden in the ratio of one fifth.
He seems to think that his own particular district
would be benefited by this measure; but if he be right
in his other opinion, that that part of the state will
consume more than the other parts, he will find, sir,
that instead of relieving his constituents, compared
with the rest of the state, that he would still more
augment their burdens; so that it would come to this at last,
that the state would have to pay five millions,
instead of three—and that the particular part of the state
he represents, instead of paying their proportion
of three millions, would have to pay
more than their proportion of five.
I admit, however, that
he is the most proper judge on that subject.
But the citizens of Virginia would not only be called upon
when already in advance and to an amount beyond their
proper ratio, but in a mode that is peculiarly
obnoxious to them—I mean that of excise.
Sir, the people of that state are as averse to excises
as those of any other state can be to direct taxes,
and in my own judgment with far more reason,
where the article excised is not by some
peculiarity free from the common objections.
Excises are unequal with respect to
different parts of the union:
they are also unequal to various parts of the same state.
This mode of collection gives arbitrary powers to the
collectors and exposes our citizens to vexatious searches.
It opens a door to frauds and perjuries
that tend equally to vitiate the morals of the people
and to defeat the public revenue.
Besides, sir, excises are more expensive
in the collection than other kind of taxes.
The collection of the excise in Great Britain costs 10 percent.
That of her direct taxes is computed at 3 percent only.
I will not positively say that a similar disproportion in the
expense of collecting would be incurred in this country;
but in some parts of it I am sure that the expense of excises
would be greatest, and on some articles in view would,
if the collection were made at all,
exceed the revenue obtained from it.
Sir, there has been an argument of another kind
advanced in support of the assumption.
Gentlemen have thought it a matter of consequence that
not only justice should be done, but that the condition
of the people should be equalized;
that no invidious comparisons might be made
between the inhabitants of one state and those of another,
and that no oppressions or embarrassments should force
the people to emigrate from one state to another.
It would be a comfortable reflection, if every part
of the union could be assimilated in this instance;
but sir, I think we have no authority to sacrifice
essential considerations to obtain these advantages.
Nor do I know that we should obtain them
by assuming the state debts.
Supposing that measure to be adopted, let us reflect what
would be the situation of the different parts of the Union.
I do not at this moment consider the question
as it respects justice, right, or general policy,
but in reference merely to the particular consequence
of equalizing the circumstances of the people.
Let us take a view comparatively of
the people of the United States.
Massachusetts owes a debt of several millions.
The public debt, when you come to analyze it,
at least where it is due to citizens and not to foreigners,
is a debt from one part of the people to the other.
The government is the collector from the pockets
of the debtors to pay it into the hands of the creditors.
If sir, the state debts should be assumed,
Massachusetts will then get rid of her embarrassments;
but what would be the situation of Virginia?
Besides her public debt, I believe that her citizens owe
one to another debts in amount equal to the whole
public debt of Massachusetts, perhaps I might say to the
amount of both the public and private debts of that state.
In addition to all this, the people of Virginia
are indebted to foreigners to a greater amount
than the whole debt of Massachusetts.
Sir, I firmly believe that though Virginia is less oppressed
with public debt than Massachusetts, yet when we take a
view of all the difficulties she labors under and weigh them
against those of Massachusetts, it will be found that
Virginia ought to be relieved herself
instead of being expected to relieve others.
But supposing all objections of another nature to be laid
aside, I freely confess that after a more minute examination
into the subject, I am much inclined to doubt whether
the assumption can possibly be carried into execution.
Difficulties are continually arising when I survey this
question, for which I can find no solution without departing
from every principle by which we ought to be guided.
It never yet has been shown in what manner
a remedy could be provided for a partial subscription.
Suppose the state creditors were part of them
to subscribe and part to refuse.
Suppose those of one state subscribe
and those of another should not.
Again Sir, by what method will you discriminate
the debts that come under the definition
from those that will be excluded by it?
Where will you invest this important discretionary power.
I really think that great difficulties will be found
before this can be effected.
There is another objection too, to which I have never
heard a satisfactory answer, although it has been
repeatedly urged by a member from Georgia.
There are debts existing in some of the states that
do not bear interest, that have got into circulation
without any title to it, and have been received by the
present holders without any other expectation than that
in some reasonable time the principal would be paid.
Would it, Sir, be proper or necessary to consider these
as debts of the Union, bearing interest,
or to provide for the immediate funding of them?
But there is a case, in my opinion, far more difficult,
I mean the paper money issued to redeem the state debts.
The state of North Carolina has taken up
its certificates with these paper bills.
They are not proposed to be included in the assumption.
They are clearly excluded by the present motion;
yet they are as much a state debt to be sunk by taxes
as certificates, and the taxes may as much
interfere with those of other states.
Some of the states, Sir, have not only assumed the debts
recommended by Congress for making up the depreciation
to the army, but they have gone further and have made
up the depreciation, where it was not recommended.
Other states have not done this.
The debts existing in some states, I take it for granted,
comprehend these depreciation notes.
Would it not be unjust to call on those states
that have not made this provision for their army
that other states have done?
Would it not be hard to call upon those officers and soldiers
who have not received this additional compensation
to pay it to those of other states who have?
I would not here be understood to censure the states
that made this compensation; I rather commend them for it.
It is a proof of their magnanimity and justice
that does them honor, but at the same time
this does not alter the nature of the objection.
In some states, in order to reward the army
they have done it by several aids
that do not constitute any part of the state debts.
In some of the states there are debts still unliquidated.
If you declare that, when liquidated, they shall be assumed,
you afford a temptation that has been hitherto
cautiously avoided, that of making the states
less exact in the settlement of their accounts.
I do not find that any gentleman has proposed,
on the contrary, most of them seem to have rejected,
the idea of making provision at this session for fulfilling
the engagement in case we enter into an assumption.
I think it would be a powerful and unanswerable objection
against assuming the state debts at this time,
that we do not see or are not prepared to decide
on the means of providing for them.
There is not a more important and fundamental principle
in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always
to face the public engagements; that our appropriations
should ever go hand in hand with our promises.
To say that the United States should be answerable
for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing
whether the ways and means can be provided,
and without knowing whether those who are
to succeed us will think with us on the subject,
would be rash and unjustifiable.
Sir, in my opinion, it would be hazarding the public faith
in a manner contrary to every idea of prudence.
It is very true, Sir, that a variety of funds
have been proposed; yet they are nothing more than
mere suggestions, and though I think they are as good
as could be expected in the time, I really believe that
some of them at least, if they can be carried
into execution at all, will disappoint the calculations
on which they are founded.
I cannot finish my observations on this subject, sir,
without adverting to one particular,
which I would wish gentlemen to attend to,
not so much for our sakes as their own.
I would recommend to them no longer to assume
a pre-eminence over us in the nationality of their motives;
and that they would forbear those frequent assertions,
that if the state debts are not provided for,
the federal debts shall also go unprovided for;
nay, that if the state debts are not assumed,
the union will be endangered.
Sir, I am persuaded that if the gentlemen knew
the motives that govern us, they would blush at
such intemperate as well as inconsistent language.
I am sure that if they knew the emotions with which
it is heard, they would at least see the inutility of it.
I hope, sir, that whatever may be the decision
on this question of assumption, that patriotism and every
other noble and generous motive will lead the minority to
acquiesce in measures which will tend to establish public
credit by a due provision for the public engagements.1
On 20 June 1790 Thomas Jefferson invited
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison for dinner.
They worked out a compromise that resulted in
accepting the Potomac River as a place for the capital,
and Madison accepted Hamilton’s plan to assume the state debts.
On July 16 President Washington signed the residence bill
that planned for a federal city by the Potomac River.
Madison explained to James Monroe that Virginia
would not suffer from the assumption of the state debts.
Madison on July 26 wrote in this letter to James Monroe:
I find you have had before you two subjects only,
of consequence latterly, that part of the revenue
business which respects the assumption of the State debts,
& the fixing on some places for the
temporary & permanent seats of Congress.
The latter we hear has been finally adjusted in favor
of Philadelphia & the headwaters of the Potomac.
If this is the case, & the completion of the business
committed in a sufficient manner, to the Executive
department of the government, independently of the further
agency of Congress, it is certainly the wisest & happiest
arrangement that can be made respecting it.
A great question will be ended as it should be.
But everything will depend on its being completed,
for if resort must be had hereafter to Congress,
it will be found eventually as only the triumph of Philadelphia
over New York, & at best not advancing a single step
toward terminating the controversy or establishing
a seat of permanent residence for the government.
As I have not seen what shape it has ultimately received,
I can form no opinion on the subject
& only hope it has assumed the proper one.
On the other subject I took the liberty
to make a few observations in my last.
No proposition that I have seen removes my objections to it,
for at best, if it does not compel the industrious & complying
States to pay the debts or a part of the debts of those who
have been less deserving, it prefers the exercise of taxation
in the hands of the national to those of the State
governments, which I cannot approve.
And for which I can see no necessity unless it shall be
shown me that the national government is answerable
for the debts of the individual States, which of course
I conclude they are not, till they assume them.
I believe however, a satisfactory adjustment of the
other business would make this more palatable here.2
President Washington signed the assumption bill that became law in August.
After the President sent his annual message to Congress on 8 December 1790,
Madison led a committee that made a reply for the
House of Representatives on December 11.
Here is what they wrote,
Some of the objections which have been stated,
render it in some degree necessary to enter
into an explanation of the nature of an address.
There are two modes only in which an answer can
be given by this house to the speech of the President.
The one is to declare in general terms,
that we will take the several subjects
recommended by him into due consideration.
This even by the most refined ingenuity can
hardly be rendered so important, as to
make it worth our while to contemplate it.
The Constitution makes it the duty of the President
to recommend to the consideration of Congress,
such measures, as he shall judge necessary and expedient,
and give information of the state of the union.
Hence it may be inferred that it is our duty to attend
to what he shall judge necessary to be done:
at least no gentleman would allow that we might become
so disrespectful as to lose sight of them altogether.
Then the only way remaining to answer his speech,
is to concur with him in all those points, which are clearly
and fully understood: and when we find them not clear,
we may then say, “it is incumbent on us to take such
measures into due consideration;”
thereby pledging ourselves only to consider a subject,
but not binding the house to agree to it.
But supposing the committee had on this occasion
been inclined to prefer the first mode of
answering the President’s speech, they seemed
precluded by the example set at the last sessions.
The former address entered pretty fully into the several
matters recommended in the President’s speech.
If it differs at all from the one under consideration,
it differs only in this respect, that it goes more fully
into a declaration, that we would concur in all
the measures he had recommended.
“The various and weighty matters,
(says the address of last session)
which you have judged necessary to recommend
to our attention, appear to us essential to the
tranquility and welfare of the union,
and claim our early and most serious attention.”
Again, with respect to arrangements
against the hostile Indians,
“We shall not hesitate to concur in such further measures,
as may best obviate any ill effects, which might be
apprehended from the failure of those negotiations.”
In short, through the whole extent of the address, we find
not only a general promise of due consideration, but also
more particular promises of concurring in the measures
proposed, giving them efficacy and acting according to the
impressions, which we acknowledged that we had received.
Yet notwithstanding the force of this precedent, it never
was my intention, nor, I believe, the intention of any
of the committee, to tie the house down to this or that
mode of extending encouragement to our own navigation;
nor can the report be so construed; everything,
respecting the encouragement being left at large for
the wisdom of the house to contemplate and determine.
It is true, indeed, that the address acknowledges the weight
of the reasoning used by the president and declares a
willingness on our part to enter into the consideration of the
means, whereby our navigation may be so encouraged
as to render our commerce and agriculture less dependent
on foreign bottoms, which may possibly fail us in the very
moment most interesting to both of these great objects.
And if gentlemen are not disposed to remove
an injurious dependence on foreigners,
they may justly oppose this paragraph of the report.
But if they are clear that such a dependence is
injurious to the transportation of our productions,
they will not hesitate to agree to the report as it now stands.
And it is too notoriously known to be here insisted upon,
that a great part of our commerce is in the hands and at the
mercy of foreigners; and if wars among them continue to
be as frequent as experience shows them to have been
heretofore, it follows that whenever those great maritime
powers enter upon hostilities, our means of transportation
will be reduced; and that part of our produce,
which remains on hand, must inevitably be lost or wasted,
for want of the means of conveying it abroad to a market.
Whenever the question of encouraging navigation
comes before the House, we shall be at full liberty to
propose and embrace every means which ingenuity
can suggest: for the address binds us to nothing but
the bare consideration of what is proper to be done:
we shall be equally bound if the amendment is adopted.3
On December 22 Madison spoke on “Religious Exemptions from Militia Duty.”
Mr. Madison did not mean to object to the amendment
under consideration, though he thought it too far,
in making exceptions in favor of the members of Congress.
But as the committee of the whole had decided
that point against him by a respectable majority,
he should not now renew the question.
But there is a question of great magnitude,
which I am desirous of having determined.
I shall therefore take the liberty of moving it:
that we add to the end of the amendment the words,
“and persons conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms.”
I agree with the gentleman who was last up, that is the
glory of this country, the boast of the revolution, and the
pride of the present Constitution, that here the rights of
mankind are known and established on a basis more
certain, and I trust, more durable, than any heretofore
recorded in history or existing in any other part of this
globe; but above all, it is the particular glory of this country,
to have secured the rights of conscience which in other
nations are least understood or most strangely violated.
In my opinion, were these things less clear, it would be
sufficient motive to indulge these men in the exercise of
their religious sentiments—that they have evinced by a
uniform conduct of moderation, their merit, and deserving
of the high privilege; they knew its value and generously
extended it to all men; even when possessing the plenitude
of legislative power, they are the only people in America
who have not abused the rights of conscience,
except the Roman Catholics, who anticipated them
by an earlier settlement in establishing a toleration
of all religions in their governments in the United States.
Their honorable example has procured them a merit with
this country, which ought not to be disregarded—
and could I reach to them this exemption from the
performance of what they conceive to be criminal
with justice to the other sects in the community,
or if the other sects were willing to withdraw their
plea for an equivalent, my own opinion would be
to grant them privilege on terms perfectly gratuitous.
It has been said by a gentleman from Georgia,
(Mr. Jackson) that if this privilege is extended to this
class of citizens, all other denominations will be induced
to secure it to themselves by counterfeiting their principles.
I am persuaded, the gentleman indulged his imagination
more than his judgment when he predicted this effect.
He cannot consult his own heart, nor the disposition
of his fellow citizens, nor human nature itself,
when he supposes either himself or the people
of America, or of any nation, would apostatize
from their God for reasons so inconsiderable.
Would any man consent to put on the mask of
hypocrisy in order to avoid a duty which is honorable?
I cannot believe that one out of a thousand, nay not a
single citizen will be found throughout the United States,
who will usurp this privilege by hypocritical pretensions.
But it will be in vain to attempt to force them into the field;
by which an attempt we shall only expose
the imbecility of the government.
Compulsion being out of the question,
we must therefore from necessity, exempt them;
if we are actuated by no more generous motive.
Let us make a virtue of this necessity
and grant the exemption.
By penalties we may oppress them,
but by no means hitherto discovered can you
make them undertake the defense of this nation.
My view, at this time is, to bring
the question fairly before the house.
I am not therefore tenacious of the words or mode of
the amendment but beg attention only to the principle.4
On 2 February 1791 Representative James Madison gave another long speech
criticizing the National Bank proposed by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.
Mr. Madison began with a general review
of the advantages and disadvantages of banks.
The former he stated to consist in, first, the aids they afford
to merchants who can thereby push their mercantile
operations farther with the same capital.
2nd The aids to merchants in paying punctually the customs.
3rd Aids to the government in complying punctually
with its engagements, when deficiencies or delays
happen in the revenue.
4th In diminishing usury.
5th In saving the wear of the gold and silver
kept in the vaults and represented by notes.
6th In facilitating occasional remittances
from different places where notes happen to circulate.
The effect of the proposed bank in raising the value of
stock, he thought, had been greatly overrated.
It would no doubt raise that of the stock
subscribed into the bank;
but could have little effect on stock in general,
as the interest on it would remain the same,
and the quantity taken out of the market
would be replaced by bank stock.
The principal disadvantages consisted in,
1st banishing the precious metals by substituting
another medium to perform their office.
This effect was inevitable.
It was admitted by the most enlightened patrons of banks,
particularly by Smith on the Wealth of Nations.
The common answer to the objection was
that the money banished was only
an exchange for something equally valuable
that would be imported in return.
He admitted the weight of this observation in general,
but doubted whether in the present habits
of this country the returns would not be
in articles of no permanent use to it.
2nd Exposing the public and individuals to all the evils
of a run on the bank, which would be particularly calamitous
in so great a country as this, and might happen from various
causes, as false rumors, bad management of the institution,
an unfavorable balance of trade from short crops, &c.
It was proper to be considered also,
that the most important of the advantages
would be better obtained by several banks
properly distributed than by a single one.
The aids to commerce could only be afforded
at or very near the seat of the bank.
The same was true of aids to merchants
in the payment of customs.
Anticipations of the government would also be
most convenient at the different places
where the interest of the debt was to be paid.
The case in America was different from that in England:
the interest there was all due at one place,
and the genius of the monarchy favored the
concentration of wealth and influence at the metropolis.
He thought the plan liable to other objections.
It did not make so good a bargain for the public
as was due to its interests.
The charter to the bank of England had been granted
for 11 years only and was paid for by a loan to the
government on terms better than could be elsewhere got.
Every renewal of the charter had in like manner been
purchased; in some instances at a very high price.
The same had been done by the banks of Genoa,
Naples, and other like banks of circulation.
The plan was unequal to the public creditors—
it gave an undue preference to the holders of a
particular denomination of the public debt and to
those at and within reach of the seat of government.
If the subscriptions should be rapid, the distant
holders of paper would be excluded altogether.
In making these remarks on the merits of the bill,
he had reserved to himself, he said, the right
to deny the authority of Congress to pass it.
He had entertained this opinion
from the date of the Constitution.
His impression might perhaps be the stronger
because he well recollected that a power to grant
charters of incorporation had been proposed
in the general convention and rejected.
Is the power of establishing an incorporated bank
among the powers vested by the Constitution
in the legislature of the United States?
This is the question to be examined.
After some general remarks on the limitations
of all political power, he took notice of the peculiar
manner in which the federal government is limited.
It is not a general grant out of which particular powers
are excepted—it is a grant of particular powers only,
leaving the general mass in other hands.
So it had been understood by its friends and its foes,
and so it was to be interpreted.
As preliminaries to a right interpretation,
he laid down the following rules:
An interpretation that destroys the very characteristic
of the government cannot be just.
Where a meaning is clear, the consequences,
whatever they may be, are to be admitted—
where doubtful it is fairly triable by its consequences.
In controverted cases the meaning of the parties
to the instrument, if to be collected
by reasonable evidence, is a proper guide.
Contemporary and concurrent expositions are
a reasonable evidence of the meaning of the parties.
In admitting or rejecting a constructive authority,
not only the degree of its incidentality to an express
authority is to be regarded, but the degree of its
importance also; since on this will depend the probability
or improbability of its being left to construction.
Reviewing the constitution with an eye to these positions,
it was not possible to discover in it
the power to incorporate a Bank.
The only clauses under which
such a power could be pretended are either—
1. The power to lay and collect taxes to pay the debts,
and provide for the common defense and general welfare:
Or, 2. The power to borrow money on the credit
of the United States:
Or, 3. The power to pass all laws necessary and proper
to carry into execution those powers.
The bill did not come within the first power.
It laid no tax to pay the debts
or provide for the general welfare.
It laid no tax whatever.
It was altogether foreign to the subject.
No argument could be drawn from the terms
“common defense, and general welfare.”
The power as to these general purposes,
was limited to acts laying taxes for them;
and the general purposes themselves were limited
and explained by the particular enumeration subjoined.
To understand these terms in any sense,
that would justify the power in question, would give
to Congress an unlimited power; would render nugatory
the enumeration of particular powers; would supersede
all the powers reserved to the state governments.
These terms are copied from the articles of confederation.
Had it ever been pretended that they were to be
understood otherwise than as here explained?
It had been said that “general welfare” meant cases
in which a general power might be exercised by Congress
without interfering with the powers of the States;
and that the establishment of a National Bank
was of this sort.
There were, he said, several answers to this novel doctrine.
1. The proposed Bank would interfere so as indirectly
to defeat a State Bank at the same place.
2. It would directly interfere with the rights of the States
to prohibit as well as to establish Banks
and the circulation of Bank Notes.
He mentioned a law of Virginia actually prohibiting
the circulation of notes payable to bearer.
3. Interference with the power of the States was no
constitutional criterion of the power of Congress.
If the power was not given, Congress could not exercise it;
if given, they might exercise it, although it should interfere
with the laws or even the constitution of the States.
4. If Congress could incorporate a Bank, merely because
the act would leave the States free to establish Banks also;
any other incorporations might be made by Congress.
They could incorporate companies of manufacturers,
or companies for cutting canals, or even religious societies,
leaving similar incorporations by the States,
like State Banks to themselves.
Congress might even establish religious teachers in every
parish and pay them out of the Treasury of the United
States, leaving other teachers unmolested in their functions.
These inadmissible consequences
condemned the controverted principle.
The case of the Bank established by the former Congress
had been cited as a precedent.
This was known, he said,
to have been the child of necessity.
It never could be justified by the regular powers
of the articles of confederation.
Congress betrayed a consciousness of this in
recommending to the States to incorporate the Bank also.
They did not attempt to protect the Bank Notes
by penalties against counterfeiters.
These were reserved wholly to the authority of the States.
The second clause to be examined is that
which empowers Congress to borrow money.
Is this a bill to borrow money?
It does not borrow a shilling.
Is there any fair construction by which the bill can
be deemed an exercise of the power to borrow money?
The obvious meaning of the power to borrow money
is that of accepting it from and stipulating payment to
those who are able and willing to lend.
To say that the power to borrow involves a power
of creating the ability, where there may be the will
to lend is not only establishing a dangerous principle,
as will be immediately shown, but is as forced a
construction, as to say that it involves the power of
compelling the will where there may be the ability to lend.
The third clause is that which gives the power to pass all
laws necessary and proper to execute the specified powers.
Whatever meaning this clause may have,
none can be admitted, that would give
an unlimited discretion to Congress.
Its meaning must, according to the natural and
obvious force of the terms and the context,
be limited to means necessary to the end
and incident to the nature of the specified powers.
The clause is in fact merely declaratory of what
would have resulted by unavoidable implication,
as the appropriate, and as it were,
technical means of executing those powers.
In this sense it had been explained by the friends of
the Constitution and ratified by the state conventions.
The essential characteristic of the government,
as composed of limited and enumerated powers,
would be destroyed: if instead of direct and
incidental means, any means could be used,
which in the language of the preamble to the bill,
“might be conceived to be conducive to the successful
conducting of the finances; or might be conceived
to tend to give facility to the obtaining of loans.”
He urged an attention to the diffuse and ductile
terms which had been found requisite to cover
the stretch of power contained in the bill.
He compared them with the terms necessary and proper
used in the Constitution and asked whether it was
possible to view the two descriptions as synonymous,
or the one as a fair and safe commentary on the other.
If, proceeded he, Congress by virtue of the power
to borrow, can create the means of lending,
and in pursuance of these means can incorporate a Bank,
they may do anything whatever creative of like means.
The East-India company has been a lender
to the British government, as well as the Bank, and
the South-Sea company is a greater creditor than either.
Congress then may incorporate similar companies
in the United States and that too not under the idea of
regulating trade but under that of borrowing money.
Private capitals are the chief resources
for loans to the British government.
Whatever then may be conceived to favor the
accumulation of capitals may be done by Congress.
They may incorporate manufacturers.
They may give monopolies in
every branch of domestic industry.
If again Congress by virtue of the power
to borrow money can create the ability to lend,
they may by virtue of the power to levy money
create the ability to pay it.
The ability to pay taxes depends on the general wealth
of the society, and this on the general prosperity
of agriculture, manufactures and commerce.
Congress then may give bounties and
make regulations on all of these objects.
The States have, it is allowed on all hands,
a concurrent right to lay and collect taxes.
This power is secured to them, not by its being expressly
reserved, but by its not being ceded by the Constitution.
The reasons for the bill cannot be admitted
because they would invalidate that right;
why may it not be conceived by Congress,
that a uniform and exclusive imposition of taxes
would not less than the proposed Banks
“be conducive to the successful conducting of the
national finances and tend to give facility to the
obtaining of revenue for the use of the government?”
The doctrine of implication is always a tender one.
The danger of it has been felt in other governments.
The delicacy was felt in the adoption of our own;
the danger may also be felt, if we do not
keep close to our chartered authorities.
Mark the reasoning on which
the validity of the bill depends.
To borrow money is made the end and the
accumulation of capitals implied as the means.
The accumulation of capitals is then the end
and a bank implied as the means.
The bank is then the end, and a charter of incorporation,
a monopoly, capital punishments, &c. implied as the means.
If implications, thus remote and thus multiplied,
can be linked together, a chain may be formed that
will reach every object of legislation, every object
within the whole compass of political economy.
The latitude of interpretation required by the bill is
condemned by the rule furnished by the Constitution itself.
Congress have power “to regulate the value of money.”
Yet it is expressly added, not left to be implied
that counterfeiters may be punished.
They have the power “to declare war,” to which armies
are more incident than incorporated Banks to borrowing;
yet is expressly added the power
“to raise and support armies;” and to this again,
the express power “to make rules and regulations
for the government of armies;”
a like remark is applicable to the powers as to a navy.
The regulation and calling out of the militia are more
appurtenant to war than the proposed bank to borrowing;
yet the former is not left to construction.
The very power to borrow money is a less remote
implication from the power of war than an incorporated
monopoly bank from the power of borrowing—
yet the power to borrow is not left to implication.
It is not pretended that every insertion or omission
in the Constitution is the effect of systematic attention.
This is not the character of any human work,
particularly the work of a body of men.
The examples cited with others that might be added
sufficiently inculcate nevertheless a rule of interpretation
very different from that on which the bill rests.
They condemn the exercise of any power,
particularly a great and important power, which is not
evidently and necessarily involved in an express power.
It cannot be denied that the power proposed
to be exercised is an important power.
As a charter of incorporation the bill creates
an artificial person previously not existing in law.
It confers important civil rights and attributes,
which could not otherwise be claimed.
It is, though not precisely similar, at least equivalent,
to the naturalization of an alien, by which certain
new civil characters are acquired by him.
Would Congress have had the power to naturalize,
if it had not been expressly given?
In the power to make bye laws the bill delegated
a sort of legislative power, which is unquestionably
an act of a high and important nature.
He took notice of the only restraint on the bye laws,
that they were not to be contrary to the law and the
constitution of the bank and asked what law was intended;
if the law of the United States, the scantiness of their code
would give a power, never before given to a corporation—
and obnoxious to the States, whose laws would then
be superseded not only by the laws of Congress but by
the bye laws of a corporation within their own jurisdiction.
If the law intended was the law of the State,
then the State might make laws that
would destroy an institution of the United States.
The bill gives a power to purchase and hold lands;
Congress themselves could not purchase lands
within a State “without the consent of its legislature.”
How could they delegate a power to others
which they did not possess themselves?
It takes from our successors, who have equal rights
with ourselves, and with the aid of experience will be
more capable of deciding on the subject, an opportunity
of exercising that right for an immoderate term.
It takes from our constituents the opportunity of
deliberating on the untried measure,
although their hands are also to be tied
by it for the same term.
It involves a monopoly which affects
the equal rights of every citizen.
It leads to a penal regulation,
perhaps capital punishments,
one of the most solemn acts of sovereign authority.
From this view of the power of incorporation exercised
in the bill, it could never be deemed an accessary or
subaltern power to be deduced by implication
as a means of executing another power;
it was in its nature a distinct, an independent and
substantive prerogative, which not being enumerated
in the Constitution could never have been meant
to be included in it and not being included,
could never be rightfully exercised.
He here adverted to a distinction, which he said
had not been sufficiently kept in view,
between a power necessary and proper for the
government or union and a power necessary
and proper for executing the enumerated powers.
In the latter case the powers included in each of the
enumerated powers were not expressed,
but to be drawn from the nature of each.
In the former the powers composing the government
were expressly enumerated.
This constituted the peculiar nature of the government,
no power therefore not enumerated could be inferred
from the general nature of government.
Had the power of making treaties, for example,
been omitted, however necessary it might have been,
the defect could only have been lamented
or supplied by an amendment of the Constitution.
But the proposed bank could not even be called necessary
to the government; at most it could be but convenient.
Its uses to the government could be supplied by keeping
the taxes a little in advance—by loans from individuals—
by the other banks over which the government would have
equal command; nay greater, as it may grant or refuse to
these the privilege, made a free and irrevocable gift to the
proposed bank of using their notes in the federal revenue.
He proceeded next to the contemporary expositions
given to the Constitution.
The defense against the charge founded on the want of
a bill of rights, presupposed, he said, that the powers
not given were retained; and that those given
were not to be extended by remote implications.
On any other supposition the power of Congress to abridge
the freedom of the press or the rights of conscience, &c.
could not have been disproved.
The explanations in the state conventions all
turned on the same fundamental principle,
and on the principle that the terms necessary and proper
gave no additional powers to those enumerated.
(Here he read sundry passages from the debates of the
Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina conventions,
showing the grounds on which the Constitution had been
vindicated by its principal advocates, against a dangerous
latitude of its powers charged on it by its opponents.)
He did not undertake to vouch for the accuracy or
authenticity of the publications which he quoted—
he thought it probable that the sentiments delivered
might in many instances have been mistaken
or imperfectly noted; but the complexion of the whole
with what he himself and many others must recollect
fully justified the use he had made of them.
The explanatory declarations and amendments
accompanying the ratifications of the several states
formed a striking evidence, wearing the same complexion.
He referred those who might doubt on the subject
to the several acts of ratification.
The explanatory amendments proposed by Congress
themselves at least would be good authority with them;
all these renunciations of power proceeded on a rule of
construction, excluding the latitude now contended for.
These explanations were the more to be respected,
as they had not only been proposed by Congress,
but ratified by nearly three-fourths of the states.
He read several of the articles proposed, remarking
particularly on the 11th and 12th the former, as guarding
against a latitude of interpretation—the latter as excluding
every source of power not within the Constitution itself.
With all this evidence of the sense in which
the Constitution was understood and adopted,
will it not be said, if the bill should pass, that
its adoption was brought about by one set of arguments,
and that it is now administered under the influence of
another set; and this reproach will have the keener sting
because it is applicable to so many individuals
concerned in both the adoption and administration.
In fine, if the power were in the Constitution, the
immediate exercise of it cannot be essential—if not there,
the exercise of it involves the guilt of usurpation and
establishes a precedent of interpretation, levelling
all the barriers which limit the powers of the general
government and protect those of the state governments.
If the point be doubtful only, respect for ourselves, who
ought to shun the appearance of precipitancy and ambition;
respect for our successors, who ought not lightly to be
deprived of the opportunity of exercising the rights of
legislation; respect for our constituents who have had no
opportunity of making known their sentiments, and who are
themselves to be bound down to the measure for so long a
period; all these considerations require that the irrevocable
decision should at least be suspended until another session.
It appeared on the whole, he concluded,
that the power exercised by the bill
was condemned by the silence of the Constitution;
was condemned by the rule of interpretation
arising out of the Constitution;
was condemned by its tendency to destroy
the main characteristics of the Constitution;
was condemned by the expositions of the friends
of the Constitution while depending before the public;
was condemned by the apparent intention
of the parties which ratified the Constitution;
was condemned by the explanatory amendments
proposed by Congress themselves to the Constitution;
and he hoped it would receive its final condemnation
by the vote of this house.5
Early in 1791 James Madison persuaded his college friend
Philip Freneau to start a newspaper to counter the efforts of
John Fenno’s Gazette of the United States that defended Hamilton.
Madison and Jefferson helped sign up subscribers for Freneau’s
National Gazette that began publishing at Philadelphia on October 31.
Madison on 21 November 1791 wrote an anonymous essay
on “Population and Emigration” for the National Gazette.
Both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms
every species derives from nature a reproductive
faculty beyond the demand for merely keeping up
its stock: the seed of a single plant is sufficient
to multiply it one hundred or a thousand fold.
The animal offspring is never limited
to the number of its parents.
This ordinance of nature is calculated
in both instances for a double purpose.
In both it ensures the life of the species,
which if the generative principle had not a
multiplying energy, would be reduced in number
by every premature destruction of individuals
and by degrees would be extinguished altogether.
In the vegetable species the surplus answers, moreover,
the essential purpose of sustaining the herbivorous tribes
of animals; as in the animal, the surplus serves the like
purpose of sustenance to the carnivorous tribes.
A crop of wheat may be reproduced by one tenth of itself.
The remaining nine-tenths can be spared
for the animals which feed on it.
A flock of sheep may be continued
by a certain proportion of its annual increase.
The residue is the bounty of nature to the animals
which prey on that species.
Man who preys both on the vegetable and animal species,
is himself a prey to neither.
He too possesses the reproductive principle far beyond the
degree requisite for the bare continuance of his species.
What becomes of the surplus of human life
to which this principle is competent?
It is either, 1st. destroyed by infanticide,
as among the Chinese and Lacedemonians;
or 2nd. it is stifled or starved, as among other nations
whose population is commensurate to its food;
or 3rd. it is consumed by wars and endemic diseases;
or 4th. it overflows by emigration to places
where a surplus of food is attainable.
What may be the greatest ratio of increase of which
the human species is susceptible, is a problem difficult
to be solved; as well because precise experiments have
never been made, as because the result would vary with
the circumstances distinguishing different situations.
It has been computed that under the most
favorable circumstances possible, a given
number would double itself in ten years.
What has actually happened in this country is a proof
that nature would require for the purpose
a less period than twenty years.
We shall be safe in averaging the surplus at five percent.
According to this computation, Great Britain and Ireland,
which contain about ten millions of people,
are capable of producing annually for emigration,
no less than five hundred thousand;
France, whose population amounts to twenty-five millions,
no less than one million two hundred and fifty thousand;
and all Europe, stating its numbers at one hundred
and fifty millions, no less than seven and a half millions.
It is not meant that such a surplus could under any
revolution of circumstances suddenly take place:
yet no reason occurs why an annual supply of human,
as well as other animal life, to any amount
not exceeding the multiplying faculty,
would not be produced in one country
by a regular and commensurate demand of another.
Nor is it meant that if such a redundancy of population
were to happen in any particular country, an influx
of it beyond a certain degree ought to be desired
by any other, though within that degree, it ought to be
invited by a country greatly deficient in its population.
The calculation may serve, nevertheless, by placing
an important principle in a striking view to prepare
the way for the following positions and remarks.
First. Every country, whose population is full,
may annually spare a portion of its inhabitants,
like a hive of bees its swarm, without any diminution
of its number: nay, a certain portion must necessarily
be either spared or destroyed or kept out of existence.
Secondly. It follows, moreover, from this multiplying
faculty of human nature, that in a nation sparing or losing
more than its proper surplus, the level must soon
be restored by the internal resources of life.
Thirdly. Emigrations may even augment the
population of the country permitting them.
The commercial nations of Europe parting
with emigrants to America are examples.
The articles of consumption demanded from
the former have created employment for
an additional number of manufacturers.
The produce remitted from the latter in the form
of raw materials has had the same effect—
while the imports and exports of every kind
have multiplied European merchants and mariners.
Where the settlers have doubled every twenty or
twenty-five years, as in the United States,
the increase of products and consumption in the
new country and consequently of employment and
people in the old has had a corresponding rapidity.
Of the people of the United States
nearly three millions are of British descent.
The British population has notwithstanding
increased within the period of our establishment
It was the opinion of the famous Sir Josiah Child,
that every man in the British colonies found employment
and of course subsistence for four persons at home.
According to this estimate, as more than half a million
of the adult males in the United States equally contribute
employment at this time to British subjects, there must
at this time be more than two millions of British subjects
subsisting on the fruits of British emigrations.
This result, however, seems to be
beyond the real proportion.
Let us attempt a less vague calculation.
The value of British imports into the United States
including British freight may be stated
at about fifteen millions of dollars,
Deduct two millions for foreign articles coming through
British hands, there remain thirteen millions.
About half our exports valued at ten millions of dollars
are remitted to that nation.
From the nature of the articles the freight cannot be less
than three millions of dollars; of which about one fifth
being the share of the United States, there is to be added to
the former remainder two millions four hundred thousand.
The profit accruing from the articles as materials
or auxiliaries for manufactures is probably at least
fifty percent or five millions of dollars.
The three sums make twenty millions
Four-hundred-thousand dollars;
call them in round numbers twenty millions.
The expense of supporting a laboring family in Great Britain,
as computed by Sir John Sinclair, on six families containing
thirty-four persons, averages £:4:12:10½ sterling,
or about twenty dollars a head.
As his families were of the poorer class, and the
subsistence a bare competency, let twenty-five percent
be added, making the expense about twenty-five dollars
a head, dividing twenty millions by this sum,
we have eight-hundred-thousand for the number of
British persons whose subsistence may be traced to
emigration for its source: or allowing eight shillings sterling
a week for the support of a working man, we have
two-hundred-sixteen-thousand three-hundred-forty-five
of that class for the number derived from the same source.
This lesson of fact which merits the notice
of every commercial nation may be enforced
by a more general view of the subject.
The present imports of the United States,
adding to the first cost, &c. one-half the freight
as the reasonable share of foreign nations
may be stated at twenty-five millions of dollars.
Deducting five millions on account of East-India articles,
there remain in favor of Europe twenty millions of dollars.
The foreign labor incorporated with such part of our exports,
as are subjects or ingredients for manufactures,
together with half the export freight is probably
not of less value than fifteen millions of dollars.
The two sums together make thirty-five millions of dollars,
capable of supporting two-hundred-thirty-three thousand
three-hundred-thirty-three families of six persons in each:
or three-hundred-seventy-eight thousand six hundred
and five men, living on eight shillings sterling a week.
The share of this benefit, which each nation is to enjoy,
will be determined by many circumstances.
One that must have a certain and material influence
will be the taste excited here for their
respective products and fabrics.
This influence has been felt in all its force by the commerce
of Great Britain, as the advantage originated in the
emigrations from that country to this; among the means of
retaining it, will not be numbered a restraint on emigrations.
Other nations, who have to acquire their share in our
commerce, are still more interested in aiding their other
efforts by permitting and even promoting emigrations to this
country as fast as it may be disposed to welcome them.
The space left by every ten or twenty thousand emigrants
will be speedily filled by a surplus of life
that would otherwise be lost.
The twenty thousand in their new country, calling for
the manufactures and productions required by their habits,
will employ and sustain ten thousand persons
in their former country, as a clear addition to its stock.
In twenty or twenty-five years the number
so employed and added will be twenty thousand.
And in the meantime example and information will be
diffusing the same taste among other inhabitants here, and
proportionally extending employment and population there.
Fourthly. Freedom of emigration is
due to the general interests of humanity.
The course of emigrations being always from places
where living is more difficult to places where it is less
difficult, the happiness of the emigrant is promoted by the
change: and as a more numerous progeny is another effect
of the same cause, human life is at once made a greater
blessing, and more individuals are created to partake of it.
The annual expense of supporting the poor in England
amounts to more than one million and a half sterling.
The number of persons, subsisting themselves not more
than six months in the year, is computed at
one million two-hundred sixty-eight thousand,
and the number of beggars at forty-eight thousand.
In France it has been computed that seven millions of
men, women and children live one with another
on twenty-five livres, which is less than five dollars a year.
Every benevolent reader will make his own reflections.
Fifthly. It may not be superfluous to add
that freedom of emigration is favorable to morals.
A great proportion of the vices which distinguish crowded
from thin settlements are known to have their rise in the
facility of illicit intercourse between the sexes, on one hand,
and the difficulty of maintaining a family, on the other.
Provide an outlet for the surplus of population,
and marriages will be increased in proportion.
Every four or five emigrants will be the fruit of a legitimate
union, which would not otherwise have taken place.
Sixthly. The remarks which have been made, though
in many respects little applicable to the internal situation
of the United States may be of use as far as they tend to
prevent mistaken and narrow ideas on an important subject.
Our country being populated in different degrees in different
parts of it, removals from the more compact to the more
spare or vacant districts are continually going forward—
The object of these removals is evidently to exchange
a less easy for a more easy subsistence.
The effect of them must therefore be to quicken
the aggregate population of our country.
Considering the progress made in some situations towards
their natural complement of inhabitants, and the fertility of
others, which have made little or no progress, the probable
difference in their respective rates of increase is
not less than as three in the former to five in the latter.
Instead of lamenting then a loss of three human beings
to Connecticut, Rhode Island, or New Jersey, the
Philanthropist will rejoice that five will be gained
to New York, Vermont or Kentucky; and the patriot
will be not less pleased that two will be added
to the citizens of the United States.6
On 5 December 1791 Madison published this essay
“Consolidation” in the National Gazette:
Much has been said and not without reason against
a consolidation of the States into one government.
Omitting lesser objections, two consequences would
probably flow from such a change in our political system,
which justify the cautions used against it.
First, it would be impossible to avoid the dilemma of
either relinquishing the present energy and responsibility
of a single executive magistrate for some plural substitute,
which by dividing so great a trust might lessen the
danger of it; or suffering so great an accumulation
of powers in the hands of that officer as might
by degrees transform him into a monarch.
The incompetency of one Legislature to regulate all the
various objects belonging to the local governments would
evidently force a transfer of many of them to the executive
department; while the increasing splendor and number of its
prerogatives supplied by this source might prove
excitements to ambition too powerful for a sober execution
of the elective plan and consequently strengthen the
pretexts for a hereditary designation of the magistrate.
Second, were the state governments abolished, the
same space of country that would produce an undue growth
of the executive power, would prevent that control on the
Legislative body, which is essential to a faithful discharge
of its trust, neither the voice nor the sense of ten or twenty
millions of people spread through so many latitudes as are
comprehended within the United States could ever be
combined or called into effect, if deprived of those
local organs through which both can now be conveyed.
In such a state of things the impossibility of acting
together might be succeeded by the inefficacy of partial
expressions of the public mind, and this at length by a
universal silence and insensibility, leaving the whole
government to that self-directed course, which it must be
owned is the natural propensity of every government.
But if a consolidation of the states into one government
be an event so justly to be avoided, it is not less to be
desired on the other hand that a consolidation should
prevail in their interests and affections; and this too,
as it fortunately happens, for the very reasons among
others which lie against a governmental consolidation.
For in the first place in proportion as uniformity is found to
prevail in the interests and sentiments of the several states
will be the practicability of accommodating Legislative
regulations to them and thereby of withholding new and
dangerous prerogatives from the executive.
Again, the greater the mutual confidence and affection
of all parts of the Union, the more likely they will be
to concur amicably or to differ with moderation in
the elective designation of the chief magistrate;
and by such examples to guard and adorn the
vital principle of our republican Constitution.
Lastly, the less the supposed difference of interests
and the greater the concord and confidence throughout
the great body of the people, the more readily must they
sympathize with each other, the more seasonably can
they interpose a common manifestation of their sentiments,
the more certainly will they take the alarm at usurpation
or oppression, and the more effectually will they
consolidate their defense of the public liberty.
Here then is a proper object presented,
both to those who are most jealously attached
to the separate authority reserved to the states,
and to those who may be more inclined to contemplate
the people of America in the light of one nation.
Let the former continue to watch against every
encroachment, which might lead to a gradual
consolidation of the states into one government.
Let the latter employ their utmost zeal by eradicating
local prejudices and mistaken rivalships to consolidate
the affairs of the states into one harmonious interest;
and let it be the patriotic study of all, to maintain the
various authorities established by our complicated
system, each in its respective constitutional sphere;
and to erect over the whole one paramount Empire
of reason, benevolence and brotherly affection.7
Madison and others put together ten amendments in a
bill of rights that were eventually ratified on 15 December 1791,
and they have not been changed since that time.
They are:
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press;
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and
to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of
a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,
shall not be infringed.Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any
house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war,
but in a manner to be prescribed by law.Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall
issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or
otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or
indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the
land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service
in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be
subject, for the same offense, to be twice put in jeopardy of
life or limb; nor shall be compelled, in any criminal case, to
be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty,
or property, without due process of law; nor shall private
property be taken for public use, without just compensation.Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy
the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury
of the State and district wherein the crime shall have
been committed, which district shall have been previously
ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature
and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the
witnesses against him; to have compulsory process
for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the
Assistance of Counsel for his defense.Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy
shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury
shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be
otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States,
than according to the rules of the common law.Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights,
shall not be construed to deny or disparage others
retained by the people.Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States
by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States,
are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.
In 1792 James Madison wrote anonymous essays on government
for the National Gazette including this short essay “Parties” on 23 January 1792:
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 object should be to combat the evil:
1. By establishing a political equality among all.
2. By withholding unnecessary opportunities from a few,
to increase the inequality of property, by an immoderate,
and especially an 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 expense 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 perfect
and maintain the equilibrium.
This is as little the voice of reason,
as it is that 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.8
Madison published “Universal Peace” on
2 February 1792 in the National Gazette.
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 anything is
to be hoped, everything 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, while 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 uncontrolled by it;
while 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 controlled 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 expense 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 expenses
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 defense.
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.9
On 12 June 1792 Madison wrote to Jefferson informing him of recent events.
Since I got to the end of my journey,
I have been without an opportunity of dropping you a line;
and this is written merely to be ready for the first casual
conveyance to Fredericksburg.
I received yesterday your two favors No. 1 & 2.
The gazettes under a preceding cover
had come to hand some days before.
Your answer to Hammond has on the whole
got triumphantly through the ordeal.
It is certainly not materially injured, though
perhaps a little defaced by some of the criticisms
to which you have yielded.
The points on which you did not relax appear to me
to be fully vindicated; the main ones unanswerably so.
The doctrine which would make the States the contracting
parties could have been as little expected from that quarter,
as it is irreconcilable with the tenor of their confederation.
The expectation of Hammond, if sincere,
of final instructions by the meeting of Congress
throws light I think on the errand of Bond.
He can scarcely calculate on the result of his court’s
reconsideration of the subject within the short time allowed
by five months after deducting the double voyage.
I have letters from Kentucky down to the 8th of May.
Little depredations from the Savages
continue to be complained of.
The people however are chiefly occupied with
the approaching distribution of the new offices.
Nothing is said as to their probable Governor.
Congress & the Judiciary are thought
of more importance to the State.
Brown can be what he pleases.
Some are disposed to fix him on the Bench.
None will object to his going into the Senate
if that should be his choice.
Campbell and Muter are the other names
in conversation for the Senate:
and Brackenridge & Greenup for the House of Reps.
I have this information from a Mr. Taylor
a pretty intelligent man engaged in their public affairs.
George Nicholas specifies no names, observing
that it is impossible to conjecture those that
will succeed in the competitions.
Among the contents of the enclosed letter is a printed copy
of the Constitution of Kentucky as finally agreed to.
You can take out that or anything else for perusal
as you please; after which you will be good enough to
have the letter handed in such way as you may judge best.
I would not have thrown the trouble on you,
if any other channel had occurred.
The unpopularity of the excise has evidently increased
in this quarter, owing partly to the effect of Sidney
who has found his way here, and partly to the
unavoidable vexations it carries into the family distilleries.
The tax on newspapers is another article of grievance.
It is not very well understood; but if it were,
it would not be satisfactory first because too high,
secondly because suspected of being
an insidious forerunner of something worse.
I am afraid the subscriptions will soon begin to be
withdrawn from the Philadelphia papers,
unless some step be speedily taken to prevent it.
The best that occurs seems to be to advertise that
the papers will not be put into the mail,
but sent as heretofore to all who shall not
direct them to be put into the mail.
Will you hint this to Freneau?
His subscribers in this quarter seem pretty well satisfied
with the degree of regularity & safety with which they
get the papers and highly pleased with the paper itself.
I found this Country laboring
under a most severe drought.
There had been no rain whatever since the 18 or 20 of April.
The flax & oats generally destroyed; the corn dying
in the hills, no tobacco planted, and the wheat in
weak land suffering; in the strong not injured materially;
in the very strong perhaps benefited.
8 days ago there was a very local shower here.
A day or two after a better, but still very local.
Neither of them from appearances extended
as far South as Albemarle.
For several days past it has rained almost constantly
and is still raining with the wind from North East;
with every appearance of a general rain:
so that the only danger now is of too much wet
for the wheat, which I am happy to find has effectually
supplanted Tobacco in the conversation & anxieties of
our crop mongers, and is rapidly doing so in their fields.
I met the President on the road.
I had no conversation with him; but he handed me
a letter which he had written to me at home.
Its contents are very interesting but do not absolutely
decide the problem which dictated yours to him.10
Madison published “A Candid State of Parties”
in the National Gazette on 26 September 1792:
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.
Everyone remembers it,
because everyone was involved in it.
Among those who embraced the Constitution,
the great body were unquestionably friends to republican
liberty; though 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, though there might
be a few who had a leaning unfavorable 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 studies, 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 a 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 a 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 antirepublican 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 shows 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 favor 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 spite 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.11
In the elections from November 2 to December 5 in 1792
George Washington won in all 15 states with 132 electoral votes for President.
Vice President John Adams was re-elected with 77 electoral votes,
and New York’s Governor George Clinton received 50 electoral votes.
Because the Constitution does not allow two persons from the same state
to be President and Vice President, neither Thomas Jefferson
nor James Madison of Virginia could become Vice President
because Washington was also from Virginia.
In the United States Senate those supporting the Federalist Administration
gained one seat to 18 while the Republicans gained one seat to 11.
Voting for Representatives in the House went on from 27 August 1792
to 6 September 1793, and the Federalists gained 24 seats to give them 54,
and the Republicans gained 12 seats that gave them 51.
By this time James Madison had left the Federalists to join
his friend Jefferson with the Democratic Republicans.
Notes
1. Assumption of the State Debts, [22 April] 1790 (Online).
2. To James Madison from James Monroe, 26 July 1790 (Online).
3. House Address to the President, [11 December] 1790 (Online).
4. Writings by James Madison, p. 478-480.
5. Ibid., p. 480-490.
6. Ibid., p. 492-498.
7. Ibid., p. 498-500.
8. Ibid., p. 504-505.
9.Ibid., p. 505-508.
10. From James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, 12 June 1792 (Online).
11. Writings by James Madison, p. 530-532.