On 2 March 1819 James Madison wrote this letter to Robert Walsh:
I received some days ago your letter of February 15,
in which you intimate your intention to vindicate our
Country against misrepresentations propagated
abroad, and your desire of information on the
subjects of Negro slavery, of moral character,
of religion, and of education in Virginia, as affected
by the Revolution, and our public Institutions.
The general condition of slaves
must be influenced by various causes.
Among these are:
1. the ordinary price of food, on which the quality
and quantity allowed them will more or less depend.
This cause has operated much more unfavorably
against them in some quarters than in Virginia.
2. The kinds of labor to be performed,
of which the Sugar & Rice plantations afford
elsewhere & not here unfavorable examples.
3. the national spirit of their Masters,
which has been graduated by Philosophical
writers among the slaveholding Colonies of Europe.
4. the circumstance of conformity or difference in the
physical characters of the two classes; such a difference
cannot but have a material influence and is common to all
the slaveholding Countries within the American Hemisphere.
Even in those where there are other than black slaves,
as Indians & mixed breeds, there is a
difference of Color not without its influence.
5. the proportion which the slaves bear to the free
part of the community, and especially the greater or
smaller numbers in which they belong to individuals.
This last is perhaps the most powerful of all the causes
deteriorating the conditions of the slave, and furnishes
the best scale for determining the degree of its hardship.
In reference to the actual condition of slaves
in Virginia it may be confidently stated, as better,
beyond comparison, than it was before the Revolution.
The improvement strikes everyone who witnessed
their former condition and attends to their present.
They are better fed, better clad, better lodged, and
better treated in every respect; insomuch that what
was formerly deemed a moderate treatment would
now be a rigid one, and what formerly a rigid one,
would now be denounced by the public feeling.
With respect to the great article of food particularly
it is a common remark among those who have
visited Europe, that it includes a much greater
proportion of the animal ingredient, than is attainable
by the free laborers even in that quarter of the Globe.
As the two great causes of the general melioration
in the lot of the slaves since the establishment
of our Independence, I should set down:
1. the sensibility to human rights and sympathy
with human sufferings excited and cherished
by the discussions preceding, & the spirit of
the Institutions growing out of that event.
2. the decreasing proportions which the slaves bear to the
individual holders of them: a consequence of the abolition of
entails, & the rule of primogeniture, and of the equalizing
tendency of parental affection, unfettered from old
prejudices, as well as from the restrictions of law.
With respect to the moral features of Virginia it may
be observed that pictures which have been given of them
are, to say the least, outrageous caricatures, even when
taken from the state of Society previous to the Revolution:
and that so far as there was any ground or color for them,
then the same cannot be found for them now.
Omitting more minute or less obvious causes tainting
the habits and manners of the people under the
Colonial Government the following offer themselves:
1. the negro slavery chargeable in so great a degree on
the very quarter which has furnished most of the libelers.
It is well known that during the Colonial dependence
of Virginia repeated attempts were made to stop the
importations of slaves each of which attempts was
successively defeated by the foreign negative on the laws,
and that one of the first offsprings of independent &
republican legislation was an Act of perpetual prohibition.
2. the too unequal distribution of property
favored by laws derived from the British code,
which generated examples in the opulent class
inauspicious to the habits of the other classes.
3. the indolence of most & the irregular lives of many
of the established Clergy, consisting in a very large
proportion of foreigners, and these in no inconsiderable
proportion, of men willing to leave their homes in the
parent Country where their demerit was an obstacle
to a provision for them, and whose degeneracy here
was promoted by their distance from the controlling
eyes of their kindred & friends by the want of Ecclesiastical
superiors in the Colony or efficient ones in Great Britain
who might maintain a salutary discipline among them,
and finally by their independence both of their congregations
and of the Civil authority for their stipends.
4. A source of contagious dissipation might be traced
in the British Factors, chiefly from Scotland, who carried
on the general Trade external & internal of the Colony.
These being interdicted by their principals from
marrying in the Country, being little prone to apply
their leisure to intellectual pursuits, and living in knots
scattered in small towns or detached spots affording
few substitutes of social amusement easily fell into
irregularities of different sorts and of evil example.
I ought not however to make this remark, without adding
not only that there were exceptions to it, but that those to
whom the remark is applicable, often combined with those
Traits of character, others of laudable & amicable kind.
Such of them as eventually married & settled in the
Country, were in most cases remarked for being
good husbands, parents & masters, as well as good
neighbors as far as was consistent with habits of
intemperance, to which not a few became victims.
The weight of this mercantile class in the community
may be inferred from the fact that they had their
periodical meetings at the seat of Government in
which they fixed the rate of foreign exchange, the
advance on their imported merchandize universally sold
on credit, and the price of Tobacco the great & indeed
the only staple commodity for exportation; regulations
affecting more deeply the interests of the people at large
than the ordinary proceedings of the Legislative Body.
As a further mark of their importance,
their influence as creditors was felt in
elections of the popular branch of that Body.
It had the common name of the Ledger interest.
Without laying undue stress on it, I may refer to
the rule of septennial elections for the Legislature,
which led of course to the vitiating means to which
candidates are more tempted to resort by so durable,
than by a shorter period of power.
With the exception of slavery these demoralizing causes
have ceased or are wearing out; and even that as already
noticed, has lost no small share of its former character.
On the whole the moral aspect of the State may at
present be fairly said to bear no unfavorable comparison
with the average standard of the other States.
It certainly gives the lie to the foreign
Calumniators whom you propose to arraign.
That there has been an increase of religious instruction
since the revolution can admit of no question.
The English Church was originally the established religion:
the character of the clergy that above described.
Of other sects there were but few adherents,
except the Presbyterians who predominated
on the Western side of the Blue Mountains.
A little time previous to the Revolutionary struggle
the Baptists sprang up and made a very rapid progress.
Among the early acts of the Republican Legislature
were those abolishing the Religious establishment,
and putting all Sects at full liberty and on a perfect level.
At present the population is divided with small
exceptions among the Protestant Episcopalians,
the Presbyterians, the Baptists & the Methodists.
Of their comparative numbers I can
command no sources of information.
I conjecture the Presbyterians & Baptists to form
each about a third, & the two other Sects together,
of which the Methodists are much the smallest,
to make up the remaining third.
The old churches built under the establishment at
the public expense; have in many instances gone
to ruin or are in a very dilapidated State, owing
chiefly to a transition of the flocks to other worships.
A few new ones have latterly been
built particularly in the towns.
Among the other sects Meeting Houses have
multiplied & continue to multiply; though in general
they are of the plainest and cheapest sort.
But neither the number nor the style of the religious
edifices is a true measure of the State of religion.
Religious instruction is now diffused throughout the
Community by preachers of every Sect with almost
equal zeal, though with very unequal acquirements;
and at private houses & open stations as well as
in buildings appropriated to that use.
The qualifications of the Preachers too
among the new Sects where there was the
greatest deficiency, are understood to be improving.
On a general comparison of the present & former times,
the balance is certainly & vastly on the side of the
present, as to the number of religious teachers,
the zeal which actuates them, the purity of their lives,
and the attendance of the people on their instructions.
It was the universal opinion of the Century
preceding the last, that Civil Government could not
stand without the prop of a Religious establishment,
& that the Christian religion itself, would perish
if not supported by a legal provision for its Clergy.
The experience of Virginia conspicuously
corroborates the disproof of both opinions.
The Civil Government though bereft of everything like an
associated hierarchy possesses the requisite Stability and
performs its functions with complete success While the
number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood &
the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased
by the total separation of the Church from the State.
On the subject of education I am not enough
informed to give a view of its increase.
The system contemplated by the literary fund cannot yet be
taken into the estimate farther than as it may be an index of
the progress of knowledge prerequisite to its adoption.
Those who are best able to compare the present
intelligence of the Mass of the people with that
antecedent to the revolution will all agree,
I believe, in the great superiority of the present.
I know not how far these notices may fall within
the precise scope of your meditated Exposition.
Should any of them do so, I communicate
to them with pleasure; well assured that
they will be in good hands for a good purpose.
The only restriction I wish in the use of them
is that my name may not be referred to.
In compliance with your request I send
a copy of the observations addressed to
the Agriculture Society of Albemarle.
I regret that they are not more worthy
of the place to which you destine them.
I am not unaware that some of the topics
introduced may be interesting ones;
but they required a development very
different from that which I gave them.
As you intend to notice the variance between my
statement and that of Mr. Hamilton relating to certain
numbers in the Federalist, I take the liberty of remarking,
that independent of any internal evidences that may be
discernible, the inaccuracy of Mr. Hamilton’s memory
is illustrated by the circumstance that his memorandum
ascribes, not only to Mr. Jay, a paper No. 54 not written
by him; but to himself a paper No. 64 written by Mr. Jay.
This appears by the statement (presumed to be authentic)
in the life of Mr. Jay by Delaplaine.
If I have any interest in proving the fallibility of
Mr. Hamilton’s memory or the error of his statement
however occasioned, it is not that the authorship in
question is of itself a point deserving the solicitude
of either of the parties; but because I had at the
request of a confidential friend or two, communicated
a list of the numbers in that publication with the
names of the writers annexed at a time & under
circumstances depriving me of a plea for so great
a mistake in a slip of the memory or attention.1
Edward Coles had served President Madison as his
private secretary from January 1810 to March 1815.
Coles resigned because of poor health and became an abolitionist.
President Madison sent Coles on a diplomatic mission to Russia in 1816-17.
In 1817 Coles sold his plantation to his older brother Walter,
and he moved to the Northwest Territory where slavery was banned.
In March 1819 President Monroe appointed Coles
as the Register of Lands in the new Territory of Illinois.
On the way there in western Pennsylvania Coles
announced that he was emancipating his 18 slaves.
He gave to the head of each family 160 acres of land.
At that time Madison was 68 years old, and he had a hundred slaves.
Coles was elected Governor of Illinois in 1822, and in his
inaugural address
he announced his intention to free the slaves in Illinois.
In August 1824 voters in Illinois voted to reject slavery.
Madison and Coles corresponded from September 1812 to 10 May 1836,
and they exchanged 75 letters.
Coles wrote this letter to Madison on 20 July 1819:
As you and Mrs. Madison were so kind as to say, at the
moment of parting, that you would be gratified in hearing
from me, of my safe arrival in this Country, and how I was
employing myself in it, I take up my pen to comply with a
request not less flattering to me than kind in you both.
As I expected, when I left you, I overtook my people
the day before they reached Brownsville in Pennsylvania,
at which place I purchased two large flat Boats,
or Ohio arks, on board of which I put our horses,
wagon and selves, and having chained the Boats
together, I pushed off and commenced floating down
the river, taking myself the stations of Pilot and Captain,
or rather I should say of Commodore of my Boats.
A son of General Green of Culpepper, on his first visit to
the West, was the only person with me on board, except
my Negroes, who being, as you know, mountaineers
were at first excessively awkward in the use of oars.
We floated day and night, except when
compelled to go ashore by high and head winds.
There being a full tide in the river, the weather fine,
and laying in from time to time a good store of
provisions, we had quite an agreeable voyage down
to Louisville, where we arrived the 9th day from
Pittsburg; but having been detained about 24 hours
by winds, and in visiting General Taylor and other
friends on the way, we were in fact but 8 days floating.
This is considered a quick voyage in
those great unwieldy family Boats.
At Louisville we got rid of our Boats and
commenced our journey by land to this place.
Being extremely anxious to comply with the
promise I had given the Government to be
here by a given time, I hurried on ahead and left
my Negroes to make the best of their way after me.
Owing to the very wet spring, a great portion of
this flat Country was under water, and most of
the little streams were overflowing their banks,
and could only be crossed by swimming or ferrying.
This rendered this part of the journey very disagreeable,
even to me who was on horseback, but to those
in the wagon or on foot it was inconceivably bad.
A few days after my arrival here I purchased an excellent
tract of land, situated about three miles from this,
¾ of which Prairie, the rest timber land, on which
there was a few acres enclosed and a deserted log cabin.
On the 17 of May, the day after the arrival of my Negroes,
I commenced ploughing up the Prairie, and splitting
rails to fence it; and continued breaking prairie,
and planting corn until the first week in July.
The consequence was that the corn was in some
places 5 feet high, while in others it was not yet up.
I have planted between 12 and 15 acres
in corn for each horse I have worked.
This I am sure you will consider good work, when
you reflect how late I commenced, and that my horses
were exhausted by a long and fatiguing journey;
and that the Prairie was so tough & hard that
it required my whole team to pull one plough.
I am now employed in mowing hay from the prairie,
and fallowing it to seed wheat this autumn.
I live in town, where I attend to the duties
of my office in the morning, & almost every
evening go out to superintend my farm.
I employ no white person, but leave the whole to
my Negroes, who I am gratified in saying behave
themselves remarkably well since I have liberated them.
I hire and employ on my farm about one half of them, the
others hire themselves in this place and its neighborhood.
As a reward for their past services, and a stimulus to
their future exertions, I have given to each one, male
and female, who has reached the age of three or four
and twenty, one hundred and sixty acres of Land.
And to the young ones I have given Books,
promised to pay for teaching them, and premiums
to those that learn to read and write.
The situation of Register of the Land office of this
place, which the President has lately thought fit to
confer upon me, has not since I entered on the
duties of it more than paid for feeding my horse.
Next month there is to be a public sale of Lands here, when
it is thought the profits of the Office will be considerable.
If it should not become soon much more valuable than
it is at present, I shall certainly resign it this fall.
But whether I do or not, you may expect to see
me in January next; as I am determined to make
a visit to the Eastward, and to spend a great
part of the winter with my friends in Virginia.
I am already looking forward with impatience to the
time of my departure, and to the pleasures I shall
enjoy in their Society—among whom, you know,
you and Mrs. Madison stand among the first.
Present my affectionate regards to Mrs. Madison and
tell her I shall expect her to comply with her promise,
long since made, to assist me in getting a wife;
for that I am more than ever convinced that it will
not do to live in this solitary Country without a help mate.
Present me also to Payne, to whom I would write
but for his having so often neglected my letters,
and violated his promises to write me.2
On 3 September 1819 Madison wrote this letter to Edward Coles:
I have received, my dear Sir, your agreeable
letter of July 20th which was very long on the way.
We congratulate you much on the
various successes of your Western career.
The first thing that strikes us is
the rapidity of your promotion.
Bounding over the preliminary sailorship,
the first stop on the deck of your Bark, pardon me,
of the nobler structure, your Ark, makes you a Pilot.
The name of Pilot is scarcely
pronounced before you are a Captain.
And in less than the twinkling of an eye,
the Captain starts up a Commodore on the land,
a scene opens upon us in which you equally figure.
We see you at once a ploughman, a rail-splitter—
a fence builder—a Corn-planter, a Haymaker;
and soon to be a Wheat-sower.
To all these rural functions, which leave
but a single defect in your title of Husband-man,
you add the felicities of a Town life.
And to cap the whole, you enjoy the
official dignity of Register of the Land office
in the important Territory of Illinois.
We repeat our congratulations on all
these honors & employments, and wish
that the emoluments may equal them.
You are well off, for this year at least, in being
where you can expect bread from Corn planted in July.
Here famine threatens us in the
midst of fields planted in April.
So severe a drought is not remembered.
We have had no rain scarcely throughout the
months of June, July & August, and the earth
previously, but little charged with moisture.
On some farms, among them my two small
ones near me, there has been no rain at all,
or none to produce any sensible effect.
In some instances there will not be the tithe of a Crop.
And the drought has been very general
not only in this but in other States.
It has been, I understand, particularly severe
through the Tobacco districts in Virginia and
must make this crop very scanty.
It is at this critical moment feeling
in all its force the want of rain.
I fear that Albemarle has no better than neighbor’s fare.
Fortunately for us the Wheat Crop was
everywhere very fine & well harvested.
The Season has been as remarkable too for the
degree & constancy of its heat, as of its dryness.
The Thermometer in the coolest part of my largest room,
was on two days at 92°, for several at 90 & 91 and
generally from 84 to 5–6, 7 & 8°.
Our Springs & wells have not yet entirely failed;
but without copious rains, this must quickly be the case.
You are pursuing, I observe, the true course
with your negroes in order to make their freedom
a fair experiment for their happiness.
With the habits of the slave and without the instruction,
the property or the employments of a freeman,
the manumitted blacks, instead of deriving advantage
from the partial benevolence of their Masters, furnish
arguments against the general efforts in their behalf.
I wish your philanthropy would complete its object
by changing their color as well as their legal condition.
Without this they seem destined to a privation of that
moral rank & those social blessings, which give to
freedom more than half its value.
Mrs. Madison, as well as myself, is much gratified by your
promise to devote the next Winter to your native haunts.
We hope your arrangements will
give us an ample share of your time.
We will then take the case of your Bachelorship
into serious & full consideration.
Mrs. Madison is well disposed to give all her aid
in getting that old thorn out of your side,
and putting a young rib in its place.
She very justly remarks however, that with
your own exertions, hers will not be wanted,
and without them not deserved.
Accept our joint & affectionate wishes
for your health and every other happiness.3
On 15 June 1819 Madison responded to a letter of Robert J. Evans
by offering his ideas on how to emancipate the slaves, writing:
A general emancipation of slaves ought to be:
1. gradual.
2. equitable & satisfactory to the
individuals immediately concerned.
3. consistent with the existing &
durable prejudices of the nation.
That it ought, like remedies for other deep rooted and
wide-spread evils, to be gradual, is so obvious that there
seems to be no difference of opinion on that point.
To be equitable & satisfactory, the consent of
both the Master & the slave should be obtained.
That of the Master will require a provision in the plan for
compensating a loss of what he has held as property
guaranteed by the laws, and recognized by the Constitution.
That of the slave, requires that his condition
in a state of freedom, be preferable in his own
estimation, to his actual one in a state of bondage.
To be consistent with existing and probably
unalterable prejudices in the U. S. the freed blacks
ought to be permanently removed beyond the region
occupied by or allotted to a White population.
The objections to a thorough incorporation of the two
people, are with most of the Whites insuperable,
and are admitted by all of them to be very powerful.
If the blacks, strongly marked as they are, by physical &
lasting peculiarities, be retained amid the whites, under
the degrading privation of equal rights political or social,
they must be always dissatisfied with their condition as a
change only from one to another species of oppression;
always secretly confederated against the ruling & privileged
class; and always uncontrolled by some of the most
cogent motives to moral and respectable conduct.
The character of the freed blacks, even where
their legal condition is least affected by their
color, seems to put these truths beyond question.
It is material also that the removal of the blacks
be to a distance precluding the jealousies &
hostilities to be apprehended from a neighboring
people stimulated by the contempt known to be
entertained for their peculiar features; to say
nothing of their vindictive recollections, or the predatory
propensities which their State of Society might foster.
Nor is it fair, in estimating the danger of collisions with
the Whites, to charge it wholly on the side of the Blacks.
There would be reciprocal antipathies doubling the danger.
The Colonizing plan on foot, has as far as it extends,
a due regard to these requisites; with the additional
object of bestowing new blessings civil & religious
on the quarter of the Globe most in need of them.
The Society proposes to transport to the African Coast all
free & freed blacks who may be willing to remove thither;
to provide by fair means, & it is understood with a
prospect of success, a suitable territory for their reception;
and to initiate them into such an establishment
as may gradually and indefinitely expand itself.
The experiment under this view of it, merits
encouragement from all who regard slavery
as an evil, who wish to see it diminished and
abolished by peaceable & just means; and who
have themselves no better mode to propose.
Those who have most doubted the success
of the experiment must at least have wished
to find themselves in an error.
But the views of the Society are limited
to the case of blacks already free,
or who may be gratuitously emancipated.
To provide a commensurate remedy for the evil,
the plan must be extended to the great Mass of blacks,
and must embrace a fund sufficient to induce the
Master as well as the slave to concur in it.
Without the concurrence of the Master, the benefit
will be very limited as it relates to the Negroes, and
essentially defective, as it relates to the United States.
And the concurrence of Masters must for
the most part be obtained by purchase.
Can it be hoped that voluntary contributions, however
adequate to an auspicious commencement, will supply the
sums necessary to such an enlargement of the remedy?
May not another question be asked?
Would it be reasonable to throw so great
a burden on the individuals distinguished
by their philanthropy and patriotism.
The object to be attained, as an object of humanity,
appeals alike to all: as a national object,
it claims the interposition of the nation.
It is the nation which is to reap the benefit.
The nation therefore ought to bear the burden.
Must then the enormous sums required to pay for,
to transport, and to establish in a foreign land all the
slaves in the U. S. as their Masters may be willing to
part with them, be taxed on the good people of the U. S.
or be obtained by Loans swelling the public debt to a size
pregnant with evils next in degree to those of slavery itself?
Happily it is not necessary to answer this
question by remarking that if slavery as a
national evil is to be abolished, and it be just
that it be done at the national expense, the
amount of the expense is not a paramount consideration.
It is the peculiar fortune, or rather a providential
blessing of the U. S. to possess a resource
commensurate to this great object, without taxes
on the people, or even an increase of the Public debt.
I allude to the vacant territory the extent of which is so
vast, and the vendible value of which is so well ascertained.
Supposing the number of slaves to be 1,500,000
and the price to average 400 dollars the cost of
the whole would be 600 millions of dollars.
These estimates are probably beyond the fact;
and from the number of slaves should be deducted
1. those whom their masters would not part with.
2. those who may be gratuitously set free by their Masters.
3, those acquiring freedom under
emancipating regulations of the States.
4. those preferring slavery where they are,
to freedom in an African settlement.
On the other hand, it is to be noted that the expense of
removal & settlement is not included in the estimated sum;
and that an increase of the slaves will be going on
during the period required for the execution of the plan.
On the whole the aggregate sum needed
may be stated at about 600 Millions of dollars.
This will require 200 Millions of acres at 3 dollars per
acre; or 300 Millions at 2 dollars per acre a quantity,
which though great in itself, is perhaps not a third part
of the disposable territory belonging to the U. S.
And to what object so good so great & so glorious,
could that peculiar fund of wealth be appropriated?
While the sale of territory would, on one hand be
planting one desert with a free & civilized people,
it would on the other, be giving freedom to another
people, and filling with them another desert.
And, if in any instances, wrong has been done by our
forefathers to people of one color in dispossessing them
of their soil, what better atonement is now in our power
than that of making what is rightfully required a source
of justice & of blessings to a people of another color?
As the revolution to be produced in the condition of
the negroes must be gradual, it will suffice if the
sale of territory keep pace with its progress.
For a time at least the proceeds would be in advance.
In this case it might be best, after deducting the expense
incident to the surveys & sales, to place the surplus in
a situation where its increase might correspond with
the natural increase of the unpurchased slaves.
Should the proceeds at any time fall short of the calls for
their application, anticipations might be made by temporary
loans to be discharged as the lands should find a Market.
But it is probable that for a considerable
period, the sales would exceed the calls.
Masters would not be willing to strip their
plantations & farms of their laborers too rapidly.
The slaves themselves, connected as they generally
are by tender ties with others under other Masters,
would be kept from the list of emigrants by the
want of the multiplied consents to be obtained.
It is probable indeed that for a long time a certain portion
of the proceeds might safely continue applicable to the
discharge of the debts or to other purposes of the nation,
or it might be most convenient in the outset to appropriate
a certain proportion only of the income from sales, to the
object in view, leaving the residue otherwise applicable.
Should any plan similar to that here sketched, be deemed
eligible in itself, no particular difficulty is foreseen from that
portion of the nation which with a common interest in the
vacant territory has no interest in slave property.
They are too just to wish that a partial sacrifice
should be made for the general good; and too
well aware that whatever may be the intrinsic
character of that description of property, it is one
known to the Constitution, and as such could not be
constitutionally taken away without just compensation.
That part of the nation has indeed shown a meritorious
alacrity in promoting by pecuniary contributions, the limited
scheme for colonizing the Blacks, & freeing the nation from
the unfortunate stain on it, which justifies the belief that any
enlargement of the scheme, if founded on just principles,
would find among them its earliest & warmest patrons.
It is evident however that in effectuating a general
emancipation of slaves in the mode which has been
hinted, difficulties of other sorts would be encountered.
The provision for ascertaining the joint consent of the
masters & slaves; for guarding against unreasonable
valuations of the latter; and for the discrimination of
those not proper to be conveyed to a foreign residence,
or who ought to remain a charge on masters in whose
service they had been disabled or worn out, and for
the annual transportation of such numbers, would
require the mature deliberations of the national Councils.
The measure implies also the practicability of procuring
in Africa an enlargement of the district or districts,
for receiving the exiles, sufficient for so great
an augmentation of their numbers.
Perhaps the Legislative provision best adapted to the case
would be an incorporation of the Colonizing Society or the
establishment of a similar one with proper powers under the
appointment & superintendence of the national Executive.
In estimating the difficulties however incident to any plan
of general emancipation, they ought to be brought into
comparison with those inseparable from other plans and be
yielded to or not according to the result of the comparison.
One difficulty presents itself which will probably
attend every plan which is to go into effect under the
Legislative provisions of the National Government.
But whatever may be the defect of the existing
powers of Congress, the Constitution has
pointed out the way in which it can be supplied.
And it can hardly be doubted that the requisite powers
might readily be procured for attaining the great object in
question in any mode whatever approved by the nation.
If these thoughts can be of any aid in your search of a
remedy for the great evil under which the nation labors,
you are very welcome to them.
You will allow me however to add that it will be most
agreeable to me, not to be publicly referred to
in any use you may make of them.4
On 19 November 1819 Madison wrote a longer letter
to Robert Walsh on various issues related to slavery:
Your letter of the 11th was duly received, and I should
have given it a less tardy answer, but for a succession of
particular demands on my attention, and a wish to assist
my recollections by consulting both Manuscript & printed
sources of information on the Subjects of your enquiry.
Of these, however, I have not been
able to avail myself, but very partially.
As to the intention of the framers of the Constitution
in the clause relating to “the Migration and importation
of persons &c” the best key may perhaps be
found in the case which produced it.
The African trade in Slaves had long been
odious to most of the States, and the importation
of Slaves into them had been prohibited.
Particular States, however continued the
importation, and were extremely averse
to any restriction on their power to do so.
In the Convention the former States were anxious, in
framing a new constitution, to insert a provision for an
immediate and absolute stop to the trade.
The latter were not only averse to any interference on the
subject; but solemnly declared that their constituents would
never accede to a Constitution containing such an article.
Out of this conflict grew the middle measure providing that
Congress should not interfere until the year 1808; with
an implication, that after that date they might prohibit
the importation of Slaves into the States then existing,
& previous thereto into the states not then existing.
Such was the tone of opposition in the States of
South Carolina & Georgia, & such the desire to gain
their acquiescence in a prohibitory power, that on a
question between the epochs of 1800 & 1808, the
States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts & Connecticut,
(all the eastern States in the Convention) joined in the
vote for the latter, influenced however by the collateral
motive of reconciling those particular States to the power
over commerce & navigation; against which they felt,
as did some other States, a very strong repugnance.
The earnestness of South Carolina & Georgia
was further manifested by their insisting on the
Security in article V against any amendment to the
Constitution affecting the right reserved to them,
& their uniting with the small states who insisted
on a like security for their equality in the Senate.
But some of the States were not only anxious for a
constitutional provision against the introduction of Slaves.
They had scruples against admitting
the term “Slaves” into the Instrument.
Hence the descriptive phrase “migration or importation
of persons;” the term migration allowing those who
were scrupulous of acknowledging expressly a property
in human beings, to view imported persons as a
species of emigrants, while others might apply the term
to foreign malefactors sent or coming into the Country.
It is possible though not recollected,
that some might have had an eye to the
case of freed blacks as well as malefactors.
But whatever may have been intended by the term
“migration” or the term “persons,” it is most certain,
that they referred, exclusively, to a migration or
importation from other countries into the United States;
and not to a removal, voluntary or involuntary, of Slaves
or freemen from one to another part of the United States.
Nothing appears or is recollected
that warrants this latter intention.
Nothing in the proceedings of the State conventions
indicates such a construction there.
Had such been the construction it is easy to imagine the
figure it would have made in many of the states, among
the objections to the Constitution and among the numerous
amendments to it proposed by the state conventions, not
one of which amendments refers to the clause in question.
Neither is there any indication that Congress have
heretofore considered themselves as deriving from
this Clause a power over the migration or removal of
individuals, whether freemen or slaves, from one State
to another, whether new or old: for it must be Kept
in view that if the power was given at all, it has been
in force eleven years over all the States existing in 1808,
and at all times over the States not then existing.
Every indication is against such a construction
by Congress of their constitutional powers.
Their alacrity in exercising their powers relating to slaves,
is a proof that they did not claim what they did not exercise.
They punctually and unanimously put in
force the power accruing in 1808 against
the further importation of Slaves from abroad.
They had previously directed their power over American
vessels on the high Seas against the African trade.
They lost no time in applying the prohibitory power
to Louisiana, which having maritime ports,
might be an inlet for slaves from abroad.
But they forbore to extend the prohibition to the
introduction of slaves from other parts of the Union.
They had even prohibited the importation of slaves into
the Mississippi Territory from without the limits of the U. S,
in the year 1798 without extending the prohibition to the
introduction of slaves from within those limits; although,
at the time the ports of Georgia and South Carolina were
open for the importation of Slaves from abroad and
increasing the mass of slavery within the United States.
If these views of the subject be just, a power in Congress
to control the interior migration or removals of persons
must be derived from some other source than Section 9,
Article I, either from the clause giving power “to make all
needful rules and regulations respecting the Territory or
other property belonging to the U. S.; or from that
providing for the admission of New States into the Union.”
The terms in which the 1st of these powers
is expressed, though of a ductile character, cannot
well be extended beyond a power over the Territory
as property, & a power to make the provisions
really needful or necessary for the Government of
Settlers until ripe for admission as States into the Union.
It may be inferred that Congress did not regard the interdict
of slavery among the needful regulations contemplated
by the Constitution; since in none of the Territorial
Governments created by them is such an interdict found.
The power, however be its import what it may,
is obviously limited to a Territory while remaining
in that character as distinct from that of a State.
As to the power of admitting new States into the federal
compact, the questions offering themselves are:
whether congress can attach conditions, or the new State
concur in conditions, which after admission would abridge
or enlarge the constitutional rights of legislation, common
to the other States; whether Congress can by a compact
with a new Member take power, either to or from itself,
or place the new member above or below the equal rank
& rights possessed by the others: whether all such
stipulations, expressed or implied would not be nullities,
and so pronounced when brought to a practical test.
It falls within the Scope of your inquiry to state the fact,
that there was a proposition in the convention to
discriminate between the old and new States by
an Article in the Constitution declaring that the
aggregate number of representatives from the States
thereafter to be admitted should never exceed that
of the States originally adopting the Constitution.
The proposition happily was rejected.
The effect of such a discrimination is sufficiently evident.
In the case of Louisiana, there is a
circumstance which may deserve notice.
In the Treaty ceding it, a privilege was retained by the
ceding party, which distinguishes between its ports &
others of the U. S. for a special purpose & a Short period.
This privilege however was the result not of an ordinary
legislative power in Congress; nor was it the result of an
arrangement between Congress & the people of Louisiana.
It rests on the ground that the same entire power,
even in the nation, over that territory as over the original
territory of the U. S never existed; the privilege alluded
to being in the deed of cession carved by the foreign
owner out of the title conveyed to the purchaser.
A sort of necessity therefore was thought to
belong to so peculiar & extraordinary a case.
Notwithstanding this plea it is presumable that if the
privilege had materially affected the rights of other ports,
or had been of a permanent or durable character,
the occurrence would not have been so little regarded.
Congress would not be allowed to effect through the
medium of a Treaty obnoxious discriminations between
new and old States, more than among the latter.
With respect to what has taken place in the
North Western Territory, it may be observed that
the ordinance giving its distinctive character on the
Subject of Slave holding, proceeded from the old Congress,
acting with the best intentions, but under a charter
which contains no Shadow of the authority exercised.
And it remains to be decided how far the States formed
within that Territory & admitted into the Union,
are on a different footing from its other
members as to their legislative sovereignty.
For the grounds on which ⅗ of the Slaves were admitted
into the ratio of representation, I will with your permission,
save trouble by referring to No. 54 of the Federalist.
In addition it may be Stated that this feature in the
Constitution was combined with that relating
to the power over Commerce & navigation.
In truth these two powers with those relating to the
importation of Slaves, & the Articles establishing the
equality of representation in the Senate, & the rule of
taxation had a complicated influence on each other which
alone would have justified the remark, that the Constitution
was “the result of mutual deference & Concession.”
It was evident that the large States holding slaves, and
those not large which felt themselves so by anticipation,
would not have concurred in a Constitution allowing them
no more representation in one Legislative Branch than
the smallest States, and in the other less than their
proportional contributions to the Common Treasury.
The considerations which led to this mixed ratio, which
had been very deliberately agreed on in April 1783 by the
old Congress, make it probable that the Convention could
not have looked to a departure from it in any instance
where slaves made a part of the local population.
Whether the Convention could have looked to the
existence of slavery at all in the new States is a point on
which I can add little to what has been already stated.
The great object of the Convention seemed to be to
prohibit the increase by the importation of slaves.
A power to emancipate slaves was disclaimed:
Nor is anything recollected that denoted a view
to control the distribution of those within the Country.
The case of the North Western Territory was
probably superseded by the provision against the
importation of slaves by South Carolina & Georgia,
which had not then passed laws prohibiting it.
When the existence of slavery in that territory was
precluded, the importation of slaves was rapidly
going on, and the only mode of checking it
was by narrowing the space open to them.
It is not an unfair inference that the expedient
would not have been undertaken, if the power
afterwards given to terminate the importation
everywhere, had existed or been even anticipated.
It has appeared that the present Congress
never followed the example during the
twenty years preceding the prohibitory epoch.
The expediency of exercising a supposed power in
Congress to prevent a diffusion of the slaves actually in the
Country, as far as the local authorities may admit them,
resolves itself into the probable effects of such a diffusion
on the interests of the slaves and of the Nation.
Will it or will it not better the condition of the slaves by
lessening the number belonging to individual Masters
and intermixing both with greater Masses of free people?
Will partial manumissions be more or
less likely to take place, and a general
emancipation be accelerated or retarded?
Will the moral & physical condition of slaves
in the meantime be improved or deteriorated?
What do experience and appearances decide
as to the comparative rates of generative increase
in their present and in a dispersed situation?
Will the aggregate strength, security, tranquility
and harmony of the whole nation be advanced or
impaired by lessening the proportion of slaves to
the free people in particular sections of it?
How far an occlusion of the space now vacant,
against the introduction of slaves may be essential to
prevent completely a smuggled importation of them from
abroad, ought to influence the question of expediency,
must be decided by a reasonable estimate of the degree
in which the importation would take place in spite of the
spirit of the times, the increasing co-operation of foreign
powers against the slave trade, the increasing rigor of the
Acts of Congress, and the vigilant enforcement of them
by the Executive; and by a fair comparison of this estimate
with the considerations opposed to such an occlusion.
Will a multiplication of States holding slaves multiply
advocates of the importation of foreign slaves,
so as to endanger the continuance
of the prohibitory Acts of Congress?
To such an apprehension seem to be opposed the facts,
that the States holding fewest slaves are those
which most readily abolished slavery altogether;
that of the 13 primitive States, Eleven had prohibited the
importation before the power was given to Congress:
that all of them with the newly added States
unanimously concurred in exerting that power:
that most of the present slaveholding States cannot
be tempted by motives of interest to favor the
re-opening of the ports to foreign slaves;
and that these with the States which have even abolished
slavery within themselves could never be outnumbered in
the National Councils by new States wishing for slaves, and
not Satisfied with the supply attainable within the U. S.
On the whole the Missouri question, as a constitutional
one, amounts to the question, whether the condition
proposed to be annexed to the admission of Missouri would
or would not be void in itself, or become void the moment
the territory should enter as a State within the pale of the
Constitution: And as a question of expediency & humanity,
it depends essentially on the probable influence of such
restrictions on the quantity & duration of slavery,
and on the general condition of slaves in the U. S.
The question raised with regard to the tenor of the
stipulation in the Louisiana Treaty on the subject of its
admission is one which I have not examined, and
on which I could probably throw no light if I had.
Under one aspect of the general subject,
I cannot avoid saying that apart from its merits
under others, the tendency of what has passed
and is passing, fills me with no slight anxiety.
Parties under some denominations or other must
always be expected in a Government as free as ours.
When the individuals belonging to them are intermingled
in every part of the whole Country, they strengthen
the union of the Whole while they divide every part.
Should a State of parties arise, founded on
geographical boundaries and other physical &
permanent distinctions which happen to coincide
with them, what is to control those great repulsive
Masses from awful shocks against each other?
The delay in answering your letter made me fear you
might doubt my readiness to comply with its requests.
I now fear you will think I have
done more than these justified.
I have been the less reserved because you are so ready
to conform to my inclination formerly expressed, not to
be drawn from my sequestered position into public view.
Since I thanked you for the copy of your late volume,
I have had the pleasure of going through it:
and I should have been much disappointed
if it had been received by the public with less
favor than is everywhere manifested.
According to all accounts from the Continent of Europe,
the American character has suffered much there
by libels conveyed by British Prints
or circulated by itinerant Calumniators.
It is to be hoped the truths in your
work may find their way thither.
Good translations of the Preface alone could not
but open many eyes which have been blinded
by prejudices against this Country.5
On 10 February 1820 James Madison wrote this letter
to President James Monroe:
I have duly received your favor of the 5th
followed by a copy of the public documents;
for which I give you many thanks.
I should like to get a copy of the Journals of the Convention.
Are they to be purchased & where?
It appears to me, as it does to you, that a coupling
of Missouri with Maine in order to force the entrance
of the former through the door voluntarily opened for
the latter is, to say the least, a very doubtful policy.
Those who regard the claims of both as similar & equal,
and distrust the views of such as wish to disjoin them,
may be strongly tempted to resort to the expedient;
and it would perhaps be too much to say, that in
no possible case such a resort could be justified.
But it may at least be said, that a very peculiar
case only could supersede the general policy
of a direct and magnanimous course, appealing
to the justice and liberality of others, and trusting
to the influence of conciliatory example.
I find the idea is fast spreading that the zeal with which
the extension, so called, of slavery is opposed, has with the
coalesced leaders an object very different from the welfare
of the slaves or the check to their increase; and that the
real object is, as you intimate, to form a new State of
parties founded on local instead of political distinctions;
thereby dividing the republicans of the North from those
of the South, and making the former instrumental in giving
the opponents of both an ascendancy over the whole.
If this be the view of the subject at Washington,
it furnishes an additional reason for a
conciliatory proceeding in relation to Maine.
I have been truly astonished at some of the doctrines
& declarations to which the Missouri question has led;
and particularly so at the interpretations
of the terms “migration or importation &c.”
Judging from my own impressions, I should deem it
impossible that the memory of any one who was a
Member of the General Convention could favor an
opinion that the terms did not then exclusively
refer to migration & importation into the U. S.
Had they been understood in that Body in the sense
now put on them, it is easy to conceive the alienation
they would have there created in certain States.
And no one can decide better than yourself, the effect they
would have had on State Conventions, if such a meaning
had been avowed by the advocates of the Constitution.
If a suspicion had existed of such a construction,
it would at least have made a conspicuous figure
among the Amendments proposed to the Instrument.
I have observed as yet, in none of the views taken of
the ordinance of 1787 interdicting slavery North West of the
Ohio, an allusion to the circumstance, that when it passed,
the Congress had no authority to prohibit the importation
of slaves from abroad; that all the States had, and some
were in the full exercise of, the right to import them;
and consequently, that there was no mode in which
Congress could check the evil, but the indirect one of
narrowing the space open for the reception of slaves.
Had the federal authority then existed to prohibit directly
& totally the importation from abroad, can it be doubted
that it would have been exerted, and that a regulation
having merely the effect of preventing an interior dispersion
of slaves actually in the U. S. and creating a distinction
among the States in the degrees of their sovereignty,
would not have been adopted? or perhaps thought of?
No folly in the Spanish Government
can now create surprise.
I wish you happily through the thorny
circumstances it throws in your way.6
On 23 February 1833 Madison wrote about
the slave system in a letter to Thomas R. Dew:
I received in due time your letter of the 15th Ult.
with the copies of the two pamphlets; one on the
“Restrictive system;” the other on the “Slave question.”
The former I have not yet been able to look into;
and in reading the latter with the proper attention
I have been much retarded by many interruptions
as well as by the feebleness incident to my great
age increased as it is by the effects of an acute
fever, preceded & followed by a Chronic
complaint under which I am still laboring.
This explanation of the delay in acknowledging
your favor will be an apology also for the
brevity & generality of the answer.
For the freedom of it, none I am sure will be required.
In the views of the subject taken in the pamphlet, I have
found much valuable & interesting information; with ample
proof of the numerous obstacles to a removal of Slavery
from our Country, and everything that could be offered in
mitigation of its continuance; But I am obliged to say that
in not a few of the data from which you reason, and in
the conclusion to which you are led, I cannot concur.
I am aware of the impracticability of an
immediate or early execution of any plan that
combines deportation with emancipation; and of the
inadmissibility of emancipation without deportation.
But I have yielded to the expediency of attempting a
gradual remedy by providing for the double operation.
If emancipation was the sole object, the extinguishment
of slavery would be easy, cheap & complete.
The purchase by the public of all female children
at their birth, leaving them in bondage, till it
would defray the charge of rearing them would
within a limited period be a radical resort.
With the condition of deportation it has appeared to me,
that the great difficulty does not lie either in the expense
of emancipation or in the expense or the means
of deportation, but in the attainment
1. of the requisite asylums,
2. the consent of the individuals to be removed,
3. the labor for the vacuum to be created.
With regard to the expense,
1. much will be saved by voluntary emancipations,
increasing under the influence of example,
and the prospect of bettering the lot of the slaves,
2. Much may be expected in gifts & legacies from the
opulent, the philanthropic and the conscientious,
3. More still from Legislative grants by the States, of which
encouraging examples & indications have already appeared,
4. Nor is there any room for despair
of aid from the indirect or direct proceeds
of the public lands held in trust by Congress.
With a sufficiency of pecuniary means, the facility
of providing a naval transportation of the exiles is
shown by the present amount of our tonnage,
and the promptitude with which it can be enlarged
by the number of emigrants brought from Europe to
North America within the last year; and by the greater
number of slaves, which have been within single years
brought from the Coast of Africa across the Atlantic.
In the attainment of adequate Asylums,
the difficulty though it may be considerable,
is far from being discouraging.
Africa is justly the favorite choice of the patrons of
colonization; and the prospect there is flattering,
1. in the territory already acquired,
2. in the extent of Coast yet to be explored
and which may be equally convenient,
3. the adjacent interior into which the littoral
settlements can be expanded under the auspices
of physical affinities between the new comers & the
natives, and of the moral superiorities of the former,
4. the great inland Regions now ascertained
to be accessible by navigable waters &
opening new fields for colonizing enterprises.
But Africa, though the primary, is not
the sole asylum within contemplation.
An auxiliary one presents itself in the islands adjoining
this Continent where the colored population is already
dominant, and where the wheel of revolution may
from time to time produce the like result.
Nor ought another contingent receptacle for
emancipated slaves to be altogether overlooked.
It exists within the territory under the control of the U. S.,
and is not too distant to be out of reach, while sufficiently
distant to avoid for an indefinite period, the collisions to be
apprehended from the vicinity of people distinguished from
each other by physical as well as other characteristics.
The consent of the individuals is another
prerequisite in the plan of removal.
At present there is a known repugnance in those already in
a state of freedom to leave their native homes; among the
slaves there is an almost universal preference of their
present condition to freedom in a distant & unknown land.
But in both classes, particularly that of the Slaves, the
prejudices arise from a distrust of the favorable
accounts coming to them through white channels.
By degrees truth will find its way to them from
sources in which they will confide, and their
aversion to removal be overcome as fast as
the means of effectuating it shall accrue.
The difficulty of replacing the labor withdrawn
by removal of the slaves seems to be urged as
of itself an insuperable objection to the attempt—
The answer to it is,
1. that notwithstanding the emigration of the whites,
there will be an annual & by degrees an
increasing surplus of the remaining mass,
2. That there will be an attraction of whites from without,
increasing with the demand, and as the population
elsewhere will be yielding a surplus to be attracted,
3. that as the culture of Tobacco declines with the
contraction of the space, within which it is profitable,
& still more from the successful competition in the
west, and as the farming system takes place of
the planting, a portion of labor can be spared
without impairing the requisite Stock,
4. that although the process must be slow, be attended
with much inconvenience, and be not even certain in its
result, is it not preferable to an acquiescence in a
perpetuation of slavery, or an extinguishment of it
by convulsions more disastrous in their character
& consequences than slavery itself.
In my estimate of the experiment instituted
by the Colonialization Society I may indulge
too much my wishes & hopes, to be safe from error.
But a partial success will have its value, and an
entire failure will leave behind a consciousness
of the laudable intentions with which relief from
the greatest of our calamities was attempted in
the only mode presenting a chance of effecting it.
I hope I shall be pardoned for remarking that in
accounting for the past depressed condition of Virginia,
you seem to allow too little to the existence of slavery;
ascribe too much to the tariff laws; and not to have
sufficiently taken into view the effect of the rapid
settlement of the West & South West Country.
Previous to the Revolution, when, of these causes
slavery alone was in operation, the face of Virginia
was in every feature of improvement & prosperity,
a contrast to the Colonies where slavery did not exist,
or in a degree only, not worthy of notice.
Again, during the period of the tariff laws prior
to the latter State of them, the pressure was little
if at all regarded as a source of the general suffering.
And whatever be the degree in which the extravagant
augmentations of the Tariff may have contributed
to the deprivation the extent of which cannot be
explained by the extent of the Cause.
The great & adequate cause of the evil is the
cause last mentioned: if that be indeed an evil
which adds more to the growth & prosperity of
the whole than it subtracts from a part of the community.
Nothing is more certain than that the actual & prospective
depression of Virginia, is to be referred to the fall in the
value of her landed property, and in that of the staple
products of the land, and it is not less certain that the fall
in both cases, is the inevitable effect of the redundancy
in the market both of land and its products.
The vast amount of fertile land offered at 125 Cents
per acre in the West & South West could not fail to
have the effect already experienced of reducing the
land here to half its value; and when the labor that
will here produce one Hhd. of Tobacco and ten barrels
of flour, will there produce two Hhds. and twenty barrels,
now so cheaply transportable to the destined outlets,
a like effect on these articles must necessarily ensue.
Already more Tobacco is sent to New Orleans,
than is exported from Virginia to foreign markets.
While the Article of flour exceeding for the most part
the demand for it, is in a course of rapid increase
from new sources as boundless as they are productive.
The great Staples of Virginia have but a
limited market which is easily glutted.
They have in fact, sunk more in price,
and have a more threatening prospect, than
the more Southern Staples of Cotton & Rice.
The case is believed to be the same
with her landed property.
That it is so with her Slaves is proved by the
purchases made here for the markets there.
The reflections suggested by this aspect of things
will be more appropriate in your hands than in mine.
They are also beyond the tether of my subject;
which I fear I have already overstrained.7
Notes
1. The Papers of James Madison: Retirement Series, Volume 1 4 March 1817
31 January 1820, p. 427-431.
2. Ibid., p. 487-489.
3. Ibid., p. 504-505.
4. Ibid., p. 468-472.
5. Writings by James Madison, p. 737-745.
6. Ibid., p. 771-772.
7. James Madison to Thomas R. Dew 23 Feb. 1833 (Online).