ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION
Madison's labors for the Constitution did not cease when the convention
adjourned, although he was not at that moment in a hopeful frame of mind
in regard to it. Within a week of the adjournment he wrote to Jefferson:
"I hazard an opinion that the plan, should it be adopted, will neither
effectually answer its national object, nor prevent the local mischiefs
which excite disgusts against the state governments."
But this feeling seems to have soon passed away. Perhaps, when he
devoted himself to a careful study of what had been done, he saw, in
looking at it as a whole, how just and true it was in its fair
proportions. He now diligently sought to prove how certainly the
Constitution would answer its purpose; how wisely all its parts were
adjusted; how successfully the obstacles to a perfect union of the
States had been, as he thought, overcome; how carefully the rights of
the separate States had been guarded, while the needed general
government would be secured. Whether there should be an American nation
or not depended, as he had believed for years, upon whether a national
Constitution could be agreed upon. Now that it was framed he believed
that upon its adoption depended whether there should be, or should not
be, a nation. In September, as he wrote to Jefferson, he was in doubt;
in February he wrote to Pendleton: "I have for some time been persuaded
that the question on which the proposed Constitution must turn is the
simple one, whether the Union shall or shall not be continued. There is,
in my opinion, no middle ground to be taken."
Those who would have called a second convention to revise the labors of
the first had no sympathy from him. He not only doubted if the work
could be done so well again; he doubted if it could be done at all. With
him, it was this Constitution or none. "Every man," he said in "The
Federalist," referring to a picture he had just drawn of the perils of
disunion,--"every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country,
every man who loves liberty, ought to have it ever before his eyes, that
he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America,
and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving it." This
"means" was the Constitution.
Of the eighty papers of "The Federalist" he wrote twenty-nine; Hamilton
writing forty-six, and Jay only five. These famous essays, of wider
repute than any other American book, are yet more generally accepted
upon faith than upon knowledge. But at that time, when the new
Constitution was in the mind and on the tongue of every thoughtful man,
they were eagerly read as they followed each other rapidly in the
columns of a New York newspaper. They were an armory, wherein all who
entered into the controversy could find such weapons as they could best
handle. What governments had been, what governments ought to be, and
what the political union of these American States would be under their
new Constitution, were questions on which the writers of these papers
undertook to answer all reasonable inquiries, and to silence all cavils.
Madison would undoubtedly have written more than his two fifths of them,
had he not been called upon early in March to return to Virginia; for
the work was of the deepest interest to him, and the popularity of the
papers would have stimulated to exertion one as indolent as he was
industrious.
But the canvass for the election of delegates to the Constitutional
Convention of Virginia called him home. He had been nominated as the
representative of his county, and his friends had urged him to return
before the election, for there was reason to fear that the majority was
on the wrong side. Henry, Mason, Randolph, Lee, and others among the
most influential men of Virginia, were opposed to the Constitution.
There must be somebody in the convention to meet strong men like these,
and Madison was urged to take the stump and canvass for his own
election. Even this he was willing to do at this crisis, if need be,
though he said it would be at the sacrifice of every private
inclination, and of the rule which hitherto from the beginning of his
public career he had strictly adhered to,--never to ask, directly or
indirectly, for votes for himself.
It is quite possible, even quite probable, that Mr. Madison had little
of that gift which has always passed for eloquence, and is, indeed,
eloquence of a certain kind. If we may trust the reports of his
contemporaries, though he wanted some of the graces of oratory, he was
not wanting in the power of winning and convincing. His arguments were
often, if not always, prepared with care. If there was no play of fancy,
there was no forgetfulness of facts. If there was lack of imagination,
there was none of historical illustration, when the subject admitted it.
If manner was forgotten, method was not. His aim was to prove and to
hold fast; to make the wrong clear, and to put the right in its place;
to appeal to reason, not to passion, nor to prejudice; to try his cause
by the light of clear logic, hard facts, and sound learning; to convince
his hearers of the truth, as he believed in it, not to take their
judgment captive by surprise with harmonious modulation and grace of
movement. Not his neighbors only, but the most zealous of the
Federalists of the State, sent him to the convention. It was there that
such eloquence as he possessed was peculiarly needed. The ground was to
be fought over inch by inch, and with antagonists whom it would be
difficult, if not impossible, to beat. There was to be contest over
every word of the Constitution from its first to its last. "Give me
leave," cried Patrick Henry in his opening speech, "to demand what right
had they to say 'We the people' instead of 'We the States'?" He began at
the beginning. It was the gage of the coming battle; the defenders were
challenged to show that any better union than that already in existence
was needed, and that in this new Constitution a better union was
furnished.
As month after month passed away while the Constitution was before the
people for adoption, the anxiety of the Federalists grew, lest the
requisite nine States should not give their assent. But when eight were
secured there was room to hope even for unanimity, if Virginia should
come in as the ninth. Should she say Yes, the Union might be perfect;
for the remaining States would be almost sure to follow her lead. But
should she say No, the final result would be doubtful, even if the
requisite nine should be secured by the acquiescence of one of the
smaller States. This answer could not, of course, depend altogether upon
one man, but it did depend more upon Madison than upon anybody else.
The convention was in session nearly a month. At the end of a fortnight
he was not hopeful. "The business," he wrote to Washington, "is in the
most ticklish state that can be imagined. The majority will certainly be
very small, on whatever side it may finally lie; and I dare not
encourage much expectation that it will be on the favorable side." But
his fears stimulated rather than discouraged him. He was always on his
feet; always ready to meet argument with argument; always prompt to
appeal from passion to reason; quick to brush aside mere declamation,
and to bring the minds of his hearers back to a calm consideration of
how much was at stake, and of the weight of the responsibility resting
on that convention. Others were no less earnest and diligent than he;
but he was easily chief, and the burden and heat of the day fell mainly
upon him. Probably when the convention assembled the majority were
opposed to the Constitution; but its adoption was carried at last by a
vote of eighty-nine to seventy-nine. Thenceforth opposition in the
remaining States was hopeless.
New Hampshire--though the fact was not known in Virginia--preceded that
State by a few days in accepting the Constitution, so that the requisite
nine were secured before the convention at Richmond came to a decision.
But it was her decision, nevertheless, that really settled, so far as
can be seen now, the question of a permanent Union. Had the vote of
Virginia been the other way it is not likely that Hamilton would have
carried New York, or that North Carolina and Rhode Island would have
finally decided not to be left in solitude outside. What the history of
the nine united States only, with four disunited States among them,
might have been, it is impossible to know, and quite useless to
conjecture. The conditions which some of the States attached to the act
of adoption, the addition of a Bill of Rights, proposed amendments to
the Constitution, and the suggestion of submitting it to a second
convention, were matters of comparatively little moment, when the
majority of ten delegates was secured at Richmond. These were questions
that could be postponed. "The delay of a few years," Madison wrote to
Jefferson, "will assuage the jealousies which have been artificially
created by designing men, and will at the same time point out the faults
which call for amendment."
Immediately after the adjournment of the Richmond Convention he returned
to New York, where the confederate Congress was still in session. That
body had little to do now but decide upon the time and place of the
inauguration of the new government. Madison had entered upon his
thirty-eighth year, and we get an interesting glimpse of him as he
appeared at this time of his life to an intelligent foreigner. "Mr.
Warville Brissot has just arrived here," he wrote to Jefferson in
August, 1788. This was Brissot de Warville, a Frenchman of the new
philosophy,--whose head, nevertheless, his compatriots cut off a few
years later,--then traveling in America to observe the condition and
progress of the new republic. His tour extended to nearly all the
States; he met with most of the distinguished men of the country; and he
made a careful and intelligent use of his many opportunities for
observation. On his return to France he wrote an entertaining
volume,--"New Travels in the United States of America,"--still to be
found in some old libraries. What he says of Madison is worth repeating,
not only for the impression he made upon an observant stranger, but as
the evidence of the contemporary estimate of his character and
reputation, which De Warville must have gathered from others.
"The name of Madison," he writes, "celebrated in America, is well
known in Europe by the merited eulogium made of him by his
countryman and friend, Mr. Jefferson.
"Though still young, he has rendered the greatest services to
Virginia, to the American Confederation, and to liberty and
humanity in general. He contributed much, with Mr. White, in
reforming the civil and criminal codes of his country. He
distinguished himself particularly in the convention for the
acceptation of the new federal system. Virginia balanced a long
time in adhering to it. Mr. Madison determined to it the members of
the convention by his eloquence and logic. This republican appears
to be about thirty-eight years of age. He had, when I saw him, an
air of fatigue; perhaps it was the effect of the immense labors to
which he has devoted himself for some time past. His look announces
a censor, his conversation discovers the man of learning, and his
reserve was that of a man conscious of his talents and of his
duties.
"During the dinner, to which he invited me, they spoke of the
refusal of North Carolina to accede to the new Constitution. The
majority against it was one hundred. Mr. Madison believed that this
refusal would have no weight on the minds of the Americans, and
that it would not impede the operations of Congress. I told him
that though this refusal might be regarded as a trifle in America,
it would have great weight in Europe; that they would never inquire
there into the motives which dictated it, nor consider the small
consequence of this State in the confederation; that it would be
regarded as a germ of division, calculated to retard the operations
of Congress; and that certainly this idea would prevent the
resurrection of American credit.
"Mr. Madison attributed this refusal to the attachment of a great
part of the inhabitants of that State to their paper money and
their tender act. He was much inclined to believe that this
disposition would not remain a long time."
In October the Virginia Assembly met. Two thirds of its members were
opposed to the new Constitution, and at their head was Patrick Henry,
his zeal against it not in the least abated because he had been defeated
in the late convention. The acceptance of the Constitution by that
representative body could not be recalled. But the Assembly could, at
least, protest against it, and was led by Henry to call upon Congress to
convene a second national convention to do over again the work of the
first. The legislature was to elect senators for the first Senate under
the new government; and it was also to divide the State into districts
for its representation in the lower house of Congress. In ordinary
fairness, as the State had, in a popular convention, so recently
accepted the Constitution, the party then in the majority was entitled
to at least one of the representatives in the Senate. But Henry
nominated both, and could command votes enough to elect them. In modern
party usage this would seem quite unobjectionable; indeed, a modern
politician who should not use such an advantage for his party would be
considered as unfit for practical politics. But a hundred years ago it
was thought sharp practice, and a fair proportion of Henry's partisans
refused to be bound by it. One of Henry's nominees was elected by a
majority of twenty over Madison; but in the case of the other that
majority was reduced more than half, and a change of five more votes
would have elected Madison.
He had, however, neither expected nor wished to be sent to the Senate,
while he did hope to be elected to the House of Representatives. The
Senate was intended to be the more dignified body, requiring in its
members a certain style of living for which wealth was indispensable.
Madison had not the means to give that kind of social support to
official position; but he could afford to belong to that body where a
member was not the less respectable because his whole domestic
establishment might be a bachelor's room in a boarding-house.
Virginia was, as he wrote to Washington, "the only instance among the
ratifying States in which the politics of the legislature are at
variance with the sense of the people, expressed by their
representatives in convention." This had enabled Henry and a majority
of his friends to elect senators who, representing "the politics of the
legislature," did not represent "the sense of the people" in regard to
the national Constitution. But in the election of members of the House
of Representatives, the sense of the people was to be again appealed to,
and a new way must be devised for asserting the supremacy of legislative
power. The cleverness of Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, many years
later, under similar circumstances, introduced a new word into the
language of the country, and, it was supposed at the time, a new device
in American politics. But what has since been known as "Gerrymandering"
was really the invention of Patrick Henry. This method of arranging
counties into congressional districts in accordance with their political
affinities, without regard to their geographical lines, Henry attempted
to do with Mr. Madison's own county. By joining it to distant counties
it was expected that an anti-Federal majority would be secured large
enough to insure his defeat. The attempt to elect him to the Senate was,
Madison wrote to Jefferson, "defeated by Mr. Henry, who is omnipotent in
the present legislature." He adds that Henry "has taken equal pains, in
forming the counties into districts for the election of representatives,
to associate with Orange such as are most devoted to his politics, and
most likely to be swayed by the prejudices excited against me." The
scheme, however, was unsuccessful, perhaps partly because of the
indignation which so dishonorable a measure to defeat a political
opponent excited throughout the State. Madison entered upon an active
canvass of his district against James Monroe, who had been nominated as
a moderate anti-Federalist, and defeated him. It was winter time, and in
the exposure of some of his long rides his ears were frozen. In later
life he sometimes laughingly pointed to the scars of these wounds
received, he said, in the service of his country.
Thus Henry's "Gerrymander," like many another useful and curious device,
brought neither profit nor credit to the original inventor. Had Henry
acted in the broader spirit of the modern politician, who sees that he
serves himself best who serves his party best, he would have disposed of
every Federal county in the State as he disposed of Orange. As it was,
he only aroused a good deal of indignation and defeated himself by
openly aiming to gratify his personal resentments. Had he scattered his
shot for the general good of the party, he would, perhaps, have brought
down his particular bird.