[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE RECORDS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL
CONVENTION.
James Madison's contemporaries generally conceded that he was the
leading statesman in the convention which framed the Constitution of
the United States; but in addition to this he kept a record of the
proceedings of the convention which outranks in importance all the
other writings of the founders of the American Republic. He is thus
identified, as no other man is, with the making of the Constitution
and the correct interpretation of the intentions of the makers. His is
the only continuous record of the proceedings of the convention. He
took a seat immediately in front of the presiding officer, among the
members, and took down every speech or motion as it was made, using
abbreviations of his own and immediately afterwards transcribing his
notes when he returned to his lodgings. A few motions only escaped him
and of important speeches he omitted none. The proceedings were ordered
to be kept secret, but his self-imposed task of reporter had the
unofficial sanction of the convention. Alexander Hamilton corrected
slightly Madison's report of his great speech and handed him his plan of
government to copy. The same thing was done with Benjamin Franklin's
speeches, which were written out by Franklin and read by his colleague
Wilson, the fatigue of delivery being too great for the aged Franklin,
and Madison also copied the Patterson plan. Edmund Randolph wrote out
for him his opening speech from his notes two years after the convention
adjourned.[1]
[1] Madison to Randolph, April 21, 1789.
In the years after the convention Madison made a few alterations and
additions in his journal, with the result that in parts there is much
interlineation and erasure, but after patient study the meaning is
always perfectly clear. Three different styles of Madison's own
penmanship at different periods of his life appear in the journal,
one being that of his old age within five years of his death. In
this hand appears the following note at the end of the journal:
"The few alterations and corrections made in the debates which are
not in my handwriting were dictated by me and made in my presence
by John C. Payne."[2] The rare occasions where Payne's penmanship is
distinguishable are indicated in the notes to this edition.
[2] Mrs. Madison's brother.
The importance attached by Madison to his record is shown by the terms
of his will, dated April 15, 1835, fourteen months before his death:
"I give all my personal estate ornamental as well as useful,
except as herein after otherwise given, to my dear Wife; and
I also give to her all my manuscript papers, having entire
confidence in her discreet and proper use of them, but subject
to the qualification in the succeeding clause. Considering the
peculiarity and magnitude of the occasion which produced the
Convention at Philadelphia in 1787, the Characters who composed
it, the Constitution which resulted from their deliberations,
its effects during a trial of so many years on the prosperity of
the people living under it, and the interest it has inspired
among the friends of free Government, it is not an unreasonable
inference that a careful and extended report of the proceedings
and discussions of that body, which were with closed doors, by a
member who was constant in his attendance, will be particularly
gratifying to the people of the United States, and to all who
take an interest in the progress of political science and the
course of true liberty. It is my desire that the Report as made
by me should be published under her authority and direction."[3]
[3] Orange County, Va., MSS. records.
This desire was never consummated, for Mrs. Madison's friends advised
her that she could not herself profitably undertake the publication of
the work, and she accordingly offered it to the Government, by which it
was bought for $30,000, by act of Congress, approved March 3, 1837. On
July 9, 1838, an act was approved authorizing the Joint Committee on the
Library to cause the papers thus purchased to be published, and the
Committee intrusted the superintendence of the work to Henry D. Gilpin,
Solicitor of the Treasury. The duplicate copy of the journal which Mrs.
Madison had delivered was, under authority of Congress, withdrawn from
the State Department and placed in Mr. Gilpin's hands. In 1840
(Washington: Lantree & O'Sulivan), accordingly, appeared the three
volumes, _The Papers of James Madison Purchased by Order of Congress_,
edited by Henry D. Gilpin. Other issues of this edition, with changes of
date, came out later in New York, Boston, and Mobile. This issue
contained not only the journal of the Constitutional Convention, but
Madison's notes of the debates in the Continental Congress and in the
Congress of the Confederation from February 19 to April 25, 1787, and a
report Jefferson had written of the debates in 1776 on the Declaration
of Independence, besides a number of letters of Madison's. From the text
of Gilpin a fifth volume was added to Elliot's _Debates_ in 1845, and it
was printed in one volume in Chicago, 1893.
Mr. Gilpin's reading of the duplicate copy of the Madison journal is
thus the only one that has hitherto been published.[4] His work was both
painstaking and thorough, but many inaccuracies and omissions have been
revealed by a second reading from the original manuscript journal
written in Madison's own hand, just as he himself left it; and this
original manuscript has been followed with rigid accuracy in the text of
the present edition.
[4] Volume iii of _The Documentary History of the United States_
(Department of State, 1894) is a presentation of a literal
print of the original journal, indicating by the use
of larger and smaller type and by explanatory words the
portions which are interlined or stricken out.
The editor has compared carefully with Madison's report, as the notes
will show, the incomplete and less important records of the convention,
kept by others. Of these, the best known is that of Robert Yates, a
delegate in the convention from New York, who took notes from the time
he entered the convention, May 25, to July 5, when he went home to
oppose what he foresaw would be the result of the convention's labors.
These notes were published in 1821 (Albany), edited by Yates's colleague
in the convention, John Lansing, under the title, _Secret Proceedings
and Debates of the Convention Assembled at Philadelphia, in the Year
1787, for the Purpose of Forming the Constitution of the United States
of America_. This was afterwards reprinted in several editions and in
the three editions of _The Debates on the Federal Constitution_, by
Jonathan Elliot (Washington, 1827-1836). Madison pronounced Yates's
notes "Crude and broken." "When I looked over them some years ago," he
wrote to J. C. Cabell, February 2, 1829, "I was struck with the number
of instances in which he had totally mistaken what was said by me, or
given it in scraps and terms which, taken without the developments or
qualifications accompanying them, had an import essentially different
from what was intended." Yates's notes were colored by his prejudices,
which were strong against the leaders of the convention, but, making
allowance for this and for their incompleteness, they are of high value
and rank next to Madison's in importance.
Rufus King, a delegate from Massachusetts, kept a number of notes,
scattered and imperfect, which were not published till 1894, when they
appeared in King's _Life and Correspondence of Rufus King_ (New York:
Putnam's).
William Pierce, a delegate from Georgia, made some memoranda of the
proceedings of the convention, and brief and interesting sketches of all
the delegates, which were first printed in _The Savannah Georgian_,
April, 18-28, 1828, and reprinted in _The American Historical Review_
for January, 1898.
The notes of Yates, King, and Pierce are the only unofficial record of
the convention extant, besides Madison's, and their chief value is in
connection with the Madison record, which in the main they support, and
which occasionally they elucidate.
December 30, 1818, Charles Pinckney wrote to John Quincy Adams that he
had made more notes of the convention than any other member except
Madison, but they were never published and have been lost or
destroyed.[5]
[5] See p. 22, n.
In 1819 (Boston) was published the _Journal, Acts and Proceedings of the
Convention_, etc., under the supervision of John Quincy Adams, Secretary
of State, by authority of a joint resolution of Congress of March 27,
1818. This was the official journal of the convention, which the
Secretary, William Jackson, had turned over to the President, George
Washington, when the convention adjourned, Jackson having previously
burned all other papers of the convention in his possession. March 16,
1796, Washington deposited the papers Jackson had given him with the
Secretary of State, Timothy Pickering. They consisted of three
volumes,--the journal of the convention, the journal of the proceedings
of the Committee of the Whole of the convention, and a list of yeas and
nays, beside a printed draft of the Constitution as reported August 6th,
showing erasures and amendments afterwards adopted, and the Virginia
plan in different stages of development.
In preparing the matter for publication Secretary Adams found that for
Friday, September 14, and Saturday, September 15, the journal was a mere
fragment, and Madison was applied to and completed it from his minutes.
From General B. Bloomfield, executor of the estate of David Brearley, a
delegate in the convention from New Jersey, Adams obtained a few
additional papers, and from Charles Pinckney a copy of what purported to
be the plan of a constitution submitted by him to the convention. All of
these papers, with some others, appeared in the edition of 1819, which
was a singularly accurate publication, as comparison by the present
editor of the printed page with the original papers has shown.
The Pinckney plan, as it appeared in this edition of the journal, was
incorporated by Madison into his record, as he had not secured a copy of
it when the convention was sitting. But the draft furnished to Secretary
Adams in 1818, and the plan presented by Pinckney to the convention in
1787 were not identical, as Madison conclusively proved in his note to
his journal, in his letter to Jared Sparks of November 25, 1831, and in
several other letters, in all of which he showed that the draft did not
agree in several important respects with Pinckney's own votes and
motions in the convention, and that there were important discrepancies
between it and Pinckney's _Observations on the Plan of Government_, a
pamphlet printed shortly after the convention adjourned.[6]
[6] See P. L. Ford's _Pamphlets on the Constitution_, 419.
It is, indeed, inconceivable that the convention should have
incorporated into the constitution so many of the provisions of the
Pinckney draft, and that at the same time so little reference should
have been made to it in the course of the debates; and it is equally
extraordinary that the contemporaries of Pinckney did not accord to him
the chief paternity of the Constitution, which honor would have belonged
to him if the draft he sent to Mr. Adams in 1818 had been the one he
actually offered the convention in the first week of its session. The
editor has made a careful examination of the original manuscripts in the
case. They consist (1) of Mr. Pinckney's letter to Mr. Adams of December
12, 1818, written from Winyaw, S. C., while Pinckney was temporarily
absent from Charleston, acknowledging Mr. Adams's request for the draft,
(2) his letter of December 30, written from Charleston, transmitting the
draft, and (3) the draft. The penmanship of all three papers is
contemporaneous, and the letter of December 30 and the draft were
written with the same pen and ink. This may possibly admit of a
difference of opinion, because the draft is in a somewhat larger
chirography than the letter, having been, as befitted its importance,
written more carefully. But the letter and the draft are written upon
the same paper, and this paper was not made when the convention sat in
1787. There are several sheets of the draft and one of the letter, and
all bear the same water-mark--"Russell & Co. 1797." The draft cannot,
therefore, claim to be the original Pinckney plan, and was palpably made
for the occasion, from Mr. Pinckney's original notes doubtless, aided
and modified by a copy of the Constitution itself. Thirty years had
elapsed since the close of the Constitutional Convention when the draft
was compiled, and its incorrectness is not a circumstance to occasion
great wonder.[7]
[7] See p. 19, n.
Correspondence on the subject of the convention, written while it was in
session, was not extensive, but some unpublished letters throwing light
upon contemporaneous opinion have been found and are quoted in the
notes.
The editor desires to record his obligation for assistance in preparing
these volumes to his friend, Montgomery Blair, Esq., of Silver Spring,
Md.