4651William W. Wilkins to Dolley Payne Todd, 22 August 1794 (Madison Papers)
I will not delay a Moment my ever dear and valued friend to reply to your last interresting Epistle. Flattered as I am by your Condecension in consulting me on this important Occasion and truly and disinterestedly solicitous for your Welfare—the Task I undertake is far from being a painful one. As your friend I feel not the least Hesitation in forming my Opinion—ought I then to feel any...
4652To James Madison from Hugh Williamson, 24 May 1789 (Madison Papers)
We are told that Genl Person the bell Weather of Opposition in this State continues indefatigable in his Endeavours to preserve the Spirit of Antifederalism in the State. Our Judges, two of them at least, there are three, continue most malignant anti’s. They seem to think that the new Court will cast a Shade on them. Whether the constitution will or will not be adopted by the next Convention...
4653To James Madison from Hugh Williamson, 2 July 1789 (Madison Papers)
The Post Master at Peters burg informed me on this Day Week that a Letter in your Hand for me had but two days before that passed through his Hands. I verily believe that unless you can persuade Congress seriously to take up & agree to some such Amendmts as you have proposed North Carolina will not confederate but of this more particulars when I have the Pleasure of seeing you which I hope...
4654To James Madison from Hugh Williamson, 2 June 1788 (Madison Papers)
By the Time this comes to Hand you will be pretty well engaged in discussing the new Constitution & attempting to convince men who came forward with the Resolution not to be convinced. Of all the wrong heads who have started in opposition none have been mentioned who appear to be so palpably wrong as the People of Kentucke. It is said that some antifed in Maryland on the last Winter fastened...
4655To James Madison from Hugh Williamson, 19 May 1789 (Madison Papers)
At Baltimore & Norfolk and wherever I touched since I left New York I have heard Complaints that Molasses was to be taxed six Cents. This is what I did not expect in southern States, but they say that Molasses is a necessary Part of food for the Poor. In Virginia the Complaints I have heard are very loud that the Vessels of Foreigners not treating are only taxed 50 Cents. This trifling Tax...
4656To James Madison from Hugh Williamson, 21 May 1789 (Madison Papers)
I am just informed by Govr Johnston that a Treaty is to be held on the 24th Inst at french Broad by the Indian Agent for the southern Departmt & the three Commissioners from the States of Georgia South Carolina & North Carolina. That Sevier lately called Governor of an insurgented State has submitted to the Govt of North Carolina and taken the accustomed Oaths. There is an End to the new, so...
4657To James Madison from John Wilson, 28 June 1790 (Madison Papers)
It is now nearly two Months since I addressed a Petition to the Hon’ble House Representatives in Congress Assembled; praying that the Hon’ble House would be pleased to consider my situation as an Invalied and grant me relief in the premises. I would not wish to trouble you Sir, with a detail of my Losses & Expences that I sustained since the period of my being wounded and during of my Illness...
4658To James Madison from John Winston, 23 February 1791 (Madison Papers)
At the request of Mr. Thomas Wash one of your Constituents (who informs me that he has a claim against the united States for services during the late war) I take the liberty of informing you that Mr. Wash is a Man whom I am acquainted with, and know also that he acted in the Commissary’s department in the late war. He is also one whom I am perswaded would not exhibit any account against the...
4659To James Madison from John Witherspoon, 20 May 1790 (Madison Papers)
I have just received a Letter on a very singular Subject which I will not write but inform You of at our first Meeting. It comes from a Clergy man of Nova Scotia of the Episcopal or roman catholic Church (for he does not say which) altogether unknown to me & contains a packet directed to a Mr Sterling Pleasant Mercht in Mecklenburg County Virginia with whom he says he is informed I am in...
4660To James Madison from John Witherspoon, 11 August 1788 (Madison Papers)
The Diploma for the Degree of Dr of Laws which the Trustees & Faculty of this College did themselves the Honour of conferring upon you last Commencement ought to have been sent long ago but as there are no printed forms for the honorary Degrees we often find it difficult to get them properly executed. This occasioned a little Delay at first which has been protracted to a very blameable Length....
4661To James Madison from Leighton Wood, 25 July 1789 (Madison Papers)
Being desirous from a variety of reasons mostly of a private na[ture] to change my residence, & presuming on your Friendship I ta[ke] the liberty of soliciting your recommendation to some O[ffice] under the new Government, for which you may deem [me] qualified. The different Departments that I have had the honour to hold for twelve Years past in the State of Virginia, & for almost nine of them...
4662To James Madison from George Wythe, February 1785 (Madison Papers)
Letter not found. February 1785, Williamsburg . This letter informed JM that the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws had been conferred upon him by “the University of William & Mary.” See JM to Wythe, 15 April 1785 .
4663To James Madison from George Wythe, 8 September 1788 (Madison Papers)
I take the liberty, my dear Sir, to desire a mr Prince to call upon you; in case he do not meet with mr. Wickham in Newyork, for about three guineas, the price of some fruit trees, which he is directed to send to me, including freight, &c. I am, as much as I can be any man’s, dear sir, your well-wisher and obedient servant RC ( MeHi ). Addressed by Wythe to JM at New York and franked.
4664To James Madison from Charles Yancey, 27 January 1791 (Madison Papers)
You will please to excuse me for Troubling of you on a private Matter—the case is this. I am about to purchase a Tract of Valuable land And to Effect which Must part with a Quantity Of State Securities As also Those of the Domestick debt Or as we Call them final Settlements, And as our Assembly have taken some Steps that may recommend A reconsideration of the funding System of the State’s Debt...
4665To James Madison from James Yard, 28 October 1800 (Madison Papers)
On the 20th. Inst. I forwarded by the Schooner Elizabeth, James Allen Master, 20 Cases of Madeira Wine containing in all 22 Dozn.—put up with great Care. As I had mislaid your Letter of Directions I was forced to address these Cases to a Mr. Wm Wilson with orders to hold them at your Disposal which I hope may prove of no Inconvenience. This Gentleman is Said to be a respectable Man at...
4666To James Madison from James Yard, 9 September 1796 (Madison Papers)
I am very Sorry that your Letter came too late to arrest the intended progress of yr. funds to the Hands of Van Stophorst. On the 12th. Ulto. I remitted the Draft of pragers for f7719 Hd Curry. which @ 3 f ⅌ Ga. amounts to $3087.00. I recd. a Letter from Mr Monroe by a Vessel which brought your Box of China to Wilmington. A few Days after, it was brought up & landed on our Wharf in such a...
4667To James Madison from Ebenezer Zane, 17 November 1795 (Madison Papers)
I take the Liberty to Adress a few Line to you by my Son in Law Mr John McIntyer On the Subject of Opening a Land Office for the Sail of the Western Land. Mr McIntyer from a Long residence & Actual Experience in the Western Country are well Aquented not only with the Unapropreated part of that Country but also the Seven ranges & Military parts of the Different Districts on the Muskingum river,...
4668The Annapolis Convention, September 1786 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
In the spring of 1786 JM’s enthusiasm for the approaching convention at Annapolis ranged from the lukewarm to the moderately hot, almost as the weather of the season. Forty years later, JM recalled that the meeting grew out of a motion presented by another delegate to the General Assembly in 1786 (JM to Noah Webster, 10 Mar. 1826, Madison, Writings [Hunt ed.] Gaillard Hunt, ed., The Writings...
4669Notes (Madison Papers)
For many years everyone interested in the Declaration of Rights, including JM, believed that Mason’s first draft of it was a paper in his hand, bearing the caption, “Copy of the first Daught [ sic ] by GM.” This paper has been reproduced in facsimile at least twice—once between p. 240 and p. 241 of Vol. I of Kate M. Rowland, Life of George Mason , and again in Virginia Cavalcade , I [1951],...
4670Madison in the Fourth Congress, 7 December 1795–3 March 1797 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
More than a month after the ending of the second session of the Third Congress, JM left Philadelphia to return to Montpelier, where he arrived on or about 21 April 1795. At the same time, John Beckley, clerk of the House of Representatives and JM’s political associate, departed from Philadelphia for New York, where he arranged for the publication of a pamphlet written by JM at the request of...
4671The General Assembly Session of October 1785 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
The Virginia legislative session of 1785 was a complicated interplay of power politics and constitutional issues. Even before the delegates and senators met in Richmond, the people were excited by the issues which would be discussed. Petitions concerning slavery and emancipation raised tempers on a subject which would long occupy the General Assembly. The attempt to gain state funds to support...
4672The Origins of Freneau’s National Gazette, 25 July 1791 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
Alarmed by the blatant partisanship of John Fenno’s Gazette of the United States , which JM and Jefferson grew to distrust after the publisher’s support of Alexander Hamilton became more apparent in the winter of 1790–91, the two republicans began seeking a journalistic counterbalance. Philip Freneau seemed to have all the qualifications. He was a trustworthy republican (Freneau and JM had...
4673Madison in the Third Congress, 2 December 1793–3 March 1795 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
During the last days of the Second Congress, JM made his longest speech of the session in support of William Branch Giles’s resolutions censuring Alexander Hamilton’s official conduct as secretary of the treasury ( PJM Robert A. Rutland et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series (1 vol. to date; Charlottesville, Va., 1984—). , 14:456–68 and nn.). The result was predictable....
4674Debates and Resolutions Related to the Regulation of Commerce by Congress, Including a Call for a Convention at … (Madison Papers)
History is replete with ironies and surely one occurring fairly early in JM’s development as a public man concerns the Annapolis convention of 1786. Often cited as a seedling for the full-grown Federal Convention of 1787 where JM was thrust into the national prominence he maintained for the next three decades, the documents and letters emanating from the October 1785 session of the Virginia...
4675The Case of Robert Randall and Charles Whitney, 28 December 1795–13 January 1796 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
In September 1795 John Askin and six other British merchants in Detroit formed a partnership with three Americans, Robert Randall of Philadelphia and Ebenezer Allen and Charles Whitney of Vermont. Their intention was to extinguish the Indian title and obtain preemption rights to some twenty million acres of land in an area that included the Michigan peninsula as well as the northern regions of...
4676Editorial Note: Resolutions on Private Debts Owed to British Merchants (Madison Papers)
Among the leading public men of revolutionary Virginia JM’s rising eminence is the more noticeable because of his youth and the advantages attending it. As a man in his mid-twenties when the war began, unmarried and under no obligation to provide for a family, he had not been upon the scene long enough to become encumbered with the prewar debts that were the constant fret of almost all...
4677Madison in Congress, February–May 1787 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
JM presented his credentials to Congress on 12 February 1787, marking his return to the federal council after an absence of more than three years. The interval had seen a continuing decline in the prestige and influence of Congress—a trend that had begun with the coming of peace in 1783. Indicative of this trend was the spotty attendance of the delegates, for between 3 November 1786 and 17...
4678Record of Birth and Baptism of James Madison, Jr., [16 March] 1751 (Madison Papers)
James Madison junr. was born on Tuesday Night at 12 o’Clock it being the last of the 5th. & begining of the 6th. day of March 1750–1 & was Baptized by the Revd. Mr. Wm. Davis, Mar. 31. 1751 and had for God-Fathers Mr. John Moore & Mr. Jonatn. Gibson & for God-Mothers Mrs. Rebecca Moore, Miss Judith Catlett and Miss Elizabeth Catlett. The 1759 publication date of the Bible indicates that this...
4679Madison’s “Helvidius” Essays, 24 August–18 September 1793 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
A mixture of morality and political expediency was brewing on the American political scene during the summer of 1793. A full-strength potion known as the two-party system was about to emerge, giving form and content to the contests first fought in the ratification struggle of 1787–88. The catalytic agent was the French Revolution and its aftermath, for President Washington’s Neutrality...
4680The Virginia Convention, 2–27 June 1788 (Editorial Note) (Madison Papers)
In contrast to the absolutism of eighteenth-century Europe, the nation forming in America between 1775 and 1789 took a popular course and thereby introduced republicanism on a large scale along with all the uncertainty that attends an appeal to the people. JM’s career as a political theorist was climaxed at the Federal Convention, but his ability to meet the opposition on the hustings and in...