From James Madison to Augustus B. Woodward, 11 September 1824
To Augustus B. Woodward
Montpellier Sepr 11. 1824
Dear Sir
I have recd. & return my thanks for the printed communications accompanying your note of the 4th. instant.1
To appreciate your proposed expedient for a standard of measures and weights2 would require more time than I can apply, & more mathematical science than I retain. Justice will doubtless be done to it by competent Judges.
I have given a hasty perusal to the observations “addressed to the individual citizen.”3 Altho’ I can not concur in some of them, I may say of all that they merit every praise for the perspicuity, the precision & the force with which they are presented to the public attention.
You have fallen into a mistake in ascribing to the Constitution of Virginia to Mr Jefferson, as will be inferred from the animadversions on it in his “Notes on Virginia.”4 Its origin was with George Mason, who laid before the Committee appointed to prepare a plan, a very broad outline,5 which was printed by the Committee for consideration; and after being varied on some points & filled up, was reported to the Convention, where a few further alterations gave it the form in which it now stands. The Declaration of Rights was substantially from the same hand. The Preamble to the Constitution was probably derived in great measure, if not wholly from the funds of Mr. Jefferson, the richness of which in such materials is seen in the Declaration of Independence, as well as elsewhere. The plan of Mr. Jefferson annexed to one of the Editions of his “Notes on Virginia” was drawn up after the Revolutionary War, with a view to correct the faults of the existing Constitution, as well as to obtain the authentic Sanction of the people.
Your love of truth will excuse this little tribute to it, or rather would not excuse its omission. With esteem & good wishes
James Madison
RC (MiU-C); draft (DLC); Tr (DLC: Jefferson Papers); fragment of Tr (NNPM: Gilder-Lehrman Collection). RC enclosed in JM to Richard Cutts, 13 Sept. 1824. First Tr in John Payne Todd’s hand. Fragment of second Tr in Woodward’s hand. Minor differences between the copies have not been noted.
1. Letter not found.
2. This was a copy of a “memorial proposing a standard of measure for the United States,” enclosed in a letter from Woodward to President Monroe. The letter and memorial were sent to the U.S. Senate on 5 Apr. 1824, and referred to the Committee on Commerce and Manufactures (, 18th Cong., 1st sess., 481).
3. JM referred here to a series of essays written by Woodward, entitled “On the Presidency of the United States, Addressed to the Individual Citizen.” The essays, which examined twenty “evils” of the executive branch, were published in the Washington, D.C., Daily National Journal. The last four essays appeared on 13, 17, 28, and 31 Aug. 1824.
4. After noting that the Virginia constitution “was formed when we were new and unexperienced in the science of government. It was the first too which was formed in the whole United States. No wonder then that time and trial have discovered very capital defects in it,” Jefferson went on to give a detailed and lengthy critique of its faults (William Peden, ed., Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson [Chapel Hill, N.C., 1995], 118–29).
5. Here in the draft, at a later date, JM placed an asterisk and at the bottom of the page wrote: “*July 1826. For a more recollected view of this matter—see an account of the origin & progress of the ‘Constitution of Virginia,’ by J.M. & among his papers.” Among those papers was JM’s copy of “A Plan of Government,” drafted by George Mason, for which, see Independence and Constitution of Virginia, Editorial Note, , 1:175–78.