1. There is some evidence that JM by this time was weary of receiving and answering all the addresses sent to him. In a lengthy editorial entitled “Addresses! Addresses!!” on 5 Feb. 1810, the National Intelligencer complained of the “pernicious tendency of complimentary Addresses to the Chief Magistrate.” The editorialist even wished that other Republican newspapers would censure these productions on the grounds that their organization suggested they were intended as “instruments of preferment” and, as such, they “neither inspire respect for their authors or the man to whom they are addressed.”

Developing the theme, the writer declared that “no one since the corrupt & courtly days of the Stuarts, received more of these distinguished honors, seasoned too with every ingredient that could gratify the palate of the epicure, than John Adams,” and the author then inquired rhetorically as to what had been the fate of the second president. (JM, it might be recalled, had been greatly disturbed by the manner in which John Adams had responded to similar addresses in the late 1790s, and he had at that time denounced Adams’s conduct as “the most grotesque scene in the tragicomedy” of the Quasi-War with France [JM to Jefferson, 10 June 1798, PJM description begins William T. Hutchinson et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (1st ser., vols. 1-10, Chicago, 1962-77, vols. 11-17, Charlottesville, Va., 1977-91). description ends , 17:150].) The editorialist contended, moreover, that such addresses were unnecessary, particularly in a society where there already existed adequate means for the expression of public opinion and the very structure of the republic itself provided for “infusing into the government the wishes of the people” at regular and prescribed intervals. Drawing upon a distinction that would have been approved by the authors of The Federalist, the editorialist reminded his readers that the U.S. was “a representative government” and not “a pure democracy” and that accordingly “all rational liberty must depend on the vigorous maintena[n]ce” of the former condition as opposed to the latter.

In this context, the writer argued that while the people certainly had the right to address their representatives, it was inappropriate for them to approach the executive, “the fountain of office,” in the same way, and that by doing so, they exposed the chief magistrate to “peculiar difficulties.” The addresses invariably censured a foreign power in bold and warm language. “A congenial answer is expected. It is received. It is couched in terms of firmness; but it has none of the fire of the address,” even though “reflecting men” should “see that it would be unworthy of the President to indulge in angry passions on such, or indeed on any occasion.” The result, the editorialist complained, was “a general disappointment,” and “it is inferred that the Executive govt. wants nerve.” This inference was unjust, since “the bulk of the people do not reflect that, it rests with another department of the govt. to take the decided steps that lead to war, and that if the Chief Magistrate should even be of opinion that such, or any other vigorous measure ought to be taken, yet that this conviction does not diminish the respect he owes to his station, his personal character, or to the very nation which has ⟨sir?⟩ed us; they do not, in fine, reflect that the constitution has enjoined upon the government the duty of acting, and not of coining words, of which, God knows, we have already to our shame more than enough.”