To James Madison from Edmund Randolph, 14 June 1783
From Edmund Randolph
RC (LC: Madison Papers). Unsigned but in Randolph’s hand. Cover addressed by him to “The honorable James Madison jr. esq. of congress. Philadelphia.” Cover docketed by JM, “June 14, 1783.”
Richmond. June 14. 1783.
My dear friend
It is with real mortification, that I find an abortion of the scheme of impost. By some unaccountable revolution the zealous patrons have cooled, and seem united with its enemies to deal it out through our own treasury, without subjecting it to congress.1 Perhaps however the most considerable terror which was played off against the proposition, was the furnishing beyond the quota from an excessive consumption in this country.2 A certain party, which has been adverse to the plan in more places than one, appear to have remained uniform in the most bitter opposition.3 As I write with a despondency on this subject I shall leave the particulars of what passed within the walls of the assembly to Mr. Jones, especially too as I have been employed for a week past in another general court.4
A great clamour will probably be excited against the legislature for having voted the payment of their own wages out of a fund, already plighted for other uses.5 At first sight the measure seems very reprehensible: and indeed there is scarcely an excuse, unless it be the danger, which the nonpayment of those wages, would introduce, of an aristocratical, or at least an opulent representation alone.6
It is probable, that the half blood will be rendered heritable in the course of the session. A good measure, dictated by bad motives.7
The sum of 50,000 £ is directed to be paid to congress:8 but Mr. Webb, the receiver, informs me, that they exact the price of 40s [?] per hundred for tobacco. He will be obliged to submit to this valuation, or lose his chance of payment, as tobacco is the fund of the principal reliance.9
I am now able to say, that the cession to congress has never yet been formally repealed, however it may be in the power of the assembly to consider it so, from the refusal of congress to accept.10
1. Jones to JM, 8 June, n. 5; 14 June, and n. 12. See also Randolph to JM, 15 May; 24 May, and n. 5; Pendleton to JM, 26 May 1783, and n. 5.
2. Randolph to JM, 9 May 1783, and n. 7.
3. Randolph probably referred to Arthur Lee. For Lee’s opposition to the plan for restoring public credit, see , VI, 12, n. 3; 149; 154, n. 45; 225; 263, n. 15; 399; Jefferson to JM, 7 May, and n. 8; JM to Randolph, 13 May 1783, and n. 3.
4. Jones to JM, 14 June 1783. By “another general court,” as distinguished from the General Court, Randolph must have meant a session of the Court of Admiralty, before which he had been involved in a case only ten days before (Randolph to JM, 4 June 1783).
5. Randolph to JM, 24 May, and n. 7. On 11 June the House of Delegates adopted by a vote of 43 to 40 a resolution directing the treasurer to “pay the wages of the members attending this present General Asssembly, to wit: a sum not exceeding 1,800 £. out of the fund heretofore appropriated for the defence of the Bay of Chesapeake, and a sum not exceeding 1,200 £. out of the fund arising from the recruiting law.” Five days later, after deciding by a vote of 43 to 26 to embody the resolution in a bill, the House of Delegates appointed Arthur Lee and Richard Henry Lee to be the draftsmen. Their proposal, upon being amended and adopted by the Senate and House of Delegates, as certified by the signature of the speaker of each, became a law on 28 June 1783 (, May 1783, pp. 49, 59, 61, 63, 66, 79, 96, 98, 99). Only three-fourths of the wages of each member was to be derived from the two funds. The remainder should be paid in tobacco at a valuation fixed by a grand jury impaneled by the General Court (, X, 137–38, 228–29; XI, 280). See also , VI, 224, n. 3; Pendleton to JM, 26 May 1783, n. 11.
6. The membership of the Senate and House of Delegates, unless assured of a per diem wage and traveling expenses, would necessarily be confined to men of independent means. The preamble of the act of 28 June 1783 begins by affirming: “Whereas it is essential to the independence of the members of the general assembly, and to the due discharge of their duty, that they should receive the money deemed by law necessary for their subsistence while on public service.”
7. On 14 May the House of Delegates had instructed the Committee for Courts of Justice “to prepare and bring in a bill to make the half blood inheritable to land and slaves, descended from or given by their common ancestors.” Although the bill was presented by Stevens Thomson Mason on 30 May and read a second time the next day, it remained thereafter on the speaker’s table until 19 June. On that day a resolution passed to delay until “the third Monday in October next” before debating the measure in “a committee of the whole House” (, May 1783, pp. 6, 26, 27, 69).
Persons of “the half blood” are those with only one parent in common. Although younger brothers and sisters of the half blood were entitled to inherit personal property (, I, 181; 183, n. 5), not until 7 January 1786, with the passage by the General Assembly of “an act, directing the course of descents” (one of the Revised Code of Laws, introduced by JM), were they permitted to share in real estate (, Oct. 1785, p. 132; , XII, 138–40). Why in 1783 Randolph should have judged this “good measure” to have been “dictated by bad motives” is unclear. He may, however, have seen in it a device to thwart the provision of Article V of the provisional treaty of peace with Great Britain, whereby Congress was obligated to recommend to the states the restoration of Loyalist estates (, XXIV, 248–49). A bill could easily have been designed to lead to protracted litigation and otherwise to allow for the fragmentation of large landed estates by dividing them among many legal heirs (, VI, 499; 500, n. 6; Jones to JM, 31 May; 8 June 1783, and nn. 26, 27).
8. This instruction of 6 June to Jacquelin Ambler, treasurer, in fulfillment of a resolution adopted by the Virginia legislature on 28 December 1782, directed him to pay the £50,000 “out of the first money that may come to his hands” (, May 1783, pp. 27, 40, 41; , V, 457–58; VI, 155, n. 2; 172; 174, n. 2).
9. By a resolution adopted by the House of Delegates on 6 June, the treasurer was forbidden to “sell the tobacco of the best quality under forty shillings for every hundred weight, and that of inferior quality at prices proportionable thereto.” He was further directed to discharge no debts in tobacco to individuals until the £50,000 pledged to Congress had been paid. A committee of six men, including Patrick Henry, Joseph Jones, and Richard Henry Lee, were appointed to embody the resolutions in a bill but probably never rendered a report (, May 1783, p. 40; Ambler to JM, 1 June, and n. 6; Pendleton to JM, 2 June, and n. 4; 9 June, and n. 6). Legislation for paying the financial quota to Congress was confined to a single bill enacted on 28 June and entitled, “An act to amend the act for appropriating the public revenue” (, May 1783, p. 99; , XI, 247–49; Pendleton to JM, 26 May 1783, n. 11).
10. Harrison to Delegates, 3 May, and n. 4; JM to Randolph, 13 May; Randolph to JM, 24 May; Jones to JM, 14 June 1783, and n. 14.