James Madison Papers

To James Madison from Tench Coxe, 16 January 1788

From Tench Coxe

Philada. Jany 16th. 1788.

Dear Sir

I have obtained from the Editor about sixty pages of the debates of our State Convention,1 wch. I am anxious to get into the hands of Mr. King, for the use of the gentlemen in the Massachussets convention. Uncertain whether he is in New York or Boston I have taken the liberty of enclosing it to you with a request that you will as early as possible have it sent forward to him under a franked cover from yourself.

I observe the letters of Publius are to be printed by Subscription at New Yk. Shall I ask the favor of your delivering the enclosed bills to the printer, and requesting him to set me down for a copy. They are most valuable disquisitions of Government in its peculiar relations and connexions with this Country.

Enclosed is a little paper the republication of wch. may possibly be useful in New York.2 I am, Sir, with very sincere esteem, your most respectf. h. Servt.

Tench Coxe

RC (DLC). Docketed by JM. Enclosures not found.

1The editor of Debates of the Convention, of the State of Pennsylvania, on the Constitution, Proposed for the Government of the United States … (Philadelphia, 1788) was Thomas Lloyd (1756–1827), who later reported the debates of the First Federal Congress. A Federalist sympathizer, Lloyd promised a full account of the debates in two volumes. The first volume contained only the speeches of Federalists James Wilson and Thomas McKean, however, and the second never appeared. These circumstances gave rise to charges that Lloyd had deliberately suppressed Antifederalist arguments (Marion Tinling, “Thomas Lloyd’s Reports of the First Federal Congress,” WMQ description begins William and Mary Quarterly. description ends , 3d ser., XVIII [1961], 520–26).

2The enclosure may have been the essay of “Philanthropos,” which appeared in the Pa. Gazette of 16 Jan. 1788 and was reprinted in the N.Y. Daily Advertiser of 23 Jan. 1788. “Philanthropos” compared the arguments of George Mason, Elbridge Gerry, and Edmund Randolph in order to show that they disagreed with one another in their opposition to the Constitution. JM mentioned this piece in his letter to Randolph of 27 Jan. 1788, but did not attribute its authorship to Coxe.

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