Title: Madison Reenactment Script
Original CoS Document (slug): madison-reenactment-script
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Attached File: Madison_reenactment.pdf
Created: 2021-08-20 17:39:17
Updated: 2022-08-20 23:00:00
Published: 2021-08-20 01:00:00
Converted: 2025-04-14T20:02:55.731768185
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak with you today
about the beginnings of our country and the foundation on which
it stands. If we the people mean to be our own governors, we
must arm ourselves with the power which knowledge gives. For
the nation of these states is a wonder; the Constitution, a miracle;
and their example is the hope of liberty throughout the world.
What form of government is the United States of America? ____
The answer is a constitutional republic. We are a republic, not a
democracy. The two great points of difference between a
democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the
government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by
the rest; secondly the greater number of citizens, and greater
sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended. For in a
large republic the influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame
within their particular states but will be unable to spread a general
conflagration through other states. Our system of governance is
based on our most important document: the Constitution.
This form of government was not assured when the revolutionary
war ended in 1783. We were a fragile entity which easily could
have devolved into independent and competing states overrun
by foreign countries. I have been called the “Father of the
Constitution,” but I object to that title as the Constitution was not
the off-spring of a single brain but the work of many heads and
hands. I served to organize the convention at which the
Constitution was drafted, and I recorded detailed notes
throughout the process never missing a day of the deliberations. I
intentionally seated myself in front of the presiding officer to hear
all that was said. I prefer not to be in the forefront, but William
Pierce of Georgia kindly stated that “at every question Madison
always comes forward [as] the best informed man of any point in
debate.”
During the war, the thirteen states were loosely joined under the
Articles of Confederation. The articles established a
confederation congress, sometimes called the continental
congress, who made decisions about the war but little else. The
states were sovereign and independent thus operating on their
own special interests without regard to thinking about a nation as
a whole. We were unified only in our desire for independence
from England. Many were apprehensive about a strong central
government and wanted to preserve the power of individual
states. To counter the assertion of states’ rights, Mr. James
Wilson said, “Can we forget for whom we are forming a
government? Is it for men or for the imaginary beings called
states? I later wrote that the federal government should be
limited and its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerate objects
only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable
sovereignty over all other objects. Both state and federal
governments are answerable to the citizenry and are not rivals;
they are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people,
constituted with different powers, and designed for different
purposes. I envisioned that the operations of the federal
government will be most extensive and important in times of war
and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace
and security.
Yet once the war ended, several states were at risk of turning into
the same tyranny which they had opposed in the war; few states
had a suitable constitution of their own. No other country had yet
developed a constitution, so there were no examples for us to
follow.
We were experiencing difficulties due to the limitations of the
original articles. Under the Articles of Confederation,
representatives to the congress were not elected by the people
and each state had only one vote regardless of size or
population. During the war, the confederation was unable to raise
necessary funds to keep the troops supplied with wages, food,
and clothing nearly leading to mutiny of by the army. After the
war, the congress did not have the legal power to respond when
foreign countries put restrictions on United States shipping, when
Spain encroached on land in the south, and when the British
continued to occupy forts. States could bar the import of
products from other states. As people settled in the west, they
threatened to create their own states outside of the union or join
with Spain. And all thirteen states were required to agree to
amend the document—nearly an impossibility at any time. A
national government was needed to raise money to pay our
debts from the war and fund our operation, to regulate
commerce, to print one stable form of currency (rather than each
state minting its own), and to defend the states against foreign
threats. There was no mechanism by which personal liberties
could be protected. We needed a Union as our bulwark and as
the only substitute for those military establishments which have
subverted the liberties of the Old World. A crisis had arrived
which was to decide whether the American experiment was to be
a blessing to the world, or to blast forever the hopes which the
republican cause had inspired.
I and others realized that a new governing document needed to
be created to replace the insufficient Articles of Confederation. In
1783, Mr. Alexander Hamilton had called a convention with
resolutions to amend the Articles of Confederation, but the states
were not yet ready for change, and the proposal died due to lack
of support. A second convention was called but again had no
support. I called for a convention in 1786 in Annapolis to
specifically address issues of commerce, but only five states
responded. Even with meager attendance, Hamilton audaciously
announced that a convention for reforming the Articles of
Confederation would be held beginning the second Sunday in
May of 1787. Although the convention proposed to revise the
Articles of Confederation, several of us including General
Washington, Hamilton, John Adams, and John Jay realized that
revision would not be adequate. States were slow to accept the
invitation, but eventually all but Rhode Island sent delegates.
Rhode Island feared that it would lose self-control to the larger
states. Shays Rebellion the summer before created fear in the
states and a desire for a stronger government to react which
prompted them to send delegates.
By May 25, 1787, enough delegates (29 from 9 states) had
arrived to constitute a quorum. We met in Philadelphia in the
same hall in which the Declaration of Independence had been
signed. Philadelphia was one of the largest cities at the time with
about 30,000 in population, and welcomed us graciously.
Philadelphia entertained the delegates with musicals and covered
the cobblestones in front of the state house with gravel to quiet
the carriage noise outside. To prevent journalists from publishing
contentious debates and prematurely sharing proposals (which
might be defeated) with the people, the windows and doors of
the room were kept locked, and sentries were posted in the
hallway. The heat was stifling, and bluebottle flies attached us
outside and invaded our bedrooms. We suffered miserably but
persevered. Prisoners in the jail across the street from the state
house crowded their windows and pushed long begging stick
through the bars. A cloth cap was held at the end of the stick for
collecting coins. If we delegates weren’t generous enough, the
prisoners would jeer and call us nasty names.
Fifty-five prestigious and knowledgeable delegates attended of
whom 39 had been members of the continental congress, one-
third had served in the Revolutionary War, 8 had signed the
Declaration of Independence, 7 had been state governors, 34
were trained as lawyers, and 15 had helped draft their own state
constitutions. The average age of delegates was 42; the
youngest was 26, and the oldest (Mr. Benjamin Franklin) was 81. I
was 36 years old. We were all men of property concerned about
economic growth of our country and threats from within and
without our nation. Delegates came and went during our several
months of session, so we had perhaps only 30 delegates at a
time. New York so resisted adopting a new constitution that their
delegates left the convention. Not all revolutionary patriots
participated. Patrick Henry was skeptical of my idea of a strong
central government, so he did not join the Virginia delegation.
General Washington at first refused to attend for personal and
political reasons but agreed later for fear that the people would
accuse him of not being a patriot. His presence provided
legitimacy and dignity to the proceedings, and he was
unanimously elected as president of the convention on the first
day.
We discussed the rules for the convention on the second day.
Then on the fifth day, Virginia governor Edmund Randolph ended
the pretense of reform and attacked the Articles of
Confederation. He listed five functions necessary for government
but which the Articles of Confederation could not provide. Mr.
Randolph introduced a series of fifteen propositions which I had
prepared in advance of the convention entitled the Virginia Plan.
Tensions were high throughout the convention. Mr. Elbridge Gerry
stated, Instead of coming here like a band of brothers belonging
to the same family, we seemed to have brought with us the spirit
of political negotiators. Delegates were suspicious of the process
and each other; there were conflicting views and differing
loyalties (north v. south, large states v. small states), and fear of
creating a tyranny which would destroy our hard won liberties.
Mr. Franklin suggested that we ask a minister to start each day
with prayer to mitigate tempers. Mr. Hamilton stated that the
appearance of a minister would give the impression that the
convention was in need of prayer, in deep trouble, and would
start rumors. Others were concerned about funds to pay a
minister.
We rejected that to which we had experience: a monarchy and
tyranny. Yet republics were rare at the time of our convention and
thought to only work on a small scale such as locally or
regionally. We created something new to the world. Every single
facet of government, though, had to be decided and debated—a
day or more for each article.
Articles under consideration during the convention included:
branches of government, the power and scope of each branch,
the composition of the executive and legislative branches, the
length of the presidency and representatives (Hamilton
suggested life appointments for the president and Senate), who
would elect the president, who would select congressional
members, whether foreigners could become members of
Congress, how new states were to be added, the process of
amendments, the process of ratification, whether there was a
need for state governments, the need for a standing national
military, the boundaries and limits of rights and duties, who
would be responsible for compensating legislators—the state or
federal government, and whether legislators could hold other
offices. Mr. Luther Martin even proposed that large states be
divided into smaller states, and another idea was to combine all
states and redistrict them with equal populations.
The governmental composition of three branches was first
established by Mr. John Adams when he wrote the state
constitution for Massachusetts and provided a model for our
convention. These powers must be separate and distinct with
their own boundaries to keep the others in their proper places. In
discriminating the several classes of federal power, legislative,
executive, or judiciary, the next and most difficult task was to
provide some practical security for each against the invasion of
others. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and
judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and
whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be
pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
A president as the nation’s executive was not guaranteed in the
beginning. Mr. Randolph recommended that three people serve;
others suggested a council. The objection to a single executive
was based on the loathing of a monarchy. Delegates were
reticent to speak because they did not want to offend General
Washington, whom they assumed would be the first president,
and did not want to imply that he was not capable by himself.
The decision was made for a single person as the executive
branch, but the next question dealt with the length of term. In
rejection of a semblance of monarchial rule, a term for life was
rejected. The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be,
first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to
discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the
society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual
precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to
hold their public trust. The elective mode of obtaining rulers is the
characteristic policy of republican government. The means relied
on in this form of government for preventing their degeneracy are
numerous and various. The most effectual one, is such a
limitation of the term of appointments as will maintain a proper
responsibility to the people. Wilson and Mr. Sherman
recommended a term of three years; Mr. Pinckney and Mr. Mason
suggested seven years. A concern was that the term be long
enough to demonstrate national stability to foreign powers and
not be responsive to popular pressure and passions, yet short
enough so that a body of self-serving aristocrats was not
formed . As with the election of the president and
representatives, frequent elections are unquestionably the only
policy by which the dependence and sympathy [of the people]
can be effectively secured. We agreed on four years for the
presidency. The question then arose as to how the president
would be elected. Mr. Wilson stated that the people should elect
the president, but Mr. Mason said that process was impractical.
Mr. Rutledge then proposed that the senate elect the president.
The difficulty with this plan was that a president elected by the
legislature would be beholden to them rather than the people in
seeking re-election. An electoral college was the solution. Mr.
Wilson and Mr. Hamilton wanted the president to have absolute
veto power over legislative decisions, whereas Mr. Gerry, Mr.
Franklin, Mr. Sherman, Mr. Butler, and I disagreed because that
would give the executive too much power. A conditional veto was
approved where a presidential veto might be overridden by a
two-thirds majority in both houses.
There was little disagreement over the powers of the federal
congress. They would be able to, and also be limited to: impose
taxes, coin money, establish post offices, make treaties, establish
a uniform rule of naturalization, raise armies, call up state militias,
declare war, and regulate commerce. A proposal was made that
the national legislature could veto state laws it deemed to violate
the national Constitution, but this was defeated.
The deep divide regarding congress was whether there would be
one or two houses and how the legislators would be elected. The
number of representatives in a single legislature was contentious.
Mr. Brearly asserted that if representatives are given by quota [or
population], Virginia would have sixteen votes and Georgia 1.
There would be three large states [Virginia, Massachusetts, and
Pennsylvania], and ten small ones. Mr. William Paterson from
New Jersey summed up the fears of the small states that if we
give the large states an influence in proportion to their magnitude,
what will be the consequence? Their ambition will be
proportionally increased. I believed that the states are divided into
different interests not by their differences of size but by other
circumstances, the most material of which resulted partly from
climate but principally from the effects of their having or not have
slaves. The true issue to me was of northern states versus
southern states. One branch including slaves at a ration of 5 to 3
would give the southern states an advantage in the first house,
whereas another branch of free inhabitants only would balance
the advantage to the northern states. Mr. Roger Sherman
proposed the Connecticut Compromise of two branches with
selection of representatives based on different population in the
first branch {house] and equal representation in the second
branch [senate].
We had a model of two houses to follow in the British parliament
—one of the propertied and monied Lords, and one of the
commoners. Our resolution was to establish a house comprised
of the common people with shorter terms of office balanced and
checked by a senate with wealthier and better educated officers
who would hold longer terms. As Mr. Randolph so aptly stated,
the second branch or senate must be firm to control the first
branch [or house], otherwise it will be overwhelmed by the
numbers of the house. it must be firm and stable against
encroachment s by the executive also. Mr. Gouverneur Morris
agreed that an aristocratic branch and a democratic branch
would provide checks on each other and vices would be turned
against each other.
Mr. Gerry listed four possible modes of selecting senators and
outlined inherent problems with the first three: 1. by the first
branch [house] which would create a dependency contrary to the
end proposed, 2. by the national executive or president which
would tend toward monarchial rule, 3. by the people with the
people being primarily landed farmers and no security for
commerce and business, or 4. by individual legislatures. I
opposed the election of senators by state legislatures as that
would strengthen state legislatures and empower states over the
federal government. I was defeated.
Nor was there agreement on the selection of representatives to
the first branch. Mr. Gerry and Mr. Sherman argued that giving
the general people the ability to elect representatives to the
house, instead of being elected by state legislatures, would prove
disastrous because these people would lack information and be
easily misled. Mr. Mason debated the opposite that the people of
the house must know and sympathize with every part of their
community with different interest and views by districts. Mr.
Wilson contended that no government could long subsist without
the confidence of the people. Opposition to federal measures
proceeded much more from state officers than the people at
large. I added that the great fabric to be raised would be more
stable and durable if it should rest on the solid foundation of the
people themselves than if it should stand merely on the pillars of
the legislatures. The vote to allow state legislatures to elect
representatives to the house of congress failed by 8 to 3. They
would be elected by the general population.
What if our Constitution proved wrong or insufficient? The
delegates provided for two means of amendment in Article V. The
first is generated within the national congress and ratification of a
proposed amendment by two-thirds of the members both houses
of congress. Mr. Gerry, concerned about leaving all of the power
of amendment to the federal congress, proposed a second
method which was agreed upon. Two-thirds of state legislatures
may call a convention to consider and ratify an amendment.
Many more issues were debated and decided, and much of the
deliberation was based on the fear of corruption. In all cases
where power is to be conferred, the point first to be decided is,
whether such a power be necessary to the public good; as the
next will be, in case of an affirmative decision, to guard as
effectively as possible against a perversion of the power to the
public detriment. It is a misfortune incident to republican
government, though in a less degree than in other governments,
that those who administer it may forget their obligations to their
constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust. In all
countries there are diversity of interests . . . We must therefore
introduce in our system provisions against the measures of an
interested majority. Mr. Patrick Henry stated, The Constitution,
therefore, is not an instrument for the government to restrain the
people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the
government—lest the government come to dominate their lives
and interests.
In the last days of the convention, the draft of the Constitution
was submitted to the Committee on Style to polish the writing.
Without discussion beforehand, a preamble was included. I
suspect that it was written by Mr. Gouverneur Morris. The
preamble begins with the most significant line of “We the
People.” There was no objection to this preamble.
We signed the Constitution on September 17 after four months of
deliberation. Ten delegates did not sign the Constitution at the
convention: four southern delegates, four northern delegates,
and two border delegates. Of those ten, seven had returned
home prior to the convention’s conclusion. My esteemed Mr.
Mason and Mr. Gerry did not sign because a Bill of Rights was
not included. Even Mr. Randolph who proposed the Virginia Plan,
was reluctant to sign. It is a matter of wonder and regret that
those who raise so many objections against the Constitution
would never call to mind the defects of that which is to be
exchanged for it. It is not necessary that the Constitution should
be perfect; it is sufficient that the Articles of Confederation is
more imperfect. No man would refuse to quit a shattered and
tottering habitation for a firm and commodious building because
the latter had not a porch to it, or because some of the rooms
might be a little larger or smaller…than his fancy would have
planned them.
The Constitution created at our convention required ratification
by a two-thirds majority of the states. The process was arduous
and not immediate because objections and fears of a stronger
central government had to be addressed. New York was so
indecisive that Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and I published the
85 Federalist Papers from October 1787 through May of 1788 to
answer concerns article by article. Each was signed Publius as
an anonymous name for the public at large, but I singly or co-
authored 29 or 34% of the papers.
The first to ratify was Delaware on December 7, 1787. The vote
was unanimous in their legislature. Massachusetts was the only
state with a close vote. Rhode Island never held a ratification
convention. North Carolina voted not to ratify but did join the
Union in November 1789. New Hampshire was the ninth state to
ratify on June 21, 1788, making the Constitution the guidance for
a nation of the United States.
In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. But
American has set the example of charters of power granted by
liberty. The Bill of Rights was ratified by Congress on December
15, 1791. If these rights are well defined and secured against
encroachment, it is impossible that government should every
degenerate into tyranny. The First Amendment protects our right
to think what we like and say what we please. And if we the
people are to govern ourselves, we must have these rights, even
if they are misused by a minority.
The advice nearest my heart and deepest in my convictions is
that the Union of States be cherished and perpetuated. Every
man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every
man who loves liberty, ought to have it ever before his eyes, that
he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of
American and be able to set a due value on the means of
preserving it. As my co-patriot Mr. Hamilton stated, If it be asked,
what is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of security
in a republic? The answer would be an inviolable respect for the
Constitution and the laws.