The History Book Club discussion

This is the glossary and bibliography thread for the book: The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President by Noah Feldman.
by Noah Feldman

This is a spoiler thread.

The Three Lives of James Madison: A Constitutional Conversation with Noah Feldman

Summary: Revered as the ‘Father of the Constitution,’ James Madison is credited as the chief political theorist behind the American system of government. But Madison was also a practical politician and statesman, founding the original Republican Party and serving as the United States’ first wartime president. The Constitutional Law Center and the Federalist Society co-hosted a conversation about Madison’s remarkable career with Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman. Professor Feldman discussed his new book, The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President.

Link to Video:

Sources: Youtube, Stanford Law School

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A

(no image) The Papers of George Washington: Confederation Series : January to July 1784 by Willis J. Abbot (no photo)

by Douglass Adair (no photo)

———. “James Madison’s Autobiography.” The William and Mary Quarterly 2, no. 2 (1945): 191–209.

———. “The Tenth Federalist Revisited.” The William and Mary Quarterly 8, no. 1 (1951): 48–67.

Adams, Henry. “Count Edward de Crillon.” American Historical Review 1, no. 1 (1895): 51–69.

by Henry Adams

by John Adams

by John Quincy Adams

Alexander, John K. “The Fort Wilson Incident of 1779: A Case Study of the Revolutionary Crowd.” The William and Mary Quarterly 31, no. 4 (October 1974): 589–612.

Allgor, Catherine. “Margaret Bayard Smith’s 1809 Journey to Monticello and Montpelier: The Politics of Performance in the Early Republic.” Early American Studies 10, no. 1 (2012): 30–68.

by Catherine Allgor (no photo)

The American Whig-Cliosophic Society (blog). Available at

by Fisher Ames (no photo)

Ames, Herman Vendenburg. State Documents on Foreign Relations. (1900). Available at

Bentley, thank you for providing a link to the Constitutional Conversation with Noah Feldman. I think it will deepen my understanding of Madison.

I found especially fascinating the section in which Feldman spoke of the Freedom of Speech (1st Amendment). How its importance has waxed and waned over the years; how its been very differently interpreted over the years.

Adelle, you are most welcome. I will periodically add other links too. But I do not want to overwhelm folks starting out.

So true Adelle and Feldman gets right into it even as early as the Preface.

James Madison - Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia
Monticello



Madison biographer Irving Brant described the fifty-year relationship between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as a "perfectly balanced friendship" — they complimented and supported each other, both personally and in their political careers.

Madison was born into the Piedmont gentry on March 16, 1751 (n.s.), on his maternal grandparents' plantation in King George County, and was named for his father, James Madison, Sr. As the eldest of twelve siblings, seven of whom lived to adulthood, he was heir to his father's plantation, which began to be called "Montpelier" in the 1780s.

Rather than attending the College of William and Mary as most young Virginia gentlemen did, Madison and his father chose the Presbyterian College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) for his education, both because of concerns that the tidewater of Virginia was unhealthy and because of disagreements with the Anglican establishment that controlled the Virginia college. He set out for Princeton in 1769 accompanied by his personal slave, Sawney, and proceeded to complete a four-year course of study in only thirty months, graduating in September 1771. Unfortunately, his Princeton practice of sleeping only five hours per night in order to pursue his studies took a toll on his health, and the following spring Madison returned to his father's plantation to rest and to decide upon a career. Throughout his life, Madison considered himself to be in frail health. He was small, standing about 5'6", of a slight build, and has been variously described as "feeble," "pale," and "sickly"; yet he lived to the age of 85 years. During this period of recuperation following his graduation from Princeton, he studied law, though he never intended to practice and never qualified as a lawyer.

Madison became interested in public affairs while still a student at Princeton, and in 1776, at the age of 25, he was elected as one of two delegates from Orange County to attend the Fifth Virginia Convention in Williamsburg. The conventions replaced the House of Burgesses during the Revolution as the colony's legislative body. After adoption of Virginia's first constitution in June 1776, Madison continued as a member of the House of Delegates, and it was here that junior member Madison was introduced to Thomas Jefferson in the fall of 1776 when Jefferson returned to Williamsburg from the Continental Congress. The two men became acquainted that fall as they worked together on diminishing the power of the established church in Virginia and promoting religious freedom, a topic to which both were deeply committed and on which they would cooperate for years. By 1779, the two became more intimate while Jefferson was serving as Governor of Virginia and Madison as a member of the Council of State (first appointed to the position in 1777 under Governor Patrick Henry). As the governor could do little without the advice and consent of the council, Madison and Jefferson began to come into almost daily contact, and their mutual admiration and friendship grew.

Madison was instrumental in pulling Jefferson back into the public arena after the bitterness of the legislative inquiry into Jefferson's term as governor in 1781 and then after his wife's death in 1782. It was Madison who nominated Jefferson as one of the negotiators of a peace treaty with England in November 1782 with unanimous support from the Confederation Congress. Urged by Madison, Jefferson accepted the appointment and arrived in Philadelphia in January 1783, in anticipation of leaving for Paris; however, the treaty was concluded before Jefferson could leave.

While in Philadelphia, Jefferson lodged in the same boarding house as Madison. Among other boarders were New York Congressman William Floyd and his family, including his teenaged daughter, Kitty. With Jefferson's encouragement, Kitty Floyd and Madison became engaged, even though Madison was twice the age of the 16-year-old Kitty. In regard to the courtship Jefferson wrote, "I wished it to be so as it would give me a neighbor whose worth I rate high, and as I know it will render you happier than you can possibly be in a single state. I often made it the subject of conversation, more exhortation, with her and was able to convince myself that she possessed every sentiment in your favor which you could wish." Jefferson's matchmaking activities did not end as he hoped, however, as after returning home to New York, Kitty broke off the engagement in July of that same year. It would be eleven years before Madison would enter into another serious romance, when in 1794 he courted and married a young Philadelphia widow named Dolley Payne Todd.

During the time that Madison and Jefferson were occupying the same Philadelphia boarding house, Madison was appointed to a committee to compile a "list of books proper for the use of Congress," and it is probable that the two men conferred on the compilation of this list. The proposal, however, was not acted upon by the Continental Congress, and the Library of Congress was not realized until Jefferson's presidency. It was, of course, under Madison's presidency that Jefferson's personal library was purchased to begin the rebuilding of the Library after the original collection had been burned during the War of 1812.

Both men collected books throughout their lives. When Madison died in 1836, the library at Montpelier was known to have been quite extensive (though never as extensive nor as completely cataloged as that at Monticello) and rivaled in the Piedmont area only by Jefferson's former library. Some of the Montpelier volumes had been obtained through Jefferson; the elder of the two friends having offered before leaving for Paris in 1784, "In the purchase of books, pamphlets &c. old and curious, or new and useful I shall ever keep you in my eye." In exchange, Jefferson asked his friend to take over the supervision of the schooling of his nephews and wards, Peter and Dabney Carr, while he served as ambassador to France. Madison took up Jefferson's offer and requested "treatises on the antient or modern fœderal republics, on the law of Nations, and the history natural and political of the New World; to which I will add such of the Greek and Roman authors where they can be got very cheap, as are worth having and are not on the common list of School classics."

Madison immediately put the books he received from Paris to use and wrote to Jefferson from Montpelier, "Since I have been at home I have had leisure to review the literary cargo for which I am so much indebted to your friendship. The collection is perfectly to my mind."

The books from Jefferson would prove particularly useful as Madison was becoming more convinced that a stronger federal government was needed, and aided by the books, he compiled a paper, "Notes on Ancient and Modern Confederacies," and then a second essay, "Vices of the Political System of the United States." Through his careful study and preparation, Madison became a leading theoretician for constitutional reform, and it was Madison's ideas that formed the basis for the Virginia Plan, which in turn became the basis for the United States Constitution. Late in his life, when Madison was referred to as the "writer of the Constitution," he modestly replied, "You give me a credit to which I have no claim," and went on to say that the document "ought to be regarded as the work of many heads & many hands."

Madison kept his colleague in Paris well-informed on Virginia politics, including adoption of Jefferson's Statute for Religious Freedom, and on the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention. Their correspondence during this period reveals not only several of the uncommon disagreements between the two men, but also how they worked together on important political issues. For example, Jefferson felt that Madison was overreacting in his proposal to give the federal congress a veto over all state laws, mending "a small hole by covering the whole garment." Jefferson also felt strongly that the Constitution required addition of a bill of rights, writing to Madison, "Let me add that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference." Madison, initially reticent to do anything that might jeopardize ratification of the Constitution, came around to Jefferson's view and is today often referred to not only as the "Father of the Constitution" but as the "Father of the Bill of Rights." During the debates over ratification of the Constitution, Madison's regular correspondence with Jefferson allowed him to assert when challenged on the floor of the ratification convention, "I believe that were that gentleman now on this floor, he would be for the adoption of this constitution."

Though the politics of founding the new republic occupied much of their attention, the friendship between Jefferson and Madison was built on many shared interests. Both men were very involved in the study of the natural sciences. Prior to leaving for Paris, for example, Jefferson had recruited Madison to record weather observations and seasonal changes and had nominated him for membership into the American Philosophical Society, with his membership dating to 1785. During his years in Paris, Jefferson supplied Madison with scientific instruments as well as books. For advancing his inspection of natural phenomenon on his walks or "in case of a ramble into the Western Country," Madison came up with the idea of a portable telescope fitted into a cane, and also requested a compass with "a spring for stopping the vibration of the needle when not in use." The next year he wrote to Jefferson that he had "a little itch to gain a smattering in Chymistry," and wished for a "good elementary treatise" along with "two Boxes, called Le Necessaire chemique." The exchange was not one way, as Madison did his best to fill Jefferson's requests for plants and animals that demonstrated the uniqueness of the United States, including pecans, seeds of the sugar maple, Pippin apples, and various other seeds and grafts of American fruit trees. He was unsuccessful, however, in supplying Jefferson's request for a live opossum. Madison's letter of June 19, 1786, is indicative of the preoccupations of these two men, as it begins with a lengthy discussion of political philosophy, which Madison admits is turning into a "dissertation," and concludes with a very detailed account of his dissection of a female weasel and its comparison with its European counterpart. Jefferson and Madison were both intent on gaining a better understanding of North American and European fauna and conferred to test and refute the Comte de Buffon's theory of the degeneracy of North American animals — all of this was part of their Enlightenment belief in the ability of mankind to progress through reason and study.

Remainder of article:


Source: Monticello

The American Whig-Cliosophic Society (blog). Available at

Guess who was one of the founders:



THE AMERICAN WHIG-CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY
The nation's oldest collegiate political, literary, and debate society.

James Madison, Whig (founder), Class of 1771. Founded the American Whig Society. Federalist Papers author, Father of the Constitution, fourth President of the United States.

State documents on Federal relations : the states and the United States

Link:

Source: Web Archive