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A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875
Dear Sir New York Decr. 20. 1787.
I was favoured on Saturday with your letter of the 7th instant, along with which was covered the printed letter of Col. R. H. Lee to the Governour.(1) It does not appear to me to be a very formidable attack on the new Constitution; unless it should derive an influence from the names of the correspondents, which its intrinsic merits do not entitle it to. He is certainly not perfectly accurate in the statement of all his facts; and I should infer from the tenor of the objections in Virginia that his plan of an Executive would hardly be viewed as an amendment of that of the Convention. It is a little singular that three of the most distinguished Advocates for amendments; and who expect to unite the thirteen States in their project, appear to be pointedly at variance with each other on one of the capital articles of the System. Col. Lee proposes that the President should chuse a Council of Eleven and with their advice have the absolute appointment of all Officers. Col. Mason's proposition is that a Council of six should be appointed by the Congress. What degree of power he would confide to it I do not know. The idea of the Governour is that there should be a plurality of co-equal heads, distinguished probably by other peculiarities in the organization. It is pretty certain that some others who make a common cause with them in the general attempt to bring about alterations differ still more from them, than they do from each other; and that they themselves differ as much on some other great points as on the Constitution of the Executive.
You did not judge amiss of Mr Jay. The paragraph affirming a change in His opinion of the plan of the Convention, was an arrant forgery. He has contradicted it in a letter to Mr. J. Vaughan which has been printed in the Philadelphia Gazettes.(2) Tricks of this sort are not uncommon with the Enemies of the new Constitution. Col. Mason's objections were as I am told published in Boston mutilated of that which pointed at the regulation ofCommerce.(3) Docr. Franklins concluding speech which you will meet with in one of the papers herewith inclosed, is both mutilated & adulterated so as to change both the form & the spirit of it.(4)
I am extremely obliged by the notice you take of my request concerning the Potowmack. I must insist that you will not consider it as an object of any further attention.
The Philada. papers will have informed you of the result of the Convention of that State. N. Jersey is now in Convention, & has probably by this time adopted the Constitution. Genl. Irvine of the Pena. Delegation who is just arrived here, and who conversed with some of the members at Trenton tells me that great unanimity reigns in the Convention.
Page 594
December 20, 1787
Link to date-related documents.
Connecticut it is pretty certain will decide also in the Affirmative by a large majority. So it is presumed will N. Hampshire; though her Convention will be a little later than could be wished. There are not enough of the returns in Massts. known for a final judgment of the probable event in that State. As far as the returns are known they are extremely favorable; but as they are cheifly from the maritime parts of the State, they are a precarious index of the public sentiment. I have good reason to believe that if you are in correspondence with any Gentlemen in that quarter, and a proper occasion offered for an explicit communication of your good wishes for the plan, so as barely to warrant an explicit assertion of the fact, that it would be attended with valuable effects. I barely drop the idea. The circumstances on which the propriety of it depends, are best known to, as they will be best judged of by yourself. The information from N. Carolina gave me great pleasure. We hear nothing from the States South of it.
With the most perfect esteem & regard I am Dear Sir Your Affecte. friend & Obedt. servt., Js. Madison Jr
RC (DLC: Washington Papers). Madison, Papers (Rutland), 10:333--;34.
1 See ibid., pp. 296--;98. For Richard Henry Lee's October 16 letter to Edmund Randolph, which included his proposed "amendments" to the constitution and which had been printed in the December 6 issue of the Petersburgh Virginia Gazette, see Lee to Elbridge Gerry, September 29.
2 For John Jay's sentiments on the constitution and December 1 letter to John Vaughan, see Doc. Hist. of Ratif., 14:207--;9.
3 George Mason's October 7 "objections" to the constitution had been published in the Massachusetts Sentinel and the Independent Chronicle on November 21 and 22, with the deliberate omission of the section criticizing the regulation of commerce by a simple congressional majority. The deleted passage, furnished by a New York correspondent, was published in the Massachusetts Sentinel on December19 to give northern readers a more balanced presentation of Mason's views. For the background of this issue, see ibid., 8:40--;46, 13:346--;51, 14:147--;58.
4 Benjamin Franklin's closing speech to the Philadelphia Convention on September 17 had been printed in the Boston Gazette of December 3. An opponent of the constitution, writing under the pseudonym "Z," attacked the speech in the December 6 issue of the Boston Independent Chronicle by quoting and referring only to those passages casting doubt on the constitution. "Z's" version of Franklin's speech was reprinted in the New York Journal of December 17. See ibid., 14:358--;60.
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