The Debate That Made the Constitution of the United States

James Madison

• Publisher: Madison & Adams Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9788026880578
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Constitutions

The Constitutional Convention took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The intention of many of its proponents, chief among them James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, was to create a new government rather than fix the existing one. The delegates elected George Washington to preside over the Convention. The result of the Convention was the creation of the United States Constitution, placing the Convention among the most significant events in the history of the United States. The Constitutional Convention created a new, unprecedented form of government by reallocating powers of government. Every previous national authority had been either a centralized government, or a "confederation of sovereign constituent states." The American power-sharing was unique at the time. The sources and changes of power were up to the states. The foundations of government and extent of power came from both national and state sources. But the new government would have a national operation.

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James Madison

The Debate That Made the Constitution of the United States

Madison & Adams Press, 2017. No claim to original U.S. Government Works
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ISBN 978-80-268-8057-8

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Table of Contents

The Journal of the Debates in the Convention Which Framed the Constitution of the United States (Vol. 1)

The Journal of the Debates in the Convention Which Framed the Constitution of the United States (Vol. 2)

The Journal of the Debates in the Convention Which Framed the Constitution of the United States (Vol. 1)

Table of Contents

The Records of the Constitutional Convention

Chronology of James Madison

Journal of the Constitutional Convention of 1787

Monday May 28

Tuesday May 29

Wednesday May 30

Thursday May 31

Friday June 1st 1787

Saturday June 2d in Committee of Whole

Monday June 4. In Committee of the Whole

Tuesday June 5. In Committee of the Whole

Wednesday June 6th in Committee of the Whole

Thursday June 7th 1787 — in Committee of the Whole

Friday June 8th in Committee of the Whole

Saturday June 9th Mr. Luther Martin From Maryland Took His Seat. In Committee of the Whole

Monday, June 11th Mr. Abraham Baldwin From Georgia Took His Seat. In Committee of the Whole

Tuesday June 12th in Committee of Whole

Wednesday June 13. In Committee of the Whole

Thursday June 14. In Convention

Friday June 15th 1787

Saturday June 16. In Committee of the Whole on Resolutions Proposed by Mr. P. & Mr. R.

Monday June 18. In Committee of the Whole on the Propositions of Mr. Patterson & Mr. Randolph

Tuesday June 19th in Committee of Whole on the Propositions of Mr. Patterson

Wednesday June 20. 1897. In Convention

Thursday June 21. In Convention

Friday June 22. In Convention

Saturday June 23. In Convention

Monday, June 25. In Convention

Tuesday, June 26. In Convention

Wednesday June 27. In Convention

Thursday June 28th. In Convention

Friday June 29th in Convention

Saturday June 30. 1787. In Convention

Monday July 2d in Convention

Thursday July 5th in Convention

Friday July 6th in Convention

Saturday, July 7. In Convention

Monday July 9th in Convention

Tuesday July 10. In Convention

Wednesday July 11. In Convention

Thursday, July 12. In Convention

Friday, July 13. In Convention

Saturday, July 14. In Convention

Monday, July 16. In Convention

Tuesday July 17. In Convention

Wednesday July 18. In Convention

The Records of the Constitutional Convention

Table of Contents

James Madison's contemporaries generally conceded that he was the leading statesman in the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States; but in addition to this he kept a record of the proceedings of the convention which outranks in importance all the other writings of the founders of the American Republic. He is thus identified, as no other man is, with the making of the Constitution and the correct interpretation of the intentions of the makers. His is the only continuous record of the proceedings of the convention. He took a seat immediately in front of the presiding officer, among the members, and took down every speech or motion as it was made, using abbreviations of his own and immediately afterwards transcribing his notes when he returned to his lodgings. A few motions only escaped him and of important speeches he omitted none. The proceedings were ordered to be kept secret, but his self-imposed task of reporter had the unofficial sanction of the convention. Alexander Hamilton corrected slightly Madison's report of his great speech and handed him his plan of government to copy. The same thing was done with Benjamin Franklin's speeches, which were written out by Franklin and read by his colleague Wilson, the fatigue of delivery being too great for the aged Franklin, and Madison also copied the Patterson plan. Edmund Randolph wrote out for him his opening speech from his notes two years after the convention adjourned.1

In the years after the convention Madison made a few alterations and additions in his journal, with the result that in parts there is much interlineation and erasure, but after patient study the meaning is always perfectly clear. Three different styles of Madison's own penmanship at different periods of his life appear in the journal, one being that of his old age within five years of his death. In this hand appears the following note at the end of the journal: "The few alterations and corrections made in the debates which are not in my handwriting were dictated by me and made in my presence by John C. Payne."2 The rare occasions where Payne's penmanship is distinguishable are indicated in the notes to this edition.

The importance attached by Madison to his record is shown by the terms of his will, dated April 15, 1835, fourteen months before his death:

"I give all my personal estate ornamental as well as useful, except as herein after otherwise given, to my dear Wife; and I also give to her all my manuscript papers, having entire confidence in her discreet and proper use of them, but subject to the qualification in the succeeding clause. Considering the peculiarity and magnitude of the occasion which produced the Convention at Philadelphia in 1787, the Characters who composed it, the Constitution which resulted from their deliberations, its effects during a trial of so many years on the prosperity of the people living under it, and the interest it has inspired among the friends of free Government, it is not an unreasonable inference that a careful and extended report of the proceedings and discussions of that body, which were with closed doors, by a member who was constant in his attendance, will be particularly gratifying to the people of the United States, and to all who take an interest in the progress of political science and the course of true liberty. It is my desire that the Report as made by me should be published under her authority and direction."3

This desire was never consummated, for Mrs. Madison's friends advised her that she could not herself profitably undertake the publication of the work, and she accordingly offered it to the Government, by which it was bought for $30,000, by act of Congress, approved March 3, 1837. On July 9, 1838, an act was approved authorizing the Joint Committee on the Library to cause the papers thus purchased to be published, and the Committee intrusted the superintendence of the work to Henry D. Gilpin, Solicitor of the Treasury. The duplicate copy of the journal which Mrs. Madison had delivered was, under authority of Congress, withdrawn from the State Department and placed in Mr. Gilpin's hands. In 1840 (Washington: Lantree & O'Sulivan), accordingly, appeared the three volumes, The Papers of James Madison Purchased by Order of Congress, edited by Henry D. Gilpin. Other issues of this edition, with changes of date, came out later in New York, Boston, and Mobile. This issue contained not only the journal of the Constitutional Convention, but Madison's notes of the debates in the Continental Congress and in the Congress of the Confederation from February 19 to April 25, 1787, and a report Jefferson had written of the debates in 1776 on the Declaration of Independence, besides a number of letters of Madison's. From the text of Gilpin a fifth volume was added to Elliot's Debates in 1845, and it was printed in one volume in Chicago, 1893.

Mr. Gilpin's reading of the duplicate copy of the Madison journal is thus the only one that has hitherto been published.4 His work was both painstaking and thorough, but many inaccuracies and omissions have been revealed by a second reading from the original manuscript journal written in Madison's own hand, just as he himself left it; and this original manuscript has been followed with rigid accuracy in the text of the present edition.

The editor has compared carefully with Madison's report, as the notes will show, the incomplete and less important records of the convention, kept by others. Of these, the best known is that of Robert Yates, a delegate in the convention from New York, who took notes from the time he entered the convention, May 25, to July 5, when he went home to oppose what he foresaw would be the result of the convention's labors. These notes were published in 1821 (Albany), edited by Yates's colleague in the convention, John Lansing, under the title, Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Convention Assembled at Philadelphia, in the Year 1787, for the Purpose of Forming the Constitution of the United States of America. This was afterwards reprinted in several editions and in the three editions of The Debates on the Federal Constitution, by Jonathan Elliot (Washington, 1827-1836). Madison pronounced Yates's notes "Crude and broken." "When I looked over them some years ago," he wrote to J. C. Cabell, February 2, 1829, "I was struck with the number of instances in which he had totally mistaken what was said by me, or given it in scraps and terms which, taken without the developments or qualifications accompanying them, had an import essentially different from what was intended." Yates's notes were colored by his prejudices, which were strong against the leaders of the convention, but, making allowance for this and for their incompleteness, they are of high value and rank next to Madison's in importance.

Rufus King, a delegate from Massachusetts, kept a number of notes, scattered and imperfect, which were not published till 1894, when they appeared in King's Life and Correspondence of Rufus King (New York: Putnam's).

William Pierce, a delegate from Georgia, made some memoranda of the proceedings of the convention, and brief and interesting sketches of all the delegates, which were first printed in The Savannah Georgian, April, 18-28, 1828, and reprinted in The American Historical Review for January, 1898.

The notes of Yates, King, and Pierce are the only unofficial record of the convention extant, besides Madison's, and their chief value is in connection with the Madison record, which in the main they support, and which occasionally they elucidate.

December 30, 1818, Charles Pinckney wrote to John Quincy Adams that he had made more notes of the convention than any other member except Madison, but they were never published and have been lost or destroyed.5

In 1819 (Boston) was published the Journal, Acts and Proceedings of the Convention, etc., under the supervision of John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, by authority of a joint resolution of Congress of March 27, 1818. This was the official journal of the convention, which the Secretary, William Jackson, had turned over to the President, George Washington, when the convention adjourned, Jackson having previously burned all other papers of the convention in his possession. March 16, 1796, Washington deposited the papers Jackson had given him with the Secretary of State, Timothy Pickering. They consisted of three volumes, — the journal of the convention, the journal of the proceedings of the Committee of the Whole of the convention, and a list of yeas and nays, beside a printed draft of the Constitution as reported August 6th, showing erasures and amendments afterwards adopted, and the Virginia plan in different stages of development.

In preparing the matter for publication Secretary Adams found that for Friday, September 14, and Saturday, September 15, the journal was a mere fragment, and Madison was applied to and completed it from his minutes. From General B. Bloomfield, executor of the estate of David Brearley, a delegate in the convention from New Jersey, Adams obtained a few additional papers, and from Charles Pinckney a copy of what purported to be the plan of a constitution submitted by him to the convention. All of these papers, with some others, appeared in the e...