"Your reflections on the idle poor of Europe form a valuable lesson to the legislators of every country, and particularly of a new one. I hope you will enable yourself, before you return to America, to compare with this description of people in France the condition of the indigent part of other communities in Europe, where the like causes of wretchedness exist in a lesser degree.

"I have no doubt that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate, wherever the government assumes a freer aspect, and the laws favor a subdivision of property. Yet I suspect that the difference will not fully account for the comparative comfort of the mass of the people in the United States. Our limited population has probably as large a share in producing this effect as the political advantages which distinguish us.

"A certain degree of misery seems inseparable from a high degree of populousness. If the lands in Europe, which are now dedicated to the amusement of the idle rich, were parcelled out among the idle poor, I readily conceive the happy revolution which would be experienced by a certain proportion of the latter. But still would there not remain a great proportion unrelieved?

"No problem in political economy has appeared to me more puzzling than that which relates to the most proper distribution of the inhabitants of a country fully peopled. Let the lands be shared among them ever so wisely, and let them be supplied with laborers ever so abundantly, as there

must be a great surplus of subsistence [beyond what is required for the consumption of the owners and cultivators of the land], there will also remain a great surplus of inhabitants [beyond those owners and cultivators]; greater, by far, than will be employed in clothing themselves and those who feed them, and in administering to both every other necessary and comfort of life. What is to be done with this surplus?

"Hitherto we have seen them distributed into manufacturers of superfluities, idle proprietors of public funds, domestics, soldiers, merchants, mariners, and a few other less numerous classes. All these classes, notwithstanding, have been found insufficient to absorb the redundant members of a populous society; and yet a reduction of most of those classes enters into the very reform which appears so necessary and desirable."

Strong as was the bent of Mr. Madison's mind for these enlarged contemplations of the operations of nature and human society, in the general laws by which they are governed, he was soon recalled from them by the increasing urgency of public affairs, to which, as forming the field of his more active and responsible labors, we must now

return.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Commissioners appointed by Virginia recommend Meeting of the proposed Politico-Commercial Convention to be held at Annapolis, on the second Monday of September - Mr. Madison's Solicitude respecting the Success of the Convention-He answers, with Firmness and Decision, the Objections made to the proposed Plan of Proceeding — Important Report in Congress, urging upon the States the Adoption of the Revenue System, arranged by Mr. Madison in 1783-Formal Refusal of Legislature of New Jersey to comply with a Requisition of Congress - Proposal of Mr. Jay to surrender the Navigation of the Mississippi to Spain, for a Term of Years, in Consideration of certain Commercial Stipulations - Earnestly sustained by the Eastern States and by New York-Warmly opposed by the Southern States - The Policy of the Middle States, for a Time, in Suspense - Strong Disap probation of the Proposal expressed by Mr. Madison- He sets out to the North, and visits Congress - Antagonism of Northern and Southern Parties in that Body carried to a great Height, in Consequence of Mr. Jay's Projected Treaty with Spain-Letter of Mr. Madison to Mr. Jefferson, describing Inauspicious Influence of this State of Things on Prospects of Annapolis Convention - Able Paper presented by Virginia Delegation in Congress, in Opposition to Mr. Jay's ProjectProceedings in Congress upon it-Remarkable Letter of Mr. Monroe, then Member of Congress, asserting the Existence of a Project on the Part of the Eastern States and New York for the Establishment of a Separate Confederacy - Proceedings of the Convention at Annapolis -It recommends the Assembling of another Convention, with General Powers, to meet in Philadelphia the following Year.

By the resolution of the legislature of Virginia, proposing a politico-commercial convention of the States to consider the expediency of certain altera

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tions of the articles of confederation, it was made the duty of the commissioners, appointed by the legislature, to transmit copies of the resolution to the several States, with a circular letter, inviting their concurrence and designating a time and place for the meeting of the convention. A quorum of the commissioners assembled in Richmond, a few weeks after the adjournment of the legislature, for the performance of this duty, and agreed upon Annapolis as the place, and the second Monday of September as the time, for holding the contemplated convention. So strong was the jealousy then existing in the public mind of the imputed "lust of power" in Congress, as well as of the supposed influence of the principal commercial cities, that, according to the statement of one of the commissioners, in a communication to Mr. Madison, the chief consideration which governed them in fixing upon Annapolis for the meeting of the convention was to avoid, as much as possible, proximity to Congress on the one hand, and to the great marts of commerce on the other.

Mr. Madison naturally felt the deepest solicitude as to the reception which this first practical step towards a fundamental change in the constitution of the Confederacy should meet with, both in Congress and in the several States. How much the honor and happiness of the country, in his estimation, depended upon it, as well as how many adverse chances it had to encounter, he freely 1 Edmund Randolph, Esq.

expressed, in a letter to Mr. Jefferson, of the 18th of March, 1786:

"A quorum of the deputies," he said, "appointed by the legislature for a commercial convention, had a meeting in Richmond, shortly after I left it; and the attorney [Edmund Randolph] tells me it has been agreed to propose Annapolis for the place, and the second Monday in September as the time, of holding the convention. It was thought prudent to avoid the neighborhood of Congress and the large commercial towns, in order to disarm the adversaries to the object of insinuations of influence from either of those quarters. I have not heard what opinion is entertained of this project at New York [where Congress was then sitting], nor what reception it has found in any of the States.

"If it should come to nothing, it will, I fear, confirm Great Britain and all the world in the belief that we are not to be respected nor apprehended as a nation in matters of commerce. A miscarriage of this attempt to unite the States in some effectual plan will have another effect of a serious nature. It will dissipate every prospect of drawing a steady revenue from our imports, either directly into the Federal Treasury or indirectly through the treasuries of the commercial States; and, of consequence, the former must depend for supplies solely on annual requisitions, and the latter on direct taxes, drawn from the property of the country. That these dependencies are, in an