THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION A SYLLABUS OF " MADISON'S JOURNAL OF THE CONSTI- A FEW OUTLINES BASED ON "THE FEDERALIST" COPYRIGHT, 1898 BY SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY JK 146 W88 The Lakeside Press R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY CHICAGO Library of 4. FEvans 5-15-33 INTRODUCTION In this syllabus I have attempted to outline, for a few weeks' study, Madison's Journal of the Federal Convention of 1787. The purpose of the syllabus is to promote the study of the origin of the Constitution by enabling classes which may not be able to devote a full term to the study of the Debates to secure the more valuable parts of these important discussions in a shorter time. The aim has been to direct the attention of the student to the important speeches of the leading men in the Convention, to the principal questions discussed, to the principal conclusions and compromises to which the Convention agreed, and to the historical precedents and influences leading to these conclusions. There are many secondary accounts of this great Convention, but there is no satisfactory source of information short of the original account, from which all others are drawn. The secondary narratives may be of assistance, but the original narrative is essential. It is the sources. - the last resort to which appeal can be made that give assurance and vitality to historical study. For the making of the Constitution and for numerous phases of our constitutional history the great source is Madison's Journal of the Constitutional Convention. It seems worth while to say a few words here concerning the purpose and subject of Madison's Journal. Without overstating its importance as a text for historical study, the Journal may be said to be the most important single contribution ever made to American constitutional history. This syllabus is designed to outline an abbreviated study of that great text.* The statement will receive ready assent that the Constitutional Convention of 1787 has been the subject of more study than has *These lessons are intended to be used with E. H. Scott's edition of Madison's Journal and the page references apply to that edition. (Scott, Foresman & Co., Chicago.) any other single event of our national history. The causes leading to this Convention, the men who composed it, the discussions which it brought forth, its conclusions and results, will ever be of primary concern to him who would understand our form of government and the growth of our national union. To the student of governmental history and political science in America there can be no subject of greater importance. A knowledge of that Convention and its work is essential to an intelligent understanding of our subsequent constitutional and political development; consequently, that development is to be studied in the light of the Convention. Fortunately, we have the record of the Convention, the story as to how the Constitution was made, from the man of his day most competent to give it. As Thucydides was especially equipped to become the historian of the Peloponnesian War, so was Madison especially equipped to record the debates of the Convention which. made the Constitution. He had experienced the defects of the Confederation; he was a statesman, a student of politics, and an active, intelligent, well-read, truth-telling participant in the affairs which he related. Mr. Madison, during his long life, did many good things for his country, but of all his valuable services none was of more importance to posterity and to history than the record that he kept of the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. But for Mr. Madison the generations of his countrymen who came after him would not have had this notable account of the making of the Constitution, this history of an assembly that Mr. Madison's biographer has called "one of the most important events in the history of mankind.”’* The motive prompting this syllabus is the belief that the Journal's own story of its origin and its purpose should be made more familiar to students of American history. Mr. Madison died on June 28, 1836. On November 15 of the same year Mrs. Madison, his widow, wrote a letter to the President of the United States telling him that her husband had left for her in his will a full manuscript report of the great Convention of 1787, by a member who was in constant attendance. Mr. Madison knew, *"James Madison," by Sydney Howard Gay, p. 88. as he said in his will, that this report of a Convention that had been held in secret, and the debates which had never been published, would be of great interest to all who "take an interest in the progress of political science and the course of true liberty.” On receiving this letter from Mrs. Madison, President Jackson sent a message to Congress recommending that Mr. Madison's papers be purchased and published. Accordingly, Congress authorized the purchase for the sum of $30,000, and directed the Journal to be published under the name of the Madison Papers.* Thus it was, fifty years after the great Convention adjourned, that the public came to a knowledge of the Convention debates. By that time all the members of the Convention had passed from earth. In order that the debates might be unembarrassed and free from restraint, the Convention had decided to sit with closed doors. What the members said in discussion was not to be known outside, in order that they might not be subjected to newspaper and popular clamor nor to any outside influence. No member of the Convention was expected to take down, for the purpose of publishing, anything that was said in debate. It was for these reasons that Mr. Madison did not wish his notes to be published until after he and his colleagues were dead and after the controversies of the Convention had passed from the field of political discussion. As has been said, Mr. Madison had been a deep student of politics. He had been curious to know upon what principles and by what reasoning the Federal Governments of the past had been formed. When he went into that study he was much disappointed to find such scant and meagre records of the reasons which had guided men in forming such governments in the past. All his researches could not gratify his curiosity. He was resolved that future ages should not suffer from such a lack as to the opinions and reasonings by which our new system of government was to receive its structure. He well knew that such a record would be a fund of valuable material for a history of the Constitution, and he *While the Madison Papers contain other material the Journal is their most important part, so much the most important that the Papers are frequently referred to when the Journal alone is thought of. |