Part 2 (1/2)
[Footnote 7: For the details, so far as they can now be recalled, of this single romantic incident in Mr Madison's life, I a Island, a great-grandson of General William Floyd]
CHAPTER IV
IN THE STATE assEMBLY
As the election of the saress for consecutive sessions was then forbidden by the law of Virginia, Mr Madison was not returned to that body in 1784 For a brief interval of three ood use of his ti his law studies, till in the spring of that year he was chosen to represent his county in the Virginia assembly It may be that ”the sentiments and manners of the parent nation,” which he lamented seven years before, had passed away, and nobody now insisted upon the privilege of getting drunk at the candidate's expense before voting for hied The difference was in the candidate; they did not need to be allured to give their votes to a man whom they were proud to call upon to represent the county Mr Madison's reputation was already ress, and he now easily took a place a the political leaders of his own State
The position was hardly less conspicuous or less influential than that which he had held in the national Congress What each Statethe federal governress could neither open nor close a single port in Virginia to con, without the consent of the State; it could not levy a tax of a penny on anything, whether goods co out, if the State objected As a ht propose or oppose any of these things; as a ht, if his influence was strong enough, carry or forbid any or all of theress It was in the power of Virginia to influence largely the welfare of her neighbors, so far as it depended upon commerce, and indirectly that of every State in the Union
In the asseress, Mr Madison's aiovern into imbecility and contempt ”I acceded,” he says, ”to the desire of my fellow-citizens of the county that I should be one of its representatives in the legislature,” to bring about ”a rescue of the Union and the blessings of liberty staked on it fro catastrophe” Early in the session the assembly assented to the amendment to the Articles of Confederation proposed at the late session of Congress, which substituted population for a land valuation as the basis of representation and of taxation The assembly also asserted that all requisitions upon the States for the support of the general government and to provide for the public debt should be complied with, and payment of balances on old accounts should be enforced; and it assented to the recoress that that body should have power for a li no treaty with the United States, in order that itAmerican shi+ps froned for ”the rescue of the Union,” and they had, of course, Madison's hearty support For it was absolutely essential, as he believed, that so should be done if the Union was to be saved, or to beBut there were obstacles on all sides The commercial States were reluctant to surrender the control over trade to Congress; in the planting States there was hardly any trade that could be surrendered In Virginia the tobacco planter still clung to the old ways He liked to have the English shi+p take his tobacco from the river bank of his own plantation, and to receive frooods as were needed to clothe his slaves, with the oods for his wife and daughter; the pipe of madeira, the coats and breeches, the hats, boots, and saddles for himself and his sons He knew that this year's crop went to pay--if it did pay--for last year's goods, and that he was always in debt But the debt was on running account, and did not es for interest and commissions, and the account for this year was always a lien on next year's crop He knew, and the planter knew, that the tobacco could be sold at a higher price in New York or Philadelphia than the factor got, or seeoods sent out in exchange were charged at a higher price than they could be bought for in the Northern towns Nevertheless, the planter liked to see his own hogsheads rolled on board shi+p by his own negroes at his oharf, and receive in return his own boxes and bales shi+pped direct froht It was a shi+ftless and ruinous systeures, nor even at reading and writing He was proud of being lord of a thousand or two acres, and one or two hundred negroes, and fancied that this was to rule over, as Mr Rives called it, ”a n and doular administrative hierarchy” He did not comprehend that the isolated life of a slave plantation was ordinarily only a kind of perpetual barbecue, with its rough sports and vacuous leisure, where the roasted ox was largely wasted and not always pleasant to look at There was a rude hospitality, where food, provided by unpaid labor, was cheap and abundant, and where the host was always glad to welcouest ould relieve him of his own tediousness; but there was little luxury and no refinement where there was almost no culture Of course there were a few homes and families of another order, where the women were refined and the enerally, with its bluff, loud, self-confident but ignorant planters, its numerous poor whites destitute of lands and of slaves, and its mass of slaves whose aim in life was to avoid work and escape the whip, was necessarily only one remove from semi-civilization
It was not easy to indoctrinate such a people, ent, with new ideas By the saht be possible to lead theoing Mr Madison hoped to change the wretched systeht into the assembly Imposts require custom-houses, and obviously there could not be custom-houses nor even custom-officers on every plantation in the State The bill proposed to leave open two ports of entry for all foreign shi+ps It would greatly sin trade of the State could be lih to enforce i to surrender to the federal government to help it to a revenue, if, happily, the time should ever come when all the States should assent to that measure of salvation for the Union Not that this was the primary object of those who favored this port law; but the question of coed, and its regulation in each State must needs have an influence, one way or the other, upon the possibility of strengthening, even of preserving, the Union Everything depended upon reconciling these state interests by mutual concessions The South was jealous of the North, because trade flourished at the North and did not flourish at the South It seemed as if this was at the expense of the South, and so, in a certain sense, it was The problem was to find where the difficulty lay, and to apply the remedy
If commerce flourished at the North, where each of the States had one or two ports of entry only, why should it not flourish in Virginia if regulated in the same way? If those centres of trade bred a race of ht and sold, did their own carrying, competed with and stimulated each other, and encroached upon the trade of the South, why should not siinia if she should confine her trade to two or three ports? If the buyer and the seller, the ie in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and prosperity followed as a consequence, why should they not do the sa about by the port bill
But it was iislature till three more ports were added to the thich the bill at first proposed When the planters came to understand that such a laould take away their cherished privilege of trade along the banks of the rivers, wherever anybody chose to run out a little jetty, the opposition was persistent
At every succeeding session, till the new federal Constitution was adopted, an atteh that was not successful, each year new ports of entry were added It did not, indeed, inia were two or whether they were twenty There was a factor in the problem which neither Mr Madison nor anybody else would take into the account It was possible, of course, if force enough were used, to break up the traffic with English shi+ps on the banks of the rivers; but when that was done, commerce would follow its os, in spite of the acts of the legislature, and flow into channels of its own choosing It was not possible to trans State, where labor was enslaved, into a commercial State, where labor ht be to transfer the power over coovernislature, to care first for the trade of his own State No State could afford to neglect its own co as the thirteen States re plainer and plainer every day that, while that relation continued, the less chance there was that thirteen petty, independent States could unite into one great nation No foreign poould overn its own people
Neither could any separate portion of that people inary line, need not hold it in respect What good was there in revenue laws, or, indeed, in any other laws in Massachusetts which Connecticut and Rhode Island disregarded? or in New York, if New Jersey and Pennsylvania laughed at theinia, if Maryland held them in conte about a healthful state of things in the trade of his own State, there was at least so s in the commerce of the whole country There came up a practical, local question which, when the tieneral question The Potoinia and Maryland; but Lord Baltiave to Maryland jurisdiction over the river to the Virginia bank; and this right Virginia had recognized, claiation of the Potomac and the Pocoarded when it orth while to evade the was easier than to evade thee so precious as a facility for sht anything about the matter till it caress To hi more than mere evasion of state laws and frauds on the state revenue The subject fell into line with his reflections upon the looseness of the bonds that held the States together, and how unlikely it was that they would ever grow into a respectable or prosperous nation while their present relations continued Virtually there was no maritime law on the Potomac, and hardly even the pretense of any What could be more absurd than to provide ports of entry on one bank of a river, while on the other bank, from the source to the sea, the whole country was free to all coarded on the opposite bank, a treaty was as necessary between theuous states in Europe
Madison wrote to Jefferson, as now a delegate in Congress, pointing out this ano that he should confer with the Maryland delegates upon the subject The proposal ht an intervieith Mr Stone, a delegate fro him of the sa the subject forward on our part They will consider it, therefore, as originated by this conversation” Why ”they” should not have been perestion that Jefferson should have such a conversation is not quite plain; for it was Madison, not Jefferson, who had discovered that here was a wrong that ought to be righted, and who had proposed that each State should appoint commissioners to look into the otiation on this subject had any influence in bringing about the Constitutional Convention of 1787, it was only because Mr Madison, having suggested the first practical step in the one case, seized an opportune est a similar practical step in the other case As it is so often said that the Annapolis Convention of 1786 was the direct result of the discussion of the Potomac question, it is worth while to explain what they really had to do with each other
The Virginia commissioners were appointed early in the session on Mr
Madison's motion Marylandof 1785 that the commissioners met They soon found that any efficient jurisdiction over the Potomac involved more interests than they, or those who appointed theht be disposed of by agreeing upon uniform duties in the two States, and this the commissioners recoislature it took a wider range
The Pototon was president, had been chartered only a few months before The work it proposed to do was to ood road with the Ohio River This was to encourage the settlement of Western lands
Another company was chartered about the same time to connect the Potomac and Delaware by a canal, where interstate traffic would be more immediate Pennsylvania and Delaware must necessarily have a deep interest in both these projects, and the Maryland legislature proposed that those States be invited to appoint coinia had already appointed to settle the conflict between them upon the question of jurisdiction on the Potomac Then it occurred to somebody: if four States can confer, why should not thirteen? The Maryland legislature thereupon suggested that all the States be invited to send delegates to a convention to take up the whole question of A on in Maryland, the Virginia legislature was considering petitions fro that soht be devised for the co The port bill had manifestly proved a failure It was only a feeeks before that Madison had complained, in a letter to a friend, that ”the trade of the country is in a most deplorable condition;” that the lish inia, as well as upon the planters who shi+pped their own tobacco; that the difference in the price of tobacco at Philadelphia and in Virginia was fros in favor of the Northern ports; and that ”the price of merchandise here is, at least, as much above, as that of tobacco is below, the Northern standard” He was only the more confirmed in his opinion that there was no cure for these radical evils except to surrender to the confederate government complete control over commerce
The debate upon these petitions was hot and long It brought out the strongest ive to Congress the power to regulate trade with foreign countries when no treaty existed; to make uniform commercial laws for all the States; and to levy an impost of five per cent on imported merchandise, as a provision for the public debt and for the support of the federal governth reported instructions to the delegates of the State in Congress to labor for the consent of all the States to these propositions But in Coed and qualified--especially in liress was to be intrusted with a power so essential to the existence of the governiven up by its friends as hopeless
But before the report was disposed of Mr Madison prepared a resolution, to be offered as a substitute, with the hope of reaching the same end in another way This resolution provided for the appointment of five commissioners,--Madison to be one of them,--”who, or any three of whom, shall meet such commissioners as may be appointed in the other States of the Union, at a tireed on, to take into consideration the trade of the United States; to examine the relative situations and trade of said States; to consider how far a uniforulations may be necessary to their common interest and their permanent harmony; and to report to the several States such an act, relative to this great object, as, when unanimously ratified by theress, effectually to provide for the same” This he was careful not to offer himself, but, as he says, it was ”introduced by Mr Tyler, an influential ress, had more the ear of the House than those whose services there exposed them to an imputable bias” He adds that ”it was so little acceptable that it was not then persisted in”
About the saislature on the Potomac question, and the report of the Potomac commissioners, came up for consideration Mr Madison said afterward that, as Maryland thought the concurrence of Pennsylvania and Delaere necessary to the regulation of trade on that river, so those States would, probably, wish to ask for the concurrence of their neighbors in any proposed arrangement ”So apt and forcible an illustration,” he adds, ”of the necessity of an uniforhout all the States could not but favor the passage of a resolution which proposed a convention having that for its object”
As one of the Poto from Maryland, and ”how apt and forcible an illustration” it would seem, when it did come, of that resolution which he had written and had induced Mr Tyler to offer It did not matter that the resolution had been at the moment ”so little acceptable,” and therefore ”not then persisted in” It here it was sure, in the political slang of our day, to do the ood And so it ca out of the consideration of the Potoislature acceded to Then, on the last day of the session, the Madison-Tyler resolution was taken from the table, where it had lain quietly for nearly twoall winter against any action which should lead to a possibility of strengthening the federal government, failed to see how important a step they had taken to that very end; if any, ere fearful of federal usurpation and tenacious of state rights, were blind to the fact that the resolution had pushed aside the Potomac question and put the Union question in its place, Mr Madison, we ained that for which he had been striving for years
The coether They appointed Annapolis as the place, and the second Monday of the following September (1786) as the time, of the proposed national convention; and they sent to all the other States an invitation to send delegates to that convention
On Septeinia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York assembled at Annapolis Others had been appointed by North Carolina, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Haia, South Carolina, Maryland, and Connecticut had taken no action upon the subject As five States only were represented, the commissioners ”did not conceive it advisable to proceed on the business of their mission,” but they adopted an address, written by Alexander Hamilton, to be sent to all the States
All the represented States, the address said, had authorized their commissioners ”to take into consideration the trade and commerce of the United States; to consider how far an uniforht be necessary to their coone farther than this; her delegates were instructed ”to consider how far an uniforulations _and other iht be necessary to the common interest and permanent harmony of the several States” This, the coinal plan, and will deserve to be incorporated into that of a future convention” They gave their reasons at length for this opinion, and, in conclusion, urged that commissioners from all the States be appointed to meet in convention at Philadelphia on the second Monday of the following May (1787), ”to devise such further provisions as shall appear to theovernencies of the Union”