Part 2 (2/2)
In the course of the winter delegates to this convention were chosen by the several States Virginia was the first to choose her delegates; Madison was aton
CHAPTER V
IN THE VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE
That the Annapolis Convention ever met to ether eight months afterward and framed a permanent Constitution for the United States was unquestionably due to the persistence and the political adroitness of Mr Madison But it was not exceptional work The saence and devotion to public duty h which he continued a islature As chairman of the judiciary committee he reduced with much labor the old colonial statutes to a body of laws befitting the condition of free citizens in an independent State Froh without success, for the faith of treaties and the honest payland provided that there should be ”no lawful impediment on either side to the recovery of debts heretofore contracted” The legislature notified Congress that it should disregard this provision, on the plea that in relation to ”slaves and other property” it had not been observed by Great Britain Mr Madison did not then know that--as he said three years later--”the infractions [of the treaty] on the part of the United States preceded even the violation on the other side in the instance of the negroes” He maintained, nevertheless, that the settleed to Congress, the party to the treaty, and not to a State which had surrendered the treaty- power; and that in coation to pay a London oods and merchandise received before the war, because other planters had not been paid for the negroes and horses they had lost when the British troops invaded Virginia At each of the three sessions of the legislature, while he was athat body to adopt some line of conduct which should not--to use his oords--”extreress” It was useless; the repudiators were quite deaf to any appeals either to their honor or their patriotism
On another question both he and his State were ht for, and he was quick to coht which had first called forth his youthful enthusiasht forward from session to session to secure for the church the support of the state The first was a bill for the incorporation of religious societies; but when it was pushed to its final passage it provided for the incorporation of Episcopal churches only For this Mr Madison consented to vote, though with reluctance, in the hope that the church party would be so far satisfied with thisanother which was still more objectionable
He was disappointed Naturally those who had carried their first point were the more, not the less, anxious for further success Noas insisted that there should be a universal tax ”for the support of teachers of the Christian religion” The tax-payer was to be perious society for the support of which he preferred to contribute If he declined this voluntary acquiescence in the law, the money would be used in aid of a school; but from the tax itself none were to be exempt on any pretext Madison was quick to see in such a law the possibility of religious intolerance, of compulsory uniformity enforced by the civil power, and of the suppression of any freedom of conscience or opinion The act did not define ere and ere not ”teachers of the Christian religion,” and that necessarily would be left to the courts to decide A state church would be the inevitable consequence; for it was not to be supposed that any donition by law of its own denoion To expect anything else was to ignore the teachings of all history
The burden of opposition and debate fell, at first, almost solely upon Madison Some of the wisest and best ious freedoislation
There was, it was said, a sad falling-off in public ion increased There was no cure, it was declared, for prevalent and growing corruption except in the culture of the religious sentiion, therefore,all this, Madison saw that the proposed reive, not bread but a stone, and a stone that would be used in return as a weapon It was iious belief by act of the assembly, and therefore it orse than foolish to try
It was due to him that the question was postponed from one session to the next A copy of the bill was sent, meanwhile, into every county of the State for the consideration of the people, and that was aided by a ”Memorial and Remonstrance,” written by Madison, which was circulated everywhere for signature, in readiness for presentation to the next legislature The bill, the erous abuse of power,” and the signers protested against it with unanswerable argu-point the assertion of the Bill of Rights, ”that religion, or the duty e to our Creator, and theit, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence” It is not at all ined this remonstrance, not so much because they believed it to be true as because it was a protest against a tax; that others were more moved by jealousy of the power of the Episcopal Church than they were by anxiety to protect religious liberty outside of their own sects But whatever the arded
It was islature of 1785-86; at that session the bill for the support of religious teachers was rejected, and in place of it was passed ”an act for establishi+ng religious freedom,” written by Jefferson seven years before This provided ”that no ious worshi+p, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, oods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all uion, and that the sae, or affect their civil capacities”[8]
In the memorial and remonstrance Madison had said: ”If this freedoainst man To God, therefore, not to inia did not clearly coth and breadth a hundred years ago, it is not quite easy to say ere then, or who are now, at liberty to throw stones at theious freedom was no more new then than it is true that persecution for opinion's sake is now only an ancient evil It was not till fifty years after Virginia had refused to tax her citizens for the support of religious teachers that Massachusetts repealed the law that had long imposed a similar burden upon her people
It was in 1786, the last year of Madison's service in the Virginia asseress, that the craze of paper h all the States The measure was carried in most of them, followed in the end by the usual disastrous consequences
Madison's anxiety was great lest his own State should be carried away by this delusion, and he led the opposition against so for an issue of currency The vote against it was too large to be due altogether to his influence; but he gave great strength and concentration to the opposition In Virginia, tobacco certificates supplied in so medium, and it was, therefore, easier there than in some of the other States to resist the clamor for a paper substitute for realworth money Madison assented to a bill which authorized the use of such certificates But his ”acquiescence,” he wrote to Washi+ngton, ”was extorted by a fear that soreater evil, under the name of relief to the people, would be substituted” He was ”far froht” But no evils hich he had to reproach himself followed that measure
These three years of his life were probably aether the happiest, in his long public career There was little disappointenuine satisfaction as he sa certainly he was gaining a high place in the estimation of his fellow-citizens for his devotion to the best interests of his native State In the recesses of the legislature he had leisure for studies in which he evidently found great contentood deal at intervals, especially at the North; learned much of the resources and character of the people outside of Virginia, and becaed hin diploness to accept it But he preferred to know so more of his own country while he had the leisure; and if his life was to be passed in public service, as now seemed probable to him, he chose, at least for the present, to serve his country at hoht he was more needed, rather than abroad In his orders for books sent to Jefferson the direction of his studies is evident He sought largely for those which treated of the science of government; but they were not confined to that subject Natural history had great charent student of Buffon, and was anxious to find, if possible, the plates of his thirty-one voluht adorn the walls of his room with them He made careful comparisons between the animals of other continents, as described and portrayed by the naturalist, and similar orders in America All new inventions interested him ”I am so pleased,” he writes, ”with the new invented lauineas for one of theer diameter than a watch, and whichthe vibration of the needle when not in use One of these would be very convenient in case of a raests, ht ”be a source of ratifications,” when ”in walks for exercise or aht be matter of curiosity to inspect, but which it was difficult or impossible to approach” Jefferson writes him of a new invention, a pedometer; and he wants one for his own pocket Trifles like these show the bent of his mind; and they show a contented islature of 1785, he is careful to give other infor as written ninety-eight years ago, and written by him
”I Rumsey,” he says, ”by a memorial to the last session, represented that he had invented a ht be worked with little labor, at the rate of fro at the rate of ten miles an hour, and prayed that the disclosure of his invention ance of his pretensions brought a ridicule upon the was done In the recess of the asseton and a few other gentleave a certificate of the reality and importance of the invention, which opened the ears of this asseives a ht to abolish it at any ti similar acts from other States, and will not, I suppose, publish the secret till he either obtains or despairs of theence was evidently not unheeded by Jefferson In writing, some months after he received it, to a friend on the application of stealand, he adds: ”I hear you are applying the saate boats, and I have little doubt but that it will be applied generally to machines, so as to supersede the use of water-ponds, and of course to lay open all the streaation” Nor does Madison see was to come of Ruo, and now there is a stea about twice a day
In a sirave political matters, to re of a well in Richmond, on the declivity of a hill, there had been found, ”about seventy feet below the surface, several large bones, apparently belonging to a fish not less than the shark; and, what is ments of potter's ware in the style of the Indians Before he [the digger] reached these curiosities he passed through about fifty feet of soft blue clay” Mr Madison had only just heard of this discovery, and he had not seen the unearthed fragments
But he evidently accepts the story as true in co from ”unexceptionable witnesses” He adds, as a corroboration, that he is told by a friend fro of a salt-well, ”of the hip-bone of the incognituht inches in dia to Jefferson, and Madison was too devoted a friend to him to leave the to hih he had not ation That ”the potter's ware in the style of the Indians” should be found so deeply buried only seeular;”
nor, indeed, is there any record, so far as we know, that this particular fact was any h apparently so likely to arouse his inquiring ical notions were too positive to ad a Creator, he assumed that ”he created the earth at once, nearly in the state in which we see it, fit for the preservation of the beings he placed on it” Theorist as he was himself, he had little patience with the other theorists ere already beginning to discover in the structure of the earth the evidence of successive geological eras The different strata of rocks and their inclination gave him no trouble He explained therows, and it seerows in layers in every direction, as the branches of trees grow in all directions” That evidences of the existence of ht of earth seventy feet in thickness would present to him no difficulty If the fact had specially aroused his attention he would have explained it in soenious way as the result of accident
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 8: With how ress of this controversy he showed in his letters from Paris In February, 1786, he wrote to Madison: ”I thank you for the coainst the assessment Mazzei, who is now in Holland, promised me to have it published in the _Leyden Gazette_ It will do us great honor I wish it may be as much approved by our asseain, in Deceious freedom has been received with infinite approbation in Europe, and propagated with enthusiasovernments, but by the individuals who compose them It has been translated into French and Italian, has been sent to most of the courts of Europe, and has been the best evidence of the falsehood of those reports which stated us to be in anarchy It is inserted in the _Encyclopedie_, and is appearing inAmerica In fact, it is coth erected, after sowhich the hus, priests, and nobles; and it is honorable for us to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of man may be trusted with the fore is characteristic, and many who do not like Jefferson will read between the lines the exultation of a ious liberty and irreligious license]
CHAPTER VI
PUBLIC DISTURBANCES AND ANXIETIES