deduced from the actual structure of the Govt. and the quantum of its powers.…
Another error has been in ascribing to the intention of the Convention which formed the Constitution, an undue ascendency in expounding it. Apart from the difficulty of verifying that intention it is clear, that if the meaning of the Constitution is to be sought out of itself, it is not in the proceedings of the Body that proposed it, but in those of the State Conventions which gave it all the validity & authority it possesses.
CCCLXXXIX. James Madison to James T. Austin.[1]
Montpellier Feby 6 1832.
I have recd your letter of 19th ulto requesting “a communication of any facts connected with the services of the late V. President Gerry in the Convention of 1787” The letter was retarded by its address to Charlottesville instead of Orange City. It would give me pleasure to make any useful contribution to a biography of Mr. Gerry for whom I had a very high esteem and a very warm regard. But I know not that I could furnish any particular facts of that character separable from his general course in the Convention, especially without some indicating reference to them. I may say in general, that Mr. G. was an active an able, and interesting member of that assembly, and that the part he bore in its discussions and proceedings was important and continued to the close of them. The grounds on which he dissented from some of the results are well known.
CCCXC. James Madison to Professor Davis.[2]
Montpellier, 1832.
It deserves particular attention, that the Congress which first met contained sixteen members, eight of them in the House of Representatives,[3] fresh from the Convention which framed the Constitution, and a considerable number who had been members of the State Conventions which had adopted it, taken as well from the party which opposed as from those who had espoused its adoption. Yet it appears from the debates in the House of Representatives, (those in the Senate not having been taken,) that not a doubt was started of the power of Congress to impose duties on imports for the encouragement of domestic manufactures.…
