ⅭⅭⅭⅬⅩⅢ. James Madison to Martin Van Buren.[1]
You will not I am sure, take it amiss if I here point to an error of fact, in your “observations on Mr. Foot’s amendment.” It struck me when first reading them, but escaped my attention –when thanking you for the copy with which you favored me.—The threatning contest, in the Convention of 1787. did not, as you supposed, turn on the degree of power to be granted to the Federal Govt: but on the rule by which the States should be represented and vote in the Govt: the smaller States insisting on the rule of equality in all respects; the larger on the rule of proportion to inhabitants: and the Compromize which ensued was that which established an equality in the Senate, and an inequality in the House of Representatives.
The contests & compromises, turning on the grants of power, tho’ very important in some instances, were Knots of a less “Gordian” character.
ⅭⅭⅭⅬⅩⅣ. James Madison to J.C. Cabell.[2]
8 That the encouragement of Manufactures, was an object of the power to regulate trade, is proved by the use made of the power for that object, in the first session of the first Congress under the Constitution; when among the members present were so many who had been members of the federal Convention which framed the Constitution, and of the State Conventions which ratified it; each of these classes consisting also of members who had opposed & who had espoused, the Constitution in its actual form. It does not appear from the printed proceedings of Congress on that occasion that the power was denied by any of them. And it may be remarked that members from Virga. in particular, as well of the antifederal as the federal party, the names then distinguishing those who had opposed and those who had approved the Constitution, did not hesitate to propose duties, & to suggest even prohibition in favor of several articles of her production;
ⅭⅭⅭⅬⅩⅤ. James Madison to J.C. Cabell.[3]
What the extract is to be from Yates account of the Convention, which convicts me of inconsistency, I cannot divine—If
