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James Madison's Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787

The Transcript Edition

Edited by Gordon Lloyd

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Document Summary

Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 was James Madison's record of the daily debates held by delegates at the Philadelphia Convention, which resulted in the drafting of the current United States Constitution. Madison's journal describing what delegates said remains valuable to historians, as it is one of historians' few sources of information on the proceedings in Independence Hall during the summer of 1787 (which despite the summer heat, had its windows shut so that those outside could not hear what was being said; delegates were forbidden to leak the proceedings to the public).

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Latest Notes

This reveals the importance of the capital's location to those gathered.  Why would being in the capital hold such influence to a Senator, that it would divorce him from the interests of his state?  It hardly could be the climate.  Instead, it's assumed that influences come from people. Each region has its influencers, and they're not the ordinary folk.  The wealthy and powerful exert their effects, but are themselves regionalists. 

- Brian Coyle

The 14th Amendment, however, highlights that women occupied a gray area in the scheme of American government. If, for instance, they were citizens, how could any government deny them the right to vote? The Court answered this question in Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875). Virginia Minor had attempted to register to vote in the state of Missouri only to be refused. She then sued in the state courts and appealed to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that while women are certainly citizens, not all citizens are necessarily afforded the right to vote. Voting, thus, was not one of the necessary “privileges and immunities” of citizenship protected under the 14th Amendment. The Court’s opinion was unanimous, and women did not gain suffrage until ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Minor is no longer regarded as binding precedent.

- Michael Soyfer

Vices of the Political System of the United States

The Transcript Edition

James Madison

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Document Summary

The Papers of James Madison. Edited by William T. Hutchinson et al. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1962-77 (vols. 1-10); Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977-(vols. 11-). 9:348-57

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United States Constitution

The Transcript Edition

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Document Summary

The Constitution was drafted in 1787, ratified in 1788 and was operating over the first eleven ratifying states by 1789. Deemed necessary because the Articles of Confederation were insufficient to govern the country, the Constitution created a new government with the power and flexibility to govern the United States of America, a new republic.

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The amendment process outlined in Article V of the Constitution makes it much easier to amend than the unanimity required by the Articles.  Still, some would have preferred a constitution that was even more responsive to the changing will of the people.  Thomas Jefferson once asked in a letter to James Madison “whether one generation of men has a right to bind another” (Sept. 6, 1789).  His own opinion was that they did not.  Later he came to the opinion that constitutions should be automatically reviewed and revised every nineteen or twenty years by a majority of the people.  Although he admitted that he was “certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions,” the need to adapt to changing circumstances, and the right of the majority in every generation to decide for itself how it would be ruled, were considered by him to be of paramount importance (TJ to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816).

 

            James Madison in Federalist No. 49 respectfully disagreed with his friend’s arguments.  Although he agreed that a Constitution needed to be changeable – in order to rectify unforeseen defects or to adapt to new circumstances – he believed that these changes should be made infrequently and with more difficulty than mere majoritarian will.  In republican forms of government, the greatest danger to individual liberties would always come from passionate and unjust majorities.  Various obstacles therefore needed to be erected in order to check an unruly majority, and one of those checks was a stable Constitution.  In addition, every government depended on the “prejudices” of the people – their patriotism – for its support and maintenance.  Frequent appeals to the people to reevaluate their Constitution “would, in great measure, deprive the government of that veneration which time bestows on everything, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability.”  Madison believed that stable republican governments required more than that the “will” of the majority would predominate; rather, governments must be ruled by the people’s rationality: “it is the reason, alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government” (Federalist No. 49).  A lengthy and difficult amendment process would promote the rule of reason over passion.

 

            Both Jefferson and Madison recognized the need for stability, flexibility, and popular rule within constitutional governments, but they differed with regard to the ordering of these goals and the best means for achieving them.  Madison, like Jefferson, had wished that amendments to the Constitution could be made more easily than their counterparts under the Articles.  Yet he wished for an amendment process that was more difficult to navigate – and therefore more deliberative and less passionate – than what he feared Mr. Jefferson’s proposal would yield.

 

- Kelly Booz

 

The Constitution allows Congress to control some aspects of the amendment process, but allows states to have the ultimate say in amending the Constitution.  Congress can directly propose amendments to the Constitution, subject to the ratification of the states.  Conversely, states can apply to Congress for a constitutional convention so that amendments may be proposed.  As James Madison, writing as Publius, suggested in Federalist 39, the engagement of both levels of government kept the national and federal principles intact.  Proposed amendments would be subject to ratification by the states.  Congress, however, retains the power to determine how the amendments, whether proposed by Congress or through constitutional convention, are to be ratified.  Amendments may be ratified through state legislatures or through state conventions, at Congress’ discretion. 

 

A Constitutional Convention has never been used to amend the Constitution.  Some scholars argue that the threat of application for a constitutional convention might have spurred Congress itself to propose constitutional amendments.

 

In providing for an amendment process, the Constitution does name a couple of issues that were off limits to amendment or could be subject to amendment only under certain conditions. For example, the Constitution could not be amended to limit the slave trade or increase the import duties on slaves until 1808.  In addition, Article V still protects states from having their equal representation in the Senate taken away without that state’s consent.  In practice, what this means is that that there is still one provision in the Constitution which would require the unanimous consent of all the states in order to amend it.  The states’ equal suffrage in the Senate is effectually guaranteed in perpetuity.

- Kelly Booz

Charter of the Commonwealth

The Transcript Edition

Commonwealth of Nations

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Document Summary

The Charter of the Commonwealth was officially signed by Queen Elizabeth II on March 11, 2013. The Charter sets out the values of the Commonwealth of Nations (and its member states) and its commitment to the following: democracy; human rights; international peace and security; tolerance, respect and understanding; freedom of expression; separation of powers; rule of law; good governance; sustainable development; protecting the environment; access to health, education, food and shelter; gender equality; the importance of young people in the commonwealth; the recognition of the needs of small states; the recognition of the needs of vulnerable states; and the role of civil society.

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One impetus for the call to write a Commonwealth Charter was the perceived need to address the laws against homosexuality that exist in a large majority of the member countries.  In some cases, these laws prohibiting homosexual acts are enforced with the harshest of punishments.  The wording of this paragraph, which concludes by announcing an implacable opposition to discrimination based on “other grounds” – avoiding the topic of gay rights altogether – demonstrates how difficult it was to reach a consensus of value among a group of countries as diverse as those in this alliance.

- Lynn Uzzell

 


On March 11, 2013, it was reported in London’s Daily Mail that Britain’s Queen was expected to make a controversial statement in support of homosexual rights when she signed this Charter.  She was reportedly going to emphasize and make explicit that the “other grounds” that are included in the Charter’s commitment to nondiscrimination included sexual orientation.  
 
This story was widely repeated in other newspapers around the world.  Instead of this widely anticipated watershed moment in the Queen’s career, however, the monarch cancelled her public appearance at the Commonwealth celebration, reportedly due to illness, and Buckingham Palace issued a statement stressing that the Queen was signing the Charter only as a part of her official duties and that she was herself apolitical.

- Lynn Uzzell