Joseph J. Ellis (44 page)

14.
See Madison’s speech in the House on 11 February 1790, in Rutland, vol. 13, 34–39; see also Madison to Jefferson, 24 January 1790, ibid., 3–4. Benjamin Rush to Madison, 18 February 1790, ibid., 45–47.

15.
Ibid., 36–37, 47–56, 58–59.

16.
Ibid., 60–62, 65–66, 81–82, 163–174, for Madison’s major speeches in the House against assumption.

17.
Madison to Jefferson, 8 March 1790; Madison to Edmund Randolph, 21 March 1790; Madison to Henry Lee, 13 April 1790, ibid., 95, 110, 147–148.

18.
Lee to Madison, 4 March, 3 April 1790, ibid., 87–91, 136–137.

19.
Madison to Edmund Pendleton, 2 May 1790; George Nicholas to Madison, 3 May 1790; Edward Carrington to Madison, 7 April 1790, ibid., 184–185, 187, 142.

20.
Madison to Jefferson, 17 April 1790, ibid., 151.

21.
This personality sketch of Hamilton represents my own interpretive distillation from the multiple biographies. The insecurity theme is a central feature of Jacob Ernest Cooke,
Alexander Hamilton: A Biography
(New York, 1979), v–vi.

22.
The hoofprints from several herds of historians and biographers have trampled this ground. Of all the biographers, I found Forrest McDonald,
Alexander Hamilton
(New York, 1979), 117–188, the most provocatively original on these themes and Cooke,
Alexander Hamilton
, 73–84, the most reliably sound. The background to the
Report on the Public Credit
is discussed succinctly and sensibly in the editorial note in Syrett, vol. 6, 51–65.

23.
For Hamilton’s arguments against “discrimination,” see Syrett, vol. 6, 70–78, and the editorial documentation provided in ibid., 58–59.

24.
Ibid., 70, 80–82.

25.
The quotation about “mending fences” is from Cooke,
Alexander Hamilton
, 94. The interpretation offered here and in the succeeding paragraphs draws on all the standard sources. The two most influential secondary accounts, again as I see it, are Jacob E. Cooke, ed.,
The Reports of Alexander Hamilton
, vii–xxiii, and Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism
, 93–136. The latter includes a discussion of Hamilton’s capacity for “projection,” by which the authors mean the tendency to foresee or forecast economic trends. I am suggesting here that the vision Hamilton “projected” was very much a projection of his own distinctive character.

26.
Madison to Lee, 13 April 1790, Rutland, vol. 22, 147–148.

27.
Hamilton to Lee, 1 December 1789, Syrett, vi, i; Hamilton to William Duer, 4–7 April 1790, ibid., 346–347, for the resignation and editorial note on Duer’s unquestionable thievery. The best modern estimate is that he swindled the federal government for personal profits that totaled about $300,000.

28.
The best recent study of the economic predicament of Virginia’s elite is Bruce A. Ragsdale,
A Planter’s Republic: The Search for Economic Independence in Revolutionary Virginia
(Madison, 1994). Older but still useful studies include T. H. Breen,
Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of the American Revolution
(Princeton, 1985), and Norman Risjord,
Chesapeake Politics, 1181–1800
(New York, 1978), 84–123. On Jefferson’s economic situation and its psychological implications, see Sloan,
Principle and Interest
, 86–124.

29.
On Jefferson’s condition during the spring, see Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, 9 May 1790, Boyd, vol. 16, 416. On Washington’s health, see Jefferson to Randolph, 16 May 1790; Jefferson to William Short, 27 May 1790, ibid., 429, 444. Jefferson’s primary focus was his
Report on Weights and Measures
, ibid., 602–675.

30.
For Jefferson’s Paris years, see Dumas Malone,
Jefferson and His Time
, 6 vols. (Boston, 1948–1981), vol. 2, and Ellis,
American Sphinx
, 64–117. The quotation is from Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 13 March 1789, Boyd, vol. 14, 650.

31.
Pauline Maier,
American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence
(New York, 1997), 154–208.

32.
Jefferson to Randolph, 18 April 1790; Jefferson to Lee, 26 April 1790; Jefferson to Randolph, 30 May 1790; Jefferson to George Mason, 13 June 1790, Boyd, vol. 16, 351, 385–386, 449, 493.

33.
Kenneth Bowling,
The Creation of Washington, D.C.: The Idea and Location of the American Capital
(Fairfax, Va., 1991), x–xi, 148.

34.
Ibid., 129–138, 161–181.

35.
Madison to Pendleton, 20 June 1790, Rutland, vol. 13, 252–253; Richard Peters to Jefferson, 20 June 1790, Boyd, vol. 16, 539.

36.
Rutland, vol. 12, 369–370, 396, 416–417, for Madison’s speeches in the House.

37.
Bowling,
The Creation of Washington, 1
90–191. Though it appeared too late to shape my interpretation, I much admire C. M. Harris’s “Washington’s Gamble, L’Enfant’s Dream: Politics, Design, and the Founding of the National Capital,”
WMQ
56 (July 1999): 527–564.

38.
Ibid., 106–126, 164–166.

39.
Madison to Pendleton, 20 June 1790, Rutland, vol. 13, 252–253.

40.
Risjord, “The Compromise of 1790,” 309; Bowling,
The Creation of Washington, 1
79–185; editorial note in Rutland, vol. 13, 243–246.

41.
Cooke, “The Compromise of 1790,” 523–545, emphasizes the absence of a direct link between the two issues—assumption and residence. His interpretation attributes the bargain to multiple meetings conducted prior to the dinner at Jefferson’s. My view is that the latter session sealed the deal by completing the negotiations on Virginia’s debt. Without linkage with the residency issue, however, neither Jefferson nor Madison would have concurred.

42.
Jefferson to George Gilmer, 27 June, 25 July 1790, Boyd, vol. 16, 269, 575. The standard account of the state and federal debt question is E. James Ferguson,
The Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance
(Chapel Hill, 1961). For a few relatively minor revisions, see William G. Anderson,
Price of Liberty: The Public Debt of the American Revolution
(Charlottesville, 1983).

43.
Quotations from the
Daily Advertiser
reproduced in Boyd, vol. 17, 452, 460. See also Bowling,
The Creation of Washington
, 201.

44.
“Jefferson’s Report to Washington on Meeting Held at Georgetown,” 14 September 1790, Boyd, vol. 17, 461–462.

45.
Thomas Lee Shippen to William Shippen, 15 September 1790, ibid., 464–465, for the Jefferson-Madison tour of the region in September; Jefferson to Washington, 17 September 1790, ibid., 466–467, for the conversation at Mount Vernon. “Memorandum on the Residence Act,” 29 August 1790, Rutland, vol. 13, 294–296, for Madison’s concurrence on the executive strategy as the preferred solution. Bowling,
The Creation of Washington
, 212–213, for Washington’s land holdings within the designated site.

46.
Jefferson to Washington, 27 October 1790, Boyd, vol. 17, 643–644; Madison’s speech in the House is reprinted in Rutland, vol. 12, 264–266.

47.
John Harvie, Jr., to Jefferson, 3 August 1790, Boyd, vol. 17, 296; Carrington to Madison, 24 December 1790, Rutland, vol. 13, 331–332, which includes the language of the Virginia resolution quoted here.

48.
Federal Gazette
, 20 November 1790, quoted in Boyd, vol. 17, 459.

49.
“Conjectures About the New Constitution,” 17–30 September 1787, Syrett, vol. 6, 59; Hamilton to John Jay, 13 November 1790, Syrett, vol. 7, 149–150.

50.
Three scholarly books touch upon these themes in different ways: Richard Buel, Jr.,
Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics, 1/89–1815
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1972); Roger Sharp,
American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis
(New Haven, 1993), which is especially good on the contingent character of the constitutional settlement; and Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism
, which includes the problematic theme within its panoramic scope.

51.
Adams to Francis Vanderkemp, 24 November 1818,
Adams
, reel 122.

52.
On the construction of Washington, D.C., in the 1790s, see Bob Arnebeck,
Through a Fiery Trial: Building Washington, 1/90–1800
(Lanham, Md., 1991). The seminal study on the distinctive physical conditions the new capital imposed on political life is James Sterling Young,
The Washington Community, 1800–1828
(New York, 1966).

53.
Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism
, 163–193, for an extended reflection on the national and cultural implications of making the new capital a pastoral place.

  1.
Linda Grant De Pauw et al.,
Documentary History of the First Federal Congress of the United States, 1
5 vols. (Baltimore, 1972), vol. 12, 277–87. The debates over the Quaker petitions are mentioned in passing in most secondary accounts of the period. See, for example, Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1787–1800
(New York, 1993), 151–152. The fullest and most recent scholarly treatment is by Richard S. Newman, “Prelude to the Gag Rule: Southern Reaction to Antislavery Petitions in the First Federal Congress,”
JER
16 (1996): 571–599. See also Howard Ohline, “Slavery, Economics, and Congressional Politics,”
JSR
46
(1980): 355–360.

  2.
First Congress
, vol. 12, 287–288.

  3.
Ibid., 289–290.

  4.
First Congress
, vol. 3, 294. The text of the petitions are most readily available in Alfred Zilversmit,
The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North
(Chicago, 1967), 159–160.

  5.
More, much more, on this subject shortly. For now, the best surveys of the topic are Donald L. Robinson,
Slavery in the Structure of American Politics
(New York, 1971), 201–247; David Brion Davis,
The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1975), 122–131; Duncan J. MacLeod,
Slavery, Race and the American Revolution
(Cambridge, 1974), 37–39; Paul Finkelman,
Slavery and the Founders:
Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson
(London, 1996), 1–33. See also Sylvia R. Frey,
Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age
(Princeton, 1991).

  6.
First Congress
, vol. 12, 296.

  7.
Ibid., 307–308.

  8.
Ibid., 308–310.

  9.
Ibid., 297–298, 310–311. There are several versions of the debate recorded in
First Congress
, based on the several newspaper accounts published at the time and the official account in the
Congressional Register
. The accounts seldom disagree, though they vary in length and detail.

10.
Ibid., 308.

11.
Ibid., 296–297, 307.

12.
Ibid., 298–299, 305–306.

13.
Ibid., 311.

14.
Ibid., 312.

15.
First Congress
, vol. 3, 295–296.

16.
Gary B. Nash,
Race and Revolution
(Madison, 1990), 3–24, offers the most robust neoabolitionist interpretation of the revolutionary era. All the standard treatments of the subject emphasize the exuberant expectations generated by the revolutionary ideology: Davis,
The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution
, 48–55; Robinson,
Slavery in the Structure of American Politics
, 98–130; Winthrop Jordan,
White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1110–1812
(Chapel Hill, 1968), 269–314. On the resonant and quasi-religious power of the Declaration of Independence, see Pauline Maier,
American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence
(New York, 1997). See also the collection of essays in Ira Berlin and Ronald Hoffman, eds.,
Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution
(Charlottesville, 1983).

17.
Robinson,
Slavery in the Structure of American Politics
, 124–129; MacLeod,
Slavery, Race and the American Revolution
, 21–29; Quaker Petition to the Continental Congress, 4 October 1783, Record Group 360, National Archives, Washington, D.C. The best collection of documents on this phase of the antislavery movement is Roger Burns, ed.,
Am I Not a Man and a Brother: The Antislavery Crusade of Revolutionary America, 1688–1188
(New York, 1977), 397–490. On slavery itself, the authoritative work is Philip Morgan,
Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Low Country
(Chapel Hill, 1998).

18.
Zilversmit,
The First Emancipation
, 109–138.

19.
Robert McColley,
Slavery in Jeffersonian Virginia
(Urbana, Ill., 1964), 141–162. For Jefferson’s early leadership, see Joseph J. Ellis,
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 1997), 144–146.

20.
This paragraph represents my attempt to negotiate the scholarly minefield that confronts anyone trying to explain the anomalous character of slavery within the ideological legacy of the American Revolution. The standard account, still quite impressive for its subtle treatment of the ironies and intellectual disjunctions, is
Davis,
The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution
. The most forceful argument for the radical implications of the revolutionary ideology is Gordon S. Wood,
The Radicalism of the American Revolution
(New York, 1992), which emphasizes the egalitarian legacy that then seeped out slowly to create the democratic society that Alexis de Tocqueville described in the 1830s. If, however, one makes slavery the acid test of the revolutionary ideology, the legacy looks less than radical. The best treatment of that version is William W. Freehling, “The Founding Fathers, Conditional Antislavery, and the Nonradicalism of the American Revolution,” in William W. Freehling, ed.,
The Reinterpretation of American History: Slavery and the Civil War
(New York, 1994), 76–84.