"^!'!Hltlit-'^ii»iiiini>l!;-^!i:i; E342 . B25 i\ ^^♦^^^ - , _^^r^^ . : ^^-^^x. '"^^ z^"^' ~ ^. ^ -^^ "^^ J" ^. '^^ <<^ J' ,0^ ^^ ' • . • * v^ <> ■ ' * A^ ^w • • ■ • nT' ^^t^ "^^^V ^^»^>M%'. '^ A «<"^^ o^S h;''^^ \3 ...» A .0 o ' . . » * A -O O. »* 0^ .. ^^*»':^'V^-' '^^'-'' A^" " ^^ LECTURE 5^ ^ CHARACTER AND SERVICES ov JAMES MADISON, BY DANIEL D. BARNARD. # LECTURE ON TBX CHARACTER AND SERVICES OF JAMES MADISON, DXUTIKEP BCFORS TBI " YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION FOR MUTUAL IMPROVEMENT IN THE CITY OF ALBANY," FEBRUARY 28, 1837, BY DANIEL D. BARNARD. ALBANY- FROM THE POWIB FRXSS OF HOFFMAH ASV WHITX. 1837. E •^'^ % have any adequate idea of the amount of talent, and knowledge, and labor, which was required and expended in the organization of the government of the United States un- der the new Constitution. This instrument rather authorized the creation of a government, than actually created one. It authorized the exercise of powers, and indicated in general terms, how those powers should be distributed. But it left the organization of the various departments, with the num- ber of their functionaries, and the detail of their respective duties, very much to the discretion of Congress. Several executive departments, and the post-office department, were to be created and regulated. A judiciary system was to be digested and established. A revenue system was to be devis- ed for the support of government and public credit. Trade and commerce, and navigation were to be regulated. The salaries and pay of the various officers of government were to be settled and fixed. A permanent seat of government was to be selected and prepared. A plan for organizing and arming the militia was to be contrived and adopted. But it would be endless to enumerate. It demanded honest hearts and skilful hands to devise, and set in motion, the compii- 23 Gated and delicate machinery of such a government as this. And happily such hearts and hands were found, and among the number, Mr. Madisox was, by no means, the least con- spicuous or the least efficient. It could not well have happened otherwise than that occa- sions should early arise, in which, wide differences of opin- ion both in regard to the policy, and in regard to the consti- tutional principles of the Administration, should be entertain- ed and expressed. With respect to some of these differences, and disputes, the truth of history will unquestionably pro- nounce that, if they did not originate in private jealousies and in views of personal ambition, they were at least greatly aggra- vated by such causes. And it undoubtedly happened in rela- tion to all of them, that different individuals of great emi- nence took part in them, on the same side, who were prompt- ed and impelled by very different motives and views ; in short, that then, as now and always, persons might be found acting together on questions of great public interest, and in zeal- ous hostility to other men on the same questions, one of wiiom might be guided by an honest conviction of public duty, while the other should be moved by no thought or passion above the level of a sordid or a selfish one. It is well known that Mr. Madisox, in some of the most important measures of Gen. Washington's administration, was found in the ranks of the opposition ; and that he contin- ued on the side of opposition, though no longer standing in any official relation to the government, throughout the administra- tion of its affairs by President Washington's immediate suc- cessor. I should not have performed the duty assigned me on this occasion, in any degree to my own approval, if 1 had omitted to scrutinize with much care this interesting portion of Mr. INIadisox's history. Having done so, however, the limits of the occasion will allow me to offer little more than the clear convictions of my mind, as the result of my exam- ination and reflections ; and these convictions are, that Mr. INIadisox was here, and now, as elsewhere, and everywhere, and at all times, the same disinterested incorruptible, and 24 magnanimous friend of his countiy, which the promise of his previous Ufe and senices had led us to expect to find him. After the Constitution had been adopted, and the govern- ment had been put into successful operation, the position of Mr. Madison before the American people, like that of every other man similarly situated, was changed in one important particular. Before that period, there was scarcely a possibil- ity of regarding him as less than a Statesman, devoting him- self with unalloyed feelings of patriotism to liis country's good ; but after that time, though unchanged in one sentiment or feeling of devotion to his country, yet he encountered the chance of being regarded as a politician, swayed, if not governed, by private resentments or private partialities, or haz'boring, perhaps, thoughts of self-exaltation and advance- ment. In estimating the purity of his public course, at the period we now speak of, it must not be forgotten that he was called to fill the high office of Secretary of State, when jNIr. JeflTerson came into power, on the defeat of Mr. Adams, and that he succeeded the former gentleman in the Presidential office ; to wliich must be added, also, the fact that the person- al relations between him and Mr. JeflTerson, had long been those of confidence and friendship. At the same time, it should be remarked, that, while these facts may furnish a just occasion for a jealous scinjtiny into his conduct and motives, it would be more than puerile, it would be contemptible, to consider them, of themselves, as proving any thing. What is claimed for Mr. Madison, and what for myself, I believe to be righteously due to him, is that, in all his pub- lic course during the administrations of the first two Presi- dents of the United States, though he acted much in opposi- tion, it was not from any restless desire of putting down one administration in order to set up another; nor from any sec- tional predilections or any State pride, nor from any factious or fault-finding disposition ; nor because he was disalfocted towards some individuals and well atVected towards others ; nor because he hated one foreign country and loved another ; nor because he wished to serve his friend, or wished to serve 25 himself — nor was it from any other cause or motive whatever, than that he had received, into a good and honest heart, after much anxious dehberation, the solemn conviction, that this course of service was demanded of him by ever^ obligation of honor, of faith, and of duty to his country. The opposition both in and out of Congress, very early began to put on the form of a regular, systematic, party organization, with one or more recognized and acknowledged chiefs and leaders ; and as one party never exists without another to antagonize it, the support of the administration assumed also to a considerable extent, a party type and cha- racter. It is the high praise of Mn. Madison, that, though his intimate and confidential friend was the chosen head of the opposition in the Union, at least for the South, yet, in his own public conduct, he seems never to have failed scrupulously to distinguish between the spirit of party, and the spirit of patri- otism. That the opinions of Mr. Jefferson, whose sagacity was almost unequalled, had great weight with him, must undoubtedly have been true : but there are not wanting very notable instances — cases in which the sentiments and projec- ted measures of his friend may be supposed to have commen- ded themselves, in an especial manner, to his favorable re- gard — but in which the wisdom and honesty of his great mind led him to adopt views of his own, other, and distinct, or greatly modified views, and such as were always beautiful- ly characteristic of himself, and of the principles by which his life was governed. The earliest occasion for opposition on the part of Mr. Madison, was presented by a measure of the administration which originated with Mr. Hamilton, who was then at the head of the Treasury. It was proposed to establish a Nation- al Bank ; and Mu. Madison interposed an uncompromizing hostility to the project, on the ground of a want of constitu- tional power. And it is proper here to remark that he never yielded his opinion ; although, afterwards, when President of the United States, he did assent to a Bill, passed by Con- gress, for the establishment of such a Corporation, on grounds 4 26 however perfectly distinct, and, at the same time, perfectly consistent with his denial of an original constitutional authori- ty for that purpose. He believed that he was bound to give his executive sanction to the Bank Charter in 1817, in defer- ence and respect to " the obligations derived from a course of precedents amounting to the requisite evidence of the national judgment and intention."* It was not long before Mr. Madison, was again brought into sharp, and, in this instance, violent collision with his for- mer associate Mr. Hamilton, on a question which involved the interpretation of the Constitution. France was just now revolutionized, the monarchy abolished, the king beheaded, and a republic proclaimed. Europe was involved in war, and France seemed resolved that in this contest there should be no neutrals any w^iere, either on her own or on this side of the Atlantic. It was not, however, then, nor has it ever since been supposed; by the considerate portion of the com- munity, to be the interest or policy of this country to involve itself, without some imperative cause affecting its own rights or its own security, in the wars of any foreign nations whatev- er, and least of all in the wars of Europe. Before the arrival in this country of Mr. Genet, the minister of the National Convention of France, President Washington, with the unan- imous approbation of his Cabinet, Mr. Jefferson being one, had issued his proclamation to the people of the United States, usually known as the Proclamation of Neutrality. The cause of republican liberty was very naturally deemed by a considerable portion of the people of this country, just emerged from their own triumphant revolution, to be identi- cal with the cause of republican and revolutionary France ; and this impression, which, in truth, was very prevalent, na- turally led to the apprehension, on the part of the administra- tion, that individual citizens, perhaps in combination and in large numbers, might be betrayed, by their own enthusiasm, into acts inconsistent with the ecjual duty which the country owed to all the belligerents, and endangering those relations * Mr. Madison's letter to Mr. Ingcrsoll, of June 25. 1S31. 27 of peace which it was its highest interest to preserve. The proclamation then had for its object, to remind the citizens, that I he United States ?ocre at peace with all tlic powers of Europe, and that so long as the relations of peace continued, the laws of that relation, and the duties of strict neutrality, were of paramount obligation, and must not be violated. To this extent, and with this object, the act of the Presi- dent, in issuing his proclamation, could not well have been called in question, for the want of constitutional authority. — He is expressly required " to take care that the laws be faith- fully executed." But the intemperate zeal of the times, led to the most fierce and undiscriminating denunciation of the meas- ure. The right to issue the proclamation at all, and for any purpose, was stoutly and stubbornly denied. And as the heated views of one party always tend to fire up the opinions and passions of its antagonist party, so it happened in the present case ; and the proclamation came to be defended be- fore the public on principles quite as untenable and reprehen- sible, as those which had been employed in the attacks that had been made upon it. After the newspapers of the day had exhausted some argu- ment and much epithet on the subject, Mr. Hamilton deemed it necessary to give to the public his exposition of the mean- ing of the proclamation, and the grounds on which he thought it could be defended. This he did in several papers with the signature of Pacificus. In his view the proclamation rose in- to higher importance — and assumed an attitude of loftier pre- tension than others, who as well as himself, had advised and supported it, had been used to assign to it. The paper did not, on the face of it, at least in terms it did not, purport to resolve the important question whether the United States were bound by any treaty stipulation, if called upon, to take part with or against any nation now engaged in war. Tiie United States were under obligation, by treaty, to secure to France all her possessions in America against all other pow- ers ; and Mr. Hamilton chos3 to construe the proclamation as manifesting the sense oi the government, though the act of 28 the President only, that the United States were not bound, under the circumstances, to take up arms in execution of the guaranty. It is easy to see if such was the purport of that paper, that the President had undertaken alone to settle the highest ques- tion about which the sovereign power of a nation is ever called to act — that of peace or war ; a power moreover which the Constitution, whenever war was to be declared, had expressly confided to Congress. The exercise of such a pow- er by the President, of course demanded a bold exposition of the Constitution to justify it. Mr. Hamilton found the requi- site authority by a very summary argument. The office of President, he thought, was the constitutional fountain of all executive authority, with such exceptions and reservations only as are expressed in the instrument. The power to make war, is in its nature an executive power. All provi- sions in derogation of the executive right are to be construed strictly ; and, in the present case, the restrictions on the exec- utive authority are not sufficient to prevent the President from declaring, as the sense of the government and nation, that the United States are not bound, by its treaty engage- ments, to guaranty to France her possessions in America by arming against the powers with whom she is now in conffict — in other words, the Presidrant may determine, in this instance at least, the question of peace or war. It is true he determined in favor of peace, but by the same authority he might have determined in favor of war. But these were not the doctrines of that Constitution which Mr. Madison had labored to establish ; and he felt impelled to throw himself in the way, between them and the country to which they were addressed. He came before the public in several Letters, with the signature of Ilelvidius, in which, without abating one particle of his accustomed vigor of intel- lect and argument, but rather exceeding it, he poured out the indignation of a spirit that was terrible in its wrath in propor- tion to the extreme difficulty with which its natural placidity could be overcome. In favor of General Washington and the 29 administration, he wholly denied that the proclamation requi- red the construction which Mr. Hamilton had put upon it; that, though it certainly contained some language w hich he regret- ted as liable to misconstruction, yet, taken altogether in its pro- per sense, it did nothing more than remind all concerned, that the relations of peace, which could only be changed by the legislative power, existed between the United States and all other countries, and that the laws and duties of peace must be strictly observed. But this was a small matter compared with that which had drawn him into the controversy — it was the doctrine of Pacificus with which he had to do — a doc- trine which had struck him as so extraordinary that he decla- red that scarcely any thing else than stating it in ihe writer's own words "could outw^eigh the improbability that so extrava- gant a tenet should be hazarded at so early a day, in the face of the public" — a doctrine which he pronounced to be " preg- nant with inferences and consequences against W' hich no ram- parts in the Constitution could defend the public liberty, or scarcely the forms of republican government." Nothing in the writings or sayings of Mr. Madison, before this period, has struck me with such profound admiration for the character and genius of the author, as these Letters of Helvidius. As a commentary on the Constitution, I place them above any part of the text of Publius, not so much in point of learning and critical acumen, but because they erect at once a beacon and a rampart at that very quarter of the sys- tem which was most exposed to a hostile attack, and where, if ever or by any means, the enemy must enter to sack the republic. I do not say that with this work of the immortal Helvidius the republic is forever safe, but I do say that with- out it, it would have wanted those indispensable defences which could not have been so well erected at any other time, or by any other hand. In my judgment, it was a service this, rendered to the whole country and to the cause of republi- can liberty, second only and scarcely, in importance and val- ue, to that which had issued in the establishment of the Con- stitution itself. 30 I cannot undertake to follow Mr. Madisox minutely- through the remainder of General Washington's administra- tion. The relations of the country both with England and France were critical and greatly disturbed. The people, as well as their official representatives in the general government, were irreconcilably divided in their views of what policy the dignity and honor of the nation demanded. jNIr. Madi- SOK, as I have already intimated, differed from the Presi- dent and his advisers, on some of the most prominent and important measures of the administration ; but it should be observed that, in all cases, where the matters of difference were mere questions of policy, his opposition, though always firm, was yet marked throughout with that moderation and gentleness which was a part, and a beautiful part too, of his nature and character. Whenever, however, the subject of dispute involved the construction of the Constitution, then the case was changed — then the case admitted of no compromise. Probably no single act of any administration since the foundation of the government has produced such a deep and wide spread agitation, and such a conflict of opinion through- out the whole country, as did the Treaty of 1794 negotiated with England by Mr. Jay. Causes, which cannot be here detailed, had combined to prepare the public mind for the most violent ebullition, on the first announcement that the mission to England had been attended with success. The storm which followed, was met by the President with his ac- customed firmness. The Treaty was ratified, and thus be- came, in the view of the President, by the express terms of the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. This Treaty embraced several objects, which required the concurrence of the legislative power, in order to carry the stipulations into complete cflect. Proceedings were had which brought the consideration of this Treaty before the House of Representatives, and with it, perhaps, the most em- barrassing question, concerning the distribution of powers un- der the Constitution, which even yet has ever arisen. The Constitution seemed to have separated in the most 31 complete manner, the treaty-making power, from the legisla- tive. The power to make treaties was expressly confided to the President, bv and with the advice and consent of the Senate. But the instrument was equally express, investing the legis- lative power in Congress, of which the House of Represen- tatives was an integral part. The subjects of national inter- est and concern which might be contained in a treaty, were left wholly undefined by the Constitution, and it would seem, therefore, that every thing was within the treaty-ma- king power, over which, according to the usages of nations, that power had been accustomed to be exercised ; and if this was so, then the President and Senate had authority over many of the most important subjects which, by express enu- meration, the Constitution had seemed to have confided solely to Congress, and which would appear also, on every principle of safety, to belong properly to the legislative department of the government, and not to the executive. The doctrine of the President, and of those by whom he w^as sustained, was, that the President and Senate had exclu- sive and paramount authority to bind the country absolutely, by a treaty, on all subjects, without limitation, which were proper to be embraced in that kind of compact between na- tion and nation ; and of course, where a treaty included pro- visions, which, under our system, must pass the forms of le- gislation, why there Congress must legislate, but must not de- liberate — in short, in such cases. Congress had no will but to obey, and to disobey would be to rebel. In hostility to this doctrine, the temper of the times carried the opposition, as usual, into extremes ; and it came to be insis- ted on most strenuously that the treaty-making power, did not extend to any object which was included among the enume- rated powers given to Congress. This position would not only have made the British treaty a nullity in all its most impor- tant stipulations, as having been concluded without any autho- rity whatever, and only b3' a sweeping encroachment on the Constitutional powers of Congress, but, if adopted and set- tled as the true interpretation of the Constitution, it would in all cases and forever, leave to the President and Senate, as the treaty-making power, little, if any important business to do, and erect Congress into the true treaty-making power, in their stead. Now here was a case for the interposition of the pre-emi- nent wisdom and counsel of Mr. Madison. Accordmg to his notions of what government ought to be, and of the way to protect and preserve liberty under republican and consti- tutional forms, it was necessary to take care, on the one hand, that the system should not easily collapse on account of the weakness of its materials and structure, under the weight and pressure which might be brought to bear on it from without, and it was equally necessary, on the other hand, to take care, that in giving it the internal strength and energy, requisite for its purpose and its position, it should not be too liberally supplied with the means of multiplying its own power, lest it should consume the liberties of the people, creating within itself an agent of terror, and tyranny, and oppression, productive of nothing but apprehension and suf- fering while it should last, and ready every moment to end in a destructive and horrible explosion. Mr. Madison could not agree that the treaty-making power should be w^ithdrawn from the hands in which the Constitution had placed it, and transferred to another department. This would have been to make the government dangerously weak in a point where it ought to be strong, and where the Constitution had clearly designed to give it strength. His opinion, therefore, was, that the President and Senate must not be restrained in the objects of negotiation and treaty with foreign powers, except within the appropriate and customary limits. But, at the same time, it was quite impossible for him to agree that the President and Senate, in the exercise of their appropriate function, should, by possibility, have it in their power to take tbs whole government of the country essen- tially into their own hands — preserving, indeed, the existence of the House of Representatives, because the Constitution requires that formality, but stripping it of the essence of its 33 legislative capacity — the right of dehberation and choice — sub- stituting in its stead a distinct nation, and conducting and effecting every important act of legislation for the country, in the name of treaties, and through the medium of negotiations and compacts with foreign powers. " If, said Mu. Madison, by treaty, as paramount to the legislative power, the President and Senate can regulate trade, they can also declare war, they can raise armies to carry on war, and they can procure mo- ney to support armies. He did not see but they might, by a treaty of alliance with a nation at war, make the United States a party in that war. They might stipulate subsidies, and even borrow money to pay them ; they might furnish troops to be carried to Europe, Asia or Africa — they might even attempt to keep up a standing army in time of peace, for the purpose of co-operating, in given contingencies, with an ally, for mutual safety, or other common objects." His opinion, therefore, finally was, that while the power of ma- king treaties should be left with the President and Senate, in general terms as it was bestowed by the Constitution, yet in every case of a treaty requiring the formal co-operation of the national Legislature, it was the duty of Congress to exer- cise the function of legislation, with the power of rejection, and with all that deliberation which was necessarily implied in the high authority with which the Constitution had invested it. In the event of the discussions on this interesting and ex- citing topic, in the House of Representatives, that body adopted and passed, by a considerable majority, a declara- tory resolution atfirming its power over the subject of trea- ties, in exact accordance with the opinions which had been expressed by Mr. Madison. Having settled the principle, Mr. Madison had no scruple in acting upon it. He was opposed to the treaty with Great Britain for reasons that were satisfactory to himself; and he thought it ought to be rejected. This was a question of policy — a question of expediency — a question, it is true, of vast magnitude and importance, involving the most momen- 5 34 tons considerations in the position the country then occupied — a question too, undoubtedly, which was made the pretext and occasion for the exhibition of some personal malignity and some political charlatanry — but yet a question, about which a difference of opinion among wise and good men was not only to have been expected, but could not, in the na- ture of the subject, have been avoided. When the question was presented to the House of Representatives, whether laws should be passed to carry this treaty into effect, Mr. Madi- son led the debate against the proposition ; and if it had been in his power, would have arrested the execution of the trea- ty by his vote. The House determined, however, by a ma- jority of three, to pass the necessary laws. It is delightful to know and reflect, that notwithstanding the decision and power with which this eminent man stood up against many of the favorite views and measures of General Washington's administration, yet he did not for a moment lose either the respect or the confidence of that great man. Of this he had several very signal proofs. When Mr. Jeffer- son retired from the office of Secretary of State at the close of the year 1793, Gen. Washington solicited Mr. Madison's acceptance of that high and confidential station. When the mission to France was resolved on, in the next year, he of- fered to make him minister to that country. And, finally, when the President, at the close of his term of office, came to perform one of the last, and most solemn of all the acts of his public life, the preparation of his incomparable Farewell Ad- dress to his countrymen, he solicited and received, and to a considerable extent adopted, the counsel and suggestions of Mr. Madison, concerning the manner of the Address, and the topics which should be embraced in it. Mr. Madison retired from Congress, and to private life, at the close of Washington's administration. But he was not, in his retirement, an unconcerned or inactive observer of passing events and public affairs. Under the administration of Mr. Adams the embarrassments, growmg out of the rela- tions of the country with France, still continued, and were 35 greatly increased. Hostilities actually existed, and were prac« tised, between the two countries. In the mean time, a vigo- rous and relentless opposition pressed upon Mr. Adams on every side. And, what was the most irritating of all to him and his friends, and the most unendurable, was, that the country was infested with foreigners, the emissaries and agents of the dominant powers of France, who employed themselves in heaping unmeasured opprobrium on the public authorities, and in unwearied efforts to overwhelm the go- vernment in a storm of popular fury. That Mr. Adams was an eminently honest man, with an intellect of a very superior order, and with the purest patriotic purposes, no man of any party, I believe, is disposed to deny at the present day. But his temper does not appear to have been of that philosophic, and imperturbable cast which so greatly distinguished his predecessor in the presidential office. In the ardor and in- trepidity of his natural temperament, and under high provo- cation, he gave his official sanction to measures which were in violent hostility to the temper of the times, and to the habits and sentiments of the American people. The Alien and Sedition Laws, as they have ever since been called, pass- ed in the second year of his term of office, aimed though they doubtless were to counteract the corrupt and profligate de- signs of the French Directory, against the peace and prosperi- ty of the Union, by suppressing the machinations and traduc- tions of their emissaries and agents here, yet were so undefined and comprehensive in their possible application and import, as to produce, and even at this distant day we must say not without good reason, a degree of agitation and alarm through- out the republic, such as no other act of the government be- fore or since has ever raised. And by his sanction of these two laws, Mr. Adams placed underr.eath his administration a lever, with its long arm of power in the hands of the opposi- tion, which could not fail, as it did not fail, to aid in overturn- ing that administration within the shortest possible period. But while the nation was aroused with the aspect and atti- tude of rigor and oppression, of violence and tyranny, which 36 the government seemed to them to have assumed ; and while the poHticians of the country, prompt to seize every promise and occasion of advantage, were active and instant in their imputa- tions of evil design, and in magnifying, before the aftrighted imaginations of the people, every real and supposed danger, there was one individual in the Union who turned from the clamor set up by politicians and the public, to consider with himself, in the calmness and quiet of his philosophic re- tirement, what were the actual and true dangers to the coun- try, which these measures threatened, and by what means their dangerous tendency could best be met and counteract- ed. It is evident that Mr. Madison acted on the settled convic- tion, that the republic was safe just so long as the government should be administered, in purity, strictly within the terms and principles of the Constitution — but no longer. He was accustomed therefore, to detect with instinctive promptness, the earliest indications of any hazardous departure from the line of the Constitution. He saw, or thought he saw, in the Alien and Sedition Laws, acts of government which w^ere " a deliberate, palpable and dangerous breach of the Constitution, by the exercise of powers not granted." And this view of the subject once taken, was sufficient to arouse him to an ex- ertion of all his energy and all his influence. He was now in private life, but, proverbially modest though he was, he could not fail to regard himself, as the nation now, and forever will regard him, not only as the Father, but as the elected Guardian and Expounder of the Constitution, through whom for the time being, under Providence, the integrity of that sa- cred instrument should be preserved, as it had been original- ly established and adopted. To this task, in all humility, but with even more than his accustomed vigor, did Mk. Madisoiv now address himself The course to be pursued was, to cause Resolutions to be introduced into the Legislature of Virginia, passed there, and then transmitted to the other States of the Union for their concurrence. He was of opinion that this was the most rea- 37 dy and effectual mode of reaching, at once, the people and the government, with the language of sober but earnest rea- son, and of solemn and firm remonstrance. He held, indeed, certain notions concerning the Constitution — as an instrument constituting a compact to which the States were parties, ta- king for granted, at the same time, the right of the State Le- gislatures to be heard as expressing the sense and opinions of the States as political communities — which made the course of procedure he proposed to adopt pecuf arly fit and appro- priate. But whatever difference of opinion there may have been, and yet may be, in respect to these particular views, still there cannot, one would think, be much disagreement about the strict right of any State, through some fit and proper or- gan, to express an opinion on any Constitutional question which may be raised by any act or measure of the general go- vernment. Whatever may be thought of the positions just referred to, and w hich may be called the peculiar doctrines of the Virginia school — certain it is, that we have a govern- ment under the Constitution — a government composed of re- presentatives — and if the States may not be called parties to the Constitution, they are at least, constituents of the govern- ment, directly and exclusively represented in one of its most important branches, the Senate of the United States. Deny who will, the right of the constituent to make his voice heard, in some appropriate form, in the ear of his representative, yet who ever does so, must expect to find that his denial will be met with the contempt or the rebuke of all who have cor- rectly learned the elementary principles of representative go- vernments. Mr. Mauison prepared a series of Resolutions, which were passed by tlie House of Delegates of Virginia, on the 21st of December, 1799, and agreed to by the Senate four days afterw\ards. These Resolutions, besides expressing in- cidentally the peculiar notion concerning the nature and ori- gin of the Constitution already referred to, affirmed, as the sense of Virginia ; — That the powers of the federal govern- ment were Hmiled by the plain sense and intention of the 38 Constitution ; — That the States were bound to interpose in a palpable and dangerous case of the exercise of powers not granted ; — That, in several instances, the government had manifested a disposition to enlarge its powers by forced con- structions, and by drawing powers from general phrases, whenever they could not be found in particular enumera- tions ; — That, in the cases of the Alien and Sedition acts par- ticularly, powers had been exercised which had no-where been delegated to the general government, but which, on the contrary, in one of the cases, had been expressly forbidden ;— That those acts therefore were unconstitutional. The Re- solutions, were transmitted to the several States, with an invi- tation to co-operate with Virginia in maintaining the rights of the States and of the people. The answers received from the various States, were uniformly unfavorable, and some of them in rude hostility, to the opinions, and to the mode of procedure, adopted by Alrginia — a state of public opinion on the important subject in hand, supposing it to have then been faithfully indicated by these answers of the respective legis- latures, which was destined to undergo a rapid and thorough revolution, ending in nothing short of an utter political pros- tration of all who had been concerned in originating the ob- noxious measures, and of all who had adopted the obnoxious principles by which those measures had been supported. The Legislature of Virginia of the next year, to which Mr. Madison had allowed himself to be returned with a view to this very service and subject, proceeded to take into conside- ration the answers which had been received. A Report on these answers was made by Mr. Madison, as Chairman of the Committee to whom they had been referred, concluding with a Resolution of firm adherence to the doctrines and posi- tions of the Resolutions of 1798. This Report is the most elaborate, and in many respects it is the most able, of all the productions of Mr. Madison's pen; It is not too much to say, considering the nature of the topics embraced in it, the course of study, the habits of thought, the clearness and steadiness and compass of mental perception 39 demanded for the exercise, that it could not have been writ- ten, at that day, by any other man in the nation. The Report, with tiie Resolution appended to it, having been adopted by the Legislature, this last great service ren- dered by Mr. Madison to the Constitution of his country, was finally consummated. It is not necessary in order to pronounce favorably on the pre-eminent value of this service, that all the views, assumptions and conclusions expressed by him in these papers, should, without exception or limitation, have met with the concurrence and approval of the united sense and wisdom of the nation. It is enough to know that he here propounded and enforced certain great leading and fundamental rules and principles, to be observed in the read- ing and rendering of the Constitution, which have been re- ceived, and become rooted in the public mind, as the settled and unalterable law of that instrument ; which, from that day to this, have been the only doctrine on the subject which the country would tolerate ; which no administration and no pub- lic man has ever dared openly to disavow ; and which, it is safe to say, will stand as the deliberate judgment of the na- tion as long as the Constitution and the Republic shall endure. It must not be forgotten, or omitted, in this connection, that it was attempted not long since, in certain quarters, to make Mr. Madison stand responsible, on the ground of his Resolutions and Report, for the abominable doctrine of nulli' jication by State authority. This attempt was met by Mr. Madison himself, in a very decided and explicit manner. In August, 1830, he addressed a letter to a distinguished gentle- man of Massachusetts,* in which, after holding up this doc- trine to reprobation and contempt, by a simple but beautiful exposition and argument, he proceeded to vindicate the Reso- lutions of 1798, and the subsequent Report, in the most ample and satisfactory way, from the imputation and odium of hav- ing originated, or even favored in the remotest degree, the gross, insane, and shocking heresy alluded to. If the modern advocates of that doctrine must endeavour to fortify them- * Gov. Everett. 40 selves with an ancient or early precedent, they must look for it in another quarter. If Mr. Jefferson held this opinion, let it be understood distinctly, that, by no influence, even by that of the most close and confidential friendship, was he able to indoctrinate Mr. Madisox with his views. If the doctrine may be found in the Resolutions of the Kentufky Legislature of 1798, and 1799, which were drafted by Mr. Jefferson, it cannot be found either in the Resolutions or Report drawn up by Mil. Madisox, or in any thing else which ever flowed from his intellect or his pen. The residue of Mr. Madison's history, my friends, must now be briefly told. Mr. Jefferson came into the presiden- tial office in 1801, and Mr. Madison took his appropriate place at his right hand, as Secretary of State. From this time, for sixteen years, he was never out of office, or re- lieved, for an hour, from a principal share in the burthens and cares of State. The difficulties and trials which the country encountered during the eight years of Mr. Jefferson's administration, grew almost wholly out of the state of its for- eign relations ; and Mr. Madison stood at the head of that Department, to which belonged the first and principal cogni- zance and care of these relations. How he acquitted himself, posterity will know. The history of the period, so far as the United States are concerned, is \vritten in his official and di- plomatic correspondence. The chief of the belligerent pow- ers of Europe, mad with pride or drunk with blood, fii-st com- mitted every species of Vandal outrage on the rights of neu- tral nations, and on the rights of this nation particularly, and then insulted them with the doctrines which they set up to justify their practices. How both were met by the Secreta- ry — the injuries and the insults, the acts of violence and the doctrines of justification — are recorded by his own hand : and if he had done nothing else in his life-time, this record alone were enough for the monument of an enduring antl glo- rious fame. In 1809, he became President of the United States. The moment of his entering on the direction of public affairs, was 41 one of the most critical in our history. Nearly all the expe- dients for the preservation of peace, had been exhausted in the time of his predecessor. Reason, and remonstrance, and the claims of justice, and the cries of humanity — all had been found unavailing ; whilst the system of non-resistance with commercial restrictions and embargoes, had created danger- ous enemies at home, but had made no friends abroad. No- thing remained for him, but to wait the effect of the last un- promising measure of Mr. Jefferson's policy — that of prohibi- ting all commercial intercourse with Britain and France — and then to rush into war ; it might be with either, it might be with both of these powerful nations. In the event, war was de- clared against Great Britain only. Mr. Jefferson was not more a philosopher, than a man of the people, and, to some extent, he staked the success of his administration on popular sentiment and popular feeling ; and the god he worshipped was not to be appeased, and kept in placability, without costly sacrifices. To make the merits of his administration the more conspicuous and appa- rent, his superior sagacity led him to see that it was impor- tant to give it some cast of contrast to those of his predeces- sors. He made the excellent virtues of economy, retrench- ment, and reform, the order of the day. The remnant of the national army was accordingly reduced ; and the navy was nearly annihilated. In the meantime the Ocean — that great Common and Highway of the nations — was infested and swept by public robbers — great and small — barbarian and civilized — robbers without authority, and robbers by authority. To revive and create a navj'-, for the protection of American com- merce, and American citizens on the sea, would be to create burthens for the people, by increasing the expenditures of the government — and as the majority of the people were not mer- chants, or political economists, it might be difficult to make them readily comprehend how the interests and wealth, the moral and physical advantage of the nation at large, would be promoted, by protecting and encouraging commerce, at the expense of maintaining a navy, and perhaps at the expense 6 42 of a war. There was but one alternative — withdraw the com- merce of the country from the Ocean — abandon the great highway because there are robbers there — confine the citizen to his farm, and his workshop, and his counting-house — and then he will be safe. This policy bore Mr. JeflTerson triumphantly through ; but it left the country in no condition to make the seat of his suc- cessor an easy or an enviable one. Peace could not be aban- doned till the last hopeless experiment, that of non-intercourse already instituted, had been fairly tried. War, all the while, seemed inevitable at no distant day. The Ocean could not be regained — commerce could not be restored — confidence and self-respect at home, and honor and consideration abroad, and private and public security, could not be recovered with- out it. War was inevitable, if it had only been to satisfy the insolence of foreign powers, grown more insolent by a policy which voas forbearance, and seemed to be submission ; that Americans could and would fight when there was no other safe or honorable alternative. War was inevitable, so at least thought ]Mr. Madison, the very Man of Peace ; and yet, by the popular sentiment, by the popular political wisdom of the period, there must be no army, and no navy, while the peace lasted. Still the war was inevitable, and it came — it came — on the responsibility of the President, voluntarily assumed — and it came, of course, with little previous, and no ade- quate preparation. The war was brief, but it was severe. It proved the streno-th of the Constitution. It proved the patriotism of the people. It proved the valor of the American arms. The war resulted in an honorable peace, — the more honorable be- cause it was concluded as promptly as possible when the ob- jects of the war had been substantially gained. It was not waged to propagate abstract principles by the sword, but to compel the enemy to forego his injurious practices — not for the pride of forcing him to a formal recognition of our doc- trines, or to a formal promise of good behaviour in future, but to teach him that we understood our rights if he did not ; that. 43 hold what opinions he would, the actual violation of these rights would no longer be tolerated, that the practices — the practices — of which we complained, must cease now, and cease forever ; and that henceforward, our security should be found, not in any concessions on his part if he chose to with- hold them, but in the promptness with which the good right arm of a brave and gallant nation should be bared to do battle for Justice and the Right, in the name and by the strength of the God of armies. Having conducted the nation successfully through the war, Mr. Madison turned, with the nation, to the more congenial and delightful duties of peace. And he retired from Office on the 4th of March, 1817, leaving all the affairs of the Re- public ill a state of high and palmy prosperity. For nearly twenty years from this period, and to the close of his life, he dwelt at his favorite seat in V^irginia. He there enjoyed that blessed quiet, and that almost uninterrupted happiness, which is sometimes, even in this life, the reward of the good man. He felt that the work which his heavenly Father had given him to do, had been done, and well done. And even still he did not refuse to perform such services for his fellow citizens and his country, as became the dignity of his condition, and as his remaining time and strength would allow. He assisted in the revisal of the Constitution of his native state. He aided the cause of agriculture by an able Address. He made active exertions in behalf of Education and the spread of knowledge. And, finally, holding himself aloof from the party politics of the day, and especially care- ful, while he would not condemn the course of public affairs unnecessarily, never to stain and mar the beautiful consisten- cy of his own life and principles by approving of measures and practices at war with his own, he cheerfully consented to furnish, as often as requested, from the fountain of his own experience and wnsdom, his counsel and advice on topics of high constitutional import, and of paramount public impor- tance. With the performance of these duties ; with study and literary labor ; dispensing a simple but elegant hospitali- 44 ty; preserving great regularity and order in his domestic economy; enjoying in his beloved wife, the care, and con- verse, and womanly devotion of one of the most accomplished and excellent of her sex, respected, honored, loved ; owing no man any thing, whether money, or service, or reparation for undesigned injuries ; having done all the good of which he was capable, and never given just cause of oftence to any human being — thus he lived — and thus did the number of his days run out — when, on the 28th of June last, sitting in his chair, tenderly watched, with the face of yearning but now deeply troubled aftection bending over him to receive his last earthly look, without one struggle to retain his hold on life, or one pang at the dissolving of nature, he quietly yielded back his pure spirit to the God who gave it. Gentlemen ! Young Men ! called as I have been, by your partiality, to set this eminent individual before you, may I be permitted now to indulge the hope that the invalua- ble lessons of his life and character will not be lost upon you, or on that generation in our country, of which you are a part. I implore the members of this Association — and if the assem- bled young men of the nation stood before me, and I could swell my voice to reach every ear in so vast a concourse — I would implore them all, and each one of them, not to turn away from the influence of so bright and pure an example, until they should begin to feel within themselves the stirrings of those elevated and ennobling sentiments, those lofty and unalloyed aspirings, those swelling and generous thoughts, those firm, resolved, uncontaminated, unconquered and un- conquerable purposes, in behalf of our beloved country and her institutions, which that example is calculated to inspire. In my heart of hearts, I believe and feel, that favorable im- pressions in the quarter referred to — the adoption, by the young men of the Country, of sound principles, of charitable but correct estimates of public men and public measures, and of a better morality than commonly prevails in public afl'airs — that in this, and in this alone is the last hope of the land. Look, I beseech you, to the example of Madison — it may be 45 long" enough before you shall be called, to contemplate such another — look to his example, and take the profit of the con- templation. Regard him in the circumstances of his early history. Ob- serve him, feeble and infirm in health as he was from the cradle, devoted to study ; acquiring habits of application and toil ; chaste, temperate, sober, thoughtful : — See him at the close of his academic days, then in the very heat of youthful blood, withdrawing himself, not from society, but from the followship of unprofitable indulgences, to occupy successive years in interested converse with the Wisdom of History, with the Genius of the Past, with the Principles and the Men of Ancient days, with the novel Spirit of the Present, and the legible secrets of the Coming Time — with every thing, in short, which could tend to fit him for the performance of ex- alted services to his country — services on which he had never dared to enter without the consciousness of some adequate preparation to bring him up to the eminent level of the work. Look at him, as he enters on the career of active life and public duty, and while in the midst of official occupation. With no feverish anxiety to rush into responsible station ; wil- ling to serve where he could and ought, but fearful to venture, and waiting till the voice of his country called ; shrinking from no toil at her bidding, anxious only for her prosperity, praying for her peace ; the friend of Liberty, but the sworn enemy of licentiousness, and knowing no Liberty without the coercive power of government ard law ; the friend of the People, entertaining towards them a becoming respect, a generous confidence and a kind and enduring sympathy, but never stooping to flatter or cajole them ; never descending to the level of that low and dishonest ambition, wliich emplf)ys itself in exciting and ministering to their base propensities, and their blind and miserable passions, with a view to take the chance of following in the wake of their turbulent track, or of mounting on the raven wing of the tempest when it is up — but on the contrary, always treating them as trusting to their undoubted capacity of answering to appeals made to 46 the nobler feelings, and higher sentiments of our common na- ture ; believing them apt to be right, but often wrong, because liable to be misled by the ignorant and the intriguing ; serving their interests faithfully, and in the right way, at whatever hazard of incurrmg their present displeasure ; looking confi- dently for a steady breeze, from the right quarter to fill his prosperous sails, instead of spreading out a mighty breadth of alluring canvass, to catch every breath and puff of popular favor, to the imminent peril of his eventual fame ; dealing honestly and plainly with the people in all his public conduct ; endeavoring to bring them to the right, when they were evidently in the wrong, instead of watching to take the popu- lar current whether wrong or right ; supporting party and supported by party, but never mistaking party for country, or sacrificing country to paity ; regarding office as a trust, in which the public is to be served, and not himself or his friends ; standing beside the Constitution as with a naked sword, flaming with truth and argument and terror, to protect it from desecration — never daring to plant an unhallowed foot upon it himself, or allowing another to do it, but if done in spite of resistance, sounding an instant and loud alarm, to wake the hosts of the nation to the rescue ; always firm be- cause settled in his purpf)ses, yet always gentle — at least, never roused to violence at any wrongs, or to indignation, but at the wrongs of his country ; and always consistent with himself, and without disguises, because grounded in honesty and principle which need no concealments, and never change. And finally and especially. Young Men ! look at him when the chief honors of the Republic are on him — when he stands vested with the highest official dignity of the greatest, because the freest nation on earth — sec him, finding his au- thority, not in his office, or in the name of his office, but in the Constitution only ; scrupulously respecting the authority of every other department of the government ; the President of the nation, and of the whole nation, conducting the go- vernment for the general welfare, with a policy broad 47 enough to embrace every citizen and every section; sur- rounding himself with the vs^ise and the worthy for counsel and support ; with a presence of purity, elevation and moral dignity, which the fawning politician cannot approach, and be- fore which the corrupt and corrupting minion of power dare not appear ; recognizing no qualification for office, without personal purity, without a high sense of honor, without pub- lic principles which would not be regarded as sound in po- litics if they were not also sound in morals ; with much pow- er, but no patronage ; with no private enmities to gratify, and taking special heed not to be misled by private friendships ; with a multitude of offices to bestow — but no favors — and a wide country full of talent and virtue to fill them ; — thus con- ducting public affiiirs in a way to promote public morality along with public prosperity, and of course in a way to strengthen, by the mighty influence of government, and not to weaken, the only foundation on which the government rests. No wonder that his public course, though difficult, was a successful one. " I shall carry with me " said he, as he was about to retire finally, " I shall carry with me sources of grati- fication which those who love their country most will best appreciate." Gifted, favored, venerated man ! We catch the spirit of that happy sentiment — we would rise to the contem- plation of the conscious virtue that inspired it — and, in that contemplation, forgetting all meaner excellence, and filling our grateful hearts and memories with the living image of those sublime qualities which alone constitute true greatness — thus would we set up our standard of political estimation — and thus would we learn henceforward how to measure both our own and others' claims to the gratitude and admiration of the country and of the world ! H ai «H o^ .•; ^H q,: "^' ^0^ ■ . . . ^ . 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