After strenuously opposing amendments to the Constitution during the ratification debate, James Madison notified his fellow members of the U.S. House of Representatives on 4 May 1789 that in three weeks he intended to “bring on the subject of amendments.” On 25 May, Madison agreed to delay introducing his amendments by another two weeks to allow Congress time to complete consideration of an impost bill, which would provide the primary source of revenue for the new government. Two weeks later, on 8 June, Madison proposed that the House sit as a committee of the whole to consider “some propositions which I have strong hopes, will meet the unanimous approbation of this house, after the fullest discussion and most serious regard.” Madison explained that he felt “bound in honor and in duty to . . . proceed to bring the amendments before you as soon as possible, and advocate them until they shall be finally adopted or rejected.”
Several factors contributed to Madison’s change of heart regarding amendments to the Constitution. Initially, during the Virginia ratifying Convention on 25 June 1788, Madison sought to gain enough support to secure the Constitution’s ratification by assuring Antifederalist delegates that he and other Federalists would not abandon their promise to support amendments after the Constitution was ratified. At the Convention, delegates agreed to a bill of rights and a list of twenty structural amendments to the Constitution, enjoining Virginia’s representatives in Congress “to exert all their influence and use all reasonable and legal methods to obtain a ratification of the foregoing alterations and provisions in the manner provided by the fifth article of the said Constitution.”
Once the Constitution was ratified, amendments no longer stood as an obstacle in obtaining the ratification of a single uniform Constitution by the necessary nine states. Furthermore, Madison’s support for rights-type amendments increased when he pictured them as a means to stifle the movement for a general convention to consider amendments that might endanger the newly ratified Constitution.
Madison’s decision to support amendments was strongly urged by some of his politically astute friends. They encouraged him to publicly announce his support for amendments in letters that he authorized to be printed in newspapers preceding his campaign for election to the House of Representatives. These friends also convinced Madison to return home from the Confederation Congress in New York City to campaign in person in January 1789 during which his endorsement of amendments would garner votes for his election.
In addition to his public statements, Madison consulted with George Washington in drafting Washington’s presidential inaugural address. Together they decided to include a recommendation that Congress should propose amendments that would protect “the characteristic rights of freemen.” (It is unknown whether Washington or Madison first broached the issue of including that recommendation.) Madison felt that amendments would persuade former Antifederalists to cease their opposition and might even convince North Carolina and Rhode Island to adopt the Constitution and join the Union.
Finally, in a candid correspondence with Thomas Jefferson then serving as U.S. minister to France, Madison came to believe that limited rights-based amendments would not harm the Constitution but might, in fact, help protect rights. Furthermore, from a practical political perspective, Madison believed that rights-based amendments could obtain the necessary approval of two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-fourths of the state legislatures as mandated by Article V of the Constitution. He saw this as a political pathway to ensuring the protection of individual rights without endangering the constitutional framework of the Constitution.
On 8 June Madison delivered a masterful speech in which he submitted a long list of amendments intended to be inserted at appropriate points in the body of the Constitution. Many of Madison’s amendments including the first two sentences of his opening “declaration” were recommended by the Virginia ratifying Convention on 27 June 1788 as well as by other state conventions. Madison’s entire declaration was part of the introductory paragraph of the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson and which had been included in many state constitutions. Madison wanted his declaration to precede the Constitution’s Preamble:
That all power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from the people. That government is instituted, and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right of acquiring and using property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. That the people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform or change their government, whenever it be found adverse or inadequate to the purposes of its institution.
The House had three options: (1) to either consider Madison’s amendments and the amendments from the state conventions within a committee of the whole, (2) to send the amendments to a select committee of eleven, or (3) to delay consideration until other important matters had been completed or perhaps even until the next session of Congress. On 21 July 1789 the House, sitting as a committee of the whole, voted 34 to 15 to discharge the committee of the whole from considering amendments, deciding instead to submit the amendments to a select committee consisting of a member from each of the eleven states represented. Chaired by John Vining of Delaware, the other members were Madison, Abraham Baldwin of Georgia, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Aedanus Burke of South Carolina, Nicholas Gilman of New Hampshire, George Clymer of Pennsylvania, Egbert Benson of New York, Benjamin Goodhue of Massachusetts, Elias Boudinot of New Jersey, and George Gale of Maryland.
The Committee of Eleven reported on 28 July. It was printed as a two-page broadside (Evans 22200) and in the New York Daily Advertiser on 29 July, which was reprinted in at least forty-seven other newspapers throughout the country by mid-September. Madison’s introduction, now considerably shortened, was to be inserted before the words, “We the people.” It now read: “Government being intended for the benefit of the people, and the rightful establishment thereof being derived from their authority alone.”
The House read the report again on 11 August and, after some opposition to wasting time on amendments when more pressing matters needed to be considered first, began consideration on 13 August. It was at this time that Roger Sherman objected to interweaving the amendments within the original body of the Constitution. “We might as well endeavor to mix brass, iron and clay, as to incorporate such heterogeneous articles; the one contradictory to the other.” James Jackson of Georgia agreed with Sherman asserting “that the original constitution ought to remain inviolate, and not be patched up from time to time, with various stuffs resembling Joseph’s coat of many colors.” Jackson also objected to Madison’s shortened addition to the Preamble. The words in the original unamended Preamble “speak as much as it is possible to speak, it is a practical recognition of the right of the people to ordain and establish governments, and is more expressive than any other mere paper declaration.”
The debate over the Preamble peaked on 14 August. Elbridge Gerry objected to the reference of “the benefit of the people” arguing that was only an illusion—not one in fifty governments was established for that purpose. Most governments, Gerry asserted, sought “to gratify the ambition of an individual, who by fraud, force, or accident, had made himself master of the people.” He suggested adding the words “of right,” but this proposal was rejected. William Loughton Smith of South Carolina pointed out that the New York, Virginia, and North Carolina ratifying conventions had recommended amendments that contained such a clause. Thomas Tudor Tucker, also from South Carolina, thought the addition to the Preamble was unimportant because preambles were not considered as part of constitutions. Thomas Sumter, another representative from South Carolina, felt that the Preamble was not the right place to enunciate “general principles,” suggesting instead that an alternative location in the Constitution might be better suited for such a statement of principle.
John Page of Virginia argued that he “thought the preamble no part of the constitution, but if it was, it stood in no need of amendment; the words “We the people,” had a neatness and simplicity, while its expression was the most forcible of any he had ever seen prefixed to any constitution. He did not doubt the truth of the proposition brought forward by the committee, but he doubted its necessity in this place.” Madison disagreed with his Virginia colleague and defended the inclusion of such a “self evident” principle, noting that it appeared in many state constitutions and in the amendments proposed by three important states. Madison also felt that there was no better place in the Constitution for this clause. Roger Sherman, however, believed that “the words ‘We the people’ in the original constitution are copious and expressive as possible; any addition will only drag out the sentence without illuminating it; for these reasons it may be hoped the committee will reject the proposed amendment.” The committee of the whole ultimately deleted the addition to the Preamble by a 27-to-23 vote.
The debate over Madison’s amendment to the Preamble was the climax of a much larger debate over whether the Constitution would preserve or undermine the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. Madison, to a great extent, hoped that his introductory declaration would incorporate the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence, which had been so eloquently written by Thomas Jefferson, into the Constitution. In particular, Madison’s declaration attempted to legitimize the right of revolution by specifically empowering the people to overthrow oppressive governments—both at the federal and state levels. In writing his Vices of the Political System in the Spring of 1787, Madison had highlighted the dangers emanating from the all-powerful state legislatures, which were highly susceptible to control by dynamic, demagogic leaders, such as Patrick Henry. On the other hand, however, many New England leaders were concerned about this right of revolution, especially since it had been frequently invoked by county conventions and had led to violent acts, such as the Exeter, N.H., riot in September 1786 and Shays’s Rebellion in 1786–1787.
Antifederalists condemned the Constitution. To Boston’s Helvidius Priscus (thought to be Samuel Adams) the document violated “the principles of the late glorious revolution . . . [for] nothing short of pure liberty is consistent with revolution principles” (Boston Independent Chronicle, 27 December 1787). The Constitution was sure to bring despotism “as darkness brings the night” (Philadelphia Freeman’s Journal, 23 January 1788). Elbridge Gerry, one of three delegates at the Philadelphia Convention who had refused to sign the Constitution, believed it was “neither consistent with the principles of the Revolution, or of the Constitutions of the several States.” He saw in the new plan only “fœderal Chains” (Gerry to John Wendell, Cambridge, 16 November 1787). A Georgian begged his readers to call to mind our glorious declaration of independence, read it, and compare it with the federal constitution; what a degree of apostacy will you not then discover: Therefore, guard against all encroachments upon your liberties so dearly purchased with the costly expence of blood and treasure” (Gazette of the State of Georgia, 15 November 1787). Centinel (written by Samuel Bryan of Philadelphia) was astonished at the “incredible transition!” People willing to give up their lives for liberty were “about to sacrifice that inestimable jewel . . . to the genius of despotism.” “Scarcely have four years elapsed since the United States [were] rescued from the domination of foreign despots . . . when they are about to fall a prey to the machinations of a profligate junto at home” (Pennsylvania Packet, 25 December 1787; Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, 29 December 1787). Richard Henry Lee of Virginia agreed. Two days after the Virginia Convention ratified the Constitution, Lee wrote that “’Tis really astonishing that the same people who have just emerged from a long & cruel war in defence of liberty, should now agree to fix an elective despotism upon themselves & their posterity!” Early in the Virginia Convention on 5 June 1788, Patrick Henry told his fellow delegates that
The question turns, Sir, on that poor little thing—the expression, We, the people, instead of the States of America. I need not take much pains to shew, that the principles of this system, are extremely pernicious, impolitic, and dangerous. . . . Here is a revolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It is as radical, if in this transition, our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the States be relinquished: And cannot we plainly see, that this is actually the case? The rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty of the press, all your immunities and franchises, all pretensions to human rights and privileges, are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this change so loudly talked of by some, and inconsiderately by others.
Many Americans agreed with Thomas Tredwell of New York that the Constitution “departed widely from the principles and political faith of ’76. . . . in this Constitution we have not only neglected—we have done worse—we have openly violated, our faith—that is, our public faith.”
Other Americans had a different view of the proposed Constitution. Federalist James Wilson asserted in the Pennsylvania Convention on 4 December 1787 that the Constitution was grounded on “the same certain and solid foundation” as the Declaration of Independence. Meanwhile A Jerseyman told readers of the Trenton Weekly Mercury (6 November 1787) that while the declaration “opened the door by which our entrance into national importance was first made,” the Constitution provided America with a government capable enough to securing the rights won in the war for independence. A correspondent in the Pennsylvania Gazette, 6 September 1787 predicted that as “The year 1776 is celebrated for a revolution in favor of Liberty. The year 1787, it is expected, will be celebrated with equal joy, for a revolution in favor of Government.”
