Madison↩
It was well known that James Madison had
taken full and careful notes of the proceedings in the Convention, and
he had often been urged to publish them. He had, however, decided that a
posthumous publication was advisable.14
Madison died in 1836. His manuscripts were purchased by Congress, and
shortly afterwards, in 1840, under the editorship of H. D. Gilpin, The Papers of James
Madison were published in three volumes.15 More than half of this work was given over to his notes of the debates in the Federal Convention,16 and at once all other records paled into insignificance.[xvi]
In a preface to the Debates, written before
his death, Madison had explained with what care the material was
gathered and written up:17
“I chose a seat in front of the presiding
member, with the other members, on my right and left hand. In this
favorable position for hearing all that passed I noted in terms legible
and in abbreviations and marks intelligible to myself what was read from
the Chair or spoken by the members; and losing not a moment
unnecessarily between the adjournment and reassembling of the Convention
I was enabled to write out my daily notes during the session or within a
few finishing days after its close.”
Indeed Madison was evidently regarded by his
fellow-delegates to the Convention as a semi-official reporter of their
proceedings, for several of them took pains to see that he was supplied
with copies of their speeches and motions.18
And from the day of their publication until the present, Madison’s
notes of the Debates have remained the standard authority for the
proceedings of the Convention.
Madison’s correspondence and the manuscript
itself reveal the fact that Madison went over his notes after the
publication of the Journal in 1819.19 He not only noted differences between his own record and that of the Journal, but also in many cases corrected his own notes from the Journal.
In the wording of motions, this is not to be wondered at, for Madison,
during the sessions of the Convention, in his haste to note what the
speaker was saying could do no more than take down the substance of
motions and resolutions, while these would be copied into the journal in
full. Nor is it surprising, when we remember that Madison accepted the
printed Journal as authoritative, to find him
in not a few cases copying from it proceedings of which he had no
record. But the importance of this fact is evident at once, for these
items have been accepted upon the double record of the Journal and Madison, [xvii] whereas they are in reality to be stated upon the authority of the Journal alone.
But Madison went
even one step farther and actually changed his records of votes in the
Convention in order to bring them into conformity with the Journal.
This might involve the change of the vote of a single state, or of
several states, or even reverse his record of the decision of the
Convention. On what basis or for what reasons Madison felt justified in
changing his records of votes is not to be ascertained conclusively.
Sometimes it seems to have been done because the records of Journal
and Yates were in accord in their disagreement with him; sometimes he
probably saw that subsequent action in the Convention proved the record
of Journal to be correct, and his own to be wrong; sometimes it was done because the vote of a state as recorded in Journal
harmonized better with the sentiments of the delegates from that state
as expressed in their speeches; and sometimes there is no apparent
reason.
The matter might be merely of antiquarian interest, were it not for the fact that the printed Journal is itself unreliable, and that there are not a few cases in which Madison has made corrections from the Journal that are undoubtedly mistaken: Votes ascribed in the Journal
to the wrong questions were used, in several cases, to change records
that were probably correct as first made. Questions and votes were
copied into his manuscript from the printed Journal
without observing that these same questions and votes were recorded in
other places, sometimes even on the same day; an examination of the
original records shows that in most of these cases the questions were
not to be found in the body of the Journal, but were incorporated into
the text by John Quincy Adams; they are only to be found in the Detail
of Ayes and Noes, and their relative position in the proceedings could
only be inferred from the order in which the votes happened to be
recorded.
It is not surprising, indeed, to find that Madison was thus misled by the mistakes in the printed Journal,
for if his own records were correct, these would be the very points in
which the discrepancies would occur. It is only necessary then to
recognize Madison’s evident acceptance of the Journal as [xviii] authoritative, to expect him to incorporate these mistakes in his Debates.20
Another extensive
set of corrections is to be found in the speeches made in debate. These
are generally in the form of additions to Madison’s original record.
Because of misquotations of his own remarks, Madison condemned Yates’s
notes severely, as being a “very erroneous edition of the matter”.21
It is more than surprising, then, to discover that these additions were
taken from Yates. Such proves to have been the case, however, and in
over fifty instances. There were a number of speeches or remarks,
including several of his own, that Madison failed to note in any form,
but later thought worthy of inclusion. And there were also new ideas or
shades of thought which Yates had noticed but which Madison failed to
catch.
The fact of these
changes being made does not rest merely upon the wording of the text
and Madison’s statement in 1821 that he was intending to prepare his
notes for posthumous publication. The manuscript22
shows that most of the changes thus made are easily recognizable. The
ink which was used at the later date has faded quite differently from
that of the original notes, so that most of the later revisions stand
out from the page almost as clearly as if they had been written in red
ink.23
[xix]
In the present
edition such changes — except in trivial instances — are indicated by
enclosing them within angle brackets 〈 〉, and in foot-notes the original
readings are given, wherever they have any significance, and the editor
expresses his opinion as to the probable source of the change, wherever
it is possible to trace it.24
In view of the fact that the Journal
is so imperfect and not altogether reliable, and that Madison made so
many changes in his manuscript, all other records of the Convention take
on a new importance. Formerly they have been regarded only in so far as
they might supplement our information; now it is seen that they may be
of service also in determining what the action really was in doubtful
cases.
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