Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison

In July of 1776 and with the Declaration of Independence (“Declaration”), the 13 British colonies in the present-day United States of America declared their independence from the British crown. Following the Declaration, the colonies needed to establish a form of government by which the former colonies would rule themselves free of Britain. To this end, the Articles of Confederation (“Articles”) were established and ratified in 1781 by the 13 states and represents the first system of government of the newly independent states. The government established by these free and independent states, and as signified in the title, was a confederation of these states.  

Over Time the Articles of Confederation Proved to be Defective

After a few years, it became evident to the founding fathers that the Articles were not working out so well. In May of 1787, delegates from the various states gathered in Philadelphia for the purpose of revisiting and revising the Articles. On May 29, 1787, and at the beginning of such Federal Convention, Edmond Jennings Randolph, an influential Virginia delegate to the Convention, enumerated to the delegates the defects of the Articles, inter alia, as follows: (1) the confederation “produced no security against foreign invasion;” (2) the confederation had no power to “check the quarrels between the states;” (3) the nation was disadvantaged by lacking the power to regulate foreign commerce; and, (4) the federal government was powerless in connection with encroachments from the states. In order to address such defects in the Articles, the states gathered at the Federal Convention to revise the Articles with the original goal of addressing these deficiencies; however, during the course of the Federal Convention, the delegates, instead of revising the Articles, drafted an entirely new republican form of government as outlined in the new Constitution of the United States of America (“Constitution”). On September 17, 1787, the Constitution was completed to be sent to the various states for ratification which finally occurred in 1789.

U.S. Constitution was Basically Debated and Drafted in Secret

The final form of the revisions to the Articles, which resulted in an entirely new Constitution, was a surprise to the states and the populous of the nation. The reason that the new Constitution was a revelation is because the delegates made certain that their deliberations would remain secret. At the beginning of the Federal Convention, the delegates established rules that forbade journal copies from being removed from the convention, that only delegates were permitted to inspect such journals, and that “nothing spoken in the House be printed, or otherwise published or communicated without leave.”

Although nothing was published during the convention in accordance with the established rules, many of the delegates kept notes including, but not limited to, William Patterson, Alexander Hamilton, Edmund Randolph, Rufus King, Dr. James McHenry, Robert Yates, and James Madison. While many delegates kept notes of the proceedings, James Madison’s notes are the most extensive and comprehensive accounting of the Federal Convention.  Absent Madison’s voluminous book titled, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison (hereinafter referred to as “Notes”), historians would be largely unaware of the inner workings of the Federal Convention.  

During the Federal Convention, James Madison, a delegate from Virginia and the future fourth president of the United States, sat directly in the center of the room, rarely left the room while the delegates were in session, and painstakingly took daily notes of the proceedings.  According to Madison’s recollection “[i]t happened, also that I was not absent a single day, nor more than a casual fraction of an hour in any day, so that I could not have lost a single speech, unless a very short one.” Because Madison did not desire to be bothered with criticism as Thomas Jefferson sometimes endured as the de-facto author of the Declaration, Madison withheld his notes until they were finally published in 1840.

Madison’s Notes are a Treasure Trove of Information Related to the Actual Debate of the Constitution 

In Madison’s Notes, he details not only the arguments for and against certain provisions of the Constitution, but meticulously ascribes the arguments to the delegates who made them. While reading Madison’s Notes, one can truly sense the process of the development of the Constitution through the Federal Convention and especially the process of compromise. Among these compromises was how to count black slaves for purposes of representation and taxation. This issue was debated repeatedly during the Federal Convention (June 11, 13, 15, July 11-12, August 6, and more). While southern states wanted black slaves to be completely counted for purposes of representation and taxation, northern states did not want black slaves counted at all. On July 12, 1787, these diametrically opposed desires resulted in the Three-Fifths Compromise by which the states met in the middle and decided to count only three-fifths of the black slaves in each state for purposes of representation and taxation. Madison recorded the vote as follows:  “Masts. no. Ct. ay. N. J. ay. Pa. ay. Del. Divd. Mayd. ay. Va. no. N.C. no. S.C. ay. Geo. no.”

While there were many other very important compromises such as the Connecticut Compromise and the Slave Trade Compromise, the point made is that historians would be largely unaware of the machinations of the Federal Convention without Madison’s Notes. Madison fairly clearly showed how the debate process which resulted in the Constitution proceeded. That said, armed with a basic knowledge of the philosophical writings of Aristotle, Althusius, John Locke, and other enlightened political philosophers, one can also understand why the delegates arrived at the Constitution. Aristotle’s ideas of liberty, Althusian ideas of federalism, and Locke’s ideas on republicanism, while not directly quoted in Madison’s Notes, are interwoven in each discussion about the provisions of the Constitution. While Madison’s Notes do not often explain the “why,” historians can use the Notes along with other sources related to each delegate and make many inferences which would not be available absent Madison’s Notes, and for this reason, Madison’s Notes are significant and are a very interesting read especially considering that the Federal Convention was largely held in secret.

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