CONSTITUTION PAPER #1

THE FOUNDING FATHERS

There was a group of men who were so prominent in America in the late 1700's, that posterity gave them the title of "founding fathers." This term could be considered ambiguous, as a father is a biological sire of offspring who could not aspire to that station without the aid of a mother; and besides, a nation is not "fathered" in the strict sense; but the phrase came to be applied to a group of men who effectively caused the United States of America to come into existence.

The founding fathers have been envisioned as the very essence of America, and every generation since has sought some roots in the precedents of these famous men. What they actually did was usually forgotten in favor of what they wrote (or believed), and history has elevated mere mortal men to the heights of Mount Olympus and beyond, to reside among the Ancients. This phenomena is not unique to the United States, and it is in fact so essential to official authority universally, that it deserves some investigation.

The men who shall be outlined in this short Paper are the most prominent figures involved with the drafting, adoption, and interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. These personalities were the strongest influences in the United States during -- and after -- their lifetimes. There is just cause to consider other people as "founding fathers," but for the purposes of this Paper, the most important are: 1) George Washington, the father of the nation; 2) Alexander Hamilton, the father of the Federal Government; 3) Thomas Jefferson, the father of the political party; and 4) James Madison, the father of the Constitution.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

Larger than life, the image of George Washington, first President under the Constitution of 1787, looms in the imaginations of schoolchildren, who hear the elders speak of this Great Personage with tones of awe and reverence. The life of George Washington starts out with fictions about cherry trees precisely because very little is known about George's early childhood. What is known about him does not seem to compliment his popular image as the Father of the Country, for while he was dramatic, he was not particularly heroic. He was actually a sort of plain person, who should have been a farmer.

While Washington is credited with fathering American democracy, on two different occasions during his leadership of the Revolution he was given dictatorial powers. ¹ But while he had no aspiration to make himself a king, he did have an aristocratic value system, drawn from his upbringing in the landowning class; and this obligated him, from a sense of station, to seek military service, first in the army of the English king, and then against that king.

George was born in February, 1732, to a family whose fortunes fell during the Puritan Revolution in England, and which had relocated to Virginia in 1657, when John Washington migrated from the Old World. In England, a Washington was described as a "gentleman," and Henry VIII later gave the family lands. ² Somehow, when the family migrated to Virginia, John Washington received his own grant of land, upon which later his great-grandson, Lawrence, would build Mount Vernon. George's father was energetic and ambitious, and he became very rich. George was just 11 when his father died, and he became the ward of his brother, Lawrence. At Mount Vernon George was introduced to the good life of high society, which effected him the rest of his life.

Washington took an interest in farming and surveying in his teens, and at 16 years of age he went along on an official expedition to survey the lands of a rich relative, who owned 5,000,000 acres. After an encounter with German immigrants, the young father of our country remarked that they were, "as ignorant a set of people as the Indians, they would never speak English but when spoken to they speak all Dutch." ³

In 1749 this same relative, Lord Fairfax, got Washington a job as a surveyor in Culpepper County, and this gave young George a taste for speculative land ventures in the uncontrolled west, which lasted throughout his life. At a mere 20 years of age, George became the head of one of the best Virginia estates when, in 1752, after both his half-brother, Lawrence, and Lawrence's daughter, Sarah, had passed away, George inherited Mount Vernon. Along with this he inherited 18 slaves. ⁴

For the next twenty years George became absorbed with the work of a great land baron, as well as the benefits. He was fond of riding, fox hunting, duck hunting, and sturgeon fishing. He ran his own horses in the races, and he gambled; and he liked billiards and cards, dancing, and theatrical performances. He insisted on the very best clothing -- coats, laced waistcoats, hats, colored silk hose -- all bought in London. Washington liked to do things in a big way, and this reputation never failed him (nor did he fail it). ⁵ It is estimated that in the seven years prior to 1775, Mount Vernon had 2,000 guests.

George's military career began just after Lawrence's death, when Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie appointed George adjutant for the southern district of Virginia in 1752. He was dispatched on October 31, 1753, to tell the French to evacuate the Ohio valley (or there would be reprisals), and, of course, the French declared their intentions to stay. Washington barely made it back to report to Dinwiddie, who promptly published the report in an attempt to convince London that the French threat was serious. ⁶ Dinwiddie was ready to start his own war, and he made George Washington a lieutenant colonel, to recruit troops.

Ironically, Washington's first great strategic error revolved around a fort owned by the Ohio Company, which had been founded by George's brother, Lawrence. After marching his troops to Cumberland, with intentions to secure this fort, Washington discovered that the French had anticipated his move and had taken possession of it. With the help of friendly Indians, Washington struggled to within 40 miles of the fort, near what is now Confluence, Pennsylvania. In a stroke which became Washington's only successful battle maneuver throughout his military career, he made a surprise attack on May 28, 1754, upon an advance detachment of French troops, killing the commander and nine others, and taking the rest as prisoners.

But this back-handed kind of warfare did not sit well with the French, and their whole force fell on Washington's tiny band of 350 men, so that on July 3^rd George surrendered. And the planning which led to the location of his own post was so poor it led to his defeat, for the site was in a water-logged creek bottom, too far from the supply line, and vulnerable to three forested elevations on three sides. ⁷ The French released the disarmed English soldiers, to march back with the "honors of war," but they had Washington sign a statement that he had assassinated the French commander (killed in the surprise attack). After this experience, George wrote, "I have heard the bullets whistle; and believe me, there is something charming in the sound." ⁸

Washington yearned for more military adventures, and he became an aide-de-camp to General Braddock, who had been sent to America with a large force to unseat the French. The same man who later became the father of the United States declared, in another letter, "My inclinations are strongly bent to arms."

Braddock, however, was unfortunate enough to take Washington's advice, which led to the bloody defeat of his army, and his own death on the battlefield. Washington led the brilliant retreat, for which he was appointed commander of all Virginia troops, at 23 years of age. ⁹ But as a commander, Washington showed a distinct inclination to demand the subordination of his men, insisting on having all of his prerogatives. When a captain with a royal commission did not obey him, he rode on horseback to Boston to have the commander-in-chief in America, Governor Shirley, resolve the dispute (and because of his political connections, he was successful). Washington quit, however, after growing ill in 1757 from too much work. He was frustrated with the Virginia legislature for being tight with needed money; and because recruits came forward reluctantly; and he suffered from a chronic problem with deserters -- several of whom he hung or flogged -- which was a problem throughout his military career. Washington had a penchant for asserting his desires, and for complaining loudly when they were denied; and he was ambitious for rank and honor. ¹⁰

George then married Martha Dandridge on January 6^th, 1759, who brought him an additional 15,000 acres of prime land, and a number of slaves. From this time to the eve of the Revolution, George devoted himself once again to the duties of being the richest, largest and most industrious landowner in Virginia. He entertained lavishly, and was widely recognized as the first gentleman of America.

What started George on the road to radicalism was not the desire to free his slaves, but the fact that in 1763 London issued a proclamation stopping settlements west of the Alleghenies, and he happened to possess interests in companies which were speculating in western lands.

George was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and he shared in the gathering of legislators at the Raleigh Tavern after the Governor dissolved the legislature in 1768; and he helped draw up the non-importation resolutions -- and he went further than his neighbors in adhering to them -- believing that the peace need not be disturbed. In 1770 he was involved in a scheme to charter a 14^th colony, Vandalia, but these plans were ended when the Vandalia "bubble" burst, and the so-called "Boston Tea Party" of December, 1773, indicated a darkening turn of events. He attended the May, 1774, meeting of the (disbanded) legislature, now meeting as a revolutionary body, and he signed the resolution calling for a Continental Congress. Later that summer he declared, "I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march myself at their head for the relief of Boston." ¹¹

George's flair for politics never failed him, and his ability for dramatics drew a wide audience. The legislature immediately made him a delegate to Congress, where his national career began. The same man who showed no particular signs of greatness up until 1763, now went to Philadelphia, where on September 5^th, 1774, he took his seat in Congress in full military uniform.

George was determined never to submit, "to the loss of...valuable rights and privileges...without which life, liberty and property are rendered totally insecure." He felt that if England pushed hard enough, "more blood will be spilled than ever before in American history"; and he helped secure the approval of the "Suffolk Resolves," which established armed resistance as a last resort, but which also hardened the heart of the English king against America. ¹²

Following all of this colorful political maneuvering, George went back to Virginia, where he took up command of volunteer companies. It was generally understood that Washington was expected to be Virginia's general, and as the bargaining began for the top position of commander of all Continental troops, he was right out there in front, the wealthiest gentleman in America. New England offered Virginia the chief command as its price for supporting the adoption by Congress of the New England army (which had already engaged the British at Lexington and Concord), as the official Continental Army. Washington, who had been giving military advice to two Congressional committees, was elected commander-in-chief on June 15^th, 1775. Indeed, Washington proved ever resourceful in political intrigue, which enabled him to endure all the infighting which plagued the war effort from the beginning.

Washington was not a great tactician, however. Thomas Jefferson once said, "He often failed in the field." ¹³ He was often guilty of grave military blunders, the chief being his assumption of a position on Long Island in 1776, which exposed his entire army to capture the moment it was defeated. He was painfully inexperienced in the bigger problems of maneuvering whole armies; having only fought the French in the sticks, he was not prepared for the power his intrigue brought him. He had the task of making an army and holding it together; and he had the special job of making and unmaking officers, which he did by eliminating as much as possible the democratic processes of selection and election, instead employing his own authority as general and first gentleman of the army. ¹⁴ He was a severe disciplinarian, which seemed to increase the high turnover in his volunteer army, and it created a deep antipathy in Americans to all permanent army service.

Washington never won a single face-to-face battle between his army and that of the British. His only victories occurred as a result of his surprise attack tactic, at Trenton, where he again killed the commander; and at Princeton. Aside from these maneuvers, he was a master at avoiding the British. It was not until the French entered the war (his surprise attack victories did help bring the French in), that victory seemed possible. Although, the final blow to English power came when both France and Spain declared war on Britain, and her forces were divided between three fronts, Gibraltar, the coast of France, and America. Washington did, however, plan the last campaign which ended the war with Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown, and that was perhaps his finest display of generalship.

George went back to Philadelphia from 1781 to 1782, exhorting Congress to maintain its exertions for liberty, and to settle the army's claims for pay. He rejoined the army in April, 1782, at Newburgh, on the Hudson River. It was there that the discontented, unpaid men circulated the Newburgh Address, in early 1783, which urged Washington to use the army to make himself king. Astounded, George issued a general order censuring the paper, and at a meeting of officers on March 15^th, he told the army to obey Congress. ¹⁵ However, it cannot be said that because he turned down the crown, that he was not interested in being the first leader of the Americans. His ambitious nature was only too evident from an early age, and it is conceivable that the reason he rejected the crown was because he rejected the social class of the men who offered it to him. George was brought up with an aristocratic awareness of being a peer in a peerage, which Congress represented; whereas his volunteer army was drawn from the roughest, commonest men in the land.

This self-awareness of his social status was again revealed later, in his shock at the rising of the common people in the Shays Rebellion. Washington resigned his commission at Annapolis on December 23rd, and was home before nightfall on the 24^th.

Congress gave Washington a generous grant of land -- over which he made a 700 mile tour in 1784 -- in gratitude for his services during the war. And during the war, George lost less than $30,000.00. ¹⁶

Washington spent the next four years entertaining lavishly, and running his vast estates, all through which he repeatedly wrote his peers, lobbying for steps which would forge "an indissoluble union." He viewed the American political condition after 1783 as chaotic and with pessimism, and in May, 1786, he declared, "something must be done, or the fabric must fall, for it is certainly tottering." ¹⁷ The shock of the Shay's Rebellion caused him to believe that the Articles of Confederation were beyond repair, and that a radical reform was imperative. His letters to the American leadership were instrumental in creating a general sentiment in favor of forming a more powerful central government.

Mount Vernon became the site where, in 1785, the seed was sown which gave forth the secret Constitutional Convention of 1787. Washington approved in advance the call for a meeting of all the states, to "render the Constitution of the Federal Government adequate..." and commissioners from Virginia and Maryland, negotiating an agreement for the navigation of the Potomac at Mount Vernon in 1785, agreed with George.

When George arrived in Philadelphia on May 13^th, he was unanimously chosen president of the Convention as soon as a quorum was reached. He said little, but outside the Hall no one went further to lobby for stern measures. "My wish," he said, "is that the convention may adopt no temporizing expedients, but probe the defects of the Constitution to the bottom, and provide a radical cure." ¹⁸ The weight of his character did more than any other single force to bring the Convention around to ratifying what became the Constitution of 1787. His support gave it victory in Virginia, hinting that only "anarchy" was the alternative, and he personally circulated copies of the Federalist Papers.

The struggle that followed the ratification of the Constitution divided the country into two factions, and George lobbied (through his letters) the leadership of the various states, to urge that men who favored the Constitution should be elected to Congress. However, George appeared aloof from the two-sides of the newly developed contenders, because of his military reputation as commander-in-chief of the American forces during the war. When the presidential election occurred, no other name was considered in any state; at the time, the candidate receiving the second highest number of votes, became vice-president. Yet, the only contender with any real charisma, who in effect shut out the remaining candidates with his renown, was General Washington, who was inaugurated on April 30^th, 1789, after winning the votes of an electorate made up solely of property-owning white males, numbering no more than 300,000. (One of the features of a republic, it would later be recognized, was that generals enjoyed a unique popularity, that could easily and readily be translated into electoral power and influence).

As president George stood aloof from party divisions. Yet he supported the creation of a regular standing army, and federal control of the militia, as early as 1783; which his Secretary of War, Knox, proceeded to support in Washington's Administration. ¹⁹ George leaned with special weight on Alexander Hamilton, who was the leader of the Federalist Party. He supported Hamilton's scheme for taking over the debts of the states, for establishing a national bank, and in general he supported the strengthening of the authority of the Federal Government.

Washington was the first chief executive to claim a right to Executive Privilege, when he refused to hand over the instructions or correspondence relating to the Jay's Treaty, to Congress. He also presided over the successful establishment of the first standing army in the United States when, in 1791, true to his English opinion of the native Americans, he began "offensive operations" (in other words, a war) against the Indians, and informed Congress after the fact. In 1789, the army was made up of 840 men, and 46 officers; in 1790, this figure was increased by Congressional authorization to 1,216 men and 57 officers. The Federalists, however, desired an army of five or six thousand men, and in 1791 the President had launched an offensive operation against the Indians, without Congressional knowledge. Following the defeat of Generals Josiah Harmer and Arthur St. Clair, Congress was, in effect, forced to act under military necessity to grant the increase in the armed forces which it had rejected earlier as unnecessary. In this way, Washington literally created a situation which increased presidential power unilaterally, with no recourse to the Constitution or due process, power which every president since has exercised. ²⁰

This powerful force came in handy, however, not against Indians, but against Americans. Hamilton had invented a tax on distilled spirits to intentionally impose a federal tax on something the states had considered their own, to expand its power over the states; and when the common people didn't take to it well, Hamilton saw it as an opportunity to use the newly amassed Federal military power. Hamilton went with the troops in person (as did Washington, part of the way), as Secretary of the Treasury. The handling of the Whisky Rebellion, as well as the negotiation of Jay's Treaty, created enormous animosity. Washington was re-elected in 1792, but his second term was marked by partisan hatred, and he was subjected to bitter personal attacks.

Early in his first term, George established the rules of a virtual republican court. In both New York and Philadelphia he rented the best houses he could obtain, refusing to accept the hospitality of George Clinton because he believed that the head of the nation should be no man's guest. He returned no calls and shook no one's hand, but solemnly acknowledged salutations with a formal bow. He drove in a coach drawn by four or six smart horses, with outriders and footmen in rich livery. He attended receptions dressed in black velvet with gold buckles and yellow gloves; powdered hair; with a cocked hat with an ostrich plume in one hand, and a sword in a white leather scabbard bound to his waist. Even though the presidents of the Continental Congress entertained the "general public," Washington insisted that his home was private, and he wined and dined the members of Congress in rotation. (Imagine any President declaring the home of the president -- the White House -- a private residence!) For this ceremonial behavior, George was accused of conducting himself like a king. ²¹

He retired in 1797, and but for a short stint as commander-in-chief of a provisional army resurrected in 1789, and then disbanded by a cautious President Adams in 1799, his public life was over. On December 12^th, 1799, he exposed himself to the cold and snow for several hours, and he became ill with acute laryngitis, and on December 14th, at 10:00 PM, he passed into history.

Yet this was the Father of the United States of America.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

Alexander Hamilton has been grossly under-represented to generations of young Americans, probably because he was illegitimate, and Americans have always had a prudish bent; however, it is also possible that he was overlooked as a result of his rise to power in the shadow of his great mentor, Washington. Washington's inclination to latch onto other people's advice was matched by Alexander's willingness to give it, and in this symbiotic relationship the two of them rose to enormous prominence. ¹

Ever insecure as a result of the unmarried status of his parents, Hamilton was exceedingly ambitious and able. Before he was finished, he founded and led the Federalist Party through the administrations of the first two Presidents of the United States. He was the architect and engineer of the Washington Administration's policies, and he was largely responsible for the organization of the entire administrative structure of the Federal Government. ² His doctrine of the "implied powers" conveyed by the Constitution served to expand that document almost immediately after it was adopted, and has been used to justify the enlargement of the Federal Government into the 20^th century.

Alexander was born on the island of Nevis, in the British West Indies, in 1755. His father was of noble parentage, but he abandoned his family; and his mother died in 1768, when he was 13 years old. He had started to work at age 11, and he continued to work as a ward of his deceased mother's relatives. He advanced quickly, and friends who were impressed by Hamilton's ability sent him to north America to complete his education. In 1773 he studied at King's College (now Columbia), and in 1774 he wrote three revolutionary pamphlets which were so eloquent they were attributed to John Jay and John Adams. The discovery that a 19 year old boy had written them gave him instant celebrity status. (It seems that throughout his life, his birthdate was uncertain, so we do not know if he was 17 or 19; for that matter, neither did Alexander!)

Ever eager for honor, Hamilton was commissioned a captain in the provincial artillery, through friends in the New York legislature. He organized his own company, and he showed conspicuous bravery at the Battle of Trenton, winning the attention of the officers. In February, 1777, he became an aide-de-camp to General Washington, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Always the strategist, he waited until the closing episodes of the war, when victory loomed, to quit Washington's service over a trivial concern. Because of his close friendship with the General, he was given what he wanted, which was a command which gave him a moment of glory at the siege of Cornwallis' army at Yorktown. ³

After the war, in 1783, he retired to New York City with the daughter of a wealthy New York family whom he had married in 1780. There, as a lawyer, he defended British loyalists whose property had been seized, and who had been disallowed the right to vote. As a result of two pamphlets he wrote in 1784 under the pen-name Phocion, pleading for moderation towards loyalists, the legislature gave loyalists the right to vote, and re-admitted loyalist lawyers to the bar, in 1786. In 1787 he was, himself, seated as a member of the lower house of the New York state legislature, where he was selected to go to the Annapolis Convention, which was meeting in order to try to propose amendments to the Articles of Confederation, in hopes of strengthening the Union. At Annapolis he convincingly suggested that the Convention exceed its delegated authority to convoke another meeting of representatives from all the states, which became the Constitutional Convention. Through the influence of his father-in-law, General Schuyler, he obtained a seat in the delegation to Philadelphia for himself.

He did not take part in the debates, and his attendance was irregular, but he did give one long speech outlining his opinions on what kind of government best suited America. "I have no scruple in declaring...that the British Government is the best in the world." ⁴

He envisioned a unitary government, whereby the governors of the states would be appointed by an absolute central government, and the president served for a life-term, with absolute veto power over the legislature. He approved of three branches of government, but viewed the election of Senators as a matter to be handled indirectly, for life-terms; and the members of the lower house could only be elected by free males, to terms of three years. Many of his suggestions did finally make it into the Constitution.

Since the other New York delegates opposed the Constitution, they withdrew, and Hamilton "signed" it as an individual. (There is some controversy as to whether the Constitution was actually "signed" by any of its authors, and what those signatures actually mean in terms of legally binding implications). When the Constitution emerged from Philadelphia, it was bitterly attacked in New York (across the nation, as well), and ironically, Hamilton defended it in a series of letters under the pen-name of Caesar.

Because the Caesar letters did not have the effect he desired, he collaborated with John Jay and James Madison, and under the nom de plume "Publius," he wrote two-thirds of the 85 essays which became The Federalist Papers. These Papers now constitute the main body of reference used in citing the intentions of the Founding Fathers, for the implementation of the Constitution.

Even though the Federalist Papers were put together in haste they were widely read, and they were enormously influential in shaping American political opinion. In January, 1788, Hamilton was reappointed a delegate to Congress from New York; and he secured the ratification of the Constitution in New York by threatening to detach New York City from the rest of the state.

In April of 1789, Washington initiated the Federal Government, and in September, Hamilton was appointed Secretary of the Treasury. Soon after the appointment, Congress requested a plan for the "adequate support of the public credit," which was all the encouragement Hamilton needed. Seeing himself as the prime minister of Washington's "official family," he developed and carried out a bold plan designed to build a strong government, that would incorporate his political philosophy into the very fabric of the Union. He sought to weaken the states and to strengthen the Federal regime, as well as establish national credit at home and abroad; and to implement his plan, he submitted four reports to Congress, which remain controversial to this day.

The first two reports were submitted on January 14^th, 1790, and December 13^th, 1790. ⁵ They outlined an outstanding debt of $70,000,000.00, ⁶ and they presented a program for the liquidation of this debt through its assumption by the Federal Government. However, the true purpose of the plan was to bind men of wealth and substance -- who had purchased the state bonds to finance the Revolution -- to the national government. By proposing to fund the debt at full value, and by proposing that the Federal Government assume the debts of the states, naturally the last step was to propose a system of taxation to pay off the assumed debt.

The only way Hamilton could get his proposals through Congress was to organize political support, and in the process he developed the genesis of the Federalists as a political party. By a kind of "horsetrade" with the Jeffersonian Republicans, whereby Hamilton agreed to support the location of the future national capital on the Potomac in exchange for southern votes, he was able to secure passage of his first two reports. Hamilton's third report generated controversy until the term of Andrew Jackson, and it laid the seeds for what became the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Submitted on December 14^th, 1790, it proposed the establishment of a national bank called the Bank of the United States, modeled on the Bank of England. The intent of this Bank was to solidify the "partnership" of the business classes with the national government, and to regulate the currency. Alexander argued convincingly that the Constitution was the source of implied powers as well as enumerated powers -- which he had first put forth in his Federalist Papers -- which became the basis for interpreting and expanding the Constitution into the 20^th century. (The Supreme Court later latched onto this same concept to invoke the "implied power" to nullify legislative acts as unconstitutional). Once Congress passed it, Alexander personally persuaded Washington to sign it into law.

The fourth report, which was not adopted, was submitted on December 5^th, 1791, and it proposed a radical departure from Adam Smith's concepts on free enterprise. It proposed that the Federal Government give aid to American industry through protective legislation. Because much of this kind of regulation was executed by state governments, who did not want to relinquish such power, the proposal failed. Yet Hamilton's report laid a foundation for later protectionist legislation, and ultimately for the nationalization of regulatory agencies.

All through this period two opposing factions had been developing, one led by Hamilton, while the other was led by Thomas Jefferson. These two forces continually found themselves embattled against each other, in attempts to carry out their respective programs. Although politicking and lobbying began during the colonial period in the United States, and extended well into the period governed by the Continental Congress -- when army suppliers grew rich supplying poor quality arms and foodstuffs to the revolutionary army -- the true character of American republican politics, as we know it, began after the ratification of the Constitution.

The Jeffersonian Republicans favored France, while the Federalists favored England, and foreign policy became a point of conflict between Alexander and Jefferson, who was then the Secretary of State. Alexander tried to thwart efforts by Jefferson to establish close ties with France, because he detested the French revolution and its equalitarian ideas, and once he went so far as to warn the British minister to the United States of Jefferson's attachment to France, and he even suggested that the minister bypass the Secretary of State, to deal directly with Alexander and Washington! The result was the continuation of a feud between Hamilton and Jefferson, from 1791 to 1793, in which both men sought to drive each other off the Cabinet. ⁷

In February, 1793, war broke out between France and England, and Washington took Hamilton's position in proclaiming neutrality, which the Jeffersonians charged favored England. When the British violated American neutrality by seizing American ships trading with the French West Indies, the demand for a U.S. war against Britain was raised. Hamilton was fiercely opposed to a war with Britain because his whole financial system was inordinately dependent on trade with Britain, its funding deriving from import duties.

Solely to save his system, Hamilton persuaded Washington to send John Jay to London to negotiate American grievances. Alexander wrote the instructions John Jay operated by, and he manipulated the negotiations, and he defended the unpopular Jay's Treaty. ⁸ As planned, his system was saved; and, of course, Washington was given the opportunity to strengthen the Presidency by invoking Executive Privilege, to deny Congress access to the correspondence relating to the Treaty.

Alexander's most important opportunity to strengthen the powers of the Federal Government, at the expense of the states, occurred when farmers in western Pennsylvania rebelled against a federal excise tax on distilled liquors, which Hamilton had been instrumental in imposing as an important source of revenue. Up until 1794, the "right" to tax liquor had ostensibly belonged to the state governments, possibly as a carryover from the colonial period; but the armed resistance of the farmers gave Alexander his first, long desired, test of the Federal Government's power to oppose local defiance with armed force. He took a leading role in the militia authorized by Congress, of some twelve thousand men, raising distrust and fear among the Jeffersonians. ⁹ Moreover, the militia was accused of bad conduct along the line of their march, and of meting out excessively cruel treatment to their prisoners. ¹⁰ Yet the true intent of the Constitution, to bind the nation into an integral unit (controlled with force, if necessary), was effectively established in the crushing of the Whisky Rebellion, laying a philosophical basis for a later dispute, which became the first industrial-based war in history, the American Civil War. (Which is not to mention the obvious fact that this precedent also validated the use of armed force to impose and collect taxes upon a citizenry which, by and large, was restricted from voting through the property requirement).

Wounded by criticism, and anxious to repair his private fortune, Alexander left the Cabinet on January 31^st, 1795. His influence, however, continued unhampered, as Washington and his Cabinet consulted with him on almost all matters of policy. When Washington decided to retire, he asked Alexander's advice as to what time would be good for him to issue his farewell to the nation, and with the intent to run for the presidency himself, Hamilton unabashedly proposed that the President withhold his announcement until a few months before the meeting of the Electoral College. Following this advice, Washington made his Farewell Address in September of 1796, and Hamilton drafted most of that address. ¹¹

The Federalists, however, overlooked Hamilton, and nominated John Adams as the presidential candidate, and John Pinckney for the vice-presidential nominee; propelling Alexander to intrigue. Because Adams was ambivalent towards Hamilton's ideas, Hamilton manipulated in the Electoral College in a vain attempt to make Pinckney president; although Adams won the election, Hamilton's intrigue created distrust in the Federalist Party, and the first significant breaches in its unity.

President Adams retained Washington's Cabinet, and by this means Hamilton remained the single most powerful man in the country. The members of the Cabinet consulted Alexander on all matters of policy, providing him with confidential information, and in effect urging Alexander's policies on Adams. But the matter came to a head in 1798, when France retaliated against the United States, for negotiating the Jay Treaty; after initially agreeing that re-establishing friendly relations was appropriate, Hamilton did an about-face after the failure of a "peace mission," and became a strong supporter of war against France.

Hamilton was still eager for military glory, which was satisfied when, in September, 1798, Washington was re-recalled as titular commander-in-chief of a provisional army, with Congressional authorization for 80,000 militia, and an increase of the standing army by 20,000 men. ¹² But the Jeffersonians were suspicious of the intentions of the Federalists. Adams, himself, was suspicious of Hamilton, sharing the New England distrust of standing armies, and he initiated independent diplomacy, which forestalled an armed confrontation, and created prospects for peace.

With peace in the foreseeable future, Congress ordered the provisional army disbanded as a means of economy, and Washington was sent back into retirement. But in the hysteria of 1798, the Alien and Sedition Acts were adopted by a Federalist Congress, which realized the fears of the Jeffersonians; and which laid the basis for the downfall of the Federalist Party. By 1800, Adams had purged his Cabinet of what he called, "Hamilton's Spies," but the end of the Federalist Party was in sight.

In retaliation for the purge, Alexander sought to prevent a second term for John Adams. He anonymously published bitter personal attacks on Adams, and when the Jeffersonian Republican candidate for vice-president, Aaron Burr, obtained copies of Hamilton's attacks on President Adams, and published them, he in effect forced Hamilton to own up to his authorship. (Burr was actually a candidate for president, because vice-presidents were elected by simply coming in second, in the number of votes for president). This caused irreparable dissension in the Federalist Party. ¹³

In one of his most consequential, last public acts, Alexander Hamilton exacted revenge against Burr by throwing his influence behind Thomas Jefferson (whom he believed to be a demagogue), in the House of Representatives, where the presidential election was resolved after an equal number of electors voted for both Burr and Jefferson.

In one of the shadiest deals of United States history, Hamilton went against his own Party -- who hated Jefferson, and who preferred Aaron Burr -- to persuade the House to elect Jefferson, one of the only two presidents ever actually "elected" in a smoke-filled room! This last betrayal to the Federalist Party lost Alexander his prestige, and virtually ended his public career. ¹⁴

Alexander Hamilton returned to his private law practice, and to his family life, until June, 1804. After an exchange of slurs, his long-time rival Aaron Burr challenged him to a duel. At Weehawken, New Jersey, on July 11^th, on the site where Alexander's own son had been killed in a duel three years earlier, Burr shot Hamilton, who died the following day. The last words of the single most influential man since the downfall of George III, were, "This is a mortal wound, Doctor." ¹⁵

And this was the Father of the Federal Government.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Thomas Jefferson is one of the least understood figures of the Revolutionary Era. Having left behind volumes of writings on numerous subjects, Jefferson was very quotable, but the private man remains an enigma. Yet Jefferson was the single most powerful president in the entire history of the United States.

Jefferson was, above all, a lawyer. As he laid the groundwork for the War of 1812, by enforcing the embargo and non-intercourse policy, he convinced almost everyone that he was intent on peace. When he supported the increase of the standing army, he was accused of being more Federalist than the Federalists; but history remembers him as a great republican. ¹ It is highly likely that Jefferson would have disapproved of the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960's, which enfranchised the black people, because he, himself, felt that the black race was biologically inferior to the white race. ²

Tom Jefferson was born in April, 1743, at Shadwell, in Albemarle County, Virginia. He was the son of a local magistrate and settler, Peter Jefferson, and his wife, Jane Randolph Jefferson, who was from one of the richest families of the colony. Peter Jefferson was a surveyor and a cartographer, and was largely self-educated; and when he passed away, he left considerable wealth in property to his son. Thomas Jefferson entered William and Mary College in 1760, where he became a close friend of three leading residents of Williamsburg: William Small of the college faculty, George Wythe of the Virginia bar, and Francis Fauquier, the lieutenant governor of the colony.

These three older men gave Jefferson a taste for the pleasures of polite society, and Mr. Small and Mr. Wythe gave direction to his intellectual drive. After two years at college, Jefferson began a five year study of law under the direction of Mr. Wythe, and he was admitted to the bar in 1767. Two years later, in 1769, Tom entered the lower house of the colonial legislature, beginning a political career which ended 40 years later, with his retirement as president of the United States; but which continued, in fact, until his death.

Virginia was already in the middle of opposition to British colonial policy when Tom entered the House of Burgesses, and he joined Patrick Henry and others in favoring strong resistance to Parliament; Jefferson soon ascended to the leadership of this group. He rarely made speeches, he disliked verbal dispute (in formal debate as well as in informal conversation), but as a skilled lawyer, he was diligent in committee work, and he employed his greatest instrument, using his knowledge of law and history to lay out the case against Great Britain: THE PEN. He saw the need for consensus for effective political action, and his talent as a stylist gave him prominence.

In the Spring of 1775, the Virginia legislature -- sitting as a revolutionary body in defiance of the royal governor -- appointed Tom to the delegation to the Second Continental Congress. Ensconced in Congress, Jefferson joined the more radical elements there, and his legal skills were immediately recognized and employed. In June, 1776, when the decision to break all relations with Britain seemed near, Jefferson was appointed to the committee assigned to draft the statement of reasons for such a break; and he joined Ben Franklin and John Adams on that committee, who both bowed to Jefferson's superior talents. Thus Tom became the principal acknowledged author of what became the Declaration of Independence. However, it has been alleged that much of the material Jefferson claimed to draw from the "heart of the nation," actually came from the profoundly influential work of Thomas Paine.

Tom Jefferson did not fight in the civil war commonly referred to as "The Revolution." Instead, he re-entered the Virginia legislature, where he set in motion a plan for a comprehensive reform of the laws and institutions of Virginia. His first success was legislation to abolish the laws of primogeniture (originally, the right of the firstborn, but it eventually came to mean the right of the oldest male relative to succeed to property), and entail (the right to limit inheritance of real property to a specific line of heirs), thus breaking down some of the most important rights of the family as a recognized corporate body, and as part of the political society. ³ While openly claiming that property was among the natural rights to which man was born, he drafted statutes which actually made it more difficult for families to retain property, or to look after the needs of their members, from one generation to the next. This, alone, has had an enormous impact directly on generations of American families, laying the groundwork for the supremacy of the government over the people, as separated individuals stripped of the support of the tribe, to the ultimate detriment of the family as a legally recognized entity.

The educational system he promoted, as a part of his plan for republican government, veiled his aristocratic values in the rhetoric of accolades for the common man. Jefferson did not believe that the people were intelligent enough to govern themselves, and thus he developed a plan for higher schools to create an educated aristocracy to supply leadership for the republic. He envisioned a professional class of career civil servants, and to further his general plan he proposed lower schools to provide literacy for the entire population. The only part of Tom's education plan which became enacted, however, was the University of Virginia.

The most famous reform Tom proposed was the statute for religious freedom. It was so bitterly opposed that it was not enacted until 1786, when Tom was in France. Up until the adoption of this statute, almost all the colonies had "state churches," and his reform abolished the state church of Virginia. However, the reform was somewhat deceptive, because it established the state on an equal footing with the church. It proclaimed an eternal separation of church and state, while not acknowledging the fact that the state was made up of men, who would not be separated from their churches; and this veil served to distract the populace from the fact that many statutes were adopted from pressure exerted by religious organizations. While the principle underlying the separation of church appears rational, it actually counteracts the most basic drives in people to understand spiritual matters, and to found their institutions upon that understanding. Yet while pre-Christian cultures bore the hallmark of religious tolerance to diverse theologies, allowing for a relatively benign "state church," the doctrinal intolerance of Christians laid the basis for the equal extreme of an eventual divorce between church and state. Yet while Jefferson enabled the abolition of tax-supported churches, it did not eliminate the ancient Roman rule that church property remains tax free.

After three years as a legislator, Jefferson was elected governor of Virginia in 1779, a post in which he served for two years with great responsibilities and little power. When Virginia was invaded in 1780-81, Tom could not organize an effective resistance, and he, himself, was barely able to escape capture by the British. He was bitterly criticized for his conduct during the invasion, which hurt him personally; he never forgot the slurs against him, and he retired temporarily from public life. Jefferson was also concerned about the health of his wife, Martha Jefferson, who had given birth to five children since her marriage to Jefferson in 1772. Only two of the five survived, and in the autumn of 1781 she was pregnant again. Jefferson's concern proved well-founded, for Martha passed away after the birth of her sixth child, on September 6^th, 1782. This effected Tom profoundly, but he returned to public life in December, 1782.

Between his retirement as governor, and his re-entry into politics in 1782, he wrote and revised what became his only book, "Notes on Virginia." These Notes proved to be one of the most revealing sources of information on Thomas Jefferson, compiled in the form of answers to questions put to him by the secretary of the French legation. It was in the Notes that Jefferson expressed his opposition to slavery, yet it also reflected his belief that because of basic racial differences, black and white people would never live together in harmony (which is interesting, because he allegedly had an amorous relationship with one of his slaves). He argued that black people were inferior to white people in physical beauty, that they were pre-disposed to lack of foresight, and that black people may be equal in memory, but that they were inferior in reason and imagination; he cited the influence of environment on behavior and belief as an explanation of the slave's alleged disposition to theft. "I advance, therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both body and mind." ⁴

Jefferson also worried about the loss of public virtue, which he predicted would result after the crises of the Revolution was over. This, perhaps more than any other, revealed Tom's true aristocratic opinions. He recognized that the perpetuation of the genteel landowning class -- of which he was a part -- could only be made possible by certain concessions to the common folk (such as a wider distribution of land), but he never doubted the correctness of the innate leadership of the aristocrat. In fact, Jefferson, as president, tended to appoint men of elite background and standing to higher offices, despite his words to the contrary. ⁵ Rather than see people go back to the obligations of their own lives after the revolution, Jefferson was concerned as to how to keep the common folk continuously committed to the leadership of the government which had been formed by the intrinsically superior talents of white, male aristocrats. (One also cannot resist the temptation to consider the fact that there must have been some fear on the part of the well-to-do, regarding the example they set, of resisting the authority of the legal Royal government).

In 1782 Jefferson returned to the Continental Congress as a delegate from Virginia. An able politician, he put forth the principle that when new territory was "acquired" by the national government, it would become an independent state once a designated population was reached (with equal footing to the original thirteen states), on the occasion of the cession of Virginia's claims to land northwest of the Ohio River, to the national government. This clever ploy again revealed his belief that it was proper and fitting for regimes of aristocracies -- such as then existent in Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York -- to expand and colonize new areas, a policy which was not necessarily conducive to the rights of the individuals who happened to inhabit those new areas. But being a skilled attorney, he was able to employ libertarian ideas to camouflage the practical effects of his legislation, which was to "legitimize," under the new American regime, the British colonial heritage.

In 1784 Jefferson went to France to help Benjamin Franklin and John Adams in negotiating treaties, and in 1785 Tom succeeded Franklin as U.S. minister to France. Jefferson loved France, but he did not care for the morals of the French. He did not want his daughters to marry abroad -- probably because he did not want them to wed foreigners -- and he returned to the United States when his oldest turned 17. But Tom was blinded by his love of France, which became the basis of one of the greatest errors of intellectual judgment in his life. He was optimistic about the French Revolution, which began in 1789, when Tom Jefferson and his daughters were safely back in America.

Jefferson arrived in Virginia in the Fall of 1789, to be asked to serve as Secretary of State to General Washington, under the new Constitution; which had been adopted the previous year. Tom approved of that document, with the exception that it did not provide for the rights of citizens, and it did not limit the length of tenure for the presidency. (The more intelligent aristocrats of the Enlightenment all agreed that concessions had to be made to the common people, and first among them was the concept of abolishing the monarchy, to replace it with a rotating system; this allowed the genteel landowners to continue on, as before under a king, but no one of them would have to take the awesome responsibilities, nor dangers, as was proven in France, of a king. Note, for example, that none of the founding fathers freed their own slaves during their lifetimes; all released their slaves in their wills, which their heirs refused to honor).

Soon after Tom Jefferson took up the role of Secretary of State, he came into conflict with the self-appointed "prime minister" of General Washington's official family, Alexander Hamilton. This "clash of the titans" became the basis of a wider division; a cleavage which tore the new nation into two warring factions. Under rhetoric of "republican government," and reforms to "strengthen national government," Hamilton and Jefferson's disputes extended to the country at large, and led directly to the formation of national political parties based on policy as well as personalities. ⁶

Tom opposed Hamilton's financial policies on the grounds that they extended the powers delegated by the Constitution, and that they represented a threat to republican institutions. (Yet ironically Jefferson, himself, exceeded the powers of the Constitution when, later, as President, he authorized the Louisiana Purchase; and he did not abolish Hamilton's bank, nor reverse any of the Federalist's policies). Hamilton and Jefferson also differed on their opinions of the French. ⁷ These differences led Jefferson to resign in December, 1793. Yet even after resigning, Jefferson continued to serve as the personal symbol of the Democratic-Republican Party; and Hamilton (who resigned from the Cabinet in the last years of Washington's first term), also continued to flex his political clout as leader of the Federalist Party. Both sides developed organizational skills among the electorate, the Congress (the powers of which the Constitution so carefully enumerated), and the state legislatures; and both sides made effective use of the press. However, the political structure was still undefined with regards to factions, when Thomas Jefferson ran for President in 1796. He came in second to John Adams, and became the first and last Vice-President to serve a President of a different political party.

In 1798, when the United States was close to war with France, Jefferson was in the embarrassing situation of being a part of the same government which sanctioned the Alien and Sedition Acts, which was used by Federalist judges to stop the Jeffersonian Party's criticism of the government. These Acts, which were used to imprison Jeffersonian editors, inspired Jefferson and James Madison to write the famous Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799, upholding the rights of states to nullify federal law; which, consequently, both men had to re-interpret to suit their needs when, later, each became president of the Federal Government whose laws these Resolutions sought to nullify.

Two years later Thomas Jefferson had a second chance to run for the Presidency, and in 1800 the Federalists were soundly defeated. But Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, another candidate, received an equal number of electoral votes, an unprecedented situation, and the election went to the House of Representatives. Even though Hamilton felt that Jefferson was a demagogic radical, he distrusted Burr even more, and he threw his influence behind Jefferson, effecting the election of one of the only two presidents in American history to be elected as a result of a political bargain made between professional politicians. Jefferson was inaugurated on 4 March, 1801. ⁸

There was no attempt made by Jefferson to change Federalist policy after he became President. In several instances he was charged with elevating the military over the civilian power in government. It was also said that Tom invented the spoils system of awarding political offices to party cronies. In one instance, Adams, just before leaving office, had filled a number of posts, newly created by Congress, with Federalists; these appointees were promptly dismissed, and the new appointees were staunchly Jeffersonian. ⁹

Presidential political leadership, also, was initiated by Thomas Jefferson, who created and, until his death, led the first effective political party. Through the domination by the party of the then newly instituted congressional caucus, Jefferson controlled the national legislature -- the source of legislation -- as no other President has ever done before or after. Jefferson determined the memberships of the committees of both houses of Congress, and the leaders of these committees served as his lieutenants in supervising the enactment of legislation he desired. ¹⁰ This political party has survived into our own time as the Democratic Party.

Tom was also instrumental in establishing that bastion of elitist militarism, the United States Military Academy at West Point. He supported the idea of an academy, and later he supported a military drill at the University of Virginia. After the War of 1812, West Point became the object of increasing suspicion as the cultivator of a military aristocracy.¹¹

Yet what gave Jefferson the reputation for inventing the spoils system was the high turnover in Federal offices. In 1803, a Federalist judge named Addison was impeached and removed; as was Pickering in 1804, and Chase in 1805; and all were impeached by a straight party-line vote. ¹² Even though Jefferson was a common law lawyer, he had a distinct ambivalence towards the common law. ¹³

The most notable act of the Jeffersonian Presidency was the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory in 1803, virtually doubling the size of the United States. Even though, as Tom admitted, he had no constitutional (legal) authority to buy the Territory, he proceeded to do so, and as a consequence it inaugurated an era of national expansion, later characterized as "Manifest Destiny." He was anxious to Americanize the Territory, and he personally controlled the governorship and the Territorial judges. ¹⁴ Although the acceptance of the Napoleonic Code in Louisiana hampered the effort to absorb the region, it did not stop the development of what was, as the contemporary George Dargo remarked, "essentially a colonial possession." ¹⁵

Jefferson stood for re-election in 1804, except that George Clinton had replaced Aaron Burr as vice-president. Tom's second term was notable for several things, one of the most prominent being his unsuccessful efforts to convict his former vice-president, Burr, for allegedly treasonable acts in the southwest territories.

The next most prominent feature of Jefferson's second term was his effort to maintain Neutrality, which brought America to the brink of war (and which later led to the War of 1812). ¹⁶ The Embargo Act was, rightly, questioned for violating the fourth amendment's prohibition against reasonable searches and seizures; and Tom was criticized for being inconsistent with the principles of individual liberty, and his former opposition to a strong central government. Even as Jefferson vocally supported frugality, his Tripolitan War against Barbary pirates, and his purchase of a colony, made frugality impossible.

In 1806, John Randolph denounced Jefferson's non-importation bill as a step toward an offensive war, which many people thought was to be fought for the purpose of conquering Canada. Much of the evidence does support this contention. Despite a lack of interest on the part of Congress, Jefferson continued to urge the cause of an organized militia -- aware that a peacetime standing army was unpopular -- and he proposed a scheme that included the training of young single men as an "emergency force" which could be called out at his command. In the last year of his administration, he asked Congress for an increase of the standing army by 6,000 men, and he requested a militia of 24,000 men; and when Madison became President, Jefferson became an early proponent of Secretary of War James Monroe's plan for a draft. ¹⁷

In 1803, in Jefferson's first term, the Supreme Court explicitly asserted the right and power of judicial review, and Jefferson bitterly opposed the power of the court to nullify his legislation. (It is ironic that two of Jefferson's harshest critics, John Randolph and Chief Justice Marshall, were both Tom's cousins). But the Hamiltonian concept of implied powers -- which served him so well as President -- now came to the aid of the Court, which held firm against Jefferson's attacks.

Jefferson could have served a third term, but, following Washington's example, he resigned on 4 March, 1809, to be succeeded by another Jeffersonian, James Madison. This, however, did not mean that Tom's influence was waning. Jefferson returned to Monticello, where he helped coordinate the development of the University of Virginia. ¹⁸ In his last years, Jefferson read Plato, who he felt was overrated, and he spent most of his time studying on his estate of several thousand acres, manned by 150 slaves. Jefferson was ultimately a lonely man. Because he left a voluminous correspondence, it is possible to reconstruct his career and work; but the private man remains elusive, and largely unknown to this day.

Tom died shortly after 1:00 on the afternoon of July 4^th, 1826, a few hours before the death of John Adams, on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

And this was the Father of the Political Party, the most powerful American President of all time.

JAMES MADISON

Of all the founding fathers, James Madison is one of the less colorful. He did not fight in the War of Independence, on account of poor health, but he did write a large part of what became the Constitution of 1787, and he did rule the country as the fourth President. He was a collaborator with Jefferson, and before Jefferson's followers became Jeffersonians, they were known as Madisonians.

Born in March, 1751, in what is now Port Conway, Virginia, he was the son and namesake of a leading Orange County landowner and squire. ¹ In 1769 he went to college at what later became Princeton, selected particularly for its hostility to episcopacy; where James completed the four year course in two years. Overworked, he suffered from epileptoid hysteria and premonitions of early death, which thwarted any possibility of a military career (a prerequisite for the sons of squires). But this did not cut short Madison's home study of public law, nor his public advocacy of independence in 1774.

In 1776 his health improved enough for him to be elected to go to Virginia's disbanded House of Burgesses, acting as a revolutionary convention, and there the one (future) President who was publicly NOT a church member, assisted in the drafting of a bill to guarantee religious freedom in Virginia. Once the convention voted to turn itself into a legislature, Madison helped Tom Jefferson disestablish Virginia's state church, only to lose his re-election bid because he refused to supply the electors with free whisky (which Tom Jefferson, and others, presumably did supply). ²

After serving on the Governor's Council for two years, James was sent to serve as a delegate at the Continental Congress, in 1780. He waited six months before taking the floor, but he rose to the leadership quickly, against the supporters of state sovereignty, and the enemies of Franco-U.S. collaboration in peace negotiations. He was also instrumental in an effort to defeat the private development of western lands, by persuading Virginia to cede those lands to the national government, after disclaiming any rights the other states had to the same land.

Following the adoption of the Articles of Confederation in 1781, he asserted the implied powers of Congress to enforce financial requisitions with military coercion. This move failing, he worked endlessly for an amendment conferring the explicit power of Congress to raise revenue with force, and he delivered an eloquent address threatening that the Union would dissolve if his amendment was not adopted.

In 1784 he re-entered the Virginia legislature, to defeat Patrick Henry's bill to give financial support to "teachers of the Christian religion." ³ Then, in 1786, to avoid the political effect of his extreme nationalism, he persuaded states-rights advocate John Tyler to sponsor the calling of the Annapolis Convention, where Madison exercised his influence to successfully manipulate for the calling of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. (Which, in retrospect, must have shocked Mr. Tyler).

It was at the Constitutional Convention that Madison earned the title "Father of the Constitution." It was his Virginia Plan, introduced by Governor Edmund Randolph, which furnished the basic framework and guiding principles of what became the Constitution of 1787. Madison's day to day notes of the secret debates furnish the only comprehensive history of the Convention's proceedings, and any time any question came up, Madison "always (came) forward the best informed man of any point in debate." ⁴

Once the battles for ratification were engaged in, the nationalist Madison collaborated with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, to promote the adoption of a Constitution which had NO Bill of Rights. James wrote 29 of the 85 essays which became known as The Federalist Papers. His influence produced ratification by Virginia -- in addition to the influence exerted by Washington -- which led John Jay to say of Madison, that if eloquence included, "persuasion by convincing, Mr. Madison was the most eloquent man I ever heard." ⁵

Following the adoption of the Constitution, James immediately sought an office under its authority, and was elected to the new House of Representatives, where he sponsored the Bill of Rights (in exchange for the ratification of those state legislatures which had made their approval of the Constitution of 1787 conditional upon the future adoption of a Bill of Rights). However, his leadership over the House came to an end when he split with Alexander Hamilton over appropriate methods for financing the war debt. In the process James became a strict constructionist of the Congressional power to appropriate for the general welfare (i.e., the use of the national government).

But like all politicians, Madison was capable of total about-faces. When Hamilton asked for a national bank, he got it over Madison's denial of any implied powers; but later, as President, he asked for and obtained a bank as "almost a necessity" for the financing of the national government, and he cited Hamilton's unchallenged bank as the precedent for his own!

The disagreement between Madison and Hamilton turned Congress into Madisonian and Hamiltonian factions, and at this point Massachusetts Congressman Fisher Ames described Madison as a "desperate party leader," who enforced party discipline "as severe as the Prussian." ⁶ However, when Thomas Jefferson returned from France in 1789, to become Secretary of State in Washington's first Cabinet, the Madisonians soon adopted Jefferson as their "Symbolic Leader," and after this they were called "Jeffersonians."

In 1794 Madison married Dolley Payne Todd, who was sixteen years younger than Madison; but she is best remembered for saving a portrait of General Washington, when the English burned the White House in the War of 1812. In 1797 Madison left Congress, frustrated with the Jay's Treaty, which aligned the United States with England against the traditional ally of the Jeffersonians, France. The following year he, and Tom Jefferson, wrote the Virginia Resolution, which was inspired by the Alien and Sedition Acts (which authorized the arrest of anyone who criticized the President). However, as lawyers, both Jefferson and Madison purposefully wrote the Resolution to mean less legally than it appeared, and Madison, in particular, had to spend his octogenarian years fighting South Carolina's interpretation of it to nullify federal legislation. ⁷

When Tom Jefferson became president, James became his Secretary of State, and he used the words "The President has decided..." so regularly that his own role can only be discovered in the archives of foreign states. In 1806, Senators John Adair and Nicholas Gilman agreed that Madison "governed the President," which was also the opinion which was held by the French minister Louis-Marie Turreau.

Although accused of weakness in dealing with France and England as Jefferson's Secretary of State, James was able to win the election of 1808 by publishing his vigorous diplomatic dispatches. Thus Madison succeeded Jefferson as president; and it inaugurated an era of militant nationalism, which became fully established after the War of 1812.⁸

Madison supported Jefferson's wartime shipping embargo, but reversed this policy two weeks after taking office, by secretly notifying Great Britain and France -- then belligerents -- that, in Madison's opinion, if the country addressed should stop molesting U.S. commerce, and the other should continue, "Congress will, at the next ensuing session, authorize acts of hostility ... against the other." An agreement providing for the repeal of England's Orders-in-Council (which authorized the English to "molest" trade between neutral nations with France), collapsed because the British minister violated his instructions by failing to inform the Americans of the requirement that the United States continue its trade embargo against France, renounce wartime trade with Britain's enemies, and authorize England to capture any U.S. vessel violating the embargo against the French. Madison expelled the minister's successor for charging that James was aware of the former minister's failure.

Alleging that the English were bent on permanent suppression of U.S. trade, Madison proclaimed non-intercourse with Britain on November 2^nd, 1810, notifying France the same day that this would "necessarily lead to war." One week earlier, unknown to Congress (which was in session) or the public, he had taken armed possession of the Spanish province of West Florida, which was claimed as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Despite strong opposition, Madison was re-elected in 1812.

The authorized strength of U.S. forces on the eve of the War of 1812 was strong, including an authorized standing army of 30,000 men, and a militia of 50,000 volunteers (although neither figure was achieved in the course of actual recruiting). Because the army had been discredited in 1811, on account of the questionable role its commanding officer -- General James Wilkinson -- played in the Burr conspiracy, Madison was unsuccessful in getting Congress to authorize increases in the armed forces. ⁹ As events seemed to lead to war, thirty-four members of the House of Representatives published an address to their constituents, accusing Madison of exerting pressure upon Congress for a declaration of war, which, they predicted, "was to be fought for the purpose of invading Canada." ¹⁰ Yet with his actions veiled in secrecy, Madison appeared to be a pacifist dragged into the War of 1812.

As wartime commander-in-chief Madison was unable to get Congress to increase the armed forces, and he made the strategic error of entrusting the army command to aging veterans of the Revolution. Defeat followed defeat until James lowered the average age of his generals from 60 to 36 years. Victories began to occur, reversing British Cabinet policy, and ending a war the principal cause of which had been removed by the revocation of the Orders-in-Council the day before the conflict began.

The Federalist Party was terminated as an effective political power by its resistance to the war, construed as sedition. As President, Madison was lifted to a pinnacle of popularity. However, the Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, said "the War (of 1812) has laid the foundation of permanent taxes and military establishments." ¹¹ After the War, the Indian wars led to the increase of the standing army, while later troubles were responsible for the western demand that the army be made even larger. ¹² Also, the nationalistic temper which followed the war led to a demand for a more aggressive foreign policy, supported by military power. ¹³

Madison's greatest fault as a commander was his delay in removing incompetent subordinates, like Secretary of War John Armstrong, who scoffed at Madison's repeated warnings of a coming British attack on Washington, D.C., and ignored his orders for the City's defense.

James left the White House in 1817, to go back to his 5,000 acre farm in Virginia. He never left Virginia again before his death. He worked for the government purchase of slaves, for their resettlement in Liberia (and while he served in federal offices, one of his slaves managed one-third of his farm). However, he spent much of his old age writing articles and letters opposing nullification and secession, which had been inspired by the Virginia Resolution. Excessive hospitality made him land-poor as an old man; and he spent a large sum on a destitute son. He died at Montpelier on June 28^th, 1836.

Thus, the Father of the Constitution passed into the Ages.

In researching this Paper, and in discovering so many non-libertarian precedents in the acts of America's founding fathers, it became apparent that these men were, ultimately, mere mortals capable of all the errors of plain human beings. The drive to deify the founding fathers -- apparent in every public school, and in the reporting of the mass media -- is misplaced, and ultimately does a disservice to the memory of these men. We can only surmise that any perception that there was once a "Golden Age" of American politics, dominated by "statesmen," is patently false. Politics has always been politics, both before and after 1776, and it has always been a dirty business.

The founding fathers did not have any intention of creating a full-fledged democratic republic. Not one of them actually supported the freedom of the common people. At all times, the common people were distanced from the English-style aristocrats, who instigated and managed the civil war called the "Revolution;" and the only reason any rhetoric of "individual liberty" entered the dialogue was solely for the purpose of attracting the recruits necessary to fight a war against the English Crown. The ancient Germanic idea of "war makes free" ¹ was employed liberally, and the aristocrats thought nothing of recruiting their slaves with such a promise, who fought side by side with rugged pioneers as well as the common people, indebted as they were to the aristocrats. What this proves, ultimately, is that nothing has changed, and we trust politicians at our own risk, as did our ancestors.

Marc Eric Ely-Chaitlin
Dana Point, California
1987