If James Madison Had Had a Sense of Humor1

IF JAMES MADISON HAD HAD A SENSE OF HUMOR1 HE Historical Society of Pennsylvania has an exhibition that Tstands among the highest of the many that have been prepared in recognition of the 150th anniversary of the Constitution. The accompanying catalogue is one of the features raising this exhibition to pre-eminence. An excellent introductory essay by the Librarian, Mr. Julian P. Boyd, is followed by a bibliographical description of the items shown which is a model of completeness and accuracy. Sev- eral times in that bibliography occurs the cryptic comment, "Not in Farrand." Aside from the modest disclaimer that he is neither omnis- cient nor omnivorous, the editor would be the first to declare that the Records do not include one sort of material that is necessary to understand the formation of the Constitution. That missing feature is the subject of the paper presented to you this afternoon. Under the circumstances, the temptation was almost irresistible to take as the title, "Not in Farrand," but on the whole it seemed more decorous to make Madison responsible for the defi- ciency. The publication in 1840 of T^he Takers of James ^Madison gave the world its first comprehensive and trustworthy account of what had taken place in the convention that framed the Constitution of the United States. This statement does not overlook the printing early in 17882 of Luther Martin's report to the Maryland House of Representatives. That effusion with its superfluity of italics ought never to have been called Qenuine Information, for little in the nature of fact is to be found therein. It might better have been entitled the "rambling diatribe of an irreconcilable." Nor has the Journal printed in 1819 been forgotten. According to a footnote in a recent volume of the Journals of the Continental Congress William Jackson received $866.60 for his four months' service as secretary of the Federal Convention. If the pitiful record 1 Paper read at a session of the American Historical Association in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, December 29, 1937. 2Dunlap's Maryland Gazette and Baltimore Advertiser, December 28, 17 8 7-February 8, 1788.

130 1938 IF MADISON HAD HAD A SENSE OF HUMOR 131 embodied in the official journal is all that the Convention and pos- terity received for its money, he was overpaid. Robert Yates's Secret Troceedings was published in 1821. His notes are of no importance for the opening days of the Convention but offer a fuller report after the presentation of the New Jersey plan on June 15. While they do not give at all a complete picture of what was happening they throw light upon the attitude of individuals in the debates, but they stop with the fifth of July, before anything had been accomplished. The assertion originally made accordingly holds good, that the publication of Madison's Tapers in 1840 gave us our first rational narrative of what had been done in Philadelphia. By that time—that is, in the generation after the War of 1812—respect for the written instrument of government under which the nation had grown and prospered, had already developed into admiration, and with some it had reached the stage of reverence and even of veneration. The Con- stitution later stood the stress of civil war. There followed an amazing industrial development, with a great concentration of industry and a corresponding concentration of wealth. Influential business men and the propertied classes naturally wished to preserve the existing status. The Constitution, having been given the basic credit for the unprece- dented growth and prosperity of the United States, was being held up, more unconsciously than deliberately, as almost sacred. That was when the "Worship of the Constitution" seems to have become a part of the American tradition, well exemplified in Bryce's ^American Commonwealth, published in 18 8 8: But reverence for the Constitution has become so potent a conservative influence, that no proposal of fundamental change seems likely to be enter- tained. And this reverence is itself one of the most wholesome and hopeful elements in the character of the American people. Gladstone's overworked eulogy is considerately omitted here.3 The very fact that arguments before the Supreme Court and the decisions of the court itself turned upon the interpretation of words and clauses, and even at times upon punctuation, placed the Constitu- tion on a par with the Bible in respect to its infallibility. 8 A later attempt to phrase his sentiments is to be found in the Historical Society's exhibit, in a letter written by Gladstone at the time of the Centenary of the Constitution at Philadelphia in 1887. The earlier version, as it appeared in an article in the North Ameri- can Review in 1878, entitled "Kin beyond Sea," is much better, and its popularity is attested by the frequency with which it is quoted. 132 MAX FARRAND April Revolt against such a doctrine was inevitable, and there came a persistent effort to show that the Constitution was of human rather than of divine origin. An inference, apt to follow, is that its framers were actuated by motives none too altruistic. In response to the demand for further information as to what had taken place in Phila- delphia, there came, commencing in the last decade of the nineteenth century, a succession of publications presenting original material re- lating to the Federal Convention.4 Just at that time the people of the United States were in the throes of revising their conception of the fundamental purposes of government. The Constitution had been framed by men who, in the war for independence, had rebelled against what they considered the arbitrary control of their affairs by King and Parliament. They wished, accordingly, to establish a government strong enough to maintain order, but the powers of that government were to be care- fully defined. States and individuals were to be left free to proceed in their own ways, provided they did not encroach upon the limited authority specifically granted to the central government. A century later, men were beginning to believe that it was the province of government to regulate economic affairs; and the whole trend of the last forty years has been to restrict the individual in the larger interests of society. The two conceptions are as far apart as the poles. When a person with this modern idea as to the scope of governmen- tal activities goes back to 1787 in order to learn how the Constitu- tion came into being, unless rigorously schooled in historical methods he is almost certain to read into the records his own beliefs and even his own fears and suspicions. Professor Thomas Reed Powell in a recent review wittily summarized this tendency, when he wrote that each "book by itself gives a more accurate picture of the mind of the author than of the totality of the forces behind the Constitution." Madison has left us an extraordinary record. Remembering that this was before the days of perfected and practiced shorthand and 4 Madison's Debates had been reprinted in Elliot's Debates in 1845 and in subsequent editions. Albert Scott and Company's two editions of Madison's notes were issued in 1893. The Documentary History of the Constitution began publication in 1894. Rufus King's notes appeared in the same year. The reprinting of Pierce's notes in 1898 was the first of a series in the American Historical Review•, which was continued at intervals over a period of several years. The editing of the Records of the Federal Convention was begun soon after 1900, at the suggestion of J. Franklin Jameson, and was evidently a response to the growing and insistent demand for all the information available, in convenient and reliable form. 1938 IF MADISON HAD HAD A SENSE OF HUMOR I33 before the invention of the typewriter, his notes of the debates were a real achievement. They were comprehensive, accurate, impartial, and impersonal. Oddly enough, the latter virtues are now our chief cause of complaint: his notes are too impartial and impersonal. The trend of modern historical scholarship is all in the direction of including within the scope of our investigations various hitherto neglected aspects of life, that may help to explain the forces causing men to act as they did in particular circumstances. The excellent series, *A History of American cQifey edited by Fox and Schle- singer, is indicative of the tendency. Much has been accomplished in this direction, but much still remains to be done. Among others, we ought to have studies of our people in their social relations, of their manners, behavior, and conduct, and of the improvement in the art and grace of living. That story has never been told and is greatly needed, for it should underlie every attempt to explain any incident or event in the past, where human actions and motives are involved. The history of manners in America might well begin with the dominance, in colonial times, of English traditions and standards. Where economic conditions were more nearly equal, as they were in America, and where opportunities were open to all, social privileges, any more than political privileges, could not be maintained on the same strict lines that had long prevailed in England. The process, once started, has continued steadily onward, until it may be said that the manners and behavior of the mass of the American people are fashioned after models coming from the English aristocracy. Mass production inevitably means a lowering in quality. Machine- made furniture does not have the perfection and finish of a product from the hand of Thomas Chippendale. Castiglione's The Courtier is one of the great books of all time and, after its publication early in the sixteenth century, was translated into many languages and exer- cised an unrivaled influence upon the conduct and ideals of the upper classes. When the story of the diffusion of gentility among Americans is written, the title is ready at hand: "From Castiglione to Emily Post." One objection to the title is that it leaves so little to be told in the work itself. For our purpose, the bearing of this upon the work of the Federal Convention will be found in a sentence that the French charge d'af- faires wrote to Vergennes in 1786: Although there are no nobles in America, there is a class of men denominated 134 MAX FARRAND April 'gentlemen/ who, by reason of their wealth, their talents, their education, their families, or the offices they hold, aspire to a pre-eminence. . . . That does not mean much to twentieth-century Americans, for we are all gentlemen—or, rather, we are all ladies and gentlemen. A student today reads it without comprehension, for he puts the emphasis upon the clause that follows—after speaking of the pre-eminence to which they aspire—"which the people refuse to grant them." The student, accordingly, sees in the sentence quoted, merely the futility or absurdity of class distinctions and social pretensions. Modern aristocracy is directly descended from the feudal system. The essence of that system was the service of the vassal to his lord, beginning with the lowest order and reaching its highest point in fealty to the king. Originally it was a personal service, but with the growth of kingdoms and of national states the obligation of service was transferred from the lord to the government he represented. This was beautifully exemplified in the recent coronation of King George VI. The moving and impressive ceremony was carried out with all its pageantry in Westminster Abbey—a marvelous spectacle, but more wonderful because of what it typified. The culminating feature was when the highest nobles of the realm did homage and fealty to the King—not to him personally but to the personification of his office. In the eighteenth century the paramount obligation of the nobility and gentry—transcending everything else—still remained the obligation of service to the state. There is the element of truth so many of our writers have failed to perceive, but it should be inherent in every study of the period, and should be the starting point of every attempt to understand the making of the Constitution. Virginia was the first to appoint delegates to the Federal Conven- tion—and what a deputation it was from the social point of view! —George Washington, Edmund Randolph, George Mason, John Blair, James Madison, Chancellor Wythe, and Dr. McClurg. The last-named were not perhaps of the same high inheritance, but by virtue of their positions and accomplishments they were accepted without question as members of the upper class. The example set by Virginia was followed, to a greater or less degree, by all the other states, and in consequence attendance at the Federal Convention was a recognition of one's importance and, by inference, of one's social 1938 IF MADISON HAD HAD A SENSE OF HUMOR 135 standing as well. Virtually every delegate to the Convention was of the "class of men denominated 'gentlemen.' " Some were born to it, some had achieved it, and the rest were hoping to be recognized and accepted. This condition is illustrated in an amusing way by the "exact list of the members," that appeared in various Philadelphia papers shortly after the Convention opened. First came those who had risen to the title of "His Excellency" or the "Honorable Governor." Then were given the names of those who were or had been "honorable Delegates to Congress." Lastly came those who were classified as "the following respectable Characters." Jefferson, you remember, on reading such a list said that it was an assembly of demigods. There was a difference between theory and practice. Only too many might be found who did not live up to the ideal. It may be asserted positively, however, that of those who were the most influential in the Convention the highest duty was recognized to be that of service to the state. H. L. Mencken, the iconoclast of complacency, expressed this in his usual telling fashion in a review he wrote ten years ago for "The ^American CMercury: That aristocracy, to be sure, was not purely altruistic: even Washington, as the current iconoclasts have made plain, knew which side of his bread was buttered. Nevertheless it was an aristocracy, and as such it had inherited a concept of public duty, quite separate and distinct from the universal concept of private interest. There were things that Washington simply would not do, even to serve Washington. He saw the nation that he had helped to set up as something apart from and superior to himself or to any other man in it— as something deserving and demanding a high measure of devotion. He could no more betray what he believed to be its best interests for the rewards of popularity than he could betray the best interests of his class, or of his wife. In the last months of his life Madison was at work upon a preface to his notes of the debates, which were all prepared for posthumous publication. In that preface occurs the following sentence: But whatever may be the judgment pronounced on the competence of the architects of the Constitution, ... I feel it a duty to express my profound and solemn conviction, derived from my intimate opportunity of observing and appreciating the views of the Convention, collectively and individually, that there never was an assembly of men, charged with a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively or anxiously devoted to the object committed to them, than were the members of the Federal Convention of 1787. In direct contradiction to such an assertion, Fred Rodell has re- I36 MAX FARRAND April cently published a story of the Convention, entitled Fifty-jive {Men. It is unnecessary to quote more than a sentence or two to show the drift of his belief: They were essentially hard-headed men of affairs. Almost all of them were wealthy or well-to-do. . . . So they came to Philadelphia with their tongues somewhat in their cheeks. Perhaps it is impossible to eradicate the conviction in the minds of many that the members of the Federal Convention were trying to "put something over" on the people of the United States—further- more, that they succeeded in doing so, and that it is high time this outrage was exposed and remedied. A knowledge of history does not necessarily make one a reactionary or even a conservative. The so-called "liberal members" of the Su- preme Court are known to be the closest students of the history of the Constitution: Brandeis, Cardozo, and Stone, not to mention Holmes of beloved memory. They are also masters of English speech. Another member of the Court was not so happy as he might have been in his choice of a metaphor, when he referred recently to "The Bill of Rights as the heart of the Constitution." The first ten amend- ments constitute the so-called Bill of Rights, and they were not adopted until 1791. The anatomical structure which permits the heart to be added after the body has been created and is already function- ing, is something of an anomaly. If we are able to accept belief in public service as underlying every action that was taken, we may turn to the consideration of the Conven- tion itself and of the way in which it accomplished its task. Too much emphasis has been laid upon the fact that there were fifty-five delegates at the Federal Convention. There were fifty-five men, in all, who came to Philadelphia, but some of them were there for only a few days; others were irregular in their attendance; the average was probably about thirty, some twenty of whom were in- variably to be found during the hours of meeting in this very hall. It was, then, rather a large committee than a convention, as we now use the word. They remained in session for four months, except for a fortnight's recess, and they were in Philadelphia in the heat of summer. They met from 10 o'clock in the morning to 3 o'clock in the afternoon. They dined usually at 3:3c The town was small, according to our present-day standards, with a population of less than 30,000. 1938 IF MADISON HAD HAD A SENSE OF HUMOR I37 It was easy for the members to meet. They walked together, they talked together, and they went to one another's rooms. We are told of gatherings that were in the nature of caucuses for the achievement of particular ends. But we need to remember, also, that the very closeness of association had its disadvantages: members sometimes got on one another's nerves. Any set of men, no matter how lofty their purposes, are, after all, human. Many of the delegates had pet ideas which they regarded as essential and were determined should be embodied in the Constitu- tion. Some were sticklers for the exact wording of clauses or for points that seemed to them important but to others, trifling. Anyone who has sat on committees where highly controversial questions were being considered, and especially one who has partici- pated in faculty meetings and has listened to the quibbling over the precise wording of resolutions, can understand one characteristic of the proceedings in Philadelphia. The Federal Convention was not like a faculty meeting, but it was a large committee in session, and as one reads the records for day after day, the impression deepens of how much time was taken up by trivial matters and by insignificant varia- tions in the wording of clauses. The Committee of Detail made its report when the Convention reassembled on August 6. Every day thereafter, for five weeks in succession and for five hours each day (and, for one of those weeks, for six hours a day), article by article, section by section, clause by clause, the members hammered away at the wearisome task of forging the final draft of the Constitution. It is no wonder that, during the last days of the Convention, one finds Madison making a note that "A number of members, being very impatient and calling for the question," the motion was promptly voted down. After the copy for the Records had gone to the printer, the diary of William Samuel Johnson was found. Scarcely more than a line a day, it tells nothing of the proceedings beyond curtly recording, "In convention"; but it revealed a condition affecting everybody in Phila- delphia and so it was tucked in at the end of an appendix—too late to make any cross references. If and when the Records are revised, the editor would now be inclined to put the extracts from Johnson's diary, in caps or italics for the sake of emphasis, at the beginning of each day's records—before Madison and before the Journal—for the I38 MAX FARRAND April simple reason that Johnson records the temperature of the day—not by degrees of the thermometer, but with the single word, "Hot" or "Cool." Three brief examples have been selected to illustrate the help that may be derived from unexpected sources. Charles Biddle in his autobiography tells of being with a friend in the theater and of the latter seeing George Washington sitting in one of the boxes and evidently enjoying the performance, for the friend exclaimed, "See how he laughs, by the Lord, he must be a gentleman." We picture at once the restrained behavior to which Washington had schooled himself in the process of developing into the great gentleman he afterwards became. Living with his brother Lawrence at Mount Vernon at an impressionable age, he mingled in the fashionable society of the neighborhood. Lord Fairfax, the wealthy former courtier and elegant bachelor of London, now a somewhat eccentric recluse in Virginia, may well have influenced the deportment of his protege. Whatever the source of Washington's inspiration the result we know. It is curious so few of his numerous biographers have realized that this is the only key that unlocks the secret of his conduct and of his influence as well. George Washington was a great Virginia gentleman after the English model. Charles Pinckney, rich, clever, and even able, but also bumptious, was known among his friends in Charleston, because of his pretensions, as "Constitution Charlie." There is little of fact involved in the nickname, reported only by tradition, and yet, some way, we have an inkling of how Pinckney came to send John Quincy Adams a modification of the Report of the Committee of Detail, as the plan he had proposed at the beginning of the Convention. Luther Martin, a brilliant lawyer but interminably garrulous, was incapacitated in later life by his addiction to alcoholic beverages. It is not a matter of common knowledge that the habit had already become a settled one in 1787$ but some of the utterances attributed to him are only explicable on that assumption. The same assumption may help in explaining how Martin seems to have been one of the very few, if not the only one, who came to Philadelphia with a fixed determination to obstruct and oppose. Nothing of all this is to be found in Madison's notes of the debates. Henry Adams in his scholarly history brilliantly satirized certain of Madison's deficiencies by giving as a title to the chapter on the open- 1938 IF MADISON HAD HAD A SENSE OF HUMOR 139 ing of the War of 1812, "Madison as Minerva." Could anything be more caustic or more apt: the goddess of wisdom and of war! One longs for the humor of Benjamin Franklin, not for the purpose of enlivening the dry records but because Franklin's humor took its root in a sympathetic observation and a shrewd understanding of human nature. This is the element so greatly needed but still lacking in the recorded history of the Federal Convention. The story of the framing of the Constitution still waits to be written. The formal records are sufficiently accurate and complete. It is doubtful if anything new will be found to change our interpretation of the various clauses of that document but we need a better understanding so as not to misinterpret the instrument of government under which we have lived for one hundred and fifty years. A combi- nation of a Madison and a Franklin may be too much to ask for, but something more than we have at present may yet be accomplished. The student who undertakes the task must begin by gaining a comprehension of the economic, political, and social conditions of the time. The greatest difficulty will be encountered in the last-named category. Knowledge of social conditions can only be learned from sources far removed from official records—newspapers, diaries, let- ters, travelers' notebooks; even gossipy anecdotes and tradition, un- reliable as to fact, frequently give unexpected glimpses of customs, habits, and behavior. A similar statement might be made as to the members of the Fed- eral Convention. Under the conditions that have been hastily sketched it must be evident how important it is to know the strength and limita- tions of individual delegates, to recognize force of character in some and weakness in others. The interplay of personalities could not fail to have been a significant factor in the little group who were in such close association for several months. When these things have been adequately studied and presented we should be in a better position to appreciate the work of that small body of men who conscientiously stuck to their job in this city during a long and trying summer. The Constitution of the United States, far from being of divine origin, is a very human document.

''The Huntington J^ibrary MAX FARRAND