A Particular Friend

A Particular Friend is an eighteenth century term for a friend of significance, special importance and intimacy. One man who was original, brilliant, capable and powerful preferred to be anonymous. He was a particular friend of many contemporaries, but James Madison could not remain in the background forever.

Madison usually worked behind the scenes. A congressman from Virginia in 1780, he wasn't fully appreciated upon returning to Virginia in 1783. Thomas Jefferson was his closest friend. He became a confident of George Washington for 12 years [but never a satellite or sycophant]. His mentor and advisor was the greatest American jurist of the eighteenth century, Edmund Pendleton. And by the end of the 1780s Madison shared a deep respect for the Constitution of the United States with John Marshall.

As written the 1787 Constitution, "the product of many minds and hands," was not Madison's project or hope. But during Constitutional ratification in 1788, Madison was the central figure. Elected to the first Congress he endured the slow progress of passing legislation: Raising revenue, establishing the great departments (Treasury, State, Attorney General), creating the Judiciary and locating the federal district. He interrupted that labored work several times with pleas for the House of Representatives to pass Amendments to the Constitution. Those became the Bill of Rights; the last amendment (XXVII) was ratified in 1792.

Although joined by Jefferson in 1790, Madison had formidable opposition. An issue of state and federal debt was resolved in Madison's favor by compromise. But during the 1790s his Federalist opponents ignored the Constitution and constitutionally compatible procedures, practices and processes and ran Congress and the Executive like a Parliament.

Madison and Jefferson opposed the Bank of the United States in 1791; Madison was labelled a strict constructionist of the Constitution. He began a political party in 1792. With Jefferson he urged fair trade with the British and no impressments of American seamen but lost to Hamiltonian forces. He put off a federal Sedition Act [violating the First Amendment] until he left Congress in 1796. For the remainder of the decade he wrote, consulted with Jefferson, made successful and unsuccessful proposals and began the 1800 campaign for President in 1799, early in that era.

Jefferson prevailed in the Election of 1800; Madison became Secretary of State. But a flaw remained in the Constitution. With Madison's knowledge John  Marshall corrected it in 1803. Marshall's means and politics were not to Madison and Jefferson's likings, but thereafter Marshall proved an excellent steward of the Constitution.

New in this history are (1) the very significant force and influence in American politics of Edmund Pendleton; (2) a full exposition about debt and its threat to freedom in the United States based upon Jefferson's "Earth Belongs to the Living." [In a Congressional speech Madison's minion called Hamilton's debt practices "lunacy;" and (3) the recognition of the friendship (but political apostasy) between Madison and Marshall.

The outcome was Madison's vision to establish a working relationship of the three branches of government, allowing those to exercise sovereignty, with the consent of the American people, under the Constitution and using modern Constitutional mechanics.