CHAPTER XII.

VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE-RESOLUTIONS OF 1798 AND 1799

MR. MADISON IN THE ANTI-FEDERAL CABINET.

ON retiring to "Montpellier," as the Madison es

tate has long been styled, Mr. Madison devoted himself to his farming interests. His operations were conducted with some reference to scientific exactness, and, perhaps, at that day Virginia did not possess a enlightened and progressive farmer. During the

more

first two or three years of this retirement Mr. Madison also built a residence, or remodeled and enlarged that in which his youth had been spent. During this occupation his letters show that he depended largely upon Mr. Jefferson, the Vice-President, to collect for him in Philadelphia such household implements and building material as could not be obtained satisfactorily at

home.

He seemed to place great confidence in the

Vice-President's superior knowledge of small things.

In his

lower

letters on these matters he never got down than "culinary articles," and wrote with the

same labored precision and dignity which characterized his political writings.

Early in the spring of 1801 his father died, when he became virtually the proprietor of Montpellier, as had been understood for a long time, should be the

case.

Of this event, too, he wrote to Mr. Jeffer

son, then demanding his appearance at Washington to

become

the head of his Cabinet, as he had written

of the furniture and material for his house, in the same stilted and "awful" way.

"Although the exact degree of agency devolving on me remains to be known, a crowd of indispensable attentions must necessarily be due from me," he said.

And so, he tarried awhile to bury his father, a fine old man, whom he hardly condescended to address in any other less dignified terms than Colonel James Madison, and to look after other things of importance to himself.

This "Montpellier" is in one of the most beautiful regions of this historic old State, and most of the former beauty of the estate itself was owing to the taste and attention of Mr. Madison and Dolly Payne. And their first years spent together on it at this time were among the most pleasant periods in Mr. Madison's life. His public career had been highly successful, and in most respects gratifying indeed. And although he had suffered in some degree in the general estimation by his desertion of the Federal party, he still enjoyed a very favorable continental reputation, and in Virginia his conduct throughout was regarded with the utmost esteem and pride.

But he was too young and quietly ambitious to quit with this, and it was not in his nature to take no interest in political matters.

At a former idle moment Mr. Jefferson had pushed him into "Helvidius" during General Washington's Presidency, much against his own inclinations, as has been shown, and now at another idle occasion, and a still critical period in the Nation's history, the same restless machinator pushed him into a more questionable work, and which gave him much anxiety and

trouble in his old age, and which, from its evil influence at that and much later dates, is yet looked upon as eminently the vicious and pernicious performance of his life.

Mr. Jefferson was working artfully and effectively, with profound secrecy, for the overthrow of

Federalism.

As Vice-President he could do but

little, as Thomas Jefferson with his pen he was certainly quite powerful. The "Alien and Sedition Laws" furnished him a pretext for inaugurating the most mischievous business, perhaps of his life, although he died before its evil effects were felt by himself.

This was his Kentucky Nullification Resolutions of 1798. In this far western new community, which had six years before been admitted as a State into the Union, without much scrutiny of her constitution on the part of Congress, he was satisfied that he could recommend an antidote for the acts of Congress greatly to the interest of his determined purpose. After putting this matter in the way of execution, he urged Mr. Madison substantially to repeat the maneuver in Virginia; and Mr. Madison had, for the time, become so extreme and extravagant in his own

views

of the "monocrats," and so much of a mere

politician that he seemed to enter on the work without

"On the 20th of May, 1798, he wrote to Mr.

Jefferson:

“The Alien Bill' proposed in the Senate is a monster that must forever disgrace its parents. I should not have supposed it possible that such an one could have been engendered in either House, and still persuade myself that it can not possibly be

fathered

by both. It is truly to be deplored that a standing

army should be let in upon us by the absence of a few sound

votes. It may, however, all be for the best. These addresses to the feelings of the people from their enemies may have more effect in opening their eyes than all the arguments addressed to their undertsandings by their friends. The President, also, seems to be co-operating for the same purpose. Every answer he gives to his addressers unmasks more and more his principles and views. His language to the young men at Philadelphia is the most abominable and degrading that could fall from the lips of the first magistrate of an independent people, and particularly from a Revolutionary patriot. It throws some light on his meaning when he remarked to me 'that there was not a single principle the same in the American and French Revolutions;' and on my alluding to the contrary sentiment of his predecessor, expressed to Adêt on the presentment of the colors, added, 'that it was false, let who would express it.' The abolition of royalty was, it seems, not one of his Revolutionary principles. Whether he always made this profession is best known to those who knew him in the year 1776."

The feelings of the times must have been intense, if Mr. Madison could be worked into a spasm like this. This letter shows clearly enough how unreliable the words and deeds of men were at that period. And this fact it was which gave rise to the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798, which Madison had to labor so hard to palliate, explain, and reconcile at a later day when reason and patriotism only swayed his sentiments.

A few days subsequently he wrote again to Mr. Jefferson:

"The palpable urgency of the Executive and its partisans to press war in proportion to the apparent chance of avoiding it, ought to open every eye to the hypocrisy which has hitherto deceived so many good people. Should no such consequence take place, it will be a proof of infatuation which does not admit of human remedy."

"The good people" and "the people" were now much objects of Mr. Madison's concern and commis

eration, and there is no evidence to indicate that this extraordinary interest did not "smack" in that day of the vile demagoguery of the present time. But while Mr. Madison wrote frequently, especially to Monroe and Jefferson, during the period when the war spirit was at fever heat throughout the country, there was an unusual dearth of long discussions of public affairs by the Republican leaders. Partly, no doubt, as he had admitted, because it might be for the best, and partly because "the good people" were in no

mood to hear.

Mr. Madison now prepared what was known as the "Virginia Resolutions of 1798," and himself carried them to Richmond to see that they were readily adopted by the Legislature. But, as will appear in a future chapter, the task was not so easy as it had been in Kentucky. The resolutions were followed by an address, also written by Mr. Madison, to the people of the State. Partly from the unfavorable reception this whole matter received throughout the Union, it became

necessary

for Mr. Madison to get himself elected a mem

ber of the Legislature, and at the session of the fall and winter of 1799, he appeared in his seat in the Senate.

Of

course, Mr. Madison was greatly opposed to a war with France, the devoted ally to which this country so much "gratitude," more even than he would have been for a brush with New England.

Owed

In

April, 1798, when President Adams was pre

paring for war, and using extraordinary efforts to avoid it. Mr. Madison wrote to his friend and abettor,

Jefferson:

The President's Message is only a further development to he public of the violent passions and heretical politics which have