The article (I tried to attached it by VA-Hist rejects postings with articles attached to them)
James Madison and the Bill of Rights: A Reluctant Paternity, 1990 SupremeCourt Review 301-47 (1991). Reprinted in International Libraryof Essays in the History of Social and Political Thought Series: James Madison (TerenceBall, ed., Ashgate Publishing, 2008): 363-409.
discusses a minor piece of this. The article shows that despite Adrienne Koch's belief that there was a "great collaboration" between TJ and JM on the Bill of Rights, there was virtually none. Koch compared the dates that letters were sent back and forth between the two when JM was in VA (most of the time) and TJ was in France, all of the time. The letters took weeks or months to be exchanged. Thus, JM moved to support a Bill of Rights for tactical reasons and not because he believed it was worth doing. He was utterly contemptuous of "parchment barriers" as he called them, and wrote a very narrow B of R (which the Senate made even more narrow) to prevent anything from undermining the strong national government that he wanted in 1787-90. Some of what JM did was wonderful, and had long term value (adding "speech" to what is now the First Amendment is a good example, since most people (including TJ) talked only about "the Press" and only one (I think) state had a speech protection.
I do not offer any of this to take shots at JM or TJ. On this issue they were both very good and deserve praised. But, they came at it from very different positions and the evidence and timing of the letters shows that even if TJ's arguments eventually changed JM's mind, they did not arrive in a timely way to affect JM's actions or eventual commitment to proposing a bill of rights. And clearly TJ had not changed JM's mind on the value of a BofRThus, when Madison introduced them he declared that he had "never considered this provision so essential to the federal constitution" that it should have been allowed to impede ratification. But, with the Constitution ratified Madison was willing to concede "that in a certain form and to a certain extent, such a provision was neither improper nor altogether useless." This is hardly a ringing endorsement.
I don't know if this helps, but here it is. I suppose I am also posting this because I have serous doubts about the rest of Koch's filiopietistic book as well.
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PaulFinkelman, Ph.D.
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On Sunday, August 1, 2021, 09:41:44 PM EDT, Jon Kukla <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
An intelligent general reader of my acquaintance asked me to recommend a
reliable and accessible treatment of Jefferson's & Madison's political and
personal relationship. I'd welcome suggestions, thank you.
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