In an essay on the Constitution published in Sunday's NYT, Garry Wills explains James Madison's thinking about factions and the common good by suggesting that Madison's ideas reflected "a common practice" that Will describes as follows: "When a landowner in Virginia wished to sell property, neither he nor his potential buyer was allowed to set the price. That would be acting as judges in their own case. Instead, each chose a reputable arbiter, one likely to be respected by each of them and by others; those representatives chose a third person, who would, with them, set a price that all could accept as 'disinterested.'" Sounds like a form of arbitration, but I'm not familiar with it in 18th-c Virginia land transactions. I'm especially skeptical about Wills's assertion that parties to a private land sale would not have been "allowed to set the price." -- Jon Kukla www.jonkukla.com ________________ ______________________________________ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html This list is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).