I found the letter while trying to authenticate this quote:
Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.
In each of its Internet locations there is no context or citation. I wanted more, so I started searching. I even wrote James Madison Univeristy and the director of the JMLibrary said that he never heard that quote and he doubted its authenticity.
Are there any freepers out there who can provide a context for the "quote?"
Freneau published the newspaper, dedicated to the positions of Thomas Jefferson’s faction within the Congress and the council around His Excellency, while working for the red-haired Secretary of State as a translator. Mr. Jefferson saw no difficulty or conflict with this arrangement.
Freneau had labeled the men of Alexander Hamilton’s faction as monarchists, Tories, and anti-republicans, claiming their role was to reverse the results of 1776. The Secretary of the Treasury had labeled the men around Mr. Jefferson as sympathizers of the ongoing unpleasantness in France.
Though relations between Hamilton and Madison had grown testy of late, there was enough residual friendship for Alec to invite Jemmy to the tavern just off Philadelphia’s High Street for a dinner with his allies. Always hungry for spirited discussion and debate, Jemmy had accepted with alacrity.
Following a bottle of Madeira, Hamilton was always moved to loquacity; because of this he was a highly sought guest at dinners in New York, where he would hold the attention of a room with his conviviality. It was Jemmy’s secret hope that Alec would say something to inspire the article he was to deliver to Freneau.
In addition to Madison and Hamilton, seated around the table were Fisher Ames of Massachusetts, Elias Boudinot of New Jersey, and the young, dashing Nicholas Gilman of New Hampshire.
As Jemmy swallowed his first glass of Madeira, the feeling of warmth spread from his stomach to his limbs. He was going to have to be careful tonight.
James Madison was a man of abstemious habits who did not smoke, and drank only in moderation with meals. He recalled a dinner at the home of James Wilson some five years earlier during the late convention when Wilson attempted to school Madison on his idea of direct election of the president by the people without regard to state. When that idea failed – for good reasons – Wilson had designed on the spot an Electoral College. Jemmy remembered speaking with Wilson in his dining room after far too much Madeira and Port, then suddenly standing in Wilson’s back yard with his hands on a golf club in front of something called a “putting green”. Wilson was standing behind him, his arms wrapped around Madison, telling him in his soft Scottish burr the proper way of wielding a wooden club against a ball. How he had gone from the dining room to the back yard was still a mystery. Jemmy made a mental note to stop drinking at a reasonable time.
Alec was working on his second bottle, and Jemmy could not help but joust with Ames and Boudinot about the preservation of the people’s liberties. “Would not the people be the best served by the maintenance of their own vigilance?”
Hamilton snorted. “The people? They are stupid and licentious. A mob. Once they have established a government, they should think of obedience, leaving the care of their liberties to their betters.”
Alec, you are in fine fettle tonight, he thought. I must write that one down.
”I will stipulate that slavery has been the general lot of humanity,” answered Jemmy, like the earnest student of history that he was. “People have been ignorant, asleep and divided. But what does that prove? Are you saying that because people may betray themselves, they ought to give themselves up to those who have an interest in betraying them? Would it not make more sense to conclude that the people ought to be enlightened, awakened and united? Then, after establishing a government, they should watch over it.”
Boudinot laughed. “You’re only looking at the surface, Mr. Madison. The truth is in the depths.”
”It is not the government that will fly off from the people, but the people that will fly off from the government,” Hamilton interjected corrosively. “Enlighten the government, warn it to be vigilant, give it influence and arm it with force. To the people I have only one word – Obey.”
Gilman looked askance at Hamilton. It was apparent that Hamilton was preparing a five hour oration similar to the one Gilman had sat through at the first session of the Philadelphia convention. Gilman remembered what five hours without a break at the pissing trough felt like.
”Colonel Hamilton,” Gilman interjected carefully, “I should think that the centrifugal tendency is with the people, not the government. The secret lies in restraining that tendency by increasing the attractive principle of government. I should find it a perversion of the natural order of things to make power the primary and central object of the social system and liberty but a satellite.”
Hamilton swallowed a bit and deflated briefly. Jemmy made a mental note to have Jefferson speak with Gilman; he could become an ally. Jemmy swallowed another glass of Madeira, in spite of the warning voice in his head. Hamilton thought a bit before responding to his young political ally.
”Colonel Gilman, the more you increase the attractive force of power, the more you enlarge the sphere of liberty. The more you make government independent from the people, the better security you provide for their rights and interests.”
”Alec, old friend,” said Jemmy with a smile, “I find that line of thought at least mysterious, if not illogical. This is not religion. This is about the institutions of man.”
”But Jemmy,” Hamilton said with the genuine friendship shown to an intellectual equal, “this is about religion. At least in a sense. Citizens, or subjects, require the light of faith and the spirit of obedience. Without that, government becomes the accomplice of atheism and anarchy.”
Madison, who had been trained for the ministry, found himself on familiar ground. Alexander Hamilton had hanged himself with a noose of his own design. The article for Freneau could be written in jig time. All it required was a wasp’s sting for a conclusion. The sentence shaped itself in Madison’s brain long before his quill pen hit hemp paper.
”I denounce you to the people as a blasphemer of their rights and an idolater of tyranny.”
There! A bit strong for an old friend, but the article would be published under a pseudonym anyway.
Jemmy staggered out of the tavern a few hours later as the knot under his forehead expanded to cover most of his brain. This would be a bad one, he knew. He quietly climbed the spiral staircase at Mrs. Swinton’s boarding house, entered his room and lit a candle. He had to begin the article at once before the thoughts fled his brain in pain.
“Who are the best keepers of the people’s liberties?” he wrote.
As he labored, his presto jig time slowed to an adagio, then a stately largo. But he had to finish this now; Freneau was waiting.
When Mrs. Swinton rang the bell for breakfast, it echoed in his head like the peals from the great bells of the Gloria Dei church down the street.
James Madison promised himself he would never drink again.