A Wilderness So Immense (63 page)

9.
Richard Henry Lee to George Washington, February 14, 1785,
Letters of Delegates,
22: 199. The American agent in Madrid, William Carmichael, notified Congress of Gardoqui’s appointment in a letter dated October 12, 1784, that was read in Congress on February 10, 1785; ibid., 22: 197.

10.
Journals of the Confederation Congress, February 15, 1785, quoted in
Letters of Delegates,
22: 197.

11.
Michael A. Otero, “The American Mission of Diego de Gardoqui, 1785–1789” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1949), 25–48;
Light Townsend Cummins,
Spanish Observers and the American Revolution,
1775–1783 (Baton Rouge, 1991), 193–94.

12.
Samuel Flagg Bemis, “John Jay,” in Bemis, ed.,
The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy,
vol. 1 (New York, 1927), 240–41.

13.
John Jay to Edward Rutledge, February 25, 1787,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 172n2; Richard Henry Lee to Thomas Lee Shippen, June 4, 1785, ibid., 22: 432; Thomas Rodney’s Diary, May 4, 1786, ibid., 23: 267. During his six years as a member of Congress, Rodney attended an average of two weeks per year.

14.
Otero, “The American Mission of Diego de Gardoqui”;
Relaciones diplomáticas entre España y los Estados Unidos según los documentos del Archivo Histórico Nacional
(2 vols., Madrid, 1944–1945).

15.
Letters of Delegates,
22: 200, 323, 355.

16.
Ibid., 22: 355, 401, 405, 406, 418.

17.
Ibid., 22: 431, 476.

18.
Ibid., 22: 481, 499, 504.

19.
Ibid., 22: 511.

20.
Ibid., 22: 512.

21.
Charles Thomson to John Jay, July 22, 1785; Monroe to Jefferson, August 15, 1785, ibid., 22: 526, 563. John P. Kaminski provides valuable insights into Secretary Jay’s activities in “Shall We Have a King? John Jay and the Politics of Union,”
New York History
81 (2000): 31–58, and “Honor and Interest: John Jay’s Diplomacy During the Confederation,” ibid., forthcoming.

22.
Boston Independent Chronicle,
April 22, 1799, and Elbridge Gerry to Francis Dana, June 13, 1782, quoted in William C. Stinchcombe,
The American Revolution and the French Alliance
(Syracuse, 1969), 68, 190–91.

23.
Nathan Dane to Edward Pulling, January 9, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 85.

24.
Rufus King to Caleb Davis, October 17 and November 3, 1785,
Letters of Delegates,
22: 691n, 718–20.

25.
Rufus King to Caleb Davis, November 3, 1785, ibid., 22: 718–20.

26.
Ibid.

27.
Ibid. Compare Article 6, section 2 of the Articles of Confederation—“No two or more states shall enter into any treaty, confederation, or alliance, whatever, between them, without the consent of the United States, in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into, and how long it shall continue”—with the outright prohibition in Article I, section 10 of the Constitution: “No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation.”

28.
Rufus King to Caleb Davis, November 3, 1785,
Letters of Delegates,
22: 718–20.

29.
Nathaniel Gorham to Caleb Davis, February 23, 1786, ibid., 23: 161.

30.
Five states were present at the Annapolis Convention: Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia; Mervin B. Whealy, “‘The Revolution Is Not Over’: The Annapolis Convention of 1786,”
Maryland Historical Magazine
81 (Fall 1986): 230–35. Massachusetts elected delegates who
declined to attend, for reasons made clear in Rufus King to Jonathan Jackson, June 11, 1786; Rufus King to James Bowdoin, September 17, 1786; Rufus King’s Address, October 11, 1786; and Nathan Dane’s Address, November 9, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 352, 561, 587–90; 24: 16–21.

31.
For this rapid deterioration of Congress in relation to the history of the Constitution, see Forrest McDonald,
E Pluribus Unum: The Formation of the American Republic, 1776–1790
(Boston, 1965), Chapter 5.

32.
James Monroe to Patrick Henry, August 12, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 466.

33.
Nathan Dane to Rufus King, August 11, 1786; Rufus King to Nathan Dane, August 17, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 488–89.

34.
Theodore Sedgwick to Caleb Strong, August 6, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 436; Stephen E. Patterson, “The Roots of Massachusetts Federalism: Conservative Politics and Political Culture before 1787,” in Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert,
Sovereign States in an Age of Uncertainty
(Charlottesville, 1981), 38–39.

35.
Louis-Guillaume Otto to the comte de Vergennes, September 10, 1786, Archives du Ministère des affaires étrangères: Correspondence politique, Etats-Unis, 32: 65–71; translated in George Bancroft,
History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States
(New York, 1882), 2: 389–93.

36.
Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu,
The Spirit of the Laws
(Geneva, 1748), trans. Thomas Nugent; ed., Franz Neumann (New York, 1949): Book 8, section 16.

37.
James Monroe to James Madison, May 31, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 324–26.

38.
Ibid.

39.
Ibid.

1.
Letters of Delegates,
23: 85.

2.
Ibid., 23: 462–66.

3.
Bettina Manzo, ed., “A Virginian in New York: The Diary of St. George Tucker, July-August, 1786,”
New York History
67 (1986): 197.

4.
Ibid.; Russell Kirk,
John Randolph of Roanoke: A Study in American Politics
(4th ed., Indianapolis, 1997), 37; Robert Dawidoff,
The Education of John Randolph
(New York, 1979); Jonathan Daniels,
The Randolphs of Virginia: America’s Foremost Family
(Garden City, N.Y, 1972), 97–98.

5.
James Duane’s Notes of Debates, September 6, 1774; John Jay to John Vardill, September 24, 1774, in
Letters of Delegates,
1: 31, 95. References to secrecy or secrets occur 1,305 times in Smith’s twenty-five volumes of congressional correspondence.

6.
Manzo, ed., “Diary of St. George Tucker,” 181–82.

7.
Ibid., 186–91.

8.
Ibid., 188–96.

9.
The maps on pages 57–58 showing the series of concessions made in instructions to Gardoqui between 1784 and 1787 are based on Samuel Flagg Bemis,
Pinckney’s Treaty: America’s Advantage from Europe’s Distress, 1783–1800
(Baltimore, 1926; rev. ed., New Haven, 1960), 33, 67–70.

10.
Michael A. Otero, “The American Mission of Diego de Gardoqui, 1785–1789” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1949), 74.

11.
John J. Meng, ed.,
Despatches and Instructions of Conrad Alexandre Gerard, 1778–1780: Correspondence of the First French Minister to the United States with the Comte de Vergennes
(Baltimore, 1939), 433–34, 494, 531; Edmund S. Morgan, “The Puritan Ethic and the American Revolution,”
WMQ,
3d ser, 24 (1967): 21; Jay to Jefferson, December 14, 1786,
Jefferson Papers,
10: 599.

12.
Diego de Gardoqui to the comte de Floridablanca, August 6, 1786, Legajo 3.893, Ap. 6 s.n., Archivo Historic Nacional, Madrid.

13.
James Monroe to James Madison, May 31, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 325n2; King to Monroe, July 30, 1786, ibid., 23: 423; Worthington C. Ford et al., eds.,
Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789
(Washington, D.C., 1904–1937), 31: 457, 467–84.

14.
James Monroe to Thomas Jefferson, June 16, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 360.

15.
James Monroe to James Madison, May 31, 1786, ibid., 23: 325n2; King to Monroe, July 30, 1786, ibid., 23: 423;
Journals of the Continental Congress,
31: 457, 467–84.

16.
Theodore Sedgwick to Caleb Strong, August 6, 1786,
Letters of Congress,
23: 436; Stephen E. Patterson, “The Roots of Massachusetts Federalism: Conservative Politics and Political Culture Before 1787,” in Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, eds.,
Sovereign States in an Age of Uncertainty
(Charlottesville, 1981), 38–39.

17.
American Quarterly Review
1 (March 1827): 30–31;
Letters of Delegates,
1: 12.

18.
Charles Thomson to John Jay, August 1, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 424–25.

19.
Louis-Guillaume Otto to the comte de Vergennes, September 10, 1786; Archives du Ministère des affaires étrangères: Correspondence politique, Etats-Unis, 32: 65–71, translated in George Bancroft,
History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States
(New York: Appleton, 1882), 2: 389–93;
Letters of Delegates,
23: 546–48.

20.
George C. Rogers, Jr.,
Charleston in the Age of the Pinckneys
(2d ed., Columbia, S.C., 1984), 126–40.

21.
Clarence S. Brigham,
History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690–1820
(Worcester, Mass., 1947), 1: 610, 620, 680, 925, 1391; Jacob Axelrad,
Philip Freneau: Champion of Democracy
(Austin, 1967), 207–8. When the new federal government moved to Philadelphia, Childs followed and published the
National Gazette,
edited by Philip Freneau, from 1791 to 1793.

22.
Pinckney to Washington, December 14, 1789,
Letters of Delegates,
23:
458. “To refresh Your Memory on the subject of the agency [i.e., role] I had on the former Mississippi Question I send you the inclosed,” Pinckney wrote to Madison on July 9, 1801, “being some of the copies I had left as it was printed for the Use of the then Southern Members”;
Madison Papers: State,
1: 388. Madison had forwarded a copy of Pinckney’s “printed sheet containing his ideas on a very delicate subject” to George Washington on October 14, 1787,
Letters of Delegates,
24: 479–8on. The confusion occasioned by Francis Childs’s substitution of “16th” for “10th” bedevils all published versions of Pinckney’s speech except
Letters of Delegates,
23: 446–58. Madison’s copy is available on Evans microcards in many major libraries; the copy in the Continental Congress Broadside Collection, Library of Congress, no. 201, has annotations not found on the Evans microcard; and the “TR[anscript]” in the Thomson Papers (published in
Letters of Delegates,
23: 446–58) may be a scribal copy given to the secretary by Pinckney, who presumably gave his speaking text to printer Francis Childs.

23.
Fifteen congressmen took organized notes of debates between 1774 and 1789—a third of them in the month of August 1786;
Letters of Delegates,
22 vols., passim.

24.
Diego de Gardoqui to the comte de Floridablanca, August 20, 1786, Legajo 3.893, Ap. 6 s.n., Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid.

25.
Worthington C. Ford et al., eds.,
Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789
(Washington, D.C., 1904–1937), 31: 509.

26.
Quotations from Pinckney’s speech are from the text published in
Letters of Delegates,
23: 446–58.

27.
Journals of the Continental Congress,
31: 510.

28.
Stephen Mix Mitchell to William Samuel Johnson, February 15, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 158.

29.
William Grayson to Richard Henry Lee, March 22, 1786, ibid., 23: 201 and editorial notes, ibid., 54, 147, 152; James E. Wootton,
Elizabeth Kortright Monroe
(Charlottesville, 1987), 3–4; Harry Ammon,
James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity
(New York, 1971), 49; George Athan Billias,
Elbridge Gerry: Founding Father and Republican Statesman
(New York, 1976), 147.

30.
Grayson to Lee, March 22, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 201; Jay to John Adams, May 4, 1786, Henry P. Johnston, ed.,
Correspondence and Public Tapers of John Jay
(New York, 1881), 3: 193–94; Monroe to James Madison, February 11, 1786, and Rufus King to Benjamin Lincoln, Jr., April 16, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 147, 240; Gerry to Monroe, May 28, 1786, quoted in Ammon, James
Monroe,
61.

31.
King to Lincoln, April 16, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 240 (emphasis added).

32.
All quotations from James Monroe to Patrick Henry, August 12, 1786, are from the text printed in ibid., 23: 462–66.

33.
Diego de Gardoqui to the comte de Floridablanca, August 20, 1786, Legajo 3.893, Ap. 6 s.n., Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid.

34.
Ibid.

35.
Ibid. “No single issue during the entire Confederation era produced such a rigid and pervasive cleavage in Congress…. Clearly the Jay-Gardoqui question had some transcendent quality which polarized party politics.” H. James Henderson,
Party Politics in the Continental Congress
(New York, 1974), 389. The thirteenth state, Rhode Island, was chronically absent from Congress.

1.
George Washington to Governor Benjamin Harrison, October 10, 1784,
Washington Papers,
2: 92–93.

2.
Rufus King to Jonathan Jackson, September 3, 1786,
Letters of Delegates,
23: 541.

3.
Journals of the Continental Congress,
34: 534–35.

4.
Jon Kukla, “Mr. Henry’s Rat: The Jay-Gardoqui Negotiations and the Union of the States, 1785–1788,” forthcoming.