750"
What could Madison make out of that memorandum unaided? Turning, however, to No. 14, p. 84, the signifi- cance is clear. The whole number is devoted to confuting Montesquieu's notion that republican government was suited only to small territories. One of several arguments urged against its application to the Union is that the Union is not really so large after all. " The limits as fixed by the treaty of peace are : on the east the Atlantic, on the south the lati- tude of 31 degrees, on the west the Mississippi, and on the north an irregular line, running in some instances beyond the 45th degree, in others, falling as low as the 42d. Computing the distance between the 31st and 45th degrees, it amounts to 973 common miles ; computing it from 31 to 42 degrees, to 764|^ miles. Taking the mean of the distance, the amount 86 8|. The mean distance from the Atlantic to the Missis- sippi does not probably exceed 750 miles," etc. The same argument and additional points that I have omitted will also be found in the memorandum which Madison drew up for use in the Virginia convention. The natural and unbiassed conclusion is that this statistical argument was originally drawn up by Madison, and that it was so effectively used by him in No. 14 that Hamilton, in preparing himself for the New York convention, jotted down a brief memorandum of the figures for the dimensions of the country. This was per- fectly legitimate. It is by no means necessary to prove or to assume that every argument in The Federalist originated with Hamilton. There are no difficulties in believing that this document is what John C. Hamilton and Lodge called it, " Brief of Argument," etc. There are insuperable difficulties in believing it to be what Mr. Ford says it was : a syllabus drawn up by Hamilton in January, 1788, to guide Madison in expounding the details of a government that Hamilton did not believe in and of which Madison, more than any one else, was the framer.^
1 This last and conclusive disproof of Mr. Ford's position on the question of this " Syllabus of the Federalist," is from my review of his edition in the American Historical Review in October, 1898.
