Page:The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Volume 1.djvu/18

This page has been validated.
xvi
introduction
 

In a preface to the Debates, written before his death, Madison had explained with what care the material was gathered and written up:[1]

“I chose a seat in front of the presiding member, with the other members, on my right and left hand. In this favorable position for hearing all that passed I noted in terms legible and in abbreviations and marks intelligible to myself what was read from the Chair or spoken by the members; and losing not a moment unnecessarily between the adjournment and reassembling of the Convention I was enabled to write out my daily notes during the session or within a few finishing days after its close.”

Indeed Madison was evidently regarded by his fellow-delegates to the Convention as a semi-official reporter of their proceedings, for several of them took pains to see that he was supplied with copies of their speeches and motions.[2] And from the day of their publication until the present, Madison’s notes of the Debates have remained the standard authority for the proceedings of the Convention.

Madison’s correspondence and the manuscript itself reveal the fact that Madison went over his notes after the publication of the Journal in 1819.[3] He not only noted differences between his own record and that of the Journal, but also in many cases corrected his own notes from the Journal. In the wording of motions, this is not to be wondered at, for Madison, during the sessions of the Convention, in his haste to note what the speaker was saying could do no more than take down the substance of motions and resolutions, while these would be copied into the journal in full. Nor is it surprising, when we remember that Madison accepted the printed Journal as authoritative, to find him in not a few cases copying from it proceedings of which he had no record. But the importance of this fact is evident at once, for these items have been accepted upon the double record of the Journal and Madison,

  1. Appendix A, CCCCI.
  2. Notice for example Franklin’s speeches (June 2, June 11 and September 17), Randolph’s opening address (May 29), and Charles Pinckney’s effort on June 25; see also speeches by Hamilton, June 18, and Gouverneur Morris, July 2.
  3. See references under note 14 above.