The first election for Virginia's 5th congressional district took place on February 2, 1789, for a two-year term to commence on March 4 of that year. In a race that turned on the candidates' positions on the need for amendments (the Bill of Rights) to the recently ratified U.S. Constitution, James Madison defeated James Monroe for a place in the House of Representatives of the First Congress. It is the only congressional election in U.S. history in which two future presidents opposed each other.
The race came about when former governor Patrick Henry and other Anti-Federalists in the Virginia General Assembly, who had opposed the state's ratification of the Constitution, sought to defeat Madison, who had been a strong advocate for ratification, and who wanted to become a member of the new House of Representatives; they had already defeated him in the legislative election to choose Virginia's first U.S. senators. They put forward Monroe, a young but experienced politician who was a war hero wounded at the 1776 Battle of Trenton, as a candidate for the seat. Monroe did not seek the contest, but once drafted campaigned vigorously. Despite bitterly cold weather, the two candidates debated outdoors; traveling after one such meeting, Madison suffered frostbite on his face.
Although Madison had earlier stated that amendments to the Constitution were not necessary, during the campaign he took the position that they were, but should be proposed by Congress, rather than by an Article V Convention that Anti-Federalists such as Monroe and Henry supported. Madison won the election comfortably, to the satisfaction of his supporters such as President-elect George Washington. The race did not affect Madison's friendship with Monroe, who was elected to the Senate in 1790, and who would serve as Madison's Secretary of State and succeed him as president in 1817.
Background
James Madison was born on March 16, 1751 (March 5, 1750, Old Style), at the Belle Grove plantation near Port Conway, Virginia. He grew up on his parents' estate of Montpelier, and was involved in politics from a young age, serving on the local Committee of Safety at age 23. He represented Orange County in the Fifth Virginia Convention of 1776. After service on the Virginia Council of State, where he forged a lifelong friendship with Governor Thomas Jefferson, he was elected to the Second Continental Congress becoming its youngest member. In the following years, he became a strong advocate of closer ties between the states, and when in 1784 he returned home and became a member of the Virginia House of Delegates (the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly, the state legislature), he helped defeat a plan by Patrick Henry to impose taxes to support the Christian religion. He was one of Virginia's delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and helped persuade General George Washington to be its chair, which gave the convention the moral authority to propose a new plan of government. He was the originator of the Virginia Plan that became the basis of the federal government proposed by the convention.
James Monroe was born April 28, 1758, in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the son of prosperous planters, Spence Monroe and Elizabeth Jones Monroe. By 1774, the year he entered the College of William & Mary, both his parents had died. In early 1776, he joined the Virginia militia and became an officer in the Continental Army, later that year being severely wounded at the Battle of Trenton. He left Continental service in 1779, and was made a colonel in the state militia. After the war, Monroe studied law under Jefferson and was elected to the House of Delegates in 1782, and to the Congress of the Confederation in New York in 1783, where he sought to expand the powers of that body.
In 1784, Madison was told by Jefferson that Monroe wanted to begin a correspondence with him, beginning a relationship that would last until Monroe's death in 1831. The two men differed over whether their state should ratify the Constitution at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, with Madison in favor and Monroe against. Opponents deemed the proposed national government to be too powerful, and many wanted a second constitutional convention in order to place limits on it. Despite their efforts, Virginia narrowly ratified the Constitution on June 25, 1788. Monroe, like Jefferson, believed that there needed to be a Bill of Rights protecting fundamental liberties from infringement by the new federal government.
Selection of candidates
Ratification had not been a major issue in the Virginia legislative elections of 1788, since it was expected to be decided by the Ratifying Convention that had just been chosen by the voters. When the General Assembly convened in October 1788, though, it had a majority of Anti-Federalist members, and was led by Henry, a member of the House of Delegates for Prince Edward County. Henry sought to avenge the Anti-Federalist defeat at the Ratifying Convention, and also believed Madison would not seek amendments, or would do so in a lukewarm fashion. On October 31, the General Assembly re-elected Madison to his seat in the lame-duck Confederation Congress, a body that would cease to exist with the coming of the new federal government. Henry's motives in allowing this are uncertain, with some historians stating it was to keep Madison in New York, far from the elections for Congress taking place in Virginia. Historian Chris DeRose hypothesizes that Madison's seat there was his if he wanted it, and his acceptance meant that he expected to remain in New York (where the new Congress would convene) and win his seat in Virginia without needing to campaign. The Anti-Federalists were not seeking to prevent the Federal government from coming into existence as some Federalists alleged, for they could have blocked the necessary bills for elections for Congress and for presidential electors, but they were determined to have members of their faction elected to those posts.
Madison, who sought election to the House of Representatives, yielded to Washington and the Federalist minority in the legislature and allowed his name to be put forward in the legislature's election for Virginia's two U.S. senators—until 1913, senators were elected by the state legislatures. Henry nominated two Anti-Federalists, Richard Henry Lee and William Grayson, while Madison was the sole Federalist named. Henry told the General Assembly that Madison was "unworthy of the confidence of the people" and that his election "would terminate in producing rivulets of blood throughout the land". Henry's nominees were elected, Lee with 98 votes and Grayson with 86, while the defeated Madison gained 77.
The General Assembly turned its attention to dividing the state into congressional districts. Madison's home county, Orange, was placed in a district with seven others, five of which had elected representatives to the Ratifying Convention who had opposed ratification, while Orange and one other had voted in favor and one county's delegation had split its vote. The General Assembly required that candidates live in the district, a qualification not found in the federal Constitution. Fauquier County, closely associated with Orange both geographically and economically, had supported ratification, but was excluded despite the efforts of Federalists. Despite some stating that Henry had contrived a district in which Madison was sure to be defeated, Thomas Rogers Hunter in a journal article examined the question, and concluded, "the district was compact and bounded on all sides by natural geographic features. Simply put, Patrick Henry did not attempt to gerrymander James Madison out of a seat in the first U.S. Congress." Virginia's 5th congressional district consisted of the counties of Albemarle, Amherst, Culpeper, Fluvanna, Goochland, Louisa, Orange and Spotsylvania. Some of these counties were later divided, so the district that Madison contested also included the present-day counties of Greene, Madison, Nelson and Rappahannock.
French Strother, a long-time Virginia legislator from Culpeper County who had opposed ratification at the Virginia Convention, was solicited as a candidate to oppose Madison, but declined. William Cabell, of Amherst County, was also considered as an Anti-Federalist candidate but Monroe was selected instead. Both Strother and Cabell threw their support behind Monroe. A resident of Spotsylvania County, Monroe was reluctant to run against his friend Madison, but was probably encouraged by Henry, George Mason and other Anti-Federalists, though discouraged by his uncle, Joseph Jones. His service in the Revolutionary War, and his political service after it, were electoral assets. Monroe wrote to Jefferson after the election, "those to whom my conduct in publick life has been acceptable, press'd me to come forward in this Govt. on its commencement; and that I might not lose an opportunity of contributing my feeble efforts, in forwarding an amendment of its defects, nor shrink from the station those who confided in me [would] wish to place me, I yielded." Monroe's reluctance clashed with his ambition and desire for honorable public service, and as his biographer, Tim McGrath, put it, "He truly did not want to run against his friend, but who could refuse Patrick Henry?" David O. Stewart, in his book on Madison's key relationships, takes another perspective: "A simpler explanation is more credible: Monroe disagreed with Madison over whether, how, and how soon the Constitution should be amended, and he thought he just might win the race."
The selection of Monroe was enough to worry Washington: "Sorry indeed should I be if Mr. Madison meets the same fate in the district of which Orange composes a part as he has done in the [General] Assembly and to me it seems not at all improbable." Others were less concerned; Alexander Hamilton of New York wrote to Madison that if he was defeated, "I could console myself ... from a desire to see you in one of the Executive departments". Federalist Henry Lee wrote to him, "I profess myself pleased with your exclusion from the senate & I wish it may so happen in the lower house [in which case] you will be left qualified to take part in the administration, which is the place proper for you". Nevertheless, Henry Lee believed Madison would win, calling Monroe "the beau". Former Confederation congressman Edward Carrington wrote to Madison, assuring him that he need not seek election in another district, "each County [in the Fifth District] will have several active Characters in your behalf," and there was "every reason to think your Election will be tolerably safe at home". Madison disliked electioneering, but realized he would have to campaign hard to win the race. The Fifth District race would be the only congressional election in history to oppose two future U.S. presidents.
Issues
The largest issue in the campaign was the question of a Bill of Rights protecting personal freedoms as amendments to the Constitution. Madison's view had been that these were unnecessary as the Federal government had only limited power and that in any event, the new government should be allowed to operate for a time before changes were made to the Constitution. To take such a stance in the campaign would be political suicide, and Madison recognized that there was widespread support for such amendments. But he felt it to be important that Congress proposed them, believing that route to be a quicker, easier, and safer means of passage than an Article V convention, which was favored by the Anti-Federalists such as Monroe. Nevertheless, he was skeptical about the effect of such amendments, calling them "parchment barriers", ineffective if the Federal government was determined to bypass them. He told the voters that if elected, he would work diligently for the passage of a Bill of Rights.
Although Monroe was unwilling to indulge in negative campaigning against his friend Madison, supporters of his such as Henry and Cabell did not feel so bound, and a number of pamphlets and letters were published against Madison, alleging that he supported direct taxation of individuals by the Federal government (he had supported including such a power in the Constitution for use in time of war or other need) and that he had pronounced the Constitution perfect and not in need of any change (he had admitted there were imperfections in it, but had not initially supported amending it with a Bill of Rights). Madison's earlier stances made it easy to depict him in this light.
Madison's pledge to support a Bill of Rights if elected left the question of direct taxation as the major difference between them. Monroe believed the power of the Federal government to directly tax the citizens to be not only unnecessary, but injurious to American liberty. He felt the government could raise money by tariffs, by the sale of public lands, or by borrowing. Madison responded that were the Federal government unable to tax citizens directly, tariffs would be the major source of revenue, and this would disproportionately hurt the South, which had few manufactures and imported heavily from overseas. He also stated that having federal taxes paid in each state would help bind the nation together as giving each a financial stake in the Union's success.