2 10 JAMES MADISON 



might be said of Madison's conduct in opposition, it 

 could never be called factious ; it was calm, generous, 

 and disinterested. About two years before the close 

 of his career in Congress, he married Mrs. Dolly 

 Payne Todd, a beautiful widow, much younger than 

 himself; and about this time he seems to have built 

 the house at Montpelier which was to be his home 

 during his later years. But retirement from public 

 life, in any real sense of the phrase, was not yet possi- 

 ble for such a man. The wrath of the French govern- 

 ment over Jay's treaty led to depredations upon 

 American shipping, to the sending of commissions to 

 Paris, and to the blackmailing attempts of Talleyrand, 

 as shown up in the X. Y. Z. despatches. In the fierce 

 outburst of indignation that in America greeted these 

 disclosures, in the sudden desire for war with France, 

 which went so far as to vent itself in actual fighting on 

 the sea, though war was never declared, the Federalist 

 party believed itself to be so strong that it proceeded 

 at once to make one of the greatest blunders ever 

 made by a political party, in passing the alien and sedi- 

 tion acts. This high-handed legislation caused a sud- 

 den revulsion of feeling in favour of the Republicans, 

 and called forth vigorous remonstrance. Party feeling 

 has perhaps never in this country been so bitter, ex- 

 cept just before the Civil War. A series of resolutions, 

 drawn up by Madison, was adopted in 1798 by the 

 legislature of Virginia ; while a similar series, still 

 more pronounced, drawn up by Jefferson, was adopted 

 in the same year by the legislature of Kentucky. The 

 Virginia resolutions asserted with truth that, in adopt- 

 ing the federal Constitution, the states had surrendered 

 only a limited portion of their powers ; and went on to 



