An imagined gathering
1787 · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Madison hosts Franklin, Washington, and Hamilton and tries out the arguments on faction and the separation of powers that will become the Federalist.
Madison has been thinking about the problem of faction for years, and the Convention has given him a laboratory for his ideas. Over a working dinner he lays out the argument he will later publish: that a large republic, with many competing interests, is safer for liberty than a small one.
Franklin, who has seen a great deal of human nature, is amused by the young man's system but agrees with its conclusion. Washington listens in his usual silence, and Hamilton pushes Madison to be bolder about the powers the national government will need. They eat scrapple, pepper pot, and cornbread, with jumble cookies and mulled cider, and Madison takes mental notes for the essays he will write the following year.
Host: James Madison
Benjamin Franklin — Amused and approving, and a voice for conciliation in the Convention.
George Washington — Presiding over the Convention and above the day's factions.
Alexander Hamilton — Pushing for a stronger national government than Madison will propose.
a period dish
James Madison
Madison's argument that liberty is safest when the branches of government check one another, and that ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
James Madison
Federalist Number Ten: that a large republic controls the mischief of faction better than a small one.
James Madison
The first ten amendments, which Madison drafted reluctantly and which became the republic's written guarantee of individual liberties.
This gathering is an editorial recreation grounded in the biographies of those present; it did not necessarily take place as described.