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COMMENTARIES, 3 OCTOBER 1787
2. Article LIX of the Maryland constitution of 1776 provided for amendments if the
legislature passed a bill providing for such amendments, published the bill at least three
months before the next legislative election, and then adopted it in the first session of the
subsequent legislature (Appendix I, below).
3. Fell's Point is the port portion of Baltimore and is separated from the main part of
the town by a creek.
4. RC, Madison Papers, DLC. For the omitted portions of the letter, see RCS:Va., 25-26.
Randolph was in the Caroline County, Va., town of Bowling Green en route to the state
capital of Richmond. Randolph (1753-1813), a Williamsburg, Va., lawyer, served as gover-
nor of Virginia from 1786 to 1788. He was attorney general of Virginia, 1776-86, and a
member of Congress, 1779, 1781-82. Randolph represented Virginia in the Annapolis Con-
vention (1786) and the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where he refused to sign the
Constitution. In late December 1787 a long letter he had written to the Virginia House of
Delegates explaining why he had not signed it was published (CC:385). In June 1788,
however, Randolph supported the Constitution in the Virginia Convention and voted to
ratify it. He was U.S. Attorney General, 1789-94, and U.S. Secretary of State, 1794-95.
James Madison (1751-1836) sat in the Virginia House of Delegates, 1776-77, 1784-
87, 1799-1800; Congress, 1780-83, 1787-88; and the U.S. House of Representatives,
1789-97. He was U.S. Secretary of State, 1801-9, and U.S. President, 1809-17. Madison
signed the Constitution in the Constitutional Convention in September 1787 and led the
Federalists in the Virginia Convention, where he voted to ratify the Constitution in June
1788. He was one of the three authors of The Federalist, the most voluminous explanation
and defense of the Constitution. (See CC:201.)
5. Colonel Samuel Smith (1752-1839), a native of Carlisle, Pa., was a merchant and
land speculator and one of Baltimore's wealthiest men. He had served in the Continental
Army during the Revolutionary War as a captain, major, and lieutenant colonel. After
1790 he served in the Maryland House of Delegates, the U.S. House of Representatives,
the U.S. Senate, and as mayor of Baltimore. Smith was also a brigadier and major general
of the Maryland militia.
6. Zebulon Hollingsworth, a Baltimore lawyer, was U.S. attorney for Maryland, 1792-
1806 and associate judge of the Baltimore County Court, 1806-17.
7. The Maryland Constitution of 1776.
James Tilghman to John Penn
Chestertown, 3 October 1787 (excerpt)'
. .. Whether I shall ever see Phila. again is very doubtful I feel the
Impression of years and am not very able to undertake long Journies
My Spirits are hurt by the loss of my two valuable Sons whom I shall
ever lament and tho' I am not gloomy I have lost a good deal of that
chearfulness which I used to have about me. I have seen the great work
of the convention It requires much time to look into the consequences
of the System I think it liable to some weighty Objections But it is not
in human Ability at once to form perfect Systems especially of politicks
policy-And perhaps upon the whole it is best better to adopt it and
mend it as the imperfections or Errors of it may be discovered than let
the Union rest upon the present ineffectual Confederation. There are
different opinions here and people are warm on both sides I hear yr
People are for driving it down the throats of yr Assembly2 Will not this
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