A hybrid fellow’s forum with Armin Mattes, Assistant Research Professor and Assistant Editor of the Papers of James Madison at the University of Virginia from August 29, 2023. Recording available.
About the Presentation
The first edition of Madison's papers were published in 1840 in three volumes by Henry Gilpin. However, although officially edited and published by Gilpin, the 1840 edition essentially is in the form as James Madison himself prepared it. This form is quite peculiar in that it contains only highly selective materials from 1780-83 and 1787-88. This paper argues that Madison's selection of materials for his edition has to be seen in the context of his and Jefferson's combined efforts to provide an interpretation of the American Founding from their (Republican) perspective. For example, the dates covered by the material in Madison's edition nicely complement the dates covered by the material in the first edition of Jefferson's Memoir (published in 1829, with a preface by Madison). Taken together, Madison's edition of his papers and Jefferson's Memoir crafted a history of the United States' founding on a documentary basis that, Madison and Jefferson hoped, would combat the mostly Federalist accounts of the era published in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and constitutes an element of what historian Adrienne Koch had termed "the great collaboration" between the two elder statesmen that has hitherto been neglected.
About Armin Mattes
Armin Mattes is an Assistant Research Professor and Assistant Editor of the Papers of James Madison at the University of Virginia. In addition to his work on Madison, his research focuses on the theory and practice of American democracy. He is the author of Citizens of a Common Intellectual Homeland: The Transatlantic Origins of American Democracy and Nationhood and the editor of Francis Grund’s Aristocracy in America.