July 28, 1787: A Flight to Freedom

James Madison by Thomas Sully after Gilbert Stuart, 1809

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.2019.32?destination=node/63231%3Fedan_local%3D1%26edan_q%3Djames%252Bmadison

"His misbehaviour in Fredericksbg. was followed by some serious reprehensions, & threats from me, which have never lost their effect."

--James Madison, Jr., to his father James Madison, Sr., regarding "John," a man the younger Madison enslaved.

Saturday, July 28, 1787: The Convention Today
The Convention was in recess, as the Pennyslvania Herald noted: "The Federal Convention having resolved upon the measures necessary to discharge their important trust, adjourned till Monday week, in order to give a committee appointed for the purpose, time to arrange and systemize the materials which that honorable body had collected. The public curiously will soon be gratified; and it is hoped from the universal confidence reposed in this delegation, that the minds of the people throughout the United States are prepared to receive the respect, and to try with a fortitude and perseverance, the plan which will be offered to them by men distinguish for their wisdom.”

Synopsis

• The Convention was in recess while the five-member Committee of Detail drafted the Constitution of the United States.

Delegates Today

• Washington (VA) dined with the Cold Spring Club at Springsbury.
• Madison (VA) wrote his father concerning three Black Americans:
  • Anthony (no full name known) had recently self-emancipated—escaped from Madison’s enslavement of him—for a second time, and Madison believed he may have come to Philadelphia.
  • Madison had talked to “Billey” (William Gardner) about this. Gardner had formerly been enslaved and brought to Philadelphia by Madison, who had sold him into seven-year servitude in the city when Pennsylvania’s gradual abolition law would have resulted in Gardner’s eventual emancipation. Perhaps Gardner knew where Anthony was, but Madison told his father that Gardner “either knows or will tell nothing of the matter.”
  • Lastly, Madison wrote that “I have not communicated to John the suspicions entertained of him.” John (no full name known) was Madison’s enslaved manservant during the Constitutional Convention. It is unclear what these “suspicions” were. Perhaps Madison suspected that John had helped Anthony after his escape. Another possibility is that John had told Madison that Gardner was helping Anthony, and Madison suspected that John was lying, either to retaliate against Gardner in a quarrel between John and Gardner, or to assist Anthony in his escape by giving Madison false information about his whereabouts.

Philadelphia Today

• The day was cool and cloudy, with rain in the evening.