The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1913-11-02

tcopyright, 1918, by Frank c. Carpenter)
WASHINGTON, d. c.
IIDDEN away in the archives of the
Congressional library at Washing
= 4 ton are some of the most interest
ing. unpublished stories of American his
tory. The government Is buying new
manuscripts every week. and new light
is being thrown on the greatest events in
the making of the nation and also upon
the characters of the great men who
made It. The unpubl shed letters of the
Presidents are numbered by hundreds Of
thousands end the individual documents
viii run into the millions.
One OF the most remarkable collections
is that relating to James Madison. which
for the first time has now been made per-
fectly accessible to the historians of the
country. The collection of Madison let
tiers numbers 1000 or $4,000. They cover
every phase of his career, and with them
are love letters by Dolly Madison to her
husband and most interesting letters
from James to Dolly.
Some of the most remarkable of these
letters and papers were, for long time,
in the possession of the Chicago Histori-
cal society," AILeF nduIspil . aSdhA lhoS
were sold by one of his heirs. and thus
came into the hands of the late j. c. Nc
CURE of Washington. d. C. Mr.. MCGUIRE
sold them to the Chicago society, and Mr..
Gaillard Hunt, the head of the manu-
script division of the library. persuaded
that society to give them to the National
library upon the repayment of the amount
which they had given Mr.. Mcclure. II
I remember correctly, the exact sum was
$500.
This collection is now with the other
Madison papers In the manuscript divi-
sion of the National library. Ii numbers
more than 100 volumes of autograph let
ters and papers of James Madison. Each
volume is as big as a court ledger and
as thick as an old family Bible In
order TO show the size | stood one upon
"a desk and had it photographed with my
self standing beside it, The book is fully
two feet long. IS inches wide and eight
,or ten inches in thickness and every page
OF 1t contains a letter or paper of Mr..
(. Madison so carefully pasted and treated
that 1t cannot be lost. Some of the pages
are covered with manuscript, the text Of
which has never been published, and in
many of them are facts of unwritten his
tory as yet unknown to the public.
Among the most remarkable of the
documents is a novelette, In the hand
writing of President Madison II was
written while the Missouri compromise
and its effect upon slavery were still
4 agitatng the country. and 1t is evidently
an allegory intended to show the situation
then existing and to quiet the troubles
between the north and the south. Madi-
son died away back in 1886, while AN
drew jackson was President, and the in
dications are that the story was penned
along late in the twenties and probably
before jackson issued his notification
message and made his threat of hanging
John c. Calhoun. The story gives a vivid
picture of the feeling then existing. 1t
treats of the history of the country in
its origin and its breaking away from
England and indirectly shows how the
south had already hoped of support from
Great Britain, in case it should hold on
to its slaves and break away from the
forth