Source & Citation Info

title:	“James Madison in the Virginia Convention”
authors:	James Madison
date written:	1788-6-12

permanent link to this version:	https://consource.org/document/james-madison-in-the-virginia-convention-1788-6-12/20130122075913/
last updated:	Jan. 22, 2013, 7:59 a.m. UTC
retrieved:	Dec. 3, 2023, 8:02 p.m. UTC

transcription citation:	Madison, James. "James Madison in the Virginia Convention." The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Vol. 3. Ed. Max Farrand. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911. Print.

James Madison in the Virginia Convention (June 12, 1788)

June 12, 1788.

The congressional proceedings are to be occasionally published, including all receipts and expenditures of public money, of which no part can be used, but in consequence of appropriations made by law. This is a security which we do not enjoy under the existing system.1 T2hat part which authorises the government to withhold from the public knowledge what in their judgment may require secrecy, is imitated from the confederation — that very system which the gentleman advocates.