James Madison to Edmund Pendleton (September 14, 1789)

The Senate have sent back the plan of amendments with some alterations1 which strike in my opinion at the most salutary articles. in many of the States juries even in criminal cases are taken from the State at large—in others from districts of consider[able] extent—in very few from the Country alone—Hence a [dis]like to the restraint with respect to vicinage, which has produced a negative on that clause.23 A fear of inconvenience from a constitutional bar to appeals below a certain value, and a confidence that such a limitation is not necessary, have had the same effect on another article. Several others have had a similar fate. The difficulty of uniting the minds of men accustomed to think and act differently can only be conceived by those who have witnessed it.