James Madison to J. K. Paulding (April 1831)

Montpellier, Apl —, 1831.

Of Franklin I had no personal knowledge till we served together in the Federal Convention of 1787, and the part he took there has found its way to the public, with the exception of a few anecdotes which belong to the unveiled part of the proceedings of that Assembly.

. . . As a proof of the fallability to which the memory of Mr. Hamilton was occasionally subject, a case may be referred to so decisive as to dispense with every other. In the year — Mr. Hamilton, in a letter answering an inquiry of Col. Pickering concerning the plan of Government which he had espoused in the Convention of 1787, states, that at the close of the Convention he put into my hands a draught of a Constitution; and in that draught he had proposed a "President for three years." Now, the fact is, that in that plan, the original of which I ascertained several years ago to be among his papers, the tenure of office for the President is not three years, but during good behavior.