Books May 1995
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A review of The Republic of Letters: The Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison by James Morton Smith.
The publication of the Jefferson–Madison correspondence is an event, for all who take a serious interest in American politics, that should have happened a long time ago. The letters have been available in older, separate editions of the works of the two founders, and also in the newer, critical editions of their “papers,” still far from completion, which are turned out, one volume at a time, with such agonizing slowness as to suggest an involuntary retentiveness in the editors. But here, suddenly, are three beautiful volumes all at once, and of the whole correspondence. They are a credit to both editor and publisher.
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