“The Voice of Faithful Tradition”: The Madison-Leland Legend in Nineteenth-Century Print

Abstract

This article examines the legend surrounding a famed meeting between James Madison and John Leland, a prominent Virginia Baptist minister, in 1787 on the eve of Virginia’s ratification of the federal Constitution. It was during this meeting, the common lore goes, that Madison secured Virginia Baptists’ support of ratification of the Constitution, and, in ex-change, agreed to sponsor a Bill of Rights guaranteeing religious liberty at a later date. Much has been written about the meeting itself in an at-tempt to distinguish fact from fiction, but this article approaches the sub-ject from a different angle, concerned instead with the development and significance of the often-told story of the Madison-Leland meeting. By analyzing ten accounts of the meeting published in the nineteenth centu-ry, this article explores the distinct differences between accounts au-thored by Baptists and non-Baptists. These differences underscore the reasons why Baptists long cherished the memory of John Leland and his meeting with Madison. The meeting, to later Baptist authors, confirmed what they considered to be a critical piece of Baptist denominational identity: an unrivaled commitment to religious liberty.