University of Virginia Library

'Fathers' Washington, Madison, Part Of The Papers Game

By JIM ROBERTSON

Mr. Donald Jackson has
cryptically titled it "the Papers
game," but indeed, it is
certainly much more than that.
What Mr. Jackson is referring
to is the monumental task of
collecting, editing, and
publishing all the papers of a
famous leader; and in this case,
he is referring to the national
effort to publish all of the
papers of each of the Founding
Fathers of the United States.

Currently, two of these
voluminous projects are based
at the University: The Papers
of George Washington, edited
by Mr. Jackson, and The
Papers of James Madison,
edited by Mr. Robert A.
Rutland.

Although there is only a
small sign entitled "The
Madison Papers" on Mr.
Rutland's door and a single
glass encased exhibit of a few
of Washington's belongings in
front of Mr. Jackson's door, a
definite sense of history
pervades their offices on the
top floor of the Alderman
Library.

Whether it is sparked by the
shelves and shelves of books
which all have "James
Madison" in their titles, or the

piles of typed manuscripts, or
the editor hidden behind a
microfilm viewer as you enter
his office, history is there, and
these men are intimately in
touch with it.

And they have to be, for
each project will publish in the
range of 65 to 75 volumes and
these men plan to spend a
minimum of 20 years on
their projects.

Such "megaton works," as
Mr. Jackson calls them, have
only recently been based at
the University. As early as
1890, J. Franklin Jameson was
proposing a national effort in
the direction of modern
historical editing. Through his
interest, the National Historical
Publication Commission was
provided for when the National
Archives were founded in 1934.

"Now, nearly 50 letterpress
publications are being
sponsored, assisted or endorsed
by the Commission," Mr.
Jackson points out. "The
general pattern is for the
editorial work to be staffed
and housed by a university or
historical society and published
by a university press."

In 1956, The Papers of
James Madison was started at
the University of Chicago while
the University of Virginia was
the co-sponsor. While based in
Chicago, the first seven
volumes of The Papers of
James Madison were published.
Then, in January of 1971, the
University of Virginia became
the sole sponsor of The Papers
of James Madison and the
offices were moved to
Charlottesville. The first
volume to be done at the
University of Virginia, volume
eight, has been finished and is
due to be published in about a
month

"There will be 56 more
volumes," Mr. Rutland says,
"and I plan to get out at least a
volume each year."

Although there was a 39
volume work on Washington's
papers by John Fitzpatrick,
done between 1931 and 1944,
a proposal was made in 1966
for an improvement of this
work.

In spite of the existence of
this already extensive
publication, Mr. Jackson points
out that "besides the inevitable
omission of many important
documents, the edition has one
serious flaw: it contains none
of the letters written to
Washington. The modern
scholar will not settle for one
side of a correspondence."

None of the Washington
papers have been published yet
but this is due to the fact that
it takes years to collect the
documents, establish a system
of control and begin to
transcribe the documents. Mr.
Jackson estimates that he will
be dealing with 125,000
documents of which he has
collected photocopies of about
100,000.

The first Washington papers
to be published will be
Washington's diaries, published
in four volumes in 1976. It
may be mere coincidence that
they are being published in the
year of the Bicentennial, but it
can only add to the spirit of
the Founding Fathers that is to
be celebrated in the
Bicentennial year.

Perhaps of less coincidence,
Mr. Rutland points out that
the James Madison wing of the
Library of Congress is also due
to open in 1976.. Although his
work on The Papers of James
Madison is not directly related
to the Bicentennial
celebrations, he sees his work
as a contribution to the
anniversary spirit.

"I think what we ought to
talk about during the

Bicentennial is the spirit of the
Founding Fathers that is
relevant today. If we could
associate our scholarly work
with the ideas that these
gentlemen had – and they
were men of tremendous
character – we could get more
at the spirit of the
Bicentennial," Mr. Rutland
explains.

"We have to ask why did
the country go along the way it
did then? It was because of the
honest character of these men.
Today, you don't know
whether to believe the