his deep reform ought to accomplish. “I hold it for a fundamental point,” he wrote, “that an individual independence of the states, is utterly irreconcilable with the idea of an aggregate sovereignty.” Madison had not said so to Jefferson in as many words, probably to avoid upsetting him. But Madison wanted nothing less than to abolish the states as individually independent sovereigns; and he did not think Randolph would balk as Jefferson might have done. It was not, he clarified, that he wanted to consolidate the states “into one simple republic,” a goal that would be “unattainable” as well
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