To Thomas Jefferson from James Madison, 24 October 1787 - 1 views
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The mutability of the laws of the States is found to be a serious evil. The injustice of them has been so frequent and so flagrant as to alarm the most stedfast friends of Republicanism. I am persuaded I do not err in saying that the evils issuing from these sources21 contributed more to that uneasiness which produced the Convention, and prepared the public mind for a general reform, than those which accrued to our national character and interest from the inadequacy of the Confederation to its immediate objects.
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Those who contend for a simple Democracy, or a pure republic, actuated by the sense of the majority, and operating within narrow limits, assume or suppose a case which is altogether fictitious.
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Even in its coolest state, it has been much oftener a motive to oppression than a restraint from it.
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This is James Madison telling Thomas Jefferson, and history teachers in the 21st century what went on in the Constitutional Convention. Notice his statement that it was the fear of popularly elected state legislatures that had more to do with the calling of a Constitutional Convention than the failures of the Articles of Confederation. US History Instructional materials teach the opposite
