Episode 723: Founding Fathers – James Madison

Published Jul 6, 2024, 9:00 AM

The lives of these men are essential to understanding the American form of government and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played key roles in the securing of American independence from Great Britain and in the creation of the government of the United States of America.

On this episode of New World. The lives of these men are essential to understand the American form of government and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played key roles in securing American independence from Great Britain and in the creation of the government of the United States of America. And now the life of James Madison, and I have to say, having visited his home, that he's a remarkable figure. He is in some ways one of the most interesting of all the Founding Fathers because he's so complicated, he's so smart. His real contributions are all cerebral. He studied, he read, he thought, he wrote, and over time he had an enormous impact at every level. Remember, the Democratic Republican Party that he and Jefferson founded still exists as the Democratic Party, the law longest surviving political institution in the world today. The Bill of Rights is at the heart of our freedom and he was the guiding force. In fact, his role in the First Congress was amazing. He literally drafted constitutions, thought about it. It was sort of a hobby, and so he was tremendously prepared to help write the Constitution. When the Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia, and I always try to remind people the Federalist papers are not some stuffy academic document that we read them nowadays really as sort of policy in a way that is kind of abstract and good for graduate students, but not a hobby for most people. But the Federalist papers were written as the most important pamphlet and political history. Now they're very complicated their long and Madison wrote some of the most important of the Federalist papers convincing people of two different things that they needed a federal government because the individual states would only be gobbled up by France and Britain and Spain, so they had to come together to survive. And at the same time, you could write a constitution that protected you from your own government. And it's important to remember the founding fathers were as worried about domestic repression from the government as they were about foreign dangers to America. And Madison is the person who, more than anyone else, balances those two. As he writes at one point, you know, if men were angels, we wouldn't need government. But since men aren't angels, how are we going to govern? The governors? And that he constantly thought about protecting us from our own government, something which I would argue is remarkably current today. So how did a sickly, soft spoken man five foot four inches and barely one hundred pounds become the father of the Constitution? Washington Irving described him as a withered little apple. John Madison was born March sixteen, seventeen fifty one, the oldest of twelve children, of whom only seven survived to adulthood. His father, James Madison Senior, had inherited substantial wealth, and his mother and Eli Conway, was the daughter of a tobacco merchant. Because of their wealth, young James Madison was afforded private tutors, including a Scottish teacher named Donald Robertson, who instructed the young boy between the ages of eleven and sixteen in mathematics, geography, and Latin. An often sickly child, Madison suffered from what he called sudden attacks. As Madison later wrote that he had quote a constitutional tendency to sudden attacks, somewhat resembling epilepsy, which suspended all intellectual function. Imagine how frightening that must have been in the eighteenth century. He planned to attend the College of William and Mary, where his later friend Thomas Jefferson attended, but he thought that Virginia's humid climate would worsen his attacks, so he opted to go north to the College of New Jersey, which ultimately became Princeton University. In seventeen seventy one, Madison graduated with high marks in classical languages, mathematics, rhetoric, geography, and philosophy. After only attending for two years, he wanted more education, so Madison became the school's first graduate student, studying Hebrew and political philosophy under the university president, John Witherspoon, who later on became a signer of the Declaration of Independence. When he graduated with his graduate degree, Madison, unsure what to do, started in local politics, becoming a member of the Orange County Committee of Public Safety in seventeen seventy four. That committee oversaw the local militia in the event of a war of independence against the British. Remember the Second Amendment rose out of these experiences. It is the Committee of Public Safety who are arming and training militia which enables the Americans to survive when the British tried to conquer them. His seizure attacks actually prevented him from joining the military, as on July twenty eighth, seventeen seventy five, at the age of twenty four, he collapsed during a military drill. But in October seventeen seventy five, he was commission as colonel of the Orange County Militia, serving alongside his father until he was elected as a delegate to the fifth Virginia Convention. Madison, in the most important friendship of his life, met Jefferson in the fall of seventeen seventy six, when they both were members of the Virginia House of Delegates. Hard to imagine two people who were different. Jefferson was six foot two and described as straight as a gun barrel. Madison was five foot four inches and barely one hundred pounds. Imagine the two of them hanging out together. But what brought them together was their minds. Jefferson was described as quick witted and Madison was painfully shy and reserved. But Madison thought all the time, and Madison could hold his own with Jefferson. The pair connected and a friendship began which lasted for decades. In seventeen seventy seven, Madison lost his seat in the House of Delegates because he refused to participate in the long standing Virginia custom of treating voters to whiskey, because he felt it was the same as buying votes. In other words, back then, you showed up annually at the polling place, and you got free liquor, and the candidate who gave away the most free liquor got elected. Now, Madison was not alone. Washington when he first ran, refused to buy any alcohol because he was a military hero, very famous, and he came in last because all the local neighbors said, wait a second, if you're not going to buy me a drink, why am I going to vote for you. The following year, Washington bought more liquor for the voters than anybody else in that particular race. So Madison was faced with trying to deal with the country whose patterns were, shall we say, a little different than Madison would have liked. But despite all that, in seventeen seventy eight, Madison was elected to the Virginia Governor's eight member Council of State. When Jefferson was elected governor of Virginia in seventeen seventy nine, Madison, as a member of the Council of State worked closely with him, talking daily and offering his advice. And remember this is in the middle of a war. In seventeen eighty, at the age of twenty nine, Madison became the youngest member of the Continental Congress at the time. Jefferson was Minister to France and did not attend the convention, but he frequently sent Madison books and letters. Madison supported efforts to strengthen the power of the federal government. He knew that the Continental Congress system the Articles of Confederation simply wasn't work. He made several unsuccessful attempts to compromise with delegates who wanted strong state governments. He kept trying to convince them, you can't have strong state governments and survive because these foreign powers are going to pick us off one by one and gradually subvert all of North America. Madison took detailed notes and not only who was present every day, but exactly what was said and by who. Madison avoided any long absences, did not miss a single day of debate, later writing quote, it happened also that I was not absent a single day, no more than a casual fraction of an hour in any day, so I could not have lost a single speech, unless a very short one. These notes were one of the few things that historians have from this time, as delegates were forbidden from talking about anything in the proceedings in fear of leaking it to the public, the opposite of modern transparency, and the notes themselves were not published until after he died. In seventeen eighty four, Madison returns to Montpelier to study law and to attempt an unsuccessful career in land speculation. He was a genuine intellectual. He wasn't the kind of guy who's going to be very good at going out and figuring out the right places to buy land and then holding out until he got the price he wanted. Who didn't end. He wanted to read books, He wanted to think. He wanted to be part of the life of the mind. He then served again in the Virginia House of Deugas from seventeen eighty four to seventeen eighty six, while they helped to ratify Jefferson's the Statute of Virginia for religious Freedom. At the time, Jefferson was serving as Minister of France and was not able to advocate for his statute. This was truly a great breakthrough moment. Madison wrote to the General Assembly the Commonwealth of Virginia on June twentieth, seventeen eighty five. And I'm quoting this because it's so important in such a key break in the development of religious liberty. Quote. The religion, then of every man, must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man, and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature and unalienable right. It is unalienable because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men. It is unalienable also because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. Now remember, Jefferson and Madison are arguing for your right of conscience. And a time when virtually every government had an official religion, and for example, the British, for a very long period of time persecuted priests because they represented an alien Catholic religion based in Rome, and they did not represent the Church of England. Conversely, there were Catholic countries which would prosecute Protestants because they weren't obedient to the dominant religion. So this whole notion that your conscience, not the government's rules, are what will define religion, was an enormous breakthrough and a great expansion of human freedom. Now, Madison kept working on how do we get to a strong enough government, and in preparation for the seventeen eighty seven Constitutional Convention, Madison drafted what would later be known as the Virginia Plan. He spent thirty six months about that three years in the library studying political philosophy and past attempts at forming government. The Virginia Plan outlined a government consisting of three branches with checks and balances. This was really based on the work of a French theoretician, Montesquieu, whould come up with this notion that you could maximize freedom by balancing power between three different elements. If I could quote from the time quote resolved that his depinion of this committee that a national government ought to be established consisting of a supreme legislative, judiciary, and executive. And of course those are the building blocks of the US Constitution. And we today work within the framework that Madison had defined. He's often referred to as the father of the Constitution, but he argued it was a team effort, writing in a letter to William Cogswell on March tenth, eighteen thirty four, quote, you give me a credit to which I have no claim in calling me the of the Constitution of the United States. This was not like the fabled Goddess of Wisdom, the offspring of a single brain. It ought to be regarded as the work of many heads and many hands. Now that sense, I think was sincere In Madison's part, he realized something we sometimes forget in the egocentric Washington of today, that it takes teams for a free society to govern itself. It takes teams to get things done. And Ronald Reagan used to have a little sign on his desk that said, it's amazing which you can get done if you don't mind who gets the credit. I think Madison thoroughly understood that principle. Once the Constitution was presented to the States for ratification, Madison, along with Jefferson and Jay, published a series of newspaper essays, and Madison, Jay and Hamilton wrote the Federalist Papers, writing under the pseudonym Publius. Madison authored twenty nine of the essays, published between October seventeen eighty seven and May seventeen eighty eight. In his twenty nine essays, Madison argued the case for a strong central government with checks and balances. No one emphasizes. The founding fathers were as concerned about government being too powerful as they were concerned about government being too weak, and they wanted to protect you from the very government that they had set up to protect the nation. In Federalist Paper number fifty one, Madison wrote, and this is the very famous quote, if men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls in government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this. You must first to enable the government to control the government, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. Close quote. And I would argue that that is the central crisis of the American system today. There is none of the sense of balance that Madison and Jefferson believed in so deeply. After the ratification of the Constitution, Madison attempted to run for the Senate, but Patrick Henry, who had been opposed to the Constitution and wanted a strong Virginia, successfully worked against him. Instead, Madison won the election to the US House of Representatives in seventeen eighty nine, ironically over James Monroe, who later on to become president following Madison. Madison served in the US House until seventeen ninety seven, at a time of enormous initial creation of all the principles of the House. So he's there as somebody very widely respected, very well known, and at first he doesn't want a bill of rights. He argues that quote, the government can only exert the power specified by the Institution. But his friend Jefferson was adamantly in favor of a bill of rights, thought the Constitution was too strong and would become a danger to freedom. Jefferson's view was spreading throughout the States, and there was a real danger that the Constitution could only be ratified with a bill of rights. So Madison, accepting reality, compiles a list of nineteen proposals out of hundreds of suggestions they got from the state's ratification debates. In his notes for speech in Congress, written around June seventeen eighty nine, Madison outlined his reasons for urging the amendments. These included first to prove that federalists are the friends to liberty, Second to remove any remaining worries, Third to bring in North Carolina and Rhode Island, and fourth to improve the constitution. Notice the practicality, it's North Carolina and Rhode Island that won't come in. Therefore you have to have some kind of compromise. In these notes, Madison wrote that the Bill of Rights was useful, not essential, and that's because he actually thought the Constitution that he had helped draft already limited government. But people like Jefferson wanted a little extra guarantee, if you will, that even a bad government would be restricted. And most of the time the Supreme Court has interpreted the Bill of Rights to in fact restrict government. The Bill of Rights was the rights of individuals against government. Something we tend to forget that our founding fathers were as much afraid of strong central government as they felt the need to have the government strong enough to defend us from foreigners. The Congress looked at the nineteen proposals ultimately adopted twelve of them as amendments. On October second, seventeen eighty nine, President George Washington sent copies of these twelve amendments to states, and by December fifteenth, seventeen ninety one, three fourths the states who ratified ten of them, and they became what we call the Bill of Rights. While in the House Representatives, Madison worked with President Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Seventeen ninety one and seventeen ninety two, Madison disagreed with Secuary Treasury Hamilton's proposal to establish a national bank. He further broke with the Federalist Party over the support of Great Britain during its war with France. Remember we'd just been fighting with Britain a decade earlier for our freedom, and here we were now siding with Britain against the French Revolution. Madison, with Jefferson and some anti Federalists, founded the Democratic Republican Party. Madison spoke often on the idea of political parties. In a speech to the Constitutional Convention on the Right of Suffrage in August seventeen eighty seventy, said quote, no free country has ever been without parties, which are a natural offspring of freedom. A generation later, In a June twenty fifth, eighteen twenty four letter to Henry Lee, he wrote, quote, the Constitution itself, whether written or prescriptive, influenced as his exposition and administration will be by those causes, must be an unfailing source of party distinctions, and the very peculiarity which gives pre eminent value to that of the United States. The partition of power between different governments, as well as between different departments of government opens a new door for controversies and parties. So Madison understands the reality that in a free society people will organize themselves into parties, and his study of political systems over the ages had convinced him that it was almost a natural evolution, something which Washington wished would not have happened, but in fact Madison knew it would inevitably happen. In seventeen ninety nine, Madison returned to the Virginia House of Delegates, where he campaigned for Thomas Jefferson to be the third President of the United States, and when Jefferson won, Madison became Secretary of State and stayed there until his own election to the presidency in eighteen oh eight. As Secretary of state. Madison helped to persuade Congress to ratify and fund the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the country. Look at a map sometime and realized that when the French decided they couldn't defend their control of what had been Spanish territory starting with New Orleans, and that they would sell the United States the Mississippi and all of its tributaries, which includes the Missouri. They were literally for fifteen million dollars, giving up half of a continent, and it's an enormous moment, and Madison as only the people who convinced Congress to pay for it. And a July twenty ninth, eighteen oh three letter to Robert Livingston, Madison wrote, it will be of great importance to take the regulation and settlement of that territory out of other hands into those the United States will be able to manage, both for the general interest and conveniency. Despite their efforts, Jefferson and Madison could not convince the Spanish to sell West Florida. Had they not bought the Louisiana purchase, and had either the French or the Spanish or some other country maintained it the United States would have been truncated, stopping at the Mississippi River. That's how big a decision was. As it is, they went all the way to the Pacific, in line with what Washington had done. Thomas Jefferson refused to run for a third term, endorsing Madison instead. The Federalist Party candidate Charles Coatsworth Pinckney unsuccessfully ran for president in the election of eighteen oh four, losing to Jefferson. Almost immediately, anti Madison newspapers published across the country with cartoons ridiculing Madison's small stature and Jefferson's embargo of all trade with England and France. The Federalist Party charged that Madison supported the embargo to build up domestic manufacturing at the expense of foreign trade. One critic asked, why is the embargo like sickness, because it weakens us. It was not just a Federalist Party that was against Madison. A small group of Democratic Republicans were also against Madison as a candidate, fearing that Madison's quiet nature meant he was a Hamiltonian Federalist in disguise. Jefferson stood up for his friend and convinced some members of the Democratic Republican Party to vote for Madison. George Clinton, Jefferson's vice president, was among these, and he, after accepting the vice presidential nomination with Madison, announced his own candidacy for president. But Madison won by a landslide of one hundred and twenty two electoral votes against Pinckney's forty seven. Clinton managed to squeeze six electoral votes from his home state. Madison carried twelve states to Pinckney's five, which means, of course, four of the first five presidents were in fact from the state of Virginia. After Madison was elected, but before Jefferson left office, Congress passed the Non Intercourse Act of eighteen oh nine, replacing Jeffersons in bars Ago. This allowed world trade except for Britain and France to resume. The bill also said that if England and France removed their trade restrictions, the president could resume trade. However, when neither country responded to the request to remove restrictions, Congress passed Mason's Bill number two, a bill that removed their trade restrictions for three months, stating that just one of them removed their restrictions in American trade by March three, eighteen eleven, and the other one failed to do so within three months, the president would reinstate the restrictions on the other country. France decided to remove their restrictions through the Cadore Letter of August eighteen ten, leading Madison to implement Macon's Bill number two and two stages, first in November of eighteen ten and then in March eighteen eleven. The British insisted that American ships would continue to be seized until France lifted their restriction on British trade, thus treating US exports as part of their war strategy. Congress responded by voting for military preparations and in April eighteen twelve a ninety day embargo. Madison came before Congress with his list of complaints against the British, including the arming of Indians and trade restrictions. The House voted for war on June fourth, eighteen twelve. However, the Senate debated for more than two weeks and would not vote for war until June seventeenth. For Madison, this issue of war provided the opportunity to seize Canada and drive the Spanish from West Florida, which they unsuccessfully tried to obtain. During the Jefferson administration, Madison and the pro War members wanted a land invasion of Canada. Their plan was to separate Upper Canada around modern day Ontario from the northwest part, cutting off the pro British Indian tribes from British colonies which supported them. This plan ended in a disaster, and by the fall of eighteen twelve, one American force surrendered it Detroit, another was defeated near Niagara Falls, and a third never made it across the Niagara River. In just a few months, much of the Northwest Territory fell to British forces. In the spring of eighteen thirteen, things were looking up when commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeated a British fleet on the southwestern tip of Lake Erie, followed by a sacking of the Canadian capital of York, which is the present day Toronto. This allowed for Madison to send a force commanded by future President William Henry Harrison, against the Native American leader to Cumsa at the Battle of the Thames in western Ontario. They beat the Indians badly, and of course that set the stage for Harrison to become a hero and eventually president. However, things went back against the United States in late spring eighteen fourteen as the British, who had now defeated Napoleon, shifted their resources against the Americans and went on the offensive. British troops raided American ports from Georgia to Maine, and they occupy I had half of Maine. British troops then targeted the nation's capitol in Washington, DC. The American government fell, with British troops torching the White House and many other federal buildings in retaliation for burning the Canadian Parliament buildings the year earlier. In fact, in my entire congressional career, I kept going up and down a very curvy stone stairway, which is called the British stairway, because that's what they ran up with the torches in order to burn down the Capitol. The British were stalled in Baltimore. They were unable to get past Fort McHenry, And actually it was a great ironic moment. They had taken Francis Scott Key on board the British ship and were holding him because they thought he knew some secrets and they didn't want him to reveal them in terms of whether the British were going to land. So he's watching the night long battle in which the British tried to bombard Fort McHenry and force it to surrender. Francis Scott Key writes a poem, the Stars Bangled Banner. It's attached to a British drinking song and becomes the national anthem. But it's based on real history, which is this night where he really could see the star Spangled banner still waving despite all the effort of the British bombardment. However, the British then turned their sights to New Orleans and wanted to use that city in the coming peace negotiations. They thought if they could seize New Orleans, they would give them a bargaining chip. About six thousand British soldiers moved against the city. These were professional soldiers who had done very well in the Peninsula campaign, had stood up against the French army. By any reasonable projection, they were going to win. New Orleans was protected by four thousand American soldiers commanded by Andrew Jackson, and with New Orleans citizens rallying to the cause. Now, this was one of those cases where the British didn't understand that Americans had lived a lifetime with rifles. Because the Americans almost universally had been involved in hunting, and because they had rifles which fired much longer than muskets, and because they were basically protecting themselves behind cotton bales, the British were just going to get slaughtered, and they didn't get it. As something they would never have done against Napoleon. They charged across the field because they had contempt for the Americans. Of the six thousand British soldiers, about two thousand died within a few minutes. The remaining British soldiers were demoralized, threw down their weapons and surrendered immediately. For two thousand British dead, about seventy Americans died. However, the peace treaty had already been made about two weeks earlier, but because of communications, nobody knew it, so what happened was in an unnecessary battle. The British were both defeated and lost a number of very fine soldiers. The Americans won a great victory, and frankly, from the standpoint of American history, it is winning in New Orleans that launches Andrew Jackson into a career which becomes one of the most powerful in the first half of the night eighteenth century at changing America and creating a more populous nation. While the war ultimately failed, the few victories did return Madison to a high point of popularity around the country. Throughout the war, many New England merchants ignored trade embargoes, traded freely with both France and Britain during the War of eighteen twelve, and some Federalists talked about seceding from the Union. As far as they were concerned, their future was in the Atlantic Ocean, dealing with the British, not dealing with Washington, d c. And Virginians. However, the Federalists ultimately understood that the country was going to survive, and many Americans came to the conclusion that the Federalists were sort of traders or unpatriotic. There was already a party that had been weakened by Jefferson and Madison, and it collapsed after this effort to talk about secession. During Madison's presidency of the War of eighteen twelve, international affairs took up a lot of his time, but the one domestic issue of the country dealt with was the reach chartering of the Bank of the United States, whose charter was set to expire in eighteen twelve. Remember, the charter of the original bank had been Alexander Hamilton's great effort to create a national financial system that would enable the economy to grow. Now, the rechartering of the bank had three different camps in Congress, Democratic Republicans who thought the bank was unconstitutional, state backing interests that were tired of having a federal bank, an anti British federalist who objected to stock in the bank held by Britains. So the War of eighteen twelve started without a national bank that could support war loans. In eighteen sixteen, with Madison's support, which was a switch from his opposition against Hamilton the generation earlier, the second bank was chartered with a twenty year term. Critics of Madison claimed that his support of a national bank revealed he was really a federalist. And it's interesting that Madison, I think partly because of his style, being quiet, being studious, being intellectual, he didn't feel like the kind of populist the Jefferson and the Jeffersonians were the most comfortable, but in fact he was probably their best thinker as a Jeffersonian. Madison's nomination for a second term came fifteen days before the announcement of the War of eighteen twelve. Madison won the endorsement of Congress, but about one third of the Democratic Republican legislators boycotted the nominating caucus altogether. For second place, the caucus chose John Langdon of New Hampshire. However, Langdon declined, and they then chose Eldridge Gary, a signer of the Declaration Independence. Remember it is Elbridge Gary who ultimately draws a map in eighteen twelve in Massachusetts, which had a congressional district that looked really weird, and somebody said, that looks like a salamander, and somebody said, no, no, that's a jerrymander. And that's where the term jerrymander comes from. A group of New York Democratic Republicans who participated in the boycott supported DeWitt Clinton, the nephew of former Vice President George Clinton, who had died during Madison's term. They were hoping to form a coalition opposed to Madison for not moving decisively towards war, and American citizens who wanted almost anyone in office but Madison. These Democratic Republicans met with the Federalist Party to discuss a unification strategy, and Clinton was nominated for president for the Federalist Party, with Jared Ingisol for Vice President. Clinton, who onlike Madison, was only a New York mayor and had no national claim, chose to tailor their election against Madison, saying quote one thing to war Democratic Republicans, another to peace Democratic Republicans, and something else again to anti war Federalists. Their message actually turned Federalist John Quincy Adams against his party and he decided to endorse Madison. Madison easily won, carrying one hundred and twenty eight electoral votes to Clinton's eighty nine. Madison chose not to run for a third time, which reinforced George Washington's pri and in fact, up until Franklin del and Roosevelt, nobody would run beyond two terms. Madison goes back home to his plantation Montelier to live out the rest of his life. While he was retired, he was a real strong supporter of Jefferson's University of Virginia, serving on its board, succeeding Jefferson as head of the University in eighteen twenty six. Three years later, Madison served again as a delegate at the Virginia Constitutional Convention, negotiating compromises between the large slave holding plantations and Western farmers. While delegate, he denounced the right of states to declare federal laws on constitutional when they went against state interest. He was also a founding member of the American Colonization Society, which favored the gradual abolition of slavery and resetting slaves in free blacks back to Africa. On June twenty eight, eighteen thirty six, after being bed bound for chronic rheumatism and livered dysfunction for six months, Madison died. His family hoped he would make it to the fourth of July because he wanted him to die on that day, like President Jefferson, President Adams, and President Monroe, all of whom had managed to die on our national holiday. I think it's important to recognize that Madison shapes so much of our politics. He shapes the Constitution, he shapes the Bill of Rights, He really shapes the way the House functions as an institution. He is a perennial figure who, over a period of almost forty years is decisively involved in creating the America that we now live in, and I think that Madison in that sense clearly is an immortal. Thank you for listening to Founding Father's Week on Newtsworld. You can learn more about James Madison on our show page at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by Gingui three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks the team at Gingrich three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newtsworld consign up for my three free weekly columns at ginrichthree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm knew Gingrich, this is Newtsworld

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