The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President

by Noah Feldman

The problem was that “no society ever did or can consist of so homogeneous a mass of citizens.”

The compromise that had created a Senate featuring equal representation was unfortunate and objectionable, but it did not destroy the whole plan.

Federalist No. 10, published on November 23, 1787, was Madison’s first contribution.

He made the most of it, producing what eventually became the single most influential account of the constitution and its basic structure.

The enemy of republican constitutional design was faction, defined as a group organized around “some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

He even imagined the public following leaders “whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions”—what today would be called celebrities.

This recognition of nonrational motivations was new for Madison, who in the past had written as though other people shared his dispassionate character.

The real “object” of government was “to secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government.”

Madison the theorist had conceived the enlargement of the republic as a solution to the problem of majority oppression. Madison the framer had, at the convention, gotten the theory adopted. Now Madison the political actor was advocating for ratification using the same theory.

It is a mark of Madison’s dedication that he was not satisfied with what he had already done, and sought to supplement a base of constitutional knowledge already more extensive than that of any other person in America.

The natural limit to the size of a republic was that “which will barely allow the representatives of the people to meet as often as may be necessary for the administration of public affairs.”

Happily for America, happily we trust for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course.

They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society: They created the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe.

What made the Revolution great, infusing it with world-historical significance, was not independence but the invention of functioning republics.

noted approvingly that a directly elected House of Representatives with the power to tax would preserve the principle of no taxation without representation.

Jefferson was among the first thinkers to consider the accidental compromise as desirable in itself, not as an unfortunate consequence that could be depicted as positive for rhetorical reasons.

He also liked the presidential veto, “though I should have liked it better had the judiciary been associated for that purpose, or invested with a similar and separate power.”

Jefferson firmly believed “that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse or rest on inference.”

Madison would take over again with Nos. 37 through 58 and 62 and 63, in which he defended the structure of the proposed constitution that had been produced in Philadelphia.

Madison wrote to Randolph, “but I have for some time considered him as driving at a southern confederacy and as not farther concurring in the plan of amendments than as he hopes to render it subservient to his real designs.”

the convention comes to embody Madison’s ideal of political friendship, in which reasonable disagreement was managed by rational deliberation and compromise.

His enemy is Patrick Henry, who Madison believes is committed to the destruction of the republic.

IN JANUARY 1788, nervous about the prospects of ratification in Virginia, Madison turned to the writing of twenty-two more Federalist essays, Nos. 37 through 58. They appeared between January 11 and February 20, marking an extraordinary burst of creativity on Madison’s part, and the most sustained and systematic writing project he had ever undertaken.

He, Madison, was the “ingenious theorist” of the idealized constitution. Its limitations derived from the unpleasant but inevitable necessity of compromise.

Only the people had the inherent power to create and destroy a government.

In particular, his account of the power to tax is important because it is the very first instance in which Madison engaged in constitutional interpretation, offering his own method for reading a document that had not yet even been ratified.

Madison was approaching his most important contribution to the Federalist papers and the insight that would become the linchpin of all subsequent thinking about the genius of the U.S. Constitution: the idea that power would check and balance power.

For Madison, a constitution could not limit government power by simple declaration. Instead, the structure of the constitution must be designed so that participants in the government would enforce those limits.

Madison acknowledged that venerating the ancient was not, strictly speaking, rational. “In a nation of philosophers,” he wrote, “this consideration ought to be disregarded.” If all the world were Jeffersons, there would be no reason to rely on the age of the constitution to judge its quality.

But not everyone was a Jefferson, and “a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato.”

“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” Madison wrote in what would become the single most famous sentence of the Federalist essays.

Madison sensed that some readers might find this power-driven, Hamilton-esque view of human nature too pessimistic. “It may be a reflection on human nature,” he wrote, “that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government.”

Madison embraced the charge: “But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” The human will to power was the very reason that government was necessary. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary”—because men would not try to oppress one another. “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary”—because the government would operate altruistically. In the real world, however, the challenge was to create “a government which is to be administered by men over men.”

The whole point of government was not to facilitate the will of the majority but to protect individual rights.

From the familiar premise that government aimed to provide justice, Madison had moved seamlessly to the rather extreme claim that if a majority could oppress the minority, a republic was no better than anarchy.

“Republican government presupposes the existence” of virtue “in a higher degree than any other form.” Without some assumption of goodness, republicanism would not be possible.

If the critics were right, “the inference would be that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self-government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.”

“Mr. Henry is now almost avowedly an enemy to the union, and therefore will oppose every plan that would cement it,” Nicholas wrote.

Madison understood that his strength in the convention lay in his capacity to offer detailed responses to any criticism. He was, after all, the single best informed person in the United States on the subject. On June

“But, sir, suspicion is a virtue as long as its object is the preservation of the public good.”

We ought not to address our arguments to the feelings and passions, but to those understandings and judgments which were selected by the people of this country, to decide this great question by a calm and rational investigation.

The proposed constitution would not destroy republicanism, but save it from the tyranny of the majority.

Francis Corbin, a supporter of the proposed constitution, defined the government under the document rather ably as “a representative federal republic.”

The United States, he said, was committed to “the principle that free ships shall make free goods, and that vessels and goods shall be both free from condemnation.”

Thus, at the Virginia ratifying convention in 1788, Madison first addressed the question of how exactly to combat British violations of neutrality. The question would become by far the most important one in Madison’s years as secretary of state and president—and would lead Madison into the War of 1812.

that the general legislature will do everything mischievous they possibly can, and that they will omit to do every thing good which they are authorized to do,” Madison commented. This was a fair description of the concerns of the opponents to the proposed constitution, who consistently assumed the worst about human nature.

The entire edifice of constitution building rested on a republican article of faith: in the people. Ultimately, the people would have to choose the government—and would have to vote it out of power if it oppressed them:

“To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men; so that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our ...

The point reflected the modesty that accompanied Madison’s brilliance. He was justifiably proud of his original constitutional design. But Madison knew the design mattered little if the people lacked the capacity to make it