The Legacy of James Madison

He was not what today we would call a charismatic leader; for strength of per­sonality, it is his wife, Dolley, who comes to mind. He was only five feet, six inches tall and in his early years was often in poor health. He lacked the majestic presence and martial prowess of George Washington. His prose, while copious and competent, had none of the bite of Thomas Paine’s pamphlets or the ele­gance of Thomas Jefferson’s letters. In an age when public speaking was a prized political asset, his voice was weak and faltering. He was, in sum, an unlikely candidate for the historic role he played.

Yet, it was James Madison, more than any other Founding Father, who shaped our constitutional system of govern­ment—in effect, institutionalizing the American Revolution.

Madison was well aware of his short­comings. He believed himself to be physically and temperamentally unsuit­ed for both the law and the  ministry. But he possessed an alert and agile mind. He was a voracious reader. And, despite early infirmities, he was produc­tive and energetic. As Madison matured, he drew about him a circle of powerful friends who recognized in him a quiet but keen sense of humor, a potential for iconoclasm, and an un­ shakable integrity.

James Madison was born to gentry at Port Conway, Virginia, on the Rappa­hannock River, on March 16, 1751. Shortly after his birth, the Madison fam­ily moved west from the Tidewater dis­trict to the Virginia Piedmont, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. This trip to the family plantation, Montpe­lier, was only fifty miles or so, but in Madison’s day, life and politics in Vir­ginia were heavily colored by differ­ences in outlook between the “eastern establishment” and the Common­wealth’s more boisterous western coun­ties.

Like Thomas Jefferson, who lived not far away and who would be a friend for fifty years, Madison grew up with that strange blend of rustic life and cultivat­ed discourse that marked life among the well-to-do in the Piedmont. And, like Jefferson, the young Madison enjoyed the leisure purchased by slavery—a lei­sure employed in the education of a Virginia gentleman.

In 1769, after years of private tutors and a stint at Donald Robertson’s cele­brated Latin school, Madison took a distinctly unusual step for a Virginian. Influenced by one of his tutors, he en­rolled in the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) instead of the Col­lege of William and Mary in Williams­burg.

The decision to attend Princeton was a momentous one. Among other things, it brought Madison into contact with the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment. The young scholar came to appreciate the notion that the study of history could yield generalizations about hu­ man nature, thereby furnishing guide­ lines for the governance of human af­fairs.

Madison left Princeton in 1772 with a firm faith in empiricism and common sense. Years later, when the Constitu­tion was up for ratification, Madison would ask Americans to judge the docu­ment on the basis not of “custom” or a “blind veneration of antiquity” but rath­er of “their own good sense, the knowl­edge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience.” Expe­rience, he held, was “the last best oracle of wisdom.”

Madison returned to Montpelier to ponder his future. He was soon overtak­en by a sudden, debilitating nervous disorder. The illness was complicated by persistent intimations of mortality, prompted in part by  the sudden death of a college friend. “I am too dull and infirm now,” he confided in one letter, “to look out for any extraordinary things in this world for I think my sensations for many months past have intimated to me not to expect a long or healthy life.” But despondency soon gave way to a passionate interest in public affairs.

No one who attended the great gath­ering at Philadelphia in 1787 was better prepared for the job of constitution­ crafting than was Madison. In letters to Jefferson, to Randolph, and to Wash­ington, Madison set out his thinking about the nation’s constitutional needs. The larger states, he felt, must have fairer representation, and the national government needed enhanced authority—including authority to override state laws in conflict with national legislation.

Madison summed up his position in a letter to Washington: “Conceiving that an individual independence of the States is utterly irreconcilable with their aggregate sovereignty; and that consoli­dation of the whole into one simple republic would be as inexpedient as it is unattainable, I have sought for some middle ground, which may at once sup­port a due supremacy of the national authority, and not exclude the local authorities whenever they can be subordi­nately useful.”

Called ostensibly to draft amend­ments to the Articles of Confederation, the Philadelphia convention almost at once moved on to more ambitious busi­ness—the writing of a totally new consti­tution.

The advocates of wholesale reform boasted a major advantage: They had in hand a comprehensive constitutional blueprint, the so-called Virginia Plan, shaped largely by Madison. It was adopted as the working model. The Virginia Plan proposed a National Exec­utive, a National Judiciary, and a Na­tional Legislature consisting of two houses apportioned according to population and empowered to legislate “in all cases to which the separate States are incompetent.”

The thirty-six-year-old Madison was the dominating spirit of the convention. His winning ways, persuasive powers, and command of constitutional princi­ples deeply impressed the other dele­gates. Georgia’s William Pierce wrote, “Every person seems to acknowledge his greatness. He blends together the pro­found politician, with the scholar.”

Many of Madison’s specific ideas failed to be adopted. But in its essentials, the Constitution eventually agreed upon was the one proposed by Madison. The three branches of  government, the separation of powers, the powerful central government-all of these elements survived. As if this were not con­tribution enough, Madison also served as the convention’s chief, though unofficial, rapporteur. Using a self-invented shorthand to speed his note-taking, Madison carefully transcribed the pro­ceedings. His almost verbatim account of the convention was not published until 1840, four years after his death, because Madison scrupulously observed the vow of secrecy imposed on conven­tion delegates.

As the country turned to the business of ratification, Madison was out in front once more. Together with Hamilton and John  Jay, he penned a brilliant series of essays for New York newspa­pers in support of the new Constitution. Of the eighty-five essays, collected and published as The Federalist, Madison wrote twenty-nine.

The Federalist has few competitors as America’s most important single contri­bution to political theory. In Federalist No. 10, Madison defines one key task of government, in terms that appear eerily prescient, as being to reconcile rivalries between competing economic groups.

Madison was under no illusions about human nature, “But what is govern­ment itself,” he asks in Federalist No. 51, “but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

Above all, Madison was a pragmatist. He treats government not as an abstrac­tion but as an engineering problem. In Federalist No. 48, contemplating rela­tions among the three branches of the central government, Madison dwells on the importance of the checks and balances.

The experience under the Articles had taught him to be suspicious of mere “parchment barriers.” Since a total sepa­ration of powers in the federal branch las obviously unworkable, the only way to avoid an undue concentration of power in any one branch was to have the several branches “so far connected and blended, as to give each a constitutional control over the others.”

In 1788, after rancorous debate, the Constitution of the United States of America was finally ratified. Madison led its Federalist proponents in Virgin­ia, ultimately defeating the forces of Antifederalists Patrick Henry and George Mason by a vote of 89 to 79 in that state’s ratifying convention. Virgin­ia’s decision was of great significance. Given the state’s pivotal position in the nation, in terms of wealth, population, and intellectual influence, a rejection of the charter by Virginia might well have prompted other states to follow suit.

The Constitution was ratified, but with implicit strings attached by the Antifederalists. Chief among them was the addition of a Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments. Madison was uneasy about spelling out Americans’ funda­mental liberties. He was concerned, for one, that the list might prove incom­plete. He feared that enumerating rights might imply the existence of a parallel set of powers never meant to be delegated to the central government.

Nevertheless, as he explained to Jefferson, a Bill of Rights could serve two powerful objectives. First, “the political truths declared in a solemn manner” would “acquire by degrees the character of fundamental maxims of free Government.” Second, occasions might arise when the existence of a Bill of Rights could prove to be “a good ground for an appeal to the sense of community.”

When the First Congress convened in New York in 1789, Madison, now a congressman from Virginia, led the bat­tle for the Bill of Rights. In June, he brought the issue to the floor. He then winnowed down the list of amendments, ignoring those that would have en­hanced state power at the expense of the federal government. Facing consid­erable opposition, Madison brilliantly engineered passage of the Bill.

One is tempted to ask: If Madison were here today, what would he think of the way our constitutional system has evolved? Let us consider several Madi­sonian themes—federalism, self-expres­sion, and religious liberty.

As far as federalism is concerned, Madison would probably be apprehen­sive. Madison’s career reflected a con­cern for both central authority and states’ rights. The Supreme Court was conceived by him to be the arbiter—a “balance wheel” of the constitutional system. In fact, over the years, the Court has shown a persistent bias. It has been far more willing to protect federal inter­ests against state encroachments, than vice versa.

Meanwhile, in recent decades particu­larly, the Congress has shown little re­straint in enlarging its legislative do­main, often ignoring the precepts of federalism. Even that great nationalist, John Marshall, believed that it was the duty of the nation’s highest tribunal to oversee Congress in this regard. The Supreme Court no longer does.

In the area of personal autonomy, the United States has traveled far beyond anything Madison could have imagined. Madison championed the freedom of conscience and expression. He de­clared, in 1784, that the “opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds, can­ not follow the dictates of other men.”

But Madison was concerned chiefly with political freedom—the freedom of speech, press, and assembly. He and his contemporaries would hardly have ar­gued that the First Amendment could be used to limit the reach of obscenity laws, or that the right to privacy guaran­teed access to contraceptives. Today’s individual liberty cases owe more to John Stuart Mill than to Madison.

The First Amendment protects more than the right to free speech. It also ensures the free exercise of religion and prohibits the “establishment” of any state religion. Madison, of course, felt strongly about this. Religious persecu­tion had first drawn him into politics. On more than one occasion, he fought in constitutional conventions or legisla­tive bodies to guarantee religious free­dom. In First Amendment cases, the Supreme Court has looked repeatedly to Madison for guidance on issues of religion. He would be satisfied to learn that, over the years, the Court has found ways to strengthen the “wall of separation” between church and state.

As we try to sort out our own prob­lems, as we apply our heads and hands to the fundamental law of the land, we would do well to recall the sensible mix of theory and practice, of hope and caution, of patience and good will, that Madison brought to his endeavours on behalf of the new republic. As a public man, he was remarkably selfless; receiving “credit” for his accomplishments mattered little to him. He backed compromise with his forceful pen, even when its terms were  not wholly conge­nial, believing that once agreement was achieved, it was a civic duty to defend the “middle way.” He embodied an un­ usual combination of qualities—qualities that seem more precious today because they are so rarely seen in public men.