—William Pierce, delegate to the Constitutional Convention from Georgia, 17871

Life

James Madison was born on March 16, 1751, at Port Conway, King George County, Virginia. He was the son of James Madison Sr. and Nelly Conway Madison. On September 15, 1794, at the age of 43, he married Dolley Payne Todd; they had no children. Madison died on June 28, 1836, at his Virginia home, Montpelier, where he is buried. He was the last surviving delegate of the 1787 Federal Convention.

Education

Madison studied under private tutors and then attended the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), graduating in 1771.

Religion

Episcopalian

Political Affiliation

Republican (with Jefferson, co-founded the Republican Party in 1792)

Highlights and Accomplishments

James Madison is generally regarded as the Father of the United States Constitution. No other delegate was better prepared for the Federal Convention of 1787, and no one thought more comprehensively or deeply about how to achieve the ends of republicanism in the new Constitution. In 1787 and 1788, with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, Madison published newspaper essays in support of the proposed Constitution under the pseudonym “Publius.” Later bound together in The Federalist, these essays were a brilliant and penetrating commentary on the principles and processes of republican constitutionalism.

In 1789, as a member and leading voice in the House of Representatives in the new Republic, Madison introduced a series of constitutional amendments that would form the basis of the Bill of Rights. Over the next few years, he and Thomas Jefferson organized opposition to Alexander Hamilton’s administrative policies, ultimately founding the first political party in America.

Winston Churchill once said that a man must choose either a life of words or a life of action. Like Churchill himself, Madison did not make that choice but instead demonstrated that rare individuals can be both scholars and statesmen. His scholarly quest to find a “republican remedy” for the diseases that have plagued popular government from time immemorial was not a mere academic enterprise; he also sought the practical means to make popular government a just government so that it might be recommended “to the esteem and adoption of mankind.” Madison believed that he had discovered the way to rescue popular government from its past failures but that its ultimate success depended on the great experiment in self-government entrusted to the hands of the American people—both the Founding generation and future generations. The destiny of republican government was and would forever remain staked on the vigilance of the American people in tending “the sacred fire of liberty.”

The Life of James Madison

James Madison Jr. was born in 1751 in Port Conway, Virginia. At the age of 18, he entered the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, where he studied history, classics, moral philosophy, politics, and law. James—or “Jemmy,” as some of his friends called him—was five foot six, of slight build, with a quiet voice, serious demeanor, and scholarly habits. He was unfortunately plagued by ill health in his youth and intermittently throughout his life. On more than one occasion, he worked his frail constitution to exhaustion despite the protests of friends.

During the Revolutionary War years, Madison served in the General Assembly of Virginia, the Continental Congress, and the Congress under the Articles of Confederation. In the mid-1780s, he served in the Virginia House of Delegates, and in 1786, he attended the Annapolis Convention, the precursor to the Federal Convention. Soon thereafter, he began to prepare for the Federal Convention, slated for the following summer in Philadelphia. Immersing himself in the study of ancient and modern polities, he sought to rethink the problems and prospects of federalism and republicanism in the modern era and to discover a new and more noble course for government by the people.

Madison arrived early in Philadelphia and used the time before the Convention commenced to meet with fellow delegates from Virginia and Pennsylvania to formulate the opening agenda. Though introduced by Madison’s friend and then governor of Virginia, Edmund Randolph, the “Virginia Plan” was largely the brainchild of James Madison. Calling for a stronger central government and a bicameral legislature, the Virginia Plan became the basis for subsequent discussions and debate at the Convention and laid the groundwork for framing the Constitution of 1787. Throughout the long, hot summer in Philadelphia, Madison took extensive notes on the proceedings, and it is primarily his record that has provided us with a knowledge of the speeches and debates of that propitious gathering. During the New York ratification debates, he collaborated with Hamilton and Jay on a series of essays in support of the proposed Constitution. Their combined efforts produced The Federalist (often referred to as The Federalist Papers), which is generally considered the most definitive exposition of the tenets of American republicanism.

In the late 1780s and 1790s, Madison served four terms in the House of Representatives and then as Secretary of State under President Thomas Jefferson. Madison succeeded Jefferson in the office of chief executive, serving two terms as the fourth President of the United States. During the War of 1812, sometimes called “Mr. Madison’s War,” he and his wife Dolley were forced to flee the White House in Washington, D.C., as the British destroyed it and its contents in a devastating fire.

Following his presidency, Madison retired to his family estate at Montpelier, only a partial day’s ride from his closest friend’s residence at Monticello. The road between the homes of Madison and Jefferson is today fittingly named “Constitution Way,” linking the two friends and their greatest achievements in an uninterrupted ribbon leading from the ideas of the Declaration of Independence to the principles of the American Constitution. Jefferson and Madison worked together on founding the University of Virginia, where they hoped the “true doctrines of liberty” might be inculcated in future statesmen.

During his twilight years, as “the last of the Founders” on the American scene, Madison became increasingly disturbed by the secessionist theories of Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. Though Calhoun attempted to defend his states’ rights theory by appealing to the writings of Jefferson and Madison, Madison rebuffed Calhoun’s move. Madison clarified his position that the union of the states was justly founded on the consent of the people of the several states and, as such, can be altered only through the prescribed constitutional processes. There is no constitutional basis, he argued, for the right of state secession in the compact of a free people. Madison’s last public writing—his heartfelt “advice to my country”—was that the American Union be cherished and perpetuated.

Having served his country for more than 40 years and taken part in the founding “epochs of its destiny,” Madison had dedicated himself “to the cause of liberty” throughout. He died “as quietly as the snuff of a candle goes out” on the morning of June 28, 1836, at the age of 85.

The Extended Republic and Representation

Madison believed along with his contemporaries that the great danger to popular government is faction. A faction, he explained in Federalist 10, is a number of citizens “united and actuated by 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.” In a free society based on majority rule, factions consisting of a minority of the citizens are not constitutionally dangerous. However, if a majority composes a faction, might makes right; in other words, power rather than justice becomes the basis of public decisions. Finding a solution to this problem is challenging because the latent causes of faction and injustice are “sown in the nature of man.”2

Factions stem from self-interest and prejudice, which in turn tend to influence people’s opinions and views. Since the causes of faction cannot be removed without coercing people’s minds and destroying liberty, Madison advocated a system of government that could control the effects of faction and deter the formation of an unjust majority. His proposed remedy included establishing a popular government over a large territory and instituting the principle of representation. The size of the territory matters, he argued, because in a small republic it is easy for a majority to communicate and unite on the basis of selfish interest or prejudice, thereby oppressing the minority. In an extensive republic, there will be more people, a greater diversity of interests and views, and a greater distance over which views must travel to be communicated. This will make it more difficult for a majority to form based on a narrow interest or harmful passion. In a large society, a coalition of the majority will be necessary to make law, and its demands will have to pass muster with a great variety of economic, geographical, religious, and other groups. In effect, Madison took advantage of the diversity of the modern commercial republic to create an equilibrium in the passions and interests of the society, allowing the “reason of the public” to sit in judgment.

Madison both highlighted the benefits of a modern commercial society composed of diverse interests and religions and called for a “common cause” regardless of “circumstantial and artificial distinctions.”3 The purpose of the principle of representation, Madison argued, is to “refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice, will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.”4 Like the effects of the extended republic, representation is another crucial factor intended to prevent narrow interests and unjust views from determining public decisions. The representative’s job is not to follow daily polls or raise a finger to the wind to decide how to vote; sudden breezes in popular opinion, Madison taught, are too often the result of prejudice and partial interests. Rather, the task of the representative is to promote a consensus grounded in justice and the common good.

The achievement of this consensus requires deliberation within the legislature as well as a two-way process of communication between the representatives and their constituents. When the people are “stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage,” the good representative will place duty above personal ambition. Instead of flattering the people’s prejudices in order to curry their immediate favor, he will check their misguided demands, so that “reason, justice, and truth, can regain their authority over the public mind.”5 The goal, Madison argued, is to achieve public decisions based on the “cool and deliberate sense of the community.” Accordingly, the duty of the representative is both to listen to the concerns of his constituents and to promote among them an enlarged view of the public interest. Within this milieu of public communication and deliberation, civic education takes place. It helps to form and settle public opinion on the basis of right, and it justifies “the respect due from the government to the sentiments of the people.”6

The Madisonian process of refinement and enlargement of the public views can be seen throughout the broad workings of the legislative process today, from public hearings on political matters in home districts to the deliberative proceedings on the House or Senate floor; from the contest and compromise of interests in legislative committees to the representatives’ open newsletters to their constituents; from the necessity to defend their public stances and votes during reelection campaigns to the honor felt by those representatives whose “faithful discharge of their trust shall have established their title to a renewal of it.”7

Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances

Madison hoped the representatives of America would be wise and virtuous, but he was not naive about the temptations of power and the charms of ambition that accompany political office. He well knew that “enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”8 Some representatives will be weak of mind or lacking in backbone. Some may possess the ambition and political skills of a demagogue and be able to work their wiles on weaker and less clever colleagues. Even the most philosophic and patriotic representatives, Madison warned, should not be given a blind trust, for the political scenes in which they must operate often distract their reasoning “and expose it to the influence of the passions.”

In essence, Madison advised his fellow citizens to be wary of the heat generated by politics and the allure of political power. “The accumulation of all powers [of government]…in the same hands…[is] the very definition of tyranny,” Madison wrote in Federalist 47.9 To guard against the danger of governmental tyranny, Madison endorsed a system of prudential devices, including separation of powers, checks and balances, bicameralism, and federalism, which are intended to divide and channel the self-interest and ambitions of officeholders and enable government to control itself.

Accordingly, the Constitution separates the federal government into three distinct branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. However, Madison argued, it is not sufficient to establish separation of powers on parchment only. Because men are not angels—because they are all too often actuated by private interest and ambition—these very motives themselves must be employed to keep the departments of government within their limited, constitutional boundaries. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place,” Madison wrote in Federalist 51. He therefore proposed a system of checks and balances that would incorporate the less-than-sterling side of human nature into the very workings of government. To accomplish this, the powers of the three branches of government are partially blended, enabling each branch to guard against usurpations of power by the others and safeguard its own constitutional province. Examples of constitutional checks and balances include the executive veto of legislative bills, the possible legislative override of executive vetoes, the need for Senate confirmation of presidential appointments to the federal judiciary, and judicial review. In essence, Madison wanted the different levels and branches of government (e.g., national–state and executive–judicial–legislative, respectively, including also the division of the legislature into two houses) to have separate constitutional functions and to check each other, thereby diffusing power and protecting the people’s rights and liberties.

Madison termed these safeguards against governmental tyranny “auxiliary precautions.” The primary control on the government, he emphasized, remains always with the people. In the final analysis, governmental decisions depend on the will of the society. If liberty is to be preserved, the will of the society—that is, the people—must be grounded in the principles of justice and informed by the precepts of moral responsibility. Madison’s overall constitutional design was meant to achieve this via the process of deliberative republicanism, culminating in what he called the “reason of the public.”10 In arguing for constitutional and institutional safeguards for liberty, he never lost sight of the fact that the primary control on government depends on the vigilance of the people.

The Bill of Rights

The Constitutional Convention unanimously defeated a motion to draw up a bill of rights for the new Constitution. Why did the Framers reject this added protection?

First, the Constitution already contained numerous guarantees, such as trial by jury and habeas corpus, and prohibitions, such as those against religious tests and the impairment of contracts. Second, a national bill of rights was thought to be unnecessary because a bill of rights was already included in most state constitutions. Third, and most important, the Framers created a government of specific, limited powers. “Why declare that things shall not be done,” Alexander Hamilton asked, “which there is no power to do?” Madison agreed; he especially feared that enumerating specific rights would imply that these were the only rights that people possessed and the government must protect, thereby narrowing people’s rights and liberties rather than effectively protecting them.

Nevertheless, the lack of a formal bill of rights became a rallying cry during the ratification debate, and the “Friends of the Constitution” agreed to add one. When the First Congress convened in March 1789, Representative James Madison took charge and successfully ushered 17 amendments through the legislative process in the House of Representatives. The list was subsequently trimmed to 12 in the Senate, and President Washington sent each of the states a copy of the 12 congressionally proposed amendments. The first two—concerning the number of constituents for each Representative and the compensation of Congressmen—were not ratified. (The second proposed amendment was eventually ratified as the 27th Amendment in 1992.) By December 15, 1791, three-fourths of the states had ratified the 10 amendments now known as the Bill of Rights.

Based largely on George Mason’s “Declaration of Rights” written for the Virginia Constitution of 1776 but framed in its final form by Madison, the clear purpose of the Bill of Rights was to restrict the power of the federal government. The First Amendment guarantees rights protecting the human faculties (religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition), and the next seven deal more with fair procedures, such as protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as against double jeopardy, and guarantees of due process. The Ninth Amendment notes that the listing of rights in the Constitution does not deny or disparage others retained by the people, and the 10th Amendment states that the powers of the national government are limited to those that are delegated to it by the Constitution on behalf of the people.

Freedom and Responsibility

Madison’s contributions to the American Republic are best summarized by his lifelong dedication to the principles of freedom and responsibility. These concomitant principles are the cornerstone of republican self-government. Freedom of the mind is the most basic of all rights, from which all our civil rights and liberties are derived. Because of the inherent freedom of the human mind, the first object of government is to protect the free exercise of its faculties. These include freedom of conscience (the most sacred of all rights); freedom to communicate one’s opinions, whether in speech or in print; freedom of assembly; and the right to acquire property.

A staunch supporter of the separation of church and state, Madison argued that the religion of every person must be left to his own conscience and cannot rightly be forced by the dictates of any other person(s). In promoting the doctrine of religious freedom, his intent was not to privilege the secular over the religious, but to protect men’s religious convictions against the intrusion of the state. The obligation of every human being to God, Madison argued, is higher than his duty to country. Freedom of conscience is an inalienable right because “what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator.”11 Before human beings are members of civil society, they are subjects of the “Governour of the Universe,” and not even a majority in society has the right to interfere with a man’s allegiance to divine authority. Madison’s claim for religious freedom is thus an aspect of his understanding of the hierarchy of obligations and responsibilities of human beings. “A just government,” Madison wrote, will protect “every citizen in the enjoyment of his Religion with the same equal hand which protects his person and his property.”

When government interferes with the freedom to derive the fruits of one’s talents and labors, it violates the principle of human equality by subjecting some to peculiar burdens and others to particular exemptions. When government dictates arbitrary taxation or the taking of property from one class of citizens to benefit another, freedom is assailed. This is because the acquisition of property is the natural extension of the free use of one’s faculties. Madison defined the term “property” broadly, arguing that citizens possess both rights of property and property in rights. Property, then, includes not only land and material goods, but also a person’s “opinions and the free communication of them.”12 “Government is instituted to protect property of every sort,” Madison asserted, “as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.”

We are all familiar with the Bill of Rights as a document listing our protected freedoms. Madison hoped that in time, it would become much more than a parchment barrier against oppressive acts. Over time, a bill of rights becomes sanctified and incorporated into public opinion, and its principles exert an influence on the actual views and sentiments of the people. The guardianship of our constitutional rights is immeasurably strengthened when those rights and the responsibilities that flow from them are written not just on paper, but on the minds and hearts of the citizens.

In all free governments, Madison claimed, public opinion is sovereign. Public opinion is the authority that ultimately determines governmental measures: It is the spirit behind the laws. The arena of public opinion is the sphere in which a coalition of the majority forms and unites around a given issue. Majority opinion in a republican polity is constantly in the process of constructing itself within an intellectual, moral, and psychological milieu larger than itself. Consequently, the things that influence public opinion are of critical importance to those who are concerned with the stability, character, and future of the political order. To foster a citizenry who will respect the rights of others and exercise the responsibilities that come with freedom, Madison promoted a national bill of rights, a free press circulating throughout the land, educational establishments to encourage learning and cultivate public manners, and representatives who take seriously their duty to encourage the enlargement of the public views. His aim was to construct a society in which the people are truly capable of governing themselves.

Madison’s advocacy of the formation of a deliberative and just public opinion was his sustained attempt to solve the problem of majority opinion in a manner that is fully consistent with the form and spirit of popular government. Three-quarters of a century later, Abraham Lincoln would echo Madison’s republican convictions. On the brink of civil war, Lincoln reminded the American people that “a majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people.”13

Self-Control/Self-Government

In a commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, Robert Frost talked with his audience about “the American dream.” “I wonder what the dream is, or why…. I wonder who dreamed it,” Frost mused. “Did Tom Paine dream it, did Thomas Jefferson dream it, did George Washington dream it? Gouverneur Morris?” After “knitting” about the question for some time, Frost thought he had finally come to understand “the dream.” He decided that “the best dreamer of it was Madison.” “Now I know—I think I know…what Madison’s dream was,” Frost said. “It was just a dream of a new land to fulfill with people in self-control…. That is all through his thinking…. To fulfill this land—a new land—with people in self-control.”14

In his plainspoken way, Frost broke through the complexity of Madison’s political theory and went directly to the heart of the Madisonian vision. Self-control, by the individual citizen and by the majority, is the essence of Madison’s dream of republican self-government. Like Madison, Frost understood that institutional checks and safeguards can do only so much and that the success of the American experiment would be decided by the people’s willingness and ability to cherish their own rights as well as to respect the rights of others. The “new and more noble course” Madison claimed for his country is America’s path only if Americans choose it. Madison’s “dream” for America is not about the things we possess. It is about what possesses us, about what principles we embrace and live by—principles that, taken together, constitute the American way of life. The challenge for Americans at the time of the Founding, just as it remains our challenge today, is to live by the precepts of republican justice, thereby vindicating the great experiment in self-government.

Colleen A. Sheehan

Selected Primary Writings

Federalist No. 39 (1788)15

…The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican? It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the revolution; or with that honorable Determination, which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.

Federalist No. 51 (1788)16

TO what expedient then shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the constitution? The only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places. Without presuming to undertake a full development of this important idea, I will hazard a few general observations, which may perhaps place it in a clearer light, and enable us to form a more correct judgment of the principles and structure of the government planned by the convention.

In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government, which to a certain extent, is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. Were this principle rigorously adhered to, it would require that all the appointments for the supreme executive, legislative, and judiciary magistracies should be drawn from the same fountain of authority, the people, through channels, having no communication whatever with one another. Perhaps such a plan of constructing the several departments would be less difficult in practice than it may in contemplation appear. Some difficulties, however, and some additional expence would attend the execution of it. Some deviations therefore from the principle must be admitted. In the constitution of the judiciary department in particular, it might be inexpedient to insist rigorously on the principle: first, because peculiar qualifications being essential in the members, the primary consideration ought to be to select that mode of choice which best secures these qualifications; secondly, because the permanent tenure by which the appointments are held in that department, must soon destroy all sense of dependence on the authority conferring them.

It is equally evident, that the members of each department should be as little dependent as possible on those of the others, for the emoluments annexed to their offices. Were the executive magistrate, or the judges, not independent of the legislature in this particular, their independence in every other would be merely nominal.

But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defence must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to controul the abuses of government. But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controuls on 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 enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary controul on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power; where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other; that the private interest of every individual, may be a centinel over the public rights. These inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite in the distribution of the supreme powers of the state.

But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self defence. In republican government the legislative authority, necessarily, predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is, to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them by different modes of election, and different principles of action, as little connected with each other, as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society, will admit. It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions. As the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified. An absolute negative, on the legislature, appears at first view to be the natural defence with which the executive magistrate should be armed. But perhaps it would be neither altogether safe nor alone sufficient. On ordinary occasions, it might not be exerted with the requisite firmness; and on extraordinary occasions, it might be perfidiously abused. May not this defect of an absolute negative be supplied, by some qualified connection between this weaker department, and the weaker branch of the stronger department, by which the latter may be led to support the constitutional rights of the former, without being too much detached from the rights of its own departmen[t]?

If the principles on which these observations are founded be just, as I persuade myself they are, and they be applied as a criterion, to the several state constitutions, and to the federal constitution, it will be found, that if the latter does not perfectly correspond with them, the former are infinitely less able to bear such a test.

There are moreover two considerations particularly applicable to the federal system of America, which place that system in a very interesting point of view.

First. In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people, is submitted to the administration of a single government; and usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people, is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each, subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will controul each other, at the same time that each will be controuled by itself.

Second. It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers; but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. There are but two methods of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the majority, that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens, as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole, very improbable, if not impracticable. The first method prevails in all governments possessing an hereditary or self-appointed authority. This at best is but a precarious security; because a power independent of the society may as well espouse the unjust views of the major, as the rightful interests, of the minor party, and may possibly be turned against both parties. The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other, in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same government. This view of the subject must particularly recommend a proper federal system to all the sincere and considerate friends of republican government: since it shews that in exact proportion as the territory of the union may be formed into more circumscribed confederacies or states, oppressive combinations of a majority will be facilitated, the best security, under the republican forms, for the rights of every class of citizens, will be diminished; and consequently the stability and independence of some member of the government, the only other security, must be proportionally increased. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be pursued, until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign, as in a state of nature where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger: And as in the latter state even the stronger individuals are prompted by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; So in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. It can be little doubted, that if the state of Rhode Island was separated from the confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of rights under the popular form of government within such narrow limits, would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of factious majorities, that some power altogether independent of the people would soon be called for by the voice of the very factions whose misrule had proved the necessity of it. In the extended republic of the United States, and among the great variety of interests, parties and sects which it embraces, a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place on any other principles than those of justice and the general good; whilst there being thus less danger to a minor from the will of a major party, there must be less pretext also, to provide for the security of the former, by introducing into the government a will not dependent on the latter; or in other words, a will independent of the society itself. It is no less certain than it is important, notwithstanding the contrary opinions which have been entertained, that the larger the society, provided it lie within a practical sphere, the more duly capable it will be of self government. And happily for the republican cause, the practicable sphere may be carried to a very great extent, by a judicious modification and mixture of the federal principle.

“Public Opinion” (1791)17

PUBLIC opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.

As there are cases where the public opinion must be obeyed by the government; so there are cases, where not being fixed, it may be influenced by the government. This distinction, if kept in view, would prevent or decide many debates on the respect due from the government to the sentiments of the people.

In proportion as government is influenced by opinion, it must be so, by whatever influences opinion. This decides the question concerning a Constitutional Declaration of Rights, which requires an influence on government, by becoming a part of the public opinion.

The larger a country, the less easy for its real opinion to be ascertained, and the less difficult to be counterfeited; when ascertained or presumed, the more respectable it is in the eyes of individuals. This is favorable to the authority of government. For the same reason, the more extensive a country, the more insignificant is each individual in his own eyes. This may be unfavorable to liberty.

Whatever facilitates a general intercourse of sentiments, as good roads, domestic commerce, a free press, and particularly a circulation of newspapers through the entire body of the people, and Representatives going from, and returning among every part of them, is equivalent to a contraction of territorial limits, and is favorable to liberty, where these may be too extensive.

“Spirit of Governments” (February 18, 1792)18

No Government is perhaps reducible to a sole principle of operation. Where the theory approaches nearest to this character, different and often heterogeneous principles mingle their influence in the administration. It is useful nevertheless to analyze the several kinds of government, and to characterize them by the spirit which predominates in each.

Montesquieu has resolved the great operative principles of government into fear, honor, and virtue, applying the first to pure despotisms, the second to regular monarchies, and the third to republics. The portion of truth blended with the ingenuity of this system sufficiently justifies the admiration bestowed on its author. Its accuracy however can never be defended against the criticisms which it has encountered. Montesquieu was in politics not a Newton or a Locke, who established immortal systems, the one in matter, the other in mind. He was in his particular science what Bacon was in universal science: He lifted the veil from the venerable errors which enslaved opinion and pointed the way to those luminous truths of which he had but a glimpse himself.

May not governments be properly divided, according to their predominant spirit and principles, into three species of which the following are examples?

First. A government operating by a permanent military force, which at once maintains the government, and is maintained by it; which is at once the cause of burdens on the people, and of submission in the people to their burdens. Such have been the governments under which human nature has groaned through every age. Such are the governments which still oppress it in almost every country of Europe, the quarter of the globe which calls itself the pattern of civilization and the pride of humanity.

Secondly. A government operating by corrupt influence; substituting the motive of private interest in place of public duty; converting its pecuniary dispensations into bounties to favorites or bribes to opponents; accommodating its measures to the avidity of a part of the nation instead of the benefit of the whole: in a word, enlisting an army of interested partizans, whose tongues, whose pens, whose intrigues, and whose active combinations, by supplying the terror of the sword, may support a real domination of the few, under an apparent liberty of the many. Such a government, wherever to be found, is an imposter. It is happy for the new world that it is not on the west side of the Atlantic. It will be both happy and honorable for the United States if they never descend to mimic the costly pageantry of its form, nor betray themselves into the venal spirit of its administration.

Thirdly. A government, deriving its energy from the will of the society, and operating by the reason of its measures on the understanding and interest of the society. Such is the government for which philosophy has been searching, and humanity been sighing, from the most remote ages. Such are the republican governments which it is the glory of America to have invented, and her unrivalled happiness to possess. May her glory be completed by every improvement on the theory which experience may teach; and her happiness be perpetuated by a system of administration corresponding with the purity of the theory.

“Property” (1792)19

This term in its particular application means “that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man’s land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho’ from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his.

According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording a just security to property, should be sparingly bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions, in which they have an equal, and in the estimation of some, a more valuable property.

More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man’s religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man’s house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man’s conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. A magistrate issuing his warrants to a press gang, would be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of the most compleat despotism.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favor his neighbor who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the economical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.

If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, the influence will have been anticipated, that such a government is not a pattern for the United States.

If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.

Recommended Readings

• Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1990).
• Lance Banning, The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).
• Colleen A. Sheehan, James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
• Marvin Meyers, ed., The Mind of Madison: Sources of the Political Thought of James Madison (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 1981).

Notes