In short, the research presented in this book makes it apparent how the Father of the Constitution could both oppose the Washington Administration and later frame the Virginia Resolutions. Increasing the number of factions, which Madison considered a great evil, was not his intent. In Madison’s view, the extension of the republic could only curb democratic ills when local and general interests were properly and strictly divided. According to Banning, Madison was arguing that a large republic offers more security from majority abuses. 10 was neither an unequivocal endorsement of a large republic nor an endorsement for multiplying the variety of interests in the nation. Perhaps the greatest contribution Banning makes is his reevaluation of Federalist No. Madison’s support of the new plan of government was predicated on his belief that agricultural producers would be dominant and keep the regime within its proper bounds. Whereas in Hamilton’s contributions there are numerous references to the value of a great commercial republic, no such language can be found in Madison’s.
Though Madison did collaborate on The Federalist to defend the same plan of government, Banning shows that Madison and Hamilton’s interpretations of the plan were antipodes from the start. Madison, in Banning’s view, merely sought “a constitutional device that could secure the general government’s supremacy within a system where the overwhelming burden of responsibilities would still be carried by the states.” (Italics in original) The Northern commercial elites, on the other hand, had plans for a much more energetic government than Madison expected. At the convention, Madison joined with the nationalists in recreating the federal government, but Madison the nationalist was far different from the Hamiltonian nationalists. Madison’s experiences in the Continental Congress led him to craft the Virginia Plan at the Constitutional Convention. Madison evinced frustration at the Congress’s powerlessness to carry out its delegated functions, but did not seek to expand these functions except in the realm of trade. In an incident foreshadowing a clash with Hamilton, Madison fought a plan for a national bank on the grounds that the power to charter a corporation was not enumerated in the Articles of Confederation. While in the Continental Congress, Madison opposed an independent federal power to impose taxes, insisting that his native Virginia was absolutely sovereign within her chartered bounds. The young Madison, according to Banning’s research, was strikingly similar to the Madison of the 1798 Virginia Resolutions, which boldly enunciated the compact theory of the Constitution. In The Sacred Fire of Liberty, Lance Banning attempts to demonstrate that Madison did not change horses in midstream, but rather acted consistently throughout his career.īanning begins by examining Madison’s stances in the Continental Congress in the early 1780s. Madison’s political thought, however, is much more complicated than critics and historians would have us believe. Alexander Hamilton, his collaborator on The Federalist, bitterly complained that after 1789 Madison was “seduced by the expectation of popularity” in Virginia and thus opposed his former allies. Madison was also accused of philosophical apostasy by his contemporaries. Historians have painted James Madison as a young centralizer and nationalist who later defected to the philosophy of states’ rights and strict construction of the Constitution. Watkins is assistant editor of The Freeman.
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