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- CRITICS OF MADISON
MADISON ON RELIGIONMadison had serious doubts about the role religion played in public life. While his father was an Episcopalian, he kept his religious beliefs largely private. In a memorandum entitled "Vices of the Political System" (1787) he express skepticism that religion could prevent oppression under a system of republican governance. Could it "be a sufficient restraint? It is not pretended to be such on men individually considered. Will its effects be greater on them considered in an aggregate view? Quite the reverse." Madison wrote. He consistently repeated these views in speeches of the time, including one given at the Federal Convention on June 6, 1787, where he argued that there was "little to be expected" from religion in a positive way. Indeed, he warned that it might become "a motive to persecution and oppression." In the most famous of THE FEDERALIST PAPERS, Number 10, published November 22, 1787, he wrote "that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals and lose their efficiency in proportion to the number combined together." Even Jefferson, who warned of the deadly nature of a “priest-ridden culture,” wasn’t as pessimistic about the social utility of the church. This helps to explain his support for what we today call the separation of church and state. In fact, he believed that separating the two institutions served religion best as well. The church, Madison reasoned, did best when it was unencumbered from the mandates of a state apparatus. This viewpoint manifested itself in 1784-85, as Madison consistently rejected tax support for religious institutions. He wrote in a pamphlet called MEMORIAL AND REMONSTRANCE a defense of these decisions. The document, written in June 1785, is celebrated by Madison’s acolytes as "the most powerful defense of religious liberty ever written in America." The debate raged on, with Jefferson and Madison on one side (though they split on many other issues, with Jefferson considering Madison an aristocrat) and men like Patrick Henry and his supporters on the other. The struggle continues to this day. CRITICS OF MADISONPeople who criticize Madison (and generally Hamilton) do so on one basis: that he was an elitist who was interested in preserving the rights of wealthy white landowners and not much of anybody else. Their charges have serious merit. Even Madison’s own words at the time provide a pretty damning indictment. Knowing that most Americans didn’t support granting the delegates to the Constitutional Convention the power to make a new government, he had this to say: We ought to consider what [is] right & necessary in itself for the attainment of a proper Government. A plan adjusted to this idea will recommend itself. . . . All the most enlightened and respectable citizens will be its advocates. Should we fall short of the necessary and proper point, this influential class of citizens will be turned against the plan, and little support in opposition to them can be gained to it from the unreflecting multitude. This "unreflecting multitude” was, in Madison’s view, the mass of American people. When Madison said “tyranny of the majority,” he meant that the majority of Americans (still rural farmers, not particularly wealthy) might gang up and plunder the rich. Madison wanted to deliver power into the hands of a “better sort” of people – the rich, the powerful, the people Jefferson feared and mistrusted. Perhaps the defining quotation from this period and this viewpoint comes from John Jay, the third author of THE FEDERALIST PAPERS: “the people who own the country ought to govern it.” Jefferson was a staunch critic of this viewpoint, and attacked both Madison and Hamilton for it. Jefferson’s first principles included the idea that government was only just with the consent of the governed, and that bypassing that consent was unjust. Jefferson wrote a letter to Madison in 1789 as Jefferson was preparing to return to the United States after four years as ambassador to France. Jefferson asked his colleague "Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another?" He concluded, having witnessed the first events of the French Revolution, that "no such obligation can be so transmitted." Jefferson would fight Madison on many policies over which they differed based on these principles, including the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which Jefferson (and every sane person) thought were unconstitutional. Jefferson said that if the federal government was to violate its own laws, the people possessed a "natural right" to reject the acts, which should be declared "void and of no force.” Jefferson also battled with Madison and Hamilton over the “implied powers” doctrine, which John Marshall’s Supreme Court seemed destined to enforce. Jefferson believed that the federal government ought only have the powers expressly granted by the people, while this doctrine effectively gave the governing bodies power to do whatever they thought was best. Madison replies? In order to promote stability of government, the people must not be allowed or required to challenge every decision made by the “better class of men” ruling them. His final shot at Jefferson, and the summation of his argument, is contained in FEDERALIST PAPER NUMBER 49: As every appeal to the people would carry an implication of some defect in the government, frequent appeals would in great measure deprive the government of that veneration, which time bestows on everything, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability. If it be true that all governments rest on opinion, it is no less true that the strength of opinion in each individual, and its practical influence on his conduct, depend much on the number which he supposes to have entertained the same opinion. The reason of man, like man himself is timid and cautious, when left alone; and acquires firmness and confidence, in proportion to the number with which it is associated. When the examples, which fortify opinion, are antient as well as numerous, they are known to have a double effect. In a nation of philosophers, this consideration ought to be disregarded. A reverence for the laws, would be sufficiently inculcated by the voice of an enlightened reason. But a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato. And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage, to have the prejudices of the community on its side. In order to stay away from factionalism and prevent the people from losing faith in government, Madison reasoned, the government must continue to go about its business as usual. IN CONCLUSION James Madison should be known for a lot more than being a short guy who had a wife named “Dolley.” The youngest of the founding fathers, he had more influence than most any of them – even Jefferson, whose populist ideas lost out in the long run to Madison’s aristocratic notions. His FEDERALIST PAPERS are the most philosophical, the most based in a sense of ethics, and the most passionately argued. Even if you disagree with their ultimate conclusions, they’re worth checking out. Most importantly, though: Madison was the smallest U.S. president, standing 5" 4" and weighing about 100 pounds. Interestingly enough, both of his vice presidents passed on in office, including George Clinton, who died in office in 1812. Reports that Madison and Clinton invented “The Funk Bomb” to contribute to the national defense are unverified. Seriously, though, Madison was an important figure in the early political life of the country. His idea on the separation of church and state, the avoidance of oppression, and the structure of representative government remain influential. We’ll begin by examining the manner in which Madison busted onto the nation scene in 1780, and then discuss the ideas he brought to the table. THE LIFE OF MADISON It is with this problem that James Madison enters the picture. Madison was much younger than many of the other founders, one of the youngest, in fact. He stepped onto the political scene in 1780, when he served on the Virginia delegation in the Continental Congress. When the Articles of Confederation began to fail, Madison wondered how a more effective national government might take shape. The problem as he saw it was too great a regional identification, which he identified in THE FEDERALIST PAPERS as factionalism. Without a predominant concern for the nation as a whole, as opposed to a myopic concern for individual states and localities, Madison feared no effective national government could be formed. A Constitutional Convention was necessary – but not for the reasons you might suspect, reasons of enlightened men crafting a document in the best interests of all. No, Madison scholars agree today – what Madison and the boys wanted to do was (in Rosen’s words) “to circumvent the people, even if just temporarily. Indeed, Madison eventually concluded that constitutional conventions were a necessary device for allowing those like himself--those whom he called 'the most enlightened and influential patriots'--to escape from the hold of democratic institutions." The example to follow, he suggests in Federalist 38, was that of ancient lawgivers like Solon and Lycurgus, men of "preeminent wisdom and approved integrity" who nonetheless were compelled to act outside the bounds of regular authority.” “Paradoxical as it may sound, Madison seems to have concluded that America would get a sound, republican Constitution only by means of an aristocratic coup of sorts” writes Rosen – a charge that Madison’s critics then and now would jump all over. Let’s not belabor the point. Let’s just say “it worked” and move on. We’ll examine the criticisms of Madison below. MADISON ON THE POLITICAL SYSTEM As an author of THE FEDERALIST PAPERS, Madison is famous for his advocacy of a federal system with checks and balances to provide stability and satisfy most all interest groups. As a philosophically inclined individual, he had ideas about what the ideal state would look like. As a skillful politician, he was able to get what he wanted for that state. Madison is famous for having sought to avoid "the tyranny of the majority." He did so through placing both substantive and procedural limits on democratic majority rule of the country. This includes the existence of the electoral college and the bicameral legislature system, where the House of Representatives is thought to represent the masses and the Senate the landed elite. While he was hardly alone in this viewpoint – Hamilton was another who worried about the majority of people rallying against the few who were elected to govern them – Madison put the most effort into thinking about the philosophical implications. Madison's theory of representative democracy appealed to "the principle of reciprocity” as a means of dealing with the unwashed heathen masses pillaging the rich. (Sorry, getting ahead of myself – but I couldn’t help it.) What does the principle of reciprocity say? Let’s get into that when we discuss the notion of majority tyranny itself before getting into what Madison thought that this condition might cause. MADISON ON THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY Madison worried about the overarching power of a powerful mass of people, especially if that mass had coincident interests. The idea is that they might use their power to stifle the rights of others. In organizing a republican democracy, one must take care to build in safeguards against this. The safeguards are based on what Madison termed “the principle of reciprocity.” Reciprocity is the notion that what one group does to another is reciprocal – what goes around comes around. What might that mean? Well, the majority is inherently self-interested. People will vote to actualize their own wants, needs and desires. This might cause problems where the majority runs roughshod over the rights of the minority – hence, “Tyranny of the Majority.” But here’s where Madison’s principle of reciprocity comes in: the majority might be self-interested, but they aren’t blind. The majority voting bloc is probably not going to be together in unanimity until the end of time. Thus, the self-interested majority worries that the minority may attract defectors from the majority and become the next governing majority itself. Hence, the majority will look to the long-term. Majority group members will worry that the minority may attract defectors from the majority group. Either they will become the next majority, and hence have the power to govern, or will merely have the power to make life miserable for the people who made their lives miserable over the past however many years. This does happen in politics all the time, after all. You often see a good soldier get rewarded with a plum position when his or her party takes power, even though that person is unqualified and unworthy of the job, like John Ashcroft. So winning candidates don’t have to ONLY pay attention to the majority. They’ll be voting on tons of issues (road building bills, organic food labeling laws, minority preference laws) that may either alienate their political support base – or attract minority members. The politician always has to be on the lookout – just ask Bill Clinton, who betrayed his core constituency with Republican style policies to the tune of sweet re-election. Again, this is part of the logic of the federal system. Power is to be kept as separated as possible among interest groups and even elected officials. If power is temporary and fluid, then the potential for abuse is minimized. Speaking of potential for abuse, a prominent issue in public life then as now was the role of religion. Was the church a positive or a pernicious influence? How best to adapt to its power? The answers to these questions led to the modern notion of two separate spheres for church and state, and Madison had a key role to play in it all. MADISON ON RELIGION Madison had serious doubts about the role religion played in public life. While his father was an Episcopalian, he kept his religious beliefs largely private. In a memorandum entitled "Vices of the Political System" (1787) he express skepticism that religion could prevent oppression under a system of republican governance. Could it "be a sufficient restraint? It is not pretended to be such on men individually considered. Will its effects be greater on them considered in an aggregate view? Quite the reverse." Madison wrote. He consistently repeated these views in speeches of the time, including one given at the Federal Convention on June 6, 1787, where he argued that there was "little to be expected" from religion in a positive way. Indeed, he warned that it might become "a motive to persecution and oppression." In the most famous of THE FEDERALIST PAPERS, Number 10, published November 22, 1787, he wrote "that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals and lose their efficiency in proportion to the number combined together." Even Jefferson, who warned of the deadly nature of a “priest-ridden culture,” wasn’t as pessimistic about the social utility of the church. This helps to explain his support for what we today call the separation of church and state. In fact, he believed that separating the two institutions served religion best as well. The church, Madison reasoned, did best when it was unencumbered from the mandates of a state apparatus. This viewpoint manifested itself in 1784-85, as Madison consistently rejected tax support for religious institutions. He wrote in a pamphlet called MEMORIAL AND REMONSTRANCE a defense of these decisions. The document, written in June 1785, is celebrated by Madison’s acolytes as "the most powerful defense of religious liberty ever written in America." The debate raged on, with Jefferson and Madison on one side (though they split on many other issues, with Jefferson considering Madison an aristocrat) and men like Patrick Henry and his supporters on the other. The struggle continues to this day. CRITICS OF MADISON People who criticize Madison (and generally Hamilton) do so on one basis: that he was an elitist who was interested in preserving the rights of wealthy white landowners and not much of anybody else. Their charges have serious merit. Even Madison’s own words at the time provide a pretty damning indictment. Knowing that most Americans didn’t support granting the delegates to the Constitutional Convention the power to make a new government, he had this to say: We ought to consider what [is] right & necessary in itself for the attainment of a proper Government. A plan adjusted to this idea will recommend itself. . . . All the most enlightened and respectable citizens will be its advocates. Should we fall short of the necessary and proper point, this influential class of citizens will be turned against the plan, and little support in opposition to them can be gained to it from the unreflecting multitude. This "unreflecting multitude” was, in Madison’s view, the mass of American people. When Madison said “tyranny of the majority,” he meant that the majority of Americans (still rural farmers, not particularly wealthy) might gang up and plunder the rich. Madison wanted to deliver power into the hands of a “better sort” of people – the rich, the powerful, the people Jefferson feared and mistrusted. Perhaps the defining quotation from this period and this viewpoint comes from John Jay, the third author of THE FEDERALIST PAPERS: “the people who own the country ought to govern it.” Jefferson was a staunch critic of this viewpoint, and attacked both Madison and Hamilton for it. Jefferson’s first principles included the idea that government was only just with the consent of the governed, and that bypassing that consent was unjust. Jefferson wrote a letter to Madison in 1789 as Jefferson was preparing to return to the United States after four years as ambassador to France. Jefferson asked his colleague "Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another?" He concluded, having witnessed the first events of the French Revolution, that "no such obligation can be so transmitted." Jefferson would fight Madison on many policies over which they differed based on these principles, including the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which Jefferson (and every sane person) thought were unconstitutional. Jefferson said that if the federal government was to violate its own laws, the people possessed a "natural right" to reject the acts, which should be declared "void and of no force.” Jefferson also battled with Madison and Hamilton over the “implied powers” doctrine, which John Marshall’s Supreme Court seemed destined to enforce. Jefferson believed that the federal government ought only have the powers expressly granted by the people, while this doctrine effectively gave the governing bodies power to do whatever they thought was best. Madison replies? In order to promote stability of government, the people must not be allowed or required to challenge every decision made by the “better class of men” ruling them. His final shot at Jefferson, and the summation of his argument, is contained in FEDERALIST PAPER NUMBER 49: As every appeal to the people would carry an implication of some defect in the government, frequent appeals would in great measure deprive the government of that veneration, which time bestows on everything, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability. If it be true that all governments rest on opinion, it is no less true that the strength of opinion in each individual, and its practical influence on his conduct, depend much on the number which he supposes to have entertained the same opinion. The reason of man, like man himself is timid and cautious, when left alone; and acquires firmness and confidence, in proportion to the number with which it is associated. When the examples, which fortify opinion, are antient as well as numerous, they are known to have a double effect. In a nation of philosophers, this consideration ought to be disregarded. A reverence for the laws, would be sufficiently inculcated by the voice of an enlightened reason. But a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato. And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage, to have the prejudices of the community on its side. In order to stay away from factionalism and prevent the people from losing faith in government, Madison reasoned, the government must continue to go about its business as usual. IN CONCLUSION James Madison should be known for a lot more than being a short guy who had a wife named “Dolley.” The youngest of the founding fathers, he had more influence than most any of them – even Jefferson, whose populist ideas lost out in the long run to Madison’s aristocratic notions. His FEDERALIST PAPERS are the most philosophical, the most based in a sense of ethics, and the most passionately argued. Even if you disagree with their ultimate conclusions, they’re worth checking out.
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