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- MADISON ON THE POLITICAL SYSTEM
- MADISON ON THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY
THE LIFE OF MADISONIt 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 SYSTEMAs 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 MAJORITYMadison 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. 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