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The Madisonian Madison and the Question of Consistency: The Significance and Challenge of Recent Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Alan Gibson
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Extract

Within the last twenty years, a number of scholars have challenged the prevailing “Hamiltonian” interpretation of the content of James Madison's political thought and the trajectory of his political career. This essay analyzes these contributions, placing them in the context of other interpretations of Madison and suggesting that they merit the most serious attention from political theorists. In general, my hope is to confront political theorists—many of whom hold a radically different interpretation—with this revision and to renew a discussion about the character of Madison's political thought and his place within the American Founding.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , Spring 2002 , pp. 311 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2002

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References

would like to thank the International Center for Jefferson Studies for a summer research grant that made it possible to complete this article.

1. Charles Hobson, “The Negative on State Laws: James Madison, the Constitution, and the Crisis of Republican Government,” William and Mary Quarterly 36 (1979): 215–35. Quote is on p. 218Google Scholar. The nationalistic interpretation of Madison can also be found in Carey, George, In Defense of the Constitution (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc., revised and expanded edition, 1995), pp. 77–121, esp. 80–94Google Scholar; Ferguson, E. James, “The Nationalists of 1781–1783 and the Economic Interpretation of the Constitution,” Journal of American History 56 (1969): 241–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brant, Irving, James Madison, 6 vols. (Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1941–1961), especially volumes 2 and 3Google Scholar; Wood, Gordon, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, new edition 1998), esp. pp. 391–564; 593–615Google Scholar; As Far As Republican Principles Will Admit: Essays by Martin Diamond ed. Schambra, WilliamA. (Washington D.C.: The AEI Press, 1992), esp. pp. 17–36, 337–68Google Scholar.

2. McCoy, Drew, The Last of the Fathers: James Madison & The Republican Legacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 92–95. Quote is on page 93Google Scholar.

3. Hamilton to Carrington, Edward, 26 05 1792Google Scholar, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton ed. Syrett, Harold C. et al. , 26 vols. (New York and London, 1960–1979), 11:426–45Google Scholar. These charges may be thought of as a standard “Federalist Party” critique of Madison's conduct and character and have even occasionally been repeated by Madison's biographers. See Adams, John Quincy, The Lives of James Madison and James Monroe: Fourth and Fifth Presidents of the United States (Buffalo, NY: Geo. H. Derby and Co., 1851), pp. 57, 66–68Google Scholar; McDonald, Forrest, The Presidency of George Washington (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1974), pp. 31–32Google Scholar; McDonald, , Alexander Hamilton: A Biography (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1979), p. 154, p. 175, p. 200Google Scholar. McDonald adds the charge that Madison favored the location of the nation's capital on the Potomac because he hoped to profit from land speculations.

4. Zvesper, John, “The Madisonian Systems,” Western Political Quarterly 37 (1984): 254CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Jaenicke, Douglas W., “Madison v. Madison: The Party Essays v. The Federalist Papers” in Reflections on the Constitution: The American Constitution After Two Hundred Years, ed. Maidment, Richard and Zvesper, John (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), pp. 116–47Google Scholar; Matthews, Richard, If Men Were Angels: James Madison & the Heartless Empire of Reason (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1995), pp. 3–7,14–25Google Scholar. Matthews combines the ad hominen charges against Madison with the belief that his consistency lies in his commitment to the principles of classical liberalism.

5. Meyers, Marvin, “Reflection and Choice: Beyond the Sum of the Differences: An Introduction” in The Mind of the Founder: Sources of the Political Thought of James Madison (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, revised edition, 1981), especially xxxiii-xlviiGoogle Scholar. Quotes are from xliii and xlii. Ralph Ketcham and Neal Riemer make much the same kind of argument, but claim that republicanism was the central value to which Madison's approach to constitutional construction was subordinated. Ketcham, , James Madison: A Biography (New York: Macmillan Co., 1971), pp. 310–15,319–23, esp. 314–15,322–23Google Scholar; Riemer, , “The Republicanism of James Madison,” Political Science Quarterly 59 (1954): 45–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Riemer, , “James Madison's Theory of the Self-Destructive Features of Republican Government,” Ethics 65 (1954): 43–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Riemer, , James Madison: Creating The American Constitution (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1986), pp. 62–63,88–97Google Scholar. An example of the contention that the protection of liberty was Madison's architectonic value and tied together his other seemingly contradictory beliefs and actions can be found in Adrienne Koch, , Madison's“ Advice To My Country” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), especially pp. 112–19Google Scholar.

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9. McCoy, Drew, The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), esp. pp. 120–35Google Scholar.

10. McCoy, , The Last of the Fathers, p. 189Google Scholar.

11. Ibid., p. 82.

12. Ibid., pp. 80–81.

13. Ibid., p. 134

14. Ibid., p. 82.

15. Rosen, Gary, American Compact: James Madison and the Problem of Founding (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1999), p. 1Google Scholar.

16. Ibid., p. 126.

17. Ibid., p. 147,145.

18. Read, James, Power versus Liberty: Madison, Hamilton, Wilson, and Jefferson (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 2000), p. 28Google Scholar.

19. Ibid., p. 35.

20. Ibid., p. 41.

21. Ibid., p. 12.

22. Zuckert, Michael P., “Federalism and the Founding: Toward a Reinterpretation of the Constitutional Convention,” Review of Politics 48 (1986): 166–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zuckert, , “A System Without a Precedent: Federalism in the American Constitution,” in The Framing and Ratification of the Constitution, ed. by Levy, Leonard W. and Mahoney, Dennis J. (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., 1987), pp. 132–50Google Scholar.

23. Zuckert, , “Federalism and the Founding,” p. 173Google Scholar.

24. Zuckert, , “A System Without Precedent,” p. 139Google Scholar.

25. Zuckert, , “Federalism and the Founding,” p. 182Google Scholar.

26. Ibid., p. 187.

27. Ibid., p. 190.

28. Ibid., p. 186.

29. Rakove, Jack N., Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996)Google Scholar; James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman/Little, Brown Higher Education, 1990)Google Scholar. Of Rakove's, numerous articles on Madison “The Madisonian Moment,” University of Chicago Law Review 55 (1988): 473–505CrossRefGoogle Scholar is the most important.

30. Rakove, , James Madison and the Creation, p. 23,93Google Scholar.

31. Ibid., p. 24.

32. Rakove, , Original Meanings, pp. 197–98Google Scholar.

33. Ibid., p. 345, 347.

34. Banning, Lance, The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Rqpublic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995)Google Scholar. Banning's numerous articles on Madison that preceded his book are cited in its acknowledgments, pp. ix and x. The conclusions of his study are also crystallized in Banning, , “James Madison: Memory, Service, and Fame” in The Noblest Minds: Fame, Honor, and the American Founding, ed. McNamara, Peter (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1999), pp. 121–40Google Scholar.

35. Ibid., p.38.

36. Ibid., p.191.

37. Ibid., p.14.

38. Trist, , “Memoranda,” p. 534Google Scholar.

39. Meyers, , “Reflection and Choice,” p. xliiGoogle Scholar.

40. Zuckert, , “Federalism and the Founding,” p. 186Google Scholar.

41. On this point see Kramer, Larry D., “Madison's Audience,” Harvard Law Review 112 (1999): 611–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.