"I was among those most anxious to rescue it [the national
government] from the danger which seemed to threaten it; and
with that view, was willing to give to a Government resting
on that foundation as much energy as would insure the requisite
stability and efficacy. It is possible, that in some instances
this consideration may have been allowed a weight greater
than subsequent reflection within the Convention, or the actual
operation of the Government, would sanction."
Later, influenced by Hamilton's economic policies
and Adam's Alien and Sedition Acts, he feared for the States and
for liberty. He drafted the
Virginia
Resolution in 1798 asserting that:
"…[T]he General Assembly doth…express
its deep regret, that a spirit has…been manifested by
the federal government, to enlarge its powers by forced constructions
of the constitutional charter [see Constitution]
which defines them; and that implications have appeared of a
design to expound certain general phrases…so as to destroy
the meaning and effect, of the particular enumeration which
necessarily explains and limits the general phrases; and so
as to consolidate the states by degrees, into one sovereignty,
the obvious tendency and inevitable consequence of which would
be, to transform the present republican system of the United
States, into an absolute, or at best a mixed monarchy."
He wrote that the States had the right, the duty
to "to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil,
and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities,
rights and liberties appertaining to them." Years later in
his retirement, during the Nullification Crisis, he had to argue
against his own words in the Virginia Resolution in his efforts
to preserve the federal government.
Madison opposed the National
Bank proposed by Hamilton as not justified by the
"necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution (see
Constitution
1.8.18). Later, having fought a war without a National
Bank, he concluded that one was necessary. Undeterred by charges
of inconsistency, he signed the legislation authorizing the Second
National Bank.
In retirement, he watched the events, wrote letters,
advised Monroe and was able to reflect on the balance of power
between the national government and the states. In the final paragraph
of the letter below he seems to be foreshadowing modern political
science. He speaks of the "science of Government" and
develops hypotheses. The factors which might influence the balance
of powers between national and state governments are "the
size of the States, the number of them, the territorial extent
of the whole, and the degree of external danger."
In his mature judgement it was the majority that
was to be feared, not the federal government:
If…the powers of the General Government
be carried to unconstitutional lengths, it will be the result
of a majority of the States and of the people, actuated by some
impetuous feeling, or some real or supposed interest, overruling
the minority, and not of successful attempts by the General
Government to overpower both.
James Madison Reflects on the Division of Power:
That most of us carried into the Convention a
profound impression, produced by the experienced inadequacy of
the old Confederation, and by the monitory examples of all similar
ones, ancient and modern, as to the necessity of binding the States
together by a strong Constitution, is certain. The necessity of
such a Constitution was enforced by the gross and disreputable
inequalities which had been prominent in the internal administrations
of most of the States. Nor was the recent and alarming insurrection,
headed by Shays, in Massachusetts, without a very sensible effect
on the public mind. Such, indeed, was the aspect of things, that,
in the eyes of all the best friends of liberty, a crisis had arrived
which was to decide whether the American experiment was to be
a blessing to the world, or to blast forever the hopes which the
republican cause had inspired; and what is not to be overlooked,
the disposition to give to a new system all the vigour consistent
with Republican principles was not a little stimulated by a backwardness
in some quarters towards a Convention for the purpose, which was
ascribed to a secret dislike to popular Government, and a hope
that delay would bring it more into disgrace, and pave the way
for a form of Government more congenial with monarchical or aristocratical
predilections.
This view of the crisis made it natural for many
in the Convention to lean more than was, perhaps, in strictness,
warranted by a proper distinction between causes temporary, as
some of them doubtless were, and causes permanently inherent in
popular frames of Government. It is true, also, as has been sometimes
suggested, that in the course of discussions in the Convention,
where so much depended on compromise, the patrons of different
opinions often set out on negotiating grounds more remote from
each other than the real opinions of either were from the point
at which they finally met.
For myself, having, from the first moment of
maturing a political opinion down to the present one, never ceased
to be a votary of the principle of self-government, I was among
those most anxious to rescue it from the danger which seemed to
threaten it; and with that view, was willing to give to a Government
resting on that foundation as much energy as would insure the
requisite stability and efficacy. It is possible, that in some
instances this consideration may have been allowed a weight greater
than subsequent reflection within the Convention, or the actual
operation of the Government, would sanction. It may be remarked,
also, that it sometimes happened, that opinions as to a particular
modification or a particular power of the Government had a conditional
reference to others, which, combined therewith, would vary the
character of the whole.
But whatever might have been the opinions entertained
in forming the Constitution, it was the duty of all to support
it in its true meaning, as understood by the nation at the time
of its ratification. No one felt this obligation more than I have
done; and there are few, perhaps, whose ultimate and deliberate
opinions on the merits of the Constitution accord in a greater
degree with that obligation.
The departures from the true and fair construction
of the instrument have always given me pain, and always experienced
my opposition when called for. The attempts in the outset of the
Government to defeat those safe, if not necessary, and those politic,
if not obligatory, amendments [the Bill of Rights] introduced
in conformity to the known desires of the body of the people,
and to the pledges of many, particularly myself, when vindicating
and recommending the Constitution, was an occurrence not a little
ominous. And it was soon followed by indications of political
tenets, and by rules, or rather the abandonment of all rules,
of expounding it, which were capable of transforming it into something
very different from its legitimate character as the offspring
of the national will. I wish I could say that constructive innovations
had altogether ceased.
Whether the Constitution, as it has divided the
powers of Government between the States in their separate and
in their united capacities, tends to an oppressive aggrandizement
of the General Government, or to an anarchical independence of
the State Governments, is a problem which time alone can absolutely
determine. It is much to be wished that the division as it exists,
or may be made with the regular sanction of the people, may effectually
guard against both extremes; for it cannot be doubted that an
accumulation of all power in the General Government would as naturally
lead to a dangerous accumulation in the Executive hands, as that
the resumption of all power by the several States would end in
the calamities incident to contiguous and rival Sovereigns; to
say nothing of its effect in lessening the security for sound
principles of administration within each of them.
There have been epochs when the General Government
was evidently drawing a disproportion of power into its vortex.
There have been others, when States threatened to do the same.
At the present moment, it would seem that both are aiming at encroachments,
each on the other. One thing, however, is certain: that in the
present condition and temper of the community, the General Government
cannot long succeed in encroachments contravening the will of
a majority of the States and of the people. Its responsibility
to these would, as was proved on a conspicuous occasion, quickly
arrest its career. If, at the same time, the powers of the General
Government be carried to unconstitutional lengths, it will be
the result of a majority of the States and of the people, actuated
by some impetuous feeling, or some real or supposed interest,
overruling the minority, and not of successful attempts by the
General Government to overpower both.
In estimating the greater tendency in the political
system of the Union to a subversion, or to a separation of the
States composing it, there are some considerations to be taken
into the account which have been little adverted to by the most
oracular authors on the science of Government, and which are but
imperfectly developed, as yet, by our own experience. Such are
the size of the States, the number of them, the territorial extent
of the whole, and the degree of external danger. Each of these,
I am persuaded, will be found to contribute its impulse to the
practical direction which our great political machine is to take.
Excerpted from letter to John G. Jackson,
Dec. 27, 1821 (Madison
1865, III, pages 243-247).
