James Madison's Montpelier We The People Spring 2018 WTP_Spring_2018_FINAL_web | Page 16

WE THE PEOPLE
In his most recent book, A Politician Thinking: The
Creative Mind of James Madison, Rakove treats
Madison as a working politician and statesman who
also possessed an acute capacity for reflecting on the
dynamic character of the revolutionary experiment
in republican government. We asked Rakove if he
could distill his thinking on Madison to a few simple
statements that accurately reflected his impact. “Madison drew important lessons from the
experience of getting Jefferson’s Bill for Religious
Freedom enacted in 1786. It directly supported
the famous arguments of his two great essays,
Federalist 10 and 51. The best security for civil
liberty in a republic would follow the best security
for religious freedom: a multiplicity of interests or
religious sects.”
What was Madison’s most fundamental contribution
to our system of government? When we call Madison “The Father of the
Constitution,” what are we honoring?
JR: “First and foremost, I think it was the way
JR: “I would start with Madison’s first political
he set the agenda for the Federal Convention.
commitment, his broad support for individual
Madison imagined a national government that
religious freedom. That illustrated and shaped his
would act, not through the states, which was
approach to the fundamental problem of how one
the case under the Articles of Confederation,
would protect rights in a republican government.
but directly on the population
The real problem of rights in
by law. That is his definitive
a republic was not to protect
“Madison imagined a national
contribution to the whole ethos
the people as a whole against
government that would act,
of American constitutionalism.”
the concentrated power of
government, but rather to protect not through the states, which
individuals and minorities against was the case under the
Why does everybody always cite
factious majorities, working
Articles of Confederation, but Federalist 10 and Federalist 51
through the legislature. This point
as Madison’s most important
directly on the population
seems so obvious to us today that
writing?
it is difficult for us to grasp the
by law. That is his definitive
JR: “Those essays are the first
novelty of Madison’s position.”
contribution to the whole ethos main source for Madison’s
“Both Madison and Jefferson
of American constitutionalism.” distinctive contribution to the
owed a lot to John Locke
—Jack Rakove political thought of his era. He
philosophically. But these two
argues that the larger the republic,
friends and allies also recognized
the harder it will be for any
that the American situation had diverged from
factious majority to dominate. As I noted before,
the English model in at least two important ways.
religion formed the model for this conclusion,
First, American Protestants placed a much greater
which Madison then generalized to a diversity of
emphasis on the importance of the experience
economic and social interests.The more diversity
of religious conversion, which in turn meant
one has, the more you need genuine debate and
that individuals had to be free to make their own
deliberation to identify what the true public good
spiritual decisions on the basis of conscience.
is. The flip side of the argument is that the smaller
Second, even where religious establishments
the entity, the easier it will be for the wrong kinds of
continued to exist in revolutionary America, they
majorities to coalesce and to do their unjust deeds.
were very weak; even an established church like the
Madison believed, and time has mostly proved him
Church of England, which became the Episcopal
right, that the real danger to rights is more likely to
Church, were struggling for public support. These
arise in individual states than at the national level.
two conditions made it much easier to conclude, as
That’s why I like to say that the most Madisonian
Madison and Jefferson did, that religious activity
part of the Constitution is actually Section I of the
could be wholly privatized, both to allow freedom
Fourteenth Amendment, the due process and equal
protection clauses, designed to protect the people
of conscience to flourish, and to get rid of the
against the state governments.”
inherent corruption of established religion.”
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