James Madison's Montpelier We The People Spring 2018 WTP_Spring_2018_FINAL_web | Page 17

SPRING 2018
As someone who has spent a career studying James
Madison, what do you think is the most overlooked
part of his thinking?
JR: “Madison was very concerned with the
deliberative process and legislative deliberation.
He thought that when you assemble the people’s
representatives they should have a refined and
enlarged view of what the people they represented
wanted to accomplish. This marked the leading
edge of his constitutional thinking, the way in
which he thought about the role of institutions.”
is that the more debate you have the closer you
get to eliminating the weak arguments. We know
now that that’s not always the case. But we also
see every day that efforts to restrict the free flow of
information, crude efforts to deny people the right
to speech or publish, remain one of the standard
techniques of a repressive government.”
What is the secret to reading and understanding
Madison as a political philosopher?
JR: “I would have everyone read Federalist 37 first.
“Over time, Madison also grew increasingly
Or maybe it’s the process of reading Federalist
interested in how one could shape public
37 after spending three or four decades thinking
opinion and create informed voters. Ideally,
about Madison [chuckles]. What Madison
notwithstanding all their passions and interests,
did in that essay was to reflect on the inherent
a republican people has to learn how to act
difficulty of political reasoning. He presents
responsibly as citizens.
a very sophisticated, really
Legislators need to be better
epistemological argument, and it
“Over time, Madison also grew
informed and prepared to
is a text one has to teach carefully.
increasingly
interested
in
how
deliberate, but Madison also
But once you understand
wanted citizens to enter into
one could shape public opinion what he’s doing and use it as a
that process intelligently.”
benchmark for examining his
and create informed voters.
other writings, you gain a lot of
“The more that party conflict
Ideally, notwithstanding all
insight into his distinctive turn
heated up in the 1790s, the more
of mind. There is really nothing
their
passions
and
interests,
important this subject becomes.
else like it in the the entire and
a republican people has to
Almost the first thing that
very rich body of political writings
Madison and Jefferson did after
learn how to act responsibly
that Americans compiled in this
they founded the Republican
period.”
as
citizens.
”
party was to set up their own
party newspaper to counteract
—Jack Rakove “What he basically told his readers
Hamilton’s journal. That in turn
was that before they judged the
forced Madison to think more seriously about the
Constitution on its merits, they had to consider
creation of a responsible public opinion.”
the very difficulties its framers had faced. The most
important passage says that you have to compare
“How do you create an informed voter? What’s
political reasoning to other forms of science or
the role of public opinion? How does it work to
knowledge that existed in the eighteenth century,
preserve the republic? Those all became serious
such as moral philosophy and natural science.”
problems in Madison’s thinking, but they all
represented genuine aspects in the evolution of
“He then uses this presumption to discuss the
American constitutionalism.”
fundamental problems of federalism and separation
of powers. The real task in writing a Constitution
“It is the distinctive American position that both in
is to draw lines of power around departments or
religion and in politics we want minimal influence
between levels of government, and this is a far
from our government. The First Amendment
more difficult enterprise than people imagine. It’s a
says Congress shall make no law respecting the
brilliant essay, and that’s why when I teach Madison
establishment of religion or limiting freedom of
I feel it’s in some ways the best place to begin.”
speech and the press. The underlying hope is that
we want to foster as much debate as you can and
Background: Editorial photography of a crowd organized at
the underlying assumption, which may be naive,
the Washington Monument for the One Nation Rally, a march
for union and civil rights in 2010.
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