Abstract
Most scholars believe Madison embraced the extended republic merely as a means of reducing the majority's influence over government; they thus view his turn to the Republican party—a party dedicated to the mobilization of a national majority—as rejection of that theory. Careful attention to Madison's explanation of the extended republic shows, however, that his turn to the party was consistent with this theory. From the beginning, Madison believed a republic of “mean extent” was the key to striking a balance between unjust majorities and unjust rulers. Striking this balance required extending the sphere far enough to suppress majority faction without extending it so far as to prevent the majority from uniting in defense of its rights, thereby effectively enabling the government to escape its dependence on the people. Understanding that protection against unjust majorities comes at the expense of the ease with which the people can check unjust rulers, Madison embraced the Republican party as a means of preserving the government's dependence on the people in a context and time when it was in doubt.
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Notes
Kenneth Janda, Jeffrey M. Berry, and Jerry Goldman, The Challenge of Democracy: Government in America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000), 81.
Lance Banning, The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), 1.
Colleen Sheehan, “The Politics of Public Opinion: James Madison's ‘Notes on Government,’ William and Mary Quarterly 49 (October 1992): 609.
Banning, Sacred Fire, 2–3.
Donald R. Brand, “Reformers of the 1960s and 1970s: Modern Anti-Federalists?” in Remaking American Politics, ed. Richard A. Harris and Sidney M. Milkis (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989), 50.
Sidney Milkis, Political Parties and Constitutional Government: Remaking American Democracy (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 16, 190.
Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 264–68.
For a similar, though more subtle view, see Marvin Meyers, “Introduction,” in The Mind of the Founder: Sources of the Political Thought of James Madison, ed. Marvin Meyers (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1981), xlii.
Douglas W. Jaenicke, “Madison v. Madison: The Party Press Essays v. The Federalist Papers,” in Reflections on the Constitution: The American Constitution After Two Hundred Years, ed. John Zvesper and Richard A. Maidment (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1989), 117.
John Zvesper, “The Madisonian Systems,” Western Political Quarterly 37 (June 1984): 236–39.
Banning, Sacred Fire, 9, 297.
Sheehan, “The Politics of Public Opinion,” 611–20.
James Madison, James Madison: Writings, ed. Jack N. Rakove (New York: Library of America, 1999), 110.
Madison, Writings, 75–76.
Banning, Sacred Fire, 186.
Madison, Writings, 79. For other more or less elaborate discussions of the “great desideratum in government,” see also Madison to Washington, 16 April 1787 and Madison to Jefferson, 24 October 1787,Writings.
Madison, Writings, 79.
Madison, Writings, 79.
As there are no material differences between this part of Madison's explanation to Jefferson and his argument in Federalist 10, I shall make use of both statements in my discussion.
Madison, Writings, 149.
Madison, Writings, 161.
Madison, Writings, 163–64.
Madison, Writings, 166. In his analysis, Madison, Writings, 164–66, argues that there are two points of difference that distinguish a democracy from a republic: “first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens and greater sphere of country over which the latter may be extended.” While Madison allows that the first point of distinction, the representative principle, may have an independent effect in reducing the threat of majority faction, he nevertheless stresses that it is the second point of difference “principally which renders factious combinations less to be dreaded in the former [republics] than in the latter [democracies]” (emphasis added).
See, for example, Robert Eden, “Partisanship and the Constitutional Revolution: The Founders’ View is Newly Problematic,” in Constitutionalism in Perspective: The United States’ Constitution in Twentieth Century Politics, ed. Sarah Baumgartner Thurow (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988), 59.
Madison, Writings, 295, emphasis added.
Madison, Writings, 347–48.
Madison, Writings, 151–52.
However intermingled the first two causes inevitably seem to become in his subsequent analysis, it is instructive to note that Madison initially distinguishes the influence of the extent of territory from the influence of the relative homogeneity of the people. This distinction reinforces the earlier contention that an extended sphere offers a twofold protection against majority faction based upon the heterogeneity of the people as well as the practical difficulties attending communication and concert among a more numerous and widely distributed majority.
Midway through this sentence, Madison places an asterisk behind “very small territory.” This asterisk is connected to the following note: “as communications are small, difficulty of gover[nin]g impartially great for example Corporations. In Rep. St. Marino resort to <alien> magistrates.”
James Madison, The Papers of James Madison, ed. Robert A. Rutland, Thomas A. Mason, Robert J. Brugger, Jeanne K. Sisson, and Fredrika J. Teute (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983), 14: 132–33.
Madison, Papers, 14: 159–60, emphasis added.
Madison, Papers, 14: 158–9.
Madison, Papers, 14: 170; see also 161, 234.
Sheehan, “The Politics of Public Opinion,” 619.
Madison, Papers, 14: 161; see also 170.
This discussion of the people's “sovereignty” helps clarify Madison's view of representation, and thus flesh out what constitutes “misrepresentations.” To begin, Madison's insistence that the people's representatives are obliged to follow the public's view where it is clearly “fixed” recalls the view of representation described in the tenth Federalist where Madison hopes that the people's representatives will “refine and enlarge the public's views.” The relative passivity of this phrase is striking: In “refin[ing]” the public's view, Madison suggests that the legislators should not substitute their own view for that of the public, but merely fine tune the public's view to the requirements of justice and/or good policy. In keeping with this, in his “Notes” Madison clarifies that the people's representatives may only legitimately seek to form public opinion, and thus act on their own promptings, in the absence of a clear, “fixed,” public preference. At a minimum, then, “misrepresentations” would seem to include any occasion in which those in government ignore a clear public preference in order to pursue some preference of their own. Beyond this, “misrepresentations” would also seem to include some of the ways representatives might opt to act in the face of the public's division/silence. Certainly Madison does not believe that representatives can use this opening to promote whatever end they choose. Specifically, his discussion of the problem of injustice in government in “Vices,” Federalist 10, and elsewhere leads one to conclude that representatives cannot rightfully use this opening to promote some interest or passion of their own at the expense of public or private rights, or, more generally, the common interests, of the people. (In an extended republic, this would presumably include any effort intended to further weaken the cohesiveness of public opinion.) By the same token, however, representatives seeking to form public opinion with a view to promoting either in the face of the public's confusion would be acting legitimately. As we shall see later on, this distinction bears on Madison's assessment of the Federalist and Republican parties. In his view, the former was engaging in “misrepresentations” by, among other things, promoting division among the people with a view to reducing their influence over government. The latter, in contrast, sought to help overcome division by consolidating the people's preferences in support of republican principles. This, in turn, helped promote their influence over government, thus better safeguarding them from oppression, as well as encouraging their sovereignty.
Madison, Papers, 14; 170.
Madison, Papers, 14: 159, emphasis added.
Madison, Papers, 14: 159, emphasis added.
On this claim, see, for example, Jaenicke, “Madison v. Madison,” 126.
Madison, Papers, 14: 158–59. Madison makes these observations under the subject heading “Influence of the size of a nation on Government.”
Meyers, “Introduction,” Mind of the Founder, xlii.
For example, in “Vices of the Political System of the United States,” Writings, 75, Madison lists twelve problems marring the political practice of the federal and state governments. Problems one through eight pertain to the federal government, problems nine through twelve the State governments. Madison's discussion of the problem of faction is the ninth problem and occurs under the heading “Injustice of the laws of States.” See too, Madison to Jefferson, October 24, 1787, Writings, 149. Just as the problem of faction is not among the problems Madison lists in relation to the national government in “Vices,” so this problem is not among the numerous defects of the Articles Hamilton discusses in Federalists 15, 21–22.
Madison, Papers, 138–39.
Madison, Papers, 139.
Madison, Papers, 139.
Madison, Papers, 426.
Madison, Papers, 426.
Madison, Papers, 426.
Madison, Papers, 371.
Madison, Papers, 426–27. On this point, see Milkis, Political Parties and Constitutional Government, 24.
Madison, Papers, 372.
Madison, Papers, 372.
Madison, Papers, 372.
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Miller, T. James Madison's Republic of “Mean Extent” Theory: Avoiding The Scylla and Charybdis of Republican Government. Polity 39, 545–569 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.polity.2300075
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.polity.2300075