Vol. 12 No. 12 (December 2002)
JAMES MADISON AND THE FUTURE OF LIMITED GOVERNMENT by John Samples Editor).
Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2002. 246 pp. Cloth $19.95 Paper $10.95. ISBN:
1-930865-22-8.
Reviewed by David Schultz, Graduate School of Public Administration and
Management, Hamline University. Email:
dschultz@hamline.edu .
James Madison is a most perplexing and misunderstood constitutional framer and
founding father. Unlike Thomas Jefferson who stands out for his flashy
brilliance and accomplishments, Madison's intellect and legacy are more subtle
yet still significant. Madison is a primary author of the Constitution and the
Bill of Rights, FEDERALIST 10 and 51, and he joined the third President of the
United States both as Secretary of State and as a co-author of the Virginia and
Kentucky Resolutions. Yet like Jefferson, Madison has recently become everything
to everybody. Within the recent wave of new Madison scholarship his volumes of
writings are increasingly being picked over by judges, attorneys, and scholars
to clarify the meaning of the Constitution and how the American political order
is supposed to operate.
The essays in this volume continue the tradition of reexamining James Madison
for constitutional clues and appropriating him as the patron saint for a
particular cause. Here, the dozen essays are the outgrowth of a 2001Cato
Institute Conference on the 250th anniversary of his birth, asking what
relevance Madison's ideas have for the future. While uneven and quirky, the
essays overall make the point that the Madisonian model of limited government
has been a powerful and enduring framework for American constitutionalism and
democracy for over 200 years and the ideas espoused by the fourth president are
still relevant to the cause of freedom both nationally and perhaps
internationally. Less persuasive, however, are particular essays employing
Madison to shed new light on the Constitution, or make his writings compatible
with conservative causes.
What can we learn from these essays? James Buchanan examines Madison's "If men
were angels" line from FEDERALIST 10, concluding that by angel he meant people
who treat others in such a way that government is needed. There is no surprise
with this claim. Judge Alex Kozinski and Steven Engel invoke Madison in defense
of recent conservative efforts in UNITED STATES v. MORRISON and UNITED STATES v.
LOPEZ to limit the scope of the Commerce Clause. They contend that Madison was a
critic of a Hamiltonian vision of America and that he did not believe that the
Constitution's general Welfare clause was an endorsement for federal spending
for any purpose. Roger Pilon finds within Madison a moral vision of a government
of enumerated powers, but that vision was undone by New Deal jurisprudence that
both created a two tier analysis for property and personal rights and a lifting
of the limits that the General Welfare and Commerce clauses imposed upon the
federal government. Unfortunately, neither of these chapters provides much
historical evidence or exegesis of Madison's writings to support their
claims.
Joyce Malcolm develops an interesting essay contrasting the Madisonian vision of
constitutionalism to that of the British model. She makes four important points.
First, unlike the British who saw the constitution as a product of time and
tradition, Madison was willing to innovate and produce a constitution to fit the
needs of the day. Second, Madison rejected monarchy in favor of a republic.
Third, Madison advocated a greater use of separation of powers than did the
British. Finally,
Madison located sovereignty in the people rather than in parliament. This is a
good essay, but for readers already familiar with the historical writings of
Gordon Wood and Bernard Bailyn, Malcolm's essay is not groundbreaking.
Robert McDonald reads Madison through the self-avowed lens of a Jeffersonian,
arguing that most of Madison's major accomplishments are also Jefferson's and
that Jeffersonianism and Madisonianism are virtually identical. In making this
claim McDonald does a good job distinguishing Madison from apparent alliances
with Alexander Hamilton, showing the closer intellectual affinities between the
two Virginians. However, he does gloss over critical differences between
Jefferson and Madison at different junctures in their careers.
Tom Palmer's essay is ostensibly about the views of Madison on multiculturalism,
but in reality the chapter is a long attack on critical race theory and Lani
Guinier. Similarly, Jacob Levy invokes Madison to discuss the role that Indians
played in his constitutional order, contending that we are moving away from his
vision of seeing the federal government as having total control over relations
with Indians. Neither the Palmer nor the Levy essay is really about Madison, but
instead they are
tangents on to secondary topics.
Walter Berns and Michael Hayes in respective chapters discuss Madison on
religion, seeking to argue that his Remonstrance notwithstanding, Madison was
not hostile to religion and that instead he saw an important role in religion
fostering moral values important to the republic. John Samples seeks to defend
direct democracy, especially initiative and referendum, against Madison's
objections. While James Dorn draws upon Madison's views to show how many of them
are relevant to emerging democracies, and John Tomasi seeks to extend Madisonian
principles to an internal world order. While the Berns and Hayes chapters are
engaging, the latter three chapters really depart from Madison and go into
directions unusual for discussions on this subject.
Overall, the volume does not break significantly new ground on law and
constitutionalism and that perhaps will leave many readers interested in this
subject disappointed. Many of the essays also fail to offer persuasive arguments
regarding the applicability of Madison to foreign affairs, Indian relations,
multiculturalism, and initiative and referendum. Instead, James Madison is
merely the vehicle for discussion of these other topics. However, Madison
afficionados will buy the book and
find some useful information in it.
CASE REFERENCES
UNITED STATES v. LOPEZ, 514 U.S. 549 (1995).
UNITED STATES v. MORRISON, 120 S.Ct. 1740 (2000).
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Copyright 2002 by the author, David Schultz.