Many posts have discussed the Founding.
Jay Cost, "What Does It Mean to Be Madisonian? at AEI:
- Today, the word Madisonian is automatically paired with the American constitutional order, particularly the nexus of Federalist 10 and 51—the popular sovereignty of an extended republic mitigated by institutional mechanisms to temper majority factions.
- While that is arguably a fair characterization of the constitutional system, it misrepresents James Madison’s political position at the time of the Constitution’s drafting. Madison’s Federalist 10 defends the Constitution on grounds on which he privately criticized it, and Federalist 51 employs classical republican ideas his original theory did not heavily rely on.
- While Madison in retirement praised the Constitution as a whole, a more precise vocabulary would distinguish the “Publian” Madison from the authentically Madisonian position of 1787.
- The constitutional system advances Madisonian commitments like democratic governance, deliberation, and consensus—not through the means Madison preferred in 1787 but through the practical accommodations with classical republicanism that he eventually embraced.
From the essay:
From a broader perspective, while the Constitution does not embody the democratic republic to nearly the extent that Madison had hoped, it likely does so much more than it would have had Madison not been involved. His Virginia Plan set the agenda for the early portion of the convention and oriented the delegates to a national plan of government. His insistence on a democratically elected House of Representatives rebutted many delegates who thought states should appoint House members. His staunch defense of proportional representation in both chambers of Congress limited the power of the small states in only the Senate. For instance, William Paterson’s New Jersey Plan would have retained the unicameral Congress of the Articles of Confederation, with votes apportioned equally among the states.33 Madison also opposed demands by delegates sympathetic to commercial interests to entrench representation based on property and many of the demands from his fellow Southerners on protection for the slaveholding interest. He may have failed to create a constitution that reflected his aspirations of a national, democratic republic, but the finished product does reflect that view in part, thanks to his aspirations. In that sense, the Constitution is Madisonian.
