‘Gloomy Creature’ Brought Order Out of Alarm and Despair : Madison’s Constitution Cemented New Union

James Madison had been in Philadelphia for three weeks before the Constitutional Convention opened on May 25, 1787. But he had been preparing and plotting for this meeting for much of his adult life.

Although he was described as a “gloomy, stiff creature” by one woman who knew him, Madison was admired by his peers as the most thoughtful and learned student of government among them. The bookish Madison, a state legislator by age 29, conducted his own studies of the Greek city-states, the Roman Empire and the nations of Europe. He was seeking a formula for a government with the power to preserve peace and the restraint to preserve freedom for its citizens.

In 1787, as a spirit of alarm and despair gripped the nation, it was time to put his ideas to work, time for what he called the “grand experiment” to create a new government.

Years later, Madison’s reputation suffered badly from a largely failed presidency. He helped to provoke a needless war with Great Britain and holds the unique disgrace of having the White House burned out from under him in 1814. Perhaps as a result, Madison became what President John F. Kennedy called “the most underrated of the Founding Fathers.”

But, as the nation celebrates the 200th birthday of the U.S. Constitution, Madison’s achievement is getting new attention. Many historians are saying it was Madison, not Thomas Jefferson, who was the most profound political thinker of his generation.

Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was “more the enthusiast and the idealist,” Stanford University historian Jack N. Rakove said. “Madison was more prudent, more serious-minded. Jefferson was given to grand statements; Madison loved the distinctions.”

Checks and Balances

Both were well-suited to their roles in American history. Jefferson’s Declaration was the grand revolutionary proclamation, whereas Madison’s Constitution imposed the subtle checks and balances that permitted a stable, democratic government.

By the mid-1780s, Jefferson was in Paris as the American ambassador and seemed blithely unconcerned about the troubles at home. “I like a little rebellion now and then,” he told one friend, because, “like a storm in the atmosphere,” it clears the air.

But Madison saw the American Revolution degenerating into chaos. Under the Articles of Confederation, the 13 states were united in name only. Maryland and Virginia almost came to war over the Potomac River. Pennsylvania and New Jersey squabbled over the Delaware River. And, despite warnings from a weak Congress, Georgia negotiated its own treaties with Indian nations.

Spanish ships shut the Mississippi River, and the British fleet patrolled the Great Lakes. There was even talk of partitioning the 13 states into three separate nations or forming separate alliances with Europe. An armed rebellion of farmers in western Massachusetts raised the specter of open warfare between the cities and the countryside.

Weak Congress

There was no executive to run the government. Congress had no authority to impose taxes and was little more than a debating society. Madison attended most meetings of Congress as a representative from Virginia, but many other congressmen simply stayed away from the meetings in New York, preferring the more vital politics in their states.

The economic troubles of the era, as Madison described them, have a familiar ring today. Congress ran an annual budget deficit, which Madison attributed to the requirement that all 13 states approve any new tax.

Revenues in 1785 “fell short of $400,000, a sum neither equal to the interest due on foreign debts, nor even to the current expenses of the federal government,” he wrote in a 1786 letter to Jefferson. “In fact, most of our political evils may be traced to our commercial ones.”

The “commercial warfare among the states” had led to a growing trade imbalance with Europe, he complained to James Monroe, a young lawyer who, 30 years later, would succeed him as the nation’s fifth President.

‘Fictitious Money’

Because there was no national currency, states were printing their own bills. This “fictitious money,” as Madison called it, was fueling inflation, creating anxiety among creditors and “feeding the spirit of extravagance which sends away the coin to pay the unfavorable balance” in foreign trade.

While writing widely on the vices and defects of the Articles of Confederation, Madison campaigned among his friends and fellow lawmakers for another “continental convention” in Philadelphia.

He succeeded first in winning the blessing of his colleagues in Congress to meet in Philadelphia and discuss revisions to the Articles of Confederation. He then persuaded George Washington, the nation’s most revered citizen, to leave his retirement at Mount Vernon, Va., to go to Philadelphia, a decision that instantly gave the convention the prestige needed to make tough political decisions.

Day after day, through the hot summer months of 1787, the 36-year-old Madison took detailed notes on what was said and done in the secret sessions. It was “drudgery,” he told friends, but his notes, published after his death in 1836, give historians the only daily account of what transpired.

Washington Silent

The best-known figures at the convention played only minor roles. Washington was solid but silent, presiding but adding little to the debates. The 81-year-old Franklin had to be carried in on a litter borne by prisoners, and his rambling speeches were read for him by fellow delegates.

Other leaders of the Revolution stayed away. As Virginia’s Patrick Henry put it, they “smelt a rat.” Any move to strengthen the national government, they said, would inevitably lead to tyranny and a loss of liberty by the states and towns.

Madison believed this faith in small-town democracy was refuted by centuries of political history. Although Aristotle had argued that democracy worked only among small groups of friends and neighbors, Madison noted that the Greek city-states were tyrannized by “factions”--what might today be called special-interest groups.

Madison argued that democracy and freedom could best be assured in an “extended republic.” A large nation made up of many states does not permit a single faction, such as farmers, bankers, merchants or soldiers, to dominate the rest, he said.

Distrusted Politicians

Madison had little faith in the essential goodness of man. The separation of powers among different branches of government was crucial, he argued, because politicians could not be trusted.

“What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” he wrote. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed and, in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”

To counter what Madison gently called “the defect of better motives” among elected politicians, each branch of government “should have a will of its own. . . . Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” These words echo today as Congress holds hearings on alleged transgressions of the law by the Reagan Administration.

Madison’s grasp of politics made an immediate impression on his fellow delegates.

‘Eloquent and Convincing’

“Mr. Maddison (sic) is a character who has long been in public life, and what is very remarkable, every person seems to acknowledge his greatness,” wrote William Pierce, a Georgia delegate. “He blends together the profound politician with the scholar. In the management of every great question, he evidently took the lead in the convention, and tho’ he cannot be called an orator, he is a most agreeable, eloquent and convincing speaker.”

In the convention’s first days, Madison and Edmund Randolph presented the “Virginia plan” for a government with three branches--a two-house legislature, an executive and a supreme judiciary. Although the new federal government would wield only certain “enumerated powers,” its authority would be supreme in specified areas such as foreign affairs and interstate commerce.

Many questions remained. Should the chief executive be one person or a committee of three? Should the President be appointed by Congress or elected by the people? How long should a President serve? Although some delegates wanted an indefinite term, a majority favored regular elections despite, as Madison reported, “the prospect (that) necessary degradation would discourage the most dignified characters from aspiring to the office.”

Salary Plan Rejected

Should the legislators be appointed by their states or elected directly by the people? How should they be paid? Madison at one point proposed that the salaries of top federal officials be tied to the price of wheat. The convention turned down the idea.

Madison lost as many debates as he won. As a representative of one of the largest states, he wanted membership in the House and the Senate to be based on population. But, in the great compromise with the delegates from small states, each state was awarded House members according to its population but two senators regardless of its size.

He fought in vain for a “council of revision”--a committee of wise men with authority to veto acts of the federal and state legislatures that exceeded constitutional limits. In a sense, Madison’s view prevailed anyway. The Supreme Court, which prompted remarkably little discussion at the convention, now regularly casts aside federal and state laws as unconstitutional.

When Madison left Philadelphia in September, he was publicly enthusiastic but privately skeptical about the new Constitution, which still needed the ratification of legislatures of nine of the 13 states.

“I hazard an opinion,” he told Jefferson, “that the new plan--should it be adopted--will . . . not prevent the local mischiefs which everywhere excite disgust against state governments.”

He predicted ratification, however, on the theory that the public will “receive anything that promises stability to the public councils and security to private rights.”

The ratification struggle was a grueling one, particularly in the most important states. Favorable votes were 187 to 168 in Massachusetts, 30 to 27 in New York and 89 to 79 in Madison’s home state of Virginia.

Madison conceded to the critics that the Constitution did not specifically set forth the rights of citizens. Despite his doubts that “parchment barriers” would stop legislative majorities from ignoring the rights of minorities, he nevertheless returned to Congress as a representative and drew up a set of 10 constitutional amendments, commonly known as the Bill of Rights. They were quickly ratified by the states in 1791. Their guarantees include freedom of speech, religion and the press and the right to a fair trial.

Newspaper Essays

But the most enduring evidence of Madison’s genius as a political theorist came in the midst of the ratification struggle in New York. From October, 1787, to March, 1788, Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay dashed off an extraordinary series of 85 essays that appeared in the city’s newspapers.

Some of the essays, later called the “Federalist Papers,” rebutted critics of the Constitution in the argumentative tone of newspaper letters, which is what they were. Others, particularly the 26 written by Madison alone, ranged widely over political thought and practice, from the ancient world to the 18th Century.

Today they are a staple of college curricula and are cited regularly by historians, lawyers and the Supreme Court to explain the original meaning of the Constitution.

Even in Madison’s day, one admiring reader understood their historical significance.

“When the transient circumstances and fugitive performances which attended this crisis shall have disappeared,” George Washington wrote in a letter to Hamilton, “that work will merit the notice of posterity, because in it are candidly and ably discussed the principles of freedom and the topics of government, which will be always interesting to mankind so long as they shall be connected in civil society.”