The Novelty of Freedom

Continuing my stroll through the impressive halls of the Madison's thought, I came upon the following in The Federalist No. 14:

Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the political world; that it has never yet had a place in the theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what it is impossible to accomplish.

No, my countrymen, shut your ears against this unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it conveys; the kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defense of their sacred rights, consecrate their Union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies.

And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of rendering us in pieces, in order to preserve our liberties and promote our happiness.

But why is the experiment of an extended republic to be rejected, merely because it may comprise what is new? Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience?

To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness.

Had no important step been taken by the leaders of the Revolution for which a precedent could not be discovered, no government established of which an exact model did not present itself, the people of the United States might, at this moment have been numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided councils, must at best have been laboring under the weight of some of those forms which have crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind.

Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe. They formed the design of a great Confederacy, which it is incumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate.

If their works betray imperfections, we wonder at the fewness of them. If they erred most in the structure of the Union, this was the work most difficult to be executed; this is the work which has been new modelled by the act of your convention, and it is that act on which you are now to deliberate and to decide.

America was, of course, born imperfect. It became tragically more imperfect from Lincoln's administration forward. Yet, for all its imperfections, show me something better—morally as well as practically.

I mean that. Show me. I'll happily embrace it. For example, acknowledging America's imperfections does mean something fatalistic such as "That's life. That's the way it'll always be. Deal with it." No. Hell no.

Acknowledging an imperfection is not a license to indulge and continue it. Acknowledging it implies a moral obligation to correct it.

More significantly, something else ought to be acknowledged—i.e., moral perfection is possible: mine, yours, even an entire nation's.

The question is not really the possibility of perfection but the standard by which you measure it.

If your standard is some kind of unreal notion like infallibility or omniscience, then, of course, perfection is impossible. But that is a transparent straw man position. It also happens to be a handy excuse for slackers of every kind. More importantly, it's an unfair weight on too many wonderfully moral souls who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.

The standard of moral perfection is that which is possible to man qua rational animal. More on this in a future post.

A miracle

On October 24, 1781, Madison wrote to Jefferson his latest report on the Constitutional Convention. In that particularly long letter, I enjoyed reading this excerpt:

Hence was embraced the alternative of a Government which instead of operating, on the States, should operate without their intervention on the individuals composing them: and hence the change in the principle and proportion of representation.

This ground-work being laid, the great objects which presented themselves were

1. to unite a proper energy in the Executive and a proper stability in the Legislative departments, with the essential characters of Republican Government.

2. to draw a line of demarkation which would give to the General Government every power requisite for general purposes, and leave to the States every power which might be most beneficially administered by them.

3. to provide for the different interests of different parts of the Union.

4. to adjust the clashing pretensions of the large and small States.

Each of these objects was pregnant with difficulties. The whole of them together formed a task more difficult than can be well concieved by those who were not concerned in the execution of it. Adding to these considerations the natural diversity of human opinions on all new and complicated subjects, it is impossible to consider the degree of concord which ultimately prevailed as less than a miracle.[Emphasis added.]

Miracle indeed! Bless the Age of Enlightenment for producing the epoch changing accomplishment that summed up in the birth of America!

Here's to the next Renaissance on the long road of reason to complete the revolution America's Founders started.

Did Lincoln Steal A Famous Phrase from Madison?

Did Lincoln steal his famous "preserve the union" phrase from Madison or some other Founding Father? I've now seen Madison use the phrase more than once. The latest example I found follows:

It appeared to be the sincere and unanimous wish of the Convention to cherish and preserve the Union of the States. No proposition was made, no suggestion was thrown out, in favor of a partition of the Empire into two or more Confederacies

If Lincoln did steal it from Madison, he ignored what Madison immediately said next:

It was generally agreed that the objects of the Union could not be secured by any system founded on the principle of a confederation of sovereign States. A voluntary observance of the federal law by all the members, could never be hoped for. A compulsive one could evidently never be reduced to practice, and if it could, involved equal calamities to the innocent & the guilty, the necessity of a military force both obnoxious & dangerous, and in general, a scene resembling much more a civil war, than the administration of a regular Government.

Even if Lincoln had read Madison's prescient observation, his statist ambition would have ignored it. For more details, check out The Real Lincoln.

Madison on the Constitutional Convention

Two years before George Washington became the first president of the United States, James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson about constitutional convention and the mood prior to publishing its conclusions. He wrote:

Nothing can exceed the universal anxiety for the event of the Meeting here. Reports and conjectures abound concerning the nature of the plan which is to be proposed. The public however is certainly in the dark with regard to it. The Convention is equally in the dark as to the reception wch. may be given to it on its publication. All the prepossessions are on the right side, but it may well be expected that certain characters will wage war against any reform whatever. My own idea is that the public mind will now or in a very little time receive any thing that promises stability to the public Councils & security to private rights, and that no regard ought to be had to local prejudices or temporary considerations. If the present moment be lost it is hard to say what may be our fate.

[Emphasis added]

Indeed, what would have been our fate?

The entire letter in which this quote appears is available here

Madison on Factions

While continuing to read Madison at my slow pace, I took a moment to browse the net for some references to him. That effort showed me this gem of a site. It shows a considerable amount of the material I've found in the book I'm reading, published by the Library of America. The site layout is clear and easy to follow.

The particular passage I was hoping to find was there. You can see the entire dialogue here. The excerpts I found most interesting follow.

Speaking of the logic supporting a national government, Madison said:

he combined with [that logic] the necessity of providing more effectually for the security of private rights, and the steady dispensation of Justice. Interferences with these were evils which had more perhaps than any thing else, produced [the Constitutional] convention. Was it to be supposed that republican liberty could long exist under the abuses of it practised in some of the States.

Madison agreed with a contention that in a very small state "faction & oppression would prevail". He noted how civilized societies are

divided into different Sects, Factions, & interests, as they happened to consist of rich & poor, debtors & creditors, the landed, the manufacturing, the commercial interests, the inhabitants of this district or that district, the followers of this political leader or that political leader, the disciples of this religious Sect or that religious Sect.

This led him to an important question:

In all cases where a majority are united by a common interest or passion, the rights of the minority are in danger. What motives are to restrain them?

What indeed?

A prudent regard to the maxim that honesty is the best policy is found by experience to be as little regarded by bodies of men as by individuals. Respect for character is always diminished in proportion to the number among whom the blame or praise is to be divided. Conscience, the only remaining tie, is known to be inadequate in individuals: In large numbers, little is to be expected from it. Besides, Religion itself may become a motive to persecution & oppression.

In the following excerpt, I admire how history is brought to bear on the significance of the decisions to be made in the present of his day.

These observations are verified by the Histories of every Country antient & modern. In Greece & Rome the rich & poor, the creditors & debtors, as well as the patricians & plebians alternately oppressed each other with equal unmercifulness. What a source of oppression was the relation between the parent cities of Rome, Athens & Carthage, & their respective provinces: the former possessing the power, & the latter being sufficiently distinguished to be separate objects of it? Why was America so justly apprehensive of Parliamentary injustice? Because G. Britain had a separate interest real or supposed, & if her authority had been admitted, could have pursued that interest at our expence. We have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.

This passage gave me pause to reflect on a future era's Madison looking at the sweep of history, picking up where Madison left off, armed to the teeth with the intellectual ammunition afforded him by Ayn Rand's powerful ideas. Madison continues:

What has been the source of those unjust laws complained of among ourselves? Has it not been the real or supposed interest of the major number? Debtors have defrauded their creditors. The landed interest has borne hard on the mercantile interest. The Holders of one species of property have thrown a disproportion of taxes on the holders of another species. The lesson we are to draw from the whole is that where a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure. In a Republican Govt. the Majority if united have always an opportunity.

Madison's conclusion:

The only remedy is to enlarge the sphere, & thereby divide the community into so great a number of interests & parties, that in the 1st. place a majority will not be likely at the same moment to have a common interest separate from that of the whole or of the minority; and in the 2d. place, that in case they shd. have such an interest, they may not be apt to unite in the pursuit of it. It was incumbent on us then to try this remedy, and with that view to frame a republican system on such a scale & in such a form as will controul all the evils wch. have been experienced.

I marvel at not only the calibre of Madison's effort but the nature of the audience he had to be addressing to share this passionate focus on protecting everyone's rights. What an era!

Madison Against Religious Assessments

Currently, I'm reading the writings of James Madison. Knowing little of him, I decided to go straight to his own writings instead of a finding a biography. If you know a good biography to recommend, please do.

So far, I've found his prose generally hard to follow. At the same time, I've found the calibre of his thought worth the effort.

Today, I came across his opposition to an attempt in Virgina in 1785 to pass a bill "establishing a provision for teachers of the Christian religion". He didn't just call it a "dangerous abuse of power"; he showed why he reached that conclusion.

His opposition was addressed to the general assembly of the commonwealth of Virgina. Among the 15 points he made, here are some highlights, the best of his prose I've enjoyed so far:

Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those minds who have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us.

Look at that. Look at its total respect for the individual mind to reach its own conclusions at its own pace free from force on principle. Beautiful.

During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.

What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people.... A just government instituted to secure & perpetuate [liberty] needs them not.

[Emphasis added]

Instead of holding forth an Asylum to the persecuted [and oppressed of every Nation and Religion], it is itself a signal of persecution.... Distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree. The one is the first step, the other the last in the career of intolerance. The magnanimous sufferer under the cruel scourge in foreign Regions, must view the Bill as a Beacon on our Coast, warning him to seek some other haven, where liberty and philanthropy in their due extent, may offer a more certain repose from his Troubles.

I'm happy to say that I still have much more to read!