• The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
  - 1787
  
  
• Place three individuals in a situation wherein the interest of each depends on the voice of the others, and give to two of them an interest opposed to the rights of the third. Will the latter be secure? The prudence of every man would shun the danger. The rules & forms of justice suppose & guard against it. Will two thousand in a like situation be less likely to encroach on the rights of one thousand?
  - 1821

James Madison

James Madison’s slight stature and reserved personality gave little indication of the keen intellect and shrewd nature of the man. Perhaps no other person of the Founding generation had as much influence as he in crafting, ratifying, and interpreting the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. A skilled political tactician,Madison proved instrumental in determining the form of the early American republic.

Madison’s political theory was founded upon a realistic view of human nature. He believed that men in society tended to form factions, defined as groups that promoted their own interest at the expense of the rest. Factions posed a special problem for democratic societies because a faction composed of the majority of the people could easily oppress the minority. To combat this, as he argued in Federalist Paper No. 51, power must be set against power, “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” Madison therefore favored the separation of powers within the central government and a division of power between the national and state governments. This latter concept, federalism, was a radical idea in the late eighteenth century. Few people at the time believed that power in a nation could be divided between two levels of government, each supreme in its own sphere.

Madison believed that safety lay in numbers. The more heterogeneous the society, the less chance there would be for any one group to combine with others to form a faction of the majority. Though ancient philosophers had argued that only small republics could survive for a long period of time, Madison believed the opposite. A large republic could encompass many different groups and different interests—economic, religious, and social— and thereby provide a safeguard against the tyranny of the majority.

What he did; what he said; what others said about him

What he did...

• Known as the “Father of the Constitution” (1787)
  
  
• Understood that many believed the Constitution did not fully protect individual rights
  
  
• First opposed adding a bill of rights, because rights were implied by the Constitution and it would be impossible to list every right
  
  
• Promised that a bill of rights would be added to satisfy concerns that it did not protect individual rights. Several states ratified the Constitution after he made this promise.
  
  
• Wrote the Bill of Rights as a member of the House of Representatives (1791)
  
  
• Served as America’s fourth president

What he said...

• The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.
  (Federalist No. 45, 1788)
  
  
• As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
  (Property, 1792)

What others said about him...

• Eloquence has been defined to be the art of persuasion. If it included persuasion by convincing, Mr. Madison was the most eloquent man I ever heard.
  –Patrick Henry, November 12, 1796
  
  
• Every person seems to acknowledge his greatness. He blends together the profound politician with the scholar.
  –William Pierce, notes on the Constitutional Convention, 1787

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On Property

Directions: Read the selections from James Madison’s essay Property, and discuss each as a large group.

1. This term [property] means that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual … it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.
   
   
2. In the former sense, a man’s land, or merchandise, or money is called his property.
   
   
3. In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.
   
   
4. He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.
   
   
5. He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.
   
   
6. He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.
   
   
7. In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
   
   
8. Government is instituted to protect property of every sort…. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.
   
   
9. Conscience is the most sacred of all property…. To guard a man’s house as his castle … can give no title to invade a man’s conscience which is more sacred than his castle….
   
   
10. If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties … such a government is not a pattern for the United States.

–James Madison, 1792

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Audio biography

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On property

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Selected works

• Notes on Ancient and Modern Confederacies (1786)
• The Vices of the Political System of the United States (1787)
• Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787
• The Federalist Papers [with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay] (1787–1788)
• The Virginia Resolutions (1798)

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