POSITION OF MADISON.

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alectical legerdemain. Great weight must therefore be given to his exposition of the constitution; for he played a leading part in the Philadelphia convention; was afterwards the most conspicuous defender of the draft of the constitution in the Virginia convention; in conjunction with Hamilton and Jay wrote the Federalist; had a precise knowledge of the constitution and had familiarized his thought with the minutest details of its provisions. But it can be shown that he now read the constitution in such a way as to find in it something essentially different from what he had advocated in Philadelphia, and from what he thought he saw in the completed draft of it. If it be conceded that he did not read the constitution now so as to introduce anything new into it and this will scarcely be denied to-day-these different interpretations can be explained only on two assumptions, that, leaving all sophistry aside, the terms of the constitution must admit of essentially different meanings, and that Madison's political proclivities and judgment had experienced a radical change since 1787 and 1788. This last point is important for the understanding of the history of the constitution, since the causes of the change in Madison's political tendency were not of a personal, but of a general, nature. Madison is in this respect only the most distinguished representative of a large fraction of the whole people.

Madison did not agree in 1787 with the opinion that had become current throughout the country, that the states were sovereign in the proper sense of the word. Said he on the 29th of June, in the Philadelphia convention: "Their [the states'] laws in relation to the paramount law of the confederacy were analogous to that of by-laws to the supreme law within a state."" And he added that the powers of the states, under the proposed form of government,

'Compare the preceding note.

would be still more hampered. This language is very characteristic of his position. All his efforts at the time had their basis in this fundamental thought, and he followed out its logical conclusions with as much acuteness as practical insight. He repeatedly and urgently warned the country against the disastrous consequences of stopping half-way. He would not change the legal basis of the relation of the states to the Union, because it was not necessary to do so from his conception of the nature of the articles of confederation. He desired only to make the theory of the articles of confederation a living fact by means of the constitution. He would have the constitution give to the general government an express and definite legal remedy, by which every attempt of the states to curtail the legal and actual supremacy of the Union could be nipped in the bud.

Even before the meeting of the constitutional convention he writes to Edmund Randolph:2 "Let it have a negative in all cases whatsoever, on the legislative acts of the states, as the king of Great Britain heretofore had. This I conceive to be essential, and the least possible abridgment of the state sovereignties. Without such a defensive power, every positive power that can be given on paper will be unavailing."

During the course of the convention he returns again and again to this point, insisting upon it as "absolutely necessary to a perfect system," and from first to last does not deviate by a hair's breadth from his original demand. He declares, on the 8th of June: "But in order to give the negative this efficacy, it must extend to all cases. A discrimination would be only a fresh source of contention between the two authorities. In a word, to recur to the illustrations borrowed from the planetary system, this

Elliot, Deb., V. p. 256.

April 8, 1787. Elliot, Deb., V., p. 108.

sume."2

MADISON IN THE CONVENTION.

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prerogative of the general government is the great pervading principle that must control the centrifugal tendency of the states, which without it will continually fly out of their proper orbits, and destroy the order and harmony of the political system."" And when the convention finally adopted the draft without any provision of this kind, he again declared that it "alone could meet all the shapes which these [the injurious acts of the states] should asWe must measure the change in his personal views on the conditions precedent of a powerful commonwealth, with a capacity for life and built on a federative foundation, by these expressions. But this is not saying that the change in his personal views influenced his interpretation of the constitution, or, if so, to what extent. Our judgment on this point must depend upon how far he considered his main object to be attained in 1787 and 1788, spite of the fact that he was not able to secure an unlimited negative to the government of the Union.

The later school of Calhoun repeatedly appealed to a word used by Madison in the constitutional convention, to prove that even those who most strongly advocated a "consolidation" of the states did not intend to give the federal government the power to use force in order to compel obedience on the part of a state.

During the debates on the clause authorizing the use of the power of the whole nation against a delinquent state, he remarked: "The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."

But this passage must not be separated from the context if its meaning would be rightly understood. Madison in

troduced his remarks with the declaration that "the more he reflected on the use of force the more he doubted the practicability, the justice, and the efficacy of it," and at the close he expressed the hope that "such a system would be framed as would render this resource unnecessary." The issue of the question, it seemed to him, should be determined by its expediency. He did not contest the right of the federal government to defend not only its existence but its rights with force; but he doubted the advisability of making the use of this extreme remedy necessary, and the possibility of applying it with success. Hence he desired that the general government should have the absolute veto, for he could discover no third means; and that congress should have power to "control" the states was a question of which he entertained no doubt. Indeed, he saw the only danger in the usurpation of the states, for even if "a tendency of the general government to absorb the states" should appear, it could, in his opinion, be attended by no fatal consequence.1 The veto was, therefore, the mildest means which could be discovered to prevent the evil which had grown out of the unconstitutional pretensions of the state governments. "The existence of such a check would prevent attempts to commit them. Should no such precaution be engrafted, the only remedy would be an appeal to coercion. Was such a remedy eligible? Was it practicable? Could the national resources, if exerted to the utmost, enforce a national decree against Massachusetts, abetted, perhaps, by several of her neighbors? It would not be possible."

Madison may have been right in thinking that the employment of force against a state would be impossible at the time, and that hence it would be necessary to give the general government a peaceable means to check any at

PROPOSED VETO OVER STATE ACTS.

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tempt at revolt before the agitation should become so intense, and extend to a circle so large, that the authority of the federal government would be seriously endangered. But it is surprising that he, and with him all the distinguished members of the convention, should have been so obstinate in declaring the veto to be the only means by which this end could be attained. The debate had progressed a great way before he gave his decisive reasons for this and at the same time clearly declared to what constitutional means congress would be limited without such a provision. Said he on the 17th of July: "They [the states] will pass laws which will accomplish their injurious objects before they can be repealed by the general legislature, or set aside by the national tribunals." With the exception of the unambiguous prescription of the legal means, the only essential difference between the absolute veto and the power of resistance against the encroachments of the states at the command of the federal government, according to the form of constitution favored by the convention, is the element of time. The extension of the veto power over the states, which he proposed, would always at once prevent, in cases of urgent need, a law which violated the constitutional prerogatives of the federal government from coming into force. But if the veto were withheld, delay would be inevitable, and delay could only mean giving the seed of an insignificant disagreement time to ripen into open rebellion.

In the Federalist he advocated the same view. He says, however: "But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the state governments would be signals of general alarm. Every state government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the