Madison's Vision

In troubled times it’s somewhat useful to look back at what our founding fathers intended to happen in the first place.  That’s why I dearly love the Federalist Papers, both for their historical value and for their insight into our contemporary affairs.  James Madison is the founder I appreciate most, for his prescient understanding of just the sort of things we’re going through today.  The major author of our Constitution (Jefferson was not even there at the time and Washington couldn’t be concerned with details), Madison reasoned out carefully each feature, persuaded others to his view and equally carefully explained, along with Hamilton and Jay, the reasoning that led them to the form it took.  Nowhere is he more a contemporary of ours than in Federalist #10, where he lays out his vision for the management of contending factions.

Madison first notes that human differences inevitably lead to contending factions, and that pure democracy is ineffective in controlling the strife likely to result.  He observes that the rock on which democracy has foundered more than any other is inequality of incomes.  That is the issue most likely to generate contentious factions.  The only way to avoid factions totally is through loss of liberty.  The legislature of a republic works best to manage it, for the decision makers must represent differing points of view but be small enough in number to work together toward resolution. And, here is a key point, a geographically large and diverse republic fares best, for it is best equipped to subdue the greatest danger, the tyranny of a majority unwilling to compromise.  The larger the republic, the better equipped it should be for wise decision making through the meeting of contentious minds.  Though Madison didn’t explicitly say it, that implies that a continental republic with great ethnic diversity is perhaps the best equipped of all.  Diversity is the healing force which maintains the health of the republic.

The election we have just concluded was notable for the emergence of a new political landscape in which, for the first time, no one voting bloc dominated.  The Young, the Elderly, Women, Latinos, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Southerners and Midwesterners, Investors and Debtors, Gays and Old White Men all had their say, and the winners were a coalition of several oddly matched groups.  Or rather, the winners were all Americans, for the results reflect Madison’s vision of what the Constitution and the Republic are here for in the first place.  The newspapers report that some conservatives are distraught, mourning the death of the America they feel is their home.  But other Americans were celebrating the birth of the America they had been waiting all their lives for.

The real message of the election is not a premature death, but the attainment to adulthood of the American Republic, in a form very like that intended by Madison in the beginning.  It is now one in which compromise between factions is no longer an option.  It is a necessity.  As Madison cautioned, the first great issue to be resolved is our growing inequality of incomes.  Lack of resolution of that issue by itself will destroy whatever hope we have for success in dealing with the other great issues of our times.  Yes, the Deficit is important, and to me Climate Change is perhaps the greatest and most urgent issue of our times.  But the health of the Republic is what enables solution of other issues, and that health depends on a common acceptance of the Rule of Law, which in a republic depends on general acceptance of fairness in government. Acceptance of resolutions between contending factions depends on that.  Excessive differences in outcomes for those who play by the rules is the surest way to destroy that sense of fairness.  As a finally adult republic, it is time for us, in the upcoming Congressional session, to put away the childish political behaviors of our past to reach out for the mature cooperation that will ensure our future together.  Any group, liberal or conservative, that stakes its agenda on an unwillingness to compromise will soon be a relic of the past.