James Madison on protecting the minority of the opulent.

[Imperialism Inc.]

I had searched high and low on the internet for an online version of these notes from the debates at the Constitutional Convention. A DUer posted the link to this site in another thread today and I finally got my wish. This quote is often cited by Noam Chomsky as evidence of the fact that the framers, and Madison in particular, had as a primary goal to protect the rich from the "leveling spirit" that existed among the poor. I've always found this quote very intriguing.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/const/yates.htm (about 2/3's the way down)

Mr. MADISON. We are now to determine whether the republican form shall be the basis of our government. -I admit there is weight in the objection of the gentleman from South Carolina; but no plan can steer clear of objections. That great powers are to be given, there is no doubt; and that those powers may be abused is equally true. It is also probable that members may lose their attachments to the States which sent them-Yet the first branch will control them in many of their abuses. But we are now forming a body on whose wisdom we mean to rely, and their permanency in office secures a proper field in which they may exert their firmness and knowledge. Democratic communities may be unsteady, and be led to action by the impulse of the moment. -Like individuals, they may be sensible of their own weakness, and may desire the counsels and checks of friends to guard them against the turbulency and weakness of unruly passions. Such are the various pursuits of this life, that in all civilized countries, the interest of a community will be divided. There will be debtors and creditors, and an unequal possession of property, and hence arises different views and different objects in government. This indeed is the ground-work of aristocracy; and we find it blended in every government, both ancient and modern. Even where titles have survived property, we discover the noble beggar haughty and assuming.

The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa, or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge of the wants or feelings of the day laborer. The government we mean to erect is intended to last for ages. The landed interest, at present, is prevalent; but in process of time, when we approximate to the states and kingdoms of Europe; when the number of landholders shall be comparatively small, through the various means of trade and manufactures, will not the landed interest be overbalanced in future elections, and unless wisely provided against, what will become of your government? In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be jsut, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability. Various have been the propositions; but my opinion is, the longer they continue in office, the better will these views be answered.

[KT2000]

1. very interesting

thanks for posting this
wonder what the red states would think of this

[housewolf]

2. Madison's words

This certainly fits with the way in which voting rights were initially granted only to white male property-owners - this was the group they were setting the government up for.

It's an interesting twist to the idea that the purpose of the courts is to "protect the rights of minority against the tyranny of the majority."

[Imperialism Inc.]

3. Other Jefferson and Madison quotes after they

saw how the new republic was progressing:

Jefferson in letter to Marquis de Lafayette, 16 Jun 1792:
CONSTITUTION / UNITED STATES / THREATS TO

Behold you, then, my dear friend, at the head of a great army, establishing the liberties of your country against a foreign enemy . May heaven favor your cause, and make you the channel through which it may pour its favors. While you are exterminating the monster aristocracy, and pulling out the teeth and fangs of its associate, monarchy, a contrary tendency is discovered in some here. A sect has shown itself among us, who declare they espoused our new Constitution, not as a good and sufficient thing in itself, but only as a step to an English constitution, the only thing good and sufficient in itself, in their eye. It is happy for us that these are preachers without followers, and that our people are firm and constant in their republican purity. You will wonder to be told that it is from the eastward chiefly that these champions for a king, lords and commons come. They get some important associates from New York, and are puffed up by a tribe of agitators which have been hatched in a bed of corruption made up after the model of their beloved England. Too many of these stock-jobbers and king-jobbers have come into our legislature, or rather too many of our legislature have become stock-jobbers and king-jobbers. However, the voice of the people is beginning to make itself heard, and will probably cleanse their seats at the ensuing election.

By 1792 Madison had revised his hopes that he expressed originally in a 1787 letter to Jefferson that the country be ruled by
the "enlightened Statesman, or the benevolent philosopher". Subsequently he fretted that the new republic was "substituting the motive of private interest in place of public duty," leading to "a real domination of the few under an apparent liberty of the many." In another letter to Jefferson (Jennifer Nedelsky, Private Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism: The Madisonian Framework and its Legacy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990, pp. 44-5):

"[M]y imagination will not attempt to set bounds to the daring depravity of the times. The stock-jobbers [big investors] will become the pretorian band of the Government, at once its tool and its tyrant; bribed by its largesses and overawing it by its clamours and combinations."

[coda]

4. The revision would appear to parallel this quote

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and
judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and
whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be
pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

--James Madison


Of course his hope that the three branches of government would "pit ambition against ambition", depended on a respect for the separation of powers.

[CrazyConspiracyGuy]

5. This link is interesting ...

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/amerdoc/annapoli.htm

PROCEEDINGS OF COMMISSIONERS TO REMEDY DEFECTS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (1)

ANNAPOLIS IN THE STATE OF MARYLAND

SEPTEMBER 11th 1786

At a meeting of Commissioners, from the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia-

Present

New York
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
EGBERT BENSON

New Jersey
ABRAHAM CLARK
WILLIAM C. HOUSTON
JAMES SCHUARMAN

Pennsylvania
TENCH COXE

Delaware
GEORGE READ
JOHN DICKINSON
RICHARD BASSETT

Virginia
EDMUND RANDOLPH
JAMES MADISON, Junior
SAINT GEORGE TUCKER

[cattleman22]

6. The founders valued the concept of private property

The quote, "life, liberty and happiness" had been in an earlier draft "life, liberty, and property" just as Locke had written previously. I think Madison's statement showed that he was looking for his own self interests and the interests of others like him. However, I think that he also showed foresight as well. Setting up the senate and the house to be checks on each other was a wise decision.