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John Nichols: Madison knew danger of wars and kings

John Nichols  —  7/02/2008 5:23 am

The city of Madison is named for James Madison, the essential framer of the Constitution and the last of the nation's founding presidents. Eight years younger than Jefferson, 16 years younger than Adams and 19 years younger than Washington, Madison lived until the eve of the 60th anniversary of American independence in 1836, when former federal judge James Doty was hatching the idea of designating the high ground between Lakes Monona and Mendota as Wisconsin's capital city.

To further the link with the Constitution, the streets of Madison were named for the 39 signers of the document: Sherman of Connecticut, Gorham of Massachusetts, Mifflin of Pennsylvania, Spaight of North Carolina and their contemporaries. Jenifer Street is not missing an N; it is named for Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, the Maryland patriot who with his friend Benjamin Franklin healed the divisions that might have sundered the convention -- and the republic.

But Madison was the definitional drafter of the document. "As a framer and defender of the Constitution he had no peer," notes historian Garry Wills.

While some rank Madison among the weaker presidents, this is largely because he rejected opportunities to expand the authority of the executive beyond that outlined by the founders. Indeed, Wills observes, "The finest part of Madison's performance as president was his concern for the preserving of the Constitution."

Like his closest comrade, Jefferson, Madison feared a too-powerful president would serve as "an elected despot" or "a king for four years."

Madison, above all the founders, feared such a circumstance because he recognized that it would turn his country from the path of peace and liberty toward the monarchical wastelands of war making and domestic tyranny.

As we honor the 232nd anniversary of the July 4, 1776, rejection by the American revolutionaries of the divine right of kings and the 220th anniversary of the July 2, 1788, determination by Congress that there was sufficient support for the Constitution to establish a governing system based on its principles, Madisonians would do well to recall our namesake's sternest warning to those who would guard the republic against all enemies foreign and domestic.

"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes and the opportunities of fraud growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both," Madison wrote. "No nation could reserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established. They are read in every page which records the progression from a less arbitrary to a more arbitrary government, or the transition from a popular government to an aristocracy or a monarchy."

Madison suspected, correctly, that in a future when revolutionary idealism waned, presidents would begin to see themselves as kings and their domains as empires.

"War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement," the framer of the Constitution wrote. "In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will which is to direct it. In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast, ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace."

This July Fourth, as we celebrate the American experiment, those of us who call ourselves "Madisonians" would do well to recognize that this constitutionally inclined city can best express our patriotism by raging with all our might (and all the power of our votes) against our current King George, Crown Prince John McCain and their colonial enterprise in Iraq.

John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times.

John Nichols  —  7/02/2008 5:23 am