Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-08T20:26:43.705Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Madison's Opponents and Constitutional Design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2005

DAVID BRIAN ROBERTSON
DAVID BRIAN ROBERTSON
Affiliation:
University of Missouri—St. Louis
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Understanding what James Madison's opponents sought and won at the U.S. Constitutional Convention revises our understanding of the founders' original intentions for the durable framework that has structured American political development. The Constitution is the by-product of expedient accommodations forced on Madison. Madison sought broad national authority independent of state governments and a swift victory for population-based congressional representation. Delegates from economically disadvantaged states opposed these plans, seeking instead to nationalize only selective public goods, to maintain most state policy autonomy, and to minimize contingencies imposed by other governments. Connecticut's delegates, particularly Roger Sherman, played a pivotal role in spoiling Madison's agenda and altering his substantive plans for Constitutional design. Madison's Convention opponents are responsible for a Constitution that nationalized only enumerated public goods and imposed potentially high transaction costs on any further nationalization of policy authority. They helped make federalism a lasting political weapon used to win substantive policy outcomes.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 99 , Issue 2 , May 2005 , pp. 225 - 243
Copyright
© 2005 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson Thornton. 1993. Creating the Constitution: The Convention of 1787 and the First Congress. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Banning Lance. 1995. The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Beard Charles. 1913. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. New York: Macmillan.
Bensel Richard Franklin. 2000. The Political Economy of American Industrialization, 1877–1900. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Blackstone Sir William. 1765–69. Commentaries on the Law of England, 1st ed. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Available: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/blackstone/blacksto.htm.
Boardman Roger Sherman. 1938. Roger Sherman: Signer and Statesman. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Brady David W., and Volden Craig. 1998. Revolving Gridlock: Policy and Politics from Carter to Clinton. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Brown Roger H. 1993. Redeeming the Republic: Federalists, Taxation, and the Origins of the Constitution. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Collier Christopher. 1971. Roger Sherman's Connecticut: Yankee Politics and the American Revolution. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Collier Christopher. 1973. Connecticut in the Continental Congress. Chester, CT: Pequot Press.
Cummings Milton C., Jr., and Wise David. 2001. Democracy Under Pressure: An Introduction to the American Political System. 9th ed. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt College.
Currie David P. 1997. The Constitution in Congress: The Federalist Period, 1789–1801. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
De Pauw Linda Grant. 1966. The Eleventh Pillar: New York State and the Federal Constitution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Dougherty Keith L. 2001. Collective Action Under the Articles of Confederation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ferguson E. James. 1961. The Power of the Purse: A History of Public Finance, 1776–1790. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Finer S. E. 1997. The History of Government from the Earliest Times. Vol. 3: Empires, Monarchies, and the Modern State. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Fleischacker Samuel. 2002. “Adam Smith's Reception among the American Founders, 1776–1790.” William and Mary Quarterly (3rd ser.) 59 (October): 897– 924.Google Scholar
Grieco Joseph M. 1990. Cooperation among Nations: Europe, America, and Non-tariff Barriers to Trade. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Hobson Charles F. 1979. “The Negative on State Laws: James Madison, the Constitution and the Crisis of Republican Government.” William and Mary Quarterly (3rd. ser.) 36 (April): 215– 35.Google Scholar
Hueston John C. 1990. “Altering the Course of the Constitutional Convention: The Role of the Committee of Detail in Establishing the Balance of State and Federal Powers.” Yale Law Journal 100 (December): 765– 83.Google Scholar
Hutson James H. 1983. “John Dickinson at the Federal Constitutional Convention.” William and Mary Quarterly (3rd. ser.) 40 (April): 256– 82.Google Scholar
Hutson James H., ed. 1987. Supplement to Max Farrand's The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Jillson Calvin C. 1988. Constitution Making: Conflict and Consensus in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Agathon Press.
John Richard R. 1997. “Governmental Institutions as Agents of Change: Rethinking American Political Development in the Early Republic, 1787–1835.” Studies in American Political Development 11 (2): 347– 80.Google Scholar
Krehbiel Keith. 1998. Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kruman Marc W. 1997. Between Authority and Liberty: State Constitution Making in Revolutionary America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Lee Frances E., and Oppenheimer Bruce I. 1999. Sizing Up the Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Main Jackson Turner. 1973. The Sovereign States, 1775–1783. New York: New Viewpoints.
Mannies Jo. 2004. “In Rural Missouri, Edwards Touts Ticket's Support for States' Rights.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 6: A7.
Matson Cathy D. 1996. “The Revolution, The Constitution, and the New Nation.” In The Cambridge Economic History of the United States, Vol. 1: The Colonial Era, ed. Stanley L. Engerman and Robert E. Gallman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 363– 401.
Matthews Richard K. 1995. If Men Were Angels: James Madison and the Heartless Empire of Reason. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
McCusker John J., and Menard Russell. 1985. The Economy of British America, 1607–1789. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
McDonald Forrest. 1958. We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McDonald Forrest. 1979. E Pluribus Unum: The Formation of the American Republic, 1776–1790. 2nd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Press.
McDonald Forrest. 1985. Novus Ordo Seculorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
McGuire Robert A. 2003. To Form a More Perfect Union: A New Economic Interpretation of the United States Constitution. New York: Oxford University Press.
Novak William J. 1996. The People's Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
O'Connor John E. 1979. William Paterson: Lawyer and Statesman. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Pierson Paul. 2000. “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics.” American Political Science Review 94 (June): 251– 67.Google Scholar
PJM [The Papers of James Madison]. 1962–1991. ed. William T. Hutchinson et al. 17 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press/Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
Rakove Jack N. 1990. James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman/Little, Brown.
Rakove Jack N. 1996. Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Rakove Jack N. 1997. “The Origins of Judicial Review: A Plea for New Contexts.” Stanford Law Review 49 (May): 1031– 64.Google Scholar
RFC [The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787]. 1937. ed. Max Farrand. 4 vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Riker William H. 1996. The Strategy of Rhetoric: Campaigning for the American Constitution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Robertson David Brian. 2000. Capital, Labor, and State: The Battle for American Labor Markets from the Civil War to the New Deal. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Robertson David Brian. 2003. “Constituting a National Interest: Madison Against the States' Autonomy.” In James Madison: The Theory and Practice of Republican Government, ed. Samuel Kernell. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 184– 216.
Robertson David Brian. 2005. The Constitution and America's Destiny. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Roche John P. 1961. “The Founding Fathers: A Reform Caucus in Action.” American Political Science Review 55 (December): 799– 816.Google Scholar
Rodriguez Richard, and Weingast Barry W. 2003. “The Positive Political Theory of Legislative History: New Perspectives on the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Its Interpretation.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 151 (April): 1417– 1542.Google Scholar
Rossiter Clinton. 1966. 1787: The Grand Convention. New York: Macmillan.
Siemers David J. 2002. Ratifying the Republic: Antifederalists and Federalists in Constitutional Time. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Skowronek Stephen. 1982. Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Skowronek Stephen. 1997. The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Slonim Shlomo. 2000. “Securing States' Interests at the 1787 Constitutional Convention: A Reassessment.” Studies in American Political Development 14 (Spring): 1– 19.Google Scholar
Thompson J. D. 1967. Organizations in Action. New York: McGraw–Hill.
Ulmer S. Sidney. 1966. “Sub-group Formation in the Constitutional Convention.” Midwest Journal of Political Science 10 (August): 288– 303.Google Scholar
Wechsler Herbert. 1955. “The Political Safeguards of Federalism: The Role of the States in the Composition and Selection of the National Government.” In Federalism: Mature and Emergent, ed. Arthur W. MacMahon. New York: Columbia University Press, 97– 114.
Whittington Keith E. 1999. Constitutional Construction: Divided Powers and Constitutional Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wills Garry. 2002. James Madison. New York: Times Books.
Wood Gordon S. 1969. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.