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James Madison and the Metaphysics of Modern Politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Abstract
Federalist, No. 10, argues that human beings demand that their opinions concerning their distinctive excellence be recognized as true. This recognition, however, cannot be political. The political realm cannot do justice to the “angel” in man, and the futile attempts to secure such political recognition lead to tyranny. Where does the recognition of one's own humanity occur? The Federalist does not say. Yet it must occur somewhere for political freedom to be regarded as a human good. It is essential for the perpetuation of human freedom that the account of human nature given in The Federalist, which is comprehensive enough to secure political freedom, be supplemented by an account of the human being's transpolitical dimension. Madison provides such an account in “On Property” and in the Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments. These two sources show that political freedom is for the performance of religious duty, which is discoverable by human beings through their conscientious use of reason and should, therefore, be understood to complete American constitutional theory.
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References
Notes
1 See Orwin, Clifford, “Robert Nozick's Libertarian Utopia,” This World, No. 9 (Fall, 1984), 84–89.Google Scholar
2 See in particular the work of Paul Eidelberg, Harry Jaffa, and Garry Wills.
3 Epstein, David, The Political Theory of ‘The Federalist’ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 68–81.Google Scholar
4 Ibid., p. 71.
5 See ibid., pp. 76, 90.
6 This very brief essay is found in The Writings of Madison, ed. Hunt, G. (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1900–1910), 6:101–103.Google Scholar
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8 As Eidelberg, Paul acknowledges in A Discourse on Statesmanship (Urbana: University of Illinois, 19740, pp. 423–24.Google Scholar
9 For St. Augustine, for example, it is self-evident to the individual person that the politically recognized distinctions between ruler and ruled, citizen and alien, and so forth are superficial or “outward” and inessential to the self.
There is a tendency for Leo Strauss-inspired scholars to obscure the nature of the Christian break with the “classical” thought of Plato, Aristotle, and so forth. Ernest Fortin, for example, in his essay in Strauss and Cropsey, says that for Augustine: “Man is by nature a social animal, who alone has been endowed with speech, by means of which he is able to communicate and enter into various relationships with other men. It is only by associating with his fellow men and forming with them a political community that man attains his perfection” (second edition, p. 155).
But Augustine never says that man is a political animal, that his perfection occurs in a political context. Even his perfection as a social animal is transpolitical; it is as a member of religious community. The Christian break with the ancients and its contribution to modern liberalism is described meticulously in Adela Gondek's (of Rider College) unpublished manuscript, The Medieval Origins of Modern Liberalism.
10 The Memorial and Remonstrance is found in The Papers of James Madison, ed. Rutland, R. A. and Rachal, M. E. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, (1971– ), 8:295–306.Google Scholar This quotation and those in the above paragraph are from paragraph 1 of the Memorial.
The only really careful study of the Memorial and Remonstrance is Brann, Eva, “Madison's ‘Memorial and Remonstrance’: A Model of American Eloquence,” Rhetoric and American Statesmanship, ed. Wallin, J. and Thurow, G. (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1984), pp. 1–46.Google Scholar I am indebted to this essay in many ways which cannot be adequately acknowledged in these notes.
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30 Memorial and Remonstrance, par. 3.
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37 Memorial, par. 4.
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41 Ibid., p. 41.
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