How to Combat Chronic Illness

[Music] Hi, I'm Jeff Sikhinga, Executive Director of the Ashbrook Center, and this is the American Idea, where we discuss the ideas, people and events that have made America what it is today. We believe that by understanding our history and our principles, we can better live up to the promise of the American family and preserve our ongoing experiment in self-government. Welcome to the American Idea. [Music] Well, I want to welcome everyone to this episode of the American Idea. Today we're going to be talking about one of the most profound political thinkers of America in America. An important person, sometimes known as the father of the Constitution. I'm going to be asking my guest today if James Madison really deserves that title. We're going to be talking today about James Madison's contribution to the Federalist with Professor Jeremy Bailey. For those of you who don't know Jeremy, you should know Jeremy. He is, I would say, one of the leading scholars of American political thought today in the country today. He is a very widely published author, written articles in all the prominent and most prominent political science journals, including the American political science review, History of American Political Thought, and the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. He's also a prolific author of books, a number of important works, and he's got a couple coming up, actually, these working on. He's just talking to him before we got on the air about his new book on Thomas Jefferson called "The Other Declarations," Thomas Jefferson in the Language of American Democracy, coming out with the wonderful press at the University of Kansas, and also, I think, editing a two-volume edition of James Madison's political writings with Cambridge University Press. So, folks, we have with us a true expert on James Madison and on American political thought. Jeremy Bailey, thanks for being with us on the American Idea. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for having me, Ayes. By the way, I have to plug one other book of yours, which is this terrific volume, the American Presidency, which you edited for the Ashbrook Center. Great collection of primary source documents on the American Presidency for teachers and their students, used all across the country. Thank you for that great work. Yeah, let me return, plug that series. I rely on this all the time. I've got a stack, about 10 feet away from me right here. And I think these things are really the first of their incredible bargain. They're super cheap to buy, but they are also for me as a teacher. It's a crash course and something I may not have, like, expert knowledge. And like, do I know which documents I need for World War I? The answer is no, but I can easily grab that volume and it's going to let me know pretty quickly what I need to know in order to think about World War I. Yeah, so those who are listening, we're referring to the core documents, volumes collection from the Ashbrook Center and our teaching American history programs. Check those out. You can find them on TH dot org, including Jeremy's volume on the American Presidency. All right, Jeremy, father of the Constitution, James Madison. I'm not going to ask who he deserves that title. That's too big of a question right now. But what about his contribution at the constitutional convention and then as we transition into the way he defends the Constitution in the Federalist? James Madison's role at the Constitutional Convention. Yeah, so it's funny that you asked the question the way you did because I just submitted an essay on Madison and the Constitution for an edited volume on Madison. And the first paragraph began by saying James Madison was known as the father of the Constitution. You know, he may or may not deserve that title. And so I thought about it for a bit and I think of that sentence and I forget it's final formulation. That's kind of how it began. But okay, so look, he he he's more or less the author of the Virginia plan, the Virginia plan shapes, it sets the agenda for the convention itself. And some sense the the the Constitution, you can't really understand it with understanding the way that the agenda was shaped by the Virginians showing up. So there's that he speaks just about as much as anybody. And you might say that he Morris and Wilson or the three the three three people driving driving the ball forward to use a football metaphor for the weekend. You know, one could make an argument that Morris or Wilson deserves more more more credit in terms of of that. I certainly a teacher who who made that argument a couple of times. I don't buy it. I think Madison probably deserves more credit. One could also make the argument in a way this is a more interesting argument that Roger Sherman is the father of the Constitution. In the sense that Roger Sherman extracted critical compromises that that in a way more fundamentally shapes shape the Constitution starting with the you know the compromise in the small and large states. And so that's an interesting angle. But to your answer, I would I would phrase or your question in a way I'd phrase it this way. James Madison is the founder most associated with the Constitution. You know, Jefferson has the declaration. Hamilton has other stuff. But in some some fundamentally important sense when we think of understanding the Constitution. We think of James Madison. And I think there are really two reasons for that. One is his authorship of our. Of the records of most of our records of the convention itself. So his notes on the federal convention of 1787. So that's one reason. And you might say that reason has been recently challenged by by important scholarship. We can talk about that if we want. But in a way that the I think the primary reason that Madison is associated with the Constitution that is the father of the Constitution is for his assays to the federalist. That in my view only James Madison could have written. Thomas Jefferson could not have written these papers. John Adams could not have written these papers. Alex and her Hamilton could not have written these papers. So there's something about those those famous federalist papers that are distinctly Madison. And the same way that the declaration is distinctly Jefferson. That's fascinating. Let's I have to explore that with you. This notion that of course James Madison articulates shapes a lot of the agenda in the Constitution convention. The Constitution gets approved as as you of course and our listeners know. It's not the Constitution that Madison had hoped for exactly. There's there's some compromises in there that he didn't love. But he goes and joins forces with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to defend the Constitution to the people of the state of New York. And ultimately to a much of other states as well in hopes of getting the Constitution ratified. What were some of the compromises that ended up in the Constitution that Madison himself really didn't like but ultimately had to defend. Alright, so the way the way that I I sort of think of it is is Madison's plan or Madison's scheme. Really really had to have had three parts. The first part was Congress would have the power to act directly on on individuals when it when it acted. And the best way to think of this is the power of tax. The second part and he gets that he more or less gets that so that's a huge win. That's a huge deviation from the articles and that's what the anti federalist objective most when they read the Constitution is his Congress his power, especially the powers to lead direct taxation. But the second thing he wanted is is proportional representation. And we know the story there he didn't get that it's the debate for the first half of convention no other thing is as important in the convention. It's the fundamental issue and there's finally a compromise. And the reason why we know it's the biggest compromise of all is that you can't amend it. It's the only thing that you can't amend the Constitution. Wyoming cannot lose its equal status with California without Wyoming's consent in the Senate that is in terms of representation. And so that's that's that's one of his big losses. That's Roger Sherman's win. And as you mentioned Madison went to his grave incredibly grumpy about that defeat. He thought it was a huge mistake. And in some ways he tried to chip away at the consequences of mistake and later amendments to the Constitution that he favored. And then finally, you know, of course, he wanted a negative on state laws. And this was, you know, this is part and parcel of his famous extended Republic theory. That you could trust a national Congress more and more than a state legislature and that the Congress should be able to negative state laws. Now of course today, and by listening by negative you mean veto. Yeah, veto. Yeah. And so and for today, we have a feature that we're relatively used to in that judicial review. And of course, judicial review was was was was was latent assumed in the Constitution itself, but certainly not the degree of its importance. And so in some sense, you might say Madison's negative became judicial review, but he never lived long enough to see it. And at least just, you know, an act of judicial review of state laws on policy grounds and constitutional grounds. Anyway, sorry, he didn't get that one and he was also very grumpy about that. His, when he turns to defending the Constitution in the Federalist, probably some of the most famous Federalist papers are the ones as you said, authored by James Madison and you make the argument who could only have been authored by James Madison. I'm at the beginning of the Federalist number one, as our listeners know, Alexander Hamilton says, America is the most interesting place in the world because we will decide here whether we can have good government based on reflection and choice or whether we have to rely on accident force. And that, but the much of the rest of those early essays I'm thinking now particularly of one of the most famous Federalist number 10 is James Madison filling in the argument for the new Constitution and the reason why we have to get rid of the articles of Confederation and adopt this new plan. Federalist 10, you've mentioned it already, the extended Republic theory. For our listeners, maybe who have read it or who haven't read it in a long time, what's the concern that Madison has about republics that he says, hey folks, when we're thinking about ratifying the Constitution, we have to think about this important problem. Yeah, so Madison, this is what one of the reasons why political scientists love Madison is that that Madison is an away acting like a political scientist and he undertakes a study. Hopefully one of the good ones. Yeah, yeah, sure. He undertakes a study and in part with materials, Jefferson's syndrome from France of prior governments, prior democracies, prior republics and looking around, he sees they don't exist anymore. So he wants to figure out why and so like a social scientist, he wants to figure out or isolate the variables so to speak and that variable is faction. And so factions are a problem for republics, what he later calls the republican disease. And so the question is, how do you find a remedy, a remedy that's suitable for republican government for the republican disease and that disease against faction. And again, we might think of faction as, you know, interest groups don't really capture it. He's got a definition of faction that's helpful, but you know, moving even sort of beyond his definition. Faction was long been a concern of political theory, political philosophy and basically the ideas, look, we have our own ideas, we have our own interests, we have our own passions and those divide us and they emerge from private life. They emerge from me wanting the best for my family and my property and my state. They emerge over, you know, opinions about religion and the good life and they divide us up and eventually we take sides and the teams and then eventually we, you know, vex and oppress each other, then eventually we have civil war, you know, and so that's, that's sort of the history of factions and republics. So tension, love solving that problem. So the argument that he makes there in federalist 10 is republics in the history of the world. If they've been destroyed, it's been sort of two ways. One is externally, they just get swallowed up by empires, right? They're too small and they get destroyed, but internally they get torn apart by faction. Why does he think America could be different? Well, this is the famous argument for the extended republic or the large republic. It's arguably one of perhaps the only, maybe one or one or two or three contributions by an American to the history of political thought. It's a big idea and the idea is, is that contrary to the received wisdom republics can't be small. In fact, they have to be big and they have to be big because of the problem of faction. Now according to the received wisdom, the idea is, is that for republic to work, people have to trust each other. If I think my neighbor's in infidel, or if I think my neighbor has a radically different vision of what's good in life, it's unlikely I'm going to trust my neighbor and count his ballots fairly. And so the received wisdom is that we need a republic of small, a small space of like-minded people who more or less make the same kind of money, do the same kind of work, who worship the same kind of God. And Madison says, no, that's a problem. It's not going to work. Is there's going to be a majority in that majority is going to use its powers, a majority, to oppress the minority? How does a large republic solve this problem? Because it would seem like in a large republic, you would end up with, you know, think a New York City. Boy, it's so different. It's very strong. And so the neighborhood to neighborhood to neighborhood compared to a smaller town like Ashland, Ohio, which seems more homogenous, seems like New York City would just be ungovernable. Yeah, I mean, I always use the example of Houston, Texas versus the woodlands. The woodlands, it's this planned community, lots of cross country runners, and lots of people with, with, who make the same kind of money, do the same kind of work. Whereas Texas, there's no majority. I mean, Houston, there's no majority. There's no majority ethnicity, no majority, anything. And Houston's basically un-gumperable. And what Madison says is, look, that's essentially what you want in the sense that no majority is going to be able to be both a majority and powerful with respect to its goals of either taking away the rights of others or pursuing things that are adverse to the permanent and aggregate interest in the community that is to the common good. And so Madison's willing to put up with, you might say, a kind of, in effectiveness, at least in this essay, in exchange for a situation in which majorities are going to be enfeebled in some way, or they're going to be making compromises all the time. A majority will be a coalition. And that coalition is going to be, is we know for own politics. They don't last for very long. It's hard to keep a majority coalition. Right. For example, if Congress has to make the laws for the republic, Congress is going to be messy. It's going to be sprawling. It's going to have lots of different individuals there, lots of different groups, coalitions, factions. For something to get passed through Congress, it's going to be messy. And it's going to be messy and for it to work, it's eventually going to be moderated a bit. That's the theory. Now, the other part of this is that in order for an extended or public to work, and it's interesting if you follow it because Federalist 10 is a really beautiful thing to outline with with students. But the outline kind of breaks down when you get to this final conclusion to figure out what sort of which does what. But somehow involved here is the role of representatives who are going to, as he puts a refine and enlarge the public view. And that's going to be that they're going to refine and enlarge the public view in a way that's going to make it more refined and more large than otherwise would be in a smaller republic. And so there's something about the size that's going to lead to a kind of representative who's either based, and it's not clear here, either based on his or her sort of electoral interest, or his or her sort of virtue and qualifications and wisdom is going to be more equipped, let's say, to find compromise among competing factions. So Madison thinks that members of Congress, because they represent larger districts, are more likely to have the good of the whole country in mind than say a state representative who represents many fewer people. Yeah, by his logic, and we may disagree with them, the talent pool is going to be better in a larger district. And so by that logic, Texas or New York is going to have say better senators than say Wyoming or Vermont. That the senator from California has to consider all sorts of things that the representative from the valley does not. And that's, that then there's that's going to be a, again, a moderating force on American politics. So if people will say, why does it take so long for things to get through Congress? How come it takes forever for the federal government to come up with a tax bill? Why can't they get their act together? Does federalist tend to suggest, well, it's meant to be like that? It's not surprising. Yeah, it does. For sure, again, with with with the obvious caveat that this is all pre political parties and pre are two party system. You know, so we have we have this, you know, and again, Madison is a creator of that system. So that's that's another sort of irony of the story. But, but we have we have a constitutional system with a kind of partisan system built on top of it. And so that's that that would also be part of that that story as well. If you're thinking about the other contributions that Madison makes to the Federalist, obviously writes many of the Federalist papers, important ones, besides Federalist 10, what in your mind are some of the most important Federalist papers written by Madison that our listeners should be aware of? Yeah, so back to my claim that Madison is associated with the Constitution and that, you know, even if Mary Sarah Builder is right and that that the notes are have a kind of partisan reason or rational behind them, they shouldn't be taken, you know, as as as authoritative. And I have my thoughts about this. But even if she's right, the Constitution and the Madison and Madison are in a way so intertwined because of the federalist essays. And in many ways, it's not federalist 10. That's responsible for it. It's really, it's really federalist 51 and it's really federalist 39. And I would wager if you were to take the four maybe most famous federalist papers. I guess maybe Fed 78 Hamilton would be the other one in terms of like being assigned the most. And so, you know, of the four, Madison's got three. So there's that. But we think about the features of the American Constitution. And we think about the features of what would might call constitutionalism. So much of it just seems like Madison and so much it comes from from Fed 39 and from Fed 51. It presumes the bit in Fed 10, the bit about representatives refining and enlarging. And so in other words, there's so many things about the Constitution and even about constitutionalism itself that seem more closely related to James Madison. And I think it's because of the sentences and the federalist papers and it's particularly in 39, 51 and a bit in 10. To answer your question, on top of that, Fed 49 is very important. And my favorite contender for most important, but understudied is 37. Can I ask you about a little bit about a couple of those essays? And here, I'm thinking about federalist number 39, which you mentioned. Can I read it for you? This is the second paragraph. James Madison writes, the first question that offers itself and he's talking about now when you think about the Constitution is whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly Republican. It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America, with the fundamental principles of the revolution, or with that honorable determination, which animates every votary of freedom to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government. To me, he seems to be saying there that we had to have a Constitution that gave us a republic. Why does he think America had to be a republic? Okay, so that's never explained, at least in the federalist. So the back sort of story here, and then Fed 39 is that Fed 37 is the place where Madison begins this extended discussion. And so if we back up for a second, the Federalist papers has 85 essays. There are two sort of dividers in the Federalist, and that is the argument that this government needs to be at least as energetic as the one proposed, as at least as energetic as at least as strong as the one proposed. The second half of the Federalist takes up the question, this Constitution, whether this Constitution is sufficiently Republican. And so there's this sort of internal divide. And numbers 1 through 36 take up the first question, that is, are the first argument that we need a government at least as energetic, and you might say Hamilton dominates that section. In fact, he does dominate that section. And then coincidentally, beginning in 37, you get the new quatt, the new argument that is that this proposed Constitution is sufficiently Republican. And we might say that Madison dominates that section, at least the first half of that section, because he writes a string of essays roughly 20 or so, depending on how you count the disputed authorship stuff, that begins in number 37, extends into the 60 or 63, depending on how you count. So there's that. And so 37 is in many ways like his number, Federalist number one, it's written, it's framed in the same way, his is a little bit more open. Federalist number one has a kind of ad hominem edge to it, Hamilton has attacking the opponents. And in the spirit of Fed 37, Madison acknowledges, look, perfection is not going to be expected of anything. And certainly of something like this, and just to like show good faith, I'm going to list five difficulties that the convention faced. And the second difficulty that he lists is the difficulty, and this is the answer to your question, the difficulty of mingling energy and stability on the one hand with the principles of the genius of Republican liberty. And so the way he phrases it is that every government in the world has to have energy. It has to have strength. It doesn't matter the form of government. Every government in the world has to have stability. It has to have the ability to endure over time. So government as such requires energy and stability. But this government is different because it also is going to make an extra demand. And that's Republican principles. And the way this part of 37 has phrased, it's as if energy and stability on the one hand require certain things. But then Republican principles are going to require other. And so the difficulty they face is having both at the same time, both energy and stability and Republican principles. To get to 39, when does the long answer your question, but I'll finish it this way, to get to 39 in him at beginning with that that statement, it has to be Republican. 38 takes a detour, and the detour is, wow, isn't it strange that prior governments that were governed by deliberation and consent weren't founded that way? In other words, there have been many governments, or at least some governments who've been ruled by deliberation and choice or deliberation and consent. But they weren't founded that way. They're founded by the illiberal founder, by some other sort of mechanism, not by deliberation and consent. And so this government's going to have to do that. And then in 39, he detours to this discussion of, okay, well, in order to address this question, we have to first define what our republic is. Before we continue with our discussion, I'd like to let you know about an outstanding set of programs that Ashbrook sponsors for high school students, the Ashbrook Academy. Do you know any students with an interest in American history, politics, economics and literature? Do they enjoy being academically challenged and the thrill of engaging with different ideas and viewpoints? Hi, I'm Sabrina Maristella, student programs coordinator here at the Ashbrook Center. The Ashbrook Academy is a series of summer courses for rising high school juniors and seniors. Held in person at Ashland University, the Academy immerses you in the American story like you've never been before. Since 2015, our approach has taken history out of textbooks and into students' lives with historical documents and conversations about those documents. If you are a rising high school junior or senior or if you know someone who is, we invite you to learn more about our courses and apply today at ashbrookacademy.org. And he wants to make it clear in his mind that the Constitution is going to create a Republican form of government wherein people, the power comes from the great body of the people, we the people of the United States of America as the preamble to the Constitution says. And we're going to be able to combine a popular government, a government of the people with energy and stability. It's never been done before, but we have now offered you a Constitution that can do that. Yeah, it's a difficulty they face and they came up with ways to do it. We see that it expresses itself in all sorts of interesting ways. In Federalist 51, there's this really complicated sentence which we learn of a kind of special relationship between the president and the Senate, for example, that maybe perhaps his reflection of the combination of president of energy and stability on the one hand and Republican principles on the other. Yeah, can I ask you about that? Because you mentioned Federalist 49, which was an interesting note. It's sort of a precursor to Federalist 51. In Federalist 49, it's really surprising to me because I love the way you framed it. Energy and stability on the one hand, which all governments have to have, but we have to have a republic. It can't be a monarchy, it can't be an aristocracy, it has to be a republic. If to have a republic and a constitutional republic, you need a constitution that has people's attachment. They have to respect it, admire it, maybe even revere it. And it's really interesting to me at the beginning of Federalist 49, James Madison is critical of someone who he calls the author of the notes on the state of Virginia. His friend, Thomas Jefferson. What does Madison think about, why is he critical of Thomas Jefferson in the Federalist when we're talking about people's reverence for the constitution? You know, it's a fascinating question. In fact, I wrote a post-it book on Madison in 2015. And that was in many ways the motivating question behind that book is given that Madison and Jefferson were more or less friends and allies for 50 years. And perhaps the most political friendship in American history made maybe in all history. They have this incredible difference and this incredible difference. It comes by way of Federalist 49 in which Madison attacks Jefferson's proposal in notes. And he does so after in Federalist 48, labeling Jefferson an authority. This is the only human in the entire Federalist papers that's called an authority. And so after he he calls Jefferson authority in Fed 48, he attacks him in Federalist 49. And I've looked and looked and looked and I can't find any reason why Jefferson has brought up historically. In other words, it wasn't as if Jefferson's proposal was out there in the public and was actually causing damage. And so this seems to be a kind of preemptive attack on Jefferson's idea rather than responding to the use of Jefferson by the anti-Fraderalist. And so for Tarsal that that's just historically it's puzzling why he does it. And then the answer that he gives is just in some respect, classic Madison. And that is that he says, look, an order for a constitution to work. The people have to respect it. And they're only going to respect it, A, if other people respect it because man's reason is timid and cautious when left alone. And secondly, if it's old. And so there has to be a kind of aggregate weight and then an ancient weight behind a constitution for the people to respect it. And this is a striking claim you might say about constitutionalism itself. And there's that constitutionalism requires a particular constitution that endures. It's not just a series of frameworks and sort of stacking consent in a particular way, but it requires a particular constitution that lasts over time. So because Thomas Jefferson thought we should change the constitution every 19 or 20 years so that every generation had its own constitution. And what you're saying is James Madison says here, no, we shouldn't do that. We have to have a constitution that feels ancient to people that feels old because we have attachment to that. And we shouldn't change the constitution too easily. Yeah, yeah. So it comes up. Right. So so federalist 51 begins to what expedient eventually finally resort to maintain and practice the necessary partition. And so 51 is not about defending separation of powers. It's about explaining how to maintain separation of powers. And that discussion begins in 47 where we get this quibble with the anti-federalist about what separation of powers means. In 48, we identify the threat the separation of powers or the threat of maintenance and that threat is legislative power. And then 49 we get one solution to that threat. And it's Jefferson's proposal specifically that whenever two of the three departments call for it by two thirds of their number, let's get a new constitutional convention. So if the legislative power is sucking everything into its impetuous vortex like Jefferson is quoted in 48, Jefferson's solution is the less it's to have a new constitutional convention and the people sort it out. And so this Madison frames it here as a separation of powers problem, but his answer is so much broader and so much more important than that. And of course a year or so later they have this exchange and prompted by Jefferson's Earth belongs to the living letter. So this conversation continues. And but Madison says, look, there are all sorts of reasons why technically speaking this won't work. It's more likely in fact that the legislature is going to win out if you have a new constitutional convention. They're probably going to be the beneficiary of this of this sort of device. But more fundamentally, if you have a new convention whenever you have a crisis, the lesson that people are going to learn is that your constitution is not up for it. And eventually they're going to get tired of constitutional ism itself. And turn then to the rule, perhaps of one person in some kind of dictatorship. Federalist 51 you've mentioned. And I think for our listeners who have read the Federalist, many of them would say this is one that is probably the most famous. If there are teachers who are listening, they probably teach their students. This is what has been come to be called checks and balances. And the way that we keep energy and stability on the one hand, but make it safe for Republican government is to have separation of powers and checks and balances. What's Madison's argument in Federalist number 51? Okay, so I'll give a super controversial sort of, I'll just put something out there that's super controversial or potentially controversial. My teacher, Robert Sigley, I know he's a state all the time. I haven't really spent all that much time like thinking about it. But his claim was the framers never spoke of checks and balances. They only spoke of legislative checks and balances. So for example, in Federalist 9, one of the inventions of political science, the modern science of politics is legislative checks and balances. Now we can come back to that if we want. But the main thing I would tell teachers about Fed 51 is that Fed 51 is not about defending separation of powers. It is not going to work if you're teaching it that way. What it is doing is it's explaining to people who believe that they want separation of powers. What the solution to maintaining separation of powers is in light of the evidence that Americans have gathered under the state constitutions and that evidence being that the legislative power is the most dangerous branch. So if you have, if we are committed to separation of powers then and we say we shouldn't, the president shouldn't have all the powers, the Congress shouldn't have all the powers, the Supreme Court shouldn't have all the powers. How do we keep the powers separate? How do we maintain and practice the necessary partition that everybody wants? That's the first sentence. And you can show your teachers or your students this by the by the grammar of that first sentence to what expedient then. It's a transition. You would never begin an essay. Then I did this. So it's a transition continuing on. What is it continuing on? It's a discussion of separation of powers and maintaining it specifically. So after a variety of solutions are rejected in 49 and in 50 we get the solution and that and the solution is you give each department a will of its own. And so you have to contrive the interior structure. He says in a way that each department has a will. So I underscore that word will of its own. And so the way will is conceived here is if let's say as Woodrow Wilson will say we have a Newtonian system where the departments are like held in there and they're orbit keeping each and its proper place. Well, in that sort of metaphor what serves as the equivalent for for gravity what what keeps the departments in their place. And that force is will see each department has a will of its own. And then those sentence that's famous sentence is makes sense. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected to the rights of the place. And so it's not enough to give the president the veto power. You have to make the president willing to use it. So that seems really important to me because today in today's day and age for example, it seems to a lot of people like we live in a very presidential centric federal government where the presidency has a lot of power. What kind of checks did Madison envision even just in general here in federalist 51 that the branches would have on each other. How could Congress for example, check the president and maintain their own separate powers? Well, just speaking of 51, what we see is after the ambition must counteract we get the paragraph begins and it's not possible to give each department an equal power of self-defense because they're in public government the legislature necessarily predominates. And so the remedy he says is to divide it into by camera-ism then give them different principles of action and modes of election that's going to create a kind of tension between the two chambers. And then he goes on to say, well, look, that might not be enough just as the legislature might have to be weakened. The executive might have to be fortified. And then he says at first thought an absolute negative and absolute veto might be the solution. But the problem there is the president might either abuse it or more likely might not use it enough. Right. So an absolute veto means the president could actually veto a bill and then it would be totally dead. It couldn't be revived or his veto could not be overridden. Right. And later in the federal spapers, by the way, it's Hamilton. I think it's in Fed 69. Maybe anyway, Hamilton points out that look, the king has said the veto, but he hasn't used it for 100 years against parliament because the king is scared. And so there's something about an absolute veto that's kind of a parchment barrier doesn't actually work in practice. You have to have to be used. And so the absolute veto is not how you fortify the executive. And so we get this incredibly puzzling sentence. At the end of that paragraph, it may not this defective and absolute negative be qualified by some qualified be supplied by some qualified connection between this weaker department, that's the executive, and the weaker branch of the stronger department. And who's the stronger department with a legislative? So who's the weaker branch of the stronger department? It turns out by the logic of Fed 48. It's the Senate because the house is closest to the people. And so may not this defective and absolute negative be supplied by some qualified connection between the president and the Senate by which the Senate made be led to support the constitutional rights of the president without being too much great from the rights of its own department. So in there, we get this idea of a kind of special relationship between the Senate and the president. That would be akin to the privy councils under the state constitutions and also has some connection to the actual practice under the earlier public. And in the beginning, the Senate kept something called the Senate Executive Journal in which it discussed treaties and confirmations. And that was not for the House to see or know about. There was only business that the president and the Senate knew about. And so in some sense, that early practice confirms, you might say, a special relationship between the president and the Senate that's supposed to help maintain separation of powers against its primary threat, legislative power. If you look at the way that the constitution has endured over time, the three separate branches, Congress, the presidency and the federal courts and the way that James Madison defended those in the federalist papers. Maybe this is an unfair question, but given the way that the constitution has endured and the constitution that we have today in 2026, what do you think Madison's most important insight is that he gives us in the federalist about our constitution or about our republic? I mean, the answer is in this the most famous sentence, the most quotable, the most t-shirt level sentence in the federalist papers, that's the ambition, most counteract ambition sentence. And that is that look, when you're dealing with office holders, you can't rely on, you know, their goodness or their virtue that there has to be some other, some other more reliable thing that can be harnessed. And it turns out that these people are going to have peculiar ambitions. And so they're going to have an ambition for office. And so the trick then is to harness that ambition in some way that it's going to make it for the public good. And then moving beyond federalist 51, we get what I think is the best part of the federalist papers, concluding around 72 or so, Hamilton as a part of this, in which we get an account of that which is going to motivate the various officers. And so when you get into 55, 57, 62, 63, 68 through 72, we see that there is a kind of will formation that the Constitution has in mind. So not only is it going to attract certain kinds of people to certain offices, like there's a reason, John Roberts did not wake up thinking he wants to be president. And that's because John Roberts is a certain kind of, he wanted to be Chief Justice. That's right, he wanted to be Chief Justice. And he has a skill that's more suited to that office, right? And so and then some people are just led to be, are wired to be president. Some people are wired to be a judge. Some people are wired to be a legislature. And so the Constitution's virtue in some ways are great, the great, great discovery is that it can, you can attract not different classes to office, but different, you know, under the old mixed constitution, but you can attract different qualities. And these different qualities are going to lead to different functions of the government. And that to me is just just really beautiful. And so when we read the Federalist papers as, you know, trying to settle, you know, questions about, you know, legal controversies and stuff today, the Federalist papers is often unsatisfying. But as a lesson in design and how to shape an institution around the motives of the people that can inhabit those institutions, the Federalist papers is really just one of a kind. Thomas Jefferson was very good friends with James Madison, notwithstanding the criticism that Madison gives him in the Federalist. Thomas Jefferson was a pretty smart guy, as you know, but he thought James Madison was really a kind of genius. And when he had deep theoretical questions, he would sometimes turn to James Madison. Do you think when we look at the Federalist and Madison's contribution to it, is it fair to say that Madison was a genius? Yeah, Madison's a genius. And he sees in this way, there's a reason why political scientists love Madison is that there's a kind of sort of rigor and a classification of the way that he sees things. I confess I've read almost everything that Madison has written, both published and unpublished. And it's nothing like Jefferson. Jefferson sparkles, you know, on every page. Madison does not. You have to be fair. But then you get into these like, you know, papers on trade policy. I would say like 25% of what Madison wrote is on trade policy. And you know, whether or not, you know, you could use, you know, something like a tariff as a peaceful alternative to war and how that would work. And they are incredibly dry, but they are incredibly shrewd. And there's something there. But they don't, they don't let me measure up to the Federalist 49 or Federalist 37 or 51. Actually on that note, Fed 39 is the second half of the Federalism Park is incredibly boring. But there is no other like analysis of the Constitution that is so clear in the way it stacks up and answers the question, is this a federal or a national government? So can I again, maybe an unfair question to end our conversation here, but when you think about Madison's contributions in his essays in the Federalist, would we have had the Constitution that we got? Would it have been adopted and would it be the way that it has been without Madison's contribution in the Federalist? No, absolutely not. And I'll just give you one example. It's been in the weeds and no we're ending, but when ratification looked most, what was at its bleakest moment, this is sort of spring of '88, the, and both before the Massachusetts miracle in January and after, there are reasons ratification might not happen. The best case scenario in Hamilton thought this was the best case scenario was, look, we have to allow states to ratify on condition that we'll get amendments later. And Madison said absolutely, absolutely not. You don't have a Constitution if we ratify different documents. And that little episode that Madison could see that in a way that Hamilton could not, like really reveals just the special way that Madison was thinking about this thing that we call the Constitution and he was thinking about a way to make it the Constitution in a way that the others just weren't. Absolutely fascinating. Well, so maybe it is fair to answer the question we started with. Maybe it is fair then to call Madison the father of the Constitution. Sure. Fair enough. What a fascinating, insightful, interesting conversation today about James Madison and his incredibly important contribution to the Federalist and to the Constitution that we have. Professor Jeremy Bailey, thanks for taking the time to give us your insights today on the American idea. Thanks Jeff. This was fun. Thank you for listening to this episode of The American Idea. If you enjoyed this episode, remember to subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and leave a five star review. 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