Virtue vs. Tyranny

By: J. David Gowdy

When visiting Monticello, a visitor may observe that prominent in Thomas Jefferson’s parlor are portraits and paintings of historical figures of significance and importance to him and his worldview. These include his triumvirate of Bacon, Newton & Locke, but also Washington, Lafayette, John Adams, Mary Magdalene, and the Holy Family, among others. One painting in particular stands out – it is “Herodias Bearing the Head of John the Baptist.” [Jefferson was mistaken in his record of this painting's title since it is actually Herodias' daughter Salome bearing the platter]. 

Let us reflect upon this scene.  As Luke recorded in chapter 3:19, John the Baptist had rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother's wife, “and all the other evil things he had done.” Herod had John arrested and thrown into prison. Then as Matthew records in chapter 14:6-7, “when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod. Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask. And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist's head in a charger.” May we surmise that to Jefferson, John the Baptist represented virtue versus tyranny, or morality versus corruption?

Considering that Thomas Jefferson found meaning in this painting of Herodias [Salome] and the prophet John, may we also query whether it may have possessed both a religious and a political connotation that resonated both within him and with respect to his times?  As Professor Marvin Olasky has convincingly argued, the American War of Independence was fought for much more than economic freedom and “no taxation without representation.” Virtue, or morality, and the right to govern their religious affairs were paramount in the minds and hearts of the American patriots of ‘76. Their legacy and belief in divine rights was borne of pilgrims and puritans, and other persecuted religious minorities, who immigrated to the new world in search of religious freedom by escaping the entrenched tyranny of church and state which were deeply rooted for centuries in Great Britain and Europe.  In this regard, the Revolutionary War was as much a battle against “the corruption of 18th century British high society,” as it was about financial matters.[1] It is virtue that inspired these souls to battle against great odds, more than simple monetary gain. It is virtue battling against tyranny that inspired Thomas Jefferson and his fellow Virginians to risk treason against the king of England, and potential death by hanging as the penalty for their rebellion.  

The Seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia shows Virtue, spear in hand, with her foot on the prostrate form of Tyranny, whose crown lies nearby.[2]  In one sense, this singular image of Virtue conquering Tyranny may justly sum up Jefferson’s political convictions. Not only does this theme reverberate in the life and writings of each author cited by him for the principles of the Declaration, but it is also recurrent in Jefferson’s own life. From his Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774), to the Declaration of Independence (1776), to his Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), and finally to his Statute for Religious Freedom (1786), Jefferson dedicated his public service to overcoming all forms of tyranny in government, church and state, through a constant appeal to moral principles and natural rights. From the Summary View, representing the sentiments of  “a free people claiming their rights, as derived from the laws of nature” … he states that, “History has informed us that bodies of men, as well as individuals, are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny, [and states that] the whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.” From the Statute for Religious Freedom, “Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishment or burdens, or by civil incapacitations …are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion.”  Lastly, in what may be deemed to be his personal motto, he stated, “for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”[3]

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[1] Marvin Olasky, Fighting for Liberty and Virtue (Regnery Publishing, Washington D.C., 1996) p. 142.

[2] The Seal was planned by George Mason and designed by George Wythe. See Kate Mason Rowland, The Life of George Mason, 1725-1792 (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1892) pp. 264–26.

[3] Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800, ME 10:175.

The Federalist, Human Nature, and Forms of Government

  

By: Tony Williams  

In my last essay on the Federalist, titled “The Federalist and Human Nature,” I discussed Publius’ classical and Christian understanding of human nature as flawed but capable of virtue and worthy of trust.  The view of human nature was the basis of the kind of government the Founders would create.  Under the Constitution of the United States, they established a constitutional republic with many safeguards to control human nature as well as allow it thrive in liberty based upon the principle of government by consent of the governed. 

The human capacity for virtue led Publius to support the idea that republican self-government was possible.  If humans lacked that moral sense, then they were brutes who were meant to be governed by a tyrant who kept them on a short leash.   But, Publius clearly understood that humans were flawed and often followed their passions.  He was generally pessimistic that their experiment in liberty and self-government would endure and that humans were capable of governing themselves.  After all, the few historic examples of Greece, Rome, the Italian City-States, and the Dutch Republic had all failed.  The Americans would have to address the problems of human nature if they were to build “a new order for the ages.” 

The entire Federalist project is an explication of the new Constitution and its framework of government.  But, nowhere in the essays is there a better and simpler explanation of how Publius addressed the best form of government given the nature of humans than in Federalist No. 51.  James Madison wrote the paper and made the connection clear when he wrote, “A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” 

The auxiliary precautions were the essential principles of separation of powers, checks and balances, bicameralism, and federalism.  The separation of powers was the most basic and important principle because consolidation of executive, legislative, and judicial power in one branch was the definition of tyranny.  “In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that each department should have a will of its own.”  Hence, America has a Congress, a President, and a Supreme Court. 

However, the branches were interconnected with each other to limit tyranny through the principle of checks and balances.  Madison gives several examples such as the executive veto over congressional legislation, but there are numerous other examples in the Constitution such as the congressional override of a veto, the power of impeachment and removal from office, and Senate approval of executive treaties. 

Because the legislative branch was most representative of the people, and was delegated the power to enact laws, it was the strongest branch – and, thus, the most dangerous.  “In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates,” Madison wrote, “The remedy for this incoveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches,” with different modes of election and powers.  Thus, the United States has a bicameral Congress with a House of Representatives and a Senate.  That is the principle of bicameralism, and indirectly, the separation of powers. 

Madison then admits the danger of having a more powerful central government at the national level.  The dangers of usurpation of powers to liberty are great so that the federal government is divided into “distinct and separate departments” with checks and balances.  Moreover, the oft-ignored principle of federalism was key.  “In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct government,” or, in other words, the federal and state governments.  The Constitution was replete with examples of sovereignty of state governments including the original appointment of Senators by state legislatures (changed by the Seventeenth Amendment), the Electoral College and presidential selection, the ratification of amendments by the states, the vote by state if a presidential election goes to the House, and the Tenth Amendment reserving all powers to the states that are not enumerated to the federal government.  The larger size of the American republic and the federal principle, Madison writes, will limit the ability of unjust majorities (factions) from trampling the rights of minorities.

The product of the incredible balancing act of preserving individual liberty and controlling human nature was the U.S. Constitution with its auxiliary precautions.  “The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.  It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government.”  The end of this constitutional government and civil society is justice.  “It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.”  In addition to the Separation of Powers and Federalism, Justice is also fundamentally the topic of Federalist No. 51, which offers profound civics lessons for both students and citizens. 

(previous installment - 2nd in series - "The Federalist and Human Nature": http://wjmi.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-federalist-and-human-nature.html)

See also: "Teaching the Federalist in Secondary Schools" -- http://wjmi.blogspot.com/2010/10/teaching-federalist-in-secondary.html
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Tony Williams is the WJMI Program Director and co-author with Stephen F. Knott of the forthcoming Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance that Forged America (Sourcebooks). 

WJMI Core Curriculum Courses

The Washington, Jefferson & Madison Institute ("WJMI") offers public and private secondary teachers a program of ten core courses to earn Virginia DOE annual recertification points for re-licensure and a certificate of completion as a “WJMI Fellow” in the study of the “American Founding Principles and Documents.”  Each course consists of four 50-minute lectures or presentations by distinguished scholars and authors with discussions and Q&A. Through this series of intensive seminars on America’s Founding Documents and the lives and writings of the Founding Fathers, teachers will examine founding principles and original source documents for use in the classroom.  WJMI Seminars are offered semi-annually in September and February at Prospect Hill near Charlottesville.

Jefferson & Madison’s Guide to the Constitution

Explore the original curriculum for the teaching of the Constitution at the University of Virginia as set forth by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and the Board of Visitors on March 4, 1825. Key documents that will be studies are Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government, the Declaration of Independence, Federalist Nos. 1, 10, 39, 51, 78 and 84, and Washington’s Farewell Address.

George Washington

Explore the character and statesmanship of George Washington through his religious beliefs and political philosophy and his life as the Commander of the Continental Army, the Constitutional Convention, first President of the United States, and his Farewell Address.  Key documents that will be studied are the Rules of Civility, the Nicola Letter, the Circular Letter to the States, the Speech at Newburgh, the Retirement Speech to Congress, the First Inaugural, the First Thanksgiving Message, and the Farewell Address. 

James Madison

Explore the statesmanship and writings of founder James Madison through his struggle for religious liberty, the Constitutional Convention, the ratification of the Constitution, the creation of the Bill of Rights, and the party struggle of the 1790s.  Key documents that will be studied include the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Memorial & Remonstrance, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Madison’s Notes to the Constitutional Convention, excerpts from the Federalist, Madison June 8, 1789 speech, the Bill of Rights, and the essay “On Property.” 

Thomas Jefferson

Explore the work of Thomas Jefferson for religious and civil liberty and republican self-government through the making of the Declaration of Independence, his diplomatic mission to France, his thoughts on the Constitution, the party struggle of the 1790s, his presidency, and his founding of the University of Virginia.  Key documents that will be studied are the Summary View of the Rights of British America, the draft and final copy of the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, exchange of letters with James Madison about the Constitution, his opposition to the Bank of the US, the Kentucky Resolutions, the First Inaugural Address, and his exchange of letters with John Adams.

Alexander Hamilton

Explore the life and constitutionalism of Alexander Hamilton through his arguments for a stronger central government during his Revolutionary War writings, the Constitutional Convention, the Ratification of the Constitution, and as the Secretary of the Treasury during the Washington administration.  Key documents that will be studied are the Farmer Refuted pamphlet, the June 18 speech at the Constitutional Convention, excerpts from the Federalist, the Report on Public Credit, the Opinion on the Constitutionality of the Bank of the US, and the Pacificus-Helvidius Debate. 

John Adams

Explore the life and statesmanship of John Adams through his political philosophy, marriage to Abigail Adams, battles for American independence, his constitutional work in Massachusetts, his diplomacy in Europe, and his vice-presidency and presidency.  Key documents that will be studied are the letters with Abigail Adams, his Dissertation on Feudal and Canon Law, Novanglus Essay, Thoughts on Government, the Massachusetts Constitution, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States, the First Inaugural Address, the Alien and Sedition Acts, and his exchange of letters with Thomas Jefferson. 

Benjamin Franklin

Explore the life and statesmanship of Benjamin Franklin through his Autobiography, his 13 Virtues, his diplomacy in Europe, the alliance with France, and the Peace Treaty, and his role in the Constitutional Convention.  Key documents that will be studied are his Autobiography, Poor Richard’s Almanac, Article in the Federal Gazette on the “Structure of Government,” Speeches at the Constitutional Convention, and the Petition for the Abolition of Slavery. 

Religion & the Founding of the American Republic

Explore the role of religion on the colonists and the War for Independence, its influence on the American Founding, the religious beliefs of the Founders, the effects of the Enlightenment, and the relationship between religion and a virtuous Republic.  Key documents to be studied are the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Declaration of Rights, Proclamations of Thanksgiving and Fasting, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance, the First Amendment to the Constitution, and George Washington’s Letters to the Congregations.

The Constitution and its Ratification

Explore the events leading to the Constitutional Convention, the philosophical sources of principles of the Constitution, the debates in the Constitutional Convention, and the debates and process of ratification.  Key documents to be studied include the Articles of Confederation, selections from Locke, Sidney, and Montesquieu, Madison’s Notes of the Debates in the Constitutional Convention, and excerpts from Anti-Federalist writings and the Federalist Papers.

The Bill of Rights

Explore the Colonial origins of American liberties, the state constitutions, the debate over a Bill of Rights during the Constitutional Convention and ratification, the correspondence between Jefferson and Madison, and the significance and meaning of the First Amendment.  Key Documents to be studied are A Summary View of the Rights of British America, The Farmer Refuted, the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Bill of Rights, and James Madison’s June 8, 1789 Speech in the House of Representatives.

Christopher Columbus and the New World

“Explorer and navigator Christopher Columbus was born in 1451 in the Republic of Genoa, Italy. In 1492, Columbus left Spain in the Santa Maria [image above], with the Pinta and the Niña along side. He has been credited for opening up the Americas to European colonization. 

Columbus first went to sea as a teenager, participating in several trading voyages in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas. One such voyage, to the island of Khios, in modern day Greece, brought him the closest he would come to Asia.  His first voyage into the Atlantic Ocean in 1476 nearly cost him his life as the commercial fleet he was sailing with was attacked by French privateers off the coast of Portugal. His ship was burned and Columbus had to swim to the Portuguese shore and make his way to Lisbon, Portugal, where he eventually settled and married Felipa Perestrello. The couple had one son, Diego in about 1480. His wife died soon after and Columbus moved to Spain. He had a second son Fernando who was born out of wedlock in 1488 with Beatriz Enriquez de Arana.

Columbus participated in several other expeditions to Africa gaining knowledge of the Atlantic currents flowing east and west from the Canary Islands. Muslim domination of the trade routes through the Middle East makes travel to India and China difficult. Believing a route sailing west across the Atlantic would be quicker and safer, Columbus devised a plan to sail west to reach the East. He estimated the earth to be a sphere approximately 63% its actual size and the distance between the Canary Islands and Japan to be about 2,300 miles. Many contemporary nautical experts disagreed, adhering to the second century BC estimate of the earth's circumference at 25,000 miles. This made the distance between the Canary Islands and Japan about 12,200 statute miles. While experts disagreed with Columbus on matters of distance, they concurred that a westward voyage from Europe would be an uninterrupted water route. 

Rejected by the Portuguese king for a three-ship voyage of discovery, Columbus took his plan first to Genoa and then to Venice but was rejected there too. He then went to the Spanish monarchy of Isabella of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon, in 1486. Their nautical experts too were skeptical and initially, Columbus was rejected. The idea however, must have intrigued the monarchs, for they kept Columbus on a retainer. But their focus was on a war with the Muslims and Columbus would have to wait.

Columbus continued to lobby the royal court and soon after the Spanish army captured the last Muslim stronghold in Granada in January of 1492, the monarchs agreed to finance his expedition. In August, Columbus left Spain in the Santa Maria, with the Pinta and the Niña along side. After 36 days of sailing, [in the early hours of October 12, 1492] land was sighted, and after daybreak Columbus and his officers went ashore on a tiny island in the Bahamas called Guanahani by the natives. Columbus named it “San Salvador” (Holy Savior), claiming it for Spain. There he encountered a timid but friendly group of natives who were open to trade with the sailors exchanging glass beads, cotton balls, parrots and spears. The Europeans also noticed bits of gold the natives wore for adornment.

Columbus and his men continued their journey, visiting the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and meeting with the leaders of the native population. During this time, the Santa Maria was wrecked on a reef off the coast of Hispaniola. With the help of some islanders, Columbus' men salvaged what they could and built the settlement Villa de la Navidad ("Christmas Town") with lumber from the ship. Thirty-nine men stayed behind to occupy the settlement. Convinced his exploration had reached Asia, he set sail for home with the two remaining ships.”[1]  Columbus would subsequently return to the New World on three more voyages.

Perhaps nothing has been more forgotten, and nothing irked his contemporaries more, than Columbus’s frank assertion that he was divinely chosen. “God made me the messenger of the new heaven and the new earth, of which He spoke in the Apocalypse of St. John after having spoken of it by the mouth of Isaiah,” Columbus wrote to a friend and confidant of the queen, “and he showed me where to find it.” [2]

Columbus was convinced that the key to his enterprise was the spiritual gifts given him by the Lord: “He bestowed the arts of seamanship upon me in abundance, and has given me what was necessary from [astronomy], geometry, and arithmetic; and has given me adequate inventiveness in my soul.” Columbus was certain that God provided these gifts to be used in His service, “encouraging me to go forward, and without ceasing they inflame me with a sense of great urgency.” [3]

Finally, in a letter to the king and queen of Spain (who financed his first voyage), he wrote, “Our Lord unlocked my mind, sent me upon the sea, and gave me fire for the deed. Those who heard of my [enterprise] called it foolish, mocked me, and laughed. But who can doubt but the Holy Ghost inspired me?” [4]

In recent decades Columbus has been portrayed as a greedy gold-seeker, a man guilty of genocide and a destroyer of the environment. "It became popular to view Columbus as the scapegoat, as a man you could blame every evil of the modern world on. That became the politically correct way to look at him. It’s like blaming Einstein for Hiroshima and Chernobyl.  Columbus opened up the new world ... but we shouldn’t blame him for everything that other people did wrong." – Clark B. Hinckley (author of biography on Columbus).

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Footnotes:

1.  http://www.biography.com/people/christopher-columbus-9254209 [edited]

2.  Columbus to Doña Juana de la Torre, Raccolta di documenti e studi pubblicati della R. Commissione Colombiana, pt. I, vol. ii; I Scriti di Cristoforo Colombo, ed. Cesare de Lollis (Rome: 1894), p. 66.

3.  Ibid., p. 79.

4.  Jacob Wasserman, Columbus, The Don Quixote of the Seas (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1959, pp. 19-20).

See also: 

The Historical Falsification of Columbus' "Crimes" 

https://spectator.org/historical-falsification-columbus-crimes/

Christopher Columbus: Myths vs. Facts: 

http://www.truthaboutcolumbus.com/myth-vs-facts/

James Madison, Limited Government & Individual Liberty

By Tony Williams

This essay offers the very simple argument that James Madison was a staunch advocate of limited government and individual liberty during the creation of the American constitutional republic.  He, like the other Founders, believed that as government assumed more authority, it endangered the rights and liberties of the people. 

In his early public career in Virginia, Madison became a leading figure in the struggle for religious liberty.  A government that violated individual consciences with civil penalties was acting tyrannically and violating the sacred rights of man.  In the creation of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which helped create a limited, republican government with the purpose of protecting liberty in the Virginia Constitution of 1776, Madison altered George Mason’s clause on religious tolerance to one of liberty of conscience:

That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience

A decade later, Madison again supported limited government with the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Virginia to protect this liberty of conscience, writing his Memorial and Remonstrance, in which he stated, “This right is in its nature an unalienable right.”   He led the legislative fight for the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, which achieved the goal of disestablishment, while Thomas Jefferson was in Paris.  Almost another decade later, he made the following argument in his essay, On Property:

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in various rights of individuals . . . .

More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man’s religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy.  Conscience is the most sacred of all property . . . the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.

       During the 1780s, Madison wanted to give the national government more power because he believed the Articles of Confederation failed to achieve its ends, and, most critically, failed to protect liberties in the states.  When he helped frame the new Constitution at the Philadelphia Convention, defended it in his Federalist essays, and fought for its ratification in Virginia, he constantly sought a stronger, but limited government (of enumerated powers), that protected individual liberties.  Federalist #51 demonstrates Madison’s argument for limited republican self-government.  He states, “A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”  Those precautions included a separation of powers, checks and balances, bicameralism, and federalism to divide and limit government power in order to protect individual liberty. 

         In the First Congress, James Madison was the guiding force behind the Bill of Rights, which had been promised by the Federalists during the ratification debate.  Although Madison did not earlier believe that a Bill of Rights was necessary because as he told the Congress on June 8, 1789, “because the powers are enumerated, and it follows that all that are not granted by the constitution are retained: that the constitution is a bill of powers, the great residuum being the rights of the people.”  Nevertheless, he became the main proponent of the Bill of Rights because,      “so far as a declaration of rights can tend to prevent the exercise of undue power, it cannot be doubted but such declaration is proper.” 

       In the 1790s, Madison generally joined with his friend, Thomas Jefferson, to resist what they believed were the unconstitutional centralizing tendencies of the Federalists.  Whether the Federalists supported monarchical policies as much as the Democratic-Republicans believed, and regardless of whether Madison reversed himself from his nationalist outlook in the 1780s (as some historians have accused), he continued his enduring commitment to limited government and protecting the liberties of the American people.  His Virginia Resolution, adopted by the Virginia Assembly in opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts, claimed the government was exercising:

A power which more than any other ought to produce universal alarm, because it is levelled against that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed, the only effectual guardian of every other right.

       James Madison shared the vision of a constitutional republic with a limited government to protect the natural rights of mankind with the other Founding Fathers.  They believed that every person inherently possesses civil and religious liberties given to them by “Nature and Nature’s God,” which cannot be alienated by any earthly power. 

Tony Williams is the Program Director of the WJMI, and the author of five books, including Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance that Created America (forthcoming, 2015)

James Madison, Prudent Statesman

By: Tony Williams

The Washington, Jefferson & Madison Institute is proudly hosting its semi-annual seminar on the life and writings of James Madison on September 12, 2014, as it advances its mission to teach teachers founding principles in preparation for Constitution Day. In anticipation of this educational seminar, following are a few thoughts on the caliber of statesmanship exhibited by our nation's fourth president.

In the modern world of politics, ideological purity and rigidity is considered a great virtue, and talking heads from both sides shout each other down instead of deliberating on public issues while ordinary citizens become disgusted with politics.  The example Founder James Madison provides an excellent antidote to this brand of politics. 

James Madison was a profound thinker.  He prepared for momentous occasions of deliberation, such as the Constitutional Convention, by studying ancient and modern history and thinkers, often thanks to the caseloads of books sent by his friend Thomas Jefferson.  Madison’s study of political history and philosophy gave him great insights into the nature of human beings and government.  His reading shaped his lifelong commitment to republican, constitutional self-government. 

Madison, however, was more than a philosopher who had deep thoughts in the solitude of his library.  He was a practical politician and prudential statesman who understood the art of deliberation and compromise in the pursuit of political objects including founding a nation.  If James Madison were ideologically rigid, the Founding would have looked very different or might not have happened at all.  The greatest example of his statesmanship come especially from 1787 to 1789. 

At the initial stages of the Constitutional Convention in June, 1787, James Madison’s Virginia Plan dominated the discussions.  Even when Madison lost his treasured ideas of proportional representation in both houses and a national veto on state laws failed, and he thought it had ruined his plan, he persevered and compromised to achieve his object of a written Constitution.  The document was signed September 17, and sent to state ratifying conventions.

Madison was one of the key proponents of the Constitution, known as Federalists, and wrote numerous Federalist essays as Publius, defended the Constitution tooth and nail against the unremitting assaults by Patrick Henry in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, and was a strategist and correspondent behind the scenes to help win ratification.  Even when he lamented that several conventions caved into Anti-Federalist demands and allowed “recommended amendments,” Madison soon admitted the prudence of doing so and compromised to get ratification while preventing opponents from winning “conditional amendments” or even a second convention.

Madison was opposed to the inclusion of a Bill of Rights because he thought the enumerated powers created a limited government that had no authority to violate rights.  Ironically, however, he became the firmest advocate for the Bill of Rights in the First Congress to reconcile the opponents and the American people to the new Constitution to advance national unity.  On June 8, 1789, he introduced the Bill of Rights, stating, “We ought not to disregard their inclination, but, on principles of amity and moderation, conform to their wishes, and expressly declare the great rights of mankind secured under this constitution.  The acquiescence which our fellow citizens show under the government, calls upon us for a like return of moderation.”  He helped reconcile the different proposals for amendments and pushed them through the Congress for eventual ratification. 

Amity.  Moderation.  Acquiescence.  Deliberation.  Compromise.  These prudential political considerations do not mean a surrender of principle or letting the other side “win.”  They are the marks of the highest art of statesmanship in pursuit of the common good.  James Madison was a shining example of a principled, yet prudential, statesman that often appears to be lacking among modern politicians. 

Tony Williams is the WJMI Program Director and the author of several books including the forthcoming Washington and Hamilton: Forging a Nation (2015)

Abraham Lincoln and the Declaration Of Independence

Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass said of President Lincoln: "Even those who only knew him through his public utterances obtained a tolerably clear idea of his character and his personality. The image of the man went out with his words, and those who read them knew him."  (Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, April 14, 1876). James M. McPherson, a noted Civil War historian wrote, “The 'first cause,' the central vision that guided Lincoln … was preservation of the United States and its constitutional government … It was rooted in the Declaration of Independence and the ideals of liberty and equal opportunity that the Declaration had implanted as a revolutionary new idea on which the United States was founded.” (Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution (Oxford University Press, New York, 1991), p. 115-116). Simply stated, Abraham Lincoln’s “polar star” and guiding principles were those found embodied in the Declaration of Independence. As he said in 1861, “I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”  He spoke of the Declaration and its principles frequently throughout his political career. Not only did he speak of them, but he believed in them and relied upon them in his decisions. Following are a few references from Lincoln’s speeches and debates:

"Let us readopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it the practices and policy which harmonize with it. Let north and south -- let all Americans -- let all lovers of liberty everywhere -- join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations."

Roy P. Basler, editor, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume II, (Speech at Peoria, October 16, 1854)(cited as “CW”)

"[L]et us revere the Declaration of Independence; let us continue to obey the Constitution and the laws; and let us keep step to the music of the Union.”

 CW, Volume II, (Speech at Bloomington, May 29, 1856)

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal…That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”

 CW, Volume II, p. 500 (Speech at Chicago, July 11, 1858)

"'We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' This was [the Founders'] majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures...look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which [your] fathers began — so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land..."

CW, Volume II, p. 544-546 (August 17, 1858)

“Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur, and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Revolution.” 

Ibid.

“I think the authors of that notable instrument [the Declaration of Independence] intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal — equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.”

CW, Volume III, p. 283-325 (Debate at Alton, October 15, 1858)

“They [the Founders who issued the Declaration] meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all,—constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere.”

 Ibid.

“All honor to Jefferson — to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”

CW, Volume III, p. 376 (Letter to Henry L. Pierce, April 6, 1859)

“I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”

CW, Volume IV, p. 240-241 (Speech at Philadelphia, February 22, 1861)

“I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this [nation] so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time.  It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.”

Ibid.

“[July 4, 1776] was the birthday of the United States of America. Since then the Fourth of July has had several peculiar recognitions. The two most distinguished men in the framing and support of the Declaration were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams — the one having penned it and the other sustained it the most forcibly in debate — the only two of the fifty-five who sustained it being elected President of the United States. Precisely fifty years after they put their hands to the paper it pleased Almighty God to take both from the stage of action. This was indeed an extraordinary and remarkable event in our history.”
CW, Volume VI, p. 319-320 (Response to a Serenade, July 7, 1863)

Concerning the relationship of the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution, Abraham Lincoln wrote the following meditation on Proverbs 25:11 (“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”): ... “[The prosperity of the United States] is not the result of accident. It has a philosophic cause. Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart. That something, is the principle of "Liberty to all" -- the principle that clears the path for all -- gives hope to all -- and, by consequence, enterprise and industry to all. The expression of that principle, in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy, and fortunate. Without this, as well as with it, we could have declared our independence of Great Britain; but without it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government and consequent prosperity. The assertion of that principle, at that time, was the word "fitly spoken" which has proven an "apple of gold" to us. The Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was made, not to conceal, or destroy the apple; but to adorn and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple -- not the apple for the picture.  So let us act, that neither picture, or apple shall ever be blurred, bruised or broken … That we may so act, we must study, and understand the points of danger.” 

CW, Volume 4, p. 168 (italics in original).

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal….” 

Gettysburg Address (November 19, 1863)