3. Agent, not Ruler
Madison explained that the powers of the federal government arise from the compact – the constitution – reinforcing the view that it would be nothing more than an agent of the people of the states who created it.
“That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact; as no farther valid than they are authorised by the grants enumerated in that compact”
In his Report of 1800 explaining the Resolutions in detail, Madison explained that the word “states” in this context doesn’t mean state governments, or a geographic area.
Instead, he wrote, “it means the people composing those political societies, in their highest sovereign capacity.”
He continued, noting that this was how the entire system was created.
“In that sense the “states” ratified it; and in that sense of the term “states,” they are consequently parties to the compact from which the powers of the federal government result.”
The first Chief Justice, John Jay, described it in similar terms.
“The Constitution only serves to point out that part of the people’s business, which they think proper by it to refer to the management of the persons therein designated – those persons are to receive that business to manage, not for themselves, and as their own, but as agents and overseers for the people.”
4. The Danger of Precedent
Madison warned against the dangerous precedent of allowing the federal government to violate the Constitution, emphasizing that such violations, if left unchecked, would lead to further abuses. He wrote:
“That this State having by its convention which ratified the federal constitution, expressly declared, “that among other essential rights, the liberty of conscience and of the press cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified by any authority of the United States”
The people of Virginia had been so determined to protect these rights that they pushed for an amendment to enshrine them in the Constitution. Yet Madison saw the alarming reality – violations of even these explicitly listed rights were happening, and he considered it “criminal degeneracy” to allow that to continue:
“and from its extreme anxiety to guard these rights from every possible attack of sophistry or ambition, having with other states recommended an amendment for that purpose, which amendment was in due time annexed to the Constitution, it would mark a reproachful inconsistency and criminal degeneracy, if an indifference were now shewn to the most palpable violation of one of the rights thus declared and secured, and to the establishment of a precedent which may be fatal to the other.”
In short, Madison argued that allowing a single violation would undermine the entire Bill of Rights because it would set a precedent for further violations – a warning that feels especially relevant today, given how often government goes well-beyond its constitutional limits.
This principle echoes a timeless truth: giving power-hungry governments an inch means they’ll take a mile. George Washington had a similar warning just 2 years earlier in his farewell address.
“let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.”
5. Consolidation is Tyranny
Next, Madison pointed out that the general welfare clause was already being twisted into authorizing a vast reservoir of nearly unlimited power, and that was intentional.
“that indications have appeared of a design to expound certain general phrases (which having been copied from the very limited grant of powers in the former articles of confederation were the less liable to be misconstrued) so as to destroy the meaning and effect of the particular enumeration, which necessarily explains and limits the general phrases”
The result of this, he warned, was that it would lead to the dreaded consolidation – or centralization of power.
“so as to consolidate the states by degrees into one sovereignty, the obvious tendency and inevitable consequence of which would be, to transform the present republican system of the United States, into an absolute, or at best a mixed monarchy.”
During the ratification debates, almost everyone warned of the dangers of consolidation – the argument was really centered on whether or not the system would result in that.
On the federalist side, James Wilson emphatically said “To support, with vigor, a single government over the whole extent of the United States, would demand a system of the most unqualified and the most unremitted despotism.”
On the anti-federalist side, Patrick Henry warned that “consolidation must end in the destruction of our liberties.” And he repeatedly warned against it, noting that “dangers are to be apprehended in whatever manner we proceed, but those of a consolidation are the most destructive.”
In 1787, Madison confidently argued that the system would not lead to consolidation. But by 1798, he had witnessed firsthand how quickly power could centralize under the guise of “general welfare,” and he issued dire warnings about its dangerous trajectory.
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