“to the press alone, checkered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.”
We discuss James Madison again this week, President Jefferson's good friend and ally. Madison was the de facto father of the American Constitution. We look at his preparation, his advocacy of the Virginia Plan, and his work to try to ratify this somewhat imperfect instrument.
We talked a great deal with President Jefferson about the Constitutional Convention. Jefferson wasn't there, but Madison kept him apprised of progress. Madison wanted a more centralized national government than Jefferson was comfortable with. Jefferson believed in the 10th amendment: that powers not delegated to the national government belong to the states, which is something that haunts us to this day because of its vagueness.
The question is, what is America? Is it a compact of sovereign states? Or is it as a nation state whose constitution begins with the words, "We the People"?
Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of everything; and in no instance is this more true than in that of the press. It is better to leave a few of its noxious branches to their luxuriant growth, than by pruning them away to insure the vigor of those yielding the proper fruits. … to the press alone, checkered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.
James Madison
Report on the Virginia Resolutions
Jan. 1800
Further Reading
The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President by Noah Feldman
Eric Sevareid - Not So Wild a Dream by Makoché Studios
Madison's Gift: Five Partnerships That Built America by David O. Stewart
James Madison: A Life Reconsidered by Lynne Cheney
Madison and Jefferson by Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg
The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, 1511, via Wikimedia
What Would Jefferson Do?
“You can have all the information in the world, but it doesn’t mean anything unless you have a mental matrix with which to absorb it, evaluate it, analyze it, begin to synthesize it. That’s why we go to college.”
Tune in to your local public radio or join the 1776 Club to hear this episode of What Would Thomas Jefferson Do?
Jay Cost, author of the new book James Madison: America's First Politician joins Clay Jenkinson this week to discuss the book and share insights on the politics of Madison and Jefferson's time.
When reading Thomas Jefferson’s correspondence, one often sees examples of his belief that the less government, the better. In this week's episode, President Thomas Jefferson discusses the writing of the Constitution and comments on The Journal of the Federal Convention by James Madison. Jefferson wrote, "it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation."
This week in an interesting debate match, Clay Jenkinson and Joseph Ellis argue over who is the “Indispensable Man” of the American Revolution. Ellis argues for George Washington, while Jenkinson says it has to be Jefferson. A very wise listener suggests that they are both wrong: it’s Benjamin Franklin.
This week we present the third of four conversations between the author and historian Joseph J. Ellis and The Thomas Jefferson Hour creator Clay S. Jenkinson about the letters exchanged between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams from 1812 until the death of both men on July 4, 1826. In this third episode Ellis says that during this age, “letter writing was an art and these are two of the best letter writers in in late eighteenth century America. I don’t know that anybody is better. Franklin is pretty good, but Madison’s letters read like the footnotes of an insurance policy.”