James Madison: Federalist 51

Context

The Revolutionary War had forced the colonists to unite and view themselves as Americans. Having directly experienced their oppression as colonial subjects at the local level, the newly sovereign people saw themselves as citizens of the states where they lived. Having thrown off the yoke of imperial power, they were suspicious of centralized power, especially when it existed beyond their reach. How the separate states of the infant country would work together as a single national entity was perhaps the most vexing question before a newly sovereign people.

In May 1776, at the direction of Congress, the states drafted constitutions based on “natural rights” philosophy. With its assertion of the right of rebellion and of government based upon “the consent of the governed,” the Declaration of Independence exemplified this theory. Given their experience with appointed colonial governors, the state constitutions had strong legislatures and weak executives. Typically, the new governors served for only one year and were elected by the legislature. The legislatures redrew electoral districts to correspond more closely to population, expanded the number of legislators, and lowered property requirements for voting. The states drafted “bills of rights” to protect citizens from abuses of power. In Pennsylvania a coalition of western farmers, artisans, and militiamen influenced by Revolutionary democrat Thomas Paine crafted a government with a single-house legislature and no governor at all.

When the war ended in 1783, Congress faced problems fulfilling the peace terms. England used the refusal of the states to repay its debts to British creditors as an excuse to continue occupying its forts on the Great Lakes. In 1784 Spain closed the Mississippi River to Americans. Unable to control commerce, levy taxes, conduct foreign relations, amend itself, enforce its own articles, or defend the Union, the Confederation was paralyzed. By the mid-1780s nationalists wanted to revise the Articles of Confederation.

In 1786 two events riveted the attention of influential citizens. Rhode Island passed a law requiring creditors to accept paper money in payment for debts. This law gave relief to indebted farmers at the expense of wealthier urban creditors. An agrarian rebellion against state collection of taxes and debts, led by a former captain in the Continental army, Daniel Shays, erupted in western Massachusetts. In the summer of 1786 armed rebels attacked the federal arsenal at Springfield, harassing merchants, creditors, and representatives of the state government. The state militia crushed the rebellion, several farmers were hanged, and Shays fled to Vermont. “Shays's Rebellion” hastened the movement to replace the Articles of Confederation. In May 1787 fifty-five delegates from every state save Rhode Island met in a convention in Philadelphia to reform the national government.

The first step toward general reform of the government came in September 1786 when five delegates, assembled to discuss interstate commerce, called for a convention to meet in Philadelphia in May 1787 to discuss measures to render a federal constitution “adequate to the exigencies of the Union.” In May 1787 fifty-five delegates from every state except Rhode Island went to Philadelphia to meet in Independence Hall. The proposed constitution retained a federal governing structure in which power was shared between the states and the nation, but it decisively strengthened the power of the national government, granting to Congress the authority to “provide for the general welfare of the United States” as well as the power to make “all laws necessary and proper” for executing the powers vested “in the government of the United States.” The Federalist framers left no doubt that the Constitution and “all laws passed under it” was to be the supreme law of the land (Article VI). After thirty-nine of the forty-two remaining delegates signed the document, the drafted constitution was forwarded to the states for ratification by special constitutional conventions.

With the debate moved to the states, proponents of the Constitution faced widespread and vocal opposition. The opposition coalesced in the Antifederalists, who viewed the proposed government as too centralized, too complex in structure, removed from direct control by the people, and lacking a bill of rights. The Antifederalist arguments enjoyed the sanction of the Revolutionary past. The common understanding held that republics could endure in only small areas, based on local governments ruled by men of virtue. The English revolution of the seventeenth century, which ended in the dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell, showed what happened to republics in larger states with heterogeneous populations. For many Americans governing themselves in the eleven years between 1776 and 1787, a central government with authority superceding that of the separate states seemed reminiscent of royal tyranny.

Aware of their opponents ideological advantage, Federalists moved quickly. The most important effort was the series of essays penned by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, published in New York newspapers under the pseudonym of Publius. Collectively known as The Federalist, the papers argued that power, rather than the enemy of liberty, could be its greatest defender. The authors of The Federalist knew that the task before them was to revise the prevailing idea of republicanism and to craft a more complex understanding of republican government suited to the needs of a large and growing society.