You pay close attention to what he says and dont just relate it to political thinkers from europe. He had very specific individualy in mind when he conceived the political principle. Ceived and the best example of that is that when he raised the specter of a dangerous demagogue, he actually wasnt thinking of ly hamilton, he was thinking of virginias effusive Patrick Henry in mind because he had watched him manipulate the house of representatives with his rhetorical skill. When he thought of firm and yett reasonable leadership, he had washington in mind. N and when he reached for symbolic embodiment of the republican style, it would have not been one of the democratic republican clubs that sprang up in the p mid1790s even though hamiltonian federalists saw them as having been inspired by ough madison. Havin they went so far to nickname g club members the mads. Basically implying that theyre not quite stable upstairs. No, madison would have found a more appealing symbol of the moe republ
Character to fame generous charc bequeathed it his immortal name. Some lines later, the fourth , president s name was joined to that of the first. The the honored place of washington was filled by madison in diplomacy skilled. Dipl a seat far more exalted than a throne, or ever yet too hauty monarchs known. The patriotic consensus went like this. The office of the presidency all by itself was a testament to thy nobility of the american political experiment. And madison had already proved himself by 1814 as both as great and as a appropriately humble as the first of men, George Washington. So the unfortunate tendency is to make history simple. The whole idea of a political la faith is that it is supposed to eliminate confusion by suggesting pictures to the mindt that are frozen in time, somehow pure, cleaner, than they really were. The world had known many a hauty monarch, americas distinctive e characteristics was its nonhereditary system of governance. The presidencys republican chara
Without politics voting to raise taxes on the people who voted them in or out of office. This is a conundrum the 21st century understands. Peace negotiations got under way in europe with madisons full support. He needed Albert Galatin as his linchpin on the negotiating team in gent. British ships had appeared at the mouth of the potomac as early as july 1813, and raids along the chesapeake caused a Nervous Congress to look less favorably on an Internal Revenue solution. The fiery decimation of the white house, the capital, you know, august 1814 only intensified the need to reorder republican priorities and accommodate president madisons turnabout in favoring tax increases and a National Bank that secured a uniform currency and maintained peoples confidence in government during peace time as well as war. He had quietly succeeded in rendering hamiltons purportedly unconstitutional bank safe. A bank compromised of private merchants and stock jobing speculat speculators. This was no longer
Picture of the real madison, and what drove him, was a reference in that first inaugural address to the constitution as the cement of the union, as well in its limitations as in its authorities. He was promising to adhere to the same principle he demanded of the hamiltonians in the 1790s when madisons party was in the minority and both houses of congress and excluded from executive decisionmaking. He promised to continue republican measures, economy in public expenditures, keeping the Standing Army within the requisite limits and demoting state militias as the firmest bulwark of republics. But that interpretation of the constitution constrained from a from moving america in the direction of a permanently centralized military. That interpretation of an america constrained from building up a war chest, that government was supplanted by another. It had to be if continental expansionism that jefferson and madison both saw as ultimately desirable was to take place. So madison had to learn o