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The Dialogic Community: Education, Leadership, and Partcipation in James Madison's Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Bradley Kent Carter  and
Joseph F. Kobylka
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Abstract

Some interpretations of James Madison tend to treat him as an enemy of “community,” or as indifferent to that concept. These interpretations also tend to base their argument on selected readings from the Federalist Papers. This approach is mistaken because it relies on a part of the Madisonian corpus to define the whole of the Virginian's thought. This mistake leads to a distortion of Madison's treatment of community. Close scrutiny of Madison's life, letters, and essays reveals a theorist-politician committed to building and nurturing community in the new United States, a community linked across time and miles by shared values, common institutions, and ongoing public dialogue.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , Winter 1990 , pp. 32 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1990

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References

Notes

1. All citations to the Federalist Papers are to the volume edited by Wills, Garry (New York: Bantam Books, 1982).Google Scholar These citations will be noted in the body of the article.

2. We have developed this argument elsewhere. See Kobylka, and Carter, , “Madison, The Federalist, and the Constitutional Order: Human Nature and Institutional Structure,” Polity 20 (Winter 1987): 190–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Similar conclusions have been drawn by others as well. For example, see Yarbrough, Jean, “Republicanism Reconsidered: Some Thoughts on the Foundation and Preservation of the American Republic,” Review of Politics 41 (1979): 61–95;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWills, Garry, Explaining America (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980);Google Scholar and McCoy, Drew, The Elusive Republic (Williamsburg, VA: Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1980)Google Scholar and The Last of the Fathers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

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4. Drukman, Mason, Community and Purpose in America (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971), p. 38.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., p. 44, emphasis added. Drukman rejects Madison's notion of property. In a 1792 essay on that subject, Madison wrote “a man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them” (National Gazette, 29 March 1792).Google Scholar

6. Schuman, David, Preface to Politics (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1977), p. 4.Google Scholar

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8. Dahl, Robert, Pluralist Democracy in the United States: Conflict and Consensus (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963),Google Scholar esp. Part One, and his A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956),Google Scholar esp. chap. 1.

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11. Drukman, , Community and Purpose in America, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

12. Ibid., p. 7.

13. Ibid., pp. 9–10.

14. Ibid., pp. 10, 34–38, 44–45.

15. Ibid., p. 18.

16. Wolin, , Politics and Vision, p. 9.Google Scholar

17. Schuman, , Preface to Politics, p. 18.Google Scholar

18. Schuman, David and Waterman, Bob, A Preface to Politics, 4th ed. (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1986), p. 206.Google Scholar

19. For an extended discussion of Madison's view of human nature, see Kobylka and Carter, “Madison, The Federalist, and the Constitutional Order.”

20. This passage, as well as others in his text, demonstrates that Madison does not hold to a universalistic Hobbesian perspective on questions of human nature. See, for example, his 1792 essay, “Who Are the Best Keepers of the People's Liberties” where he writes “the people ought to be enlightened, awakened” (Hunt, Gaillard, The Writings of James Madison, 9 vols. [New York: G. P. Putnam and Sons, 1902–1910], VI, 120, 121).Google Scholar Subsequent references to this work appear as (Hunt, volume, page) in the body of the article.

21. Pangle, , Spirit of Modern Republicanism, p. 98,Google Scholar argues that both Federalists and Antifederalists saw the bond of commerce as an important glue for the new American nation. Madison's contemporaries did not criticize him as an eighteenthcentury Dahl; that is only done by moderns.

22. Rutland, Robert et al. , The Papers of James Madison (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1983), XI, 82–83.Google Scholar Subsequent references to this work will appear as (Rutland, volume, page) in the body of the article.

23. Diamond, Martin, “The Federalist” in History of Political Philosophy, ed. Strauss, L. and Cropsey, J., 2nd. ed. (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972), pp. 645–46.Google Scholar

24. The phrase “dialogic community” is borrowed from Eva Brann's “Introduction” to Raymond Larson's translation of Plato's Republic (Arlington Heights, IL: AHM, 1979), p. xliii;Google Scholar see also Bailyn, Bernard, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1967),Google Scholar chap. 1. Bailyn does not use the term “dialogic” but his argument embodies that concept.

25. Schuman, , Preface to Politics, p. 18.Google Scholar

26. Even some scholars less critical of Madison see his thought to channel people away from public involvement. Note, for example, Yarbrough, “Republicanism Reconsidered”: “since the Founders promoted stability by encouraging the people to devote themselves to private enterprises, the requirements of stability actually undermined the civic spirit necessary to the preservation of republican government” (p.88).

27. Ibid., p. 8. Cf. Appleby, Joyce, Capitalism and a New Social Order (New York: New York University Press, 1984), p. 78:Google Scholar “The Republican organization that triumphed is 1800 was unprecedented. … The Republicans created a movement that was national in scope and universal in its ideological appeal. They did it with words—those printed words that had for so long been owned and exchanged by the world's elites. — The Jeffersonians unified ordinary voters through a vision of classlessness. … Their utopia was a society of aspirants bound together by a common need to liberate themselves and human nature from the implicit slurs of elite doctrines.” It is interesting that Schuman and most other critics of Madison fail to note Madison was part of that triumph and also fail to note that Madison was Jefferson's appointed successor in 1808.

28. On Jefferson's plan, see Malone, Dumas, Jefferson the Virginian (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1948), pp. 232–85.Google Scholar

29. For discussion of Madison's contributions to the University of Virginia see Brant, Irving, James Madison, Commander in Chief: 1812–1836 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961), pp. 450–68Google Scholar and Koch, Adrienne, Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964),Google Scholar chap. 9; for his work for others schools see Ketcham, Ralph, James Madison: A Biography (New York: Mac-Millan, 1971), pp. 348–58.Google Scholar

30. In his 1787 essay “Vices of the Political System of the United States,” Madison anticipates and expounds the argument he would make in Federalist, No. 10. “Little republics” he argues, are a threat to individual liberty: “the society becomes broken into a greater variety of interests, of pursuits of passions, which check each other, whilst those who may feel a common sentiment have less opportunity of communication and concert” (Hunt II, 368). In part, Madison's argument for an enlargement of the sphere, for new institutional arrangements, is to allow for interchange of ideas and enlargement of sentiment; even more importantly it puts a premium on rational discourse that unites across disparate interests.

31. Yarbrough, , “Republicanism Reconsidered,” p. 86.Google Scholar

32. It is here where we disagree with Yarbrough's analysis. From her perspective, Madison sought to “channel the civic spirit which the revolution unleashed into private activities, instead of devising some means of perpetuating it” (p. 87). It is our argument that his understanding of education and political dialogue and action were premised on a politically active citizenry striving to govern for general and common interests.

33. Eckenrode, H. J., The Revolution in Virginia (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1964), p. 297;Google ScholarHunt, Gaillard, “James Madison and Religious Liberty,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association (1901).Google Scholar It is possible that the success of this strategy led to Madison's appeal to the citizens of the various states in the Virginia Resolutions (1798) and Report (1799).

34. In 1783, Madison was concerned that the work of Congress was not understood in Virginia: “The state of darkness in which the people are left in Va. by the want of a diffusion of intelligence is I find a subject of complaint” (Hunt I, 330). His solution: a newspaper.

35. Brant, Irving, James Madison: Father of the Constitution 1787–1800 (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950), pp. 334–36.Google Scholar

36. Banning, Lance, The Jeffersonian Persuasion (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978), pp. 116–67;Google ScholarKetcham, , James Madison, p. 331;Google ScholarKoch, , Jefferson and Madison,Google Scholar chap. 5.

37. Koch, , Jefferson and Madison, p. 126.Google Scholar

38. Chambers, William, Political Parties in a New Nation: The American Experience 1176–1809 (New York: Oxford University Press), p. 60.Google Scholar

39. Koch, , Jefferson and Madison,Google Scholar chap. 7.

40. See various letters in Hunt IX, 346, 351, 383, 444, 478, 488, 495.

41. Banning, , Jeffersonian Persuasion, p. 257.Google Scholar

42. Ibid., p. 266; Koch, , Jefferson and Madison, p. 208;Google Scholar see also Riemer, Neal, James Madison: Creating the American Constitution (Washington, D. C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1986), p. 153.Google Scholar

43. Syndor, Charles, Gentlemen Freeholders: Political Practices in Washington's Virginia (Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1952), pp. 112–24.Google Scholar

44. Porter, Albert, County Government in Virginia: A Legislative History (New York: Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, 1947), p. 111;Google ScholarSyndor, , Gentlemen Freeholders, pp. 123–124.Google Scholar

45. See Banning, , Jeffersonian Persuasion,Google Scholar chap. 7.

46. Chambers, , Political Parties in a New Nation, p. 11.Google Scholar

47. Ibid., p. 19.

48. Lynd, Staughton, Class Conflict, Slavery, and the United States Constitution (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968), pp. 79–132.Google Scholar

49. Malone, Dumas, Jefferson and the Rights of Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951), pp. 359–63.Google Scholar Malone suggests that the trip may not have been as political as has been portrayed.

50. Chambers, , Political Parties in a New Nation, p. 84.Google Scholar

51. Ibid., p. 85.

52. Ibid., pp. 81–87. Banning, , Jeffersonian Persuasion,Google Scholar chap. 6.

53. Chambers, , Political Parties in a New Nation, pp. 95–96.Google Scholar

54. Appleby, , Capitalism and a New Social Order, p. 67.Google Scholar

55. Diamond, Martin, The Revolution of Sober Expectations (Washington, D. C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research., 1974), p. 15.Google Scholar

56. See Pangle, , Spirit of Modern Republicanism, p. 103.Google Scholar

57. Wolin, , Politics and Vision, p. 390.Google ScholarDrukman, , Community and Purpose in America, p. 38.Google Scholar

58. Porter, , County Government in Virginia, pp. 42–99;Google ScholarSyndor, , Gentlemen Freeholders, pp. 78–93.Google Scholar

59. Grigsby, Hugh, The Virginia Convention of 1776 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1855), p. 84.Google Scholar

60. Morgan, Edmund, Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America (New York: W. W. Norton, 1988), p. 267.Google Scholar

61. Hunt V, 138, records this speech by Madison to the Virginia ratifying convention: “A government which relies on thirteen independent sovereignties, for the means of its existence, is a solecism in theory and a mere nullity in practice. Is it consistent with reason that such a government can promote the happiness of a people? It is subservient of every practice of every principle of sound policy, to trust the safety of a community with a government totally destitute of the means of protecting itself or its members.” See also Onuf, Peter “State Sovereignty and the Making of the Constitution,” in Conceptual Change and the Constitution, ed. Ball, T. and Pocock, J. G. A. (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1988), p. 86.Google Scholar

62. See Brant, , James Madison: The Nationalist, pp. 104–57.Google Scholar

63. Morris, Richard, Witness at the Creation (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985);Google ScholarMcDonald, Forrest, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1985), pp. 185–293.Google Scholar

64. Schuman, , Preface to Politics, p. 17.Google Scholar

65. Note his comments to this effect in Federalist, No. 55, 284.

66. See Madison's letter to Thomas Jefferson on the texts for the law school at the University of Virginia, Hunt IX, 218; see also Hunt IV, 183–87; V, 271–75, 370–89; VI, 70.

67. Ketcham, , James Madison, p. 57.Google Scholar

68. Eckenrode, , Revolution in Virginia, p. 296.Google Scholar

69. Brant, , James Madison: Commander in Chief, p. 483.Google Scholar

70. See Diggins, John, The Lost Soul of American Politics: Virtue, Self-interest, and the Foundation of Liberalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 52;Google ScholarDrukman, , Community and Purpose in America, p. 72;Google ScholarMatthews, David, The Radical Politics of Thomas Jefferson: A Revisionist View (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1984), p. 88;Google ScholarWill, George, Statescraft as Soulcraft, p. 41.Google Scholar

71. Hallowell, John, Main Currents in Modern Political Thought (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1950), pp. 114–15,Google Scholar 198, 215.

72. Pocock, J. G. A., Virtue, Commerce, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73. Appleby, , Capitalism and a New Social Order, p. 78.Google Scholar

74. Ibid., p. 80.

75. Ibid., p. 97.

76. Tariello, Frank, The Reconstruction of American Political Ideology (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1982), p. 14.Google Scholar

77. Epstein, David, The Political Theory of the Federalist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 43–44;Google Scholar emphasis added.

78. McCoy, , Last of the Fathers, pp. 190–92.Google Scholar

79. McCoy, , Elusive Republic, p. 259.Google Scholar

80. Ibid.

81. McCoy, , Last of the Fathers, p. 198.Google Scholar

82. Cf. Drukman, , Community and Purpose in America, p. 18.Google Scholar See also Madison's speech on imports, 21 April 1789, in the House. Even in dealing with such a forthrightly economic subject, the speech bears out his assertion of national interest and principles—interests that include foreign relations and defense procurement and not simply economic advantage (Hunt V, 349–51).