The writings of James Madison, comprising his public papers and his private correspondence, including numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed. |
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 | The writings of James Madison, |  |
TO——.[152]
[Majority Governments.]
Dear Sir,—You justly take alarm at the new doctrine that
a majority Govt. is of all other Govts. the most oppressive.
The doctrine strikes at the root of Republicanism, and if
pursued into its consequences, must terminate in absolute
monarchy, with a standing military force; such alone being
impartial between its subjects, and alone capable of overpowering
majorities as well as minorities.
But it is said that a majority Govt. is dangerous only where
there is a difference in the interest of the classes or sections
composing the community; that this difference will generally be
greatest in communities of the greatest extent; and that such is
the extent of the U. S. and the discordance of interests in them,
that a majority cannot be trusted with power over a minority.
Formerly, the opinion prevailed that a Republican Govt.
was in its nature limited to a small sphere; and was in its
true character only when the sphere was so small that the
people could, in a body, exercise the Govt. over themselves.
The history of the ancient Republics, and those of a more
modern date, had demonstrated the evils incident to popular
assemblages, so quickly formed, so susceptible of contagious
passions, so exposed to the misguidance of eloquent & ambitious
leaders; and so apt to be tempted by the facility of forming
interested majorities, into measures unjust and oppressive
to the minor parties.
The introduction of the representative principle into modern
Govts. particularly of G. B. and her colonial offsprings, had
shown the practicability of popular Govts. in a larger sphere,
and that the enlargement of the sphere was a cure for many
of the evils inseparable from the popular forms in small
communities.
It remained for the people of the U. S., by combining a
federal with a republican organization, to enlarge still more
the sphere of representative Govt. and by convenient partitions
& distributions of power, to provide the better for internal
justice & order, whilst it afforded the best protection
agst. external dangers.
Experience & reflection may be said not only to have exploded
the old error, that repubn. Govts. could only exist
within a small compas, but to have established the important
truth, that as representative Govts. are necessary substitutes
for popular assemblages; so an association of free communities,
each possessing a responsible Govt. under a collective authority
also responsible, by enlarging the practicable sphere of popular
governments, promises a consummation of all the reasonable
hopes of the patrons of free Govt.
It was long since observed by Montesquieu, has been often
repeated since, and, may it not be added, illustrated within the
U. S. that in a confederal system, if one of its members
happens to stray into pernicious measures, it will be reclaimed
by the frowns & the good examples of the others, before the
evil example will have infected the others.
But whatever opinions may be formed on the general
subjects of confederal systems, or the interpretation of our
own, every friend to Republican Govt. ought to raise his voice
agst. the sweeping denunciation of majority Govts. as the
most tyrannical and intolerable of all Govts.
The Patrons of this new heresy will attempt in vain to mask
its anti-republicanism under a contrast between the extent
and the discordant interests of the Union. and the limited
dimensions and sameness of interests within its members.
Passing by the great extent of some of the States, and the
fact that these cannot be charged with more unjust & oppressive
majorities than the smaller States, it may be observed
that the extent of the Union, divided as the powers of Govt.
are between it and its members, is found to be within the
compass of a successful administration of all the departments
founded on its extent when the Constitution was submitted
to the people. It is true that the sphere of action has been
and will be not a little enlarged by the territories embraced
by the Union. But it will, not be denied, that the improvements
already made in internal navigation by canals & steamboats,
and in turnpikes & railroads, have virtually brought
the most distant parts of the Union, in its present extent, much
closer together than they were at the date of the Federal Constitution.
It is not too much to say, that the facility and
quickness of intercommunication throughout the Union is
greater now than it formerly was between the remote parts of
the State of Virginia.
But if majority Govts. as such, are so formidable, look
at the scope for abuses of their power within the individual
States, in their division into creditors & debtors, in the distribution
of taxes, in the conflicting interests, whether real or
supposed, of different parts of the State, in the case of improving
roads, cutting canals, &c., to say nothing of many other
sources of discordant interests or of party contests, which
exist or wd. arise if the States were separated from each other.
It seems to be forgotten, that the abuses committed within the
individual States previous to the present Constitution, by
interested, or misguided majorities, were among the prominent
causes of its adoption, and particularly led to the provision
contained in it which prohibits paper emissions and the
violations of contracts, and which gives an appellate supremacy
to the judicial department of the U. S. Those who framed
and ratified the Constitution believed that as power was less
likely to be abused by majorities in representative Govts.
than in democracies, where the people assembled in mass,
and less likely in the larger than in the smaller communities,
under a representative Govt. inferred also, that by dividing
the powers of Govt. and thereby enlarging the practicable
sphere of government, unjust majorities would be formed with
still more difficulty, and be therefore the less to be dreaded,
laws and sectional partialities under the majority Govt. of the
U. S. it may be confidently observed that the abuses have
been less frequent and less palpable than those which disfigured
the administrations of the State Govts. while all the
effective powers of sovereignty were separately exercised
by them. If bargaining interests and views have created
majorities under the federal system, what, it may be asked,
was the case in this respect antecedent to this system, and
what but for this would now be the case in the State Govts.
It has been said that all Govt is an evil. It wd. be more proper
to say that the necessity of any Govt. is a misfortune. This
necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is,
not what form of Govt. is perfect, but which of the forms is
least imperfect; and here the general question must be
between a republican Governt. in which the majority rule
the minority, and a Govt. in which a lesser number or the
least number rule the majority. If the republican form is, as
all of us agree, to be preferred, the final question must be,
what is the structure of it that will best guard ag. precipitate
counsels and factious combinations for unjust purposes,
without a sacrifice of the fundamental principle of Republicanism.
Those who denounce majority Govts. altogether because
they may have an interest in abusing their power, denounce
at the same time all Republican Govt. and must maintain that
minority governments would feel less of the bias of interest
or the seductions of power.
As a source of discordant interests within particular States,
reference may be made to the diversity in the applications of
agricultural labour, more or less visible in all of them. Take
for example Virginia herself. Her products for market are in
one district Indian corn and cotton; in another, chiefly tobacco;
in another, tobo. and wheat; in another, chiefly wheat, rye,
and live stock. This diversity of agricultural interests, though
greater in Virga. than elsewhere, prevails in different degrees
within most of the States.
Virga. is a striking example also of a diversity of interests,
real or supposed, in the great and agitating subjects of roads
and water communications, the improvements of which are
little needed in some parts of the State, tho' of the greatest
importance in others; and in the parts needing them much
disagreement exists as to the times, modes, & the degrees of the
public patronage; leaving room for an abuse of power by
majorities, and for majorities made up by affinities of interests,
losing sight of the just & general interest.
Even in the great distinctions of interest and of policy
generated by the existence of slavery, is it much less between
the Eastern & Western districts of Virginia than between the
Southern & Northern sections of the Union? If proof were
necessary, it would be found in the proceedings of the Virga.
Convention of 1829–30, and in the Debates of her Legislature
in 1830–31. Never were questions more uniformly or more
tenaciously decided between the North & South in Congs.,
than they were on those occasions between the West & the East
of Virginia.
But let us bring this question to the test of the tariff itself
[out of which it has grown,] and under the influences of which
it has been inculcated, that a permanent incompatibility of interests
exists in the regulations of foreign commerce between
the agricultural and the manufacturing population, rendering
it unsafe for the former to be under a majority power when
patronizing the latter.
In all countries, the mass of people become, sooner or later,
divided mainly into the class which raises food and raw materials,
and the class which provides cloathing & the other necessaries
and conveniences of life. As hands fail of profitable
employment in the culture of the earth, they enter into the
latter class. Hence, in the old world, we find the nations
everywhere formed into these grand divisions, one or the other
being a decided majority of the whole, and the regulations of
their relative interests among the most arduous tasks of the
Govt. Although the mutuality of interest in the interchanges
yet when the imposition of taxes whether internal or external
takes place, as it must do, the difficulty of equalizing the
burden and adjusting the interests between the two classes
is always more or less felt. When imposts on foreign commerce
have a protective as well as a revenue object, the task
of adjustment assumes a peculiar arduousness.
This view of the subject is exemplified in all its features by
the fiscal & protective legislation of G. B. and it is worthy
of special remark that there the advocates of the protective
policy belong to the landed interest; and not as in the U. S. to
the manufacturing interest; though in some particulars both
interests are suitors for protection agst. foreign competition.
But so far as abuses of power are engendered by a division
of a community into the agricultural & manufacturing interests
and by the necessary ascendency of one or the other as
it may comprize the majority, the question to be decided is
whether the danger of oppression from this source must not
soon arise within the several States themselves, and render a
majority Govt. as unavoidable an evil in the States individually;
as it is represented to be in the States collectively.
That Virginia must soon become manufacturing as well
as agricultural, and be divided into these two great interests, is
obvious & certain. Manufactures grow out of the labour not
needed for agriculture, and labour will cease to be so needed or
employed as its products satisfy & satiate the demands for
domestic use & for foreign markets. Whatever be the abundance
or fertility of the soil, it will not be cultivated when its
fruits must perish on hand for want of a market. And is it not
manifest that this must be henceforward more & more the case
in this State particularly? The earth produces at this time as
much as is called for by the home & the foreign markets; while
the labouring population, notwithstanding the emigration to
the West and the S. West, is fast increasing. Nor can we shut
our eyes to the fact, that the rapid increase of the exports
of flour & Tobo. from a new & more fertile soil will be
staples, and be forcing her, by the inability to pay for imports
by exports, to provide within herself substitutes for the
former.
Under every aspect of the subject, it is clear that Virginia
must be speedily a manufacturing as well as an agricultural
State; that the people will be formed into the same great
classes here as elsewhere; that the case of the tariff must of
course among other conflicting cases real or supposed be
decided by the republican rule of majorities; and, consequently,
if majority govts. as such, be the worst of Govts. those who
think & say so cannot be within the pale of the republican
faith. They must either join the avowed disciples of aristocracy,
oligarchy or monarchy, or look for a Utopia exhibiting
a perfect homogeneousness of interests, opinions & feelings nowhere
yet found in civilized communities. Into how many
parts must Virginia be split before the semblance of such
a condition could be found in any of them. In the smallest of
the fragments, there would soon be added to previous sources
of discord a manufacturing and an agricultural class, with the
difficulty experienced in adjusting their relative interests in
the regulation of foreign commerce if any, or if none in equalising
the burden of internal improvement and of taxation
within them. On the supposition that these difficulties
could be surmounted, how many other sources of discords
to be decided by the majority would remain. Let those who
doubt it consult the records of corporations of every size
such even as have the greatest apparent simplicity & identity
of pursuits and interests.[153]
In reference to the conflicts of interests between the agricultural
and manufacturing States, it is a consoling anticipation
that, as far as the legislative encouragements to one may not
involve an actual or early compensation to the other, it will
accelerate a state of things in which the conflict between them
profitable to both; converting a source of discord among the
States into a new cement of the Union, and giving to the
country a supply of its essential wants independent of contingencies
and vicissitudes incident to foreign commerce.
It may be objected to majority governments, that the
majority, as formed by the Constitution, may be a minority
when compared with the popular majority. This is likely to
be the case more or less in all elective governments. It is so
in many of the States. It will always be so where property is
combined with population in the election and apportionment
of representation. It must be still more the case with confederacies,
in which the members, however unequal in population,
have equal votes in the administration of the government.
In the compound system of the United States, though much
less than in mere confederacies, it also necessarily exists
to a certain extent. That this departure from the rule of
equality, creating a political and constitutional majority
in contradistinction to a numerical majority of the people,
may be abused in various degrees oppressive to the majority
of the people, is certain; and in modes and degrees so oppressive
as to justify ultra or anti-constitutional resorts to adequate
relief is equally certain. Still the constitutional majority
must be acquiesced in by the constitutional minority, while
the Constitution exists. The moment that arrangement is
successfully frustrated, the Constitution is at an end. The
only remedy, therefore, for the oppressed minority is in the
amendment of the Constitution or a subversion of the Constitution.
This inference is unavoidable. While the Constitution
is in force, the power created by it, whether a popular
minority or majority, must be the legitimate power, and
obeyed as the only alternative to the dissolution of all government.
It is a favourable consideration, in the impossibility of
securing in all cases a coincidence of the constitutional and
numerical majority, that when the former is the minority, the
existence of a numerical majority with justice on its side, and
abuse of power by a minority constitutionally possessing it:
a control generally of adequate force, where a military force,
the disturber of all the ordinary movements of free governments,
is not on the side of the minority.
The result of the whole is, that we must refer to the monitory
reflection that no government of human device and human
administration can be perfect; that that which is the least
imperfect is therefore the best government; that the abuses
of all other governments have led to the preference of republican
government as the best of all governments, because the
least imperfect; that the vital principle of republican government
is the lex major is partis, the will of the majority; that if
the will of a majority cannot be trusted where there are
diversified and conflicting interests, it can be trusted nowhere,
because such, interests exist everywhere: that if the manufacturing
and agricultural interests be of all interests the most
conflicting in the most important operations of government,
and a majority government over them be the most intolerable
of all governments, it must be as intolerable within the States
as it is represented to be in the United States; and, finally,
that the advocates of the doctrine, to be consistent, must
reject it in the former as well as in the latter, and seek a
refuge under an authority master of both.
The rest of the draft is not among the Madison MSS. and is supplied
from the Works of Madison (Cong. Ed.).
| The writings of James Madison, | |