Madison, James. 1788. The Federalist Papers: No. 37 - Concerning the Difficulties of the
Convention in Devising a Proper Form of Government. (January 11). Yale Law School, Lillian
Goldman Law Library, the Avalon Project. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed37.asp.
- Persons of this character will proceed to an examination of the plan submitted by the
convention, not only without a disposition to find or to magnify faults; but will see the
propriety of reflecting, that a faultless plan was not to be expected. Nor will they barely
make allowances for the errors which may be chargeable on the fallibility to which the
convention, as a body of men, were liable; but will keep in mind, that they themselves
also are but men, and ought not to assume an infallibility in rejudging the fallible
opinions of others.
- Energy in government is essential to that security against external and internal danger,
and to that prompt and salutary execution of the laws which enter into the very
definition of good government. Stability in government is essential to national character
and to the advantages annexed to it, as well as to that repose and confidence in the
minds of the people, which are among the chief blessings of civil society.
- The genius of republican liberty seems to demand on one side, not only that all power
should be derived from the people, but that those intrusted with it should be kept in
independence on the people, by a short duration of their appointments; and that even
during this short period the trust should be placed not in a few, but a number of hands.
- Not less arduous must have been the task of marking the proper line of partition
between the authority of the general and that of the State governments…The faculties
of the mind itself have never yet been distinguished and defined, with satisfactory
precision, by all the efforts of the most acute and metaphysical philosophers. Sense,
perception, judgment, desire, volition, memory, imagination, are found to be separated
by such delicate shades and minute gradations that their boundaries have eluded the
most subtle investigations, and remain a pregnant source of ingenious disquisition and
controversy.
- When we pass from the works of nature, in which all the delineations are perfectly
accurate, and appear to be otherwise only from the imperfection of the eye which
surveys them, to the institutions of man, in which the obscurity arises as well from the
object itself as from the organ by which it is contemplated, we must perceive the
necessity of moderating still further our expectations and hopes from the efforts of
human sagacity.
- Perspicuity, therefore, requires not only that the ideas should be distinctly formed, but
that they should be expressed by words distinctly and exclusively appropriate to them.
But no language is so copious as to supply words and phrases for every complex idea, or
so correct as not to include many equivocally denoting different ideas. Hence it must
happen that however accurately objects may be discriminated in themselves, and
however accurately the discrimination may be considered, the definition of them may be
rendered inaccurate by the inaccuracy of the terms in which it is delivered. And this
unavoidable inaccuracy must be greater or less, according to the complexity and novelty
of the objects defined.
- When the Almighty himself condescends to address mankind in their own language, his
meaning, luminous as it must be, is rendered dim and doubtful by the cloudy medium
through which it is communicated.
- The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted, and
surmounted with a unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been
unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance
without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection
not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and
signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.
Madison, James. 1788. The Federalist Papers: No. 38 - The Same Subject Continued, and the
Incoherence of the Objections to the New Plan Exposed. (January 15). Yale Law School, Lillian
Goldman Law Library, the Avalon Project. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed38.asp.
- It is observable that among the numerous objections and amendments suggested by the
several States, when these articles were submitted for their ratification, not one is found
which alludes to the great and radical error which on actual trial has discovered itself.
- Such a patient and in such a situation is America at this moment. She has been sensible
of her malady. She has obtained a regular and unanimous advice from men of her own
deliberate choice. And she is warned by others against following this advice under pain
of the most fatal consequences. Do the monitors deny the reality of her danger? No. Do
they deny the necessity of some speedy and powerful remedy? No. Are they agreed, are
any two of them agreed, in their objections to the remedy proposed, or in the proper
one to be substituted? Let them speak for themselves.
- It is a matter both of wonder and regret, that those who raise so many objections
against the new Constitution should never call to mind the defects of that which is to be
exchanged for it. It is not necessary that the former should be perfect; it is sufficient that
the latter is more imperfect. No man would refuse to give brass for silver or gold,
because the latter had some alloy in it
Madison, James. 1788. The Federalist Papers: No. 41 - General View of the Powers Conferred
by The Constitution. (January 18-22). Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library, the Avalon
Project. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed41.asp.
Madison, James. 1788. The Federalist Papers: No. 42 - The Powers Conferred by the
Constitution Further Considered. (January 22). Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library,
the Avalon Project. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed42.asp.
- THE SECOND class of powers, lodged in the general government, consists of those which
regulate the intercourse with foreign nations, to wit: to make treaties; to send and
receive ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls; to define and punish piracies
and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations; to
regulate foreign commerce, including a power to prohibit, after the year 1808, the
importation of slaves, and to lay an intermediate duty of ten dollars per head, as a
discouragement to such importations. This class of powers forms an obvious and
essential branch of the federal administration.
- A supply of the omission is one of the lesser instances in which the convention have
improved on the model before them. But the most minute provisions become important
when they tend to obviate the necessity or the pretext for gradual and unobserved
usurpations of power. A list of the cases in which Congress have been betrayed, or
forced by the defects of the Confederation, into violations of their chartered authorities,
would not a little surprise those who have paid no attention to the subject; and would
be no inconsiderable argument in favor of the new Constitution, which seems to have
provided no less studiously for the lesser, than the more obvious and striking defects of
the old.
- The powers included in the THIRD class are those which provide for the harmony and
proper intercourse among the States. Under this head might be included the particular
restraints imposed on the authority of the States, and certain powers of the judicial
department; but the former are reserved for a distinct class, and the latter will be
particularly examined when we arrive at the structure and organization of the
government.
- Nothing which tends to facilitate the intercourse between the States can be deemed
unworthy of the public care.
Madison, James. 1788. The Federalist Papers: No. 43 - The Same Subject Continued(The Powers
Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered). Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law
Library, the Avalon Project. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed43.asp.
- THE FOURTH class comprises the following miscellaneous powers:
- If the interposition of the general government should not be needed, the provision for
such an event will be a harmless superfluity only in the Constitution. But who can say
what experiments may be produced by the caprice of particular States, by the ambition
of enterprising leaders, or by the intrigues and influence of foreign powers? To the
second question it may be answered, that if the general government should interpose by
virtue of this constitutional authority, it will be, of course, bound to pursue the authority.
But the authority extends no further than to a GUARANTY of a republican form of
government, which supposes a pre-existing government of the form which is to be
guaranteed. As long, therefore, as the existing republican forms are continued by the
States, they are guaranteed by the federal Constitution.
Madison, James. 1788. The Federalist Papers: No. 44 - Restrictions on the Authority of the
Several States. (January 25). Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library, the Avalon Project.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed44.asp.
- A FIFTH class of provisions in favor of the federal authority consists of the following
restrictions on the authority of the several States:
- The SIXTH and last class consists of the several powers and provisions by which efficacy
is given to all the rest.
- Of these the first is, the "power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for
carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this
Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer
thereof… There are four other possible methods which the Constitution might have
taken on this subject. They might have copied the second article of the existing
Confederation, which would have prohibited the exercise of any power not EXPRESSLY
delegated; they might have attempted a positive enumeration of the powers
comprehended under the general terms "necessary and proper''; they might have
attempted a negative enumeration of them, by specifying the powers excepted from the
general definition; they might have been altogether silent on the subject, leaving these
necessary and proper powers to construction and inference.
Madison, James. 1788. The Federalist Papers: No. 45 - The Alleged Danger from the Powers of
the Union to the State Governments Considered. Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library,
the Avalon Project. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed45.asp.
- The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few
and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and
indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace,
negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the
most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all
the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and
properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the
State.
-if, in a word, the Union be essential to the happiness of the people of America, is it not
preposterous, to urge as an objection to a government, without which the objects of the
