Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States

by Martin Van Buren

These considerations and circumstances produced a sudden and extensive spirit of discontent which, as those States avowed, never would be appeased until its causes were removed, and with which Mr. Madison was well satisfied the new Government would not be able to contend unless some mode was devised to appease it. Although never a member of it, he had, in his long and persevering efforts to obtain the Constitution, "tasted the quality," so to speak, of the old Anti-Federal party, and understood the stuff of which it was composed. He knew very well that the call of Virginia upon her co-States to make the demand for amendments "a common cause" would not be brutum fulmen, but that the agitation for a new convention in such hands, and commenced under such favorable circumstances, with so many materials of discontent already made to their hands, would not cease until its object was gained, and what would follow no man could tell. He was not so much of a Bourbon as Hamilton; he had not pursued his thorny path through those trying scenes without learning something of the character and temper of the people, or without having his mind disabused of much that it had once entertained. No man in the country was more opposed to the call of a new convention, or more unwilling to make any amendments that would materially impair the original structure of the Constitution. The former he omitted to avow out of respect to the declared wishes of his State but the latter he repeatedly announced because it was only in harmony with his past course. But he knew that matters could not remain as they stood, and he thought a series of amendments could be made, some of which he deemed highly proper and all expedient, through which a large portion of the Anti-Federalists might be conciliated without prejudice to the system which had been adopted. This course, to be useful, must, he was satisfied, be pursued at the very commencement of the new government. He devoted himself, body and mind, to that object, and we have seen some of the difficulties with which he had to contend. Although Hamilton was not personally in Congress, he was well represented, and Madison found there, besides, many other Bourbons, in the sense in which I use that term. He prepared a plan according to the views I have described; and few exhibitions of that kind can have been more interesting than to see him stand between the Federal majority in the House and the few old Anti-Federalists who were there, and avail himself of the votes of each in turn to defeat the obnoxious efforts of the other; first to arrest by Federal aid every attempt on the part of the few Anti-Federalists to mar his project by seeking amendments which he was not himself prepared to adopt, and then to frustrate by Anti-Federal votes the efforts of a majority of the Federalists (though less than a majority of the House) to defeat his entire scheme.

That the only alternative was between a new convention and the adoption of amendments substantially like his, was the great fact which he labored to impress upon the minds of the Federal members. He introduced it in his public speeches with never-failing delicacy, but with sufficient clearness to be understood, and doubtless enforced it at private interviews as far as it was his habit to do such things. That important truth was the fulcrum on which he rested his lever, and he engineered his plan through the House and afterwards, as chairman of the Committee of Conference, through both Houses (the majorities in each alike unfriendly to it) with triumphant and under the circumstances most extraordinary success.

The dread of another Federal Convention has never failed, when the circumstances were sufficient to justify apprehension of its call, to deter the Federalists from the adoption of projects obnoxious to the democratic spirit of the country, however anxiously desired by themselves. Pending the election of President in the House, between Jefferson and Burr, the Republicans replied to the threat of putting the Government in the hands of an officer by act of Congress, by an open, united, and firm declaration that the day such an act passed, the Middle States would arm, and that they would "call a convention to reorganize and amend the Constitution;" upon the effect of which Mr. Jefferson remarks, "the very word convention gives them the horrors, as, in the present democratical spirit of America, they fear they should lose some of the favorite morsels of the Constitution."

Mr. Madison's ten amendments consisted of provisions in favor of the free exercise of religion, of speech, and of the press; of assembling peaceably to petition the Government for a redress of grievances; of the right to keep and bear arms; against quartering soldiers in any house without the consent of the owner, except under certain qualifications; against unreasonable searches and general warrants; against being held to answer for crimes unless on presentment by a grand jury, with certain exceptions; against being twice put in jeopardy for the same offense; against being compelled to be a witness against one's self, or being deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; against taking private property for public use without just compensation; in favor of a trial by an impartial jury of the district in certain cases at common law and in all criminal prosecutions, of the party charged being informed of the nature of the accusation, of being confronted with the witnesses against him, of having compulsory process for obtaining witnesses and the assistance of counsel in his defense; against excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel punishments; against the enumeration of certain rights being construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people; and, finally, that powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.

These provisions embraced the points upon which the public mind was most susceptible, and upon which the old Anti-Federal party in particular had been, with obvious reason, most excited.

That Mr. Madison's success in this great measure saved the Constitution from the ordeal of another Federal Convention is a conclusion as certain as any that rests upon a contingency which has not actually occurred, and that it converted the residue of the Anti-Federal party which had not supported the Constitution, whose members, as well as their political predecessors in every stage of our history, constituted a majority of the people, from opponents of that instrument into its warmest friends, and that they and their successors have from that time to the present period, either as Republicans or Democrats, occupied the position of its bonâ fide defenders in the sense in which it was designed to be understood by those who constructed and by those who ratified it, against every attempt to undermine or subvert it, are undeniable facts.

It was by adding this great service to those he had rendered in obtaining the Convention, and in framing the Constitution in that body, that he deservedly won the noble title of "Father of the Constitution." He was neither as great a man nor as thorough a Republican, certainly not as thorough a Democrat, as Mr. Jefferson; he had less genius than Hamilton; yet it is doing him no more than justice to say that, as a civilian, he succeeded in making himself more practically useful to his country than any other man she has produced. No one would have been more ready than Mr. Jefferson to award to Mr. Madison this high distinction. He either told me at Monticello, or I heard it from him at second-hand, (I am uncertain which was the case,) that whilst he was in France, some one whom he named asked him to say whom he thought the greatest man in America, and that he replied, if the gentleman would ask him to name the greatest man in the world he would comply with the request, which addition being made, he answered "James Madison!"

This brings us to the consideration of the contrast between the conduct of Hamilton and Madison in respect to their treatment of a Constitution which they had both taken such unwearied pains to bring into existence. The course they respectively pursued upon the subjects of finance and revenue, and the measures they respectively preferred, without regard to questions of constitutional power, only indicated differences of opinion upon subjects in which such differences are apt to arise, and did not necessarily involve the political integrity of either. But we have now arrived at a point of departure in the relative course of these great men involving graver considerations, and to which it is to be regretted that the last reservation cannot be truly applied. There was no warrant in the Constitution for the establishment of a national bank, or for the assumption of the State debts, or for the unlimited claim of power by the Federal Government over the collection and disbursement of national revenue, and for its patronage of by far the largest proportion of the pursuits and interests of the country, all of which were effected by Hamilton or recommended in his Report on Manufactures, and he understood perfectly well that the Constitution conferred no such powers when he advocated successfully the first two of those measures, and asserted the power and recommended its exercise in respect to the latter.

It is not agreeable to be obliged to assume that a gentleman of General Hamilton's elevated character in private life, upon whose integrity and fidelity in his personal dealings and in the discharge of every private trust that was reposed in him no shadow rested, who was indifferent to the accumulation of wealth, who as a public man was so free from intrigues for personal advancement, and whose thoughts and acts in that character were so constantly directed to great questions and great interests, could yet prove faithless to one of the most sacred public trusts that can be placed in man—the execution of the fundamental law of the land. If Hamilton had been asked, as a private man, whether he believed it was the intention of the framers of the Constitution to confer upon Congress the power to establish a national bank, and whether he believed that the people when they ratified it supposed that it contained such a power, he would, if he answered at all, have answered "No!" He was incapable of willful deception on the subject. This discrepancy between his conduct as a statesman in the management of public affairs and his integrity and truthfulness in private life was the result of a vicious opinion as to the obligations of a public man, and in no degree attributable to any inferior sense of personal honor, nor was it ever otherwise regarded.

His position upon this point is understood to have been founded on the following opinions: That the people as a body were not capable of managing their public affairs with safety to their happiness and welfare; that it was, therefore, a proper exercise of power to give the management of them into the hands of those who were capable, and to place the latter in positions, as far as practicable under the circumstances, beyond popular control; that it was the sacred duty of those who were so intrusted to exercise their power truly and sincerely for the best interests of those for whom they acted; that if those interests could be well administered without transcending the power with which the public functionary was invested, or without the practice of deception or corruption, such would be the preferable and proper course; but if violations of the popular will, deception, or corruptions—not those of the grosser kind, like direct bribery, but such as belonged to the class he spoke of to Mr. Adams as constituting the life-giving principle of the English system—were necessary, in the best judgment of men in power, to the security or advancement of the public welfare, the employment of such means was justifiable.