The former Second Lady Lynne Cheney's latest
book, James Madison: A Life Reconsidered shows the
importance Madison gave to protecting political speech with
the First Amendment. He believed that the Federal government's
job was to protect people's basic rights of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. Cheney noted, "Madison
was the man who said we're a government of laws, not men.
President Obama seems to be showing us that we can be a government
of man and not laws."
She chronicles in the book how Madison at first advocated
for a strong central government, seeing the threat to liberty
as coming from the states. Each state made their own money,
made merchants accept this form of payment, and oppressed
religious freedom. Cheney directly noted, "Madison witnessed
Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton attempting to ignore
the fact that the Constitution created a government of limited
powers and chose instead to see it as a document that allowed
Congress to do whatever its members concluded best for the
general welfare. I don't think he would like today's expansion
and intrusion by the Federal Government. Hopefully we will
see in 2014, with the election of a Republican Senate, a difference."
She further noted, "I point out in the book, the most
dangerous threat to liberty was not coming from the states,
but from an overweening federal government. In this changed
situation, Madison changed his mind. He decided, the problem
wasn't a central government too weak, but one too strong.
He spent the 1790s founding and building the first opposition
political party to defeat those of the Hamiltonian persuasion.
Along with Thomas Jefferson, Madison would found the first
political party in the country's history, the Democratic Republicans."
The opposition party was a remedy and a solution
to Madison for the overreach of the Federal Government. Cheney
believes that Madison felt compelled to combat this by establishing
an opposition party. "And that was a very unusual thing
to do. Parties did not have such a good reputation then, just
as they don't know. But it was a way to have a legitimate
opposition and to combat the idea that the Constitution could
mean whatever Alexander Hamilton wanted it to mean. The founding
of this party ushered in an era of partisan politics that's
easily as combative, cruel, mean and nasty as today. That
political party led to an era of partisanship in the 1790's
that's the equal of anything we have today."
The wise men, America's Founding Fathers were
not above the fray of politics with even Dolly Madison attacked.
In the book Cheney writes that Madison was portrayed as the
"evil genius who debauched the president from his principles
Such
an approach managed two things at once: making the person
blamed seem threatening while simultaneously making the president
look weak." Yet, Madison ignored the vicious and unpleasant
contentiousness making sure that people understood that there
was nothing wrong with opposing the government, and that such
an act would not be seen as traitorous.
Gridlock is occurring today because of the
"career politician." It is too bad that the "Father
of the Constitution," James Madison, did not take a provision
from the Articles of Confederation, term limits. It restricted
someone from not serving more than three terms and had it
been a part of the Constitution some political "lifers"
might no longer be serving. Yet, as Cheney stated, "Even
though the Articles of Confederation were essentially thrown
under the bus after the Constitution was written, Madison's
most important accomplishment was to establish the Constitution
and the Bill of Rights. He is responsible for the ideas and
beliefs of this nation with a representative form of government."
James Madison: A Life Reconsidered gives an understanding
of the overreaching of the Federal government. Cheney brilliantly
explains Madison's political philosophy and rationale for
the union of states that he so eloquently presented in The
Federalist, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Americans
should read it to learn why Madison advocated limited government
and intellectual freedom as well as to make sure that government
stays accountable to the people.
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