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Madison was on both sides of this issue over the years. He started out with Hamilton favoring a greater national sovereignty. He switched to Jefferson's position in favor of states' rights in the controversy over the Alien and Sedition Acts. Then he went right back to his old position during the South Carolina Nullification Crisis. In the last years of his life, Madison burned papers left and right to try and obscure the paper trail and create the impression that he had been consistent over the years.

Once the nullification crisis had passed and tempers had cooled, Madison wrote a pamphlet, also published in many newspapers, refuting John Calhoun's doctrines of interposition and nulliication. He offered Calhoun the opportunity to respond and debate the issue together in the press. Calhoun dismissed Madison as senile and said he would not engage in a battle of wits with a half-armed man. This was unfortunate. The post-crisis debate between Calhoun and Webster had aleady taken place. A debate in the press between Calhoun and Madison would have had a salutary effect on defining the states' rights issue.

I still strongly recommend that FReepers read Forrest McDonald's classis States' Rights and the Union, which is his masterpiece.

“Imperium in Imperio”

It’s sitting on my desk right now and is the book for my travels through the West and Washington DC in this next month.

It’s in typeface that I can read without spectacles, I love it already.... ;^)

Madison was on both sides of this issue over the years

I have often wondered why the Founders knew so much about improper government. Was it within their dark sides, so they understood it and developed the means to halt their own possible paths? Were they brainstorming how they would bring down their own government?