James Madison's Montpelier We The People Spring 2018 WTP_Spring_2018_FINAL_web | Page 14

WE THE PEOPLE
have to full-on acknowledge the centrality of slavery
to Madison’s economic well-being and to demonstrate
that he was a contradictory person who did a lot of great
and important things and that he also failed on a lot
of dimensions and we have to take the bitter with the
sweet. You have to acknowledge the whole person, and
I guess my own view is that nobody is a perfect hero in
history and that’s fine.”
while still protecting core rights. You can see that in
Madison’s eventual embrace of the Bank of the United
States, which he was sure was unconstitutional. He
founded the Republican Party in part because he was
so sure it was unconstitutional and then by the time
he was ending his presidency he was ready to sign the
re-upping of the bank because he had come to the view
that it was constitutional. It wasn’t that he felt that he
was wrong—he still thought he was right—but the view
had been embraced by both parties and by practical
necessity it had become the norm and he accepted that.
One of the crucial lessons to me of Madison’s life was
that his own constitutional views left room for evolution
and development.”
“I think it’s an important lesson for everyone to
learn, regardless of generation. The Founders had a
tremendous, remarkable shaping impact on the way
our polity works. There’s no other polity on earth that
is fundamentally structured the same way today as it
was 225 years ago and this polity has in certain ways
worked very well, but to the extent that it has had
With everything going on in your life, why did you decide
serious problems, one of those
to spend years researching and writing
problems is the persistent
“One of the crucial lessons to me about James Madison?
inequality in our country
of Madison’s life was that his own
around race and that is also
NF: “I chose to write about Madison
constitutional views left room for because I’m a constitutions person. I
attributable in many ways
evolution and development.”
to our Founders, including
care about the Constitution. It’s what
Madison. It’s just important
do for a living, not just in the United
—Noah Feldman I States
to look that squarely in the
but globally. And Madison really
face. I don’t believe in ancestor
is the Einstein of constitutions. He is
worship or founder worship. These are actual human
the central, towering figure who helped create a set
beings, not gods, and their institutions were in many
of constitutional practices that exist not just in the
ways imperfect. Our country remains imperfect and our United States but all over the world. When you look
job is to make it as perfect as we can make it.”
at India with over a billion people and a functional
constitutional government, they have a federal
constitutional system that is unthinkable without
Besides his legacy as a political thinker, what lessons have
Madison. Germany, the same. You can go around the
you taken away from your research of Madison’s life?
world and see extraordinary examples of constitutional
NF: “I think Madison’s career shows you the limits
governance, and he is really the single figure who is
of originalism and the idea that our Constitution has
most significant in that trajectory of development. I
to be seen through the lens of its capacity to evolve
wanted to go back to the origins and study the person
who had this tremendous impact.”
Below: The new perspective of the House from the Temple.
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