Road to Revival: Respect Madison’s Republic

If the American people know more today than they ever wanted to know about financial markets, corporate compensation practices, the mortgage and automobile industries, the national cost of health care, and consumer indebtedness, public officials have done little to heighten our collective understanding of the constitutional system -- and especially the federalistic side of that system. This is discouraging and dangerous.

We have become increasingly nearsighted when it comes to our wants and needs, and exceedingly myopic when it comes to understanding constitutional values and institutions.

It goes without saying that national officials would be acting irresponsibly if they did not worry about the solvency of our financial institutions, unemployment, and the serious challenges facing American manufacturers. Debate on such matters as infrastructure spending, shortand long-term deficits, and income redistribution, however, needs to be accompanied by a corresponding debate over constitutional powers, federalism, and the ingredients that make for a healthy and satisfying self-governing republic.

It will be bad enough if we leave our children a nation in bankruptcy, it will be inexcusable if we impair their ability to sustain a healthy democratic society.

James Madison, the putative "father" of the American Constitution, never regretted his decision to support the replacement of our post-Declaration of Independence "confederalist" arrangement with a constitutional system featuring a central government empowered to advance national ends through the exercise of appropriate means, such as the power to regulate interstate commerce.

Madison, however, was not a purist when it came to favoring a national over a confed eral arrangement. What he proposed was a "compound" system that was partly national and partly federal -- that is, a system that divided power among governments (federalism) as it divided power within governments (separation of powers).

In the rush to reduce the pain associated with the current financial crisis, however, public officials seemingly have turned a blind eye to the rationale behind Madison's superb architectural achie vement. He understood that governmental arrangements only make sense if they serve meaningful ends -- and specifically in our case, the ends associated with republican liberty. In this connection, experience and the study of history had convinced Madison that dividing powers among governments diminishes the threat of government tyranny at the same time that it facilitates the nourishment of habits and opinions that make for healthy self-government.

It is not by mere chance that Madison's republic entrusted the so-called "police powers" (the authority to regulate the health, morals, safety, and welfare of the people) to the states and local governments. By virtue of their proximity to the people, and hence their accountability to them, local and state officials are more likely to do a better job of protecting the cultural underbelly of the American republic than national officials.

Additionally, decentralized governance creates incentives for civic engagement, in part by creating multiple opportunities to become "big fish in little ponds." These incentives will only be effective, however, if people are entrusted with real power over their own affairs.

Alexis de Tocqueville was only repeating the wisdom of Founders like Madison when he connected local self-government with the creation of the social capital that is indispensable to the protection of liberty and civilization itself. If Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything, it is that establishing, and then sustaining, a healthy social culture is actually tougher than designing effective institutions.

If the social culture must nurture sound judgment and good habits on the part of the people, it must do nothing less in the case of public officials.

Madison fully expected the American people to consult their short-term interests during crises, hence his endorsement of a representative republic whose officials would be positioned to "refine and enlarge the views of the people." The likelihood of enjoying the fruits of Madison's labors will be seriously diminished, however, if public officials have neither the knowledge nor the will to protect important constitutional values and institutions during times of stress.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor once remarked that "departures from the constitutional plan" that undermine American federalism do not become legitimate merely because they enjoy the overwhelming support of national officials, even when acting in concert with the states. It is the case, however, that such departures are likely to occur during stressful times if public officials do not understand the difficult stewardship role assigned them by Madison, or refuse to accept that role.

Like so many of his contemporaries, James Madison understood that the states that comprise the Union, and the localities that comprise those states, are the principal schoolhouses of republican virtue. There is little doubt that he would be distressed to discover that the American people have become so accustomed to national involvement in their everyday affairs that any suggestion of overreaching on the part of Congress or the president seems downright antiquarian or pernicious.

We have become habituated to confusing national direction and control of public affairs with good stewardship of the constitutional system and our democratic culture.

Madison confused his critics and his friends alike by his habit of tilting sometimes in the direction of the national government, and sometimes in the direction of the states. This was not a sign of confusion, but of statesmanship.

As Madison understood the importance of constantly balancing executive and legislative powers, so he sought to balance national and state powers to the end of preserving conditions that would be hospitable to republican virtues and republican liberty. Such conditions are not the product of a government that spares the people "all the cares of thinking and all the trouble of living," to paraphrase Tocqueville.

Madisonian statesmanship is rooted in sober -- meaning limited, expectations about what government can and should do for the people, and how it ought to go about doing those things.

David Marion is Elliott Professor of Government and director of the Wilson Center for Leadership in the Public Interest at Hampden-Sydney College. Contact him at .