Mixed Old and New Democrats: Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin did not express his opinion on as many positions as Randolph or Mason, but to the extent that he did, he also showed some openness to both old and new democracy.  In one regard at least, Franklin was the most radical old democrat present; at least theoretically he saw no  need for an upper house in the legislature. However, since no one else in the Convention supported his position, Franklin did not press the point.  Franklin was second only to Sherman in his distrust of the executive.  He shared
Randolph’s fear that a single executive as the “foetus” of a monarchy, ever trying to accumulate more power.  He also opposed an executive veto, fearing that the executive would be constantly abusing his veto to extort more money and power, until accumulated all the prerogatives of the British monarch and could have his way by bribes without having to use his veto.  He would agree to allow the executive to suspend, rather than veto, objectionable laws.  He also favored joining a council to the executive in making appointments fearing that “caprice, the intrigues of favorites & mistresses & c” would have sway Presidents, just as they swayed kings.  He also said, only half-jokingly, that it was favorable to executive to be impeachable because if the executive betrays the people’s trust, if he cannot be impeached, the only way to get rid of him was by assassination!  Although he did not directly address the issue of ineligibility to office, he certainly appeared to favor it, saying that it was the prospect of office that made the British government so “tempestuous” and, as we have seen, feared the executive influence that would arise from that sort of patronage.  It was apparently Franklin who first proposed  to link giving each state equal representation in the Senate to giving the House the sole authority to originate money bills and made it clear that these two proposals to be dependent on each other.  As he explained, “It was a maxim that those who feel, can bust judge.  This would, he thought, be best attained, if money affairs were to be confined to the immediate representatives of the people.” Franklin’s only position that was not old democratic was that he proposed having one representative to every 40,000 people, which many others believed was inadequate.

 Franklin also supported new democracy in the sense of opposing property restrictions, either on the vote or on office holding.  If Madison did not seem to recognize that the propertyless nonetheless had legitimate interests they needed to protect, Franklin did.  In England, he said, after denying the vote to the propertyless, Parliament subjected them to “peculiar labors and hardships.”  Above all, restricting the vote to freeholders would “depress the virtue & public spirit of our common people.” Likewise, property restrictions on office holding would also “debase the spirit of the common people.”

If honesty was often the companion of wealth and poverty was exposed to peculiar temptation, it was not less true that the possession of property increased the desire of more property.  Some of the greatest rogues he had ever acquainted with, were the richest rogues.  

He likewise opposed requiring a long period of citizenship for Senators as “illiberal” and hostile to friends in Europe and to potential immigrants.  He also made one at least potentially radical new democratic proposal for choosing judges.  Instead of giving their appointment to the executive or legislature, why not adopt the method used in Scotland, where judges were elected by the lawyers, who always chose the best lawyer around in order to eliminate a rival and divide his practice among themselves!  It is not clear how serious he was in this proposal, but it at least leaves the door open to semi-popular election of judges.  On the other hand, Franklin did not take the new democratic position on representation.  As we have seen, he proposed that each state have an equal number of representatives, to vote as individuals, with each state to have an equal vote on matters regarding the sovereignty of states and votes on money to be proportional to each state’s contribution.  Franklin apparently did not understand just how important a matter of principle representation by population was to new democrats.

Benjamin Franklin, alone among the delegates, occasionally had seemingly utopian or visionary ideas of government.  He urged that the chief executive not receive a salary, saying that to the Presidency an office of both honor and profit would be too tempting to the greedy.  Even if only a modest salary were set at first, there would always be reasons to increase it, and eventually the President would use the wealth of the office to set himself up as a monarch.  Surely there were men who would be willing to serve out of pure public spirit and not for money.  Franklin did not seem to recognize that denying a salary to the President would be just as effective as setting actual property restrictions in limiting the office to the rich.  He also seconded a motion by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney not to pay Senators, even though General Pinckney made clear that this was to ensure Senators would be rich, something Franklin presumably did not favor.  His proposal, discussed in the section on centralization, of financing the federal government by voluntary contributions from the states also seems visionary and was not taken seriously by any of the other delegates.

Mixed Old and New Democrats: George Mason

George Mason’s views were similar to his fellow Virginias'.  His fame as a democrat no doubt owes much to his eloquence in arguing for popular election of the House:

[The House] was to be the grand depository of the democratic principle  of the Govt.  It was, so to speak, to be our House of Commons – It ought to know & sympathize with every part of different parts of the whole republic . . .  He admitted that we had been too democratic but was afraid we sd incautiously run into the opposite extreme.  We ought to attend to the rights of every class of the people.

The people will be represented; they ought therefore to choose the Representatives.  The requisites in actual representation are that the Rep. Should sympathize with their constituents; shd think as they think, & feel as they feel . . . Much he sd had been alledged agst deomocratic elections. . . . But compare these with the advantage of this Form in favor of the rights of the people, in favor of human nature.

Although the primary author of the Virginia constitution whose property restrictions on the vote Jefferson found so undemocratic, Mason opposed restricting the vote to freeholders, saying that the vote should go to anyone with “evidence of attachment to & permanent common interest with Society.”  “Does no other kind of property but land evidence a common interest in the proprietor?  Does nothing besides property mark a permanent attachment.”  

 Like all Virginians, Mason championed the western states.  He favored representation by population, saying that it was a good enough measure of wealth for “every substantial purpose,” which removed any reason for denying full representation to the Western states because they would not be able to make equal contributions to the treasury.  Since representation was to be by population and the north had the majority of the population, he would agree they had the right to preponderate.  But they should not preponderate if they were not longer in the majority.  Since it would obviously not be in the interest of current majority to become the legislative minority, periodic reapportionment should be required or it would never happen.  Mason made it clear that he expected the South to increase in population faster than the north.  His principles, therefore, are certainly democratic, but there is a certain measure of self-interest to them.  As for the western states:

Ought we to sacrifice what we know to be right in itself, lest it should  prove favorable to States which are not yet in existence.  If the Western States are to be admitted into the Union, as they arise, they must, he wd repeat, be treated as equals and subjected to no degrading discriminations. They will have the same pride & other passions which we have, and will either not unite with us or will speedily revolt from the Union, if they are not in all respects placed on an equal footing with their brethren.

Mason was not so new democratic on the issue of qualifications to office.  He was the one who proposed a minimum age of 25 for the House, favored requiring seven, rather than three years’ citizenship for Representatives and fourteen years’ citizenship for Senators, saying that he would have barred immigrants from the Senate altogether, if so many immigrants had not distinguished themselves during the Revolution, nor did he see any reason to make an exception for immigrants currently naturalized by the states.  But more disturbing from today’s perspective were his views on property qualifications:

One important object in constituting the Senate was to secure the rights of property.  To give them weight & firmness for the purpose, a considerable duration in office was thought necessary.  But a longer term than 6 years, would be of no avail in this respect, if need person should be appointed.  He suggested therefore the propriety of annexing to the office a qualification of property.

He later moved for setting qualifications in landed property for the national legislature and disqualifying public debtors and persons with unsettled accounts.  As we have seen, Madison opposed this requirement as unjust to the urban population, and, we shall see, the altogether undemocratic Gouverneur Morris resisted the ban on public debtors and persons with unsettled accounts as barring importing all merchants from office, since merchants regularly posted bond for the tax on the goods they imported and only gradually paid it off as they sold their goods.  He therefore considered Mason’s proposed qualifications “a scheme of the landed agst the monied interest.”  Morris was probably right; Mason probably was trying to promote rural over urban interest.  He probably did not consider this undemocratic, be merely a protecting of the majority of farmers against a merchant aristocracy.

As for old democracy, Mason, like Randolph, was an old democrat on all issues except length of terms.  He favored doubling the House from 65 members to 130, considering 65 members to be too small in absolute numbers and too small to know local interests and have the confidence of the people.   Even 130 members was almost too few.  He favored allowing only the House to originate money bills because only they were “immediate representatives” of the people, because the Senate’s long terms and small numbers made it too “aristocratic” and because the Senate represented the states instead of the people.  He also strongly favored making legislators ineligible to executive office in order to prevent the sort of corruption so prevalent in England, which he regarded as creating an aristocracy, sarcastically commenting that “In the present state of American morals & manners, few friends it may be thought will be lost to the plan, by the opportunity of giving premiums to a mercenary & depraved ambition.”  Mason also feared a standing army.  It was he who first proposed to give the federal government the authority to regulate the militia in order to strengthen it and proposed that this section be preceded with the words, “And that the liberties of the people may be better secured against the danger of standing armies in time of peace.”  He also called for a bill of rights, although he also believed that the prohibition on ex post facto laws should apply only to criminal and not civil cases.

            Mason also had an old democrat’s general distrust of the executive.  He favored election of the executive by the national legislature rather than by the people, believing that the people would not know enough about eminent characters outside of their own state and that a designing conspiracy could control the election.  Indeed, “[I]t would be as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief Magistrate to the people, as it would, to refer a trial of colours to a blind man.”  He originally opposed the creation of a single executive and later came out in favor of a privy council for the President, chosen by the Senate, with two members for the New England, two from the Mid Atlantic, and two from the Southern states.  This counsel, and not the Senate, should assist the President in making appointment.  “[I]n rejecting a Council to the President we were about to try an experiment on which the most despotic Governments had never ventured.  The Grand Signor [Turkish sultan] himself had his Divan.”  He firmly favored making the President impeachable, since no man should be above justice and believed that “maladministration” or at least “high crimes & misdemeanors” should be impeachable, as well as bribery or treason.  He opposed executive appointment of judges as potentially giving the President an improper influence over the judiciary, favored legislative appointment of the treasurer since money belongs to the people and the legislature, as the peoples’ representative, should appoint the keepers of it and opposed allowing the President to pardon treason.  He was of mixed opinions about the executive veto.  Originally he opposed the executive veto, especially in the hands of a single executive, fearing the executive would abuse his veto to extort greater power, until he had the same influence through appointments as the British monarch and would become, in effect, a monarch in all but name.  On the other hand, he favored joining the judiciary with the executive veto to give the executive “confidence” to use his veto, which he believed should be used not only to prevent legislative encroachments on executive power, but to strike down bad laws in general.  He also believed that only two-thirds, not three-quarters of the legislature should be needed to override a veto.

            Mason was less old democratic on length of terms.  He favored a two-year term for the House, saying that one year was inconvenient for states more distant from the capital and two years would synchronize with South Carolina’s electoral cycle.  He did not specify what term he favored for the Senate, but made clear that he favored the relatively long (six-year) term, although he thought it made it dangerous for the Senate to originate money bills.  He also favored two, rather than three Senators from each state to keep the Senate from being too numerous, and, as we have seen, believed that the Senate should secure property and should therefore have property requirements for office.  He favored a seven-year term "at least" for the President with no re-eligibility to ensure his independence from the legislature, although he emphatically opposed an executive for “good behavior” as prelude to a monarchy.

            Mason ultimately refused to sign the Constitution.  Unlike Gerry or Randolph, he did not list his reasons during the Convention.  After the Convention, however, he published a list of his objections that he had apparently written down during the Convention:

            (1)        No bill of rights

            (2)        Insufficient representation in the House (although he considered the last-minute change in ratio of representation from 40,000 to 1 to 30,000 to 1 a significant improvement)

            (3)        The Senate’s power to alter money bills

            (4)        The Senate’s role in appointments and other powers he considered executive

            (5)        The federal judiciary will tend to absorb all state judiciaries and make law too remote, tedious and expensive

            (6)        The absence of a council for the President

            (7)        The Vice President as President of the Senate gives the executive legislative powers

            (8)        The President’s power to pardon treason

            (9)        Making treaties supreme law of the land without requiring concurrence of the House

            (10)      Permitting commercial regulations by a simple majority

            (11)      The power of Congress to make all laws “necessary and proper”

            (12)      No protection for freedom of the press or against standing armies
            (13)      States may not tax their own exports

            (14)      Protection of slave importation

            (15)      Prohibition on ex post facto laws applies to civil as well as criminal laws.

As with Edmund Randolph, some of these objections are to the extent of federal powers, some are attempts to uphold Virginia’s specific interests, and some are old democratic.  Like Randolph, he did not object to the Constitution on new democratic grounds.

Mixed Old and New Democrats: Edmund Randolph

Some of the delegates showed considerable openness to both old and new democracy.  Significantly, these especially included Virginians, who were particularly devoted to the new democratic principles of admitting Western states on an equal basis and regular reapportionment to match shifts in population.

Edmund Randolph favored popular election of the House of Representatives, partly because only by making them popularly elected could they be trusted with increased power, and partly because having them elected by state legislatures reduced them to mere ambassadors with no will of their own.  As seen before, he also wanted representation to be proportional to population and firmly resisted giving each state equal representation in the Senate.  He was the foremost advocate of requiring regular reapportionment of the House to match shifts in population, perhaps because he was conscious of the injustice of his native Virginia’s system of representation by counties.  It was Randolph who first proposed requiring reapportionment to be regulated by a periodic census instead of leaving it to the discretion of the nation legislature, originally proposing to require reapportionment by population and wealth, but then changing to agree the rule of representation to all free inhabitants and three-fifths of all slaves.  He favored requiring periodic reapportionment for the same reason that he opposed equality in the Senate:

If equality between great & small States be inadmissible, because in that case unequal numbers of Constituents wd be represented by equal number of votes; was it not equally inadmissible that a larger & more populous district of America should hereafter have less representation, than a smaller & less populous district.  If a fair representation of the people be not secured, the injustice of the Gov’t will shake to its foundations.

Reapportionment could not be left to the discretion of the legislature, or they would always be looking for excuses to postpone alterations to keep power in the hands of those who possessed it.  Setting a strict rule of reapportionment was also the best way to prevent new states from using some other crisis to force a reapportionment.  He also opposed allowing reapportionment by wealth instead of population (with the three-fifths rule) for fear the legislature would set a rule of wealth that would serve the advantage of the people who controlled the legislature.  Randolph also wanted to admit the western states on an equal basis, saying that Congress had pledged faith to admit them on an equal basis, and they neither will nor should accept any other.  Randolph was also generally open to immigrants holding office, favoring seven or at most nine years citizenship rather than fourteen years for membership in the Senate and four, rather than seven, years’ citizenship to serve in the House.  A longer term of citizenship would violate the government’s faith to immigrants. 

Randolph favored many old democratic principles as well.  He considered giving the House sole authority to originate money bills important enough to make it a condition of giving each state equal representation in the Senate.  If the Senate were to be proportional to population, he said, he would not insist on this condition, but giving the House sole authority to originate money bills was a condition of giving states equal representation in the Senate.  Besides, the plan would be more acceptable to the people if the “aristocratic” Senate were denied the power of the purse.  He would also deny the Senate authority to alter or amend money bills.  In response to objections that many economic regulations also involved money, he proposed to give the House sole authority to originate money bills for the purpose of raising revenue.  He believed the people would see the Senate as an aristocracy and the President as little less than a monarch and therefore take alarm if anyone except their immediate representative could originate money bills. The Senate was also more likely to be corrupt or unduly influenced by the executive.  He also wanted to make legislators ineligible to non-military office, for fear of corruption or influence and seconded a motion to preface federal authority to regulate the militia with the words, “And, that the liberties of the people may be better secured against the danger of standing armies in time of peace.”

He favored election of the executive by the legislature and particularly thought it dangerously "aristocratic" to allow the Senate to break deadlocks in the Electoral College. Randolph also had an old democrat’s distrust of the executive.  He originally even wanted a three-man executive, considering a single executive as an embryonic monarchy (the “foetus” of a monarchy were his words.  He believed the people were adverse to the very semblance of a monarchy and would never give a single executive their confidence, and that “felt an opposition to it that he believed he should continue to feel as long as he lived.”  In fact, he appears to have gotten past his opposition to a single executive and even to have supported an executive veto as preventing large states from combining against the small ones.  Although he favored election of the executive by the legislature, Randolph believed that the executive should be eligible for only one term to ensure his independence and particularly to ensure that he would be firm enough to use his veto.  He even favored allowing the President to veto “every order, resolution or vote” to prevent evading his veto. On the other hand, he originally favored appointment of judges by the Senate instead of the executive (later changing his mind to favor appointment by the executive with the advice and consent of the Senate) and opposed allowing the President to pardon treason.

Edmund Randolph’s main rejection of old democracy was in his not sharing the New England fetish with very frequent elections; his main rejection of democracy in general was his view of the Senate.  He was ambivalent about the term of the House, ultimately coming out in favor of a two-year term.  Annual elections were “a source of mischief” in the states, but only because there were not enough other restraints on popular intemperance.  His only reason ultimately for favoring a longer term was one-year terms were inconvenient in so large a country.  His feelings about the Senate were less mixed.  He favored a seven-year term:

The democratic licentiousness of the State Legislatures proved the necessity the necessity of a firm Senate.  The object of this 2^nd branch is to control the democratic branch of the Nat’l Legislature.  If it be not a firm body, the other branch being more numerous, and coming immediately from the people, will overwhelm it.  The Senate of Maryland constituted on like principles had scarcely been able to stem the popular torrent.

He also believed that the Senate should be much smaller than the House to protect it from the “passionate proceedings to which numerous assemblies are liable” and check the “turbulence and follies of democracy.”  Nor did he see any danger in having state executives appoint temporary replacements if a Senate seat unexpectedly fell vacant.  He did oppose Gouverneur Morris’ proposal for a Senate for life appointed by the executive, saying that it could never co-exist with a popular branch.

In the end, as stated before, Randolph refused to sign the Constitution, saying that offering the Constitution on an all-or-nothing basis would be too controversial and might lead to “confusion” and “anarchy & civil convulsions.”  The reasons* Randolph gave for opposing the Constitution were:

(1)        The Senate as a court for trying impeachment of the executive

(2)        The smallness of the House of Representatives

(3)        The lack of limitation on a standing army

(4)        The vague authorization of Congress to make “necessary and proper” laws

(5)        The authority of Congress to pass navigation acts by a simple majority

(6)        The authority of the federal government to intervene in state rebellions upon the application of the state executive as well as the legislature

(7)        The need for a more definite boundary between the general and state legislatures and judiciaries

(8)        The unqualified power of the President to pardon treason

(9)        Congress’s power to set its own pay.

Many of the objections, particularly the smallness of the House, the lack of limitations on standing army, and the President’s unlimited authority to pardon treason are old democratic objections.  Some are objections to the extent of federal power and some are southern (particularly Virginian).  None are new democratic.

Finally, it should be noted that although Randolph refused to sign the Constitution, he later reversed himself again and came out in favor of it at the Virginia ratifying convention.

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*He also listed as reasons the authority of Congress to tax exports and the need for a ¾ majority to override executive vetoes when he would have preferred 2/3.  These two objectionable provisions were changed.

New Democrats: James Madison

James Madison was also, on the whole, a new democrat, although less completely or enthusiastically so than Wilson.  He favored popular election of the House instead of election by state legislatures, but his reasons are revealing:

He observed that in some of the states on branch of the Legislature was composed of men already removed from the people by an intervening body of electors. [Actually, only Maryland had such a system]. That if the first branch of the general legislature should be elected by the State Legislatures, the second branch elected by the first, -- the Executive by the second together with the first; and other appointments again made for subordinate purposes by the Executive, the people would be lost sight of altogether, an the necessary sympathy between them and their rulers and officer, too little felt. He was an advocate for the policy of refining the popular appointment by successive filtrations, but though it might be pushed too far.

He later declared that direct popular election of “at least one branch of the Legislature” necessary to free government, as well as useful to avoid to great agency of state governments.  In short, he favored popular election of the lower house, but probably not to other offices.  As we have previously seen,  his original Virginia Plan called for election of the upper house by the lower house.  He resisted  election of the Senate by state legislatures, mostly because it gave to great agency in the federal government to states and because he opposed giving each state equal representation in the Senate and therefore believed that guarantying each state at least one Senator would make the Senate too large.  He preferred election “by the people, or thro’ some other channel than the State Legislatures.”  This would seem to suggest that he his favored mode of election of the Senate was by the lower house, but he preferred election by the people directly to election by state legislatures.  Madison also leaned toward popular election of the chief executive.  Wanting the executive to be independent of the legislature and fearing corruption and intrigue if election were by the legislature, he favored popular election on the merits:

The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself.  It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce and Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character.  The people generally would only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem.

The only problem with such a system was that the southern states would be at a disadvantage, since much of their population consisted of non-voting slaves.  Madison therefore proposed the substitution of electors to overcome the difficulty.  When his proposal for electors was rejected, Madison said that with all its imperfections, he preferred this mode.  Even though it was disadvantageous to the South, local considerations must give way to the general interest.  “As an individual from the S. States he was willing to make the sacrifice.”

Like all Virginians at the Convention, Madison was a leading champion of the West.  “No unfavorable distinctions were admissible either in point of justice of policy.”  The whole principle of just representation would be subverted by denying Western states their fair share.  When Gouverneur Morris unblushingly stated that Pennsylvania was better off for making sure power stayed in the eastern parts of the state, Madison denounced this as an injustice, just like England, which gave each borough equal representation despite their very unequal population.  He even acknowledged that Virginia, which had two representatives for each county regardless of population, was guilty of the same injustice.  Madison was particularly outraged by Morris’ cynicism in assuring the South (which was expected to gain population relative to the North) that Congress did not need to be required to make periodic reapportionments because it could be trusted, while at the same time calling on all existing states to band together to deny the West its fair share.  “To reconcile the gentle[man] with himself, it must be imagined that he determined the human character by points on a compass.”   Madison seemed to have mixed opinions about property representation.  As we have seen, he proposed a north-south compromise which would have the lower house be the guardian of persons and be apportioned by free population and the upper house be the guardian of property and be apportioned by total population, slave and free.  With regard to the west, however, he argued that population alone was the proper basis of representation, and that population was a near enough measure of wealth to be a good measure of a state’s ability to contribute to public burdens 

Madison was also generally a new democrat in his attitude toward voting qualifications.  He considered it dangerous to allow Congress to set either qualifications for office or for voting, as these were fundamental articles in a republic and should be guarantied by the Constitution.  Giving such a power to Congress was begging for it to be abused; either one faction would manipulate qualifications to keep out another faction, or they could narrow qualifications in order to subvert the republic and create an aristocracy. He did not consider it necessary to require any number of years’ citizenship to serve in the either the Senate or the House because Congress could set any number of years’ residency for citizenship.  Such a restriction was "illiberal" and would discourage immigration from Europeans who loved liberty and wanted to share it.  He opposed requiring land ownership as a qualification for office:

Every class of citizens should have an opportunity of making their rights be felt & understood in the public Councils.  The principle classes into which our citizens were divisible, were the landed the commercial, & the manufacturing.  The 2^nd & 3^rd class yet bear a small proportion to the first.  The proportion however will daily increase. . . . It is particularly requisite therefore that the interests of one or two of them should not be left entirely to the care, or the impartiality of the third 

Yet Madison had a very severe shortcoming as a new democrat, one that many people today might regard as disqualifying him as a new democrat altogether, and one that is all the more surprising in the light of the foregoing statement.  He wanted to restrict the vote to freeholders.  Acknowledging that such a restriction might meet too much popular resistance to pass, and that too narrow a suffrage could create an aristocracy, he nonetheless said:

In future times a great majority of the people will not only be without landed, but any other sort of, property.  These will either combine under the influence of their common situation; in which case the rights of property & the public liberty, will not be secure in their hands: or which is the more probable, they wil become the tools of opulence & ambition, in which case there will be equal danger on another side. 

Madison did not seem to realize denying the vote to “a great majority of the people” was the very definition of aristocracy, nor did it apparently occur to him that the propertyless nonetheless had legitimate interests that might need to be protected against property holders.  It is stranger still that he recognized non-land-holders had legitimate interests that needed representation and therefore would not require land ownership as a qualification to holding office.  Apparently he would allow the landless to hold office to represent the interest of non-land-holders, yet disallow those same non-land-holders from voting!  Nor is this an isolated remark.  He worried about the danger of internal insurrections, at least in part because a majority of qualified voters might be a minority of the total population and the disenfranchised “for obvious reasons may be more ready to joint the standard of sedition.”*   Likewise, one of the purposes he saw for the Senate was to resist “those who will labour under all the hardships of life & secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings” who might some day become a majority of the population. 

Madison favored at least one old democratic principle; he favored doubling the size of the House, both because 65 members was too small in absolute numbers, since a quorum would be a dangerously small 38 and because 65 members would be too thinly taken from the people to have adequate knowledge of local conditions.  He favored a three year term for the House, saying that too frequent elections would make an unstable legislature, keep members too busy traveling home to run for reelection, and would not give them time to learn about matters outside their states.  He also favored a long term for the Senate, seven or nine years, to give more stability to the government and allow it to resist unwise popular pressure as the result of temporary passions or poorly informed opinions, and to protect the minority from the oppressions of the majority.  He also favored a small Senate, which would have more “coolness” and “wisdom” than the popular branch. 

Madison favored a strong, independent executive; this was why he opposed election of the executive by the legislature.  The greatest danger was of the legislature drawing all powers into its vortex; hence the executive needed to be protected from legislative usurpations.  He therefore supported an executive veto.  He opposed an absolute veto as “obnoxious to the temper of this Country” and so drastic the President would hesitate to use it, but favored joining the judiciary to the executive veto, both to strengthen his firmness in using it and to prevent him from abusing it (for instance, from being bribed by a foreign power), favored allowing the President to veto “resolutions” and “votes” as well as bills, and preferred a three-fourths, rather than a two-thirds vote to overrule a veto.  On the other hand, he believed that the executive should be impeachable to protect against possible “incapacity, negligence or perfidy” on the part of the executive.  Waiting until his term expired would not be could enough if the problem was serious.  He also preferred either to have judges appointed by the Senate or at least to allow the Senate to block Presidential appointment of judges.  He took a moderate position on making legislators ineligible to office.  Legislators should be ineligible to offices they create or raise the pay for in order to prevent corruption, but should not be excluded from office altogether, which would discourage worthy citizens from running for the legislature.  He favored prefacing federal authority to regulate the militia with the words, “And that the liberties of the people might be better secured against the dangers of standing armies in time of peace,” saying that it acknowledged standing armies as an evil, but did not prevent them when needed.

Finally, and from today’s perspective most important, Madison said nothing in the convention about a bill of rights.  After the Constitution was adopted, however, he was the driving factor in adopting a bill of rights.  Madison at this time was noted for his theory that the majority, given the opportunity, will oppress the minority, and that the only remedy is to enlarge the society so much that it takes in so many interests that no one interest can dominate and the majority cannot oppress the majority. Madison tended to express this in terms of debtors defrauding creditors, or some other popular minority oppressing an elite minority and has therefore been criticized as a champion of elites over the common people.  As we have seen above, there is some justice to this criticism.  But Madison’s view was broader than that.  One of the greatest champions of religious liberty, he was well aware of the dangers of a religious majority oppressing a religious minority.  This Virginia slave holder even acknowledged that “We have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.”

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*He also emphasized this point in the Federalist Papers.