American Experiment by James MacGregor Burns Read Free Book Online

money. Pulling up at the Nassau Tavern in Princeton the first evening of the trip, he must have recalled earlier days when he and the other students, crowded around the stages to hear the latest news from New York and Philadelphia. He might have recalled too his first reading in Aristotle and Polybius, Locke and Montesquieu. Out of the writings of such men, out of his own and his comrades’ political experiences, Madison had forged his theories of government.
    Fundamental to these theories was an assumption that men inevitably tended toward conflict and struggle. The latent causes of faction, he had concluded, were sown in the nature of man. “All civilized societies,” he hadwritten in New York that spring, “are divided into different interests and factions, as they happen to be creditors or debtors—rich or poor—husbandmen, merchants or manufacturers—members of different religious sects—followers of different political leaders—inhabitants of different districts—owners of different kinds of property, &c &c.” Even where there was no actual basis for conflict, frivolous and fanciful differences could excite passionate hatreds.
    How protect liberty and order against these factions? Especially under a republican government, where the majority of the people was supposed to rule, how thwart a majority united by some passion or interest from crushing minority or individual rights? Faith? Doctrine could lead to dogma and then to oppression. Enlightened self-interest? Leaders with vision would not always be at the helm. Public opinion? The average man—even the average legislator—pursued local interests. Did a Rhode Island assemblyman, Madison asked, care what France or even Massachusetts thought of his paper money?
    How then control selfish factions, oppressive local majorities, popular follies and passions? Madison’s answer went straight to the heart of the grand strategy of the men who would come to be known as Federalists. The solution was not to try to remove the causes of faction, for a free society would always produce differences among men and a good republican must respect those differences. The solution was to dilute the power and passion of local factions by enlarging the sphere of government into a nation of many regions, interests, and opinions. Like a careful cook, Madison would blend indigestible lumps and fiery spices in the blander waters of a large pot.
    It was this plan to “enlarge the sphere” that Madison brought to Philadelphia in his luggage as the “Flyer” rattled over the pebble stones of Chestnut Street and pulled up at the Indian Queen Tavern.
PHILADELPHIA: THE CONTINENTAL CAUCUS
    The eager Madison was the first delegate to show up; no one else arrived for ten days. He had time to settle into rooms in Mary House’s celebrated lodgings at Fifth and Market, to talk tobacco prices with the local merchant who handled the crop from Madison’s fields at Montpelier, to pay a visit to Benjamin Franklin, and to work on final details of the plan that Governor Randolph would present to the convention. The delegates straggled in over the next few weeks, most of them after long and hard journeys.
    General Charles C. Pinckney brought his young bride with him fromCharleston; both of them had been miserably seasick as their packet beat its way up the coast to Delaware Bay. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts also brought his young wife, along with their infant child, despite Yankee doubts about the pestilent fevers of southern cities like Philadelphia; shortly, he sent them off to stay with in-laws in New York City. William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut had traveled mainly overland, south on the post road along the Connecticut River, through the populous area around Hartford, and then down the much-traveled Boston Post Road along the coastline into Manhattan, whence he probably followed the same route as Madison into Philadelphia. Johnson had stopped in Hartford long enough to collect two hundred