To be fair, what I learned today is something I probably already learned a long time ago, but it’s one of those things that doesn’t mean anything until you know enough of the story.
Today, I learned that James Madison was a Nationalist (according to Gordon S. Wood). Madison was the primary author of The Virginia Plan, which took the United States away from being a confederation and into being a country with a strong central government. In fact, in this proposal to the Constitutional Convention, he wanted the national Congress to be able to overturn and rule invalid state legislative acts in much the same way that the courts do.
If you’re not a history fan, this may not mean anything much. Now that I know much more than I used to though, this floored me. Madison was so close with Thomas Jefferson and founded the Democratic Party with him. They opposed the Federalists and their nationalist agenda by touting personal liberty, local rule, and state sovereignty.
Of course, I always forget that he is one of the writers of the Federalist Papers because it’s too easy to lump him in with the Virginians. When learning history, it’s customary to teach opposites: Federalists and Jeffersonians, North and South, Nationalists and States’ Rightists. Plus… Virginia went on to make such a stink about states’ rights closer to the Civil War.
Now I know better. Many in the South actually wanted a stronger central government than what was provided by the Articles of Confederation and many in the mid-Atlantic states (plus New Jersey, which proposed the “opposition” plan to Madison’s at the Constitutional Convention) wanted to keep local rule.
Regionalism as a prism for looking at US history has it’s place, but I have obviously made it be too harsh a filter if I have forgotten so much about James Madison.
By the way, I’m almost done with this book, and it is a really good one. A full write-up will come later.
Tags: Governance, What I Learned by Ms. SP
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