In celebration of our national heritage, we continue our Pride in America series by honoring the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison.
Today, Madison is most known for his arguments in defense of the federal government. This view has led to a misunderstanding of Madison’s thought as being confined to his more favorable presentation of a strong central government in The Federalist. In reality, the author of the Tenth Amendment was among the fiercest advocates of states’ rights.
In one of the most prescient writings of the Founding Era, Madison warns in a 1791 essay of the threat posed by the consolidation of all political power in the national government to our federal system. Were this to occur, Madison predicted that Congress would be incapable of properly representing the interests of such a vast country, leading to “an undue growth of the executive power.” With the link between the public and their elected representatives all but severed, the national government would embark on a “self-directed course,” irrespective of the will of the people.
To prevent this fate, Madison encouraged his countrymen “to watch against every encroachment, which might lead to a gradual consolidation of the states into one government.” Leading by example, Madison authored the Virginia Resolutions of 1798 in protest of the Adams administration’s unconstitutional restriction on free speech. The states, he wrote, are “duty-bound to interpose” against any attempt of the federal government to expand beyond its limited scope of authority prescribed in the Constitution.
Elaborating on his position in the Report of 1800, Madison further explained that it is ultimately the states’ authority to determine whether an act of the national government is unconstitutional, and not the federal judiciary. This understanding of state power challenges our modern understanding of judicial supremacy, which treats the Supreme Court as an supra-constitutional branch of government whose decisions cannot be questioned by anyone but itself.
America has since realized Madison’s greatest fears. The federal government has usurped nearly all the powers reserved to the states. Congress is broken. The size and authority of the executive branch have grown well beyond its constitutional limits. And a vast, unaccountable bureaucracy keeps the administrative state on its own “self-directed course.” In short, Madison’s beloved Constitution is on life support and it's up to us to revive it.
Madison reminds us that federalism is a contact sport. The United States is a compact between 50 sovereign states. Just as it is incumbent upon the national government to pursue a policy of America First, it is equally incumbent upon our state government to pursue a policy of Idaho First. To this end, Idaho is “duty-bound” to reclaim the authority reserved to it by the Tenth Amendment and resist any and all encroachments against its sovereignty by the federal government.
