The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic

by Lance Banning

Banning (history, U. of Kentucky) argues that Madison was not an intellectual pragmatist who reacted variably to the changing circumstances of the Revolution and the Confederation. Rather, Madison held to consistent principles and was at once a more committed democrat and a less eager nationalist

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, American History, Presidents

560 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1995

About the author

Lance Banning was an American historian who specialized in studying the politics of the United States' founding fathers. He taught mostly at the University of Kentucky.

Reviews

[Eric Atkisson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a book I would recommend to casual readers, as it's clearly written for an academic audience. That said, as someone interested in the Founding Era and wanting to learn more about Madison in particular, I felt the book was worth my time and effort.

In short, Banning sets out to debunk the popular misconception of Madison as someone who so persuasively argued for a stronger central government--and was indeed its principal architect--through the First Constitutional Convention and the Federalist Papers, only to retreat to a more parochial, states-rights-based view very quickly afterward. Carefully dissecting his private and public remarks throughout the period and putting them in the proper context of the events in which he participated, Banning does a convincing job portraying Madison as much more consistent in his thought than most scholars have given him credit for. At the same time, Banning admits that Madison was admittedly naive about the uses to which the new government would quickly be put by men like Hamilton, who had a fundamentally different vision about America's future than anti-commercial, pro-agrarian republicans like Jefferson, Madison, and most of their Virginia colleagues.

My respect for Madison is greater for having read the book, not just for his unequaled contributions to the Constitution and the early republic, but also for the deeply intellectual, collegial, consensus-building style he brought to the Herculean tasks of the late 1780s and early 1790s. If only more politicians had followed his personal example, the country might have been spared a lot of misery over the past 200+ years.

[Andrew Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do not believe that anyone can write a definitive biography of James Madison in one volume. The man has so many roles to play in the formation of our government that it is best to center on certain time periods of his life. This is what Lance Banning and Drew McCoy accomplished in their writings. Banning has written a tremendous survey of Madison from 1780-1792 when the country was wrangling over the ineffectiveness of the Articles, debating and approving the new Constitution, and the first two sessions of Congress under President Washington. Madison emerges as a statesman who attempted to straddle two important trains of thought. First, he wanted a strong national government that would guarantee the rights of all including minorities and keep majority opinions in check. He saw the states taking too many licenses with their new found power after the Revolution. Second, he wanted to keep the new central government within republican limits and fought Hamilton with his plan t make the United States a commercial power to compete with the nations of Europe. Madison, like Jefferson, had great faith in the yeoman farmer and felt that the factory system of commercialism would ruin the republican experiment. Banning does a masterful job in analyzing this tightrope walk that Madison unsuccessfully tried to navigate. We lost a great historian when he died early in his career.

[John II · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book with factual details of the time. Into history, this might be for you.

[Jp · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read most of this book and I understood like 5% of it. The nice thing was it was worth all the work for that 5%. Yet it felt like such a great accomplishment that when I was done I really had become that much smarter. I felt like I better understood James Madison and the early American government better.

[Andrew]

I read this for my American Political Thought class. It's quite interesting, however it's very dense. I would recommend something lighter to start off with if you don't know much about the history of the US Constitution.

[Craig Bolton]

The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic by Lance Banning (1995)