Ashley Husemoller’s Reviews > James Madison: A Life Reconsidered > Status Update

When John Quincy Adams called Madison “the father of the Constitution,“ he was not only paying tribute to what Madison accomplished in Philadelphia but also recognizing his achievements in the months afterward. Crucial as Madison was to the creation of the Constitution, he was at least equally important to seeing that it went into effect.

Euphemisms were a way of avoiding the terrible truth that slavery existed, but they also allowed the delegates to create a document suitable for a time when it would not. As political scientist Robert Goldwin observed, they created a constitution for a society that would offer more justice than their own.

Legislators themselves too often acted out of self-interest instead of for the public good…They were given to uniting in majorities that violated the rights and interests of minorities.

Same shit, different day…

No society, not even the smallest, was truly homogeneous. Factions, or interest groups, were endemic to the human race, and the challenge was making sure that majority rule, which was at the heart of republican government, did not become an instrument for one faction to suppress others.

FIRST LINE: {Philadelphia, May 5, 1787} He hurried along Market Street, his high-crowned hat offering scant protection against the rain.

“Extend the sphere,” Madison would soon explain, “and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it les probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens.”