Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Frequently Cited Sources
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE NECESSITY OF THE CONSTITUTION
- 1 The Rise of the Righteous Anger
- 2 Madison's Vision: Requisitions and Rights
- 3 The Superiority of the Extended Republic
- 4 Shifting the Foundations from the States to the People
- 5 Partial Losses
- 6 Anti-Federalism
- 7 False Issues: Bill of Rights, Democracy, and Slavery
- PART TWO LESS CONVINCING FACTORS
- PART III THE SPLIT AND THE END OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL MOVEMENT
- Concluding Summary
- Index
5 - Partial Losses
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Frequently Cited Sources
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE NECESSITY OF THE CONSTITUTION
- 1 The Rise of the Righteous Anger
- 2 Madison's Vision: Requisitions and Rights
- 3 The Superiority of the Extended Republic
- 4 Shifting the Foundations from the States to the People
- 5 Partial Losses
- 6 Anti-Federalism
- 7 False Issues: Bill of Rights, Democracy, and Slavery
- PART TWO LESS CONVINCING FACTORS
- PART III THE SPLIT AND THE END OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL MOVEMENT
- Concluding Summary
- Index
Summary
The Constitution that was proposed by the Philadelphia Convention was less nationalistic than Madison's original plans expressed in his letters to his mentors. Madison's original vision for the Constitution would have required that votes in both houses of Congress be apportioned according to population. Congressmen would represent people and not states, and voting power in the Congress would depend on population. Madison, moreover, through the end of the Convention wanted a strong national government that would be able to veto any state law. He could not convince the Convention to grant the federal veto, however, and the scope of federal supremacy was not extended “to any case whatsoever.” Madison was very unhappy about his losses, especially about the loss of the full-ranging federal veto. Still, what he accomplished of his nationalist vision was extraordinary and revolutionary.
PRINCIPLE OF REPRESENTATION
The shift in legitimating foundation from states to the people seemed to Madison to require a change in the rules of representation in Congress. Under the Articles, each state had equal vote in the Congress, no matter how many people were in the state. Thus a large state like Virginia and a tiny state like Rhode Island had the same voting power. A state could have as many as seven or as few as two delegates, but in determining questions in the Congress of states assembled, the delegates of the state altogether, no matter what their number, gave the state only a single vote.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Righteous Anger at the Wicked StatesThe Meaning of the Founders' Constitution, pp. 100 - 127Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005