I think that is likely true. A lot of people were afraid of the idea of a powerful central government. The anti-federalists also wrote a lot of papers and I have had occasion to read some of them, and I am often amazed at their ability to predict exactly the calamitys that have befallen us.
He believed the transcendent law of nature demanding the right of self-preservation declared the safety and happiness of society must dominate political institutions and require their sacrifice. Any use of force against a state would be invasion.
I would be interested if you had any such James Madison quote. I can't say i'm familiar with this notion coming from him.
I’ll work on this. I think I probably have a link, but it may just be in his notes to the Convention. I really enjoy reading the notes. It is just as if I could meet him in a tavern at the end of a day.
I would be interested if you had any such James Madison quote. I can't say i'm familiar with this notion coming from him.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/99-02-02-2655
James Madison to A Friend of Union & State Rights [Alexander Rives], 1 January 1833Confidential
I have rec. the letter signed "A friend of Union & State rights" inclosing two printed Essays under the same signature.
It is not usual to answer communications without the proper names to them. But the ability & motives disclosed in the Essays induce me to say in compliance with the wish expressed, that I do not consider the proceedings of Virginia in 98-99 as countenancing the doctrine that a State may at will secede from its constitutional compact with the other States. A rightful secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the compact, absolving the seceding party from the obligations imposed by it
In order to understand the reasoning on one side of a question it is necessary to keep in view the precise state of the question, and the positions and arguments on the other side. This is particularly necessary in questions arising under our novel & compound System, of Govt and much error and confusion have grown out of a neglect of this precaution.
The case of the Alien & Sedition acts was a question between the Govt. of the U. S. and the Constituent Body; Virga. making an appeal to the latter agst. the assumption of power by the former.
The case of a claim in a State to secede from its union with the others, resolves itself into question among the States themselves as parties to a Compact.
In the former case it was asserted agst. Virga. that the States had no right to interpose a legislative declarations of opinion, on a Constitutional point; nor a right to interpose at all agst. a decision of the Supreme Court of the U. S. which was to be regarded as a Tribunal from which there could be no appeal.
The object of Virga. was to vindicate legislative declarations of opinion, to designate the several constitutional modes of interposition by the States agst. abuses of power; and to establish the ultimate authority of the States as parties to & members of the Constitution, to interpose agst. the decisions of the Judicial as well as other branches, of the Govt: the authority of the Judicial being in no sense ultimate out of the purview & forms of the Constitution.
Much use has been made of the term "respective" in the 3d. Resolution of Virga. which asserts the right of the States in cases of sufficient magnitude to interpose for maintaining within their respective limits the authorities &c appertaining to them; the term "respective" being construed to mean a constitutional right in each State separately to decide on & to resist by force encroachments within its limits. But, to say nothing of the distinction between ordinary & extreme cases, it is observable in this as in other instances throughout the Resolutions, the plural number "States", is used in referring to them; that a concurrence & co-operation of all might well be contemplated, in interpositions for effecting the objects within each; and that the language of the closing Resolution corresponds with this view of the 3d. The course of reasoning in the Report on the Resolutions required the distinction between a State & States. It surely does not follow from the fact, of the States or rather people embodied in them, having as parties to the compact, no tribunal above them, that in controverted meanings of the Compact, a minority of the parties can rightfully decide against the majority; still less that a single party can decide against the rest, and as little that it can at will withdraw itself altogether, from a compact with the rest.
The characteristic distinction between free Govts. and Govts. not free is that the former are founded on compact, not between the Govt & those for whom it acts, but among the parties creating the Govt. Each of these being equal, neither can have more right to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved, than every other has to deny the fact, and to insist on the execution of the bargain. An inference from the doctrine that a single State has a right to secede, at its will from the rest is that the rest wd. have an equal right to secede from it, in other words to turn it, against its will out of its Union with them. Such a doctrine would not, till of late, have been palatable any where, and no where less so than where it is now most contended for.
A careless view of the subject might find an analogy between State secession, and personal individual expatriation. But the distinction is obvious and essential. Even in the latter case, whether regarded as a right impliedly reserved in the original Social compact, or as a reasonable indulgence, it is not exempt from certain condition It must be used without injustice or injury to the Community from which the expatriating party separates himself. Assuredly he could not withdraw his portion of territory from the common domain. In the case of a State seceding from the Union its domain would be dismembered, & other consequences brought on not less obvious than pernicious.
I ought not to omit my regret, that in the remark on Mr Jefferson & myself, the names had not been transposed
Having many reasons for marking this letter Confidential I must request that its publicity may not be permitted in any mode or thro’ any channel. Among the reasons is the risk of misapprehensions or misconstructions, so common without more attention & more development, than I could conveniently bestow on what is said.
J. M.
Wishing to be assured that the letter has not miscarried, a single line, acknowledging its receipt will be acceptable.
Madison was also a co-author of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/virginia-and-kentucky-resolutions
[excerpt - Virginia Resolution - Madison]
That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.
[excerpt - Kentucky Resolution - Jefferson]
RESOLVED, That this commonwealth considers the federal union, upon the terms and for the purposes specified in the late compact, as conducive to the liberty and happiness of the several states: That it does now unequivocally declare its attachment to the Union, and to that compact, agreeable to its obvious and real intention, and will be among the last to seek its dissolution: That if those who administer the general government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein contained, annihilation of the state governments, and the erection upon their ruins, of a general consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence: That the principle and construction contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who adminster the government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their powers: That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy:
https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch3s14.html
James Madison to Daniel Webster
15 Mar. 1833Writings 9:604--5I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession." But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy.
[...]
The Constitution of the U.S. being established by a Competent authority, by that of the sovereign people of the several States who were the parties to it, it remains only to inquire what the Constitution is; and here it speaks for itself. It organizes a Government into the usual Legislative Executive & Judiciary Departments; invests it with specified powers, leaving others to the parties to the Constitution; it makes the Government like other Governments to operate directly on the people; places at its Command the needful Physical means of executing its powers; and finally proclaims its supremacy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, over the Constitutions & laws of the States; the powers of the Government being exercised, as in other elective & responsible Governments, under the controul of its Constituents, the people & legislatures of the States, and subject to the Revolutionary Rights of the people in extreme cases.
[...]
The only distinctive effect, between the two modes of forming a Constitution by the authority of the people, is that if formed by them as imbodied into separate communities, as in the case of the Constitution of the U.S. a dissolution of the Constitutional Compact would replace them in the condition of separate communities, that being the Condition in which they entered into the compact; whereas if formed by the people as one community, acting as such by a numerical majority, a dissolution of the compact would reduce them to a state of nature, as so many individual persons. But whilst the Constitutional compact remains undissolved, it must be executed according to the forms and provisions specified in the compact. It must not be forgotten, that compact, express or implied is the vital principle of free Governments as contradistinguished from Governments not free; and that a revolt against this principle leaves no choice but between anarchy and despotism.