Jefferson was majoritarian

Published On: May 6, 2013|Categories: MRFF's Inbox|1 Comment|

Accessibility Notice

This post was created on the previous version of the MRFF website, and may not be fully accessible to users of assistive technology. If you need help accessing this content, please reach out via email.

Chris and Mike;
Thomas Jefferson was an absolute majoritarian. He believed
that the will of the majority should always prevail as his letters
to Madison from France prove. Look at his letters in
“The Debate on the Constitution” Part One and Two. It is
published by “The Library of America” press.
Madison was anti-Catholic although he differed from
Jefferson on that point because Jefferson sent his daughters
to Catholic school for their education.
Madison secretly opposed ratification of the Constitution
but he was just a kid compared to the men like Washington
who supported it so he set out to turn Jefferson against it even
while he was writing some of the Federalist papers. When
Jefferson returned from France, Madison switched sides and
opposed ratification.
Madison, taught by a Presbyterian Minister in his early years,
opposed ratification of the Constitution for two main reasons:
One it didn’t outlaw the Catholic religion, and he didn’t support
equal representation of the states in the Senate. As a Virginian,
he favored proportional representation in the Senate.
In any case, both Jefferson and Madison were outside the
mainstream.
Most importantly, they were anti-Federalists and the Congress
that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights was 78 percent Federalist.
Jefferson’s and Madison’s opinions are a moot point.
Thank You,
(name withheld)


Where on earth are you getting this stuff from, (name withheld)?

Madison never opposed ratification of the Constitution. Nor did he try to turn Jefferson against it. That’s ridiculous! They were both staunch federalists.

And the Constitution was ratified before Jefferson returned from France, so how could Madison have switched sides and joined the opposition after Jefferson returned from France. Ratification was a done deal by then. The new government was already in place when Jefferson returned — the reason he was returning France was to take his place as George Washington’s Secretary of State!

And where are you getting that Madison was anti-Catholic. There was certainly prejudice against Catholics among a good number of the founders, but I know of absolutely nothing that makes Madison stand out in that regard, and certainly not anything as utterly ludicrous as him opposing the Constitution because it didn’t outlaw Catholicism.

And Madison was not taught by Presbyterian ministers in his early years. He was the oddball among the founders from Virginia because his early teachers were not ministers. With the exception of one minister who was staying with his family right before he left for Princeton who tutored him a short time, all of Madison’s early education was by non-clergy. His first experience with a Presbyterian teacher was John Witherspoon at Princeton.

Neither Jefferson nor Madison were out of the mainstream. They were both on the side that won, meaning they were members of the majority.

I’d be amused to see your sources for all these claims your making, if you’d care to share them.

Chris


Chris;
Jefferson was an anti-Federalist. Madison switched from Federalist
to anti-Federalist during the debate on the ratification of the U.S.
Constitution. Madison wrote some of the Federalist papers but he
switched to opposing ratification because it did not have a Bill of
RIghts. Jefferson participated in the debate from France, thru
Madison.
Historians call the anti-Federalists Jeffersonians which is the
tradition of the south.
Some think Jefferson was influential in switching him to the
anti-Federalist side. I don’t agree. I think he was always opposed,
but as the junior most member of the Virginia delegation he was
afraid to oppose it.
In any case, he was the author of some of the Federalist papers
and then some of the anti-Federalist papers.
Madison’s anti-Catholicism wasn’t unusual for his day. Most of the
protestants in the colonies were poorly educated and thus vulnerable
to conspiracy theories. Usually, the conspiracy theory was that the Pope
was plotting to send an invasion force.
Madison did not even attempt to stop Andrew Jackson’s illegal
invasion and occupation of Florida. Both Jackson and Madison were
known for their anti-Catholic sentiments, even if Madison’s were more
discrete.
In any case, the two were in no way a quorum and the two were known
to have more extreme views than the majority.
Truthfully, we can’t have a “Wall of Separation” without denying every
religion access to the government and without establishing a secular/atheist
government. Congress has no authority to establish a secular/atheist
government.
Likewise, Congress and the courts have no authority to mandate that the
speech of government officials must always be secular. That would be
imposing a religious test on speech which violates the religious test prohibition,
the free speech clause, and the free exercise clause.
We may not like what the fundamentalist protestants are saying, but we must
tolerate it.
Likewise, when I put them in their place in a debate, they have to tolerate that
too even though they don’t like it.
In reality, the Court’s misinterpretation of the First Amendment over the last 70+
years has led to the decline of free speech.
The Court itself has been promoting an un-American misunderstanding of the
First Amendment.
Currently, protestant controlled private schools and protestant controlled public
schools receive government aid, while Catholic private schools and the Catholic
public schools do not. Indeed, the Catholic public schools have been forced to
become protestant controlled public schools.
Ironically, the City of Lakeland Florida, owns a local protestant church. The
pastor borrowed too much money and was about to default on the loan, so the
City stepped in and paid off the loan with taxpayer money. No complaint from
the ACLU on that one.
Thank You,
(name withheld)


Dear (name withheld),

What you are saying is simply not true. Please read the correspondence between Jefferson and Madison from the eight months before the Virginia ratifying convention, and also the debates of the convention itself, particularly the part from around June 9 to June 12, when anti-federalist Patrick Henry lied about what Jefferson wrote in a letter to Alexander Donald, a letter that had somehow become public. You’ll see that Jefferson said that he absolutely did NOT want the Constitution to be rejected over the few flaws he considered it to have. Madison strongly corrected Patrick Henry’s lies, as did Edmund Pendleton and Edmund Randolph. Pendleton must have had a copy of the actual letter because he was able to quote exactly what Jefferson really said in it and put down Patrick Henry’s lie that Jefferson was with the anti-federalists.

In the letter to Donald that was leaked, Jefferson said that what he wanted to see happen was for the first nine states to ratify, ensuring that the Constitution was approved by enough states to go into effect, but for the last four states to refuse to ratify without amendments, which would force the first Congress to have to add the amendments in order to get the other four states on board.

You mentioned the Library of America edition of the debates, etc., in a previous email, so I assume you have that edition, as do I. Everything I’ve mentioned above can be found in that edition, with the exception of the actual letter that Jefferson wrote to Alexander Donald, but since Edmund Pendleton quoted exactly what the letter said, you can get it from Pendleton’s speech on the subject in the record of the debates, which, of course, is in the book you have.

I think the reason you have this wrong is that you are confusing “federalist” with a small “f,” which in 1787 and 1788 meant those who were in favor of ratifying the Constitution, with the capital “F” Federalist Party, which emerged in the early 1790s and was the party that Jefferson and Madison opposed.

Chris

Share This Story

One Comment

  1. Fate of ABS sheet in balance July 23, 2013 at 4:29 am

    I’d like to thank you for the efforts you’ve put in writing this
    blog. I’m hoping to see the same high-grade blog posts from you later on as well. In truth, your creative writing abilities has encouraged me to get my very own website now ;)

Leave A Comment