Reconciling expertise and representative government has always been a challenge in America. This is not a new problem, but we have dealt with this recurring problem in a problematic way over the past century, choosing expertise over republican government. The Framers of the Constitution didn’t emphasize expertise as a characteristic of good legislators. Instead, they [...]

Why is there a need for a publication like Compass? ADAM SEAGRAVE There is nothing like it. There are journals that publish undergraduate essays – mostly (as far as we are aware) in print and not online. But there are no journals that aim to publish papers by undergraduates that are intellectual contributions to public [...]

What do Madison’s Notes reveal about how the Constitution handled slavery? For example, what significance should we place on the strong condemnation of slavery we find in Madison’s re-telling of his June 6 speech, or on his account of his July 14 speech in favor of proportional representation in the legislature, where the institution of [...]

Was James Madison a politician or a political theorist? Of course he was both – I don’t think that will be disputed. The trickier question is to what degree these two roles harmonized or conflicted with one another. For instance, did Madison reinvent his political principles to advance his own political career? Alexander Hamilton thought [...]

Hamilton’s “interpreting the Constitution expansively” amounted to “ignoring the Constitution at pleasure.” Hamilton implied that Madison had done something nefarious by ceasing to support having the general government charter a bank after the US Constitution was implemented, but Hamilton here mischaracterized the situation: it was Hamilton, not Madison, who in regard to the same constitutional [...]