As members of the First Congress convened in early April 1789 to begin the process of implementing the Constitution, James Madison knew better than anyone the challenges that lay before them as they attempted to put into effect an innovative system of government based on a text that had different meanings to different people: “We […]
Bringing Science to Politics: The Political Philosophy of John Adams
The last thirty years have seen a resurgence of interest in John Adams. From the acclaimed biographies of David McCullough and Joseph Ellis to the works of C. Bradley Thompson, John Paynter, Jonathan Green, Luke Mayville, Sara Georgini, and Ben Peterson focusing on specific aspects of Adams’s political thought and writings, the “Sage of Braintree” […]
Agreeing to Disagree: Jefferson and Madison on Constitutional Issues
Adrienne Koch famously described Madison and Jefferson’s fifty-year political relationship as the “great collaboration.” Gordon Wood later called theirs the greatest collaboration in American political history. Few scholars would disagree with these assessments. The Federalists themselves were accustomed to refer to Madison as the General and Jefferson as the Generalissimo of the emerging Republican Party, […]
