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 [...]