Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T23:03:32.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Madison's Analysis of the Sources of Political Authority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Robert J. Morgan
Robert J. Morgan*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

James Madison believed that political institutions are not the effects of conflicts among private groups in society. He traced political authority to human nature. It is the ultimate source of both public opinion and the motives which impel some individuals to hold government offices. Prudently contrived governmental institutions can moderate the countervailing tendencies arising from these two sources of authority, although they are necessarily in a state of continuing tension. Strict accountability of representatives to the whole range of diverse opinion in society is in conflict with the tendency of government to become autonomous. The latter tendency follows from government's using its power to establish the fiscal and military institutions required to wage war. By doing so a government may Creole a new political equilibrium which is masked by apparent adherence to established constitutional balance and is then independent of the balance of private property.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 75 , Issue 3 , September 1981 , pp. 613 - 625
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adair, Douglas (1957). “‘That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science’: David Hume, James Madison and the Tenth Federalist.” Huntington Library Quarterly 20: 343–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beard, Charles A. (1913). An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Beard, Charles A. (1945). The Economic Basis of Politics. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Bentley, Arthur F. (1967; first published in 1908). The Process of Government. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourke, Paul T. (1975). “The Pluralist Reading of James Madison's Tenth Federalist.” Perspectives in American History, Vol. 9. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pp. 271–95.Google Scholar
Burns, Edward M. (1968). James Madison Philosopher of the Constitution. New York: Octagon Books.Google Scholar
Burns, James M. (1967). Deadlock of Democracy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. (1956). A Preface to Democratic Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. (1967). Pluralist Democracy in the United States. Chicago: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Farrand, Max, ed. (1913). The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 4 vols. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Forbes, Duncan (1975). Hume's Philosophical Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Alexander, Jay, John and Madison, James (1937). The Federalist. Introduction by Earle, Edward M.. New York: Modern Library.Google Scholar
Hartz, Louis (1955). The Liberal Tradition in America. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
Hofstadter, Richard (1972). The Idea of a Party System. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Holcombe, Arthur M. (1950). Our More Perfect Union. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hume, David (1770). Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, New Edition, 6 vols. London: T. Cadell.Google Scholar
Ketcham, Ralph L. (1957). “Notes on James Madison's Sources for the Tenth Federalist Paper.” Midwest Journal of Politics 1: 20–25.Google Scholar
Locke, John (1946). The Second Treatise of Civil Government. Edited with an introduction by Gough, J. W.. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolò (1965). The Chief Works, 3 vols. Translated by Gilbert, Allan. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Madison, James (1884). Letters and other Writings of James Madison, 4 vols. New York: Worthington.Google Scholar
Madison, James (1900–1910). The Writings of James Madison, 9 vols. Edited by Hunt, Gaillard. New York: Putnam.Google Scholar
Madison, James (1962 to date). The Papers of James Madison, 13 vols. to date. Edited by Hutchinson, William T., Rachal, William M. E., Rutland, Robert A. and others. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.Google Scholar
Marshall, G. (1954). “David Hume and Political Scepticism.” The Philosophical Quarterly 4: 247–57.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl (1930). Capital, 2 vols. Introduction by Cole, G. D. H.. Translated by Eden, and Paul, Cedar. London: J. P. Dent.Google Scholar
May, Henry F. (1976). The Enlightenment in America. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de, (1949). The Spirit of the Laws, 2 vols. New York: Hafner.Google Scholar
Parrington, Vernon L. (1930). Main Currents in American Thought, 3 vols. New York: Harcourt, Brace.Google Scholar
Ranney, Austin (1975). Curing the Mischiefs of Faction. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Riemer, Neal (1967). The Democratic Experience. New York: Van Nostrand.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. (1942). Party Government. New York: Farrar and Rinehart.Google Scholar
Smith, J. Allen (1965: first published 1907). The Spirit of American Government. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
White, Morton (1956). Social Thought in America. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Wolin, Sheldon (1954). “Hume and Conservatism.” American Political Science Review 47: 999–1016.Google Scholar
Wood, Gordon (1969). The Creation of the American Republic. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Wright, Benjamin F. (1949). “The Federalist and the Nature of Political Man.” Ethics 59, Pt. 2: 1–31.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.