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Publius—A Split Personality?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

George W. Carey
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Extract

This article critically examines the widely accepted thesis that because of basic theoretical differences between Hamilton and Madison the Federalist is best read as the product of a “split personality.” An examination of the areas and concerns identified by leading proponents of this thesis (Douglass Adair and Alpheus T. Mason) fails to reveal any significant differences between Hamilton and Madison writing as “Publius.” In fact, this analysis reveals a very close correspondence in their views on the basic principles of the proposed system. These findings strongly support the proposition that the Federalist is a consensual work whose contradictions and tensions reflect more basic difficulties endemic to the proposed system and principles of republicanism rather than theoretical differences between its authors.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , January 1984 , pp. 5 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1984

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References

1 William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser. (1944), 97–122, 235–64.Google Scholar This two-part article is reprinted in Fame and the Founding Fathers: Essays by Douglass Adair, ed. Colbourn, Trevor (New York, 1974).Google Scholar All citations are to the reprint and will be designated DP.

2 The disputed essays were 18, 19, 20, 62, 63, and 49 through 58, not an inconsiderable portion of the work. Adair's article sets forth the reasons for this dispute and thoroughly examines the scholarly controversies that ensued, matters well beyond my concern here.

3 “The Federalist—A Split Personality,” American Historical Review, 57 (1952).Google Scholar Hereafter cited as SP.

4 The Federalist: A Classic on Federalism and Free Government (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1960).Google Scholar Hereafter cited in text as TF. Dietze writes at one point (TF, p. 19) that Adair's introduction of the notion of a “split personality” is “an old idea.” Yet, he credits Alpheus T. Mason (TF, p. 21) with “having first elaborated the idea of the split personality.” The fact is that the Mason article is but a pale version of Adair's.

It should be noted here that Dietze, in embracing Mason's thesis, eventually had to run up against a difficulty which Adair and Mason were able to avoid, namely, providing specific evidences of a split personality in the text of The Federalist. Hence (see TF, pp. 267–75), Dietze had to be more circumspect in his claims regarding a split personality. For an extended treatment of this point see note 10 below.

5 Those in this category would include Benjamin F. Wright, Roy P. Fairfield, and Max Beloff whose introductions to their editions of The Federalist seem to be based on a tacit acceptance of this thesis. Beloff goes so far as to write: “The fact that the Federalist is not the work of a single mind is one of the reasons for which it must stand somewhat apart in any collection of the great texts in political science.” “Introduction” to The Federalist (New York, 1948), p. vii.Google Scholar

6 Among these students we find Clinton Rossiter, Martin Diamond, Willmoore Kendall, and Herbert J. Storing.

7 Two basic techniques of textual analysis—techniques employed to some extent by both Adair and Mason—which lead to this conclusion are (a) an examination of the essays' structure—e.g., the sequence of the essays according to subject, the internal organization of the various sections of the work; and (b) the apparent theoretical linkage between certain papers, no matter what their sequence or place in the overall organization. These techniques cannot, however, resolve the controversy over the authorship of essays 18, 19, 20, and 52 through 58. In coming to his conclusions which essentially support Madison's claim to all of the disputed papers, Adair had to rely upon evidence external to The Federalist such as the whereabouts of the authors at various periods in the ratification contest. Adair's conclusions have been corroborated by statistical analyses of the prose styles and word usage of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay. See: Mantella, Frederick and Wallace, Daniel L., Inference and Disputed Authorship (Reading, Mass., 1964).Google Scholar

8 Federalist No. 35 written by Hamilton would certainly tend to cast considerable doubt on Adair's contention concerning Hamilton's “dualistic” view of society. For instance, Hamilton argues that it would be “impracticable” for the House of Representatives to represent sympathetically “the interests and feelings of every part of the community.” He goes on to say: “The idea of an actual representation of all classes of the people by persons of each class is altogether visionary.” The Federalist (New York: New American Library, 1961), p. 214.Google Scholar

All subsequent citations in the text are to this “Rossiter edition” of The Federalist. Where the number of the paper is not evident from the text it will be placed before the page number.

9 Adair sees Madison repudiating Hamilton's theory in arguing that the cure for factious majorities cannot be found “by creating a will of the community independent of the majority … because a power independent of the society may well espouse the unjust views of the major as the rightful interests of the minor party, and may possibly be turned against both parties” (51:323–24).

But this charge seems to overlook what Hamilton wrote elsewhere in The Federalist concerning republicanism. For instance, in essay 22 he rails against the Articles because equality of state representation leads to minority rule and violates “that fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail” (146).

10 The distinctions that Mason notes begin to melt away in the last paragraphs of his article. He writes that one cannot “always be certain in identifying the stand of either Hamilton or Madison. Their interpretations become less categorical when either author enters the province of the other” (SP, p. 641).

Dietze has the most diffcult time of all. Because his work is confined to The Federalist, unlike Adair and Mason, he is constrained from quoting other writings and speeches. Thus Dietze's claims take on certain subtleties: “Madison sees in federalism a means for the creation of a system of federal power-balances … federalism is to him an institution devised to protect the states within federation” (TF, p. 269). Hamilton, however, “having practically precluded himself from pronouncing a theory of power-balances … puts the shock—or faction-absorbing function of the states in the background. Hamilton sees the remedy against factions in the states mainly in a strong national government. Federalism is a means for the creation of a system of power concentration.” Of course, this interpretation overlooks certain observations by Hamilton: “the State governments will in all possible contingencies, afford complete authority” (28:181); or that “the State legislatures” would be the “vigilant but suspicious and jealous guardians of the rights of the citizens against encroachments from the federal government” (26:172).

Likewise Dietze argues that Madison sought a “power-balance” among the branches through separation of powers, whereas Hamilton sought a “deconcentration of power from the legislature” (TF, p. 261). This distinction is very questionable for reasons set forth in the text below. In any event, the split between Hamilton and Madison certainly does narrow considerably when one is confined to the text of The Federalist.

11 That Montesquieu might have misunderstood the relationship which existed between the central government and the components of the Lycian confederacy—a confederacy which both Montesquieu and Hamilton held up as a model—is explored by Wolfe, Christopher, “The Confederate Republic in Montesquieu,” Polity, 9 (Summer 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Ralph L. Ketcham even goes beyond Adair in driving a wedge between these two essays. See his “Notes on James Madison's Sources for the Tenth Federalist Paper,” Midwest Journal of Political Science (1 05 1957).Google Scholar

13 See Diamond, Martin, “The Federalist” in A History of Political Philosophy, ed. Strauss, Leo and Cropsey, Joseph (Chicago, 1963).Google Scholar

14 It can be maintained that Hamilton in Federalist No. 81 does not satisfactorily refute the charges of the Anti-Federalist “Brutus” who contended that the national judiciary “would be authorized to explain the constitution, not only according to its letter, but according to its spirit and intention.” The Antifederalist Papers, ed. Borden, Morton (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1965), p. 230.Google Scholar In my view, the major shortcoming in his response is the failure to set forth clearly what he would consider an appropriate constitutional remedy for an habitual abuse of judicial power. But the charge that he provided a “sanction for the development of an … irresponsible judiciary” is unwarranted. See my “The Supreme Court, Judicial Review, and Federalist Seventy-Eight,” Modern Age, 18 (Fall 1974).Google Scholar

15 The more so, to use Hamilton's language, because the interpretation of the laws and Constitution “is the proper and peculiar province of the courts” (78:467).

16 Hamilton goes beyond this to write that a “bill of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary … but dangerous.” We need not explore his argument on this point to see that unlike the impression conveyed by the split personality advocates, Hamilton was not a mechanical politician who believed that formal constitutional restraints would serve to curb the abuses of majorities as the rulers. On this his heart beat at one with Madison. See, for example, 10:81 and 49:313.

17 The end sought by Madison he sets forth at the beginning of Federalist No. 57: “The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of society; and in the next place, to take most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold public trust” (57:350). He spells out in the remainder of this essay why he believes the proposed system will approximate this goal. In this enterprise he does not conflict in the slightest with the presumptions of Hamilton.

18 For an analysis of the remarkable agreement that seemed to exist between Hamilton and Madison on the characteristics of human nature and how both argued effectively that the proposed system would “exploit” these characteristics to advantage, see Scanlan, James B., “The Federalist and Human Nature,” Review of Politics, 21 (1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 On this point see: Diamond, Martin, “What the Framers Meant by Federalism,” in Essays on Federalism, ed. Benson, C. S. (Claremont, California, 1962).Google Scholar

20 In Federalist No. 37, certainly one of the more reflective essays, Publius identifies and touches upon these and other “difficulties” which he regards as “inherent in the very nature of the undertaking referred to the convention” (226). What is more, he indicates why, in all likelihood, they will continue to persist so long as the system endures.