MSU Law Faculty in the News
Madison, Hamilton would be pleased
May 10, 2009
Detroit Free Press Op Ed
By Michael Lawrence, Professor of Law
If James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, signers of the Constitution and primary authors of the Federalist Papers (the indispensable work of 85 essays that Thomas Jefferson described as "the best commentary on the principles of government ever"), were magically able to transport themselves 222 years forward to the present day, they would find a lot to like about President Barack Obama's first 100 days in office.
Madison and Hamilton would welcome American government's return, after eight years in the wilderness, to the core constitutional principles for which they so passionately argued.
First, Hamilton and Madison would admire Obama's audacious domestic agenda. "Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government," Hamilton wrote in the Federalist 70.
Moreover, Madison especially would appreciate Obama's understanding of the Constitution's limitations on executive power, as shown in his early executive orders repudiating the use of torture at Guantanamo Bay and in CIA secret prisons. In the Federalist 47, Madison spoke of the dangers of such a go-it-alone approach, explaining, "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands ... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
Finally, Madison and Hamilton would approve of Obama's recognition (as demonstrated by his early reversal of the Bush administration policy of hiding information, and the release of the torture memos) that government must be held accountable to the people. "The genius of republican liberty," Madison concluded in Federalist 37, "demand(s) not only that all power should be derived from the people, but that those intrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people." "The power of the people," Hamilton added in No. 78, "is superior to (that of government)."
Immortal words that President Obama, the former constitutional law professor, understands well.
Michael Anthony Lawrence is a constitutional law professor at Michigan State University.