Colleen A. Sheehan

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Colleen A. Sheehan | Madison and the French Enlightenment: The Authority of Public Opinion | The William and Mary Quarterly, 59.4 | The History Cooperative

Forum: The Madisonian Moment

Madison and the French Enlightenment: The Authority of Public Opinion

IN 1791–1792 James Madison published at least nineteen unsigned articles in Philip Freneau's National Gazette, a Philadelphia newspaper that he and Thomas Jefferson had recently helped to establish in the nation's temporary capital city. The objective of the paper was to circulate republican ideas on the issues of the day and to counteract the effects of the systematically pro-administration newspaper, the Gazette of the United States. One of Madison's Party Press Essays, "Spirit of Governments," addresses the issue of how to categorize the different forms of government and explicitly criticizes the regime typology invented by Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu.¹ After bestowing circumscribed praise on Montesquieu's contributions to the science of politics, Madison swiftly turned his pen against the regime classification the French philosopher set forth in the Spirit of the Laws. Despite the "glimpse" of truth Montesquieu experienced, he "was in politics not a Newton or a Locke, who established immortal systems" in matter and in mind. Moreover, Madison asserted, the accuracy of Montesquieu's treatment of governmental types "can never be defended against the criticisms which it has encountered."²

Montesquieu's influence on Madison and the American founders, particularly evident in the theory of separation of powers that informs the United States Constitution, is well noted by scholars.³ Madison's critique of elements of Montesquieu's political philosophy, however, has been given scant attention.⁴ The crux of Madison's criticism concerned Montesquieu's praise for the British system of balanced government. According to Montesquieu, the institutional and corporate division of powers and checks and balances established in Britain provided for political moderation and made the English constitution the model of free government in the modern world. Most English politicians and writers, whether of the Court or the Country Party, agreed with the general assumptions underlying the theory of balanced government advocated by Montesquieu; their disagreement essentially concerned whether the parts of their government were effectively separated and balanced and thus whether liberty was sufficiently protected. A number of French thinkers disagreed with Montesquieu's assumptions, rejecting their countryman's theory of balanced government as any real guarantee of stability or safeguard for liberty. Interestingly, when Madison publicly invoked the name of Montesquieu in his writings of the early 1790s, it was primarily to challenge rather than to celebrate the political wisdom of the French oracle. Madison's criticisms, like those of many French writers, signal a fundamental disagreement with Montesquieu's analysis of free government.

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