A Study On Madison's Republicanism

Republicanism was well accepted across Atlantic in 18th century, and it bore great influence on the thoughts and lives of Europeans and Americans generation after generation. It is safe to say that the influence of republicanism in 18th century was as strong as that of Marxism in 19th. With the development of society and politics, republicanism as one kind of trend of thoughts underwent a change from classic republicanism to modern republicanism.In this process, Lock, Montesquieu and American Federalists made great theoretical contributions to the formation of modern republicanism. Among all of these figures there is one who has the greatest influence on the republican politics of American, but unfortunately, he was always overlooked; that is James Madison (1751— 1836). He is the supreme example of modern republicanism in American, whose contribution to the soundness and development of republicanism cannot be replaced by anyone else.Madison connected the popular political thoughts and the political reality of American with the down-to -earth attitude, absorbing the essence of the political thoughts since the colonial period in the United States. He formed his own unique republicanism step by step with his political sensitivity and rich political experience.The sources of Madison's republicanism are pretty rich, which can be grouped into four categories in general, that is classic republicanism, the concept of evil of human nature, classic thoughts of separation of powers and thoughts of social contract. Any of these thoughts cannot be replaced by any others in the formation process of Madison's republicanism, although they occupied different positions. The classic republican determined Madison's political proneness, which led him to the political road of republicanism; the thought of evil of human nature provided Madison with sharp perceptive tools to analyze and solve various problems; classic thoughts of separation of powers guaranteed the success of Madison's republicanism in practice, provided necessary political restrictive theory to restrain the negative effect of the evil of human nature to the republican form of government; the thought of social contract lent theoretical support to Madison's republican government; the political theory of Madison's social contract, that is, to guarantee the authority of the majority and protect the rights and freedom of the minority's to realize win-win, was Madison's ultimate political objectives.Madison's republicanism has three prominent characteristics compared with the classic republicanism. First of all, Madison put forward the theory of extended republic, considering it possible to realize republic system in countries of a large area. This is Madison's new interpretation of the relationship between republicanism and governing territory, which solved the political dilemma of the choice of government system, puzzled the Americans at that time to some extend.Madison's extended republic theory was based on his pointed analysis of the problems of factions. Madison made unique analysis of the source of factions, pointing out the necessity of the existence of factions, that is, the faction is rooted inthe human's nature, rising out of the inequality of the possession occupation; meanwhile, he pointed out the dangers of faction to the society, and furthermore, he stated the only effective way to solve factions, that is to enlarge the governing scope to construct a plurality society so as to prevent the occurrence of the majority tyranny, solving the republic diseases from factions. In Madison's theory, the enlargement of the governing can select outstanding talents to run the country, which is also helpful to strengthen the national power to ensure the stability of the democratic society and the republic practice in America.Secondly, Madison advocated setting up representative republic, which is a new interpretation of modern republic & democratic theory, also a further development of the classic republicanism. The representative government, functioning as the external system gu...