This essay examines the evolution from 1785 to 1800 of Madison's understanding of the proper role of public opinion in the American political system. It provides an insight into Madison's transformation from the leading architect of the Constitution during the 1780s to the opposition leader of the Jeffersonian party during the 1790s. The essay challenges the contention that Madison's writings on public opinion establish his support for using governmental institutions and statesmanship to improve the souls of the citizenry and to develop a common character among them. Instead, it is argued, Madison defended the sovereignty of public opinion as a means for citizens to influence and monitor their representatives’ actions in an extended republic where these tasks were at once difficult and imperative. In the course of this defense, Madison contributed to a developing libertarian tradition of political thought in America based upon the broad protection of freedom of speech and the belief that political truths best emerge from the free flow of ideas.

John Adams's complaints notwithstanding, no one of the American Founding generation has been so consistently misunderstood as James Madison. In recent decades a small handful of scholars have made significant strides toward correcting the Madisonian record. In addition to the justly acclaimed study of Madison by Lance Banning, The Sacred Fire of Liberty, the thoughtful work of Alan Gibson stands out in this regard. In particular, Professor Gibson's efforts to parse the contemporary debate over the character of Madison's political thought constitute a distinctive and valuable contribution to the literature on Madison and the Founding.

In his most recent essay, “Veneration and Vigilance: James Madison and Public Opinion, 1785–1800,” Professor Gibson makes three central claims, namely, that Madison never wavered in his commitment to popular sovereignty and deserves to be considered a leading and prescient democratic theorist of the Founding, that Madison's conception of the nature and role of public opinion in the 1790s signifies a substantial revision of the earlier Humean understanding of public opinion he embraced in the 1780s, and that Madison did not seek to foster civic education in the American republic. I agree with the first of these claims, though I would make the case for Madison's democratic credentials even more emphatically than Gibson does. In general, however, Gibson and I share common ground in the recognition of the critical importance of the concept of public opinion in Madisonian theory.

Professor Alan Gibson's insightful article contains much that is admirable. He is, in my view, correct in calling scholars' attention—particularly political scientists—to James Madison's often neglected views in his National Gazette essays and the foundational role of public opinion on all governments. In addition, Gibson asserts several claims hoping to establish Madison's credentials as a democratic theorist that should be of interest as well. Specifically, he seeks to accomplish four tasks: (1) “to clarify the enduring debate over the credibility of Madison's democratic credentials”; (2) to “examine Madison's role in justifying, popularizing, and understanding… public opinion”; (3) to “highlight some of Madison's neglected insights into democratic theory, especially his understanding of the problem of collective action, and thereby establish him as a prescient democratic theorist”; and (4) to argue the case that Madison “contributed to a developing tradition of political thought in America upon a broad-based conception of freedom of speech and on the belief that political truths best emerge from the full flow of ideas.”

While I concur with much of Gibson's position—especially his fourth, indisputable point—I also disagree with him on at least one significant position: James Madison was not a democrat.

Professors Richard Matthews and Colleen Sheehan raise two questions about my essay on James Madison and public opinion:(1) Can Madison be considered a genuine partisan of democracy? (2) Do Madison's writings on public opinion suggest that he believed that the government should try to foster a common opinion among the citizenry?

Sheehan and Matthews diametrically disagree. Like Martin Diamond and Lance Banning, Sheehan argues that Madison was a thoroughgoing democrat not only during the 1790s, but even during the years surrounding the formation of the Constitution. According to Matthews, Madison was the quintessential classical liberal and a proponent of “thin” democracy who believed that citizens should participate in politics primarily as voters who select elite men to make decisions for them.

Locke's Second Treatise of Government argues for the rule of law as just and rightful politics, not only in the fundamental legislation that is the constitution but also in regular governance by the legislature. Locke also argues for executive prerogative, the power of doing good without or even against law during contingency and necessity. Rule by legislation and rule by prerogative each preserve the political community and reflect its foundation out of the state of nature. But they do not easily coexist in the constitution, which provides no means to judge the rightful use of prerogative. President Lincoln's strong, discretionary actions during the crisis of the Civil War illustrate Locke's argument about prerogative's fundamental importance and its problematic relation to ordinary lawfulness. However, as Lincoln recognized, both the Constitution and Congress formally provided for an executive power that was remarkably compatible with the rule of law—and that thereby responded to the Lockean problem.

Mark Gibian's major study of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.'s political theory casts Holmes as a democratic pluralist in the line of Richard Rorty who instantiates his commitment in the literary form of untrammeled table talk. Gibian's thesis can be challenged through a close reading of Holmes's main political work, The Professor at the Breakfast Table, revealing that Holmes's defense of free expression as the core of American national identity is counterpointed by a more fundamental appeal to nondiscursive reconciliation. Treating The Professor as a “dramatized essay” or “proto-novel” opens the possibility that the work's meaning is most fully disclosed by placing conversation in tandem with the deeds and recorded gestures that develop its plot. Through a dramatic reading, Holmes emerges as a humanist balancing aristocratic and democratic principles, rather than as a liberal discourse analyst.