What would James Madison have said about the filibuster?

[markpkessinger]

I have been beyond perplexed by President Biden's stated desire to retain the filibuster. He keeps holding out hope that he will somehow be able to find common ground with Senate Republicans, as he did back in his days in the Senate. But this is not the same GOP we are dealing with (despite a few holdovers from his Senate days). I began to wonder what James Madison, the chief architect of the constitution, would have thought of the filibuster. And in Federalist Nos. 58 and 22, I found my answer.

in Federalist No. 58, defending the Constitution against supermajority requirements in all but a few constitutionally-defined circumstances, Madison wrote:

"It has been said that more than a majority ought to have been required for a quorum; and in particular cases, if not in all, more than a majority of a quorum for a decision. That some advantages might have resulted from such a precaution, cannot be denied. It might have been an additional shield to some particular interests, and another obstacle generally to hasty and partial measures. But these considerations are outweighed by the inconveniences in the opposite scale.
"In all cases where justice or the general good might require new laws to be passed, or active measures to be pursued, the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority. Were the defensive privilege limited to particular cases, an interested minority might take advantage of it to screen themselves from equitable sacrifices to the general weal, or, in particular emergencies, to extort unreasonable indulgences."

And in Federalist 22, Madison identifies supermajority requirements as one of the principal causes of dysfunction in the Articles of Confederation:

"To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. ... The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy.”

The filibuster is an anti-democratic, anti-constitutional blight on the Senate. Created by racists (specifically by John C. Calhoun of South to protect Southern slavery from federal civil rights legislation in the 1840s), it has no place in our system and must be abolished!

[Bucky]

1. Bravo, well done

First, it's always nice to see another Framerhead at work on DU. This money quote is exactly why we need to reread the Founding thinkers on the regular:

But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority.

One wonders how they'd react to the sectional divisions of the republic being drawn between the urban many and the rural minority (the exact opposite of Madison's day) and coastal states versus interior states--something he couldn't have imagined in 1788.

[Karadeniz]

2. Thank you so much for digging this up! Much appreciated!