Madison's Metronome: The Constitution, Majority Rule, and the Tempo of American Politics. By GregWeiner. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2012. 194 pp.

Abstract

Madison's Metronome: The Constitution, Majority Rule, and the Tempo of American Politics. By Greg Weiner. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2012. 194 pp. In this slim volume, Greg Weiner focuses our attention upon an underlying and abiding feature of James Madison's theory: time. Weiner explicates Madison's temporal republicanism to demonstrate his enduring commitment to majorities as both an inevitable and desirable form of decision making in a republic. The problem, of course, is that majorities are often passionate and unjust. To alleviate this problem, Weiner argues that Madison consistently pursues mechanisms that will slow down decision making such that time can temper passionate majorities. As Weiner explains, Madison's democratic theory consequently relies on delaying mechanisms that compel majorities to cohere for an interval sufficient to dispel passions. This use of time to season majorities enhances the likelihood that they will behave reasonably and avoids the necessity of a trade-off between majority rule and minority (p. 130). Weiner's analysis draws principally on Madison's thought regarding the extended republic, the Bill of Rights, and separation of powers, but he also delves into Madison's understanding of freedom of speech and conscience, the national negative, and the Virginia Resolutions and Report. Spanning the entirety of Madison's career, Weiner successfully illuminates and contextualizes Madison's enduring support for majority rule in an eloquently written and well-documented text. To understand and illuminate Madison's majoritarianism, Weiner emphasizes the passive role of time rather than its instrumental use in Madison's republicanism. The overweighting of passive time has the effect of enhancing the reasonableness of national majorities and minimizing the role of enlightened leadership in Madison's thought. For example, in his discussion of the Senate, Weiner argues against those who view this body as an aristocratic check on the will of the people. Instead, he claims that Madison considered the Senate something of a speed bump constructed to slow majoritarian decision making until the people returned to the basis upon which they ordinarily act, that of reason, justice, and truth (p. 50). More surprisingly, Weiner claims that it is the action of time itself that works this magic: there was no indication of moral tutelage by leaders (p. 32). Weiner rightly observes that Madison's theory, particularly the centrality of majoritarian institutions in his thought, tends to cultivate the people's capacity for deliberation and reflection in contrast to what Weiner sees as the contemporary overreliance on rights talk and the courts to determine matters of justice. …