Madison vs Marshall :: essays papers

Madison vs Marshall Upon the Declaration of Independence, a â€Å"plan of confederation† was offered to be prepared for the colonies. This plan, known as The Articles of Confederation, established a â€Å"league of friendship† among the states rather than a national government. The most significant fact about the created government was it’s weakness, it could not enforce even the limited powers it had. In James Madison’s words, in his Federalist Paper #10 â€Å"complaints are everywhere heard†¦that our governments are too unstable†. The states had won their freedom but had been unable to form a nation. They fought among themselves, suffered from severe economic depression, and came close to losing the peace they had won in war. These political and economic factors generated pressure for the creation of a new national government and a constitution. In Madison’s view, politics was overrun by different â€Å"factions†, which were groups of people who shared the same interests, different from other people or the opinion of the whole. These factions, he thought, prevented the government from its most important task, which in his opinion was to protect the owner’s of the land and property. The ownership of the land was divided according to people’s different skills, faculties, and according to Madison, â€Å"the protection of these faculties is the first object of the government†. And since the majority of the people were farmers and poor, and since â€Å"those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society†, Madison wanted a constitution that would give the government the power to control the majority. In his address to the American Bar Association, Thurgood Marshall criticizes the constitution by saying that â€Å" I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever â€Å"fixed† at the Philadelphia convention†. In his opinion â€Å" the government that they devised was defective from the beginning†, meaning that the Constitution required several amendments before it became what people today consider as â€Å"the basic structure of the American government†. The constitution is very different today than what the framers began to construct two centuries ago. Marshall thinks that there was much wrong with the original document, he finds many â€Å"inherent defects†, but is willing to admit that it was â€Å"a product of its times and embodied a compromise that, under other circumstances, would not have been made†. By this he means the contradiction between promising â€Å"liberty and justice for all† and denying both from blacks.