Who Were the Sea Peoples?

""Is there no virtue among us?--If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks--no form of Government, can render us secure. To suppose that any form of Government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea." -- James Madison, addressing the ratification convention, quoted in Kevin Gutzman, James Madison and the Making of America , p. 231 Madison here hits at the very heart of the rationalist conceit: the idea that some theoretical system can substitute for civic virtue.

George Washington, having come to admire James Madison's intellect during the debates over constitutional ratification, asked him to draft his first inaugural address. And he did so. Then Congress, in which James Madison was sitting, asked him to draft a response to the president's inaugural address. And he wrote that, which was essentially a response to his own speech. Having become aware of this congressional response, Washington felt the need to have a comeback. And who do you think you turned to, in order to respond to Congress? You guessed it: James Madison! So at this point, Madison was three levels deep into an argument he was conducting essentially on his own. Even in our age of meta-ness, I don't think we have anything to rival that scenario from 1789. (Source: Kevin Gutzman, James Madison and the Making of America , p. 243.)

Madison's commentary (reproduced below) is interesting. And it is underscored by the following fact: During the drafting of the Bill of Rights, people kept slipping "expressly" into the tenth amendment, and Madison kept taking it back out. Article I section 8 was deliberately vague, and Madison meant to keep it that way! The clause was meant to be understood as, "Do whatever you really have to do, but try to keep it within limits, OK?" Getting a constitution drafted was contentious and tricky business. Whenever an issue was particularly difficult to reach consensus upon, the preferred solution was, "Write it up in a vague manner, and leave it for others to sort out." In any case, here is Madison, from Federalist 44: There are four other possible methods which the Constitution might have taken on this subject. They might have copied the second article of the existing Confederation, which would have prohibited the exercise of any power not EXPRESS...