(That is, if you think the original meaning should reign.)
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(I used to teach the revolution and the constitution—to British students—and also ta'ed for Jack Rakove back in the day.)
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(That doesn't mean I Am Right, I'm just explaining how it happened that I have any ideas about it at all.)
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Another fun fact: it wasn't in my mind when writing this original tweet that people refer to members of the modern Federalist Society as "Federalists," which also happens to be the name of a c18-c19 political faction.
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Confusion in interpretation is generally the fault of the author. I apologize for the badness of my tweet.
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Rather than delete it, as it’s mostly harmless, I’ll supply A Short History of a Bad Tweet:
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I saw some arguments fly by in the TL about what’s really in The Federalist. I don’t like to punch down or, to be honest, fight directly. So I thought I’d subtweet, as one does.
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I did so in a common mode of historian-speak, using the historical present tense, eg, “what Alexander Hamilton isn’t gonna tell you is”
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As I say it didn’t occur to me I’d be annoying the present day Federalists who I’d forgotten or never knew call themselves that.
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(I have much more substantial complaints with them.)
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Anyway. Here’s the long version of what I meant. It’s comparatively easy to argue about what the framers thought.
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Madison, among other framers, did it and enabled it, with The Federalist and the Notes.
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But Madison did this while also saying it was irrelevant, really, because ratifier intent is what matters, not framer intent.
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But it’s tempting—even to Madison—to slip back into what-did-the-framers-say. Which is dodgy not only because of popular sovereignty but
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moreover, because framers—specifically Madison and Hamilton writing The Federalist—were often in persuasive and reassuring mode, not in frank confessional, analytical, or predictive mode.
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Then after ratification, Federalists wanted to act more freely (and perhaps in ways the ratifiers would have found not so reassuring).
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That includes Madison, eventually, despite his Democratic-Republican alignment.
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Both he and Jefferson, in power, acted fairly Federalist.
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Madison eventually argued that this sort of thing was constitutional because not only did public meaning matter but that public meaning evolved.
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Proud to serve the people of California. My views are but mine own.