At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made to grant the federal government the specific power to suppress a delinquent state. James Madison rejected this proposal stating, “A Union of states containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.” The Confederacy believed that state sovereignty is guaranteed in the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, which reserves to the states all rights which have not been specifically delegated to the federal government. Therefore, secession was considered a legal right which could be exercised because the federal government was never delegated the right to coerce the states into submission.
I don’t understand the fascination with trying to twist Madison’s statements to somehow support secession. The one major Founding Father who denied the constitutionality of unilateral secession. Good rule of thumb: if you think you have Madison supporting secession in any way, shape, or form, including non-coercion, you’d do well to just assume you’re wrong.
Your mistake here is two-fold: first you viewed the proposal in terms of the ACW, thereby resulting in a complete misrepresentation of the proposal; second, you focused on only one choice part of Madison’s response. Regarding the proposal, you use the words “specific” and “suppress,” suggesting the proposal was a specific measure to suppress rebellion. As it actually read, the proposal would have given Congress the power “
to call forth the force of the Union agst. any member of the Union failing to fulfill its duty under the articles thereof.” That’s clearly not a “specific” provision to “suppress” rebellion. It’s a general enforcement provision, directed at any and all failures to comply, large or small. Regarding Madison’s response, his full, complete statement was:
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Mr. MADISON, observed that the more he reflected on the use of force, the more he doubted the practicability, the justice and the efficacy of it when applied to people collectively and not individually. - A union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force agst. a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound. He hoped that such a system would be framed as might render this recourse unnecessary, and moved that the clause be postponed.”
So we see here his real problem with the proposal is that it applies to states (the people of a state collectively) rather than individuals. Certainly, the use of military force for routine enforcement against states could very well look like a declaration of war, and a dissolution of the compact. However, a declaration of war is water under the bridge in the case of rebellion, and rebellion is itself an attempt to illegally dissolve the compact.
In addition, we see that Madison did not “reject” the proposal (“
He hoped that such a system would be framed as might render this recourse unnecessary, and moved that the clause be postponed.”). No one had ever attempted to design a national government/ fundamental law over a union of states before. Madison simply wanted to proceed with that and see what it might look like before considering anything as extreme as routine enforcement against the states via the military.
If you want to really understand Madison’s statement, you’d need to read the Convention proceedings at length, unencumbered by bias (try, at least). If you go specifically looking for something, it colors your perspective. This episode occurred very early in the Convention. The proposal comes from the Virginia Plan, which was introduced May 29 (3
rd day of the Convention). The Convention had only made the decision to frame a supreme national government (draft a fundamental law) rather than revise the AoCs or draft another treaty of confederation on May 30. During
that debate, Mason said:
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Mr. MASON observed that the present confederation was not only deficient in not providing for coercion & punishment agst. delinquent States; but argued very cogently that punishment could not in the nature of things be executed on the States collectively, and therefore that such a Govt. was necessary as could directly operate on individuals, and would punish those only whose guilt required it.”
That’s dead on with Madison’s statement, which was made just the next day, May 31. These are not so much arguments against using military force against states under ANY circumstances, they are arguments against the whole treaty of confederation approach. The parties to a treaty are fully independent, sovereign nation-states, and they remain such upon executing the treaty, even a treaty of confederation. To sovereign nation-states, treaties are voluntary. The states had proven themselves incapable of complying with a voluntary agreement. And the only way to enforce a treaty is via military force. Consider Mason’s response when Patterson tried to resurrect a treaty of confederation with his NJ Plan in mid June:
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It was acknowledged by [Mr. Patterson] that his plan could not be enforced without military coertion. Does he consider the force of this concession. The most jarring elements of Nature; fire & water themselves are not more incompatible that such a mixture of civil liberty and military execution. Will the militia march from one State to another, in order to collect the arrears of taxes from the delinquent members of the Republic? Will they maintain an army for this purpose? Will not the Citizens of the invaded State assist one another till they rise as one Man, and shake off the Union altogether. Rebellion is the only case, in which the military force of the State can be properly exerted agst. its Citizens.”
Military force is the ONLY available means of enforcing a treaty. You can’t have law enforcement (the force of law) without a real/positive/man-made law. International law is based entirely on natural law (morality). As Morris had stated on May 30, what was needed was a supreme national government (supreme fundamental law), which would provide a complete and compulsive operation (the force of law) upon the states, rather than a treaty, which relies on the good faith of the states (voluntary/moral compliance). His statements were the basis of the 6-1-1 decision to replace rather than revise the AoCs. All of these statements, Madison’s, Mason’s, and Morris’s, are why the Framers switched from a traditional confederation, founded upon a treaty, to one founded upon a fundamental law, that applies the force of law to the whole country. That’s what made it a
more perfect Union. And you may also note that, as with Madison, Mason’s concern with the use of the military for routine enforcement upon states (“
Will not the Citizens of the invaded State assist one another till they rise as one Man, and shake off the Union altogether”) is also water under the bridge in the case of a rebellion, which is an attempt to shake off the Union. In both cases, rebellion institutes the very conditions that the Framers wanted to avoid. The ACW never would have happened if Confederates did not assume moral (positive moral good of slavery) and legal (secessionist compact theory) high ground, as well as misjudge their ability to overthrow the law (moral right, legal right, and might).
The proposal was a throwback to the treaty approach. Again, they had decided against that approach AFTER the proposal was introduced. It's an extreme measure for a system that lacks the force of law. And as Mason clearly demonstrates, opposition to a system in which all violations, large or small, must be enforced by military force against sovereign nation-states does not mean opposition to the use of the military against states with only residual sovereignty in the case of rebellion.
However, not to worry. In the ACW, military force was not applied to the states. That’s the skewed, Confederate view point (The War Between The States). The Union correctly saw it as a rebellion (The War Of The Rebellion). Doesn’t matter that the rebels constituted a majority of the people in 11 states. They constituted the people as individuals, because they were not the sovereign people (a majority of the people of the US). When they attempted to take those states out of their proper, constitutional relationship within the Union, they ceased to be the legitimate authority within those states. To the degree possible in a rebellion of such proportions, military force was only applied against the rebels, and only the rebels were punished afterwards. Just as Madison and Mason hoped. Upon the conclusion of the war, loyal unionist elements in those states were not punished. In fact, they were sought out to reconstruct their states.