The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic by Lance Banning

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In 1790, Thomas Jefferson called James Madison "the greatest man in the world." In the 1990s, academic historians generally frown on such talk. They insist that because there is always disagreement about what is great and what is petty, we must acknowledge that there is no rational foundation for the distinction. Jefferson is closer to the truth.

James Madison's greatness was different from that of Washington or Lincoln. He did not display their moral grandeur. His greatness was best displayed in the sustained, penetrating, architectonic thought that earned him the epithet "Father of the Constitution." Lance Banning is alive to the greatness of Madison. In The Sacred fire of Liberty he attempts to recover the essence of Madison's architectonic thought, what he calls his "founding vision." Read the rest of Christopher Flannery's review of this book...

Table of Contents

    

Acknowledgments

The Madisonian Madison: An Introduction

Ch. 1. James Madison and the Nationalists, 1780-1783

Ch. 2. The Crisis of Confederation Government, 1783-1787

Ch. 3. The Crisis of Republican Convictions

Ch. 4. The Virginia Plan

Ch. 5. To Perpetuate the Union

Ch. 6. To Redeem the Republican Name

Ch. 7. "The Practicable Sphere of a Republic": Madison, The Federalist, and the Republican Interpretation of the Constitution

Ch. 8. The Virginia Ratifying Convention

Ch. 9. Spanning the Abyss: Madison, the Bill of Rights, and the Inauguration of the Federal Republic

Ch. 10. The Great Divergence

Ch. 11. Opposition Leader

Ch. 12. Retrospect and Prospect

Appendix: The Personalities of "Publius"

Notes

Index