Note:
(a) “As a rising political star, seeking to understand why the infant American republic was so fragile, he [James Madison] took to the library of his Virginia plantation, Montpelier, for several months. He emerged having written a 39-page study of previous attempts at political union, from the Achaean League to the Belgic Confederacy, as well as a memorandum on ‘Vices of the Political System of the United States.’ Amid all that scholarship lurked ideas about government that he would champion throughout his career, as drafter of the constitution, a leader in Congress, his country’s chief diplomat and its fourth president.
(i) James Madison
(1751 – 1836; president 1809-1817; secretary of state 1801-1809; US House of Representatives 1789-1793; section 6.1 Father of the Bill of Rights)
(ii) Montpelier (Orange, Virginia)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montpelier_(Orange,_Virginia)
(at Town of Orange, whose population was 4,721 at the 2010 census; section 1.2 The name Montpelier)
(iii) James Madison, Notes on Ancient and Modern Confederacies (April-June? 1786). National Archives, undated.
founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-09-02-0001
(A) Achaean League
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaean_League
("The first league was formed in the 5th century BC. The second Achaean League existed between 280 BC and 146 BC. The league was named after the region of Achaea")
(B) Belgium
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium
(“The name 'Belgium' is derived from Gallia Belgica, a Roman province in the northernmost part of Gaul that before Roman invasion in 100 BC, was inhabited by the Belgae, a mix of Celtic and Germanic peoples”/ table says Independence: Declared from the Netherlands in 1830 [after Belgian Revolution (1830-1831)], Recognized [by the Netherlands] in 1839)
(C) I can not find Belgic Confederacy in the Web, so we will have to read Madison’s treatise in (iii). There is a typo, though:
“Belgic Confederacy[:] established in 1679 by the Treaty called the Union of Utrecht.”
Should be 1579. See Union of Utrecht
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Utrecht
(signed in City of Utrecht, the present-day Province of Utrecht, the Netherlands)
(iv) James Madison, Vices of the Political System of the United States (April 1787). National Archives, undated.
founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-09-02-0187
(b) “He was small in stature [5 feet 4 inches or 153 cm] * * * Montpelier, at the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains, works hard to explain the importance of its former owner. * * * Belatedly, the America of catchphrases has caught up with Madison, notably on the right. He is claimed as a conservative prophet, warning of the dangers should America stray from its 18th-century origins as a lightly-taxed, self-reliant, debt-averse union of states. Bumper-stickers may be bought, carrying quotes in which Madison praises America for trusting its citizens to bear arms”
Blue Ridge mountains
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ridge_mountains
(c) “Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican senator and putative White House contender, cites Madison when accusing Barack Obama of trampling the law, especially when setting spy agencies on Americans. ‘Madison wrote that we would not need a constitution to protect us if government were comprised of angels,’ Mr Paul says, adding that in this world, alas, ‘Government unrestrained by law becomes nothing short of tyranny.’ A rival Republican, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, is less exercised than Mr Paul about privacy * * * But he too reveres the constitution’s architect. Mr Cruz wrote a college thesis about Madison’s Bill of Rights, entitled ‘Clipping the Wings of Angels.’ As a senator, he scoffs: ‘There’s not a whole lot of angels in Washington.’”
(i) set [a dog] on (vt): “to urge (as a dog) to attack or pursue” www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/set%20on
(ii) exercise (vt): “to cause anxiety, alarm, or indignation in <the issues exercising voters this year>” www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exercise
(d) “His views on government changed. Early on, he worried about the selfishness and parochialism of state governments, seeking a strong central executive. Later, he fretted about over-mighty federal authorities. * * * He did write in the Federalist Papers, a series of essays urging the ratification of the constitution, that ‘If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.’ His preceding thought was that ‘If men were angels, no government would be necessary.’”
(i) The quotations are from Federalist No 51, which was published as:
The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments. Independent Journal (a semi-weekly), Feb 6, 1788.
(ii) Federalist Papers
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Papers
(total 85; published 1787-1788; The authors used the pseudonym "Publius", in honor of Roman consul Publius Valerius Publicola; In Federalist No. 51, Madison distills arguments for checks and balances in an essay oft quoted for its justification of government as "the greatest of all reflections on human nature")
(iii) Publius Valerius Publicola
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_Valerius_Publicola
(his agnomen [qv] meaning "friend of the people;” died 503 BC; was one of four Roman aristocrats who led the overthrow of the monarchy, and became a Roman consul in 509 BC, traditionally considered the first year of the Roman Republic [509-27 BC, when Gaius Octavius founded Roman Empire])
(iv) Publius (praenomen)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_(praenomen)
(meaning “the people”)
The English prefix “Pre” is derived from Latin preposition “prae”--both meaning “before.”
(v)
(A) cognomen (n; Latin, irregular from co- [together] + nomen name) www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cognomen
(B) agnomen (n; Latin, irregular from ad- [to, towards, at] + nomen name)
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cognomen
(e) “Into this live political argument drops a weighty new work, ‘James Madison: A Life Reconsidered,’ by Lynne Cheney [publisher Viking, 2014], a conservative scholar and wife of the former vice-president, Dick Cheney. * * * She cites Virginia’s governor, thundering in 1792 that the federal government’s wisdom and care played no part in the country’s prosperity, which he linked to peace and the people’s ‘native vigour.’ Madison replied ‘rather sharply,’ she writes, pointing to such constitutional boons to economic growth as property rights, contract laws and uniform commercial regulations. * * * Madison’s great insight—’brilliant and prophetic,’ writes Mrs Cheney—was that stability can never be achieved by a retreat to smaller and smaller units, peopled by citizens of common views and virtues. No society can be truly homogeneous, nor any group wholly avoid factions, he [Madison] saw. Madison’s solution was a large, diverse republic, in which parties and interests check one another, lessening the risk that a majority will find common cause to gang up on others.”
(i) Lynne Cheney
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Cheney
(1941- ; section 1 Lynne Cheney: PhD, University of Wisconsin at Madison)
(ii) List of Governors of Virginia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Governors_of_Virginia
(Henry Lee III: 1791-1794)
(iii) For property rights, see Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
("nor [shall a person] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation")
(iv) contract Clause
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_Clause
(v) Commerce Clause
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
(The Congress shall have Power: “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several states [ie, interstate commerce], and with the Indian tribes”)
(f) “As the first wartime president [presiding over War of 1812] he defended civil liberties. * * * Montpelier [the estate] is admirably frank about his ownership of about 100 slaves”