t waste wood. This was an uncommon view back then because it appeared to the early Americans that the wood supply -- stretching as it did across the entire continent -- was virtually limitless. Hence, she argued that Madison would not have wasted wood in this way and so the cross piece was probably straight across. She said the Baroness drew it curved because it was more artistic to do it that way. Also in the Baroness's engraving there is a small picture of a female slave near the fence. The fence comes up about to her chest. Today, people are taller than they were back then, so to be proportional, the restorers made the new fence taller than it actually was. Sandy also said she didn't think Madison would have painted his fence green -- "That's a duPont green." So the fence is two feet away from where it actually was, it actually had a straight cross piece, it is taller than it really was, and it wasn't green. Other than that, it's entirely historically accurate! See the pictures below:
OK! Although today is July 8, I would like to add a few more notes about David Marion's lecture from Wednesday, June 30, 2010. Professor Marion explained that James Madison is a "great founder, not just a significant founder" because in helping to draft both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, he understood what he was trying to do and the significance of what he was trying to do. Madison "paid attention to human nature -- he didn't ask what you would ask of angels or of gods." He studied and learned from other governments throughout history and, in the tradition of enlightenment philosophers, he believed that "humans could control their own destiny." (All of the quotations in this blog entry are paraphrases from Professor Marion that I wrote down in my notes -- I was attempting very hard to be a good note-taker, just like James Madison!). Madison also wanted to create a civic culture that would support the new government.
Professor Marion asked us (a room full of teachers), "How do you justify spending time in the classroom studying the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? Why is it relevant? Your students can still participate in the system even if they don't understand it. Why should they be informed?" He explained that if a surgeon is doing heart surgery, he must understand the system he is doing surgery on. Hence, if citizens want to improve their government and "get it to where they want it to be," they have to understand our system of government and be able to apply reason to it. So we all have a "vested interest in learning how to make sense of Madison's Constitutional Order."
Madison believed that for a government to be legitimate, it should be based on the consent of the people and protect their liberties. The Declaration of Independence explains that the British government was neither a government of consent nor did it protect colonists' liberties. British philosopher John Locke, who lived about 100 years before Jefferson, said yes, you could have a constitutional monarchy that is a legitimate government -- if it protects the fundamental rights and liberties of the people. So Madison was interested in designing a government that would be successful in achieving this goal.
Madison's Federalist #10 is perhaps the most famous of all the essays in The Federalist Papers, which were written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison in an attempt to explain the Constitution and to get the people of New York to ratify it. In it, Madison explores how best to manage human beings and how to get us to have a government that would protect our liberties. Human beings, by their nature, tend to ask selfishly and will form factions -- groups that will try to bend government power to meet their own needs at the expense of everyone else. Madison said that we could not control the causes of faction, but that we could control for its effects. If you "extend the sphere" and make a large republic, no one faction will be large enough to gain a majority.
Professor Marion also highlighted a lesser known part of Federalist #10. He said tha