ABSTRACT
This chapter presents James Madison's analysis of the sources of governmental authority in order to challenge dominant interpretations of his political theory. Madison's political theory follows from his perception of the fundamental dilemma involved in tracing both governmental power and restraints on it through opinion to original human nature. Both portrayals dismiss Madison's prescription of governmental forms and his reasons for doing so because political institutions are regarded as reflections of underlying groups or a dominant class seeking to curb majority rule. Madison's general conclusion was that a stable political system is one in which government acquires the "moral and political authority emanating from the actual possession of power, and a just and beneficial exercise of it" in conformity with political values deeply rooted and widely shared as the sense of the community. Madison was neither an opponent of majority rule and political parties responsive to public opinion nor a pluralist.
