Rather than thinking of Madison as the father of the Constitution or even its main author, then, it is far more useful to regard him as the leading strategist of constitutional reform. His genius lay in recognizing that it was less important to design a perfect model of government than to ensure that the American people would agree that the entire process of adopting a new constitution had been properly conducted. That central insight—process over perfection—guided the Federalist supporters of the Constitution during the eleven months needed to secure its ratification.
Four main points demonstrate how Madison, as a genuine pioneer of constitutional statesmanship, sought to shape a process that the American people would deem legitimate.
First, Madison learned crucial lessons from his sustained service in the Continental Congress and the Virginia House of Delegates. That experience made him a keen observer of how deliberative bodies functioned and, more to the point, the advantages that a skillful and well-prepared leader could gain by shaping the agenda of debate. With the other delegations arriving late to Philadelphia, the timely Virginians and the host Pennsylvanians took the opportunity to present as ambitious a proposal for a new national government as anyone could have imagined.
Second, Madison became preoccupied with the need to find a clear method for distinguishing the status of ordinary statutes from the supremacy of a written constitution. Because one legislature could not bind its successors, a constitution ratified in that way could be violated or even revoked by a later meeting of the same body. To make the proposed Constitution the “supreme law of the land,” therefore, its ratification had to rest upon a clear and unequivocal affirmation by “we the people” themselves, through specially organized conventions serving for that sole purpose. And the people’s delegates, once assembled, could say only one of two words—either “yes” or “no”—to the whole Constitution. The state conventions could freely recommend amendments for future consideration. But they could not make their vote contingent on their prior approval.