You seem to forget that official protest against the act was led by Jefferson and Madison, and it was the former, not the latter, who voided the law and pardoned everybody convicted of it.
Madison, on the other hand, sold out nearly every principle he had once he became president. His sudden interest in a strong military and saber-rattling politics helped embroil the nation in the bloody and pointless War of 1812. I guess all good Enlightenment thinkers are for empire building expansionism (but, then, this is the guy who supervised the Louisiana Purchase, to proto-Manifest Destiny was nothing new to him).
His fears of a National Bank system that would put economic power in the hands of Northern plutocrats vanished when he realized the bank could be a tool of personal power. He also became and economic protectionist, supporting high tariffs in support of factory owners.
You should also point out that he was against internal improvements. Programs for the common good, such as road building and the creation of a canal system were best left in private or state hands. He was as good as his Republican name-sake there.
Pretty selective telling of history. Jefferson and Madison wrote the Kentucky/Virginia resolutions. Pardoning those under the Sedition Act was a valid way of nullifying legislative tyranny from the executive.
Madison placed economic embargoes on England in the hope they would be pressured to respect the freedom of the seas and the sovereignty of American shipping. They didn't. The outcome was war which Madison managed to get declared through the legislature. Something that doesn't happen today.
His understanding of liberal constitutionalism or republicanism, whatever you want to call it, remains the best of any politician prior to, and since the enlightenment. He helped establish what a legislative in a three power system was as well as what as an independent executive should be. Madison's view of the executive is far smaller and inter-dependent than what Jefferson thought it should be under the doctrine of separation of powers [ie doctrine of higher obligation]; or the Federalists for that matter.
'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.
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