cam . # .

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.