Madison's most important intellectual contribution to the Constitution was his argument that individual liberties would be safer from state power and majority intolerance in a large republic than in a small one (upending the orthodoxy of contemporary political thought, which accepted Montesquieu's dictum that only small republics could succeed). Unlike more conservative nationalists, Madison remained a steadfast revolutionary, one whose desire for an effective national Government never outweighed his commitment to popular control of that Government. Banning admits that Madison perhaps 'confused the people's understanding with his own'). His reading of Madison does his subject the courtesy of taking him at his word Madison always said that he did not change his views in the early 1790's but that others violated the people's understanding of the limits of national authority (although Mr. Banning's insights come not from newly discovered documents but from ones that have been pored over by countless scholars.

True, both favored a stronger national Government than existed under the Articles of Confederation, but for different ends: Madison wanted to secure religious liberties and to prevent state rivalries from turning America into an assemblage of armed and hostile nations like Europe, while Hamilton wanted to model the United States after the most advanced European nation, Britain. Even those areas where Madison and Hamilton appear closest are deceptive, he argues.

NOR was he an advocate of broadly interpreting powers granted under the Constitution. Attempting to assign reasons for Madison's change of heart is futile, because no such change took place. Banning argues that Hamilton (and many others) simply did not follow the trajectory of Madison's thought closely enough. Historians have tended to accept Hamilton's sincere shock as evidence of Madison's having changed course, but Mr. Hamilton himself felt betrayed when Madison opposed his proposals for financing the states' debts and establishing a national bank. Historians have struggled to understand why Madison broke with his former ally Hamilton over Hamilton's financial program for the new nation. Madison (1751-1836) has long been viewed as one of the leading champions of strong national Government, but Lance Banning's brilliant and original new book, 'The Sacred Fire of Liberty,' asks: What kind of champion? And of what sort of national Government? The answers he provides are surprising and persuasive. Without James Madison, the story of the nation's founding, and the shape of its Government, would have been very different. He sponsored the Bill of Rights in the first Congress, and was initially President Washington's closest adviser. Then, as a principal author (along with Alexander Hamilton) of 'The Federalist Papers,' he provided arguments that helped secure the ratification of the Constitution by state conventions. Only 36 at the time of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, he nonetheless emerged as the leading figure behind the drafting of the Constitution that summer. Ideas he had, in abundance, along with a ferocious capacity for hard work and a streak of adamantine stubbornness.

He had a weak speaking voice, and preferred to put his ideas across on paper. JAMES MADISON was a small man (about 5 feet 6 inches tall), still boyish-looking well into his 30's, intensely private and painfully shy. THE SACRED FIRE OF LIBERTY James Madison andthe Founding of the Federal Republic.By Lance Banning.Illustrated.

The sacred fire of liberty