“麦迪逊问题”中的“何为美国”

An Analysis on the American Constitution in the “Madison Problem”

美国在制宪时期的任务不仅是要建立一个统一的现代民族国家,还要形成多个具有主权性质的"邦"之间的联合。这一"国家"与"联邦"的复合属性深远地影响了美国基本政治制度的形成、运行方式及19世纪初美国的扩张。讨论"麦迪逊问题"的意义在于,它显示出麦迪逊为实现这一"复合共和国"所提出的两种不同的宪制解释方式:一种将宪法塑造为由人民代表之间的相互竞争与合作建立起来的规则体系,中立地处理各类社会纷争是宪法的目的所在;另一种强调在联邦政府集中行使行政权的过程中,宪制作为规范行政权运行方式和结果的手段,逐渐具备了基本结构和主权性质。这两种方式分别从社会和政府的角度规制了美国宪制,共同解释了美国早期扩张的动力和对待扩张结果的方式,揭示了美国在形成过程中在政治理论和政治实践方面表现出的深刻矛盾。

The main tasks of the Constitutional Convention were not only to build a modern national state but also to form a union of thirteen States which had been endowed with sovereign power.Therefore American basic institutions,the management of systems and its expansion in the early 19 th century were deeply influenced by this dual identity:the United States as a"state"as well as a"federation."In this sense,the"Madison Problem"could provide at least two modes of constitutional explanations to help us understand the meaning of the"compound republic":one famous mode of this regards the constitution as a neutral rule system,which allows competition and cooperation among different representations of the people;the other mode,which usually has been ignored,focuses on the executive power of the federation.This paper argues that the executive power of federation has taken on the crucial role of building the union,which stimulates the balance of power as well as sovereignty belonging to the federation.