What Degree of Madness: Madison's Method to Make America States Again by Joe Wolverton

What Degree of Madness asks a simple question: what would Madison say about a people who pay for the machinery that destroys their own liberty? Joe Wolverton, II, J.D., reads Federalist No. 46 against present conflicts and shows that the Founder’s own plan — “powerful and at hand” — remains usable if states and citizens will act. The book traces consolidation’s rise, then turns to lawful remedies rooted in compact theory and the rules of contracts.

Beginning with the Founders, Wolverton distinguishes creator and creature and re-establishes the Constitution as a compact among sovereign states. He then applies contract law to test contested federal measures. The analysis moves quickly into practice: noncooperation by state officers; formal interposition by legislatures; county-level refusal to assist federal enforcement; and coordination among adjoining states that presents obstacles Washington would hesitate to confront. Throughout, sources stay close to the Founders — the Principles of 1798, Madison’s Report of 1800, and John Taylor of Caroline’s Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated.

Case chapters make the methods concrete. Wolverton examines indefinite detention under the National Defense Authorization Act, the insurance mandates grouped under “Obamacare,” warrantless data sweeps by the surveillance apparatus, and federal limits on the right to keep and bear arms. He also revisits immigration versus naturalization and explains how the Seventeenth Amendment severed the states from the Senate, weakening the structural check the framers expected.

This book serves state legislators intent on honoring their oath; attorneys and litigators who know courts are only one venue among many; grassroots organizers building county-to-county networks; and teachers and citizens who want usable language grounded in sources. Read What Degree of Madness as a manual for action — concise enough to use, grounded enough to defend. The aim is steady: restore federalism in practice. Follow Madison’s plans of resistance, revive state sovereignty, and Make America STATES Again — by forcing the federal apparatus back within its constitutional limits.