hw

Background In 1787-88, there was a raging debate in newspapers and pamphlets distributed across the American states about the Constitution that had emerged from the Constitutional Convention. Two groups, the Federalists, who favored the national republic organized in the Constitution, and the Anti-Federalists, who felt the Constitution went too far in centralizing government, waged a debate in the newspapers mostly in New York state. In effect, they were fighting for New York state’s ratification of the Constitution. But the literature each side produced found its way into newspapers in other states as well and became a focus of discussion.

James Madison and Alexander Hamilton led the Federalists and supported the ratification of the Constitution. To sway public opinion in New York to support ratification, they were part of a small group that produced a series of 87 essays published in four major newspapers in that state. Madison was the sole author of the most famous of these essays, the tenth in the series, referred to as Federalist No. 10. Its official title was “The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection.” It was published on November 22, 1787.

As the title suggests, Madison wanted to explain what were the necessary characteristics of a successful modern republic. As you listen to the video and read the excerpts from the source, make sure you understand the two characteristics and why they would work in an American republic with a constitution.

Source After a passage in which Madison outlines all the problems of what he calls “factions,” or small groups of citizens pursuing their own narrow interests, he concludes:

It is in vain to say, that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm: nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all, without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another, or the good of the whole….

The inference to which we are brought, is, that the causes of faction cannot be removed; and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.

Madison then proposes a solution for controlling the problem of faction.

By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority, at the same time, must be prevented; or the majority, having such co-existent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we

well know, that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy in proportion to the number combined together; that is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes needful.

He compares democracy to republic on the question of controlling faction.

From this view of the subject, it may be concluded, that a pure democracy, by which I mean, a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert, results from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual.…

A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the union.

He then explains the two reasons why a large American republic is better than pure democracy.

The two great points of difference, between a democracy and a republic, are, first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.

He then explains why a successful modern (American) republic must have in place the two conditions that he has called advantages.

The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice, will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen, that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good, than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests of the people. The question resulting is, whether small or extensive republics are most favourable to the election of proper guardians of the public weal; and it is clearly decided in favour of the latter.

And he argues that Americans should support the Constitution and the national republic that it represents and set aside the Articles of Confederation which was a simple union of the states.

The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular states, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other states: a religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it, must secure the national councils against any danger from that source: a rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the union, than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire state.

Background James Madison published Federalist, No. 51 on February 6, 1788. It was officially titled “The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments.” As its title implies, Madison was trying to lay out a scheme for the separation of powers and explain how this would prevent the concentration of power in the republic and the denial of rights to the individual.

As always, Madison argues that a “faction,” people forming groups and contending for power, is the great challenge of republics. But faction is difficult to avoid because it is in the nature of men. He famously said, “If men were angels, there would be no government necessary.” So the cure is not to try to prevent the inevitable faction, but to create numerous factions and give them the power to counteract and block one another.

While free elections will usually guarantee liberty from the tyranny of the minority, that is a dictatorship, Madison was even more concerned about the risk of factions and the way they could combine together to create a tyranny of the majority. His solution was a constitutional one — design a structure of formal institutions in the government to check the majority. What he called the “departments,” or the offices of the government, had to be broken into many parts: “The society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests and classes of citizens that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority.”

Unlike his colleague, Alexander Hamilton, Madison believed that the state governments were a beneficial feature of the republic. The states would act as another check or control on the federal government as a whole. Therefore, there were checks and balances on multiple levels in the American republic he envisioned.

Sources Madison explains that it is necessary for the branches (what he calls departments) of government to be completely separate and not have any power over each other.

To what expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the Constitution? … it is evident that each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little

agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. Were this principle rigorously adhered to, it would require that all the appointments for the supreme executive, legislative, and judiciary magistracies should be drawn from the same fountain of authority, the people, through channels having no communication whatever with one another.

But even this separation of powers, according to Madison, may not be enough. America has one more separation of power between the federal government on the one hand and the states on the other.

In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself. Second. It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens.

In perhaps one of Madison’s most famous statements, he declares that this system of multiple “departments” checking each other works because it works with rather than against human nature.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

The Framers believed that the legislative power, which was closest to the people, was the most powerful. Therefore, such a powerful agency needed to be separated yet again into two houses.

In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit.>/p>

Madison turns to the rights and protection of the individual citizen from the tyranny of the majority. In hereditary governments, royalty and aristocrats had traditionally played the role of protectors of individuals. However, a republic without hereditary power must depend on the whole society. Yet the republic could also protect individuals by ensuring that, again, power was not too concentrated. Madison argues that the size of the republic will inherently create many “sects” that work against each other, thus, protecting minorities.

The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same government.