Question

How does James Madison advocate for protections and safeguards for the rights and liberties of the people?

Address your ideas about whether Federalist 51 is simply a propaganda piece written to secure the ratification of the Constitution, or is it a document that expresses the “original intent” of the Founders (all Federalist Papers were signed “Publius”) and accordingly has a special position in constitutional interpretation?

Answer 1

• 1.Separate Branches of Government
• -Security of dividing the power
• -One branch will never be overpowered
• -Each branch must refrain from encroachment of other branches
• 2.Legislative Checks and Balances in the Same Level of Government
• -Legislative branch is deemed the most powerful branch
• -Divided into House of Representatives and he Senate
• -Disallows the Legislative branch from becoming to powerful
• -Representatives serve 2 year terms
• Senators serve 6 year terms
• 3.A Compound Republic or Division of Powers Between the General Government and State Governments
• -Allows states with different interests to adapt laws for their specific needs
• -Increases power for minority factions
• -Allows country to be diverse and appeal to multiple different ethnic backgrounds
• 4.A Multiplicity of Interests and Sects in Society
• -Different areas of the Country have different interests
• -Allowance of state governments enable different interests to be fulfilled
• -Everyone should be represented equally
• 5.Faction in Federalist 10
• -Some factions of society have minority interests and beliefs
• -A republic is able to protect the liberties and interests of the whole community
• - Individual states come into play as protection of each faction is displayed
• James Madison begins his famous federalist paper by explaining that the purpose of this essay is to help the readers understand how the structure of the proposed government makes liberty possible. Each branch should be, in Madison's opinion, mostly independent.
• To assure such independence, no one branch should have too much power in selecting members of the other two branches. If this principle were strictly followed, it would mean that the citizens should select the president, the legislators, and the judges. But the framers recognized certain practical difficulties in making every office elective.
• In particular, the judicial branch would suffer because the average person is not aware of the qualifications judges should possess. Judges should have great ability, but also be free of political pressures. Since federal judges are appointed for life, their thinking will not be influenced by the president who appoints them, nor the senators whose consent the president will seek.
• The members of each branch should not be too dependent on the members of the other two branches in the determination of their salaries. The best security against a gradual concentration of power in any one branch is to provide constitutional safeguards that would make such concentration difficult. The constitutional rights of all must check one man's personal interests and ambitions.
• He wanted to avoid a situation in which any one group controlled the decisions of a society. Free elections and the majority principle protected the country from dictatorship, that is, the tyranny of a minority. However, he was equally concerned about the greater risk of tyranny of the majority. A central institutional issue for him was how to minimize this risk.
• Madison's solution characteristically relied not only on formal institutions, which could be designed, but also on the particular sociological structure of American society, which he took as a fortunate starting point for the framers of the new constitution. The institutional component in his solution was checks and balances, so that there were multiple entry points into the government and multiple ways to offset the power that any one branch of the government might otherwise acquire over another.
• Justice is the purpose of government and civil society. If government allows or encourages strong groups to combine together against the weak, liberty will be lost and anarchy will result. And the condition of anarchy tempts even strong individuals and groups to submit to any form of government, no matter how bad, which they hope will protect them as well as the weak.
• Madison concludes that self-government flourishes in a large country containing many different groups. Some countries are too large for self-government, but the proposed plan modifies the federal principle enough to make self-government both possible and practical in the United States.
• Due to time limit,remaining questions can be asked as another question,they will be answered,thankyou for your cooperation