Why Does the American Form of Government Work?

Federalist Essays #10:

"If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed."

"The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. Besides other impediments, it may be remarked that, where there is a consciousness of unjust or dishonorable purposes, communication is always checked by distrust in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary."

In this paper, Madison identifies one of the largest threats facing a functioning government is preventing one party or one set of interests to entirely dominate the legislative or political decision making. This is important because if the government was controlled entirely by one group, they could pass policies to limit the rights of opposition party or other classes. He argues that the best way to accomplish this is to create a large republic, which would involve all the colonies joining together. His argument for this is that by having a society with more unique views, it makes a powerful majority less likely to form. One reason for this is that there are more nuanced differences in the policies of different groups. For example. if a majority of rich land owners comes to power, normally they could take action to hurt the liberties of the poor. However, it is possible that such a policy could not be passed over the entire country because of economic differences in the South and New England. The different goals of the regions prevents the policy from passing, even though a majority has formed. This is the argument Madison makes for why all 13 colonies must be part of a single republic.

Federal Essays #51

"In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty, 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. Perhaps such a plan of constructing the several departments would be less difficult in practice than it may in contemplation appear. Some difficulties, however, and some additional expense would attend the execution of it. Some deviations, therefore, from the principle must be admitted. In the constitution of the judiciary department in particular, it might be inexpedient to insist rigorously on the principle: first, because peculiar qualifications being essential in the members, the primary consideration ought to be to select that mode of choice which best secures these qualifications; secondly, because the permanent tenure by which the appointments are held in that department, must soon destroy all sense of dependence on the authority conferring them."

"But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place."

Federalist Essay #51 argues for a system of checks and balances to be placed on government, but also explains why the particular system laid out in the Constitution is the best way to do it. He concedes that an in an ideal world, every public official would derive their power from the people and only the people. However, that world does not function, both because it would be impossible to elect that many people, and sometimes qualifications are more important than where their power comes from, such as with judges. As a result, he instead argues that instead of less power over each other, the branches of government should have more power over each other. By each branch being able to check the advances of each of the others, no one branch is ever granted excess power or an overbearing role in government. Although it may seem contrary at first, the best way to prevent a branch of government from gaining power over another branch is to give all the branches power over each other to start with.