Madison's View Of Governmental Structure Summary

Madison’s View of Governmental Structure In 1787, when a series debating argued about the approval of the proposal of the United States Constitution, James Madison and other federalist published several articles in the newspaper of New York to defend the proposed Constitution. In Madison’s writings, he explains the origin of faction, the harm of the factions, and the methods to protect the government from the violence of faction. His view of human nature is realistic and insightful. It also helps people to understand the reason of the structure of the United States political system. Madison believes factions which caused by unequal distribution of property is unsafe for a united country. Therefore, in order to decrease the effects of faction,

In Madison’s writing, he wrote “… And the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to center in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters. (Page 68)” and “… communication is always checked by distrust in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary. (Page 69)” Madison points out that when a republic is bigger, more qualified candidates can be chosen from the citizens. People can find the best fit person to run the country. Besides, once there are more representatives, if few of them corrupted, the small proportion of bad people won’t hurt the whole society. Then the citizens will have less chance to be controlled by the few. Moreover, as more representatives in government mean more opinions will be involved, it required more communication among individuals. It will also increase the difficulties for factions to agree on the same purpose, and then the country will be less affected by factions. In the political science lecture of the Introduction to Political Thought and Theory, Professor Al Schendan explains Madison’s target is to create more factions to decrease single faction

He points out when someone judges in his own case, he certainly will include bias in his judgment. To make sure judge based on what is good for the whole society, not a single person, it is necessary for others to check the judge itself. In order to make governmental branches consistently check other branches, Madison reflects the nature of human. He believes human nature is ambitious that wants possess more power than others. Since ambition is human nature that cannot be changed, Madison suggests the government should convert ambition in a good way which is uses it to check each branch to prevent abuse of power. He states “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.” Hence, to avoid the violence of faction, Madison proposes the U.S. government should use the model of separation of