Civic Virtue In Framing The Government Essay

Tyler Thomsen Unit 2 Question 1

In Federalist 51 James Madison wrote, “In Framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.” what is the challenge of both empowering and limiting the government.

What role does civic virtue play in both empowering and limiting governmental power?

If no one has civic virtue no one will try to check others and won’t stop misuse of power. The courts will only get involved if a case is presented.

What are the “auxiliary precautions” that Madison referred to in Federalist 51, and what are their significance to constitutional government.

Tyler Thomsen Unit 2 Question 1
James Madison, along with all the other Federalists, suffered great litigation over creating a limited government and preserving such a limited government. As Madison late wrote in Federalist 51,
“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 encroachment of the others.”
Madison knew tyranny and misuse of power would occur in any government.

Consequently, a government must be in a constant state of self-consciousness, whereas it is continually checking itself to ensure its constitutionality. Thus, the idea of checks and balances would be paramount for a government to remain limited.
However, the Federalists understood that one group with all the power would not fairly evaluate itself, so there must be separate groups evaluating each other. As a result, separate branches of government must exist to separate power. Hence Federalism, or separation of power. In order for a government to find a middle ground of power, it must first include a system of checks and balances; and second, provide a federalist system of separate powers for the procedure of checks and balances to occur.
Accordingly, civic virtue would have a tremendous role in empowering and limiting a government. Given that a constitutional government must have a system of checks and balances, this would include an incentive to follow through with checking other branches. The best instance would be that of the courts; the court cannot check agencies and legislature at random. One must first create a case to bring before the court. Consequently, spending a substantial amount of money to protect the rights and uphold the Constitution. Without civic virtue, the judicial branch would be without purpose; leaving the other two branches without evaluation, Tyranny soon

follows.