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Throughout Federalist 10, James Madison argues that we must allow people to separate into groups according to their needs and beliefs regarding the political system of our country. These factions will protect interests and create an elevated government comprised of the most knowledgeable and educated men to protect the citizenry. His arguments reflect his status as a wealthy and educated landowner that must protect himself in the face of the common people. I will argue that Madison’s argument is flawed, which he alludes to in his writing, because he neglects to acknowledge that people are self-interested and therefore, morally corrupt. This self-interest will be the downfall of Madison’s government as private interests take root and the will of the people is ignored in all places but elections. Human nature cannot be changed, we evolve, we learn but humans interact by finding commonality with others. We create factions through religious ideology, politics, race, gender, and intelligence in an attempt to simplify the world and create a system that we can understand. Madison recogniz...
Within the pages of One United People: The Federalist Papers and the National Idea, author Ed Millican dissects not only The Federalist piece by piece, but scrutinizes numerous works of other authors in regards to the papers written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. As a result, a strong conclusion asserts that the motives of The Federalist was to create a sturdy nation-state but above all, that American polity is far more complex than pluralism and a free-market economy.
Federalist 10 is an article by James Madison and by far is one of the most famous. In the article Madison stressed that the strongest factor in the Constitution is that it establishes a government capable of controlling the violence and damage caused by factions. Factions are a group of individuals who gather together in a union or political party and are against government control. They are sometimes groups called ‘sub-factions’ and they were technically a party within a party. Factions try desperately to advance their agenda, special economic interests, and political opinions. Factions work against the public interest and infringe upon the rights of others. To put an end to factions is inevitable. Madison summed it up best by saying as long as men hold different opinions, have different amounts of wealth, and have different amount of property, they will continue to associate with those similar. In other words, those who had large amounts of money and owned land/property were the typical individuals who would be in factions.
During and after the turmoil of the American Revolution, the people of America, both the rich and the poor, the powerful and the meek, strove to create a new system of government that would guide them during their unsure beginning. This first structure was called the Articles of Confederation, but it was ineffective, restricted, and weak. It was decided to create a new structure to guide the country. However, before a new constitution could be agreed upon, many aspects of life in America would have to be considered. The foremost apprehensions many Americans had concerning this new federal system included fear of the government limiting or endangering their inalienable rights, concern that the government’s power would be unbalanced, both within its branches and in comparison to the public, and trepidation that the voice of the people would not be heard within the government.
While the government of the United States owes its existence to the contents and careful thought behind the Constitution, some attention must be given to the contributions of a series of essays called the Federalist Papers towards this same institution. Espousing the virtues of equal representation, these documents also promote the ideals of competent representation for the populace and were instrumental in addressing opposition to the ratification of the Constitution during the fledgling years of the United States. With further reflection, the Federalists, as these essays are called, may in turn owe their existence, in terms of their intellectual underpinnings, to the writings of the philosopher and teacher, Aristotle.
During his entire life, James Madison, who is one of the founding fathers, contributed many dedications to the States, especially when creating the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. As the fourth president of the U.S, he consciously chose to create a new model of presidential power that he thought would fit better with the system of the separation of powers after seeing “the danger overwrought executive power poses to republican constitutionalism” (Kleinerman). Despite of having such good intention, some of his actions led the country through some significant suffers.
Madison begins perhaps the most famous of the Federalist papers by stating that one of the strongest arguments in favor of the Constitution is the fact that it establishes a government capable of controlling the violence and damage caused by factions. Madison defines that factions are groups of people who gather together to protect and promote their special economic interests and political opinions. Although these factions are at odds with each other, they frequently work against the public interests, and infringe upon the rights of others.
In Federalist Paper Number 10, Madison sees Factions as being inevitable. Humans hold differing opinions and are all living under different circumstances, and are likely to group together with those most like themselves. Some groups of people will attempt to work together to benefit themselves even if it goes against public interests and even if it infringes upon the rights of others. In the Federalist Paper Number 10, Madison feared that Factions could be detrimental to the common good and in order to minimize the effects and control the effects of Factions, the best form of government would be a large republic. According to Madison, to minimize the negative consequences of Factions, they must either be controlled or the causes of Factions must be removed. Since he describes the causes of Factions being the different interests and living conditions between individuals, it can be argued that this solution is not very feasible. It would be impossible to make sure every single person makes the same amount of money, has the same goals, and even goes through similar life experiences. The greatest source of Factions, the deepest and biggest cause of Factions, according to Madison, is the unequal distribution of property. The acquisition of property or lack of property creates class divisions the foster differing interests. Since it is not possible to
The dangers of faction can somewhat outweigh the good. The framers of the American Constitution feared the power that could possibly come about by organized interest groups. Madison wrote "The public good is disregarded in the conflict of rival factions citizens who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." However, the framers believed that interest groups thrived because of freedom, the same privilege that Americans utilize to express their views. Madison saw direct democracy as a danger to individual rights and advocated a representative democracy to protect individual liberty, and the general public from the effects of such inequality in society. Madison says "A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischief's of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
When discussing the new science of politics laid out in the Federalist papers, it is imperative to understand that proponents of the Constitution had various reasons for writing these papers, not the least of which was convincing critics that a strong central government that would not oppress but actually protect individual freedoms as well as encouraging the state of New York to agree to ratify the Constitution.
In conclusion, Madison thinks the human nature is ambitious, and the fixed outcome of human ambitions is people create factions to promote their own interests. In the case of preventing corrupt or mischief by factions, he believes majority and pure democracy is not a solution. The method he advocated is a large republic with checking system. He converts human ambition to provide internal checks and balances in government. His point of view stimulated the approval of the proposal of the United States Constitution.
Following the failure of the Articles of Confederation, a debate arose discussing how a centralized government ought to be organized. The prevailing opinion ultimately belonged to the Federalists, whose philosophy was famously outlined in The Federalist Papers. Recognizing that in a free nation, man would naturally divide himself into factions, they chose not to remedy this problem by stopping it at its source; instead, they would limit its effects by placing strict structural safeguards within the government's framework. The Federalists defined a facti...
Guided by his fervent and unwavering commitment to reason and the principles of natural law and natural rights, Thomas Jefferson crafted his own unique political and social vision for the United States of America which, excluding a few notable omissions, has survived to become an important contribution to the cornerstone of American democracy. His vision was of an agrarian and populist nation of citizens with access to general and widespread education, whose rulers are chosen on grounds of their individual merits and talents rather than on basis of birth and inheritance, and governed by a decentralized system of government, whose main duty is to safeguard the unalienable natural rights and freedom of the individual, and the general well-being and happiness of the citizen, as well as the unimpeded enforcement of the general will of society at large. This vision is the result and culmination of his personal beliefs on the topics of universal liberty and political philosophy, weighed and viewed through the discerning and logical lens of reason.
During the construction of the new Constitution, many of the most prominent and experienced political members of America’s society provided a framework on the future of the new country; they had in mind, because of the failures of the Articles of Confederation, a new kind of government where the national or Federal government would be the sovereign power, not the states. Because of the increased power of the national government over the individual states, many Americans feared it would hinder their ability to exercise their individual freedoms. Assuring the people, both Alexander Hamilton and James Madison insisted the new government under the constitution was “an expression of freedom, not its enemy,” declaring “the Constitution made political tyranny almost impossible.” (Foner, pg. 227) The checks and balances introduced under the new and more powerful national government would not allow the tyranny caused by a king under the Parliament system in Britain. They insisted that in order achieve a greater amount of freedom, a national government was needed to avoid the civil unrest during the system under the Articles of Confederation. Claiming that the new national government would be a “perfect balance between liberty and power,” it would avoid the disruption that liberty [civil unrest] and power [king’s abuse of power in England] caused. The “lackluster leadership” of the critics of the new constitution claimed that a large land area such as America could not work for such a diverse nation.
In Federalist No. 10, James Madison stresses that “measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” Madison philosophized that a large republic, composed of numerous factions capable of competing with each other and the majority must exist in order to avoid tyranny of majority rule.# When Federalist No. 10 was published, the concept of pluralism was not widely used. However, the political theory that is the foundation for United States government was the influential force behind pluralism and its doctrines.
In the United States there are many different power relations. Many people argue that one of these political theories are better than the other one. Their is a total of five power theories to explain the power structure in the United States (Rules). In politics political participation, political institutions and public policy is a big part in politics. The political theories that are presented are Pluralism, State Autonomy, Elite Theory,