James Madison's Prescription For Controlling Interest Groups

The founding fathers are intellectuals and due to their knowledge they were able to produce the Constitution. After taking the quiz, I found myself as James Madison, said to be quite short in a statue on the other hand incredibly smart and not flamboyant compared to his peers. He led the country into the war of 1812 against the British. He remembered as the "Father of the Constitution," the Fourth President of the United States and co-author of the Federalist. I learned that Madison kept most of his public papers because he senses the document will be of importance in the future example American Scholarship.

Madison’s primary focus throughout the beginning of this paper is factions. He holds a deep disdain for them as he thinks that they solely focus on themselves, while hurting other Americans, which is evident in this quote, (“…united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the

The Madisonian model influenced greatly the division of The United States government since it established the idea that there needs to be separation of powers in order to prevent any tyranny from occurring. The model influenced the development of checks and balances and separation of powers in order to protect the nation against the concentration of power in the national government. Furthermore, separation of powers establishes that the three branches of government, executive, legislative and judiciary must be detached of each other in order to prevent one branch from having more power over the others. Even though, the branches are detached from each other, the system of checks and balances limits the ability of one branch to have more authority,

Madison thinks that the majorities are going to take over and go over the rights of others and he says that participatory democracy is not good.

James Madison wrote The Federalist No. 10 to inform the people about the problems and possible solutions for the formation of factions. Through multiple statements concerning the dangers of factions and the benefits of a republic, Madison’s major argument was in favor of the United States Constitution. Madison defined a faction as "A number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion or interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." (Madison p. 1) Factions can be compared to the modern day lobby group; or as groups of people with a common self-interest. These groups are only involved for

What Madison is saying is that factions are going to be in a society no matter what. People are going to have different opinions. Factions are always going to exist, and no matter what, the government cannot remove factions because if they do then they are eliminating peoples rights. The constitution protects against this. ?Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.? This is one reason that the Americans had success (Ziegler 216).

The only way to manage faction is to remove its causes and to control its effects. By removing its causes Madison believes that liberty will be destroyed, or that by giving every citizen the same opinions, passions, and interests, would be impossible because people can never all be the same. Madison wanted the United States to be a republic, a form of democracy in which power is vested in representatives, so there will be a greater number of citizens represented and we will also be able to have more control over the factions effects.

James Madison wrote an essay called, “The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles.” He wrote a section called, “Federalist 39,” which talked about publicizing the Constitution, “partly federal and partly national .” James Madison argues with his claim because it was reliable with Dual Federalism.

With the concept of majority tyranny in mind, the founder’s, including Madison, divided the power of the government into three different branches. The need

One of the biggest sources that factions come from are from the distribution of land. There are two main ones, those with lots and land and those with little land. Even though these groups conflict, the government is obliged to guard the interests of each group. Madison stated two ways to control factions, which were to remove its causes and controlling its effect. Madison says next that he worries about corruption of members of the new government, but says it is less likely because representative will be chosen by a large population. He also discusses the differences between a republic and a democracy, along with that the main goal of the Constitution is to make all 13 states secure from threats and invasion.

1. The framers of the constitution had conflicting goals and interests. The first attempt at a new arrangement for self-government relied on institutions that were to weak to achieve action on behalf of the nation. The framers were able to limit its influence on the structure of government by working with many representatives of the states and using strong leaders to work through many different plans.

Madison is trying to point out that the power of the government needs to be spread out and that there needs to be checks and balances. There needs to be checks and balances in order to prevent one branch of government from gaining too much power and making decisions on its own. John Dalberg-Acton said “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." as quoted in Letters of Thomas Jefferson Concerning Philology and the Classics, Volume 137

The Framer’s notion of a republic, or democratic republic form of government, rested on the necessity to limit the formation and success of factions. Yet, as Dahl argued, the irony of Madison’s aversions to factions is that, not long after the ratification of the

The first solution to avoid majority tyranny that Madison proposed was to hold a regular election. The second remedy was a system to provide constitutional protection. Lastly the idea of the separation of powers makes it so that three branches of government hold power. The distribution of power among the federal government was at the root of Madisonian democracy.

James Madison in essay 48 argued checks and balances were an essential feature for separation of power to function effectively and to protect the people from tyranny. Madison asserted history has shown that unrestrained power has a tendency to encroach or expand outside of its original limitations. He insisted separating power by creating paper barriers was not enough to stop encroachments, because paper boundaries would be ignored. Madison maintained there must be a blending of powers bestowed to each branch. The branches each needed a constitutional defense against the other branches to prevent unlawful encroachments of power (FP pg 256). He declared representative republic’s