What Makes Liberty Possible?

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.

With comparison between a small and large government, James Madison argues that a larger government, like the one proposed by the new United States Constitution, would protect from the tyranny of the majority that would likely be the result of maintaining a small government. He argues that voters are more likely to elect “fit” representatives, as compared to the higher corruption plausibility present in a smaller government. Madison formulates an important argument in favor of the government presented by the Constitution.

I was very interested in finding the history of James Madison. The reason Why I choose James Madison Because I went to visited his college when I was in high school but I got married and move to the tidewater a rea and decide to go to Saintleo.So if you would be a little patient with me you will learn a lot about James Madison. So we are going to look at where he was born and some history about his achievement and some history about his family. I hope you are ready to take a ride with me through the history on James Madison.

Federalist 51 mentions that “the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for the inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches.” Keeping this idea in mind, it is the reason why the legislative branch is divided into the House of Representatives and the Senate. By dividing the legislative branch, Congress assures that too many individuals do not control one large portion of the government and that the legislative branch works with more efficiency without too many conflicting opinions. Additionally, in the Judiciary branch, the author explains that “some deviations [from absolute democracy] must be admitted.” The exception is necessary because according the Hamilton or Madison, the branch needs specific qualifications in order to elect essential members and that the position must be permanent so that it combat all dependence on authority. This concept sets up the process by which Supreme Court justices are put into power today where the president appoints a judge to serve for life or until the judge chooses to retire. Moreover, the article proposes the design that the overall government itself should be split into two sections, the federal and state level. This so that the state government can adhere to the values of its individual populations while the federal government lays down the general guidelines so that the state government’s values does not exploit the citizen’s natural

Slavery was a problem that faced all Americans in the years prior to the American Civil War. Many Americans wanted to bring about an end to it but were unable to come up with a workable plan. One person to try and find an answer to the problem was himself a slave owner; he was James Madison. The institution of slavery deeply concerned James Madison, even at the start of his political career. During his career, Madison held many important political offices; he used these offices to try to bring to an end this "evil" in his society. Some criticized him for not using his power to fuller advantage, but Madison had a plan for achieving his objective.

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may be justly pronounced the very definition of tyranny…(L)iberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.”(Document B) The main idea of this quote is that if all of the branches are in the same hands of a person or group, they will get power hungry and it will turn into a tyranny, which is what the colonies are trying not to do. Madison thinks that 3 branches of government is a good system because each has different people that wouldn’t gain too much power. If a person was in more than one branch of government, he thinks it wouldn’t work because then they could gain too much power and they would turn into a tyrant. Even if they had a democracy, it wouldn’t work because then the people would have all of the say and they would get all of the power. The quote connects back to the thesis because it is about if all of the power was in the same hands, then it’s not a separation of government, it is a combination of

In 1809, James Madison became the fourth President of the United States. Before Madison Presidency, he was know to be one of the main founding fathers, contributor to the ratification of the constitution and writer of the federalist papers. While James Madison is known more for his significant achievements before his Presidency, He was still able to have some influence on how the presidency would be shaped after he left office. The presidency, in itself, also had shaped how Madison governed while President of the United States. Madison's main influences are said to be caused mainly by mistakes that he had made early on in his Presidency and from his decision leading to and during the War of 1812.

There are numerous possible conclusions as to what the Constitution may have looked like had James Madison gotten his way at the debates in the Federal Convention. Initially, Madison’s vision of government lined up with the Virginia Plan presented by Edmund Randolph to the Federal Convention on May 29th, 1787. This plan stressed the interest of a stronger national government, with representation in the legislative branch based on the apportionment of people, instead of states. It is possible to speculate that this early version of Madison’s vision of a constitution stood no chance of ratification by the minimum required, nine of the thirteen states, as the proposed union diminished the lesser-populated states equal stature as a state. Nevertheless, if the Virginia plan had been adopted as our national government there would be an energetic national government, composed of three branches, with supreme authority over the states.

When James Madison was born in 1751, the thought of an American government was nonexistent (History.com Staff “James”). What Madison would grow up to become changed not only the nation, but also the world. James Madison is one of the most influential leaders in the history of the Unites States. As president, he helped shape the nation that we call the United States. He expanded the scattered territory to include new states. The War of 1812 was started and successfully concluded during Madison’s eight years in office. Madison navigated the choppy waters of the fledgling nation with great tact. James Madison effectively led a young nation to greatness.

James Madison wanted to insure that all branches of government are independent to assure independency for each of the states. Madison didn’t want to give a specific branch to much power, so Madison believed that conflicts of interest were inherent in human nature. Meaning that Madison thought no matter what the issue is, there will be conflict on whether or not it is constitutional. Therefore Madison didn’t want a specific branch of government to control society. Madison also didn’t want each branch to be completely dependent on each other. But Madison and the other framers did not want to make all of the branches elective because it might have practical difficulties.

James Madison was a very important person, he was known as the Father of the Constitution. He wrote most of the Constitution because he was such a great writer and he was also very smart, he had very bright ideas. Madison also wrote the Bill of Rights and was the key writer of that and he wrote a third of the Federalist Papers. I think that everyone should know about James Madison not only because he was known as the Father of the Constitution he was also one of our presidents from 1809 to 1817 putting him as president through the war of 1812.

Madison agrees with the system of checks and balances and talks about the best ways to make this system work. Madison discusses that the people should have the power to elect all of the officials. Federalist paper fifty-one is an amazingly insightful paper. Federalist paper fifty-one is the system

At the convention, each state appointed delegates to attend and help develop a better and more effective constitution. According to Madison he wanted to “shift the United States from a confederated basis of equal state representation to a “republican” basis of representation by population…” (Gilman, Graber and Whittington 95). Under this plan, states with a larger population would have a huge advantage in representation than those states with a smaller population. The problem with this however was that smaller states felt that they would be left powerless due to the bigger states controlling the show. A big change was proposed that, “Resolved that the Legislative, Executive and judicial powers of the several States, ought to be bound by oath to support the Articles of the Union” (Gilman, Graber and Whittington 96). This meant that the Virginia plan called for a national government of three branches: judicial, legislative and executive. The legislative branch then had the power to deny state laws. This plan suggested that the legislative branch be made up of two houses again represented by population depending on the states. The concept of checks and balances can be seen coming into place here, to help keep the government in one branch from getting too powerful. His ideas were smart but the outcome of a republic was not what the states and people

Yet, several decades later, Henry Adams concluded that Madison's presidency was “a long recitation of 'executive weaknesses' and mismanagement.” (Rutland 1990). And this judgment has been wide accepted by many historians. First of all, James Madison took down the banking system. When the first Bank of the United States was scheduled to expire in 1811, and while Madison's treasury secretary said the bank was a necessity, Congress failed to re-authorize it. As the absence of a national bank made war with Britain very difficult to finance, Congress passed a bill in 1814 chartering a second national bank, but Madison also vetoed it. It is not until 1816 that the second national bank was chartered when had learned the bank was necessary from the

Throughout the entire document, the reader is constantly reminded of the importance of government never having the opportunity to take advantage of its power. The proposal for the separation of government not only into three branches, but also into federal and state governments makes it evident how important it was for Madison. Most of the proposals introduced by Madison have been used for the current government and have been proved to be successful. The checks and balances system was also an essential part for the solution to the government’s unavoidable problems according to Madison. As for the way the human nature was represented in the essay was very particular to Madison’s perception.