Government: A Reflection on Human Nature

The United States has had a turbulent history, to say the least. From the Civil War to the Great Depression to the Cold War, generations of Americans have witnessed the slow climb of a fledgling, rebel nation to one of the superpowers of the world. How has a nation that isn’t even 300 years old managed to become so powerful so quickly? The answer can be found in the government.  

In Federalist Essay No. 51, James Madison points out that government is the "greatest of all reflections on human nature". Human nature is by no means perfect; we all have evil and good inside ourselves. However, it has always been in human nature to cooperate; great empires have been built on the basis of teamwork and shared goals alone. Government, especially the American government, is based off of cooperation, and that is one of the only reasons why it even works.

In the 10th Federalist Essay, Madison discusses disunity among factions of people living in the same country, and how a republic is the best way to control the factions. He believes that the "causes of faction cannot be removed", because "Liberty is to faction what air is to people". Without liberty, there would be no "political life", and thus no factions. The only way to control a faction is to control its effects, by way of a republican form of government.

"The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other”.

Madison points out democracies as "spectacles of turbulence and contention". In democracies, everyone has a vote in the government. Madison believes that democracies are detrimental because even if there is one person with an obnoxious or unsavory idea, that person can be the one who prevents legislature from being passed. Ultimately, cooperation of a smaller group of people is nearly impossible, because a majority can be easily formed with just a few people. America, with its large population of people, is better suited towards a republican form of government, one where it is hard for people to invade the rights of others.

Although some might point out that electing a few representatives to make decisions for many people may be infringing on the rights of the people, it is important to remind them of the idea of teamwork. Sometimes it is necessary for people to sacrifice some of their more radical ideals, for the greater good. Even in a democracy, some ideas will not be put into effect. A republic is just an easier and more streamlined way for the government to help the people without worrying about having to appease a few people with radical ideas. This is not to say that those ideas won’t be heard, but if a majority of people disagree with those ideas, a republic will be better equipped to deal with it faster.

One of the most fundamental ideas our government is based on is the idea that everyone has the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When the colonists first drew up the Articles of Confederation, they were intent on making sure that everyone maintains those rights, and that the government was never too centralized that it could become tyrannical. The resulting form of government was weak, indecisive, and it was impossible to get anything done. The Constitution that was drawn up in 1787 provided a way for the government to be both powerful and not tyrannical, by using a series of checks and balances. The idea of checks and balances is an idea outlined by Baron de Montesquieu in The Spirit of Laws in 1750. James Madison reiterates these ideas for the American government in his 51st Federalist Paper.

“But 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 encroachments of the others. 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. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.”

Ambition- another fundamental aspect of human nature. If each branch of the American government is made up of people with strong ideas and ambition, sometimes it is necessary for another branch to have the same ambition, so neither of the two can overpower the other.

It is worth noting that Madison believes that “members of each department should be as little dependent as possible on those of the others”, which reneges on the whole idea of teamwork as a major pillar of government. But like good and evil, teamwork and independence go hand in hand; it is impossible to have teamwork without independence, and vice versa.

Like humans, the American government works because it has faults- and we recognize them. If we blindly continue to ignore those faults, we will fail to create a lasting government for the good of the people. With the help of the Federalist Papers, we can see what the process of early Americans were like as they tried to create a strong, stable government from the tatters of the Articles of Confederation.