In Federalist Essay 10, Madison expresses his support for the Constitution, because it keeps factions in control. Madison describes factions as " a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community". The factions that Madison are talking about sound a lot like our current day political parties. In 1796 when our nation's first president warned us about forming political parties, he voiced several of the concerns that Madison also touched upon. Factions or groups of people with similar opinions will always exist, because "there are [only] two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests". Both of these are impossible, as our nation cannot exist without liberty as our basis. Political parties have the liberty to form, to speak, to publish. Human nature is to agree and disagree, and it is what causes these factions to be passionate and to organize. The main reason why factions limit the U.S. government is that our politicians are limited by the opinions of their party in regards to controversial issues. Instead of candidates being able to campaign with there own personal opinions, they may feel pressure to fit inside a box labeled either Republican or Democrat. With the presence of such large factions, we as voters lose some of the conservative to liberal spectrum we would be able to get without such a hardened bi partisan system. While the existence of political parties is not an inherently bad thing itself; factions after a certain point become too wholly representative and shifts the focus of a leader away from personal beliefs and onto trying to best represent the beliefs of their party.
In Federalist Essay No. 51, Madison expresses why checks and balances are needed, essentially to ensure that no one individual or group becomes too powerful. "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 in the next place oblige it to control itself." This balance between power of the government and obedience of the government that Madison describes in one that we have not yet reached. As he states, it's easy for a government to lay down law on citizens, but it becomes much more difficult when it comes to our own government self evaluating and realizing when they've failed in an area. As patriotic as our country, it is still important to recognize when we as a country have failed on a front. For out government to be as efficient as possible, it also needs to recognize its faults when something goes wrong and improve from there. The archetype of a politician nowadays is someone who s dishonest and power-hungry and Madison touches on just that as he digs deep into the very root of why we need all of this structure in the first place, as "if men were angels, no government would be necessary". This also speaks volumes as to why our government continues to be largely imperfect, because corruption and greed in the humankind will continue to exist in our nation's leaders. The best that we can do is put in place safeguards to ensure that too much power does not even have the opportunity to fall into the hands of someone who could have these faults.
In Federalist Essay No. 51, Madison expresses why checks and balances are needed, essentially to ensure that no one individual or group becomes too powerful. "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 in the next place oblige it to control itself." This balance between power of the government and obedience of the government that Madison describes in one that we have not yet reached. As he states, it's easy for a government to lay down law on citizens, but it becomes much more difficult when it comes to our own government self evaluating and realizing when they've failed in an area. As patriotic as our country, it is still important to recognize when we as a country have failed on a front. For out government to be as efficient as possible, it also needs to recognize its faults when something goes wrong and improve from there. The archetype of a politician nowadays is someone who s dishonest and power-hungry and Madison touches on just that as he digs deep into the very root of why we need all of this structure in the first place, as "if men were angels, no government would be necessary". This also speaks volumes as to why our government continues to be largely imperfect, because corruption and greed in the humankind will continue to exist in our nation's leaders. The best that we can do is put in place safeguards to ensure that too much power does not even have the opportunity to fall into the hands of someone who could have these faults.
Our government is a great one, one that has been designed to be successful in upholding law, serving justice, and improving the quality of life of U.S citizens, and for the most part it is. However, in Madison's Federalist Essays 10 and 51 he touches upon some very valid points on why the U.S government does not work as efficiently and ideally as it should.
I think another important point to mention is that Madison believes that factions themselves are not equal. He feared that larger factions would overpower smaller factions, or minority rights. However, anti-federalists believed that factions would actually check one another. I think the anti-federalist belief is relatively true today because the two prominent political parties are both more or less equal in power, they check each other. The president represents the democratic party or faction, congress largely represents the republican party or faction. While this hinders the effectiveness of government in dealing with controversial issues, the parties check each other pretty well today, contradicting Madison's belief.
ReplyDelete