Federalist Essays 10&51

In the Federalist Essay no. 10, Madison describes the dangers of faction in a man and in a country. To keep factions down, Madison offers two remedies: either you can cut it off at the roots or you can smother the effects. He also offers two ways to eliminate the cause. First off you can abolish liberty, because “Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires.” However, Madison also notes that though it may cause faction, liberty is not something you can just get rid of. The other way to keep people from forming factions, Madison says, is to make sure everyone thinks and believes the exact same things. And, as Madison remarks, “The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise,” because in the minds of the men who had years before shaken themselves from the yoke of a government they felt was tyrannical, “The protection of these faculties [freedom, especially freedom of speech and opinion] is the first object of government.”

            In the other main part of Essay no. 10, Madison highlights the difference between a pure democracy and an American—style republic. In Madison’s eyes, pure democracy wouldn’t work because while a minority faction would always be voted down by the majority, if the faction was the majority, nothing would have the power to stop it. Also, if a faction held power, it would cause harm even if it didn’t try to, because it wouldn’t notice the plight of the minority. However, in a republic, the key is that the people in the government aren’t only looking out for themselves (in theory, at least). They have to listen to the will of their constituents. Also, when fewer men can be in government, “it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried; and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters.” In other words, when people choose their representatives, they will only choose the best options.
            In the Federalist Essay no. 51, Madison discusses how this new style of republic should look. He talks first about having different “departments”: a legislature, an executive branch, and a judiciary branch. He points out that in order for this to work, the legislature, the executive branch, and judiciary branch must be independent of each other. He also points out that “In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.” Though this makes the voice of the people louder, it also gives an unfair share of governance to the representatives. To fix this, he says, we need to split up the legislature into its own separate departments, which is where we get our idea of a Senate and a House of Representatives. In total, this very montesquieuian idea of separation of powers sets forth the idea for the government we have today in this country. The government, especially the legislative branch exists to be the peoples’ funnel, megaphone, and tool for ideas and law, while the other branches check the legislature’s power and make sure it does its job.