Constitutional Convention: Mistrustful Of Democracy

May 1787. 55 delegates, one long, sweaty conference. The Constitutional Convention was a huge event for the United States. During this convention, the 55 delegates from all states except Rhode Island met up to change their Articles of Confederation. Instead of editing, however, the 55 delegates rewrote the whole thing into the Constitution, which is still used today. The delegates wrote this Constitution with tyranny in mind; how could the Constitution guard against one person or group from gaining too much power? The Constitution protects against tyranny because the 55 delegates established: federalism, separation of powers, checks & balances, and equal representation.

James Madison’s Federalist 10 was written amid criticisms that a republican form of government had never been successful on a large scale. Madison’s argument was that a well-constructed union could control factions. He argued that in order to control factions from their causes, we would need to either give up liberty or free thought. Since we cannot infringe upon these two natural rights, we must move on to controlling the effects. A republic, Madison argues, would be able to do this because the people choose the representatives, and they choose representatives who they feel best represent their opinions.

As previously talked about in The Federalist 10, the majority group most often threatens the rights of the minorities. Madison believes that there are only two ways to avoid the wrongs brought about by citizens. The first solution is to create a powerful government. This solution would be chancy because a government of this type may place power behind a certain group that is working against the common good. Ultimately if this occurred, the purpose for creating a powerful government would be overlooked.

James Madison wrote Federalist 51 over 200 years ago, yet its words still impact today’s government in 2016. When writing Federalist 51, Madison had two main objectives in mind; he wanted a government with a separation of powers, and he also wanted minorities to be protected. Both of his objectives have been accomplished and continue to be present in today’s American government with the latter objective being more present in today’s government even more so than in the past. To begin with, power is separated in today’s government, preventing a single person or group from having absolute power since, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” according to John Dalberg-Acton. The American government is composed of three branches which power is separated amongst.

10 in an attempt to ratify the Constitution, the new form of government for the United States. In the Federalist Paper No. 10, Madison analyzed the way to deal with facts, made a comparison between a pure democracy and a republic, and made another comparison on whether a small government or a large government would be the best for America. He informed the people that there is not a way to completely get rid of factions, but there are ways to deal with them. One great way to deal with factions is by having a government that knows how to control and deal with their effects. Madison believes that a republic can do that job better than a democracy, because a democracy is a small society of people who can not admit there is a cure to factions.

Madison brings up that it isn’t possible to divide power absolutely equally and “In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.” (2). And so, the legislative branch will be divided even more to try and combat the unbalance of power. Madison thought this system was a good method because he believed that it was part of human nature to have conflicting ideas and wants, and so each branch could keep the others in line and therefor no one power is above the others. Furthermore, Madison believes a bigger government with multiple branches is better because then it becomes difficult for one

Perhaps the most famous Federalist paper, Federalist 10, starts off by saying that one of the biggest arguments that favors the Constitution is that it creates a government suited to minimize the harm caused by factions. Faction, in this case, is defined as a group of people whether a minority or majority based on class, race, and profession that all share a common interest. It was inevitable that factions would occur and perhaps the defining characteristic was the unequal distribution of property. This would ultimately lead the poor without property to become the majority in a “tyranny of the masses.” Madison believed that there were two solutions in preventing majority factions, 1) Remover the causes, and 2) Control the effects.

James Madison, founding father and fourth president of United States wrote the federalists paper number 10 in favor of the constitution. He believes that constitution is the only way to keep balance and control any problem this country faces. He uses faction as an example and talks about how it can cause problems but most importantly how to deal with the problems. He defines faction as groups of people who came together to promote their own interests and opinions. He said that these groups take advantage of the public and violate their rights.

The US Constitution was seen differently between two political parties. These two political parties were the Federalist and Anti-federalist. How much power the government had wasn't the same for these two groups. A Federalist was a group of people who supported the Constitution and the Anti-federalist was a group of people who opposed the ratification of the

In the Federalist Papers 10, Madison argues that the most knowledgeable and virtuous citizens believe that the government is too easily changed and too directly influenced by the people. He wants the government to have more power over the people and for it to be ruled by the minority party, such as himself. This is suspect to suspicion, as many of the people involved in the writing of the Constitution were part of that minority that they believed should possess more power than the common people. Both Howard Zinn and Charles Beard think that one of the main purposes of the Constitution was simply to benefit the wealthy, aristocratic upper class both financially and

Madison believed that factions cause “…instability, injustice, and confusion into the public councils…” and he believes that this in turn can cause popular governments to perish. Madison believed that factions have many complaints about the government, such as the public good is disregarded in the

Madison might have precipitated a state that cultivated his dear political relation, but due to the way he carried out his choices, this would minify deliberate rivalry. Madison 's final goal was to restrict federal authority; He was barely an authentic

He believe that the most common and durable source of a faction is the unequal distribution of property. In Madison’s view, the two methods of removing the cause of factions was to remove its causes and to control its effects. That is, basically destroying the liberty of every

In May 25, 1787, a convention was called in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to express the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. However, the intention from many delegates was to draft a new constitution; create a new government rather than fix the existing one. Rhode Island was the only one of the 13 original states to refuse to send delegates to the Constitutional Convention. At the Convention, the first issues they had to address was the representation in Congress. Under the Articles, each state only has one vote in Congress, regardless of its size. The larger states wanted presentation to be based on population. James Madison of Virginia crafted the Virginia Plan, which guaranteed equivalent representation and granted powers

Problems in America only grew worse when democracy was being added to the mixture of already complicated politics. In Woody Holton’s book, Unruly American and the Origins of the Constitution, he stated that, “many Americans. . . were growing ‘tired of an excess of democracy,’ a ‘prevailing rage of excessive democracy. . .’ [or] ‘democratical tyranny.’” Democracy was an attempt at home rule among the colonies, but not everyone was happy with this extreme excess of colonial citizens contribution to the government.