Advantages Of Federalist 51

Federalist 51 is a primary source from the time of the creation of the constitution. It was written by James Madison on February 8, 1788. It is an essay describing the Constitution 's usage of checks and balances system and why it was needed. At the time, the constitution was newly written. So, under the pseudonym of Publius; James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and James Jay: three federalists (people who supported the constitution and favored a strong central government with power shared between states), wrote the Federalist Papers. This series of 85 essays and articles were written to try to gain support in favor of the Constitution by giving explanations of what the Constitution was and its purpose. Federalist 51, one of the previous stated

Unfortunately, every source has their limits. Federalist 51 and the other federalist papers only show the federalists’ side of the argument, so a historian can’t learn what anti-federalist thought of the Constitution and their opinions on the new ideas for government though the Federalist Papers. Also, historians are unable to see the general public 's opinions and reaction to the constitution and federalist papers; nor the effects of the papers and if the achieved their intended goal. Another limitation is that, while Federalist 51 can give insight into the creators’ thoughts and intentions, the language used in Federalist 51 is much more formal and complex than of the current era, and consequently, there can be errors when analyzing and interpreting due to language usage and

In Federalist 51, he focuses on how the Constitution divides the power of the government into three branches and so no one branch would have too much power. This was done by using the checks and balances system. Madison believes that each branch should be, for the most part, independent, but, to avoid any branches from abusing its power, no branch should have too much power in choosing the members of another. He says that to follow this rule strictly, the people of the United States would choose all members of all branches, but difficulties would arise as the people may not be aware of the best qualifications for each position. So, the branches check one another and the people elect the members other than in the judicial branch, whose members are chosen by the executive branch. 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