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Compare And Contrast James Madison As Well Known As The Father Of The Constitution

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James Madison, or better known as the “Father of the Constitution” helped put our nation to where we are today. Back in the late 1700’s Madison composed documents known as the Federalist Papers and in these documents, specifically Federalist paper 10 he describes to us and tries to define his thoughts on a “Republic” and a “Democracy”. Throughout this essay, a fair comparison will be given between both forms of government. Firstly, he states “a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.” (Madison, Fed. #10,1788) 1. In this type of government, a community could have a meeting and completely enact or defeat legislation through the votes in an election. Madison refers to a republic as “a republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place.” So, in simpler terms we could say that a democracy makes decisions together as a community on a smaller scale through a vote in comparison to a Republic where “representation” would be provided and citizens choose leaders to make decisions for them (Jeffersonian Perspective)3. …show more content…

One problem Madison addressed was factions. A faction is a small group within a larger one conflicting or disagreeing. When having just the people vote and discuss solemnly, they could make more problems based on what they wanted individually. So in turn, this was the danger of a direct democracy. The only way to fix this was to not have the people individually express yet on a larger scale be grouped by their thoughts as a whole. (What was James Madison

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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.

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Madison first defines the “violence of faction” as he explains that governments often make decisions by the “superior force of an interested and overbearing majority” instead of according to the “rules of justice.” In framing this situation, he explains the issue that majority factions or parties in governments have, in the past, had the ability to rule without consideration of minority parties. Outlining possible solutions for this problem, Madison continues to explain that the causes of parties cannot be removed without destroying people’s freedom to make their own choices. This destruction would counter Madison’s purpose of removing factions in the first place, as it would inhibit people’s liberty. Using this logic, Madison asserts an inevitability to the formation of parties and thus concludes that the government must instead control their effects by either preventing “the same passion or interest in a majority” or controlling the “number and local situation” of the majority.

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Madison’s essay reflects the fear many had of a tyrannical government and the desire to ensure that the country didn’t revert back to that which it had just escaped from. He notes the necessity to prevent any one faction or group from gaining too much power and oppressing those in the minority. The separation of powers was set in place to ensure that this could not happen. Even if one group decides they want something, the other two have the equal authority to prevent it should it not represent the country as a whole.

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James Madison’s main ideas in Federalist 10 were about factions and how to remove the causes but also control the effects. He described a faction as “By a faction, I understand a number if 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 Federalist #10).” Madison was correct in his statements about removing the causes and controlling the effects of factions. During the time Federalist 10 was written the Federalists were using the papers to help convince the states to ratify the Constitution.

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