Federalist No. 51

The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments is an essay written by James Madison, published on February 6, 1788 as the 51th essay of the Federalist Papers. The Federalist No. 51 is considered one of the most important and relevant essays of the Federalist Papers. According to Madison, the purpose of the essay is to inform the audience about the importance of government structure with regard to making liberty possible. Madison considered each branch of the government should be independent from each other, but at the same time have some sort of power to keep the others from abusing their function. According to Madison, no branch should be allowed to appoint the other branches’

According to Madison, the members of each branch should not have any control over the others’ salaries to avoid any bias and/or future unwanted alliances. Madison’s famous quote, “if men were angels, no government would be necessary” entails that in a perfect world said regulations would not be necessary. Unfortunately, men are only human and far from perfection, which leads them to seek power and blinds them from recognizing, respecting, and protecting other people’s needs, wants, and rights. Government has not only the obligation to guide the people who elected them, but also make sure they rightfully regulate their own power. By checking each other, the branches make sure all positions operate correctly to ensure a functional, healthy government. However, as Madison declared during the essay, power cannot be realistically equally shared between the three branched of government. In a republican system, the legislative branch tends to be strongest, which led to Congress being divided into two, the House of Representatives and the Senate, in order for the legislative branch to balance

The idea behind the separation of the federal and the state governments is once again to protect, and ensure, the liberty of the masses. By having two different governments, they can control each other, but also regulate themselves (executive, legislative, and judiciary branches). As for the protection of the minority, when the majority has an issue in common, then the rights of the minority become irrelevant. In the essay, Madison proposed two methods to avoid such tyranny. His first proposition was to create a “will” independent of society. The problem with his first method was the fact that once the power does not derive from society itself, it had no true value. The second method involved society being incredibly diverse. The second method argued society has so many groups, differences, interests, and classes that the rights of the minorities suffer not treat from the