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Madison And The Tyranny Of The Majority

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James Madison, one of the founding fathers of America, was revolutionary in his ideas regarding American government and policies. James Madison, along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, wrote arguably the most crucial evaluations of the future of American government and the logic of the newly improved US Constitution compared to the Articles of Confederation. Within Federalist Paper No.10, Madison mentions a groundbreaking idea of the “tyranny of the majority.” This idea, “tyranny of the majority,” examines the power that a majority can hold within a true democracy. Furthermore, this “tyranny of the majority” idea looks into the creation of “factions,” which Madison describes as a group of citizens with shared interests or beliefs that are contrary to the rights and interests of others or to the overall well-being of a community. He believed that the “tyranny of the majority” was one of the greatest threats to American democracy and the future of our government and our country. Because of his thinking and theory of the “tyranny of the majority,” we have developed and evolved the American government to be molded around counter-majoritarian measures. These counter-majoritarian measures are set in place to counteract the potential dangers of “the tyranny of the majority” that Madison so heavily emphasized, and these counter-majoritarian measures include federalism, the bill of rights, a separation of powers, and certain protections for the minority. …show more content…

Since America has evolved into one of the most powerful countries in the world, other countries have looked to America for guidance on how to structure their own government. Since our counter-majoritarian measures are so critical to our government’s foundation, a lot of the counter-majoritarian ideas have been implemented in other countries’

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