James Madison, the author of our constitution, wrote his Federalist No 10 essay to raise support for the constitution and to assuage the fears of majority tyranny. This was a major concern in 1978 seeing as America had just fought for their freedom from a tyrant government and were now starting fresh with their own new sovereign nation which required a new system of governance. This essay is one of the most distinguished American political works, but of course, there will always be a difference in opinions especially as centuries have passed by and it is now more apparent how the constitution operates as we have had centuries to analyze its application to our American Life. In particular, Robert Dahl, a late American political theorist, expressed …show more content…
His main argument is that the majority rarely rules, rather it is the minority that rules (Dahl 132). In regard to majority tyranny, he suggests, “If majority rule is mostly a myth, then majority tyranny is mostly a myth too. For if the majority cannot rule, surely it cannot be tyrannical,” (Dahl 133) thus debunking the idea of majority tyranny. He supports this argument by introducing seven propositions. Dahl raises a point that in elections people will vote for a candidate even if they do not see eye to eye on all the issues (127). We can vote for a candidate and not truly support all their platform initiatives but we might agree with a majority of what they say. There are also times in which we vote for a candidate because we feel that they are the lesser of two evils, as many people shared as their reason for how they voted in our last presidential election. Nonetheless, “it becomes possible for a resounding majority of the voters to elect a candidate all of whose policies are the first choices of only the minority,” according to Dahl (128). To further his argument, Dahl introduces his concept of a polyarchy democracy in which the number, size, and diversity of the minorities will influence the leaders recruited, the political activity, the policies, and the social process (134-135). Essentially, when various minorities come together they can effect change in the political process, rather than just one large majority group or just one minority group; there must be multiple political minorities rallying behind a candidate. One of Dahl’s last arguments against Madisonian theory is that the constitution cannot protect a majority group from depriving a minority group of its freedoms. Institutional restraints do not play a part in this, rather social prerequisites do (135). Although we have separation of powers and checks and balances, these constitutional rules are not