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Federalist 51 | Interest Groups at Work

A look at this primary source that explores how a large country helps prevent a single tyrannical majority from forming.

Federalist #51 

Objectives 

  • I can understand how a large country helps prevent a single tyrannical majority from forming.

Essential Vocabulary

precarious

unstable

espouse

support or promote

Building Context

When the Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, it needed to be approved by ratifying conventions in nine of the thirteen states to take effect. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote and published a series of 85 essays in support of the Constitution known as The Federalist. These essays were published in New York newspapers because New York, due to its size and location, was a state whose ratification of the Constitution was critical.

In Federalist #51, Madison wrote about how a large republic would protect individuals and their rights.

 

Document Text

Notes

It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.

In a republic, it is important to protect the rights of all against oppression from rulers as well as against other citizens who can form a majority.

There are but two methods of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the majority that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable. The first method prevails in all governments possessing an hereditary or self-appointed authority. This, at best, is but a precarious security; because a power independent of the society may as well espouse the unjust views of the major, as the rightful interests of the minor party, and may possibly be turned against both parties.

The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority.

In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same government.

This view of the subject must particularly recommend a proper federal system to all the sincere and considerate friends of republican government, since it shows that in exact proportion as the territory of the Union may be formed into more circumscribed Confederacies, or States oppressive combinations of a majority will be facilitated: the best security, under the republican forms, for the rights of every class of citizens, will be diminished: and consequently the stability and independence of some member of the government, the only other security, must be proportionately increased.

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger… In the extended republic of the United States, and among the great variety of interests, parties, and sects which it embraces, a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place on any other principles than those of justice and the general good… the larger the society, provided it lie within a practical sphere, the more duly capable it will be of self-government…

Comprehension and Analysis Questions

  1. Describe the two cures Madison lists for protecting against a majority coming together as a faction to oppress a minority. Why does he believe creating a “will of the community” won’t work?
  2. What does Madison say is the end of government?
  3. How does Madison argue that having a large number of interests in a country helps prevent a single majority from forming that will oppress a minority?