Human Nature and the Opposing Forces That Redeem It
The Federalist Papers provide priceless insight into the spirits of both human government and human nature. In fact, The Federalist Papers repeatedly acknowledge a basic truth of human existence: humans are naturally selfish, hostile, and full of such characteristics that hinder the continuation of peaceful, harmonious existence. The corruption of the human race permeates even the strongest governments, as history has shown time and again. Ironic as it is, governments must take precautions to guard themselves, even from their very own members, from the very thing that all governments are meant to remedy: the shortcomings of human nature. The means by which The Federalists propose these precautions is a system of checks and balances. Madison clarifies, "the constant aim is to divide and arrange several offices in such a manner that each may be a check on the other--that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights" (320). In other words, a system of checks and balances is needed to prevent human fallacy from prevailing in the actions of government.
The Papers assume that human nature is corrupt, and they formulate the majority of their arguments based on this essential assumption. However, not only the morality of humans is imperfect. Likewise, man's ability to reason, to communicate clearly, and to make sound decisions falls far from the realm of perfection. The necessity of government has already been clearly stated. Even so, government in itself is not sufficient, as history has shown countless time through wars and oppression. Ideally, government would prevent these atrocities from manifesting themselves, so it follows ...
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...ents, excluding monarchies or rule by few. To ensure that the will of the people and of the majority is carried out, many voices must take part in every debate, and the fact that these voices will combat each other is certain. Why not extend a basic rule of government, the rule of opposing forces, to the higher orders of government as well? As long as the basic, uniting goal of keeping peace and liberty intact is not lost, the opposition of branches of government can only serve to strengthen the goodness of their final courses of action.
In conclusion, the necessity of government for the greater good of mankind is blatantly obvious. Man is bad, but men combined for a noble purpose can elicit goodness, given that they utilize a strong, optimum system for executing their powers over one another. The essential feature of this system is checks and balances.
Consistent to eighteenth-century ethos left the Constitution-makers with great faith in universals. They believed in an inexorable view of a self-interested man. Feeling that all me were naturally inclined to be bad they sought a compromising system of checks and balances for government. This was bolstered by the scientific work by Newton, ?in which metaphors sprang as naturally to mens minds as did biological metaphors in the Darwinian atmosphere of the late nineteenth century.? Therefore Madison and others thought to squelch the possibly dangerous majority by setting up a large number and variety of local interests, so that the people will ?be unable to concert and carry into effect their scheme of oppression.? And thus, chief powers went to the propertied.
In conclusion this is why tyranny and federalism, separation of power, checks and balances and big and small states all mean that they are important to know also the branches are a big part especially in the separation of
The effects should be controlled to combat the evil. This correlates with his writings in Federalist No. 10. A strong government can counteract the evils of party by ensuring political equality among all, preventing the government from playing favorites, treating all interest fairly and allowing parties to check each other, enlarging the sphere. He illustrates that the United States has always had periods where there were divisions among the people, such as during the revolution and during the time of the Constitution
The formal definition of checks and balances is a system that allows each branch of government the ability to counterbalance the influences of the other branches in order to prevent the concentration of power in only one branch, becoming a tyrant. James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper No. 51 that “the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.” For example, Congress passed a bill that would require federal and state gov...
While the government of the United States owes its existence to the contents and careful thought behind the Constitution, some attention must be given to the contributions of a series of essays called the Federalist Papers towards this same institution. Espousing the virtues of equal representation, these documents also promote the ideals of competent representation for the populace and were instrumental in addressing opposition to the ratification of the Constitution during the fledgling years of the United States. With further reflection, the Federalists, as these essays are called, may in turn owe their existence, in terms of their intellectual underpinnings, to the writings of the philosopher and teacher, Aristotle.
The Federalist, No.10 explains the nature of factions within the government and how they can harm the implementation of proper policies and
During and after the turmoil of the American Revolution, the people of America, both the rich and the poor, the powerful and the meek, strove to create a new system of government that would guide them during their unsure beginning. This first structure was called the Articles of Confederation, but it was ineffective, restricted, and weak. It was decided to create a new structure to guide the country. However, before a new constitution could be agreed upon, many aspects of life in America would have to be considered. The foremost apprehensions many Americans had concerning this new federal system included fear of the government limiting or endangering their inalienable rights, concern that the government’s power would be unbalanced, both within its branches and in comparison to the public, and trepidation that the voice of the people would not be heard within the government.
Thomas Paine begins his article by first exploring the differences between society and government. He explains that, “society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil.” (Frohnen 179) What he means by this is that to have society and community is a privilege, because we as humans are designed to have a need for human interaction, while government on the other hand is only a necessary evil, simply because we as humans are also designed to be inherently evil, and therefore government is a necessary evil to have in order to monitor wrongdoing, or to keep us from our own vices in other words. This emphasizes the Classical Christian Anthropological principle of duality, which is the inner struggle that we as humans have between amor sui, the love of self, and amor dei, the love of God. This struggle springs from the fact that evil is found within man, and we must mak...
In the Constitution, central and state governments received power that was shared and split in a federalist system, preventing tyranny of one over the other. Madison put forward his idea of federalism in Federalist Paper #51. “...the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments...The different governments will each control each other, at the same time each will be controlled by itself” (Doc. A). A Venn diagram derived from the Constitution shows that the central government controlled national affairs such as war, foreign trade, and foreign relations, and states controlled internal affairs such as establishing public services and regulating in-state businesses. The shared powers included taxes, loans, and laws. Despite Madison’s bias towards the federalist system (rarely does one truly attack one’s own political treatise within it) in his quote, the apportioning of powers shows that neither the central or st...
Following the failure of the Articles of Confederation, a debate arose discussing how a centralized government ought to be organized. The prevailing opinion ultimately belonged to the Federalists, whose philosophy was famously outlined in The Federalist Papers. Recognizing that in a free nation, man would naturally divide himself into factions, they chose not to remedy this problem by stopping it at its source; instead, they would limit its effects by placing strict structural safeguards within the government's framework. The Federalists defined a facti...
During the construction of the new Constitution, many of the most prominent and experienced political members of America’s society provided a framework on the future of the new country; they had in mind, because of the failures of the Articles of Confederation, a new kind of government where the national or Federal government would be the sovereign power, not the states. Because of the increased power of the national government over the individual states, many Americans feared it would hinder their ability to exercise their individual freedoms. Assuring the people, both Alexander Hamilton and James Madison insisted the new government under the constitution was “an expression of freedom, not its enemy,” declaring “the Constitution made political tyranny almost impossible.” (Foner, pg. 227) The checks and balances introduced under the new and more powerful national government would not allow the tyranny caused by a king under the Parliament system in Britain. They insisted that in order achieve a greater amount of freedom, a national government was needed to avoid the civil unrest during the system under the Articles of Confederation. Claiming that the new national government would be a “perfect balance between liberty and power,” it would avoid the disruption that liberty [civil unrest] and power [king’s abuse of power in England] caused. The “lackluster leadership” of the critics of the new constitution claimed that a large land area such as America could not work for such a diverse nation.
1. What conclusion can be drawn regarding the quote, “Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient”?
In order to learn from the Articles of Confederation, many quandaries needed to be reanalyzed. Perhaps the most important of these to the Constitutional Convention was the powers of the federal government. The framers had much experience with the disastrous effects of power corruption and thus proposed the inception of the three branches of government. The Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches all coexist in our nation for a singular and paramount purpose: to equip this country with an exceptional system of lawmaking and the enforcement of those laws based on the highly efficient concept of checks and balances. This separation of powers and the branches themselves “represent the constitutional framework envisioned by the Founding Fathers for our nation's government” (Longley, 1).
In conclusion, human morals and the fate of society depends on human nature and how people are influenced by society, not by the government. Still government plays a fundamental part on morality in society because it is the las finger holding the person who is about to fall from a ledge. A very thick finger, that is the last hope and support so that society does not end up falling into a sort of chaos of a moraless society, where life conditions would be miserable.
The men who wrote the American constitution agreed with Thomas Hobbes that humans were naturally evil. Therefore, they agreed that in order to prevent a dictatorship or monarchy, the citizens should have influence in the government. The writers wanted a more ideal constitution, but they realized evil human motives would never change. One of the main goals of the constitution was to create a balanced government that would allow the citizens to prevent each other from being corrupt. The writers wanted to give citizens liberty, but they did not want to give people so much liberty that they would have an uncontrollable amount of power. The writers agreed that a citizen’s influence in government would be proportionate to that individual’s property.