1. Debate Over Ratification: The Federalist Papers & The Anti-Federalist Papers

2. Madison, Hamilton & Jay: Tried to persuade delegates at ratifying conventions to support the new Constitution

3. Henry, Lee, Yates, and Others Used Roman names (and anonymity) to express their fears over ratification

4. Watch the Video

5. Federalist #10
“The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection”
Published initially in the New York Packet, November 23, 1787
Written by James Madison

6. Federalist #10 What is a faction? Factions can form on the basis of:
What is a faction?
A group of people sharing common interests, preferences and/or philosophy.
Factions can form on the basis of:
Social class
Industry, occupation
Religion, national origin, language
Many other social & economic traits.
EVIDENCE OF SERIOUS PROBLEMS IN GOVERNANCE: Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.
DEFINITION: By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
SOCIAL SOURCES OF FACTIONS: But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

7. Why are factions to be feared?
Self-love is an inherent aspect of human nature. People are:
Selfish
Biased
Often overcome with emotion
Often do unreasonable things
Groups can amplify all of these bad tendencies.
HUMAN NATURE: As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.
HUMAN NATURE: The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

8. Factions can be dangerous to the republic.
When a faction gains political power, it is likely to:
Pursue its own interests zealously.
Trample the rights of others.
Govern without concern for the “public good.”
FACTIONS NOT FIT TO GOVERN: No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time;
MISCHIEF IS INEVITABLE: It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good.

9. How can the Republic be protected from the mischief of factions?
Logically, there are two possibilities:
Take steps to stop factions from forming
Accept factions and take steps to keep them from gaining too much political power.
Madison concluded that factions arise out of human nature, and are rooted in human liberty and the unequal distribution of property. So any attempt to eliminate them was doomed to fail.
CAN STOP FACTIONS BY ELIMINATING LIBERTY: It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
CONCLUSION: The inference to which we are brought is, that the CAUSES of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its EFFECTS.

10. How can the Republic be protected from the mischief of factions?
Make electoral districts large.
Size  Diversity
Diversity  “Better” elected officials
Large districts will be diverse and contain representatives of many factions.
In a republican form of government, those elected leaders of large, diverse districts will be compromise candidates and are not likely to bring the emotional commitments of the people into the chambers of government.
THE GENERAL POINT: A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.
LARGE DISTRICTS: Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other.

11. The Federalist #10
Why does Madison think the problem of a “Minority” faction is easy to handle?
Conversely, why is he so troubled by the potential of a majority faction?
How does he distinguish direct democracy from a republican gov’t?
What is he getting at when he terms elected representatives “proper guardians of the public weal”?
Why does he think that “extensive republics” are more likely to produce such representatives than small ones?

12. Federalist #51
“The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments”
Published in the New York Packet, February 8, 1788
Probably written by Madison, though some believe it is by Hamilton.

13. Federalist #51
Federalist #10 argued that large districts help to check the mischief of a faction.
But elected officials will be passionate, biased, ambitious – they will sometimes pursue their passions at the expense of the public good.

14. Federalist #51
Moreover, a strong state confederacy -- as under the Articles of Confederation – can lead to anarchy.
Following Hobbes (Leviathan 1651): Fear of anarchy leads even those in the majority to support civil rights for all
THE HOBBESIAN DILEMMA: 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; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.

15. Federalist #51 Like Federalist #10, a concern for minority rights:
“In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights.”
How do we protect the minority?
Separate power
3 branches
3 Levels
Build in Checks & Balances
CIVIL LIBERTIES: 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.
JUSTICE: 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.

16. Federalist #51 Many Founders had a Pessimistic view of human nature:
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”
It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

17. Use human weakness as an asset. Know someone else is watching.
How can we design government to further check the power of factions and the danger of self-love?
Government should be designed to take advantage of “self love” and ambition.
HOR local interests, Senate state interests, President national interests
Use human weakness as an asset. Know someone else is watching.
THE AIM: 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.
USE MAN’S WEAKNESS AS AN ASSET:Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.

18. The Aim of the new Constitution:
“The constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each be a check on the other – that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.”
THE AIM: 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.
USE MAN’S WEAKNESS AS AN ASSET:Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.

19. Federalist #51 The main solution:
Separation of powers:
Limited interaction of those selecting members of each branch
Economic and political independence of each branch
IDEAL- DIFFERENT SELECTION: In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. Were this principle rigorously adhered to, it would require that all the appointments for the supreme executive, legislative, and judiciary magistracies should be drawn from the same fountain of authority, the people, through channels having no communication whatever with one another.
IDEAL – INDEPENDENT POWER: It is equally evident, that the members of each department should be as little dependent as possible on those of the others, for the emoluments annexed to their offices. Were the executive magistrate, or the judges, not independent of the legislature in this particular, their independence in every other would be merely nominal. But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack.
THE SOLUTION: The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit.

20. Federalist #51 The secondary solution:
Federalism provides “double security.”
“The power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments”
A “compound republic” leads to dual allegiance and double protection.
By which Madison means each person pledges allegiance to both national and state governments, in return for protection of liberty and pursuit of the public good.
FEDERALISM: In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.

21. The Federalist #51
How did Madison think the necessary separation of powers among 3 branches should be achieved?
What did he consider to be the greatest difficulty in creating a government? What solution did he suggest?
What 2 reasons did Madison give to argue the judiciary should be selected differently from the other 2 branches?
How are Madison’s concerns about the “equal power of self-defense” reflected in our system of checks & balances?
Is Madison a good source of information about the document? Why or why not?

22. Federalist #10 & #51 Summary – The Problem:
Human imperfection creates a danger from majority rule but governments derive their power from the governed.
So how can we design a government that protects liberty, achieves justice, and serves the public good?

23. Federalist #10 & #51 Summary: The Solution
The new Constitution:
Creates a large republic, that dilutes the power of factions and promotes moderation.
Creates a system of checks and balances that make human weakness an asset:
Divide power between states and federal government. Federalism
Separate powers within both governments. .

24. Constitution’s Troubling Aspects for Anti-Federalists
No Bill of Rights
Standing army controlled by one man
“Necessary and proper” clause
Takes power from the states and creates consolidated government
Document is extralegal

25. Patrick Henry’s Speech
Why was Henry’s objection to the use of the words, We the People?
In what way did Henry think the convention had overstepped its authority?
What did Henry see as the chief danger of the proposed Constitution?
What did Henry mean when he said states are the “soul of the Confederation?”
Do you agree that it would be easy for a President to make himself an absolute ruler? Explain your answer.

26. To Ratify or Not?
NC initially voted down the Constitution. Now we must decide whether or not to ratify the document that has now taken effect.
11 states have now ratified the Constitution, including all our neighbors.
NC has missed the Presidential elections and the 1st Congress has now convened now for its 2nd session.
What to do? Pick a side to debate!

27. WHO GOVERNS? TO WHAT ENDS?
1. What is the difference between a democracy and a republic?
2. What branch of government has the greatest power?
TO WHAT ENDS?
1. Does the Constitution tell us what goals the government should serve?
2. Whose freedom does the Constitution protect?
Copyright © 2011 Cengage

28. The Motives of the Framers
This late-eighteenth-century cartoon shows the enthusiasm many people had for their new Constitution
Copyright © 2011 Cengage
The Granger Collection

29. Economic Interests Modest role Varied widely
Beard: Framers expected to benefit economically
No clear division along class lines support this claim
Recent research shows st. econ. gain outweighed personal gain (EX. Slaves)

30. Bettmann/CORBIS
Hulton Archive/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Elbridge Gerry (left, 1744–1814) was a wealthy Massachusetts merchant and politician who participated in the convention but refused to sign the Constitution. James Wilson (right, 1742–1798) of Pennsylvania, a brilliant lawyer and terrible businessman, was the principal champion of the popular election of the House. Near the end of his life, he was jailed repeatedly for debts incurred as a result of his business speculations.
Copyright © 2011 Cengage

31. Economic Interests
These interests played into the ratifying conventions
Who supported the Constitution?
Merchants, urban, western landowners, held gov’t IOUs, abolitionists
Who opposed the Constitution?
Farmers, debtors, slave owners

32. Chicago Historical Society
The Constitution was silent about slavery, and so buying and selling slaves continued until 1808.
Copyright © 2011 Cengage

33. Equality Slaves not mentioned—see your notes on compromises. Why?
How are women protected by the Constitution?
Is our Government too weak to protect equality due to special interests?
Does a strong government create inequality or prevent it?

34. Assignment Complete CT packet on the Constitution.
Read the rest of chapter 2. Outline each reform.
Due Tuesday!