In mapping out the U.S. government the founding fathers had many difficulties. During this time James Madison raised this important question: “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.”
The problem with this statement is that to keep the government in control, the people must keep the government in check. Although its primary duty is to govern and protect the people it can lead to the government having too much power. To prevent this, as James Madison suggest in his Federalist 51 paper, we must structure the government to avoid this and add to it auxiliary precautions. Auxiliary precautions are internal checks and balances within the government to protect it from becoming a tyranny. The first is republican government. Madison said “[Pure] democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” The reason he viewed it as a “vile form of government” was because all men could agree and vote on something whether it be good or bad and it would still be a democracy. For example, all men in the U.S. could vote for the death of someone undeserving and untried and it would still be a democracy. Therefore, the people need a government to govern and protect them, and in return the people must give the government its power. He believed in a republic of continental size, meaning authority will lye with the society as a whole but it will be broken down into parts to protect the rights and interests of the minorities from that or the majority. Next, separation of powers and check and balances. The government, with the power given it by the people, would be set in two divided into smaller 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”. The power of the government would be separated between the departments that make it up, and the two main parts would “check and balance” each other. Lastly is that of a written Constitution, which was of course written to help outline the U.S. government. It outlined the rights of the people that the government could not take away and limited the government’s power. The difficulty with Madison’s original statement is that the government cannot technically control itself when it has a system of checks and balances that keep it from complete control or a tyranny. It also cannot technically completely control the people when the people are what give it its power.
Madison believed that these auxiliary precautions built into the Constitution would solve the initial important question he posed. The Constitution has a system of checks and balances which prevents a governmental tyranny, it states the rights of man plainly, and protects their rights. It separates the government into parts, and creates democracy but not a “pure” one, and outlines our government. Madison’s ideas were truly inspired and helped to shape and outline our U.S. Constitution which outlines this great country’s form of government. With these ideas the government can truly govern the people and control itself.
