Federalist 51

Sonora McHan

Brother Johnson

October 13, 2011

American Foundations

Section 17

Federalist 51

            In Federalist 51 James Madison Stated, “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.” This is the question that I will address in my essay.

            Madison poses a paradox in Federalist 51. He expresses that, “It is equally evident, that the members of each department should be as little dependent as possible on those of the others,” This means that the individual government departments should be as self-reliant as possible, but at the same time check and balance each other.

            The Constitution helped to make the division of powers by establishing checks and balances.  It did this by making the separation of powers, and sovereignty. In separation of powers three divisions are made, the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branches. Each has their specific purpose. The Legislative branch has the ability to make laws, the Executive branch signs the bills into law or vetoes them, in which case the bill goes back to Congress and they can override it or let it die. The Judicial branch interprets the law. Sovereignty allows the states and the federal government to have separate governments while still being a part of the same government.

            The Constitution also came up with the idea of federalism. It outlines the things that the state governments can do that the Federal government can’t do. Some of these items are: marriage and divorce laws, medical, health and Obama care, and education laws. The federal government is not supposed to be able to infringe upon these, but they do anyway. Our value of the constitution has decreased over the years; many say that it is a living document and should change with the times. I say that the Constitution was inspired of God and written so that we could use it in these latter days.

            James Madison states in Federalist 51 two considerations that are particularly applicable to the federal system of America. They are 1^st, “In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government,” and 2^nd, “It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers.” These go along perfectly with Madison’s idea of federalism and that a separation of powers must be present in order for a government to succeed. These same values are in the Constitution today.