Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
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. It can be
little doubted that if the State of Rhode Island was separated from
the Confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of rights under the
popular form of government within such narrow limits would be displayed
by such reiterated oppressions of factious majorities that some power
altogether independent of the people would soon be called for by the
voice of the very factions whose misrule had proved the necessity of
it. 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; whilst there
being thus less danger to a minor from the will of a major party, there
must be less pretext, also, to provide for the security of the former,
by introducing into the government a will not dependent on the latter,
or, in other words, a will independent of the society itself. It is no
less certain than it is important, notwithstanding the contrary opinions
which have been entertained, that the larger the society, provided
it lie within a practical sphere, the more duly capable it will be of
self-government. And happily for the REPUBLICAN CAUSE, the practicable
sphere may be carried to a very great extent, by a judicious
modification and mixture of the FEDERAL PRINCIPLE.
PUBLIUS
FEDERALIST No. 52
The House of Representatives
From the New York Packet. Friday, February 8, 1788.
MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
FROM the more general inquiries pursued in the four last papers, I
pass on to a more particular examination of the several parts of the
government. I shall begin with the House of Representatives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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