Question

What was the purpose of federalist 51 (summary and analysis)

Answer 1

Federalist No. 51 addresses ways of establishing effective checks and balances in government, and also supports a division of powers within the national government. The definition of checks and balances was a key document in creating the current checks and balances structure in the US. One of its core theories, an description of the checks and balances,

Yet the framers acknowledged some practical challenges in making any office elective. The judicial branch will especially suffer because the average citizen is not aware of the credentials judges should possess. Judges should possess tremendous skill, but they should also be free from political interference. Since federal judges are appointed for life, the president who appoints them does not control their judgment, nor will the senators whose approval the president seeks.

In deciding their salaries the members of each branch should not be too reliant on the members of the other two branches. The best defense in any one division against a progressive accumulation of power is to have constitutional protections that would complicate such accumulation. All constitutional rights have to test the personal interests and desires of one man. Madison argues that in a wide nation with several different classes, self-government flourishes. Some countries are too big for self-government, but the current proposal changes the federal concept enough to make self-government feasible and realistic in the USA.

Characteristically Madison's approach relied not only on hierarchical institutions that could be built, but also on the unique sociological system of American society that he took as a lucky starting point for the framers of the new constitution. The institutional aspect of his strategy was checks and balances, because there were multiple entry points into government and multiple ways of offsetting the influence that any one branch of government might otherwise gain over another. In this method, "the constant goal is to divide and organize the different offices in such a way that each of them can be a check on the other."

Madison started his theory argument in Federalist 51 with the understanding that the "have nots" of every community are highly likely to target the "haves." Like Hamilton, the Virginian argued that class conflict is inseparable from politics. "In a republic it is of great importance not only to guard against the exploitation of its rulers," writes Madison, "but to protect one part of society against the inequality of the other. Separate interests inevitably exist in different groups of people. If a majority is united by a common interest the rights of the minority would be vulnerable."