The View of Human Nature In The United States Constitution As Expressed In The Federalist Papers

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
David BOSWORTH
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Federalist Papers ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
The Federalist Papers

scholarly journals Book Review | George Will’s Conservatism and Democracy in Crisis

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
The United States ◽  
James Madison ◽  
American Government ◽  
Federalist Papers ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Federalist Papers

Americans typically view the United States as a democracy and are rightly proud of that. Of course, as those of a more precise nature, along with smug college students enrolled in introductory American government classes, are quick to point out, the United States is technically a republic. This is a bit too clever by half since James Madison, in The Federalist Papers, defined a republic the way most people think of a democracy—a system of representative government with elections: “[The]… difference between a Democracy and a Republic are, first the delegation of the Government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest.” What the framers thought of as democracy is today referred to as direct democracy, the belief that citizens should have more direct control over governing. The Athenian assembly was what the framers, Madison in particular, saw as the paragon of direct democracy—and as quite dangerous. While direct democracy has its champions, most Americans equate democracy with electing officials to do the business of government.

scholarly journals Rule by the Few in the Federalist Papers: An Examination of the Aristocratic Preference of Publius

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl M. Felice
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
American People ◽  
Alexander Hamilton ◽  
James Madison ◽  
Federalist Papers ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Federalist Papers

AbstractThe Federalist Papers are a set of eighty-five essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay during the founding era of the United States, with the purpose of persuading the states to adopt the Constitution as the replacement for the Articles of Confederation. The Papers were some of the most impressive political writings of the time, and are still cited frequently today by the United States Supreme Court. The arguments set forth in the Papers attempted to defend the Constitution's aristocratic characteristics against its opponents, the Anti-Federalists, while also attempting to normalize an anti-democratic, representative form of government in the minds of the American people. The clever advocacy and skillful rhetoric employed by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay led to the eventual ratification of the Constitution, and consequently the creation of the most powerful and prosperous nation on the planet. This paper examines the differences between the traditional forms of government, the political philosophies of the Papers’ authors, the anti-democratic, aristocratic nature of the government proposed by the Constitution, and the arguments for and against its adoption, as articulated in the Papers and various other writings.

New Constitutional Forms in Africa

1960 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-76
Author(s):  
Herbert J. Spiro
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Unique Combination ◽  
American Founding ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Federalist Papers ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
Effectiveness And Efficiency ◽  
The Federalist Papers

When the American Founding Fathers set about the task of perfecting the constitution of their union, they turned to the theory and practice of the Old World for counsel and illustration. The Federalist Papers contain many references to Hume and Montesquieu, the British Constitution and ancient leagues. However, it was not copying from foreign examples that made such an outstanding success of the Constitution of the United States. Rather it was the authors' imaginative creativity that gave to this oldest of the still operating written constitutions its unique combination of stability and flexibility, effectiveness and efficiency.

No Theory of Justice Can Ground Health Care Reform

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 598-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Griffin Trotter
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
James Madison ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Federalist Papers ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
Countervailing Powers ◽  
The Federalist Papers ◽  
American Federalism ◽  
Innate Tendency

The “Father of the United States Constitution,” James Madison, once described justice as “the end” of both government and of civil society. Yet curiously, Madison said little about justice in elaborating the principles of American federalism in The Federalist Papers and elsewhere. His fundamental concerns, to the contrary, were in contriving a system of separated, countervailing powers and in establishing a first federal principle of enumerated powers — in which federal powers “are few, and defined.” This strategy, for Madison, was the most feasible way of checking the innate tendency of political power to accumulate, centralize, and trample on citizens’ liberties.

Alexander Hamilton and the Early Republic in Edwardian Imperial Thought

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick M. Kirkwood
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Alexander Hamilton ◽  
George Washington ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
The Federalist Papers

In the first decade of the twentieth century, a rising generation of British colonial administrators profoundly altered British usage of American history in imperial debates. In the process, they influenced both South African history and wider British imperial thought. Prior usage of the Revolution and Early Republic in such debates focused on the United States as a cautionary tale, warning against future ‘lost colonies’. Aided by the publication of F. S. Oliver's Alexander Hamilton (1906), administrators in South Africa used the figures of Hamilton and George Washington, the Federalist Papers, and the drafting of the Constitution as an Anglo-exceptionalist model of (modern) self-government. In doing so they applied the lessons of the Early Republic to South Africa, thereby contributing to the formation of the Union of 1910. They then brought their reconception of the United States, and their belief in the need for ‘imperial federation’, back to the metropole. There they fostered growing diplomatic ties with the US while recasting British political history in-light-of the example of American federation. This process of inter-imperial exchange culminated shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles when the Boer Generals Botha and Smuts were publicly presented as Washington and Hamilton reborn.

“[T]his most unnecessary, unjust, and disgraceful war”

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 82-103
Author(s):  
Juhani Rudanko
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
War Of 1812 ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
Sedition Act ◽  
The Face ◽  
Federalist Party

This article focuses on face-threatening attacks on the Madison Administration during the War of 1812. The discussion is framed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, with the language of the Amendment protecting freedom of speech, and also by the Sedition Act of 1798, which, if it had been made permanent, would have seriously curtailed freedom of speech. The War of 1812 was intensely unpopular among members of the Federalist Party, and their newspapers did not shy away from criticising it. This article investigates writings published in the Boston Gazette and the Connecticut Mirror during the war. It is shown that the criticism took different forms, ranging from accusing President Madison of “untruths” to painting a picture of what was claimed to be the unmitigated hopelessness of his position, both nationally and internationally, and that the criticism also included harsh personal attacks on his character and motives. It is suggested that some of the attacks may be characterised as exhibiting aggravated impoliteness. The article also considers President Madison’s attitude in the face of the attacks.

William Lloyd Garrison and the United States Constitution: The Political Evolution of an American Radical

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Osborn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
The Political ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
William Lloyd Garrison ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
Great Leader ◽  
Political Choices

On August 6, 1824, William Lloyd Garrison, not yet twenty years old, penned a letter to the Salem Gazette opposing John Quincy Adams's bid for the presidency and endorsing the candidacy of a dedicated Georgian, United States Senator William Crawford. There is no mention in the document of the slavery issue and no hint that the young Garrison viewed the Constitution as anything less than a triumph of the founding fathers. The “high and exalted character” of the elections proved the Federalist Party “worthy of its great leader, the immortal WASHINGTON” and spread “vigor and strength throughout the political fabric of our constitution and government,” Garrison wrote. “It is peculiarly gratifying, too,” he declared,to observe the dignified course pursued generally by the few sentinels of freedom, who advocate and uphold those principles, which were promulgated by the Father of his Country, and sanctioned by JAY and HAMILTON, and AMES, with a host of other distinguished patriots.Garrison went on to stress the civic duty of voting, arguing that although no citizen was legally required to support any of the presidential candidates, reason “dictates that we should” so as not to upset “the peace of the Union.” Federalists should make pragmatic political choices, he wrote, and not squander their votes on ideal but unlikely candidates.

scholarly journals La Judicial review en la pre-Marshall Court

2011 ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Francisco Fernández Segado
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federalist Papers ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
Initial Stage ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Federalist Papers ◽  
Constitutional System

The first eleven years of the United States Supreme Court show us a plural mosaic of feelings, perhaps even contradictory each other, with regard to the evaluation of the organ and its decisions. The view of a devaluated Court it is the frist feeling. The Circuit riding’s duty of the Supreme Court Justices, the short-lived of its sessions and the reduced number of its opinions are some of the reasons of this devaluation. Nevertheless, if we pay attention to the contents of some decisions, it is possible to change the feelings. Certainly, in this initial stage we don’t find noted cases nor impact opinions, but we think that it’s indisputable that some decisions contributed to the frist forging of the American constitutional system. With regard to the judicial review of the constituonality of the acts passed by Congress, we shall not be so audacious to question the Marbury v. Madison Myth, but we think that Marbury opinion involves only the formal establishment of a doctrine whose theoretical grounds and historical precedents are present not only in the No. LXXVIII of the «Federalist papers» but also in several decisions of the «pre- Marshcall Court» and in different dogmatic expositions of the first stage’s Supreme Court Justices.Los primeros once años del Tribunal Supremo norteamericano nos muestran un plural mosaico de sensaciones, quizá incluso contradictorias, en orden a la calaboración del órgano y sus decisiones. La primera de ellas es la que nos encontramos ante un órgano devaluado. La participación de los Jueces de la Corte Suprema en los Tribunales de Circuito, la corta duración de sus sesiones y el reducido número de sus sentencias, son algunas de las razones de esa devaluación. Sin embargo, si atendemos al contenido de algunas de sus decisiones, las sensaciones pueden llegar a cambiar. Desde luego, en esta etapa inicial del tribunal no nos encontramos con casos célebres ni con decisiones impactantes, pero creemos que es indiscutible, que algunas decisiones contribuyeron a la primera forja del sistema constitucional norteamericno. En relación a la revisión judicial de la constitucionalidad de las leyes aprobadas por el Congreso, no vamos a ser tan atrevidos, como para cuestionar el mito de Marbury v. Madison (1803), pero sí pensamos que la sentencia Marbury entraña tan sólo el establecimineto formal de una doctrina cuyos fundamentos teóricos se hallan presentes no sólo en el Nº LXXVIII del «Federalista», sino también en varias decisiones de la Corte anterior a Marshall y en diferentes planteamientos dogmáticos de los Jueces de esta primera etapa del Tribunal.

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