No. 10
“A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union”
“If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed.”
According to this section of the Federalist Essays No. 10, Madison is explaining the importance of a representative government that allows the people to defeat its “sinister views”. The American form of government works by allowing the common people to express their views and actually have it change the workings of the government. By allowing the people to vote, it satisfies the public, whilst still keeping the rights of all citizens in mind. Popular government is what causes the American government flourish due to the people being able to balance the “evils” of government.
No. 51
“In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. Were this principle rigorously adhered to, it would require that all the appointments for the supreme executive, legislative, and judiciary magistracies should be drawn from the same fountain of authority, the people, through channels having no communication whatever with one another.”
“A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.”
In these passages, Madison claims that the American government works through a dependence on the people, and the concept of popular government. Also, he is stating that a separation of powers is an extremely important thing so that a single group or person doesn’t get too much power. By allowing the different powers of government to balance and check the other powers, it makes government more balanced and allows it to run smoothly.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed51.asp
https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/coretexts/_files/resources/texts/c/1787%20Federalist%20No%2010.pdf
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