Start with Federalist #51
But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. 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. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
When A. Hamiton, wrote the Fed...they were glorified Op-Eds. He had no idea they would reach almost biblical proportion.
ReplyDeleteThat was not his intention. From reading both the Fe. and Anti-Fed.....that is why we have a Bill of Rights. The Federalists attempted to ram the Constitution down the people's throats. They felt a Bill of Rights was unnecessary, for they did not have it in England. The compromise was the Bill of Rights.
With out these rights...President Adams would have gotten away with the "Alien and Sedition" Bill. Despite all the smoke, it was meant to cease the immigration of Catholics who then voted Jeffersonion.