Madisonian Democracy: Definition Essay

Topics:	American History Democracy
Essay type:	Definition
Words:	270
Page:	1 This essay sample was donated by a student to help the academic community. Papers provided by EduBirdie writers usually outdo students' samples.

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What did Madison see as the primary threat to democracy? How did Madison propose to keep this threat in check?

Madison’s argument in Federalist #10 is that we need a republic over a direct democracy due to a group of people having varying interests and desires (factions) that would then be controlled by the majority. Madison stated that in order to correct the issues related to factions we would either need to get rid of the “causes of faction,” which in turn would take away freedom, or “by giving every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests” which he explains is impossible as people naturally have different opinions because man itself, is “fallible.” Not to mention, in summation, that man by nature has their own agenda and self-interests with their own socioeconomic background as fuel to their desires, which will naturally influence and bring about faction as we will never be of the same mind.

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With that in mind, Madison said we can not get rid of faction as a source and therefore need to mitigate its effects. In order to do so he recommended a republic; “the Union over the States composing it.” Madison thought that having representatives over a direct democracy would help prevent abuse of the system and would bring about a better quality of candidates who could then funnel public issues to get to the true intent of an issue. Another point was that there be a set size in order to keep representation proportional to offset problems and that if a representative was corrupted then the public could vote them out.

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