James Madison

Madison held that the accumulation of all powers in one body is the very definition of tyranny, and that the remedy is not good intentions but institutional design. Each department should have its own will and the means to resist the others.

In Federalist fifty-one he wrote that ambition must be made to counteract ambition, and that the rights of the people are protected by the rivalry among officeholders. The separation was never meant to be absolute; it was a system of checks whose friction was the price of liberty.

Madison defined a faction as a group united by a common passion or interest adverse to the rights of others or to the permanent interest of the community. Since the causes of faction are sown in human nature, it cannot be removed without destroying liberty.

The cure, he argued, is to control its effects. A large republic contains more interests and parties than a small one, so that no single faction is likely to form a majority, and representation refines public opinion. The essay turned the size of the United States from a liability into an argument for the Constitution.

Madison initially thought a bill of rights would be a paper barrier against a determined majority, and the Constitution's supporters had argued that the states' declarations were enough. But the promise of amendments was needed to secure ratification, and he made them his first order of business in Congress.

He distilled the state proposals into a set of limitations on the federal government, protecting speech, press, assembly, religion, and the rights of the accused. Ratified in 1791, the ten amendments became the foundation of American civil liberties and, through later incorporation, a check on the states as well.