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Constitution 101: Consent of the Governed and the Separation of Powers
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Foreign. Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast. I'm Jeremiah Regan.
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And I'm Juan Davalos. We're back with Constitution 101, the meaning and History of the Constitution. Onto lecture number four today. Consent of the Governed and the Separation of Powers.
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I just have to take a moment to make a note here. This podcast is a lot of fun for us to record an introduction on because we are students of the Hillsdale Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship, and we are students of RJ Pastrito. And to get to talk about his work is a blast. And I'm. I'm hoping that our listeners aren't thinking. I wish these guys would shut up and let us get to RJ but we'll keep that in mind and make this brief. One of the Great points that Dr. Pastrito makes in this lecture is the difference between democracy and republicanism. And Hamilton and Madison make that point in the Federalist Papers.
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That's right, because you hear a lot of people, you know, when somebody says that we're a democracy, you hear a lot of people say, we're not a democracy, we're a constitutional republic.
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But what's the difference? What's the difference?
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And so Dr. Pastrida is going to go into more detail on. And that's why he clarifies as direct democracy versus republicanism. So he's gonna make that argument from the founders and tell us how they understood the difference between those two terms.
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In many places in the Federalist, Hamilton and Madison both say that the will of the people needs to and will ultimately prevail. But in a democracy, the will of the people is immediate. That means any whim, any passion, any mob mentality that takes hold gets implemented right away. That's a problem with democracy. In a republic, the people still get their way, but there's some safeguards that they are putting in place themselves. It's like when you're at your wisest. It's like when you sleep on something before you make a big decision. That's really the difference in republicanism, the mechanisms do matter. There's representation and there's checks and balances. But the point isn't that people don't get what they want. It's that people want the right things and then they get it. And that comes out in this lecture. You should really read the Federalist, Dear Listener. And you can pick that up at Hillsdale. Edu Course. That's Hillsdale Edu Course. That will take you to our official bookstore. And in the search field, type in Federalist. You're looking for the Liberty Fund Federalist. That is the edition that Dr. Pastrito and the Hillsdale College politics faculty use. You can follow along with his lectures, and you can read about our Constitution and American political philosophy from the original source.
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And like we mentioned in an earlier episode of the podcast, Jefferson considered the Federalist Papers the best commentary on our Constitution. So if you really want to get an understanding of the Constitution, go get that book and read it. It's fantastic. Now let's turn to Dr. Pastrito on lecture number four of Constitution 101, consent of the Governed and the Separation of Powers.
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On this lecture, we're going to talk about consent of the governed and separation of powers. And I'm going to tell you how we're going to proceed through the lecture here. I'm going to spend just the first minute or two kind of transitioning from the lecture that just finished on faction and human nature and on union. And so get that set up. And then I want to make three basic points as we go through the lecture here. First thing we want to talk about are what lessons are we drawing from the history of democratic government. It's got a long history. What have we learned? What do we want to retain? What do we want to change? So we'll talk about that. Second point will be to talk about the distinction of that's made in the Federalist Papers between a direct democracy and republic, the form of self government that we've had for the most part of human history, direct democracy and republicanism, and how that distinction is critical to the structure of government that we're going to be talking about here. And then the third and final point would be to talk about the separation of powers and how that's an integral part of having a republic, a modern republic. And then we'll conclude by summing up and by making some transitions to the lectures that are to come. So let's think about what we've learned so far. We know from the Declaration of Independence that there's a standard out there for just government that the framers have in mind. And that standard is government has to be based on consent and it has to secure the natural rights of the citizens. What does that tell us? It tells us, first of all that we have to have a democratic form of government, form of government where there's some ongoing consent, there's a method for the people to vote on and to give consent to the laws that they're living under. Okay? So that's an absolute necessity. But sometimes, sometimes we learned this in the last lecture. Given the way human nature is, consent can go awry. Sometimes the people can consent to things that are unjust. And so what that means is sometimes these two very important goals, consent and securing natural rights, you have to have both of them, but they can be in tension with one another. Sometimes people can consent to things that undermine natural rights as opposed to help secure natural rights. And that's the problem that they're dealing with. And the history of the 1780s brings that problem very much to the forefront of their minds. And I'll give you one very obvious example from American history. Think of slavery. You have in many states in the antebellum period laws that permit the practice of slavery. This is obviously a violation of the natural rights of those who are being enslaved. But these laws are, on the other hand, democratically enacted, by and large. And so there you have this great example of how consent and the securing of individual rights are in very direct conflict. And so how do we allow that consent while also preserving rights? That's the great problem that confronts them and that's what we're going to talk about in this lecture. So our first order of business is to understand this problem and to see how it's been a problem that has plagued human beings throughout the history of government. Because bear in mind, there's nothing new about democratic government. Democracy is around for a long time, going back at least to ancient Greece. They have very, very democratic forms of government. And this is something that Publius, again, this name that Hamilton and Madison used for themselves when they're writing the Federalist Papers. This is something that Publius points out. And so we're going to start in the ninth Federalist Paper because he's got a great lesson, an historical lesson that he wants to bring to our attention. There's nothing new about what we're attempting here. And the reason why, one of the reasons why we don't have a lot of democratic government right now, he's saying, is because this experiment has not gone very well. There have been a lot of problems with democratic government. And these are problems that put the burden on those of us who want to establish self government. We have to prove that it can be done in a way that works for the citizens and not in a way that undermines their rights and stability. So let's turn to the ninth Federalist Paper. This is provided in the Constitution Reader. And I want to talk about both the problem in democratic government that's identified and then the remedy that is identified. And both things are there. In the ninth Federalist paper. So it's a great paper to look at if you kind of want to get the broad aim of the Constitution from the point of view of Madison and Hamilton. And he starts with the historical point, and this is Hamilton's paper. He starts with the historical point. He says it is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy. And then this history, right? And if you think back on this, you'll, you know, this is. Becomes clear. And remember, the framers are very well read in the classics. They're getting their understanding of Greece and Rome from all the classic texts. And so if you think on those texts and think about, in a way, you have many of the peaks of civilization in ancient Greece, but it's not maybe the safest place for the liberty of the individual at the same time. And that's what they're thinking about when they're calling this to mind. And they go on to point out, and again, I'm on page 215 of the reader, he says, from the disorders that disfigure the annals of those republics, the advocates of despotism have drawn arguments not only against the forms of republican government, but against the very principles of civil liberty. They have decried all free government as inconsistent with the order of society. So what's happened is, given the experience with democratic government, essentially it's given ammo to the enemies of democracy. They've got some good arguments because they're pointing back to history and they're saying, look at how unstable these regimes are. Look at how unsafe they are for the individual. And so the burden is on us if we want to establish government today, self government, democratic, the burden's on us to show that it can be done. And what he's going to argue then is the remedy lies not in repeating the style of democratic government from the past, because we've been down that road. This is what the anti federals are calling for. The anti federalists are looking at the 1787 Constitution, and they're saying, well, this doesn't look like the form of democracy from the great classical republics. And they're correct about that. It looks different, it's structured differently. And that's Publius's argument here. He says, yeah, it has to be structured differently. If you have the same structure that we've had with democratic government in the past. You're going to get the same results. We don't want those results. So what's going to be different? And Federalist9 gives us a broad picture of what's going to be different about this attempt, about our contemporary attempt at Republican government. And this is going on to page 216 of the reader. Here's our hope, he says. Our hope is that the science of politics, however, like most other sciences, has received great improvement, great improvement since those ancient times. Remember, we said that the framers are not by any stretch of the imagination progressives on the question of human nature talked about that a lot in the last lecture. But they recognize, of course, as anyone must, that there's been progress in lots of ways. And this is one of the ways. As we've gained experience in government, we've learned some things. So the science of politics, however, like most other sciences, has received great improvement. The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all or imperfectly known to the ancients. So we've learned some things that they didn't know. Well, what are those things? And here he's telling you, this is the blueprint. It's these improvements. This is the blueprint for the constitution. This is why these things are in there. And he starts to name them. And if you notice, there are four things that he names here, and they're the kind of the four main features of the constitution. The regular distribution of power into distinct departments, what we call the separation of powers, the introduction of legislative balances and checks, the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior, and the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election. Right? So four things. Separation of powers, checks and balances, an independent judiciary, and laws made not directly by the people, all coming together, but through a representative body. People elect representatives. Those are the four things you're going to see that are different from the classical republics. They may be totally new in some cases, or they may be improvements on classical institutions. And so that's a summary of the changes that we're going to make. And then he talks about the extension of the territory, because this is a whole other issue that's going on at this time, that the United States is a much more extensive republic than any of the historical republics. And so that's a fifth change. And he summarizes these. He goes through all of these improvements, and he characterizes them in the following way. He says they are means and Powerful means by which the excellencies of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided. So the end is the same. Self government, the means. Right. Remember we said in our last lecture, majority rule has to be structured through institutions. This is what that structure is going to look like. We're going to retain the excellencies of republican government and we're going to lessen or avoid its imperfections. Well, let's talk first about the obvious thing. What's the Excellency? What's good about it that we want to keep? Well, it's republican. It's self government. The people live under laws that they themselves consent to. We want to keep that part. We don't want to make changes such that we're changing the fundamental thing here. That's the excellency. What's the imperfection that we want to lessen or avoid? Well, it's this factiousness. It's this tendency in human nature to use its power sometimes contrary to its own good. And so we want a form of government. And what he's telling us is these main features of the Constitution. Separation of powers, checks and balances, independent courts, representative institutions and extended territory. This is the way in which we're going to have both consent and protection for rights. Remember, those are the two things that could be intentioned that we're trying to balance here. We want to reconcile these things and the political science of the Constitution is the way that we are going to do that. And he's telling the readers, I'm now in the rest of this book going to go and describe all of the specifics and the way that the Constitution is structured. But this is what it's about. So as you're going through the Federalist Papers, think about that. How is this both facilitating consent of the governed, but making sure that the consent is channeled in the right way? And the as he goes forward in the next Federalist paper, the tenth Federalist paper, we're going to learn a little bit more about why he thinks that this structure of government is the remedy is the way that we're going to have self government but without this problem of majority tyranny. So we get to the 10th Federalist paper and the 10th Federalist paper. A lot of people know about this thing that they call faction and faction when you see that word. And we're going to go through very in great detail the definition of it. But basically the problem he's worried about is the problem of the tyranny of the majority. It's the problem that Jefferson referred to when, if you remember from the third lecture, when we talked about his notes on Virginia, Jefferson raised the problem of what he called an elective despotism, right? That the many who rule rule in a despotic way, not in a way that's consistent with the rights of other citizens. And so the term that Madison Here in number 10 uses for that is faction. And we're going to go very in detail through the argument of 10, because it's one of the best structured Federalist Papers in terms of just leading out an argument. A leads to B, B leads to C. And you see what the problem of faction is and why they think that the design of the Constitution is going to help not to eliminate faction, but to deal with its effects. So let's turn to the tenth Federalist paper, and this is also in your reader. And we're going to begin with the definition of faction, which is on page 232 of your reader. And so let's just start with how he lays it out. He says there that by a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion or of interest adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. Okay, so what are the essential elements? A faction is a part that's kind of the generic meaning of the word faction. It's a part. But it's a part, he says, that is motivated by passion. So that's that low part of human nature. It's that part of human nature that he refers to in Number six as vindictive and rapacious and ambitious. So not any group, not any part is a faction, but it's a part of a particular kind, motivated by passion and wants to do something adverse to the rights of other citizens. So one part of the society wants to use the mechanism of consent to deprive some other part of its rights of the very reason that people consent to government in the first place. That's a faction. Now, there are two kinds of faction, Madison tells us in Federalist 10. One is a problem for us, one is not a problem for us. The one that's not a problem for us is minority faction. That's a situation where the people in the faction are less than a majority of the citizens. The remedy there is easy. As Madison tells US in number 10, the republican principle supplies the remedy. And what he means by that is you've got a majority rule system. If you have a minority faction, it cannot rule. You just outvote them. So we're not going to worry about that. The other kind of faction, the majority faction, that's our problem. That's our problem because by the very same way that we can outvote minority factions, that's the mechanism that adds fuel to the fire of majority faction. And so we don't want to eliminate consent by the governed. So we have to find a way to turn majority consent into rational consent, not factious consent. Okay, so how are we going to do this? And Madison considers two possibilities. In the 10th Federalist paper, he says we can either stop faction from happening altogether. We can what he said, he says we can eliminate its causes, or we can control its effects. And he considers each in turn. He says, let's take possibility number one. Let's see what it would take to eliminate the causes of faction. Because if you could do that, that would be the best way to go, right? He says, well, there are two ways of eliminating the causes of faction. He says, the one way is by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence. The other is by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions and the same interests. So possibility number one is we will just take away liberty. And so if people in society don't actually have the freedom to advocate for something and to use their power and their voice to get something done in government, well, that'll solve your faction problem, be very effective. Madison says, well, that's going to kind of be a problem for us, right? He says, that's basically like trying to deal with the problem of fire by annihilating air. It will work, but then you're going to have an even bigger problem on your hands, right? So that's not going to work. So what about this other possibility? He says, by basically giving to every citizen the same opinions, making everybody alike. Well, that would also work, right? Because then you wouldn't have faction. You wouldn't have one part versus another. Everybody would be the same. Madison says, the problem there is even if you wanted to do it, you can't. And the reason you can't do it is that our old friend human nature, human beings are just not wired that way. And you might have some utopians who think that human nature can be remade. You have the Marxists and others who are dreamers about human nature and think history is going to bring about some great coming together. Madison is not a utopian in that way. He says, no human nature, we're just not wired that way. And so the conclusion with regard to eliminating the causes of faction is the latent causes of faction are sown in the nature of man. If you're going to deal with human government, you're going to deal with faction. And so we're not going to eliminate causes. Having concluded that, what's left to us? Controlling effects. Controlling effects. And that's what the Constitution is about. Now he says there are two ways. There are two forms of self government that are on the table here. The one that we've had for a long time, direct democracy. Hey there, it's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. What's happening this week? Well, we've got Dr. Alan Gelzo with us, one of our favorite guests talking about the unique character of Western civilization because he's co authored a massive two part book series, the Golden A History of the Western Tradition. In depth this week with Alan Gelzo and a little fun with Michael P. Foley, a mixologist and professor in the Great Text program at Baylor. He'll talk about his collection of alcohol free and low alcohol cocktails based on the lives of Catholic saints. His book Abstaining with the Saints. No. And low alcohol beverages for sober souls. All that this week on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at Podcast Hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio.
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Hi there, it's Bill Gray from Hillsdale College. Before you skip ahead, can I ask you a question or two? If you could teach 50 million Americans one thing, what would it be? Would you teach our great American story that this nation is unique, founded on self government and individual liberty? Maybe you would teach the truth about free enterprise, how hard work and opportunity allow anyone to rise. Or would you teach the gospel and the Christian faith that helps us live good and meaningful lives? At Hillsdale College, we're doing exactly that, teaching the best that's been thought and said. Through our free online courses, K12 programs in Primus, podcasts and more, we reach and teach millions every year with the principles of liberty that make America free. And with your help, we can reach even more. Your tax deductible gift today will help us teach millions more people to pursue truth and defend liberty. Just text the word give to 7 1844, you'll get a secure link to make your donation in seconds. That's give to 718 44. Thank you for standing with us. Now back to the show.
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The other, which is what we federalists are proposing is this new idea of a republic. And the solution to the problem of faction lies in the distinction between Those two things, direct democracy on the one hand and a republic on the other. So what are the differences between a direct democracy on the one hand and a republic on the other? He says, well, let's understand what we mean by these terms. This is on page 234. The reader, he says, it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. So the two essential elements to a direct democracy are small number of people and it's direct. And those two things are related. Right? If you're going to have everybody show up and making the decisions and voting on everything, everybody in the society, then you can only do that logistically with a small number of people. So that's a direct democracy. How does a republic differ from a direct democracy? He says, well, a republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect. The two great points of 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. Secondly, the greater number of citizens and greater sphere of country over which the latter may be extended. So at bottom, a direct democracy is small and decisions are made by the citizens directly without any intervening institution. Whereas a republic can be more extensive and the decisions are made not by the citizens directly, but but by institutions whose officials are elected by the citizens. And those are the two main differences. And in the rest of the paper, he's going to go through and explain why these two differences are critical and how these two differences basically explain the structure of the Constitution. Let's talk first about that first difference. So, government, that is, where decisions are made by the citizens, all coming together kind of Athenian style. Or if any of you live in townships where you still have town meetings, where all the citizens come together and vote on things or decisions made, laws made through representative institutions. This is what Madison says. It's one of the most eloquent phrases in the Federalist papers on page 235. The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice pronounced by the representatives of the people will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves convened for the purpose. Okay, that's worth unpacking a little bit. What he's saying is the representatives of the people, they pronounce the public voice, but when they pronounce it, for some reason, it's pronounced in a way that's more consistent with the public good, with the rights of all citizens, which. Why is that? Why is that? The way that Madison is thinking about the representative process here is kind of as a filter. Think about the phrase that he uses to refine the public views. Remember, we said you've got human nature, and human nature's got these two elements that we're contending with. One is good, one is bad. We've got reason and we've got passion. What do you want to emerge? What do you want to rule? You want the public's reason to rule, so you've got to do something. The idea of the representative process is to do something to allow that public reason, that higher element, to emerge while controlling and suppressing the lower element. For those of you who know science, and I know only enough to be dangerous, think of a centrifuge, right? You put something into a centrifuge and it spins around, right? And as it spins around, it separates elements. And I think that's basically sort of a rough analogy to how Madison is envisioning the representative process, right? What goes in all of us, our good and our bad, right? That's what you get in direct democracy. But here you govern through an institution, and what happens in that institution is the passion is filtered out, is separated out. The reason emerges. Why is that? Why does a representative process work that way? If you think about it, there's an effect that time has, right? The enemy here is passion. We want to filter out the passion. We want people to think calmly and coolly. Well, we can all think of instances in our lives all the time where we've been presented with something and our immediate reaction has been maybe a passionate reaction to go do something, to act in a certain way. And if we have acted right away, if we've been allowed to act right then and there, it might have been something that later we regretted when we've had time to reflect on it, right? But we can all also think of instances where we've passionately wanted to do something, and maybe some friend has intervened and said, why don't you wait on that? Why don't you sleep on that? Why don't you think about that? Let's come back in a day or in a week. And after reflecting on it, when you've cooled down, let's see if you still think that's such a good idea. And if you do, you go ahead and do it. And then often we're very happy that that intervention has been made and we think better of it. That's a lot of what the representative process is. It's a lot of what governing through institutions does. It gives the people time. This. I'm quoting the Federalist Papers from another paper for more cool and sedate reflection. And so that's the difference between a direct democracy and a republic. You have people acting more like a mob in one and more rationally in the other. The idea of representation isn't to stop the people from getting their way. Then you wouldn't have self government. It's to make sure that when they do get their way, it's the way of their reason, not of their passions. And that's the great lesson here from Federalist 10 on representation. He also talks in Federalist 10. The other great difference between the Republic and a direct democracy is the extensive territory of a republic. And so when you have this representative institution, what are you able to do? You're able to bring in people from a much more extensive territory. Now this had been thought by the anti federals to be a great disadvantage of the American republic. And so there's a lot of argument about this. But Madison points out that one of the great advantages is you're going to get a lot more diversity of interest and opinion when you're bringing in people from a more extensive territory. There are a lot more differences among people. They're not like one another. What does that mean? It means that there's a lot of checking and balancing of the different interests that for any one majority view to emerge from this more extended group, it's got to be an idea that is common across a lot of different people. It can't just be something that's in the narrow interest of one small group. It's got to be something that transcends. It's got to be something that over time a lot of different people come to see as the right thing to do. And Madison thinks that's a very healthy thing. And that's called the extended sphere or the extended territory advantage of the Republic. So that's the argument of Federalist 10. And you can see how Federalist 9 and 10 together kind of help us understand the argument for the Constitution's design. It lays out broadly what the Constitution is doing and you know, again, the key advantage of a republic is representation, right? That's what Madison tells us in number 10. So how do you institutions represent the people? You've got these institutions. There are three of them, basically, in the American Constitution that share power. There's the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch. And the people govern themselves through all three of these. Some are more direct than others, some are closer to the people than others. But these are all institutions that help us consent. So they come together or they relate to one another through this thing we call the separation of power system, and through the checks and balances of or between the different institutions. In other words, it's through the improvements to the science of politics. If you remember that phrase from number nine, this is how the Constitution is going to structure its representation through these improvements, through the separation of powers. So more specifically, how does a separation of powers work? What's the logic behind it? Again, like much of what we've been talking about here, and like a lot of what you're going to see when you read more of the Federalist Papers on your own, you start with certain assumptions about human nature. And the great paper here on this is federalist number 51. Again, this is the paper where Madison says, what is government? But the greatest of all reflections on human nature? And what they're trying to do in this paper is to think realistically about how human beings in government are going to behave, not to be utopian about it. And the first truth to realize is human beings in government are going to behave like human beings behave outside of government. We're not going to dream about people coming into government and all of a sudden becoming perfect. No, they bring their human nature into government. They act in the same way. Obviously, we want the very best people to be elected and the people who are most able to consider the common good of all. But they're human beings and they're going to be subject to their own passions and interests as well. And so what Madison says in 51 is, let's dreamily try to dismiss that. Let's realize that that's going to be the reality. And let's put it to use. Let's actually try to take these basic realities about human nature and make it work for our advantage. So let's take a look at the 51st Federalist paper, and again, Federalist 47 and 48 also have a lot to say about this. We just have time here to go briefly through 51, and there's one critical paragraph here. He says the following 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 the personal motives to resist the encroachment of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of the attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. People in government are going to be ambitious. That's human nature. Let's not wish that that weren't so. Let's realize it, and let's try to design the institutions so that each individual, in their ambitions and interests, can check the others and make sure government stays within its boundaries. So ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. And then Madison says, 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. Their rights would already be secure. You wouldn't need to consent to civil government. That's what he's saying there. 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. So this internal relationship among these human beings is going to be the way in which government is kept in check. And that's a realistic and sober account of human nature. That then contributes to the design of these institutions. Now, there's one final point that should be made on this. Think of what Madison asked us. Well, what does all this say about human nature? What does the fact that we have to design separation of powers in this way say about human nature? Well, you'll Note In Federalist 51, as much as the paper touts the kind of the virtues of this design, as much as it says, hey, we've got these ambitions and we're going to channel them, and we think that this is going to be a safeguard right, that these mechanisms will help to keep the government from violating the liberties of the citizens, that's all well and good, and he's banking a lot on these mechanisms. But in that very same paragraph that I was reading from there, on page 288 of your reader, he concludes with a very important point. He describes this whole system of separation of powers and checks and balances. He says these are auxiliary precautions. Auxiliary precautions. In other words, they're not the main way that we're going to keep our liberty. They're there to help us. When we temporarily want something that's against the common good, they're there to help us. But over the long term, what is the main check? The primary control on the government, he says, is a dependence on the people. A dependence on the people. In other words, the people themselves can't be completely depraved. So you can't take a people who are totally corrupt, only self interested, they're only following their passions and then you channel them through the mechanisms of the Constitution and somehow, like magic, it comes out on the other end all good. That's not going to work. These mechanisms are designed to put the people in their best light, to give them the best chance at ruling rationally. He's explained how he thinks that's going to work. But at the end of the day, over the long term, if you don't have people who have that higher part of human nature, it's not just all about the low. If they don't have that higher element, you're done for. You can't have a republic. It's not going to work that way. And so Madison says it's about understanding not just the low, but the high in human nature. This is a point that is made in many places in the Federalist in particular. I want to point your attention to Federalist number 55. This is a passage at the very end of Federalist55 and it's a paper where they're talking about the House of Representatives and why the fact that the people vote for members of the House is an important check on the government. And Madison says the following at the very end. It's on page 323. And you have to contrast this to the rather negative statements he's made about human nature thus far. He says the following. As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust. And that's what we've been talking about a lot, right? Human nature has got factious element to it. We got to channel it the right way and govern through institutions. Madison says that's a given. But he also says, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Now, if you've got a depraved people, it doesn't matter if you've got some kind of centralized despotism, because those people aren't going to rule. But that's not us. We have government by consent. The character of the people matters, he continues, were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us, faithful likenesses of the human character. The inference would be that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self government and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another. Now, that's what the enemies of republican government think, and that's what they want us to believe, that it's not possible, that the history of republican government shows it doesn't work. That's not Madison's assumption, that's not the Framer's assumption. But you need a combination of the people's high character with the right institutional design. And that's what we've been talking about here in this lecture. So the question going forward is whether or not that important character of the people can be sustained, whether or not they will continue to be attached to these important principles of self government. It's certainly something that Lincoln was very concerned about, as you'll see as a topic in our future lectures.
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