Federalist No. 50 was written by James Madison under the name Publius. Its subtitle is “Periodic Appeals to the People Considered.” In this essay, Madison continues the argument from Federalist No. 49 and asks whether regular, scheduled appeals to the people might be a better way to correct constitutional violations by the departments of government.
This paper matters because Madison says that even periodic appeals to the people are not a sufficient or reliable safeguard for maintaining the separation of powers. He argues that such appeals would either happen too rarely to stop ongoing abuses, or so frequently that they would unsettle the government and inflame public passions. The deeper lesson is that liberty needs internal constitutional controls, not repeated constitutional resets.
Full Text of Federalist No. 50
Periodic Appeals to the People Considered
From the New York Packet.
MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
IT MAY be contended, perhaps, that instead of occasional appeals to the people, which are attended with too many inconveniences, periodical appeals are the proper and adequate means of preventing and correcting infractions of the Constitution.
It will be attended to, that in the examination of these expedients, I confine myself to their aptitude for enforcing the Constitution, by keeping the several departments of power within their due limits, without particularly considering them as provisions for altering the general form of the government, which ought to be provided for by the Constitution itself.
As the people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived; it seems strictly consonant to the republican theory, to recur to the same original authority, not only whenever it may be necessary to enlarge, diminish, or new-model the powers of government, but also whenever any one of the departments may commit encroachments on the chartered authorities of the others.
The several departments being perfectly co-ordinate by the terms of their common commission, none of them, it is evident, can pretend to an exclusive or superior right of settling the boundaries between their respective powers; and how are the encroachments of the stronger to be prevented, or the wrongs of the weaker to be redressed, without an appeal to the people themselves, who, as the grantors of the commissions, can alone declare its true meaning and enforce its observance?
There is certainly great force in this reasoning, and it must be allowed to prove that a constitutional road to the decision of the people ought to be marked out and kept open, for certain great and extraordinary occasions.
But there are insuperable objections against the proposed recurrence to the people, as a provision in all cases, for keeping the several departments of power within their constitutional limits.
In the first place, the provision does not reach the case of a combination of two of the departments against the third. If the legislative authority, which possesses so many means of operating on the motives of the other departments, should be able to gain to its interest either of the others, or even one third of its members, the remaining department could derive no advantage from this remedial provision.
In the next place, it may be considered as an objection inherent in the principle, that as every appeal to the people would carry an implication of some defect in the government, frequent appeals would, in great measure, deprive the government of that veneration which time bestows on every thing, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability.
If it be true that all governments rest on opinion, it is no less true, that the strength of opinion in each individual, and its practical influence on his conduct, depend much on the number which he supposes to have entertained the same opinion. The reason of man, like man himself, is timid and cautious, when left alone, and acquires firmness and confidence in proportion to the number with which it is associated.
When the examples which fortify opinion are ancient as well as numerous, they are known to have a double effect. In a nation of philosophers, this consideration ought to be disregarded. A reverence for the laws would be sufficiently inculcated by the voice of an enlightened reason. But a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato.
And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage to have the prejudices of the community on its side.
The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society.
Notwithstanding the success which has attended the revisions of our established forms of government, and which does so much honor to the virtue and intelligence of the people of America, it must be confessed, that the experiments are of too ticklish a nature to be unnecessarily multiplied.
We are to recollect, that all the existing constitutions were formed in the midst of a danger, which repressed the passions most unfriendly to order and concord; of an enthusiastic confidence of the people in their patriotic leaders, which stifled the ordinary diversity of opinions on great national questions; of a universal ardor for new and opposite forms, produced by a universal resentment and indignation against the ancient government; and whilst no spirit of party connected with the changes to be made, or the abuses to be reformed, could mingle its leaven in the operation.
The future situations, in which we must expect to be usually placed, do not present any equivalent security against the danger which is apprehended.
But the greatest objection of all is, that the decisions which would probably result from such appeals, would not answer the purpose of maintaining the constitutional equilibrium of the government.
We have seen that the tendency of republican governments is to an aggrandizement of the legislative at the expense of the other departments. The periodic appeals in question would, therefore, usually be made by the executive and judiciary departments. But whether made by one side or the other, would each side enjoy equal advantages on the trial? Let us view their different situations.
The members of the executive and judiciary departments are few in number, and can be personally known to a small part only of the people. The latter, by the mode of their appointment, as well as by the nature and permanency of it, are too far removed from the people to share much in their prepossessions. The former are generally the objects of jealousy, and their administration is always liable to be discolored and rendered unpopular.
The members of the legislative department, on the other hand, are numerous. They are distributed and dwell among the people at large. Their connections, of blood, of friendship, and of acquaintance, embrace a great proportion of the most influential part of the society. The nature of their public trust implies a personal influence among the people, and that they are more immediately the confidential guardians of their rights and liberties.
With these advantages, it can hardly be supposed that the adverse party would have an equal chance for a favorable issue.
But the legislative party would not only be able to plead their cause most successfully with the people. They would probably be constituted themselves the judges. The same influence which had gained them an election into the legislature, would gain them a seat in the convention.
If this should not be the case with all, it would probably be the case with many, and pretty certainly with those leading characters, on whom every thing depends in such bodies. The convention, in short, would be composed chiefly of men, who had been, who actually were, or who expected to be, members of the department whose conduct was arraigned. They would consequently be parties to the very question to be decided by them.
It may perhaps be said, that a convention chosen at stated periods would be less apt to be influenced by the passions or interests connected with the particular question than one chosen at the time to decide it. But this reflection, though it has some force, is not sufficient to obviate the objection.
The objection is, not merely that the passions and parties at the time would bias the issue; but that the conventions themselves would, from the very situation of things, be too much under the influence of the legislative branch, and that the ordinary and permanent superiority of that branch in republican governments would prevent the proposed remedy from restoring the proper constitutional balance.
If the periods were remote from each other, the measure would be of little avail in cases requiring an immediate remedy. If they were near and frequent, they would keep the government in a state too mutable, and the public mind too agitated, to allow that reverence for the laws, and that tranquility of government, which are among the chief blessings of political society.
It is only one step more to say, that the means of defending the Constitution against infractions of the departments, must in the first instance be sought in the internal structure of the government itself.
PUBLIUS
Why Federalist No. 50 Matters
Federalist No. 50 matters because Madison continues narrowing the field of acceptable constitutional safeguards. After rejecting mere parchment barriers in Federalist No. 48 and rejecting frequent appeals to the people in Federalist No. 49, he now rejects even periodic appeals as an insufficient remedy.
This paper is important because it pushes the argument toward the real solution Madison prefers: the Constitution must defend itself through its own structure. In other words, liberty cannot depend on occasional public interventions alone. It must be protected by built-in checks that operate continuously.
Related Links
- Federalist No. 50 Highlights
- Federalist Papers
- James Madison
- Federalist No. 49
- United States Constitution
- Articles of Confederation