Читать книгу Justice Rehnquist, the Supreme Court, and the Bill of Rights - Steven T. Seitz - Страница 14

Madison revealed his image of leaders and followers in the Federalist Papers. Passion at one point or another motivates all people, some more so than others. No person consistently uses reason. No person is above corruption. This view posed two fundamental political questions. How do we separate the public interest from a leader’s private interest or irrational decision-making? How do we keep factions from forcing their narrow interests or passions of the moment into public decision-making? Changing the nature of people, whether leader or follower, was not an option. At the leadership level, the separation of powers pitted power against power, giving each branch of government some control or oversight of the other. Madison offered checks and balances as the core check on leadership gone astray.

The problem with factions was more difficult. Shays’s Rebellion was just one of many contemporary illustrations of the dangers of majority rule. The people would be semi-sovereign under the new Constitution. A republic, or representative system, was part of the solution. Madison hoped that constituencies would choose among local leaders and prominent figures for their representatives in the House of Representatives. If a representative system chose quality leaders it would make it more likely, although certainly imperfect, that the representatives would use reason in their deliberations rather than private interest or passion of the moment. Of the various compartments of government, the executive, the judiciary, and the senate, only the House of Representatives had any direct link to the people. The Constitution of 1789 provided only for the direct election of representatives, not judges nor senators nor presidents.