In 1787, the Federalists Papers were written by John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, which consisted of eighty-five essays. The main purpose of these essays was to encourage the states, especially New York, to ratify the constitution. In addition, the essays were published to defend the core elements of the constitution, and to refute the claims of the anti-federalists, whom opposed ratification. The two most important essays out of the eighty-five are ten, and fifty-one. Specifically, the key arguments Madison used were, checks and balances, protection against violence of factions (majority), and the size and structure of the national government. In essay number ten, Madison argues that we must have protection against the potential…show more content… Though, a faction can be viewed as undesirable because a majority faction will oppress a minority faction. Madison considered that these factions (majorities) were driven by economic imperatives (Status); Madison suggests two options on how to protect against a faction. One option he suggests is that you must eliminate the cause of the faction, and the other was to control the effect of the factions. In order to eliminate the causes of faction Madison considered the idea of making everyone have the same view on politics. However, doing this would destroy liberty; if you destroy liberty you take away people’s free will. Also, this goes against constitutional principles and the purposes of self-government. Thus, liberty is the leading cause of faction. Madison realized that it would ideal if people would all agree on the same political views, making everybody the same, but you cannot abolish factions without eliminating liberty. The other option that Madison suggests is the controlling the effects of faction. Not to get confused with political parties, a republic government is a representative democracy. By electing representatives to government this filters the political views of the people.
However, the constitution needed ratification, and the state of New York was undecided. To persuade them, Madison and Alexander Hamilton wrote The Federalist, a series of eighty-five independent articles which were