The Federal Government and Justice

James Madison

     In a free government the security for civil rights must
     be the same as that for religious rights.  It consists
     in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and
     in the other in the multiplicity of sects.  The degree
     of security in both cases will depend on the number of
     interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend
     on the extent of country and number of people
     comprehended under the same government.
     
     This view of the subject must particularly recommend a
     proper federal system to all the sincere and
     considerate friends of republican government, since it
     shows that in exact proportion as the territory of the
     Union may be formed into more circumscribed
     Confederacies, or States, oppressive combinations of a
     majority will be facilitated; the best security, under
     the republican forms, for the rights of every class of
     citizens, will be diminished; and consequently the
     stability and independence of some member of the
     government, the only other security, must be
     proportionally increased.  Justice is the end of
     government.  It is the end of civil society.  It ever
     has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained,
     or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.
     
     In a society under the forms of which the stronger
     faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker,
     anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of
     nature, where the weaker individual is not secured
     against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the
     latter state, even the stronger individuals are
     prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to
     submit to a government which may protect the weak as
     well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the
     more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced,
     by a like motive, to wish for a government which will
     protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more
     powerful.  It can be little doubted that if the State
     of Rhode Island was separated from the Confederacy and
     left to itself, the insecurity of rights under the
     popular form of government within such narrow limits
     would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of
     factious majorities that some power altogether
     independent of the people would soon be called for by
     the voice of the very factions whose misrule had proved
     the necessity of it.
     
     In the extended republic of the United States, and
     among the great variety of interests, parties, and
     sects which it embraces, a coalition of a majority of
     the whole society could seldom take place on any other
     principles than those of justice and the general good;
     whilst there being thus less danger to a minor from the
     will of a major party, there must be less pretext,
     also, to provide for the security of the former, by
     introducing into the government a will not dependent on
     the latter, or, in other words, a will independent of
     the society itself.
     
     It is no less certain than it is important,
     notwithstanding the contrary opinions which have been
     entertained, that the larger the society, provided it
     lie within a practical sphere, the more duly capable it
     will be of self-government.  And happily for the
     republican cause, the practicable sphere may be carried
     to a very great extent, by a judicious modification and
     mixture of the federal principle.