The history of almost all the great councils and consultations, held among mankind for reconciling their discordant opinions, assuaging their mutual jealousies, and adjusting their respective interests, is a history of factions, contentions, and disappointments; and may be classed among the most dark and degrading pictures which display the infirmities and depravities of the human character.

James Madison in Federalist No. 37

An avaricious man, who might happen to fill the offices, looking forward to a time when he must at all events yield up the emoluments he enjoyed, would feel the propensity, not easy to be resisted by such a man, to make the best use of the opportunities he enjoyed, while it lasted; and might not scruple to have recourse to the most corrupt expedients to make the harvest as abundant as it was transitory; though the same man probably, with a different prospect before him, might content himself with the regular perquisites of his station, and might even be unwilling to risk the consequences of an abuse of his opportunities. His avarice might be a guard upon his avarice. Add to this, that same man might be vain or ambitious as well as avaricious.

Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 72

But cool and candid people will at once reflect, that the purest of human blessings must have a portion of alloy in them, that the choice must always be made, if not of the lesser evil, at least the GREATER, not the PERFECT good; and that in every political institution, a power to advance the public happiness, involves a discretion which may be misapplied and abused.

James Madison in Federalist No. 41

A LAW by the very meaning of the term includes supremacy. It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe.

Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 33

No man is allowed to be the judge of his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.    

James Madison in Federalist No. 10

… the most common and durable source of factions, has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold, and those who are without property, have ever formed distinct interests in society.  

James Madison  in Federalist No. 10

… it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.

Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 1

Seems fitting in this presidential election year that we revisit what the Founding Fathers envisioned in crafting their new nation.

I was fortunate to study under and work with Vincent Ostrom at Indiana University. As a professor of political policy and administration, he led me in a close examination of the logic underpinning the Federalist, a series of historic papers that argued for the passage of the proposed Constitution. His resulting book, The Political Theory of a Compound Republic (1971), and later volumes presented a much different understanding of the workings of democracy in the United States than I had found in the more conventional, top-down perspectives. He dubbed the overlapping jurisdictions a polycentric system, or a “compound republic” in the words of the Federalist, and found in it flexibility as well as layers that ultimately enhance democracy.

Through the coming year, the Red Barn will present weekly excerpts from the arguments written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay but at the time attributed to the nom de plume Publius.

Let me admit that it’s been years since I last opened my thoroughly marked up copy of the collected papers, a trade paperback I bought for $2.45 back in 1968. I’ll probably be embarrassed by some of my notes in the margins and perhaps also surprised by some of the phrases and sentences I underlined while overlooking more profound insights on the same page.

In this round, we’ll stick with the original text, apart from the titles I’m applying. The prose looks quite different to me than it did more than a half-century ago, even without all the recent political turmoil we’re seeing.