The question of democracy

[Dill]

(03-14-2018, 05:53 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: The Madisonian quote comes from this publication: http://books.google.com/books?id=RUcGAAAAMAAJ&oe=UTF-8

It has a lot of enlightening information on the thoughts of the framers. The Federalist Papers were propaganda, so while they can help us to get some understanding we need to take them in that context.

LOL "Secret Proceedings"! Just skimmed over Hamilton's proposals for the Constitution. Very interesting to see what our branches of government looked like in formation--the executive vested in a "governor" and Congress called an "Assembly."  I'll find the elitist stuff. Thanks for that link.

I guess you could call the Federalist Papers propaganda since they were meant to persuade, but unlike what we usually call propaganda, I find a lot of the arguments world class as stand alone arguments about how power is to be managed. Madison really wrestled well with the problem of sovereignty, how to make political power internal to government (as opposed to the external, monarchical model), but checked and balanced.