Lesson 4 Essay

James Madison stated in Federalist 51 “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” The “difficulty” in this of the paradox is that a government needs to be created that can govern the people fairly and just and also be able to control themselves. This could be difficult for a government because the people give so much power to the official’s places in government positions. This power can be toiled with and used to govern people unjustly. Because of this the government now has primary control and the auxiliary precautions.  Primary control is the dependence on the people by voting. By the people choosing the elected officials they can vote for people and values they want to be represented by. Auxiliary precautions are the separation of powers and checks and balances. Separation of powers is that the government is split into 3 branches that deal with different aspects of law.  Another aspect of separation of powers is the division of power or federalism which splits of power between the state and national governments.