The Danger of Majority Tyranny and the Necessity of Union

What is the Constitution? What is it for? James Madison writes, in Federalist 10, that the Constitution aims to solve one particular problem—a problem with the fabric of the republic itself: the danger of the tyranny of the majority.

The following video is a clip from Lecture 3 of Hillsdale’s Online Course: “Constitution 101” featuring Professor of Politics, Mickey Craig.

Watch the full lecture.

Transcript:

What is the Constitution? The Constitution is trying to solve this problem: How do you have majority rule that it doesn’t become majority tyranny? Madison says that problem is what all of our inquiries are aimed at. Virtually every provision of the Constitution, is somehow in the Constitution because it’s trying to help solve that problem. Madison puts it this way in Federalist Paper No. 10. He says: When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government enables it to sacrifice, through its ruling passion or interest, both the public good and the rights of other citizens. Then he says, here’s what we’re trying to do: to secure the public good and private rights, (you know, the common good, public good, individual rights, minority rights), to secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. So what’s Madison saying is what we’re trying to do come up with a kind of majority rule that does not become majority tyranny.