Madison's Blueprint: Understanding Federalist 51 and Separation of Powers

Dr. Alan Gibson returns to examine Federalist 51, Madison's definitive document on separation of powers and checks and balances within the American governmental system. Madison's argument across Federalist Papers 47-51 culminates in a sophisticated explanation of how to preserve liberty through proper distribution of governmental authority.

• Separation of powers is described by Madison as "a sacred maxim of free government"
• American system differs from parliamentary systems where executive emerges from legislature
• Madison argues branches should remain distinct but with "partial agency" in each other
• Separation involves dividing government functions according to their nature
• Common misconception: framers did not intend to "deadlock democracy"
• Separation of powers was designed to allow for energetic, active government
• Madison explicitly stated legislative branch "necessarily predominates" in republican governments
• Madison worried most about legislative branch invading other branches' powers
• Federalist 51 offers Madison's solution for maintaining proper separation

For AP Government students studying Topic 1.6 on principles of American government, having a copy of Federalist 51 on hand while listening is highly recommended to follow along with Dr. Gibson's analysis.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back everyone .
I'm very excited again to haveDr Alan Gibson.
If you have not listened to theFederalist 10 episodes, highly
suggest it.
Dr Gibson is back with us.
So for all of our friends whoare learning about AP government
or studying for the test, rightnow we are going through

(00:23):
Federalist 51 and within the APgovernment, ced, we're on topic
1.6, which is principles of theAmerican government, and Dr
Gibson is going to talk to usabout kind of the argument of
Federalist 51 and how Federalist51 supports the idea of both
checks and balances andseparation of power.

(00:45):
So, dr Gibson, thank you againso much.
Friends, if you are goingthrough this, I highly suggest
having a copy of Federalist 51with you, much like in our
Federalist 10 episode.
I will have mine up because Ifeel like it helps me as Dr
Gibson talks about it.
It helps me to actually see thedocument alongside.

(01:07):
So, dr Gibson, I'm going topass it on over to you.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Okay, well, thank you again.
Again, I'm pleased to do thisand it's enjoyable.
It's good to sharpen and torevisit my thoughts on all of
these issues.
Separation of powers Madisoncalls it a sacred maxim of free
government.
Of course, federalist 51 is thesignature writing on separation

(01:32):
of powers in the FederalistPapers.
Actually, in the FederalistPapers, federalist Numbers 47 to
51 deal with the issue ofseparation of powers and I want
to look at very, very brieflyeach of those to describe how
Madison unfolds an argument thatculminates in Federalist no 51.
You really need to understandMadison's argument in 51 is the

(01:55):
culmination of those five totalpapers in there.
A few other general backgroundthoughts on this.
It was absolutely imperativethat the defenders of the
Constitution establish that theConstitution integrated the
concept or maxim of separationof powers into the government.

(02:19):
The government was formed orbased upon this foundational
assumption about how youpreserve liberty and about how
you promote good government.
That separation of powers isintegral to this system.
It's still it's interestingthat separation of powers
remains, I think, probably thesignature feature of the

(02:42):
American political system overother political systems in the
world, and that includes eventhe other democratic form, which
is parliamentary forms ofgovernment.
In parliamentary forms ofgovernment.
Of course the executive ischosen by the legislative branch
and executive officers alsocome out of the legislative
branch.
And there's, you know, thereare, you know, just these

(03:05):
agendas that come out, and theexecutive and the legislative
branch are instrumental informing together those agendas.
And so there is no realseparation of powers in other
kinds of parliamentary systemsthe way there is in our
political system.
Across the world there'sincreasing hybridization of

(03:29):
forms of government, but withthat said, that distinction
still remains betweenparliamentary and the separation
of powers of presidentialmodels of government that the
United States is principallyresponsible for.
Separation of powers comes downto a couple of different things.
One of them is self-evident andquite obvious, and that is the

(03:50):
idea that the legislative,executive and judiciary
departments ought to be keptseparate and distinct.
That's right out of thelanguage of Federalist no 47.
And distinct, that's right outof the language of Federalist no
47.
That's just a definitional oreven kind of foundational
proposition about separation ofpowers.
But, if you'll remember, in allof these Federalist Papers,

(04:13):
madison says you can't keep themcompletely separate.
Indeed, you don't want to keepthem completely separate.
You want to give each branchsome degree of partial agency in
the other branches.
So you do want to keep themdistinct, but only to a degree,
and you need to give each of thebranches some partial agency in

(04:35):
the other so that they canexercise some kind of
constitutional control over this.
And that foreshadows theultimate thesis of separation of
powers that set forth inFederalist no 51, which is it is
an internal combining orintermingling of powers that

(04:59):
maintains the system ofseparation of powers in the
federal's papers.
A second thing that is integralhere is that separation of
powers actually makes itpossible for government to
execute the distinct capacitiesor functions for which it is

(05:20):
charged with.
Doing so, separate institutionsexercising separate powers
allow for the execution by thenational government of
legislative, executive andjudicial functions.
Separation of powers, in otherwords, involves a division of

(05:42):
labor about what government does.
It involves that application tothe principle of government,
and so you're trying to ensurethat the powers of government
are distributed among thesebranches based upon their nature
, that the legislative branchexercises legislative powers,

(06:06):
that the executive exercisesexecutive powers and that in
combination all of the powers ofgovernment are exercised that
are necessary for what Madisoncalls in the Federalist no 37,
good government.
So that's an important featureof this as well, real quickly.

(06:27):
A couple of fallacies aboutseparation of powers that are
common.
One of them is that the framersthought they were deadlocking
democracy or wanted to deadlockdemocracy.
I don't think that that well.
I know that that is not true intheir intention.
There are some reason tobelieve that that is the effect
of separation of powers today,but that's only because of the

(06:49):
introduction of politicalparties into a system that was
not originally conceived for it.
That's something of an aside,but the primary point I'm trying
to make here is that separationof powers was, in the framers'
mind, consistent with an activeand powerful national government

(07:10):
.
The system would become checkedif, in fact, the policies were
unwise or one of the brancheswas trying to exercise the power
of another branch, actingunconstitutionally in some way.
But otherwise separation ofpowers allows for an energetic

(07:34):
government, an active, energeticgovernment.
The other fallacy is that allof the branches under separation
of powers are supposed to beequal, or the phrase is
sometimes used as co-equal.
Madison says very explicitlythat in Republican governments
the legislative branchnecessarily predominates, and

(07:56):
that's directly out ofFederalist no 51.
And there are similarstatements to that about
legislative supremacy.
The supremacy itself refers tothe proximity of the legislative
branch to the people, the factthat they will identify more
with the legislative branch, andalso it refers to the

(08:21):
legislative branch's tendency tousurpate powers exercised by
other branches.
So you've got to worry mostabout invasions of power from
the legislative branch, not fromin Madison's estimation the
executive or the judiciary.
There are a lot of changesbetween the time that we have

(08:46):
today and the time that this waswritten and you may ask
yourself whether Madison wasright in predicting that the
legislative branch would be theprimary branch, the one that
would be most likely to invadethe powers of the others.
But you have to understand thatin the context in which he was
writing, legislative brancheswere doing that.

(09:07):
That seemed to be their naturaltendency, that that seemed to
be their natural tendency.
He had a lot of experience withthat.
Anyway, the real topic, theprimary topic of Thurlis 47 to
51, is about how you create andmaintain separation of powers,

(09:31):
more than why you haveseparation of powers.
So in Federalist no 47, 48, 49,and 50, well, federalist no 47
does something different, but 48, 49, and 50 all look at ways
that you might create ormaintain separation of powers

(09:53):
and it rejects those ways.
And then Federalist no 51 givesyou this distinct answer to
that question.