s were either immediately produced by the necessities of
the war, or recommended by Congress or the commander-in-chief; SECOND,
in most of the other instances, they conformed either to the declared or
the known sentiments of the legislative department; THIRD, the executive
department of Pennsylvania is distinguished from that of the other
States by the number of members composing it. In this respect, it has as
much affinity to a legislative assembly as to an executive council. And
being at once exempt from the restraint of an individual responsibility
for the acts of the body, and deriving confidence from mutual example
and joint influence, unauthorized measures would, of course, be more
freely hazarded, than where the executive department is administered by
a single hand, or by a few hands.

The conclusion which I am warranted in drawing from these observations
is, that a mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits
of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those
encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers
of government in the same hands.

PUBLIUS

FEDERALIST No. 49

Method of Guarding Against the Encroachments of Any One Department of
Government by Appealing to the People Through a Convention.

For the Independent Journal. Saturday, February 2, 1788.

MADISON

To the People of the State of New York:

THE author of the "Notes on the State of Virginia," quoted in the
last paper, has subjoined to that valuable work the draught of a
constitution, which had been prepared in order to be laid before a
convention, expected to be called in 1783, by the legislature, for the
establishment of a constitution for that commonwealth. The plan, like
every thing from the same pen, marks a turn of thinking, original,
comprehensive, and accurate; and is the more worthy of attention as it
equally displays a fervent attachment to republican government and an
enlightened view of the dangerous propensities against which it ought
to be guarded. One of the precautions which he proposes, and on which he
appears ultimately to rely as a palladium to the weaker departments of
power against the invasions of the stronger, is perhaps altogether
his own, and as it immediately relates to the subject of our present
inquiry, ought not to be overlooked.

His proposition is, "that whenever any two of the three branches of
government shall concur in opinion, each by the voices o