y future septennial epoch the same State
will be free from parties? Is it to be presumed that any other State,
at the same or any other given period, will be exempt from them? Such an
event ought to be neither presumed nor desired; because an extinction
of parties necessarily implies either a universal alarm for the public
safety, or an absolute extinction of liberty.

Were the precaution taken of excluding from the assemblies elected by
the people, to revise the preceding administration of the government,
all persons who should have been concerned with the government within
the given period, the difficulties would not be obviated. The important
task would probably devolve on men, who, with inferior capacities, would
in other respects be little better qualified. Although they might not
have been personally concerned in the administration, and therefore not
immediately agents in the measures to be examined, they would probably
have been involved in the parties connected with these measures, and
have been elected under their auspices.

PUBLIUS

FEDERALIST No. 51

The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and
Balances Between the Different Departments.

For the Independent Journal. Wednesday, February 6, 1788.

MADISON

To the People of the State of New York:

TO WHAT expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in
practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments,
as laid down in the Constitution? The only answer that can be given is,
that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the
defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the
government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual
relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.
Without presuming to undertake a full development of this important
idea, I will hazard a few general observations, which may perhaps place
it in a clearer light, and enable us to form a more correct judgment
of the principles and structure of the government planned by the
convention.

In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise
of the different powers of government, which to a certain extent is
admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty,
it is evident that each department should have a will of its own; and
consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should
have as litt