THE CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE
The new nation's great challenge was to establish a government that represented the
democratic will of the majority - but which also respected the individual rights of
every citizen. A year after the Constitutional Convention, Madison wrote to his
friend Thomas Jefferson that in the United States, tyranny was not likely to occur by
overthrowing the democracy; it was more likely that there would be a tyranny of the
majority:

"The invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended not from
acts of government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from
acts in which the government is the mere instrument of the major

number of the constituents, this is a truth of great importance."

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TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY
But how could tyranny of the majority be avoided? Madison offered an answer to
No. 51 of the Federalist Papers. Madison explains that great care must be taken to
give a government the internal brakes and checks that control the ambitions of those
who govern:

"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. If men were angels,
no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men,

neither external nor internal controls on government would be            ^

^ ^