Re:Ahh, true democracy (Score 5, Interesting)

The Federalist Papers were, objectively speaking, propaganda pieces written to persuade the states to adopt the Constitution. This is not to disparage them, but it's just a reminder that they were not neutral analytical pieces, they were persuasive works.

The structural mechanisms described were put in place for 2 reasons. First, because many viewed the federal government as a creation of the states (not from we the people). Second, it protects state sovereignty against federal encroachment. Thus the states could reign in a national government that some were afraid would be less representative of the people.

That's why the Bill of Rights does not, by a strict textual analysis, apply to the states. See Barron v. Mayor of Baltimore (a seminal John Marshall caase). At the time, no one suspected that the states would, in time, become the main oppressors of freedom.

But that's why Federalist 46 is interesting. Madison argues that the power of all governments, both state and national, originate from the people, and if in the future the people should choose to place their confidence in one or another, they should be empowered to do so.

So contrary to the popular "wisdom," the founding fathers were not as hostile to democracy as people like to claim. The Federalists (Adams) were afraid, but the Democrats (Jefferson) were all for it.