Research Guides: Federalist Papers: Primary Documents in American History: Federalist Nos. 51-60

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• TO WHAT expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments,

• nterior 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

• 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 little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others

• It is equally evident, that the members of each department should be as little dependent as possible on those of the others, for the emoluments annexed to their offices.

• But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others

• constitutional rights of the place

• If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary

• In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

• departments

• In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates

• remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches

• render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action

• If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

• distributions of power

• by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit

• divide the legislature into different branches

• In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.