Paper37

Ryan Pesso Federalist Paper 37

I. Summarization:

Madison clearly begins Federalist paper thirty-seven by stating that in order to convince the readers, the government must be lively and strong as the one projected and that they must warily examine the defects of the existing government. He does not expect people to accept the new Constitution with trust alone, but by examining the requirements of the constitution and comparing it with the Articles of Confederation, they can fix the problems and create a successful government. He also attempted to demonstrate the effects of the Articles of Confederation to the American citizens. One way he did this was he kept on writing how fallible men are the ones who wrote the constitution and fallible men are the ones who will judge it. In other words, men who make mistakes wrote the constitution and also evaluate it as well. The main point Madison kept on repeating all through the essay, was that in order to have a stabilized government, there must be a Branch of government to execute the laws. This power should be given to a President to help control the power throughout the government. To help control the power, he also said that there should be short terms of office for the Representatives, Senators, and the president. Madison primarily devoted his time to show the difficulties faced by the convention in guaranteeing both security and the Liberty of Citizens. He understood completely that is would be difficult to create a perfect government in which everyone would get his or her way. His best idea he used to create this equality would be a three-branch system and the checks and balances to control the power in it. He also repeatedly mentioned that the large states and the small states wont ever agree on anything unless something in the constitution was changed. He did not necessarily say what the needs to change about the state government; he just said that change was definitely needed. The main idea of Federalist paper thirty-seven was simply that a president must be present in a successful government in which security and Liberty is guaranteed in all citizens.

II. Main Objective:

The main objective Publius was trying to present to the American citizens was that there must be a President present in the government in order for a three-branch government to be successful. Publius wanted to get as many Anti-Federalists as possible to switch to a Federalist to ratify the new Constitution. Therefore Publius wrote Federalist paper thirty-seven to get Americans to realize that the government is not safe without a President.

III. Strongest Arguments:

One of the arguments he used was that he declared that there is no president. His opinion of having a president was by far one of his strongest arguments. He wondered if people had their right to security and liberty when there wasn’t a President. He knew that having a president would solve many of the problems that occurred in the states. Having someone being able to execute the laws would make it much easier for a government to be successful. If there was a President, not one of the branches of government can gain too much power. Another argument Madison pointed out would be that each of the offices held in the executive and in the legislative branch should be in given out in terms not lifetime. He uses this to show people that not one Branch can get too powerful over the other. In addition to those two strong arguments pointed out by Madison, another example would be that giving legislatures the power is evil in itself and odious to the people. The intelligent idea of republican liberty would solve many of the disputes in the government. Giving the people the power to control government would most definitely give people their liberty and security.

IV. Opposing Arguments of the Anti-Federalists:

Madison complained in the essay that there was no guide in creating the first constitution. He complained about this issue to use it as an excuse of why the government was not like this in the first place. This disturbed the Anti-Federalist because ideas from philosophy were truly what created the Constitution. Ideas from Machiavelli, Hume, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and above all John Locke were all key sources used. A major point that the Ant-Federalists had on the Federalist was that if there was a President, isn’t that kind of similar to the King in Great Britain; this is what the founding fathers all tried to stay away from.

V. Validity of Arguments:

The validity of Publius’ writing is not 100 percent correct. There are times where sentences are over exaggerated to make the situation seem worse then it really is. Overall, he did a respectable job in creating Federalist paper 37.

VI. Today’s World:

In today’s society there will always remain an Executive branch of government. It has never been debated about ever since the late 1700’s. The President is and will always remain a branch of the United States Government. The issues the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist fought over in the 1700’s do not exist today. No American or Political group in America suggests that having Federal power in control is not working. Event in History in which the President made his own decision- President Franklin D. Roosevelt had the power to create the New Deal Programs that created many jobs for fellow American’s throughout the great depression.