Federalist #50

Periodical Appeals to the People Considered  (Madison)

In this Federalist essay, Madison argues that “instead of occasional appeals to the people, which are liable to the objections urged against them, periodical appeals are the proper and adequate means of preventing and correcting infractions of the Constitution.”  According to him, there would be fixed intervals at which the nation at large would have to address issues related to “enforcing” the Constitution. However, too short or too long periods are not desirable, according to him: “If the periods be separated by short intervals, the measures to be reviewed and rectified will have been of recent date, and will be connected with all the circumstances which tend to vitiate and pervert the result of occasional revisions. If the periods be distant from each other, the same remark will be applicable to all recent measures; and in proportion as the remoteness of the others may favor a dispassionate review of them, this advantage is inseparable from inconveniences which seem to counterbalance it.” In other words, Madison’s argument is that, either the period would be too short, or therefore the issues too current to be settled reasonably, or the intervals would be too long to constraint the bad actors.

Madison takes a look at the Pennsylvania whose mechanism is similar to the one under consideration. He says: “One of the objects of the Council of Censors which met in Pennsylvania in 1783 and 1784, was, as we have seen, to inquire, "whether the constitution had been violated, and whether the legislative and executive departments had encroached upon each other.” Madison outlines a number of shortcomings with the council. First, the persons on the council were on the government at the time being reviewed. Second, the leading and the active members on the council were the most influential members on the departments at the time being considered. Third, the written proceedings show that there were two opposing parties on every important issue with the same members on the opposite sides indicating a bias toward a party and that passion not reason prevailed. Fourth, the decisions of the body often misconstrued the limits in the constitution. Last, the current legislature denied the results and constructions made by the council.

It is thus clear that Madison argues against anyone wishing to suggest that Pennsylvania is a special case in its partisan division. According to him, The Pennsylvania experiment failed because the members were those actively involved in government at the time being reviewed. But any review by representatives elected by the people even if not active involve in the encroachments under review would still have party influences that would bias their conclusions.