James Madison once said, “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.” What Madison is saying is that for government of men that governs men the men in the government must govern themselves first. To be able to have the government govern themselves there must be primary control and auxiliary precautions.
The primary control that Madison refers to in the federalist 51 is what step or principle that needs to be followed. The primary control is the principal responsibility for allowing the American government to rule within the rules of the constitution. By confining the government to rule within the principals of the constitution it protects the liberty of the American people. There are many auxiliary precautions that Madison refers to: a written constitution, division of powers, checks and balances, and separation of powers.
One of the auxiliary precautions is having a written constitution. The written constitution was written to limit the power of the government. Written constitution had got rid of the constant arguments between states and government officials. The written constitution is an auxiliary precaution because it gives guidelines to each part of government.
An additional auxiliary precaution is having a division of powers. When the government has a division of powers it means that the national government has certain powers that pertain only to the national government and the state government has different certain powers that pertain only to the state government. In the constitution is says that “[Congress shall have power to] to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” This is the power of which congress has the power to do. The state government has many more types of thing that is has power over that are mentioned in the supremacy clause.
Auxiliary precautions would also contain check and balances. Checks and balances are built into the system of the government. For example in the house of legislature there is the Senate and the House of Representatives, these two pieces of the legislature allow check and balance and the executive and the legislature and checks and balances to each other also. Checks and balances is a force against corruption within our government.
An additional auxiliary precaution is to have separation of powers. Allowing the state government to have different powers the the federal or national government. The constitution states in article 1: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. . . .”. This part of the constitution portrays the role of congress. In the constitution it also mentions the restrictions of the powers of congress. The congress cannot tax things exported from certain states, and that any man within the government claim any title of nobility. The separation of powers is an auxiliary precaution because it doesn’t allow a oligarchy it allows more people to run the country rather than a few.
