The Paradox of the Republic A Close Reading of Federalist 10 - Literature Essay Samples

In Federalist 10, James Madison posits that the greatest threat to government and to the public good lies in the oppression committed by majority factions. Madison defines a faction as â€Å"a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent aggregate interests of the community.† [1] Factions will necessarily emerge due to the liberty afforded to citizens under the American Constitution and because the zeal for different opinions is â€Å"sown into the nature of man† (No. 10, 58). Thus, ‘Publius,’ the collective pen name of John Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, claims that the proposed constitution must guard against the effects of faction, rather than its causes. Madison argues that the republic will successfully guard against the tyrannical effects of faction due to two principles of the proposed system: representative government and the size and population of the union. Because representative government by itself is insufficiently equipped to prevent majority oppression, Madison includes the latter principle of large union size to increase its likelihood of success. Thus, the success of the former principle depends largely on the latter. Unfortunately, the realization of the latter principle affords more power to state governments, who are far more susceptible to the compulsion of majority factions. Madison claims that the representative nature of a republic guards against the harmful effects of factionalism, but this republican virtue is almost entirely dependent on the quality of the elected representative. Unlike a pure democracy, a republic guards against the harmful effects of majority oppression because it will â€Å"refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice, will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations† (No. 10, 152-156). The public voice pronounced by the representative may be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, according to Madison. For this to be true, the representative must be incredibly perceptive to the needs of those he or she represents and must have the competence to determine what actions are in their ‘true inte rests.’ However, Madison warns that the opposite may be the case: republics are susceptible to men of sinister designs securing the requisite votes to gain power, and then betraying the interests of the people (No. 10, 162). Thus, all rests on the perceptiveness, competence and, most importantly, incorruptibility of the representatives to prevent majority oppression. However, even the most perceptive and competent representative would be expected to act on behalf of the majority faction’s will. Due to The Federalist Paper’s lack of limits on the number of terms that may be served by representatives in any office, an official’s desire for election and reelection would lead them to act sycophantically toward the majority faction. This subservience to the majority faction would lead the representative to support the majority’s ‘temporary or partial considerations’, rather than the ‘true interests’ of the republic. Alexander Hamilton understands that representatives will espouse the desires of the people when he poses the question in Federalist 35, â€Å"Is it not natural that a man who is a candidate for the favour of the people and who is dependent on the suffrages of his fellow citizens for the continuance of his public honors should take care to inform himself of their inclinations and should be willing to allow them their proper degree of influence upon his conduct?† (No. 35, 152-156). While it is possible that a perceptive and incorruptible representative could succeed in establishing a compromise between the oppressive demands of the majority and the more impartial general will, such an approach would be less likely to secure the representative’s reelection. To continue his ‘public honors,’ the representative would be most disposed to allow the inclination of the majority faction to have its proper degree of influence upon his conduct. While Hamilton adds the prohibitive consideration that all officials and their posterity will be bound by the laws they pass, it still appears that the official would have more to gain than to lose by serving as a sycophant to the majority faction and could potentially secure a lifetime post through continual direct reelection from a majority faction voter base. To maximize the success of representative government, Madison dictates in Federalist 10 that the republic must constitute a large number of citizens. Madison claims that because the same number of representatives will be needed regardless of the republic’s size, larger republics have a higher likelihood of possessing competent citizens to serve as their representatives. Likewise, more citizens will participate in the election process for each representative, which may diminish a demagogue’s ability to manipulate his citizenry. Thus, to prevent majority factions from oppressing minority factions, and to supplement the insufficient principle of representative government, Madison establishes large expanse as the second principle of the proposed republic. While Madison proposes the necessity of a large republic to prevent majority oppression, he acknowledges the dangers of expanding the republic’s borders too far: â€Å"By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the representative too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and lesser interests† (No. 10, 181-183). This prompts Madison to level his final condition of the republic: all of the great and aggregate interests will be referred to the national, whereas the local and particular interests will be referred to the state legislators (No. 10, 186-187). According to Federalist 14, as the republic expands further and further, with both its geographic expanse and number of electors increasing, the representatives, who operate in federal government, would become less acquainted with those they represent. Madison reminds readers in Federalist 14 that when this occurs, more power will necessarily be afforded to the state governments: as the republ ic increases in size, â€Å"the subordinate [state] governments which can extend their care to all those other objects, which can be separately provided for, will retain their due activity and authority† (No. 14, 83-85). Therefore, as the republic expands and the representatives become less acquainted with their electors, more legislative decisions will be tasked to the state governments. Unfortunately, state governments are far more susceptible to the oppression of majority factions than the federal government. State governments, by fault of their small size, are more vulnerable to the emergence of a faction that constitutes a majority of the whole. According to Madison, â€Å"the smaller the society†¦ the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party† (No. 10, 191-194). Additionally, a smaller number of electors and candidates running for election at the state level increases the likelihood of unmerited or corrupt representatives winning elections. Incompetent or corrupt politicians are also more likely to serve sycophantically to the majority faction in order to secure their reelection. Given that a majority faction has an increased likelihood of emerging at the state level, and that state representatives are statistically less likely to be competent or incorruptible, majority oppression is extr emely likely. In fact, Madison claims in the beginning of Federalist 10 that in many of the existing American constitutions (the state constitutions), â€Å"the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party; but by the superior forces of an interested and over-bearing majority† (No. 10, 17-20). It is rather ironic that the solution to the problem of majority oppression in state governments is Madison’s first principle of representative government, of which the success depends on Madison’s second principle of the republic’s large size, which inevitably refers significant pieces of legislation to state governments. Madison claims to provide a â€Å"republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government† (No. 10, 226-227). Madison’s proposed republican constitution operates on two principles to temper the harmful effects of majority factions: representative government and large union size. The former principle by itself cannot entirely defend against the effects of majority faction oppression, especially due to the sycophancy expected of representatives seeking election or reelection. The insufficiency of representative government necessitates the inclusion of large union size to supplement the republic’s defense against factionalism’s effects. However, increasing the expanse of the republic necessarily places more matters of legislation under the state government’s jurisdiction, which severely increases the prospect of majority faction influence on all issues besides those â€Å"certain enumerated objects† (No. 14, 81) that fall under the care of the federal government. Thus, Publius proposes a republic whose ideal state lies in an intermediary position between a republic of small union size, inept representatives and fewer incidents of majority faction oppression at the state level, and a republic of large union size, competent representatives and more incidents of majority faction oppression at the state level. [1] Hamilton, Alexander, John Jay, and James Madison. The Federalist. Ed. J.R. Pole. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2005. Print. No. 10, 31-34

Academic Integrity In Engineering - Free Essay Example

Citing honestly scares me. Every time I have had to write an academic paper, I have wondered if I am doing it correctly or if my writing will be mistaken as deliberately deceptive. I do not have to write a lot of papers in my professional career and citing has has never been a skill I needed to use often enough in high school or even undergraduate school to become proficient at it. As such, when I have had to write, I have actively avoided referencing other works. To date, I have not once been accused of plagiarism and I have never received low enough marks on a paper to lead me to believe that I should have tried harder to reference other works when building my arguments. This could certainly be the one though. I do not think that my feelings toward citations are uncommon among engineers. Citing is just an unfamiliar skill for some, but that does not give anyone an excuse to write without giving proper credit to the original author. In my case, if I were to leave out a citation that should be there, that would still be a form of dishonesty because I would have withheld information that was expected to be there. However, if I were trying to pass the information off as my own original thought, that would be a deliberate deception and probably lying as well. (Charles E. Harris, Pritchard, Ray W. James, Englehardt, Rabbins, 2018). Both of these are forms of plagiarism by the standards of many publications regardless of the fact that one is done intentionally and one unknowingly (Stone, 2003). In high school, I never would have thought to cheat on assignments. I was fortunate then in the way that most of the topics we covered came easily to me. In my undergraduate years, there was significantly higher pressure to cheat. The material became increasingly harder every year, opportunities for misconduct were more plentiful, and there were scholarships I would have lost if I did not do well enough. I identified heavily with the reasons listed by Hardings report in one of the articles (Erwin, 2004). The extent of my own misconduct included looking up some homework problems online to get help on how to work them. I can rationalize that I often only needed help understanding how to solve the problems better, but the methods were still less than virtuous. I even (bitterly) remember one problem where I know I copied the answer exactly and I regret the attempt. 80% of the class had already dropped the course and I was very close to receiving a failing grade myself, something that had never happened to me at that point. I spent a disproportionate amount of my time working on that class and any opportunity to finish the homework more quickly was welcome. I searched for the problem online and found that the question was from a test for graduate level course at another university and I had absolutely no clue what was going on in the problem. The professor had become notorious for assigning homework problems beyond the scope of the textbook so this was not that surprising. Knowing I would never figure out what was going on in the problem without a significant amount of my time, I copied the answer exactly and moved on. When I got the homework back, the question was just marked as incorrect and I sometimes wonder if the professor knew that I must have copied it from somewhere else. I withdrew from the class shortly after because I did not want a failing grade to affect the scholarships that I relied on. I repeated the course with the same professor and received that failing grade and then later took the class with a different professor where I finally passed with high marks. I saw that problem and that class as unfair (and admittedly still do). Knowing that problem was from a test meant for graduate students gave me the right to ignore academic integrity. Or so I told myself at the time. Using answers found online is a lot like plagiarism in the way that someone passes off that information as their original thoughts. In a lot of instances, I really did learn from the solutions I used online and I never cheated during tests, but perhaps I robbed myself of certain learning opportunities as well and am a less prepared engineer because of it. I also knew of groups who met to exchanged answers on homework. Engineers have to collaborate on projects and that seems like a logical justification for collaborating. To an extent, I think that collaboration should be encouraged between students and it was in some classes. Personally, I cannot think of a single class or assignment where collaboration was explicitly forbidden. Selingo speaks to this form of cheating in his article, stating that it is probably the most common form of cheating that they encounter for this exact reason (Selingo, 2004). It is honestly confusing from our perspective which forms of collaboration are acceptable and which are not unless we are explicitly told. Finally, I once saw one of my capstone partners use his phone to look up answers during a test. I did not say anything about it to the professor (who happened to be gone that day while a TA proctored the test in his place). We were not particularly good friends, but I would have had to interact with this person frequently. I did not want to ruin that working relationship and so chose not to say anything. Having now read various codes of ethics, I wonder if I should have done something different back then. If a history of cheating in high school is a significant predictor of cheating in college, then perhaps more emphasis on academic integrity should be held at that level of schooling (Erwin, 2004). By that logic though, academic integrity would need to be emphasized at the elementary level, pre-school level, etc. as well. I do not think that this is honestly feasible as a solution to problems with academic integrity. Past action may be a good predictor of future behavior, but it does not give significant insight into how to curtail cheating in an academic setting or other societal settings for that matter. This viewpoint also does not take into account that people tend to behave differently as they mature and that varying circumstances can affect ones decision to cheat. The PACES group concluded that the Situation in which cheating occurs was one of the strongest predictors of the frequency of cheating (Erwin, 2004). So, can cheating be reduced by changing the academic environment? The University of Florida professor Schueller would go so far as to build specialized facilities where wireless internet would be unavailable during exams (Selingo, 2004). To me, this is the wrong direction as it would only stop some forms of cheating and it would be unreasonable for such a facility to be built on every university campus. The PACES group believes that changing teaching practices will have a significant effect on student academic integrity and from my own personal struggle with academic integrity, I would agree with that viewpoint (Erwin, 2004). Unfortunately, this approach is equally ambitious and unlikely to show promising results quickly. I think that the best way to curtail academic dishonesty is to put the necessary tools in the hands of the students themselves. There are strong points for having an open discussion within the classroom on what will and will not constitute as academically dishonest behavior for that class. By allowing students to be a part of the discussion, it puts the responsibility of their decisions more firmly in their own hands. It also forces them to become actively involved in making ethical decisions at an earlier stage of their lives. There are also strong points for setting firm boundaries and sticking to them, but I believe either method will work as long as there is sufficient communication between students and teachers. Additionally, the use of tools like plagiarism detectors has extended from educators on to the students as well (C.J. Neill, 2004). The free and open use of these tools allows students to police themselves and can help to avoid misunderstandings.