Government POWER and Individual RIGHTS [AP Government Review, Unit 1 Topic 3]

hey there and welcome back to heimlich's history now we've been going through unit one of the ap government curriculum and in this video it's time to talk about the debate between federalist ten and brutus one with respect to the power of the government so if you're ready to get their brain cows milked well then let's get to it okay so in this video here's what we're aiming to do explain how federalist and anti-federalist views on central government and democracy are reflected in u.s foundational documents now i've got two videos on federalist 10 and brutus one respectively you can watch those if you want to know the details about the contents of those documents but for now we're just going to consider the ideological debate between the two over the value of democracy and liberty now the main idea of the debate was about majority rule versus minority rights when i say minority here don't get confused i don't mean ethnic minorities i mean the opposite of majority and in the context of this debate we're talking about regional and economic majorities and minorities and there were some very pressing questions being debated for example how could they ensure that small land owners of which there were many would not impose a devastating tax burden on the wealthy elite of which there were very few or how could they ensure that agricultural interest wouldn't dominate industrial interests or vice versa etc etc now the two main groups fighting about these kinds of things during the ratification debates for the constitution were the federalists and the anti-federalists the federalists included folks like alexander hamilton james madison and john jay and they were arguing for more centralized power in the federal government which is what we'd get if the constitution was ratified the anti-federalists on the other hand included folks like patrick henry and george mason and they argued against the ratification of the constitution because they thought that the current government in which power was invested in the states was just fine thank you very much so this debate over majority rule versus minority rights found its way into print and both federalist and anti-federalists published essays in new york newspapers which argued their respective perspectives and these became known as the federalist papers and the anti-federalist papers and that's where we get our foundational documents federalist 10 and brutus 1. so let's start with federalist 10. the main argument in this document is concerning the quote mischief of faction and factions are just groups of people who believe that their interests are more important than any other interest so the problem is this if the majority always prevailed then the minority would never be represented however if too many protections were provided to the minority then the common good would never prevail so the solution to these problems in federalist 10 is to create a republican-style government which is what the constitution provided under a republican government not to be confused with the republican party different thing altogether anyway under a republican government and then combined with the sheer size and population of the united states there will be so many factions so many competing interests that they would have to debate and compromise in order to get any laws passed and therefore majority rule and minority rights upheld but the anti-federalist and brutus one were uh not impressed with those arguments they said that history had never seen a republican-style government govern a population in a landmass as large as the united states and because of the necessary and proper clause and the supremacy clause of the constitution a powerful central government would render state governments unnecessary thus squashing the interests of the states therefore if liberty is to be maintained in our fair country the constitution with all its centralized power should not be ratified now the anti-federalist papers were a lot less organized than the federalist papers were the anti-federalists just kind of published their essays willy-nilly without much concerted effort and so you've got lots of different authors contributing to this canon of anti-constitutional literature for example in addition to brutus one you have letters from the federal farmer which hamilton acknowledged to be the most cogent of the anti-federalist writers whoever wrote these said in the first one the plan of government now proposed is evidently calculated totally to change in time our condition as a people instead of being 13 republics under a federal head it is clearly designed to make us one consolidated government so it's just another example of the same argument being made in brutus one now of course ultimately it was the federalists who won that debate and that means we got ourselves a new governing document in the constitution of the united states but alas that will have to wait for another video all right that's what you need to know about unit 1 topic 3 of the ap government curriculum click right over here grab a review packet if you want help getting an a in your class and a 5 on your exam in may if you want me to keep making these videos for you then let me know by subscribing heimler out

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Length: 4min 0sec (240 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 10 2021