【4/26 今日美史】美国建国的哲学根基

今

日

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史

每天一篇“今日美史”，提炼和总结历史在今天发生的重要事件：谁，在哪里，什么时候，做了什么，这件事为什么重要，以及在写关于什么主题的论文的时候可以作为潜在的论据引用。

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4/26

When

Where

Who

What
When：April 26, 1711
What：
David Hume was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Why

significant

Although Hume died on August 25, 1776, when the American Revolution was barely underway, his essay “Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth” greatly affected the ideas of the drafters of the federal Constitution in 1787. Most famously, James Madison contemplated Hume’s proposals for an ideal government and, more precisely, Hume’s thoughts regarding the prevention of faction as he constructed his argument in favor of the Constitution in “Federalist X.”
In establishing a government for the new nation, Madison was particularly concerned with avoiding a tyranny of the majority, defined as the largest faction in a republic pursuing its interests while ignoring or suppressing the interests and voices of all opposition. Hume believed that the only way to control faction was to created small republics, where the common interest of all would be self-evident. Therefore, no majority block could take control at the expense of a significant minority.
Madison respectfully rejected the “Humean” logic he had so carefully studied, and argued that the best way to prevent one faction from driving out all opposing interest was to create such large republics that no one special interest could motivate a majority to tyrannize their opposition. Even in a small republic, he argued, one or two individuals might be tyrannized by what the majority deemed to be the common interest. In a large republic, so many factions and interests would exist that they would have to find a means of peaceful coexistence. Madison successfully took a term that struck fear in Hume’s heart—”faction”—and presented it as a great benefit of the new American system of federalism. In his eyes, faction would be a positive force in the new, and diverse, United States.

Tags

American Revolution, founding fathers, Constitution
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