The theme of freedom and tyranny is pretty much always gonna come up when we're dealing with the founding of the United States. "Freedom Vs. Tyranny" was pretty much the buzzword of the Revolution—going through the revolutionary period without mentioning it would be like going through the 60's and forgetting to mention tie-dye shirts.
After the former-colonies were all once-bitten-twice-shy about another tyrannical governments (Thanks for that one, Britain), the Federalists had to address those concerns in writing the Federalists papers. In 10 and 51, one of Madison's goals is to convince the various state legislatures that a strong centralized government can actually help to preserve freedom and oppose tyranny, instead of the other way around.
Questions About Freedom and Tyranny
- In what way are factions likely to be tyrannical?
- How does Madison propose ensuring that the government itself isn't tyrannical?
- How would, according to Madison, a weak government do more to enable tyranny than a well-constructed strong one?
- Likewise, how does a strong government avoid using its phenomenal cosmic power to become tyrannical?
Chew on This
One of the ways Madison deals with the question of a centralized government being too tyrannical is to rephrase the debate entirely. Instead of an overly-strong government being the source of tyranny in America, the unchecked power of majority factions in American politics is. By identifying faction power as the enemy of freedom, he's able to rhetorically place a strong centralized government on the side of freedom.
Madison's concept of freedom is not exactly how we would define freedom. He condemns anarchy, which is theoretically the most free form of government, because there is no government control at all. What Madison refers to as freedom more like the freedom to have your rights as a citizen respected, and that comes with a restriction on different groups' powers.