Federalist No. 47 is the forty-seventh paper from the Federalist Papers

Federalist Papers

The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles or essays promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788...

. It was published on 30 January 1788 under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. James Madison

James Madison

James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...

 was its actual author. This paper examines the separation of powers

Separation of powers

The separation of powers, often imprecisely used interchangeably with the trias politica principle, is a model for the governance of a state. The model was first developed in ancient Greece and came into widespread use by the Roman Republic as part of the unmodified Constitution of the Roman Republic...

 among the executive

Executive (government)

Executive branch of Government is the part of government that has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the idea of the separation of powers.In many countries, the term...

, legislative

Legislature

A legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...

, and judicial

Judiciary

The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...

 branches of government under the proposed United States Constitution

United States Constitution

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...

. It is titled, "The Particular Structure of the New Government

Federal government of the United States

The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

 and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts."

Summary

Like the other Federalist Papers, No. 47 advocated the ratification of the United States Constitution. In No. 47, Madison addressed criticisms that the Constitution did not create a sufficient separation of powers among the executive, judiciary, and legislature. Madison acknowledged that the three branches intertwined but asserted that the blending did not violate the principle of separation of powers. To support his argument, Madison referred to the writings of Montesquieu

Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu

Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu , generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment...

. Madison attributes the widespread support of a separation of powers to Montesquieu. According to Montesquieu, tyranny results when one branch of government simultaneously holds the powers of another branch. However, Madison argues that Montesquieu "did not mean that these departments ought to have no partial agency in, or no control over, the acts of each other."

Madison's interpretation of Montesquieu supported a system of checks and balances quite similar to checks and balances the former thirteen colonies had created in their state constitutions. Madison tried to enlist the support of the young states by analyzing their individual constitutions. He finds that "there is not a single instance in which the several departments of power have been kept absolutely separate and distinct." For example, the New Hampshire Constitution

New Hampshire Constitution

The Constitution of the State of New Hampshire is the fundamental law of the State of New Hampshire, with which all statute laws must comply. The constitution became effective June 2, 1784, when it replaced the state's constitution of 1776....

 allowed its senate to serve as a judicial tribunal for impeachment

Impeachment

Impeachment is a formal process in which an official is accused of unlawful activity, the outcome of which, depending on the country, may include the removal of that official from office as well as other punishment....

s. The United States Constitution

United States Constitution

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...

 similarly granted the powers of impeachment to the legislature. Madison said that if the states did not think their constitutions violated the separation of powers, the new national Constitution did not violate of the separation of powers either.

Although each branch has its distinctive powers, it cannot stand alone without the check and balance system of the other two branches. Madison viewed the separation of power as essential because without it only one power

Despotism

Despotism is a form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute power. That entity may be an individual, as in an autocracy, or it may be a group, as in an oligarchy...

 would rule the country, which could easily lead to abusive ruling

Tyrant

A tyrant was originally one who illegally seized and controlled a governmental power in a polis. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.Plato and...

.

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