At the end of Hume's essay was a discussion that could not help being of interest to Madison. Hume expressed that in a large government there is enough room to refine the democracy, from the lower people, who may be admitted into the first elections of the commonwealth, to the higher magistrate, who direct all of the movements.
Madison had developed his own theory of the extended republic. It is interesting to see how he took these scattered and incomplete fragments and built on them to make them into an intellectual and theoretical structure of his own. Madison's first full statement of this hypothesis appeared in his "Notes on the Confederacy" written in April 1787, eight months before the final version of it was published as the tenth federalist. Starting with the proposition that "in republican government, the majority, ultimately give the law." Madison then asks, what is to restrain an interesting majority from unjust violations of the minority's rights? Three motives could be claimed to meliorate the selfishness of the majority: first, "prudent regard for their own good, as involved in the general...good" and second, "respect for character" and finally, religiousness. After examining each in its turn Madison concludes that they are but a frail bulwark against a ruthless party. Hume's work was admirably adapted to the purpose, as he used the earlier work in preparing a survey on factions through the ages to introduce his own discussion on faction in America.
2001. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, available at http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/h/humeessa.htm;Internet, accessed 18 June 2005.
Notes on the Confederacy [online]. 1787. James Madison University; available at http://www.jmu.edu/madison/gpos225-madison2/constitution.htm;Internet; accessed 18 June 2005.
The Federalist Papers: No. 10 [online]. 1996-2003. Yale Law School; available at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/federal/fed10.htm;Internet; accessed 18 June 2005.
Endnotes www.jmu.edu/madison/gpos225-madison2/constitution.htm (2005). http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/federal/fed10.htm,(2005, June 18). http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/h/humeessa.htm,(2005, June 18).
