Considered among the most important documents in United States history, Federalist #10, written by James Madison under a pseudonym, provides one of the Founding Fathers' most eloquent arguments in support of the Constitution. That this particular document constitutes a warning to the public against the factionalism into which Madison and others feared a pure democracy would descend makes it especially noteworthy. Many Americans understand that the system of government established in the Constitution is not a pure democracy but rather a republic. In other words, the public elects individuals to go to Washington, D.C. to represent its interests. If every voting-age citizen voted on legislation, the process by which laws are made and treaties ratified would have been too unwieldy and too riven by factions of like-minded individuals whose interests may ignore those of the larger good; in other words, factional interests would overshadow the interests of the nation as a whole. As Madison wrote in Federalist #10:
"No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens?"
There is a reason that the first article in the Constitution of the United States establishes the legislative branch of government: the Founders believed fervently that the representatives of the public (mainly, the members of the House of Representatives) would be best suited to ensure that the public's voice was always heard. Popular representation, however, was not an end in itself; the need to protect against complete domination of the majority over the minority was also a priority. Minority views had to be represented and respected. Once again quoting Madison:
"The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets."
The House of Representatives, despite its closeness to the public it represents, is ruled by the majority party. The minority party in the House of Representatives enjoys almost no power except when individual members of the minority party succeed in establishing alliances on certain issues with members of the majority party, which happens regularly on parochial matters important to individual states or districts. This is why the Constitution's authors established the Senate. It is in the United States Senate that the rights of the minority are protected. Individual members of the Senate enjoy considerable power relative to their number. Individual senators can block legislation from being debated and voted upon by the Senate, and individual senators can block presidential appointments from being confirmed for the positions for which they were nominated. Whereas the minority in the House of Representatives enjoys minimal power, the minority in the Senate enjoys power out of proportion to its percentage of the whole.
This, then, is how the Founding Fathers ensured that majority rule did not descend into dictatorship. The Constitution established a legislative branch of government before any other branch (namely, the executive and the judicial) and also established a "higher" body within the legislature, the Senate, in which minority rights would be protected.
Minority rights were also protected in the Constitution through the establishment of the executive branch of government. The chief executive, or president, enjoys a great deal of power, but his or her power is checked by that of the other two branches of government. Presidents, though, might represent the minority party in Congress, which happens from time to time when the public elects a divided government (the president's political party is different from that which enjoys the majority in one or both chambers of Congress). The president's power to veto legislation, which can only be overridden by a two-thirds vote by both chambers (Article I, Section 7), serves as an important check on the legislature.
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