The Ideas of America's Founders: Problems and Principles for Creating a Republic

When embarking on creating the American republic, the Founding Fathers faced a distinct set of problems which they needed to overcome in order to make the new Constitution work. They were also animated by innovative principles that aided them in overcoming the difficulties they perceived.

Among the problems the Framers identified is the need to balance the virtues of justice and moderation; Federalists #1 and #37 are pleas for moderation, in which Publius cautions against justice alone being taken too far and resulting in a perfectionist idea of a political system which disregards practical difficulties as well as the well-intentioned errors and prejudices of men on all sides of a debate. In designing a real-world political system, statesmen need to know what is achievable and set realistic expectations.

Furthermore, the balance of virtues can be endangered by passions and interests, and a just government needs to be based on the rule of reason over passion (Federalist 51). The peculiar challenges of the Framers included combining energy and stability of government with liberty and the republican form; furthermore, the Framers encountered difficulties in specifically delineating between the powers of the general government and those of the states; the fallibility of human reason, the artificial nature of political objects, and the imperfections of language compounded these difficulties (Federalist 37).

In designing the new form of government, the framers made use of improvements in the science of politics that Publius mentions in Federalist #9: the regular distribution of power into distinct departments, the introduction of legislative checks and balances, the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior, the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election, and the enlargement of the orbit within which such systems are to revolve.