The U.S. Constitution was constructed as a series of compromises between the two major factions involved in its writing, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. The framers of the Constitution feared the potential "mischiefs" of faction and designed a governmental system that would balance competing interests and prevent the ascension of any one faction. A given faction might gain control of one of the branches of government or one level of government, but this would not enable that faction to control the entire system or to create a tyranny over other factions. The Constitution embodied a series of checks and balances to prevent one faction from gaining ascendancy over others.
The overriding intent of the Framers was balance, to balance the rights of different groups, to balance the powers of the different branches of government, to balance the power of the states against the power of the federal government. The aristocratic Federalists believed that an elite was better suited to administer government and dispense justice, but justice was always seen as a matter of balancing the inherent rights of the individual as expressed by Locke and Rousseau, among others, and the requirements of society under the social contract. The concept of justice that drove the Framers made it necessary that both rights and responsibilities be spelled out clearly in the documents and institutions of society and that the means for deciding differences of viewpoint also be clearly delineated. The power structure that the Framers developed was one that was balanced, and this balance in itself indicated institutional methods for weighing differences and for finding a median course. The conception of liberty and the conception of justice are fused, upholding the belief that freedom should not be curtailed except when absolutely necessary for the greater good, for the protection of the freedom of the majority.
At the same time, the majority do...