ng interests: "The vigor of government is essential to he security of liberty" (Madison, Paper No. 1). In other words, without a strong central, federal government, individual and states' rights will be lost in chaos and anarchy. Madison argues that those who emphasize individual rights often have a hidden and destructive agenda of selfishness:
A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter (Madison, No. 1).
Of course, Madison and his fellow authors were concerned as much with the preservation of their wealth, especially their private property, as they were with fashioning a just or effective government. It is not an accident that the fi
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