Dan Blazo
MC 271, Section 1
Stokes
23 March 2005
Influenced by Republicanism, but not a True Republican
The philosophy of a republican form of government was certainly not a creation of James Madison and the Federalists. The idea of such a government has been around since the beginning of political philosophy. While the definition has changed over the centuries, certain constants continue to define a strictly republican regime. The goals and priorities of a republic are distinct yet dissimilar from those of James Madison's philosophy. Generally, a republican government is defined as one which idealizes the public interests as the highest good and imposes a duty on each citizen to work toward the public interests before individual ones. Due to the influence of natural rights philosophers, Madison's ideas are not strictly republican despite the fact that he considers them to be so.
Not long before Madison, a French philosopher named Montesquieu wrote several works......
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Approximate Word Count: 2235
Approximate Pages: 9 (260 words per double-spaced page) |