Why does it work?

"It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency." (The  Federalist Paper 10)

"A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union." (The Federalist Paper 10)

The American form of government works best because of the emphasis on liberty and freedoms. Our way of life works because the government relies on the people supporting it and funding it for the protection of their rights. This great country was founded upon the natural rights life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which will always be the cornerstone to what makes this nation work.This second passage emphasizes the greatness of our country in terms of political representation. We have prided ourselves on being a republic in which every citizen has the right to vote and is represented in congress by voting in a local representative. Our most supported reason to become independent was taxation without representation, so consequently we put much stress on making sure that we keep that ongoing.


"A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights. These inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite in the distribution of the supreme powers of the State. But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit. It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions. As the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified." (The Federalist Papers 51)

"In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same government. This view of the subject must particularly recommend a proper federal system to all the sincere and considerate friends of republican government, since it shows that in exact proportion as the territory of the Union may be formed into more circumscribed Confederacies, or States oppressive combinations of a majority will be facilitated: the best security, under the republican forms, for the rights of every class of citizens, will be diminished: and consequently the stability and independence of some member of the government, the only other security, must be proportionately increased. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful." (The Federalist Papers 51)

The Federalist Paper 51 states that the government depends on the people in order to have control, but that we have improved our government in order to achieve how it runs today. Checks and balances were created centuries before, but were one of the most influential things to ever happen to politics by creating a reassuring safe zone so that one branch could not take over the entire government. On the other hand they also aid each other and keep each other involved.  Every citizen that is a part of our country must be equal in order for what we fought for to be used. Our government is successful because we incorporate the ideas of accepting the unpopular ideas and protecting the unpopular rights from the majority. This is how we avoid anarchy and mostly maintain peace throughout the nation. We realize that every citizen will have different priorities and a variety of things they care about most and the fact that we enforce equal treatment of everyone in all situations to the best of our ability is what creates one of the greatest countries in the world.