Public opinion as safeguard

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Often appears with: rights and liberties · limitations of enumerating rights · liberty of the press · constructive powers · constitutions and founding law · censorship and the press

Usually: argument (1) · censure (1)

Quotable

“I hold it to be impracticable; and from this I infer, that its security, whatever fine declarations may be inserted in any constitution respecting it, must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government.” Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; James Madison, The Federalist Papers · insight

The Federalist Papers primary

Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; James Madison · 1787-1788
Section 3, of the same article--"Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court." And clause 3, of the same section--"The (2/11)

He argues bills of rights can be dangerous because they create implied powers and mislead people into claiming authority; he also says press liberty depends on public opinion rather than vague constitutional phrasing.

which make the principal figure in several of our State bills of rights, and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government. But a minute detail of particular rights is certainly far less applicable to a Constitution like that under consideration, which is merely intended to regulate the general political interests of the nation, than to a constitution which has the regula…