Using the documents, answer a, b, and c. Briefly explain the point of View about limiting federal power expressed by the first text excerpt. Briey...

Question 1

"[T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defence must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man, must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place."

—"Publius" (James Madison), from Federalist No. 51, February 6, 1788

"This hypothesis [checks and balances in federal government] supposes human wisdom competent to the task of instituting three co-equal orders in government, and a corresponding weight in the community to enable them respectively to exercise their several parts, and whose views and interests should be so distinct as to prevent a coalition of any two of them for the destruction of the third. Mr. Adams ... has not been able to adduce a single instance of such a government ... If such an organization of power were practicable, how long would it continue? Not a day—for there is so great a disparity in the talents, wisdom and industry of mankind, that the scale would presently preponderate to one or the other body, and with every accession of power the means of further increase would be greatly extended."

—"Centinel," from Centinel I, published October 5, 1787

Question 2