From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the true, and the beautiful are taught, nurtured, and honored, this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.

The idea is that by having diverse interests in the separation of powers, by having each branch be a partisan of itself,

what you get is a counterbalancing of each other. This is your host, Scott

Bertram, and that's Dr. Adam Carrington, our first guest on today's program. Dr. Carrington is

Associate Professor of Politics at Hillsdale College. We talked at length with Dr. Carrington about

Federalist 51 and the separation of powers. Dr. Carrington,

thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. This is a subject on which you teach a class

and have, of course, knowledge. That's the Federalist Papers. Now, don't worry, we're not going

to cover all of them in these 10 minutes. It'll be a continuing series. So today, though, we want

to take a look at Federalist 51, which is one of the more famous of the Federalist papers.

For people who don't know them by number, Dr. Carrington, tell us a bit about what Federalist 51 is all about.

Federalist 51 is about how do you keep separation of powers in practice?

So up to that point, the previous couple Federalist Papers written by Madison

had articulated what separation of powers was on paper, why it was important, what goods it caused.

But then in 51, the question is, if you've established it, how do you keep it in

practice? Because there were worries based on how attempts at separation of powers had gone in the

states under the Articles of Confederation that you can declare you want it all the time, but are

there factors that are going to undermine it?

And so 51 is how do you keep separation of powers through the process of things like checks

and balances once it's been established?

All right.

So into the actual language of Federalist 51, again written by Madison.

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