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Constitution

Problem

“To what expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the Constitution? The only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.”
-Source: Publius (James Madison), The Federalist Papers, no. 51, 1788
The ideas expressed in the excerpt emerged most directly from a larger intellectual debate over which of the following?
Choose 1 answer: