Commentary: The Inertial State

One of the nobler elements of the American system is its jealous protection of the rights of minority interests. Going back to James Madison’s strictures about balancing faction against faction in Federalist #10, and Abraham Lincoln’s warnings against unfettered popular sovereignty in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Americans have long held to a noble tradition of respecting minority rights, rather than simply riding roughshod over minority factions in the name of decisive majoritarian action.

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