The words common good were used a lot in the writing of the federalist papers by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay but you have to wonder that the terms common good actually mean. The word common means technically means shared equally by two or more and good means positive or desirable in nature. In the federalist papers though, you see a different kind of common good. One in which the founders wanted a good maybe for the aristocratic or for the privileged? One has to ask themselves what these aristocratic states men truly wanted the good for everyone or did they used this excuse to preserve the high status in living that they had already achieved. .
These are hard questions to ask, especially about the founding fathers that we have all been taught to respect oh so much and our society holds on such a high pedestal that they can do no wrong. People want to think that these role models are greater men because of there status in our societies and very often forget that they too were humans. These pre-determined mind set makes it so that we think the common good in which they seek is one that would keep the people in the position that they are in. .
Madison says in Federalist 10 that So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities that where no substantial occasion presents itself the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. He also states in Federalist 37 that The history of almost all the great councils and consultations held among mankind for reconciling their discordant opinions, assuaging their mutual jealousies and adjusting their respective interests, is a history of factions, contentions, and disappointments, and may be classed among the most dark and degrading pictures which display the infirmities and depravities of the human character. Both of these comments lead me to believe that Madison at least had an extreme fear of factions and because of that fear didn't trust the common people.
