The drafters of our Constitution understood a concept known as the
tyranny of the majority. Consider Alexander Hamilton's words in Federalist #10:
Quote:
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Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our Governments are too unstable; that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties; and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.
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John Adams also wrote about it in
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. Our system of separation of powers and the Bill of Rights are inspired largely by the desire to avoid the tyranny a majority can inflict upon a minority.