In Federalist 51, he emphasized again how checks and balances were necessary to offset self-interest. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. . . . It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to controul the abuses of government. But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” He concluded the thought with one of his more memorable observations: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”71
