The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

Madison wrote this line while defending the proposed U.S. Constitution during the ratification debates of 1787–1788. In The Federalist Papers, he argued that liberty is best protected when governmental power is divided among separate branches that can check one another. The passage responds to Anti-Federalist fears that the new federal government would become consolidated and tyrannical. Madison contends that tyranny arises when legislative, executive, and judicial powers are united in the same hands—whether held by a monarch, an aristocratic few, or even an elected majority—echoing Enlightenment political theory (especially Montesquieu) and applying it to the Constitution’s separation of powers.

The quote defines tyranny not primarily by cruelty or illegitimacy, but by structural concentration of authority. Madison’s point is that when the same actor both makes the laws, executes them, and judges violations, there is no effective restraint against self-serving rule; accountability collapses because each function can be used to shield or expand the others. The phrase “whether of one, a few, or many” is crucial: he warns that democratic majorities can be tyrannical too if institutional checks are absent. The statement encapsulates the constitutional logic behind separated powers, checks and balances, and an independent judiciary as safeguards for individual rights and political liberty.