There has been alot of whining about the need to have at least 60 senators to pass a law in the senate and some even arguing the rules should be changed.  As reported at the The Patriot Post , Adam Graham of Pajamas Media commented on the genius of the system.  Graham writes here, "[Those on] the left complain about the bind in which they find themselves. They can spare 40 votes on any House vote, and they have a Senate majority, but they can't get anything done. It's as if a genius schemed against them to thwart their efforts and require impossibly large majorities to accomplish something. ... But our founders didn't set out to frustrate any specific people. They were concerned with one big question: how does one prevent a republic from degenerating into tyranny, as all historical republics had? ... In Federalist 51 [James Madison] writes: 'It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. ... If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.' ... Our constitutional system of government works -- but it works to protect liberty, not allow those who want to get their agenda passed and get it passed yesterday to run roughshod over the minority. Madison warned of such a system, writing, 'In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature.' ... More often than not, divided government has been the rule. Thus left and right are both stymied by the Constitution, which was designed to frustrate change in favor of freedom. America is ungovernable because the founders never intended the lives of Americans to be governed from the federal capitol."   Italics added by The Forgotten Man as this phrase captures the essence of William Graham Sumner's great essay.