evidence: From their perspective Madison was offering up, much as our politicians of today are wont to do, sweet-sounding maxims designed to enlist popular support: rather than offering an "operational" theory, he was presenting an attractive and appealing rationale for minority rule. [...] At least one claim advanced by Madison on behalf of a system of representation in the context of a large republic seems self-evident. He observes that there must be an upward limit to the size of a representative assembly. The reasons for this are twofold: the assembly cannot be so large as to constitute a tumultuous mob incapable of conducting its assigned business in an orderly fashion; nor, by the canons implicit in republicanism, should it be so large that strict oligarchic internal rule is needed. Quite obviously, the larger the republic in terms of population, the more fit characters there will be to choose among for the limited number of positions in the legislature (10:47). To put this point in a familiar context, we can be reasonably certain, all things being equal, that a high school with 5,000 students will be able to field a better football team than one with but 500 students.