This quote, in itself, is lifted out of the total debate on the balance of power between branches, and the "tyranny of the majority" so often riddled throughout the entire "Federalist Papers". In other words, through malice, the seemingly "underprivileged" would outweigh any voice of the landowner or "perceptively privileged”. It has little to do with protecting the "power of the privileged" per se. The whole debate, should you have ever have read them all (and certainly our biased professors don't teach it "en masse" to our detriment), has to do with protecting all interests. It borrows from the abuses of Grecian "democracy" and the absolute brutality of the "French Revolution”. The debate also focused on the abuses of monarchies. All of these systems were observable at the time of the debates for our Constitution. So, if you are going to use "quotes", for Pete's sake use them in context of the whole. This is how we get "religious cults" who take a scripture out of context and make it a doctrine and hoodwink ignorant (notice I did not say stupid) people.