In general, the Founding Fathers favored requiring a simple majority vote in legislative decision making. Most of them, for example, objected to the Articles of Confederation's requirement for a supermajority vote in deciding such questions as coining money, appropriating funds, and determining the size of the army and navy.
However, the framers of the Constitution also recognized the need for supermajority votes in some cases. In Federalist No. 58, James Madison noted that supermajority votes could serve as a "shield to some particular interests, and another obstacle generally to hasty and partial measures." Hamilton, too, in Federalist No. 73 highlighted the benefits of requiring a supermajority of each chamber to override a presidential veto. "It establishes a salutary check upon the legislative body," he wrote, "calculated to guard the community against the effects of faction, precipitancy, or of any impulse unfriendly to the public good, which may happen to influence a majority of that body."