The Federalist No. 10
The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against
Domestic Faction and Insurrection (continued)
Daily Advertiser
Thursday, November 22, 1787
[James Madison]
To the People of the State of New
York:
AMONG the numerous advantages
promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately
developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The
friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their
character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous
vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without
violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it.
The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils,
have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have
everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics
from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations.
The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular
models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it
would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually
obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are
everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the
friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that
our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the
conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not
according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the
superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we
may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts
will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found,
indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under
which we labor have been erroneously charged on the operation of our
governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will not
alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that
prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private
rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must
be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which
a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.
By a faction, I understand a
number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole,
who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest,
adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate
interests of the community.
There are two methods of curing
the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by
controlling its effects.
There are again two methods of
removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is
essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same
opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
It could never be more truly said
than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to
faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But
it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political
life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of
air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its
destructive agency.
The second expedient is as
impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man
continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will
be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his
self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on
each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach
themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of
property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of
interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.
From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property,
the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results;
and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective
proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and
parties.
The latent causes of faction are
thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into
different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil
society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning
government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an
attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and
power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting
to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed
them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and
oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this
propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial
occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been
sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent
conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the
various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are
without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are
creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed
interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest,
with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and
divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views.
The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal
task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the
necessary and ordinary operations of the government.
No man is allowed to be a judge in
his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not
improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body
of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are
many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial
determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but
concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different
classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they
determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a question to which
the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice
ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are, and must be,
themselves the judges; and the most numerous party, or, in other words, the most
powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be
encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are
questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing
classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public
good. The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an
act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps,
no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a
predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which
they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.
It is in vain to say that
enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and
render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not
always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all
without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely
prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the
rights of another or the good of the whole.
The inference to which we are
brought is, that the causes of faction cannot be removed, and that relief
is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.
If a faction consists of less than
a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the
majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the
administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute
and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is
included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand,
enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good
and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights
against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the
spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our
inquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the great desideratum by which
this form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so
long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.
By what means is this object
attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the existence of the same
passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or the
majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their
number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of
oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well
know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate
control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of
individuals, and lose their efficacy in proportion to the number combined
together, that is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes needful.
From this view of the subject it
may be concluded that a
pure democracy, by which I mean a society
consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the
government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction.
A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority
of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government
itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker
party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever
been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible
with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as
short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic
politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously
supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political
rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in
their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.
A republic, by which I mean a
government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different
prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the
points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the
nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.
The two great points of
difference between a democracy and a
republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a
small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of
citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.
The effect of the first difference
is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them
through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern
the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice
will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.
Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by
the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good
than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the
other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local
prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other
means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people.
The question resulting is, whether small or extensive republics are more
favorable to the election of proper guardians of the public weal; and it is
clearly decided in favor of the latter by two obvious considerations:
In the first place, it is to be
remarked that, however small the republic may be, the representatives must be
raised to a certain number, in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and
that, however large it may be, they must be limited to a certain number, in
order to guard against the confusion of a multitude. Hence, the number of
representatives in the two cases not being in proportion to that of the two
constituents, and being proportionally greater in the small republic, it follows
that, if the proportion of fit characters be not less in the large than in the
small republic, the former will present a greater option, and consequently a
greater probability of a fit choice.
In the next place, as each
representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large than
in the small republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to
practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried;
and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre
in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and
established characters.
It must be confessed that in this,
as in most other cases, there is a mean, on both sides of which inconveniences
will be found to lie. By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render
the representatives too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and
lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you render him unduly attached to
these, and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects.
The federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great
and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular
to the State legislatures.
The other point of difference is,
the greater number of citizens and extent of territory which may be brought
within the compass of republican than of democratic government; and it is this
circumstance principally which renders factious combinations less to be dreaded
in the former than in the latter. The smaller the society, the fewer probably
will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct
parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same
party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the
smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they
concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take
in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a
majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other
citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all
who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each
other. Besides other impediments, it may be remarked that, where there is a
consciousness of unjust or dishonorable purposes, communication is always
checked by distrust in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary.
Hence, it clearly appears, that
the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the
effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic, -- is enjoyed
by the Union over the States composing it. Does the advantage consist in the
substitution of representatives whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments
render them superior to local prejudices and schemes of injustice? It will not
be denied that the representation of the Union will be most likely to possess
these requisite endowments. Does it consist in the greater security afforded by
a greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to
outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal degree does the increased variety of
parties comprised within the Union, increase this security. Does it, in fine,
consist in the greater obstacles opposed to the concert and accomplishment of
the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority? Here, again, the extent
of the Union gives it the most palpable advantage.
The influence of factious leaders
may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread
a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may
degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the
variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national
councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an
abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper
or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than
a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more
likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State.
In the extent and proper structure
of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most
incident to republican government. And according to the degree of pleasure and
pride we feel in being republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing the
spirit and supporting the character of Federalists.
PUBLIUS
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