Federalist Paper No. 10
written by
James Madison
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 modes, 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 administration.
By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting
to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated
by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse 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 a 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 ocher; 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 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 have 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 ocher 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 passion, have,
in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual
animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress
each ocher 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 chose
who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in
society. Those who are creditors, and chose 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 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 width 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 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 ocher. 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 manufacturers be encouraged,
and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufacturers?
These 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 chat 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 then 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 ocher 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 chat it is the great
desideratum by which alone 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? Evidence 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 results 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 lease likely to sacrifice it to temporary or
partial consideration. 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 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
most favorable to the election of proper guardians of the public
weal; and it is dearly 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 constituents, and being proportionally greatest
in the small republic, it follows that if the proportion of fit
characters be not less in the large clan 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 clan in the small republic,
it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practise
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 center on men who possess the most attractive
merit and the most diffusive and established characters.
It must be confessed chat in this, as in most ocher 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 representative 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 this advantage consist
in the substitution of representatives whose enlightened views
and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices
and to 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 consist in the greater obstacles opposed
to the concert and accomplishment of the secret wishes 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 fact 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.
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