Federalist Number 10

James Madison, in an attempt to promote the ratification of the American Constitution, pointed out that the country was at a cross roads in terms of where the government could go and how it could function. It could either be democratic or republican, and either large or small. The central theme of James Madison’s Federalist Number 10, written in 1787, was to outline what a government ought to achieve, how it ought to achieve it, and demonstrate that the American Constitution has taken measures to achieve them.

Madison charged that the capacity for the government to become capable of dissolving the “violence of faction” deserved great attention.[1] It should be the “first object of government.”[2] This would be truly the most important component of erecting a country where the amount of liberty was greatest, and the amount of coercion, factions, and “interests” where least. Throughout the Federalist Number 10 Madison uses probabilistic language because he admits, “it would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected” because eliminating something that, he later argues, is a part of human nature is impossible but can be minimized if it’s dangers are recognized.[3]

Factions are very abstract for Madison, and could apply to a wide variety of groups of people. One group would not necessarily need to be directly interested in subverting the rights of another group to be a faction that could overtly be accomplishing just that. All factions do share a common characteristic in that they are all composed of a group of like-minded and goal directed individuals set out to influence government. They set out to accomplish something specific that will benefit their group. Consequences of this could be non-existent in terms of how other citizens and communities are affected, but Madison argues that in all cases this has been the undoing of governments.[4]

Madison outlines the cause of factions having its origin in the nature of man. Individuals with different experiences will form different opinions, and these points of view will be the driving force behind the formation of factions. When individuals in a community with similar points of view join under the banner of common interest, opposed to other interests, out to achieve a common end the faction is formed. When dealing with government, the power of influence and force exists inherently; so a struggle thus begins between whose influence will be unjustly exerted over the whole. Madison called this “contending for pre-eminence and power.”[5] Once the ball is rolling so to speak, and these contradicting common interests find themselves adverse to one another the amount of “frivolous and fanciful distinctions” that crop up between them will multiply.

The example Madison gives for the most common source of factions, landowners versus the landless, is traceable back to the roaming landless majority throughout the colonies and the headright system. This population was influential throughout colonial life, providing its initial labor pool as indentured servants and later in some cases as rebellious violent factions.[6] This example is something specific to the time period. The fundamental idea being expressed by Madison is that factions become a problem and “grow up of necessity in civilized nations.”[7] He uses this example to relate to his readers because this is a widespread problem that continues to create factions. He wants to simply point out how easily these factions can become a big problem.

Madison points out the two non-cures for removing the causes of faction. The first is to snuff them out where they begin; the second is to control the effects that factions have.[8] The first course of action would be outright hypocrisy because factions come about because they are free to do so, and in removing the liberty of individuals to form factions you subvert freedom itself and not just factions. The solution becomes self-defeating if the object of government is to preserve those liberties. The second course of action is impracticable according to Madison because of how diverse opinions are among people. As long as opinions are so diverse among the people, and as long as they are free to act upon their beliefs, then the effects will determine themselves and no manipulation or control on them is possible. The second non-cure is reminiscent of Roger Williams’ expulsion from colonial Puritan Massachusetts where John Winthrop’s prescription for communal like-mindedness was found to be an impossible prerequisite for his utopian vision. [9] Similarly, no such communal like-mindedness is possible in Madison’s present day and it was wise of him to recognize this.

Because Madison accurately views pure democracy as majority mob rule and would invariably lead to a sacrifice of the liberty of most to the privilege of the few, he concluded that such a government has no cure for the “mischiefs of faction.”[10] The factions Madison discusses throughout can be either a majority or a minority in popular government. When such a faction becomes a majority is where the biggest problem arises because then the government is doomed to the fate of a pure democracy. A very famous quote here about the fate of democracy, which I’ve heard more times than I can count without ever knowing it, came from the Federalist Number 10. “[Democracies] have in general, been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths.”[11]

Madison argues that increasing the size of the territory a government represents to make it not too large, but not too small, the existence of minority factions will effectively keep one another at bay because there will be so many of them all competing with one another for the same influence and power. The greater the population under a government, the less likely any single faction will be able to elect special interest representatives into office. In a larger Republic any such politician would not be able to practice “vicious arts” for very long because the “suffrages of the people” or the right to vote being extended to non-land owners would increase the likelihood that the politician elected would be the best choice.[12]

The premise for this thinking rests along the lines that “while you may be able to fool some of the people some of the time, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” If you increase that number of voices who have a say by increasing the “suffrages of the people” then you increase the likelihood that the people will not be fooled into electing a representative with poor character.[13]

Conveniently it just so happens that the obvious superiority of a republican over a democratic government should also conveniently be enjoyed by the largest population of people instead of being confined geographically to a small region. The entire country will reap the benefits.[14] Madison then wraps up the Federalist Number 10 by pointing out that all of these big problems have been accounted for in the American Constitution and that although there was no way to absolutely eliminate factions, this form of government function best to minimize them.

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[1] Johnson, Michael. Reading The American Past Vol. 1: To 1877. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005), 151.

[2] Ibid, 152.

[3] Ibid, 151.

[4] Johnson, The American Past, 151.

[5] Ibid, 152.

[6] Morgan, Edmund. “Slavery and Freedom: The American Paradox.” The Journal of American History, no. 59 (1972): 17.

[7] Johnson, The American Past, 152.

[8] Johnson, The American Past, 151.

[9] Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2007), 38.

[10] Johnson, The American Past, 153.

[11] Johnson, The American Past, 153.

[12] Ibid, 154.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

~ by spaghettim0nst3r on December 24, 2007.