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FEDERALIST No. 10

The Same Subject Continued
(The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and
 Insurrection)
From the New York Packet.
Friday, November 23, 1787.

MADISON

To the People of the State of New York:
AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a wellconstructed
 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.