Monster Media 1994 #1/monster.zip/monster/EDUCATE/USCON2.ZIP/FEDTEN.DAT

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        The Federalist, No. 10 (November 23, 1787)

  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