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.