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. . . . 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. . . . 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.
Below is an excerpt from James Madison's Federalist
Paper Number 10, which discusses his "Large Republic" theory:
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.
. . . .
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. . . . 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? . . . . 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. . . .
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.
.
. . .
The effect of the . . . difference [between a democracy and a
republic] 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 . . . .
. . . . The federal
Constitution forms a happy combination . . . the great and aggregate interests
being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State
legislatures.
. . . [T]he greater number of citizens and extent of
territory . . . 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 . . .any . . .
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. . . .
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