The Federalist Paper's solution to Factions
In the 10th Federalist paper, one of our founding fathers, James Madison, discusses the danger of factions and how to combat them.
A New Government
The United States of America signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776. After officially becoming a country they had to begin working on a form of government that would be free from a monarchy.
The first system of government was under the Articles of Confederation, providing the new country with a weak framework. Being explained in the name, the government was a confederation of states, with essentially no central governing powers.
Shays Rebellion
Shays Rebellion took place in Massachusetts the years of 1786 and 1787 as a result of the weakness and ineffectiveness of the government at the time.
Protestors were made up by farmers and former military veterans who served fighting in the Revolutionary War. They were protesting the high taxes in Massachusetts, high debt rates and the rampant foreclosures of land, especially land owned by former military veterans struggling under bad economic conditions.
The military eventually was called up to put down the protests, forcing the movement to a violent end in 1787.
This rebellion is what really exposed the weakness of the Articles of Confederation and inspired the founding fathers to call for a Constitutional Convention and the drafting of a new form of government.
Photo of the former President looking like a cool dude with a doo rag.
James Madison
James Madison is considered one of the framers of the Constitution and a founding father of the United States.
He was known for being a proponent of federalism and a stronger central government during the time of the Articles of Confederation and along with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, he published many of the Federalist Papers. They wanted to use the Federalist Papers as a way to reach the American public and give a detailed explanation of how the government might work under the proposed Constitution.
However, after the signing of the Constitution and the further founding of political parties, James Madison joined Thomas Jefferson in founding the Democratic-Republican Party. This party was known as being more pro-farmer and went against the demands of the Federalist Party as they wanted to strengthen the central government more than the Constitution originally permitted.
Federalist no. 10
by: James Madison, The Daily Advertiser
published: November 22, 1787
The 10th Federalist Paper was about Madison's concern about the rise of factions and how he thought the new Constitution should handle them.
"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."
Madison starts the article by making it clear that he against factions, so much so that he would call them violent.
"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."
This is why both Madison and the majority of the other Constitutional framers were against a pure democracy. A pure democracy would give way to the potential rise of a majority faction that would naturally be interested in forcing their common impulse of passion on the rest of the public.
"There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects."
Madison believes there are only two ways to strop factions from subverting the public and forcing them under their will, either stopping factions from forming all together by subverting liberty, or to limit the potential power of factions when they get power.
"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."
James Madison being a true American hero stands up for liberty and the rights of all people to form factions and fight for their common passions, so he clearly would not want to stop factions from forming. He says it would be better for us to live under the oppression of a faction for a while than to take away the ability to form a faction, which would also remove some of the rights of those oppressed by the faction.
Today's biggest frenemies in the Republican Party. Marjorie Taulor Green (left) is now wanting to fire Speaker Mike Johnson (right).
"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."
Because our Republican form of government has to handle so many differ issues, there is almost no way that the people of a huge faction will always agree on everything. This gives Madison his reasoning for why we should not subvert factions or prevent them from forming, but we should just let them hold themselves back from accomplishing too much.
