Federalist #10
Federalist #10, written by James Madison is considered one of the most important documents to our history. For in it he explains the philosophical reasons behind the strength of the new Union (created by the new Constitution) and how we should protect ourselves against factions and justification for the power of the Federal government.
Read and listen along to Madison’s arguments.
Part 1:Part 2:
What does Madison mean by factions? In today’s terms what would we consider factions?
The factions that Madison refers to are groups of citizens with interests contrary to the rights of others or the interests that are for the whole community. In today’s terms we would consider any kind of special interest groups more or less factions, but not political parties. These groups sometimes have ideas or interests that definitely would hurt rather than benefit the country as a whole.
What does he point out as the two obvious solutions to the problem? And which solution does Madison propose should be used by the new republic?
The two obvious solutions are to remove the causes of the faction or to control its effects. Now the problem with removing the causes are they would take away the very thing that was fought for in the revolution, liberty, and the analogy that he gives is "liberty is to faction what air is to fire". And if you take that away you create a homogenous society where opinions and interests are the same. He argues that government should protect this diverseness. So the obvious answer to Madison is to control its effects. Madison argues the best way to do this is by using majority rule and doing so with a republican form of government, rather than a pure democracy.
