Andrew Abreu
March 23, 2014
Essay #1
Madison argues the big problem in democratic politics is factions. A faction is a group of people with common beliefs that they potentially pursue against the good/common interest. Factions are inevitable because there will always be haves and have not’s. Factions set up uncertainty into Democratic Systems. To control the effects of factions Madison states he believes a Republican style government would be more effective than a pure democracy.
Federalist No. 10 is an essay written by James Madison and the tenth of the Federalist Papers, a series arguing for the ratification of the United States Constitution.
Madison begins by stating that a "well constructed union" will be able to break apart the violence of factions. He states this is the vice that democratic government has fallen prey to. Democracies are not stable and that the source of this instability is a self interested majority:
" 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."
The causes of factions cannot be removed. Madison proposes that there are two means of preventing the damage of faction. The first is to remove the causes of faction. There are two ways that this can be done, the freedom to create factions can be taken away and making everyone the same can make factions irrelevant. The first removing the liberty to form fac...
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... party. Madison states that a republic, an indirect democracy, solves the problem of majority factions by introducing a filter in the form of an elected legislative, executive and judicial branch between the public and public policy.
The two ways Republics can cure the mischiefs of faction. A republic, simply put, is an indirect democracy, and Madison points out two ways that republics differ from pure democracies. First, they are representative in nature. The opinions and preferences of the population will be filtered through an institution composed of a group of individuals selected by the general population. Second, as a consequence of this representative scheme, the republic can encompass a larger territory, with a larger population, and a larger number of interests. This makes it less likely that a permanent majority faction can form and tyrannize a minority.
Consistent to eighteenth-century ethos left the Constitution-makers with great faith in universals. They believed in an inexorable view of a self-interested man. Feeling that all me were naturally inclined to be bad they sought a compromising system of checks and balances for government. This was bolstered by the scientific work by Newton, ?in which metaphors sprang as naturally to mens minds as did biological metaphors in the Darwinian atmosphere of the late nineteenth century.? Therefore Madison and others thought to squelch the possibly dangerous majority by setting up a large number and variety of local interests, so that the people will ?be unable to concert and carry into effect their scheme of oppression.? And thus, chief powers went to the propertied.
Federalist 10 is an article by James Madison and by far is one of the most famous. In the article Madison stressed that the strongest factor in the Constitution is that it establishes a government capable of controlling the violence and damage caused by factions. Factions are a group of individuals who gather together in a union or political party and are against government control. They are sometimes groups called ‘sub-factions’ and they were technically a party within a party. Factions try desperately to advance their agenda, special economic interests, and political opinions. Factions work against the public interest and infringe upon the rights of others. To put an end to factions is inevitable. Madison summed it up best by saying as long as men hold different opinions, have different amounts of wealth, and have different amount of property, they will continue to associate with those similar. In other words, those who had large amounts of money and owned land/property were the typical individuals who would be in factions.
This passage places emphasis on one of the three arguments James Madison makes in Federalist 10. Madison explicates the deficit of factions specifically factions that could cause nothing but “mischief” for the United States. In this particular passage, he explains how factions are inevitable in our country, however, controlling the effect of factions would diminish their “mischievous impact.” Thus, prohibiting factions assists in reducing the probability of “[a] weaker party or an obnoxious individual” from gaining power over the minority. These smaller factions that Madison hopes to avoid are a direct result of “pure democracy” that he accounts as have “general[ly]…short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” Therefore, this particular fragment from federalist 10 serves as the precedent to the introduction of a mixed Constitution of a democracy and republic, in this case, a large republic.
The Federalist, No.10 explains the nature of factions within the government and how they can harm the implementation of proper policies and
To Madison, there are only two ways to control a faction: one, to remove its causes and the second to control its effects. The first is impossible. There are only two ways to remove the causes of a faction: destroy liberty or give every citizen the same opinions, passions, and interests. Destroying liberty is a "cure worse then the disease itself," and the second is impracticable. The causes of factions are thus part of the nature of man and we must deal with their effects and accept their existence.
...al system. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison were the true authors of The Federalist Papers. They were strong advocates for the U.S Constitution and wanted to show people the flaws of the old system.
Madison proposes that there are two methods in which the mischiefs of faction can be cured, one by removing the causes of factions, or the other by controlling its effects. By removing the causes of factions, the liberty that is essential to its existence is destroyed. Madison states that "Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires.
In conclusion, Madison thinks the human nature is ambitious, and the fixed outcome of human ambitions is people create factions to promote their own interests. In the case of preventing corrupt or mischief by factions, he believes majority and pure democracy is not a solution. The method he advocated is a large republic with checking system. He converts human ambition to provide internal checks and balances in government. His point of view stimulated the approval of the proposal of the United States Constitution.
...he other hand, Madison discusses the topic of liberty in that it is what fuels factions. He says that removing liberty is one of the only ways to destroy a faction. He proceeds to state that this is not probable, and that factions can not be destroyed, but we must control their consequences in order to have a stable government. Madison believes that the Constitution preserves man's liberty by fairly representing them in a central government.
In the Federalist Papers, there was a great concern for Factions. Factions are a political group that has one single major aim. They can be very powerful; which could be a positive and a negative thing depending on the goal they are trying to achieve. A fear that factions could actually control the government made the founding fathers uneasy. The Constitution did not support factions but could not abolish them either, because it would go against the liberty of citizens. Madison also did not support factions as he states in Federalist 10 that “The public good is often disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties”. Either way factions had to stay because abolishing factions meant abolishing liberty.
Assuring the people, both Alexander Hamilton and James Madison insisted the new government under the constitution was “an expression of freedom, not its enemy,” declaring “the Constitution made political tyranny almost impossible.” (Foner, pg. 227) The checks and balances introduced under the new and more powerful national government would not allow the tyranny caused by a king under the Parliament system in Britain. They insisted that in order achieve a greater amount of freedom, a national government was needed to avoid the civil unrest during the system under the Articles of Confederation. Claiming that the new national government would be a “perfect balance between liberty and power,” it would avoid the disruption that liberty [civil unrest] and power [king’s abuse of power in England] caused.
To persuade the Anti-Federalist, James Madison wrote Federalist Paper number ten explaining a weakness with the Articles of Confederation. Federalist Paper ten was published on November 22, 1787. Number ten lays out how the writers of the constitution defined the form of government that would protect minority rights from organized and united factions that intended to pass the legislation injurious to the liberty of the minority or detrimental to the good of the country. Madison stated, “A faction was a number of citizens, whether it is a majority or minority, who were united and activated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”
In Madison's Federalist 10, it is evident that he was not in favor of the formation of factions. He states, "…The public good is often disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties…" Madison made the point that the dangers of factions can only be limited by controlling its effects. He recognized that in order to abolish political parties from the government completely, liberty would have to be abolished or limited as well. For this reason, the government had to accept political parties, but it did not have to incorporate them into being a major part of the government. He says that the inclination to form factions is inherent, however the parties effectiveness can be regulated. If the party is not majority than it can be controlled by majority vote. Madison believed that in the government established by the Constitution, political parties were to be tolerated and checked by the government, however the parties were never to control the government. Madison was absolutely convinced that parties were unhealthy to the government, but his basic point was to control parties as to prevent them from being dangerous.
In Federalist No. 10, James Madison stresses 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.” Madison philosophized that a large republic, composed of numerous factions capable of competing with each other and the majority must exist in order to avoid tyranny of majority rule.# When Federalist No. 10 was published, the concept of pluralism was not widely used. However, the political theory that is the foundation for United States government was the influential force behind pluralism and its doctrines.
How well has federalism worked in the United States? This is all a matter of opinion. Federalism has indeed been an active structure for government that fits in quite well with the changing American society. This particular system of government has been around for over two hundred years, and under all those years the separation of power under American federalism has changed numerous amounts of times in both law and practice. The United States Constitution does allow changes and amendments in the Constitution have assigned miscellaneous roles to the central and state governments than what originally intended. The suitable equilibrium between national and state powers is repeatedly an issue in American Politics.