Factionalism

Factionalism

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. A faction, as commonly understood, is a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passions or of interest, adverse to the rights of there citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. There are two methods of curing the mischief of faction: the one, by removing its causes, and the other, by controlling its effects. To attack the causes of faction, there are two possible approaches, either destroy liberty, which is essential to its existence, or by give every citizen the same opinions, passions and interests. Obviously, in this case, the possible remedies are far more intolerable than the disease. The latent causes of faction are inherent traits of human kind, and therefore faction, to one degree or another, appears in almost every facet of society. To ameliorate society of this problem, it is necessary that no man have the ability to be a judge in his own cause because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably corrupt his integrity. Even if some superlative people would be able to circumvent this trait, the fact that those in this position will not always be superlative negates this exception. By this reasoning, the causes of faction cannot be removed; and that relief is only to be sought in 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; while this may lead to inefficient governing and the convulsion of society, it will effectively deter the violence of faction. The problem from there progresses to one of keeping a powerful majority in check so that it can not trample the interests of the population as a whole. For this reason, a pure democracy is without competence to remedy faction; only in a republic, representative democracy, is the prospect for the deterrence of faction present.

The two fundamental differences between a democracy and a republic are that in a republic the government is delegated to a smaller number of citizens elected by the rest, and secondly, the greater sphere of country and number of citizens over which a republic can be extended.