The Same Subject Continued



(The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection)



From the New York Packet.



Friday, November 23, 1787.



MADISON





To the People of the State of New York:



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. 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. He will

not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without

violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper

cure for it. 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. The valuable

improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models,

both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it

would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as

effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and

expected. 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.



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.



There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by

removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.



There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one,

by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the

other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions,

and the same interests.



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.



The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise.

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. The protection of these faculties is the first object of

government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of

acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of

property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the

sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division

of the society into different interests and parties.



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. But the most common and durable source of factions has been

the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and

those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in

society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under

a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a

mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests,

grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into

different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. 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? Is a law proposed concerning private

debts? It is a question to which the creditors are parties on one side

and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between

them. Yet the parties are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the

most numerous party, or, in other words, the most powerful faction must

be expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and

in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions

which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing

classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the

public good. 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. Let me add that it is the great desideratum by which this

form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it

has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of

mankind.



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.



A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of

representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises

the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which

it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature

of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.



The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic

are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small

number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of

citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be

extended.



The effect of the first difference 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 by two obvious

considerations:



In the first place, it is to be remarked that, however small the

republic may be, the representatives must be raised to a certain

number, in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and that,

however large it may be, they must be limited to a certain number, in

order to guard against the confusion of a multitude. Hence, the number

of representatives in the two cases not being in proportion to that of

the two constituents, and being proportionally greater in the small

republic, it follows that, if the proportion of fit characters be not

less in the large than in the small republic, the former will present a

greater option, and consequently a greater probability of a fit choice.



In the next place, as each representative will be chosen by a greater

number of citizens in the large than in the small republic, it will be

more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with success the

vicious arts by which elections are too often carried; and the

suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre

in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and

established characters.



It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there is a

mean, on both sides of which inconveniences will be found to lie. By

enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the

representatives too little acquainted with all their local

circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you

render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to comprehend

and pursue great and national objects. The federal Constitution forms a

happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests

being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State

legislatures.



The other point of difference is, the greater number of citizens and

extent of territory which 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 paper money,

for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for

any other 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. And according to the degree of pleasure and pride we feel

in being republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing the spirit and

supporting the character of Federalists.



PUBLIUS.









THE FEDERALIST.