Federalist Papers: No. 10 – Full Text The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic

Faction and Insurrection

To the People of the State of New York:

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. 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 th e

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. Doe s

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.