James Madison: Federalist 10

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Madison begins Federalist 10 by arguing that the most important advantage of a “well-constructed Union” is its tendency to “break and control the violence of faction.” By “faction” Madison meant any combination of citizens united by a common interest “adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” The political order was unstable because rival factions brought “superior force” and “overbearing majority” to pass laws favorable to themselves, thus violating the rights of minorities. Departing from the common understanding of factions as minorities, Madison saw the organized majority as the most common and dangerous faction. Madison attributes the root cause of faction to human nature, viewing humans as driven by passion rather than reason. Disputing the doctrine that liberty and equality produce a “natural aristocracy” based on wisdom, talent, and concern for the good of the whole, Madison countered, “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.”

The factional disease can be cured by removing the cause or by controlling the effects. The cause can be removed either by “destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence” or by making all opinions and passions concur. The first cure is untenable since “liberty is to faction what air is to fire.” Just as air is necessary for animal life, liberty is essential for political life. By seeing faction as both the product and the price of liberty, Madison dispenses with curing faction by limiting liberty. Making all opinions conform is no remedy either, since the fallibility of human reason dictates that “different opinions will be formed … concerning religion, concerning government.”

Madison avers that “the first object of government” is the protection of the “rights of property” and of “the diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate.” For Madison the unequal capacity of people to acquire property gives rise to “a division of the society into different interests and parties.” The inequality between the propertyless many and the propertied few has “divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them … disposed to vex and oppress each other (rather) than to co-operate for their common good.” In the same passage Madison cites the different types of property arising in economically dynamic nations: “a landed interest, a manufacturing interest, … a moneyed interest … [that] divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views.” All of these “interfering interests” encourage the spirit of faction. The “principal task of modern legislation” is the regulation of these interests. The problem Madison raises is how competing claims may be decided: “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.” By the end of the next paragraph Madison abandons the idea of a prudential solution: “The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property … 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.” Once again justice will go to the most numerous faction. So the causes of faction cannot be removed, and neither can the effects be eliminated. However, a government that restrains the majority while maintaining popular sovereignty can control the effects of faction. Madison argues that the impassioned majority “must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression.”

Madison asserts in the next paragraphs that 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.” He criticizes democracies as ever the “spectacles of turbulence and contention … found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” He identifies direct democracy with mob rule, if not anarchy. He accuses democratic theorists of confusing equality of political rights, with equality in possessions, opinions, and passions—a view he has already denied as inconsistent with human nature. Republics, on the other hand, “by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place … refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body.” The more indirect the representation is, the more majority opinion is filtered, until it becomes refined by the wisdom of the best men sitting in the upper legislative house.

But filtration alone is not enough. Factious men can scheme to get themselves elected. This is particularly true in small republics, where the ratio of representatives to constituents is low enough for constituents to exert direct influence. In a large republic, the greater ratio enables the representatives to “guard against the confusion of a multitude.” In a large republic, where representatives will be chosen “by a greater number of citizens,” it will be harder for “unworthy candidates” to maneuver to win elections. When constituents are spread over a greater area, they are freer to vote their consciences and to choose men of “merit … and established characters.” Madison argues that the Constitution balances between the large republic's freedom from local pressure and the small republic's familiarity with constituent concerns: “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.”

Madison next argues that as the territory gets larger, it will be harder for members of the majority “to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other” because the greater numbers needed for concerted action will breed distrust among the whole. He argues that in a large republic the diversity of interest groups will work to prevent the formation of a single majority interest that will come together and “oppress the rest.”

Madison ends Federalist 10 by repeating his concern for protecting private property. He argues that “a rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property” will be less likely to pervade the whole Union than any particular state. By ending on this note, Madison hoped to persuade wealthy merchants and creditors that their interests would be best served by the “proper structure of the Union” promised by the Constitution.

Additional Commentary by John R. Vile, Middle Tennessee State University

The Federalist was a work of advocacy designed to secure the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. The brainchild of Alexander Hamilton, who wrote the majority of the essays, the work was written under the pen name of a Roman statesman, Publius, and also featured essays by Madison and John Jay. Some of Madison's essays are among the most important: Federalist 39 remains a classic description of the system of federalism created by the new Constitution. Federalist 49 justifies the decision by members of the convention to exceed their commissions and propose an entirely new plan of government. Federalist 50 dissects and rejects a proposal by Thomas Jefferson for periodic revisions of the Constitution. Federalist 51 outlines a rationale for dividing the national government into three branches.

None of the essays has been the subject of greater analysis or praise than Federalist 10, “The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard against Domestic Faction and Insurrection,” which focuses chiefly on the issue of factions, or interest groups. Antifederalist opponents of the Constitution, who cited Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu (whom Federalists themselves relied upon for justification of the doctrine of separation of powers), were claiming that it was impossible to establish republican government over an area the size of the United States. By contrast, Madison had already developed a theory that the diversity of factions that he thought such a large land area would encompass could combat oppression by making it less likely that any single faction could dominate.

Madison presented this theory to the general public in New York's Daily Advertiser on November 22, 1787. In the essay, he acknowledges that the development of factions is inevitable in a nation based on liberty. He links factions to differences in opinion that stem from the “the reciprocal influence” of man's “opinions and his passions.” Madison believes that “diversity in the faculties of men” contributes to property differences, which in turn create factions and classes: “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.”

While some would look to “enlightened statesmen” to accommodate such varied interests, Madison seeks a more reliable institutional solution. In attempting to evade the force of Montesquieu's arguments about size, Madison distinguishes the “pure democracy” of ancient times from the modern republic. Whereas the former was necessarily limited to a city-state whose residents could gather together in one spot, the latter relied on a system of representation that permits its people to disperse over a larger land area. Madison proceeds to argue that the differences of the republic from the democracy would have positive effects. The republic's representatives would “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.” The greater land area covered by the republic, in turn, would increase the number of factions; and as the republican sphere expands, there would be less chance that a single faction would dominate. While individual states might be subject to contagions of opinion, any such “rage” would be less likely to sweep through the nation as a whole. All citizens, then, could ratify the Constitution in the knowledge that it would be likely to provide greater security for liberty than would their own states.

Scholars continue to argue about whether Federalist 10 persuaded many Antifederalists to join the Federalist side as well as whether it embodies the philosophy of the Constitution as a whole. The essay certainly provided further justification for American expansionism, such as that later represented by the Louisiana Purchase. Modern scholars have cited the essay in economic interpretations of the Founders' intentions.