fieldston american reader volume i – fall 2007 - Ethical Culture ...

James Madison:The Federalist Papers #10 (1787)To promote the ratification of the new Constitution, AlexanderHamilton, John Jay, and James Madison teamed up to write aseries of newspaper articles under the name, “Publius.” These articles,eighty-five in all, are known together as The Federalist Papers andhave become justly famous not only as high-class propaganda, but asbrilliant commentary on the principles underlying the Constitution.Among the numerous advantages promised by a wellconstructedunion, none deserves to be more accuratelydeveloped than its tendency to break and control the violenceof faction. The friend of popular governments never findshimself so much alarmed for their character and fate as whenhe contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. Hewill 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, andconfusion introduced into the public councils have, in truth,been the diseases under which popular governments haveeverywhere perished... Complaints are everywhere heard fromour most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally friendsof public and private faith and of public and personal liberty,that our governments are too unstable, that the public good isdisregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measuresare too often decided, not according to the rules of justice andthe rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of aninterested and overbearing majority... [I]t will be found... thatprevailing and increasing distrust of our public engagementsand alarm for private rights are echoed from one end of thecontinent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly,effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factiousspirit has tainted our public administration...As long as the reason of man continues to be fallible, and heis at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.As long as the connection subsists between his reason and hisself-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocalinfluence on each other; and the former will be objects to whichthe latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the facultiesof men, from which the rights of property originate, is notless an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. Theprotection of these faculties is the first object of government.From the protection of different and unequal faculties ofacquiring property, the possession of different degrees andkinds of property immediately results; and from the influence ofthese on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietorsensues a division of society into different interests and parties.The latent causes of faction are thus sown into the nature of man;and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees ofactivity, according to the different circumstances of civil society.A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerninggovernment, and many other points... an attachment todifferent leaders ambitiously contending for preeminence andpower; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes havebeen interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, dividedmankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity,and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress eachother than to cooperate for the common good. So strong is thispropensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities that...most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient tokindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violentconflicts. But the most common and durable source of factionshas been the various and unequal distribution of property.Those who hold and those who are without property have everformed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors,and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. Alanded interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest,a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up ofnecessity in civilized nations, and divided them into differentclasses, actuated by different sentimentsand views. The regulation of these various and interferinginterests forms the principal task of modern legislation andinvolves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary andordinary operations of government.No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because hisinterest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably,corrupt his integrity. With greater reason, a body of men areunfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet, whatare many of the most important acts of legislation but so manyjudicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights ofsingle persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies ofcitizens? And what are the different classes of legislators butadvocates and parties to the causes which they determine?Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a questionto which creditors are parties on one side and debtors on theother. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet theparties are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the mostnumerous party, or in other words, the most powerful faction,must be expected to prevail...When a majority is included in a faction... the form of populargovernment enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passions orinterest both the public good and private rights of other citizens.To secure the public good and the private rights171