Federalist No. 10
Encyclopedia
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
and the tenth of the Federalist Papers
Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles or essays promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788...
, a series arguing for the ratification of the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
. It was published on Friday, November 22, 1787, under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. The essay is the most famous of the Federalist Papers, along with Federalist No. 51
Federalist No. 51
Federalist No. 51 is an essay by James Madison, the fifty-first of the Federalist Papers. It was published on Friday February 8, 1788 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. One of the most famous of the Federalist Papers, No...
, also by Madison, and is among the most highly regarded of all American political writings.
No. 10 addresses the question of how to guard against "factions
Political faction
A political faction is a grouping of individuals, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with a political purpose. A faction or political party may include fragmented sub-factions, “parties within a party," which may be referred to as power blocs, or voting blocs. The individuals...
," or groups of citizens, with interests contrary to the rights of others or the interests of the whole community. In today's discourse the term advocacy group
Advocacy group
Advocacy groups use various forms of advocacy to influence public opinion and/or policy; they have played and continue to play an important part in the development of political and social systems...
or special interest group often carries the same denotation. Madison argued that a strong, large republic would be a better guard against those dangers than smaller republics—for instance, the individual states. Opponents of the Constitution
offered counterarguments to his position, which were substantially derived from the commentary of Montesquieu
Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu
Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu , generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment...
on this subject.
Federalist No. 10 continues a theme begun in Federalist No. 9
Federalist No. 9
Federalist No. 9 is an essay by Alexander Hamilton and the ninth of the Federalist Papers. It was published on November 21, 1787 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. Federalist No...
; it is titled, " The Same Subject Continued: The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection." The whole series is cited by scholars and jurist
Jurist
A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...
s as an authoritative interpretation and explication of the meaning of the Constitution. Jurists have frequently read No. 10 to mean that the Founding Fathers did not intend the United States government to be partisan
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
.
Publication
Before September 17, 1787,Convention had submitted the Constitution to the states for ratification. Anti-Federalist writers began to publish essays and letters arguing against ratification, and Alexander HamiltonAlexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton was a Founding Father, soldier, economist, political philosopher, one of America's first constitutional lawyers and the first United States Secretary of the Treasury...
recruited James Madison
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
and John Jay
John Jay
John Jay was an American politician, statesman, revolutionary, diplomat, a Founding Father of the United States, and the first Chief Justice of the United States ....
to write a series of pro-ratification letters in response. Like most of the Anti-Federalist essays and the vast majority of the Federalist Papers, No. 10 first appeared in popular newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s. It was first printed in the Daily Advertiser; in this it was remarkable among the essays of Publius, as almost all of them first appeared in one of two other papers, the Independent Journal and the New-York Packet. Federalist No. 37
Federalist No. 37
Federalist No. 37 is an essay by James Madison, the thirty-seventh of the Federalist Papers. It was published on January 11, 1788 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. This paper discusses some of the political questions raised at the...
, also by Madison, was the only other essay to appear first in the Advertiser.
Considering the importance later ascribed to the essay, it was reprinted only on a limited scale. On November 23, it appeared in the Packet and the next day in the Independent Journal. Outside New York City, it made four appearances in early 1788: January 2 in the Pennsylvania Gazette
Pennsylvania Gazette (newspaper)
The Pennsylvania Gazette was one of the United States' most prominent newspapers from 1728, before the time period of the American Revolution, until 1815...
, January 10 in the Hudson Valley Weekly, January 15 in the Lansingburgh Northern Centinel, and January 17 in the Albany Gazette. Though this number of reprintings was typical for the Federalist, many other essays, both Federalist and Anti-Federalist, saw much wider distribution.
On January 1, 1788, the publishing company J. & A. McLean announced that they would publish the first 36 of the essays in a single volume. This volume, titled The Federalist, was released on March 2, 1788. Two later editions are of note. The first was by George Hopkins in 1802; in this edition Hopkins revealed that Madison, Hamilton, and Jay were in fact the authors of the series. In 1818, James Gideon published a third edition containing corrections by Madison, who by that time had completed his two terms as President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
.
The question of faction
Federalist No. 10 continues the discussion of the question broached in Hamilton's Federalist No. 9Federalist No. 9
Federalist No. 9 is an essay by Alexander Hamilton and the ninth of the Federalist Papers. It was published on November 21, 1787 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. Federalist No...
. Hamilton there addressed the destructive role of faction
Political faction
A political faction is a grouping of individuals, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with a political purpose. A faction or political party may include fragmented sub-factions, “parties within a party," which may be referred to as power blocs, or voting blocs. The individuals...
in breaking apart the republic. The question Madison answers, then, is how to eliminate the negative effects of faction. He defines a faction as "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." He identifies the most serious source of faction to be the diversity of opinion in political life which leads to dispute over fundamental issues such as what regime or religion should be preferred. However, he thinks "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." He saw direct democracy
Direct democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
as a danger to individual rights and advocated a representative democracy
Representative democracy
Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy...
in order to protect what he viewed as individual liberty from majority rule, or from the effects of such inequality within society. He says, "A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies 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."
Like the anti-Federalists who opposed him, Madison was substantially influenced by the work of Montesquieu, though Madison and Montesquieu disagreed on the question addressed in this essay. He also relied heavily on the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment
Scottish Enlightenment
The Scottish Enlightenment was the period in 18th century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By 1750, Scots were among the most literate citizens of Europe, with an estimated 75% level of literacy...
, especially David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
, whose influence is most clear in Madison's discussion of the types of faction and in his argument for an extended republic.
Madison's arguments
Madison first assessed that there are two ways to limit the damage caused by faction: either remove the causes of faction or control its effects. He contends that there are two ways to remove the causes that provoke the development of factions. The first, destroying the Liberty, would work because “liberty is to faction what air is to fire” but it is impossible to perform because liberty is essential to political life, Americans having fought for it during the American RevolutionAmerican Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
. The other option—creating a society homogeneous in opinions and interests—he sees as impracticable. The diversity of the people's ability which make them succeed more or less and in which inequality of property derive is a right that the government should protect. Madison particularly emphasizes that economic stratification,prevents everyone from sharing the same opinion. Madison concludes that the damage caused by faction can be limited only by controlling its effects.
He then argues that the only problem comes from majority factions because the principle of popular sovereignty should prevent minority factions from gaining power. Madison offers two ways to check majority factions: either prevent the "existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time," or render a majority faction unable to act. Madison concludes that a small democracy cannot avoid the dangers of majority faction because small size means that undesirable passions can very easily spread to a majority of the people, which can then enact its will through the democratic government without difficulty.
Madison states “The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man” so the cure is to control factions’ effects. He makes an argument on how this is not possible in a pure democracy but possible in a republic. With pure democracy he means a system in which every citizen votes directly for laws, and with republic he intends a society in which citizens vote for an elite of representatives who then vote for laws. He indicates that the voice of the people pronounced by a body of representatives is more conformable to the interest of the community, since again, common people’s decisions are affected by their self-interest.
He then makes an argument in favor of a large republic against a small republic for the choice of “fit characters” to represent the public’s voice. In a large republic where the number of voters and candidates is greater, the probability to elect competent representatives is broader. The voters have a wider option. In a small republic it would also be easier for the candidates to fool the voters, while in a large one, harder. The last argument Madison makes in favor of a large republic is, in a small republic there will be a lower variety of interests and parties, so more frequently a majority will be found. The number of participants of that majority will be lower, and considering they live in a more limited territory, it would be easier for them to agree and work together for the accomplishment of their ideas. While in a large republic the variety of interests will be greater so to make it harder to find a majority. Even if there is a majority it would be harder for them to work together because of the large number of people and the fact they are spread out in a wider territory.
A republic, Madison writes, is different from a democracy because its government is placed in the hands of delegates, and as a result of this, it can be extended over a larger area. The idea is that in a large republic there will be more "fit characters" to choose from for each delegate. Also, the fact that each representative is chosen from a larger constituency should make the "vicious arts"—a reference to rhetoric—of electioneering less effective. For instance, in a large republic a corrupt delegate would need to bribe many more people in order to win an election than in a small republic. Second, in a republic the delegates both filter and refine the many demands of the people so as to prevent the type of frivolous claims that impede purely democratic governments.
Though Madison argued for a large and diverse republic, the writers of the Papers recognized the need for a balance. They wanted a republic diverse enough to prevent faction but with enough commonality to maintain cohesion among the states. In Federalist No. 2
Federalist No. 2
Federalist No. 2 is an essay by John Jay, the second of the Federalist Papers. It was published on October 31, 1787 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. No. 2 is the first of four papers by Jay discussing the protection of the United States...
, John Jay
John Jay
John Jay was an American politician, statesman, revolutionary, diplomat, a Founding Father of the United States, and the first Chief Justice of the United States ....
counted as a blessing that America possessed "one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, the same language, professing the same religion." Madison himself addresses a limitation of his conclusion that large constituencies will provide better representatives. He notes that if constituencies are too large, the representatives will be "too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and lesser interests." He says that this problem is partly solved by federalism
Federalism
Federalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together by covenant with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and...
. No matter how large the constituencies of federal representatives, local matters will be looked after by state and local officials with naturally smaller constituencies.
Contemporaneous counterarguments
The Anti-Federalists vigorously contested the notion that a republic of diverse interests could survive. The author Cato (another pseudonym, most likely that of George ClintonGeorge Clinton (vice president)
George Clinton was an American soldier and politician, considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was the first Governor of New York, and then the fourth Vice President of the United States , serving under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. He and John C...
) summarized the Anti-Federalist position in the article Cato no. 3:
Whoever seriously considers the immense extent of territory comprehended within the limits of the United States, together with the variety of its climates, productions, and commerce, the difference of extent, and number of inhabitants in all; the dissimilitude of interest, morals, and policies, in almost every one, will receive it as an intuitive truth, that a consolidated republican form of government therein, can never form a perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to you and your posterity, for to these objects it must be directed: this unkindred legislature therefore, composed of interests opposite and dissimilar in their nature, will in its exercise, emphatically be, like a house divided against itself.
Generally, it was their position that republics about the size of the individual states could survive, but that a republic on the size of the Union would fail. A particular point in support of this was that most of the states were focused on one industry—to generalize, commerce and shipping in the northern states and plantation farming in the southern. The Anti-Federalist belief that the wide disparity in the economic interests of the various states would lead to controversy was perhaps realized in the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, which some scholars attribute to this disparity. Madison himself, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, noted that differing economic interests had created dispute, even when the Constitution was being written. At the convention, he particularly identified the distinction between the northern and southern states as a "line of discrimination" that formed "the real difference of interests."
The discussion of the ideal size for the republic was not limited to the options of individual states or encompassing union. In a letter to Richard Price
Richard Price
Richard Price was a British moral philosopher and preacher in the tradition of English Dissenters, and a political pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the American Revolution. He fostered connections between a large number of people, including writers of the...
, Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Rush was a Founding Father of the United States. Rush lived in the state of Pennsylvania and was a physician, writer, educator, humanitarian and a Christian Universalist, as well as the founder of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania....
noted that "Some of our enlightened men who begin to despair of a more complete union of the States in Congress have secretly proposed an Eastern, Middle, and Southern Confederacy, to be united by an alliance offensive and defensive." However, compromise ideas like this gained little traction.
In making their arguments, the Anti-Federalists appealed to both historical and theoretic evidence. On the theoretical side, they leaned heavily on the work of Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu
Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu , generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment...
. The Anti-Federalists Brutus
Robert Yates (politician)
Robert Yates was a politician and judge well known for his Anti-Federalist stances. He is also well known as the presumed author of political essays published in 1787 and 1788 under the pseudonyms "Brutus" and "Sydney"...
and Cato both quoted Montesquieu on the issue of the ideal size of a republic, citing his statement in The Spirit of the Laws
The Spirit of the Laws
The Spirit of the Laws is a treatise on political theory first published anonymously by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu in 1748 with the help of Claudine Guérin de Tencin...
that:
It is natural to a republic to have only a small territory, otherwise it cannot long subsist. In a large republic there are men of large fortunes, and consequently of less moderation; there are trusts too great to be placed in any single subject; he has interest of his own; he soon begins to think that he may be happy, great and glorious, by oppressing his fellow citizens; and that he may raise himself to grandeur on the ruins of his country. In a large republic, the public good is sacrificed to a thousand views; it is subordinate to exceptions, and depends on accidents. In a small one, the interest of the public is easier perceived, better understood, and more within the reach of every citizen; abuses are of less extent, and of course are less protected.
Brutus points out that the Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
and Roman
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
states envisioned by many Americans as model republics (as evidenced by the choice of many authors on both sides of the debate to take Roman monikers) were small. Brutus also points out that the expansion of these republics resulted in a transition from free government to tyranny.
Modern analysis and reaction
In the first century of the American republic, No. 10 was not regarded as among the more important numbers of The Federalist. For instance, in Democracy in AmericaDemocracy in America
De la démocratie en Amérique is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. A "literal" translation of its title is Of Democracy in America, but the usual translation of the title is simply Democracy in America...
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution . In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in...
refers specifically to more than fifty of the essays, but No. 10 is not among them. Today, however, No. 10 is regarded as a seminal work of American democracy. In "The People's Vote," a popular survey conducted by the National Archives and Records Administration
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and with increasing public access to those documents, which comprise the National Archives...
, National History Day, and U.S. News and World Report, No. 10 (along with Federalist No. 51
Federalist No. 51
Federalist No. 51 is an essay by James Madison, the fifty-first of the Federalist Papers. It was published on Friday February 8, 1788 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. One of the most famous of the Federalist Papers, No...
, also by Madison) was chosen as the 20th most influential document in United States history.
Douglass Adair
Douglass Adair
Douglass Greybill Adair was an American historian who specialized in intellectual history. He is best known for his work in researching the authorship of disputed numbers of the Federalist Papers, and his influential studies in the history and influence of republicanism in the United States during...
attributes the increased interest in the tenth number to Charles A. Beard
Charles A. Beard
Charles Austin Beard was, with Frederick Jackson Turner, one of the most influential American historians of the first half of the 20th century. He published hundreds of monographs, textbooks and interpretive studies in both history and political science...
's book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution
An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution
An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is a 1913 book by American historian Charles A. Beard. It argues that the structure of the Constitution of the United States was motivated primarily by the personal financial interests of the Founding Fathers...
, published in 1913. Adair also contends that Beard's selective focus on the issue of class struggle
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
, and his political progressivism
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
, has colored modern scholarship on the essay. According to Adair, Beard reads No. 10 as evidence for his belief in "the Constitution as an instrument of class exploitation." Adair's own view is that Federalist No. 10 should be read as "eighteenth-century political theory directed to an eighteenth-century problem; and ... one of the great creative achievements of that intellectual movement that later ages have christened 'Jeffersonian democracy.'"
Garry Wills
Garry Wills
Garry Wills is a Pulitzer Prize-winning and prolific author, journalist, and historian, specializing in American politics, American political history and ideology and the Roman Catholic Church. Classically trained at a Jesuit high school and two universities, he is proficient in Greek and Latin...
is a noted critic of Madison's argument in Federalist No. 10. In his book Explaining America, he adopts the position of Robert Dahl in arguing that Madison's framework does not necessarily enhance the protections of minorities or ensure the common good. Instead, Wills claims: "Minorities can make use of dispersed and staggered governmental machinery to clog, delay, slow down, hamper, and obstruct the majority. But these weapons for delay are given to the minority irrespective of its factious or nonfactious character; and they can be used against the majority irrespective of its factious or nonfactious character. What Madison prevents is not faction, but action. What he protects is not the common good but delay as such."
Application
Federalist No. 10 is the classic citation for the belief that the Founding FathersFounding Fathers of the United States
The Founding Fathers of the United States of America were political leaders and statesmen who participated in the American Revolution by signing the United States Declaration of Independence, taking part in the American Revolutionary War, establishing the United States Constitution, or by some...
and the constitutional framers did not intend American politics to be partisan
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
. For instance, United States Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens
John Paul Stevens
John Paul Stevens served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from December 19, 1975 until his retirement on June 29, 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the oldest member of the Court and the third-longest serving justice in the Court's history...
cites the paper for the statement, "Parties ranked high on the list of evils that the Constitution was designed to check." Discussing a California provision that forbids candidates from running as independents within one year of holding a partisan affiliation, Justice Byron White
Byron White
Byron Raymond "Whizzer" White won fame both as a football halfback and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Appointed to the court by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, he served until his retirement in 1993...
made apparent the Court's belief that Madison spoke for the framers of the Constitution: "California apparently believes with the Founding Fathers that splintered parties and unrestrained factionalism may do significant damage to the fabric of government. See The Federalist, No. 10 (Madison)."
Madison's argument that restraining liberty to limit faction is an unacceptable solution has been used by opponents of campaign finance limits. Justice Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Succeeding Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court....
, for example, invoked Federalist No. 10 in a dissent against a ruling supporting limits on campaign contributions, writing: "The Framers preferred a political system that harnessed such faction for good, preserving liberty while also ensuring good government. Rather than adopting the repressive 'cure' for faction that the majority today endorses, the Framers armed individual citizens with a rey."
External links
- Online text of Federalist Paper No. 10 at Wikisource
- Online text of Brutus, no. 1, at http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/, the online edition of The Founders' Constitution, hosted by the University of ChicagoUniversity of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. - Online text of Cato, no. 3, same source as above