Federalist No. 10
November 22, 1787
The most famous of the Federalist Papers, arguing that a large republic is the best remedy against the dangers of faction.
The Violence of Faction
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.
"By a faction, I understand a number of citizens... who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens"
The Causes of Faction
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.
"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 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.
"The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property"
The Republican Remedy
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.
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.
"The effect of the first difference is... to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens"
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.
"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"
In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government.
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