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Federalist No. 10

Federalist No. 10 is an essay written by James Madison as the tenth of The Federalist Papers, a series of essays initiated by Alexander Hamilton arguing for the ratification of the United States Constitution. Published on November 22, 1787, under the name "Publius", Federalist No. 10 is among the most highly regarded of all American political writings.[1]

Federalist No. 10
James Madison, author of Federalist No. 10
AuthorJames Madison
LanguageEnglish
SeriesThe Federalist
PublisherDaily Advertiser
Publication date
November 22, 1787
Media typeNewspaper
Preceded byFederalist No. 9 
Followed byFederalist No. 11 

No. 10 addresses the question of how to reconcile citizens with interests contrary to the rights of others or inimical to the interests of the community as a whole. Madison saw factions as inevitable due to the nature of man—that is, as long as people hold differing opinions, have differing amounts of wealth and own differing amount of property, they will continue to form alliances with people who are most similar to them and they will sometimes work against the public interest and infringe upon the rights of others. He thus questions how to guard against those dangers.[citation needed]

Federalist No. 10 continues a theme begun in Federalist No. 9 and is titled "The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection". The whole series is cited by scholars and jurists as an authoritative interpretation and explication of the meaning of the Constitution. Historians such as Charles A. Beard argue that No. 10 shows an explicit rejection by the Founding Fathers of the principles of direct democracy and factionalism, and argue that Madison suggests that a representative republic is more effective against partisanship and factionalism.[2][3]

Madison saw the federal Constitution as providing for a "happy combination" of a republic and a purer democracy, with "the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures" resulting in a decentralized governmental structure. In his view, this would make it "more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried."

Background

 
Preamble to the U.S. Constitution

Prior to the Constitution, the thirteen states were bound together by the Articles of Confederation. These were, in essence, a military alliance between sovereign nations adopted to better fight the Revolutionary War. Congress had no power to tax, and as a result, was not able to pay debts resulting from the Revolution. Madison, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and others feared a break-up of the union and national bankruptcy.[4] Like Washington, Madison felt the revolution had not resolved the social problems that had triggered it, and the excesses ascribed to the King were now being repeated by the state legislatures. In this view, Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising in Massachusetts in 1786, was simply one, albeit extreme, example of "democratic excess" in the aftermath of the War.[5]

A national convention was called for May 1787, to revise the Articles of Confederation. Madison believed that the problem was not with the Articles, but rather the state legislatures, and so the solution was not to fix the articles but to restrain the excesses of the states. The principal questions before the convention became whether the states should remain sovereign, whether sovereignty should be transferred to the national government, or whether a settlement should rest somewhere in between.[5] By mid-June, it was clear that the convention was drafting a new plan of government around these issues—a constitution. Madison's nationalist position shifted the debate increasingly away from a position of pure state sovereignty, and toward the compromise.[6] In a debate on June 26, he said that government ought to "protect the minority of the opulent against the majority" and that unchecked, democratic communities were subject to "the turbulency and weakness of unruly passions".[7]

Publication

 
Paul Leicester Ford's summary preceding Federalist No. 10, from his 1898 edition of The Federalist

September 17, 1787 marked the signing of the final document. By its own Article Seven, the constitution drafted by the convention needed ratification by at least nine of the thirteen states, through special conventions held in each state. Anti-Federalist writers began to publish essays and letters arguing against ratification,[8] and Alexander Hamilton recruited James Madison and John Jay to write a series of pro-ratification letters in response.[9]

Like most of the Federalist essays and the vast majority of The Federalist Papers, No. 10 first appeared in popular newspapers. It was first printed in the Daily Advertiser under the name adopted by the Federalist writers, "Publius"; 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, also by Madison, was the only other essay to appear first in the Advertiser.[10]

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, 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 essays, many other essays, both Federalist and Anti-Federalist, saw much wider distribution.[11]

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. George Hopkins' 1802 edition revealed that Madison, Hamilton, and Jay were the authors of the series, with two later printings dividing the work by author. 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.[12]

Henry B. Dawson's edition of 1863 sought to collect the original newspaper articles, though he did not always find the first instance. It was much reprinted, albeit without his introduction.[13] Paul Leicester Ford's 1898 edition included a table of contents which summarized the essays, with the summaries again used to preface their respective essays. The first date of publication and the newspaper name were recorded for each essay. Of modern editions, Jacob E. Cooke's 1961 edition is seen as authoritative, and is most used today.[14]

The question of faction

Federalist No. 10 continues the discussion of the question broached in Hamilton's Federalist No. 9. Hamilton there addressed the destructive role of a faction in breaking apart the republic. The question Madison answers, then, is how to eliminate the negative effects of faction. Madison 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."[15] 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.

Madison argues that "the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property."[16] He states, "Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society."[16] Providing some examples of the distinct interests, Madison identified a landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, and "many lesser interests".[16] Madison insists that they all belonged to "different classes" that were "actuated by different sentiments and views."[16] Thus, Madison argues, these different classes would be prone to make decisions in their own interest, and not for the public good. A law regarding private debts, for instance, would be "a question to which the creditors are parties on one side, and the debtors on the other." To this question, and to others like it, Madison notes that, though "justice ought to hold the balance between them," the interested parties would reach different conclusions, "neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good."

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, especially David Hume, whose influence is most clear in Madison's discussion of the types of faction and in his argument for an extended republic.[17][18]

Madison's arguments

Madison first theorizes that there are two ways to limit the damage caused by faction: either remove the causes of faction or control its effects. He then describes the two methods to remove the causes of faction: first, destroying liberty, which would work because "liberty is to faction what air is to fire",[19] but it is impossible to perform because liberty is essential to political life, just as air is "essential to animal life." After all, Americans fought for it during the American Revolution. The second option, creating a society homogeneous in opinions and interests, is impracticable. The diversity of the people's ability is what makes them succeed more or less, and inequality of property 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: prevent the "existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time" or render a majority faction unable to act.[20] 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",[21] so the cure is to control their 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 (direct democracy), and, with republic, he intends a society in which citizens elect a small body of representatives who then vote for laws (representative democracy). 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"[22] 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 but more difficult in a large one. The last argument Madison makes in favor of a large republic is that as, in a small republic, there will be a lower variety of interests and parties, a majority will more frequently be found. The number of participants of that majority will be lower, and, since 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" of electioneering[22] (a reference to rhetoric) 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. Also, 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 Federalist 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, John Jay counted as a blessing that America possessed "one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, the same language, professing the same religion".[23] 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".[22] He says that this problem is partly solved by federalism. 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

 
George Clinton, believed to be the Anti-Federalist writer Cato

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 Clinton)[24] 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, 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.[25]

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, which some scholars attribute to this disparity.[26] Madison himself, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, noted that differing economic interests had created dispute, even when the Constitution was being written.[27] 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".[28]

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, Benjamin Rush 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".[29]

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. The Anti-Federalists Brutus and Cato both quoted Montesquieu on the issue of the ideal size of a republic, citing his statement in The Spirit of the Laws 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.[30]

Greece and Rome were looked to as model republics throughout this debate,[31] and authors on both sides took Roman pseudonyms. Brutus points out that the Greek and Roman states were small, whereas the U.S. is vast. He also points out that the expansion of these republics resulted in a transition from free government to tyranny.[32]

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 example, in Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville refers specifically to more than fifty of the essays, but No. 10 is not among them.[33] 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 History Day, and U.S. News & World Report, No. 10 (along with Federalist No. 51, also by Madison) was chosen as the 20th most influential document in United States history.[34] David Epstein, writing in 1984, described it as among the most highly regarded of all American political writing.[35]

The historian Charles A. Beard identified Federalist No. 10 as one of the most important documents for understanding the Constitution. In his book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913), Beard argued that Madison produced a detailed explanation of the economic factors that lay behind the creation of the Constitution. At the outset of his study, Beard writes that Madison provided "a masterly statement of the theory of economic determinism in politics" (Beard 1913, p. 15). Later in his study, Beard repeated his point, providing more emphasis. "The most philosophical examination of the foundations of political science is made by Madison in the tenth number," Beard writes. "Here he lays down, in no uncertain language, the principle that the first and elemental concern of every government is economic" (Beard 1913, p. 156).

Douglass Adair attributes the increased interest in the tenth number to Beard's book. Adair also contends that Beard's selective focus on the issue of class struggle, and his political progressivism, 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".[36] 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'".[37]

Garry Wills 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".[38]

Application

Federalist No. 10 is sometimes cited as showing that the Founding Fathers and the constitutional framers did not intend American politics to be partisan. For instance, U.S. Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens cites the paper for the statement that "Parties ranked high on the list of evils that the Constitution was designed to check".[39] Justice Byron White cited the essay while discussing a California provision that forbids candidates from running as independents within one year of holding a partisan affiliation, saying, "California apparently believes with the Founding Fathers that splintered parties and unrestrained factionalism may do significant damage to the fabric of government."[40]

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, 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 remedy."[41]

References

  1. ^ Epstein, p. 59.
  2. ^ Manweller 2005, p. 22.
  3. ^ Gustafson 1992, p. 290.
  4. ^ Bernstein, pp. 11–12, 81–109.
  5. ^ Wood, Idea, p. 104.
  6. ^ Stewart, p. 182.
  7. ^ Yates. [1]
  8. ^ For instance, the important Anti-Federalist authors "Cato" and "Brutus" debuted in New York papers on September 27 and October 18, 1787 respectively. See Furtwangler, pp. 48–49.
  9. ^ Ball, p. xvii.
  10. ^ Dates and publication information at "The Federalist", Constitution Society. Accessed January 22, 2011.
  11. ^ Kaminski and Saladino, Vol XIV, p. 175.
  12. ^ Adair, pp. 44–46. See also "The Federalist Papers: Timeline", SparkNotes. Accessed January 22, 2011.
  13. ^ Ford, p. xl.
  14. ^ Throughout Storing, for instance, and relied upon by De Pauw, pp. 202–204. For Ball, p. xlvii, it is the "authoritative edition" and "still stands as the most complete scholarly edition".
  15. ^ Federalist No. 10. p. 56 of the Dawson edition at Wikisource.
  16. ^ a b c d Dawson 1863, p. 58.
  17. ^ Cohler, pp. 148–161.
  18. ^ Adair, pp. 93–106.
  19. ^ Federalist No. 10. p. 56 of the Dawson edition at Wikisource.
  20. ^ Federalist No. 10. p. 60 of the Dawson edition at Wikisource.
  21. ^ Federalist No. 10. p. 57 of the Dawson edition at Wikisource.
  22. ^ a b c Federalist No. 10. p. 62 of the Dawson edition at Wikisource.
  23. ^ Federalist No. 2. pp. 7–8 of the Dawson edition at Wikisource.
  24. ^ See the accounts by, and conclusions of, Storing, Vol 1, pp. 102–104, Kaminski, p. 131, pp. 309–310, and Wood, Creation, p. 489. De Pauw, pp. 290–292, prefers Abraham Yates.
  25. ^ Cato, no. 3. The Founders' Constitution. Volume 1, Chapter 4, Document 16. University of Chicago Press. Retrieved January 22, 2011.
  26. ^ Ransom, Roger L. . Economic History Association. August 24, 2001. Referenced November 20, 2005. Citing Beard; Hacker; Egnal; Ransom and Sutch; Bensel; and McPherson, Ransom notes that "regional economic specialization ... generated very strong regional divisions on economic issues ... economic changes in the Northern states were a major factor leading to the political collapse of the 1850s ... the sectional splits on these economic issues ... led to a growing crisis in economic policy".
  27. ^ Letter by Madison to Jefferson, October 24, 1787. "James Madison to Thomas Jefferson". The Founders' Constitution. Volume 1, Chapter 17, Document 22. University of Chicago Press. Retrieved January 22, 2011.
  28. ^ Cohler, p. 151.
  29. ^ Letter by Benjamin Rush to Richard Price, October 27, 1786. "Benjamin Rush to Richard Price". The Founders' Constitution. Volume 1, Chapter 7, Document 7. University of Chicago Press. Retrieved January 22, 2011.
  30. ^ Montesquieu, Spirit Of Laws, ch. xvi. vol. I, book VIII, cited in Brutus, No. 1. The Founders' Constitution. Volume 1, Chapter 4, Document 14. University of Chicago Press. Retrieved January 22, 2011.
  31. ^ Yates is replete with examples.
  32. ^ Brutus, No. 1. The Founders' Constitution. Volume 1, Chapter 4, Document 14. University of Chicago Press. Retrieved January 22, 2011. "History furnishes no example of a free republic, any thing like the extent of the United States. The Grecian republics were of small extent; so also was that of the Romans. Both of these, it is true, in process of time, extended their conquests over large territories of country; and the consequence was, that their governments were changed from that of free governments to those of the most tyrannical that ever existed in the world".
  33. ^ Adair, p. 110.
  34. ^ "The People's Vote", ourdocuments.gov, National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved January 22, 2011.
  35. ^ Epstein, p. 59.
  36. ^ Adair, pp. 120–124. Quotation at p. 123.
  37. ^ Adair, p. 131.
  38. ^ Wills, p. 195.
  39. ^ California Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U.S. 567, 592 (2000) [2]
  40. ^ Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 736 (1974) [3]
  41. ^ Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U.S. 377, 424 (2000) [4]

Secondary sources

  • Adair, Douglass. "The Tenth Federalist Revisited" and "'That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science': David Hume, James Madison and the Tenth Federalist". Fame and the Founding Fathers. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998. ISBN 978-0-86597-193-6 New York: WW Norton & Co, 1974 ISBN 978-0-393-05499-6
  • Ball, Terence. The Federalist with Letters of "Brutus". Cambridge University Press: 2003. ISBN 978-0-521-00121-2
  • Beard, Charles A. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1913.
  • Bernstein, Richard B. Are We to Be a Nation? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. ISBN 978-0-674-04476-0
  • Cohler, Anne. Montesquieu's Comparative Politics and the Spirit of American Constitutionalism. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988. ISBN 978-0-521-36974-9
  • Dawson, Henry B., ed. The Fœderalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favor of the New Constitution, As Agreed Upon by the Fœderal Convention, September 17, 1787. New York: Charles Scribner, 1863.
  • Epstein, David F. The Political Theory of The Federalist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. ISBN 978-0-226-21300-2
  • Furtwangler, Albert. The Authority of Publius: A Reading of the Federalist Papers. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1984. ISBN 978-0-8014-1643-9
  • Grant DePauw, Linda. The Eleventh Pillar: New York State and the Federal Constitution. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1966. ISBN 978-0-8014-0104-6
  • Gustafson, Thomas (1992). Representative Words: Politics, Literature, and the American Language, 1776–1865. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-39512-0.
  • Kaminski, John P. George Clinton: Yeoman Politician of the New Republic. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1993. ISBN 978-0-945612-17-9
  • Manweller, Mathew (2005). The People Vs. the Courts: Judicial Review and Direct Democracy in the American Legal System. Academica Press, LLC. p. 22. ISBN 978-1-930901-97-1.
  • Morgan, Edmund S. * "Safety in Numbers: Madison, Hume, and the Tenth 'Federalist,'" Huntington Library Quarterly (1986) 49#2 pp. 95–112 in JSTOR
  • Stewart, David O. The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7432-8692-3
  • Wills, Garry. Explaining America: The Federalist. New York: Penguin Books, 1982. ISBN 978-0-14-029839-0
  • Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0-8078-4723-7
  • Wood, Gordon. The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States. New York: Penguin Press, 2011. ISBN 978-1-59420-290-2

Primary sources

  • Hamilton, Alexander; Madison, James; and Jay, John. The Federalist. Edited by Jacob E. Cooke. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961. Wesleyan 1982 edition: ISBN 978-0-8195-6077-3
  • Hamilton, Alexander; Madison, James; and Jay, John. The Federalist. Edited by Henry B. Dawson. Morrisania, New York: Charles Scribner, 1863. Accessed January 22, 2011.
  • Hamilton, Alexander; Madison, James; and Jay, John. The Federalist. Edited by Paul Leicester Ford. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1898.
  • Kaminski, John P. and Saladino, Gaspare J., ed. The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1981. ISBN 978-0-87020-372-5
  • Storing, Herbert J.; Dry, Murray, ed. The Complete Anti-Federalist. Vols 1–7. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. ISBN 0-226-77566-6
  • Yates, Robert. Notes of the Secret Debate of the Federal Convention of 1787. Washington, D.C.: Templeman, 1886. Accessed January 22, 2011.
  • "Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724 (1974)". Findlaw. Retrieved October 1, 2005.
  • "Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U.S. 377 (2000)". Findlaw. Retrieved August 23, 2005.
  • "California Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U.S. 567 (2000)". Findlaw. Retrieved August 23, 2005.

External links

federalist, essay, written, james, madison, tenth, federalist, papers, series, essays, initiated, alexander, hamilton, arguing, ratification, united, states, constitution, published, november, 1787, under, name, publius, among, most, highly, regarded, american. Federalist No 10 is an essay written by James Madison as the tenth of The Federalist Papers a series of essays initiated by Alexander Hamilton arguing for the ratification of the United States Constitution Published on November 22 1787 under the name Publius Federalist No 10 is among the most highly regarded of all American political writings 1 Federalist No 10James Madison author of Federalist No 10AuthorJames MadisonLanguageEnglishSeriesThe FederalistPublisherDaily AdvertiserPublication dateNovember 22 1787Media typeNewspaperPreceded byFederalist No 9 Followed byFederalist No 11 No 10 addresses the question of how to reconcile citizens with interests contrary to the rights of others or inimical to the interests of the community as a whole Madison saw factions as inevitable due to the nature of man that is as long as people hold differing opinions have differing amounts of wealth and own differing amount of property they will continue to form alliances with people who are most similar to them and they will sometimes work against the public interest and infringe upon the rights of others He thus questions how to guard against those dangers citation needed Federalist No 10 continues a theme begun in Federalist No 9 and is titled The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection The whole series is cited by scholars and jurists as an authoritative interpretation and explication of the meaning of the Constitution Historians such as Charles A Beard argue that No 10 shows an explicit rejection by the Founding Fathers of the principles of direct democracy and factionalism and argue that Madison suggests that a representative republic is more effective against partisanship and factionalism 2 3 Madison saw the federal Constitution as providing for a happy combination of a republic and a purer democracy with the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national the local and particular to the State legislatures resulting in a decentralized governmental structure In his view this would make it more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried Contents 1 Background 2 Publication 3 The question of faction 4 Madison s arguments 5 Contemporaneous counterarguments 6 Modern analysis and reaction 7 Application 8 References 8 1 Secondary sources 8 2 Primary sources 9 External linksBackground Edit Preamble to the U S Constitution Prior to the Constitution the thirteen states were bound together by the Articles of Confederation These were in essence a military alliance between sovereign nations adopted to better fight the Revolutionary War Congress had no power to tax and as a result was not able to pay debts resulting from the Revolution Madison George Washington Benjamin Franklin and others feared a break up of the union and national bankruptcy 4 Like Washington Madison felt the revolution had not resolved the social problems that had triggered it and the excesses ascribed to the King were now being repeated by the state legislatures In this view Shays Rebellion an armed uprising in Massachusetts in 1786 was simply one albeit extreme example of democratic excess in the aftermath of the War 5 A national convention was called for May 1787 to revise the Articles of Confederation Madison believed that the problem was not with the Articles but rather the state legislatures and so the solution was not to fix the articles but to restrain the excesses of the states The principal questions before the convention became whether the states should remain sovereign whether sovereignty should be transferred to the national government or whether a settlement should rest somewhere in between 5 By mid June it was clear that the convention was drafting a new plan of government around these issues a constitution Madison s nationalist position shifted the debate increasingly away from a position of pure state sovereignty and toward the compromise 6 In a debate on June 26 he said that government ought to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority and that unchecked democratic communities were subject to the turbulency and weakness of unruly passions 7 Publication Edit Paul Leicester Ford s summary preceding Federalist No 10 from his 1898 edition of The Federalist September 17 1787 marked the signing of the final document By its own Article Seven the constitution drafted by the convention needed ratification by at least nine of the thirteen states through special conventions held in each state Anti Federalist writers began to publish essays and letters arguing against ratification 8 and Alexander Hamilton recruited James Madison and John Jay to write a series of pro ratification letters in response 9 Like most of the Federalist essays and the vast majority of The Federalist Papers No 10 first appeared in popular newspapers It was first printed in the Daily Advertiser under the name adopted by the Federalist writers Publius 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 also by Madison was the only other essay to appear first in the Advertiser 10 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 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 essays many other essays both Federalist and Anti Federalist saw much wider distribution 11 On January 1 1788 the publishing company J amp 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 George Hopkins 1802 edition revealed that Madison Hamilton and Jay were the authors of the series with two later printings dividing the work by author 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 12 Henry B Dawson s edition of 1863 sought to collect the original newspaper articles though he did not always find the first instance It was much reprinted albeit without his introduction 13 Paul Leicester Ford s 1898 edition included a table of contents which summarized the essays with the summaries again used to preface their respective essays The first date of publication and the newspaper name were recorded for each essay Of modern editions Jacob E Cooke s 1961 edition is seen as authoritative and is most used today 14 The question of faction EditFederalist No 10 continues the discussion of the question broached in Hamilton s Federalist No 9 Hamilton there addressed the destructive role of a faction in breaking apart the republic The question Madison answers then is how to eliminate the negative effects of faction Madison 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 15 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 Madison argues that the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property 16 He states Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society 16 Providing some examples of the distinct interests Madison identified a landed interest a manufacturing interest a mercantile interest a moneyed interest and many lesser interests 16 Madison insists that they all belonged to different classes that were actuated by different sentiments and views 16 Thus Madison argues these different classes would be prone to make decisions in their own interest and not for the public good A law regarding private debts for instance would be a question to which the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the other To this question and to others like it Madison notes that though justice ought to hold the balance between them the interested parties would reach different conclusions neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good 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 especially David Hume whose influence is most clear in Madison s discussion of the types of faction and in his argument for an extended republic 17 18 Madison s arguments EditMadison first theorizes that there are two ways to limit the damage caused by faction either remove the causes of faction or control its effects He then describes the two methods to remove the causes of faction first destroying liberty which would work because liberty is to faction what air is to fire 19 but it is impossible to perform because liberty is essential to political life just as air is essential to animal life After all Americans fought for it during the American Revolution The second option creating a society homogeneous in opinions and interests is impracticable The diversity of the people s ability is what makes them succeed more or less and inequality of property 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 prevent the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time or render a majority faction unable to act 20 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 21 so the cure is to control their 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 direct democracy and with republic he intends a society in which citizens elect a small body of representatives who then vote for laws representative democracy 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 22 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 but more difficult in a large one The last argument Madison makes in favor of a large republic is that as in a small republic there will be a lower variety of interests and parties a majority will more frequently be found The number of participants of that majority will be lower and since 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 of electioneering 22 a reference to rhetoric 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 Also 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 Federalist 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 John Jay counted as a blessing that America possessed one united people a people descended from the same ancestors the same language professing the same religion 23 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 22 He says that this problem is partly solved by federalism 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 Edit George Clinton believed to be the Anti Federalist writer Cato 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 Clinton 24 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 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 neverform 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 25 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 which some scholars attribute to this disparity 26 Madison himself in a letter to Thomas Jefferson noted that differing economic interests had created dispute even when the Constitution was being written 27 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 28 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 Benjamin Rush 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 29 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 The Anti Federalists Brutus and Cato both quoted Montesquieu on the issue of the ideal size of a republic citing his statement in The Spirit of the Laws 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 30 Greece and Rome were looked to as model republics throughout this debate 31 and authors on both sides took Roman pseudonyms Brutus points out that the Greek and Roman states were small whereas the U S is vast He also points out that the expansion of these republics resulted in a transition from free government to tyranny 32 Modern analysis and reaction EditIn the first century of the American republic No 10 was not regarded as among the more important numbers of The Federalist For example in Democracy in America Alexis de Tocqueville refers specifically to more than fifty of the essays but No 10 is not among them 33 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 History Day and U S News amp World Report No 10 along with Federalist No 51 also by Madison was chosen as the 20th most influential document in United States history 34 David Epstein writing in 1984 described it as among the most highly regarded of all American political writing 35 The historian Charles A Beard identified Federalist No 10 as one of the most important documents for understanding the Constitution In his book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States 1913 Beard argued that Madison produced a detailed explanation of the economic factors that lay behind the creation of the Constitution At the outset of his study Beard writes that Madison provided a masterly statement of the theory of economic determinism in politics Beard 1913 p 15 Later in his study Beard repeated his point providing more emphasis The most philosophical examination of the foundations of political science is made by Madison in the tenth number Beard writes Here he lays down in no uncertain language the principle that the first and elemental concern of every government is economic Beard 1913 p 156 Douglass Adair attributes the increased interest in the tenth number to Beard s book Adair also contends that Beard s selective focus on the issue of class struggle and his political progressivism 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 36 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 37 Garry Wills 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 38 Application EditFederalist No 10 is sometimes cited as showing that the Founding Fathers and the constitutional framers did not intend American politics to be partisan For instance U S Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens cites the paper for the statement that Parties ranked high on the list of evils that the Constitution was designed to check 39 Justice Byron White cited the essay while discussing a California provision that forbids candidates from running as independents within one year of holding a partisan affiliation saying California apparently believes with the Founding Fathers that splintered parties and unrestrained factionalism may do significant damage to the fabric of government 40 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 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 remedy 41 References Edit Epstein p 59 Manweller 2005 p 22 Gustafson 1992 p 290 Bernstein pp 11 12 81 109 Wood Idea p 104 Stewart p 182 Yates 1 For instance the important Anti Federalist authors Cato and Brutus debuted in New York papers on September 27 and October 18 1787 respectively See Furtwangler pp 48 49 Ball p xvii Dates and publication information at The Federalist Constitution Society Accessed January 22 2011 Kaminski and Saladino Vol XIV p 175 Adair pp 44 46 See also The Federalist Papers Timeline SparkNotes Accessed January 22 2011 Ford p xl Throughout Storing for instance and relied upon by De Pauw pp 202 204 For Ball p xlvii it is the authoritative edition and still stands as the most complete scholarly edition Federalist No 10 p 56 of the Dawson edition at Wikisource a b c d Dawson 1863 p 58 Cohler pp 148 161 Adair pp 93 106 Federalist No 10 p 56 of the Dawson edition at Wikisource Federalist No 10 p 60 of the Dawson edition at Wikisource Federalist No 10 p 57 of the Dawson edition at Wikisource a b c Federalist No 10 p 62 of the Dawson edition at Wikisource Federalist No 2 pp 7 8 of the Dawson edition at Wikisource See the accounts by and conclusions of Storing Vol 1 pp 102 104 Kaminski p 131 pp 309 310 and Wood Creation p 489 De Pauw pp 290 292 prefers Abraham Yates Cato no 3 The Founders Constitution Volume 1 Chapter 4 Document 16 University of Chicago Press Retrieved January 22 2011 Ransom Roger L Economics of the Civil War Economic History Association August 24 2001 Referenced November 20 2005 Citing Beard Hacker Egnal Ransom and Sutch Bensel and McPherson Ransom notes that regional economic specialization generated very strong regional divisions on economic issues economic changes in the Northern states were a major factor leading to the political collapse of the 1850s the sectional splits on these economic issues led to a growing crisis in economic policy Letter by Madison to Jefferson October 24 1787 James Madison to Thomas Jefferson The Founders Constitution Volume 1 Chapter 17 Document 22 University of Chicago Press Retrieved January 22 2011 Cohler p 151 Letter by Benjamin Rush to Richard Price October 27 1786 Benjamin Rush to Richard Price The Founders Constitution Volume 1 Chapter 7 Document 7 University of Chicago Press Retrieved January 22 2011 Montesquieu Spirit Of Laws ch xvi vol I book VIII cited in Brutus No 1 The Founders Constitution Volume 1 Chapter 4 Document 14 University of Chicago Press Retrieved January 22 2011 Yates is replete with examples Brutus No 1 The Founders Constitution Volume 1 Chapter 4 Document 14 University of Chicago Press Retrieved January 22 2011 History furnishes no example of a free republic any thing like the extent of the United States The Grecian republics were of small extent so also was that of the Romans Both of these it is true in process of time extended their conquests over large territories of country and the consequence was that their governments were changed from that of free governments to those of the most tyrannical that ever existed in the world Adair p 110 The People s Vote ourdocuments gov National Archives and Records Administration Retrieved January 22 2011 Epstein p 59 Adair pp 120 124 Quotation at p 123 Adair p 131 Wills p 195 California Democratic Party v Jones 530 U S 567 592 2000 2 Storer v Brown 415 U S 724 736 1974 3 Nixon v Shrink Missouri Government PAC 528 U S 377 424 2000 4 Secondary sources Edit Adair Douglass The Tenth Federalist Revisited and That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science David Hume James Madison and the Tenth Federalist Fame and the Founding Fathers Indianapolis Liberty Fund 1998 ISBN 978 0 86597 193 6 New York WW Norton amp Co 1974 ISBN 978 0 393 05499 6 Ball Terence The Federalist with Letters of Brutus Cambridge University Press 2003 ISBN 978 0 521 00121 2 Beard Charles A An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States New York The MacMillan Company 1913 Bernstein Richard B Are We to Be a Nation Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1987 ISBN 978 0 674 04476 0 Cohler Anne Montesquieu s Comparative Politics and the Spirit of American Constitutionalism Lawrence University Press of Kansas 1988 ISBN 978 0 521 36974 9 Dawson Henry B ed The Fœderalist A Collection of Essays Written in Favor of the New Constitution As Agreed Upon by the Fœderal Convention September 17 1787 New York Charles Scribner 1863 Epstein David F The Political Theory of The Federalist Chicago University of Chicago Press 1984 ISBN 978 0 226 21300 2 Furtwangler Albert The Authority of Publius A Reading of the Federalist Papers Ithaca New York Cornell University Press 1984 ISBN 978 0 8014 1643 9 Grant DePauw Linda The Eleventh Pillar New York State and the Federal Constitution Ithaca New York Cornell University Press 1966 ISBN 978 0 8014 0104 6 Gustafson Thomas 1992 Representative Words Politics Literature and the American Language 1776 1865 Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 39512 0 Kaminski John P George Clinton Yeoman Politician of the New Republic Madison State Historical Society of Wisconsin 1993 ISBN 978 0 945612 17 9 Manweller Mathew 2005 The People Vs the Courts Judicial Review and Direct Democracy in the American Legal System Academica Press LLC p 22 ISBN 978 1 930901 97 1 Morgan Edmund S Safety in Numbers Madison Hume and the Tenth Federalist Huntington Library Quarterly 1986 49 2 pp 95 112 in JSTOR Stewart David O The Summer of 1787 The Men Who Invented the Constitution New York Simon amp Schuster 2007 ISBN 978 0 7432 8692 3 Wills Garry Explaining America The Federalist New York Penguin Books 1982 ISBN 978 0 14 029839 0 Wood Gordon The Creation of the American Republic 1776 1787 Chapel Hill NC UNC Press 1998 ISBN 978 0 8078 4723 7 Wood Gordon The Idea of America Reflections on the Birth of the United States New York Penguin Press 2011 ISBN 978 1 59420 290 2Primary sources Edit Hamilton Alexander Madison James and Jay John The Federalist Edited by Jacob E Cooke Middletown Conn Wesleyan University Press 1961 Wesleyan 1982 edition ISBN 978 0 8195 6077 3 Hamilton Alexander Madison James and Jay John The Federalist Edited by Henry B Dawson Morrisania New York Charles Scribner 1863 Accessed January 22 2011 Hamilton Alexander Madison James and Jay John The Federalist Edited by Paul Leicester Ford New York Henry Holt amp Co 1898 Kaminski John P and Saladino Gaspare J ed The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution Madison State Historical Society of Wisconsin 1981 ISBN 978 0 87020 372 5 Storing Herbert J Dry Murray ed The Complete Anti Federalist Vols 1 7 Chicago University of Chicago Press 1981 ISBN 0 226 77566 6 Yates Robert Notes of the Secret Debate of the Federal Convention of 1787 Washington D C Templeman 1886 Accessed January 22 2011 Storer v Brown 415 U S 724 1974 Findlaw Retrieved October 1 2005 Nixon v Shrink Missouri Government PAC 528 U S 377 2000 Findlaw Retrieved August 23 2005 California Democratic Party v Jones 530 U S 567 2000 Findlaw Retrieved August 23 2005 External links Edit Wikisource has original text related to this article Federalist No 10 Text of The Federalist No 10 congress gov Online text of Brutus no 1 University of Chicago Online text of Cato no 3 same source as above Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Federalist No 10 amp oldid 1111227657, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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