
The Federalist Papers touched on a number of concerns shared by the founding
fathers of the United States. These papers (excerpted from dozens of individual
papers in the complete collection) illustrate some of the specific concerns of
the founding fathers regarding oppression of the individual by the Republic at
large. They offer a timeless insight into the compact between sovereign citizen
and the nation-state of which he is a member.

The complete collection of Federalist Papers are available on the Ineternet from
a number of sources. You can download access them via gopher at:
gopher.micro.umn.edu in the libraries/elecronic books directory.

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FEDERALIST No. 10

The Same Subject Continued
(The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection)
>From the New York Packet.
Friday, November 23, 1787.

MADISON

To the People of the State of New York:

AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a wellconstructed 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. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan
which, without violating the principles to which he is attached,
provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and
confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been
the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere
perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from
which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious
declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American
constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot
certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable
partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the
danger on this side, as was wished and expected.  Complaints are
everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens,
equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and
personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the
public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that
measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice
and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an
interested and overbearing majority.  However anxiously we may wish
that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts
will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will
be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of
the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously charged on
the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same
time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our
heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and
increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private
rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other.
These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and
injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public
administrations.

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether
amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united
and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest,
adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and
aggregate interests of the community.

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.

It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that
it was worse than the disease. 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 second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be
unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is
at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As
long as the connection subsists between his reason and his
self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal
influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which
the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties
of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an
insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection
of these faculties is the first object of government. From the
protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property,
the possession of different degrees and kinds of property
immediately results; and from the influence of these on the
sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a
division of the society into different interests and parties.

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.
A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning
government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of
practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending
for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions
whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in
turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual
animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress
each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is
this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that
where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous
and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their
unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But
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.
Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a
like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a
mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests,
grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into
different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The
regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the
principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of
party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the
government.

No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his
interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably,
corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body
of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time;
yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so
many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of
single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of
citizens? And what are the different classes of legislators but
advocates and parties to the causes which they determine? Is a law
proposed concerning private debts? It is a question to which the
creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the other.
Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the parties
are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the most numerous
party, or, in other words, the most powerful faction must be
expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and
in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are
questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the
manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to
justice and the public good. The apportionment of taxes on the
various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require
the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative
act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a
predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every
shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a
shilling saved to their own pockets.

It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to
adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to
the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the
helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all
without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which
will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may
find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.

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.

If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is
supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to
defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the
administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable
to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. 
When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular
government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling
passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other
citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the
danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the
spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object
to which our inquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the
great desideratum by which this form of government can be rescued
from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be
recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.

By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of
two only. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a
majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having
such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their
number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect
schemes of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be
suffered to coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious
motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found
to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals, and lose
their efficacy in proportion to the number combined together, that
is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes needful.

>From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure
democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of
citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can
admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or
interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the
whole; a communication and concert result from the form of
government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to
sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is
that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and
contention; 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.
Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of
government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a
perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same
time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions,
their opinions, and their passions.

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. Let us examine the points in
which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both
the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from
the Union.

The two great points of difference between a democracy and a
republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the
latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest;
secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of
country, over which the latter may be extended.

The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to
refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the
medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern
the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of
justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial
considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that
the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people,
will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the
people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the
effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local
prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption,
or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the
interests, of the people. The question resulting is, whether small
or extensive republics are more favorable to the election of proper
guardians of the public weal; and it is clearly decided in favor of
the latter by two obvious considerations:

In the first place, it is to be remarked that, however small the
republic may be, the representatives must be raised to a certain
number, in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and that,
however large it may be, they must be limited to a certain number,
in order to guard against the confusion of a multitude. Hence, the
number of representatives in the two cases not being in proportion
to that of the two constituents, and being proportionally greater in
the small republic, it follows that, if the proportion of fit
characters be not less in the large than in the small republic, the
former will present a greater option, and consequently a greater
probability of a fit choice.

In the next place, as each representative will be chosen by a
greater number of citizens in the large than in the small republic,
it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with
success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried;
and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more
likely to centre in men who possess the most attractive merit and
the most diffusive and established characters.

It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there
is a mean, on both sides of which inconveniences will be found to
lie. By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the
representatives too little acquainted with all their local
circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you
render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to
comprehend and pursue great and national objects. The federal
Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great
and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local
and particular to the State legislatures.

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; and it is this
circumstance principally which renders factious combinations less to
be dreaded in the former than in the latter. The smaller the
society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and
interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and
interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same
party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a
majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed,
the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of
oppression. 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; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more
difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to
act in unison with each other. Besides other impediments, it may be
remarked that, where there is a consciousness of unjust or
dishonorable purposes, communication is always checked by distrust
in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary.

Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a
republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of
faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic,--is enjoyed by
the Union over the States composing it. Does the advantage consist
in the substitution of representatives whose enlightened views and
virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and
schemes of injustice? It will not be denied that the representation
of the Union will be most likely to possess these requisite
endowments. Does it consist in the greater security afforded by a
greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being
able to outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal degree does the
increased variety of parties comprised within the Union, increase
this security. Does it, in fine, consist in the greater obstacles
opposed to the concert and accomplishment of the secret wishes of an
unjust and interested majority? Here, again, the extent of the
Union gives it the most palpable advantage.

The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within
their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general
conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may
degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy;
but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must
secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A
rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal
division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project,
will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a
particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is
more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire
State.

In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we
behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to
republican government. And according to the degree of pleasure and
pride we feel in being republicans, ought to be our zeal in
cherishing the spirit and supporting the character of Federalists.

PUBLIUS.

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FEDERALIST No. 51

The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks
and Balances Between the Different Departments

>From the New York Packet. Friday, February 8, 1788. 

HAMILTON OR MADISON

To the People of the State of New York:

TO WHAT expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining
in practice the necessary partition of power among the several
departments, as laid down in the Constitution? The only answer
that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are
found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so
contriving the interior structure of the government as that its
several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the
means of keeping each other in their proper places. Without
presuming to undertake a full development of this important idea,
I will hazard a few general observations, which may perhaps place
it in a clearer light, and enable us to form a more correct
judgment of the principles and structure of the government
planned by the convention. In order to lay a due foundation for
that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of
government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to
be essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that
each department should have a will of its own; and consequently
should be so constituted that the members of each should have as
little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of
the others. Were this principle rigorously adhered to, it would
require that all the appointments for the supreme executive,
legislative, and judiciary magistracies should be drawn from the
same fountain of authority, the people, through channels having
no communication whatever with one another. Perhaps such a plan
of constructing the several departments would be less difficult
in practice than it may in contemplation appear. Some
difficulties, however, and some additional expense would attend
the execution of it. Some deviations, therefore, from the
principle must be admitted. In the constitution of the judiciary
department in particular, it might be inexpedient to insist
rigorously on the principle: first, because peculiar
qualifications being essential in the members, the primary
consideration ought to be to select that mode of choice which
best secures these qualifications; secondly, because the
permanent tenure by which the appointments are held in that
department, must soon destroy all sense of dependence on the
authority conferring them.

It is equally evident, that the members of each department should be
as little dependent as possible on those of the others, for the
emoluments annexed to their offices. Were the executive magistrate, or
the judges, not independent of the legislature in this particular,
their independence in every other would be merely nominal.

But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several
powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who
administer each department the necessary constitutional means and
personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision
for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate
to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional
rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such
devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But
what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on
human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If
angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on
government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be
administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you
must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the
next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is,
no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has
taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect
of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human
affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed
in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim
is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that
each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every
individual may be a sentinel over the public rights. These inventions
of prudence cannot be less requisite in the distribution of the
supreme powers of the State.

But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of
self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority
necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to
divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by
different modes of election and different principles of action, as
little connected with each other as the nature of their common
functions and their common dependence on the society will admit. It
may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by
still further precautions. As the weight of the legislative authority
requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the executive
may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified. An
absolute negative on the legislature appears, at first view, to be the
natural defense with which the executive magistrate should be armed.
But perhaps it would be neither altogether safe nor alone sufficient.
On ordinary occasions it might not be exerted with the requisite
firmness, and on extraordinary occasions it might be perfidiously
abused. May not this defect of an absolute negative be supplied by
some qualified connection between this weaker department and the
weaker branch of the stronger department, by which the latter may be
led to support the constitutional rights of the former, without being
too much detached from the rights of its own department? If the
principles on which these observations are founded be just, as I
persuade myself they are, and they be applied as a criterion to the
several State constitutions, and to the federal Constitution it will
be found that if the latter does not perfectly correspond with them,
the former are infinitely less able to bear such a test.

There are, moreover, two considerations particularly applicable to the
federal system of America, which place that system in a very
interesting point of view.

First. In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people
is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the
usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into
distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of
America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between
two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each
subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double
security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments
will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled
by itself.

Second. It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the
society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of
the society against the injustice of the other part.  Different
interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a
majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority
will be insecure. There are but two methods of providing against this
evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the
majority that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending
in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will
render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very
improbable, if not impracticable. The first method prevails in all
governments possessing an hereditary or self-appointed authority.
This, at best, is but a precarious security; because a power
independent of the society may as well espouse the unjust views of the
major, as the rightful interests of the minor party, and may possibly
be turned against both parties.  The second method will be exemplified
in the federal republic of the United States. Whilst all authority in
it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society
itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of
citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be
in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. In a
free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that
for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity
of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The
degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of
interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent
of country and number of people comprehended under the same
government. This view of the subject must particularly recommend a
proper federal system to all the sincere and considerate friends of
republican government, since it shows that in exact proportion as the
territory of the Union may be formed into more circumscribed
Confederacies, or States oppressive combinations of a majority will be
facilitated: the best security, under the republican forms, for the
rights of every class of citizens, will be diminished: and
consequently the stability and independence of some member of the
government, the only other security, must be proportionately
increased. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil
society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be
obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily
unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as
in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured
against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state,
even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of
their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak
as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful
factions or parties be gradnally induced, by a like motive, to wish
for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as
the more powerful. It can be little doubted that if the State of Rhode
Island was separated from the Confederacy and left to itself, the
insecurity of rights under the popular form of government within such
narrow limits would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of
factious majorities that some power altogether independent of the
people would soon be called for by the voice of the very factions
whose misrule had proved the necessity of it. In the extended republic
of the United States, and among the great variety of interests,
parties, and sects which it embraces, a coalition of a majority of the
whole society could seldom take place on any other principles than
those of justice and the general good; whilst there being thus less
danger to a minor from the will of a major party, there must be less
pretext, also, to provide for the security of the former, by
introducing into the government a will not dependent on the latter,
or, in other words, a will independent of the society itself. It is no
less certain than it is important, notwithstanding the contrary
opinions which have been entertained, that the larger the society,
provided it lie within a practical sphere, the more duly capable it
will be of self-government. And happily for the REPUBLICAN CAUSE, the
practicable sphere may be carried to a very great extent, by a
judicious modification and mixture of the FEDERAL PRINCIPLE.

PUBLIUS.

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