Thread by @ThePublius2020

Dear America,

I want to share my favorite snippets from The Federalist, No. 10 (Madison). This essay is the apex in American political thought. Madison presciently illuminates the challenges human nature poses and how our Constitution seeks to act as a guard rail.

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The Federalist essays (85 in total) were written by Hamilton, Madison and Jay after the Constitution was produced by the 1787 Constitutional Convention. To become effective, it had to be ratified by a majority of the states.

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The Federalist essays were written to convince the public that ratification – and thus, a union – was in everyone’s best interest.

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The snippets from my favorite essay (No. 10) are incredibly on point 232 years later:

“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.”

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“The instability, injustice, and confusion, introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished.”

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“[O]ur citizens [complain] 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 justice, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.”

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“[A] factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.”

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“Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an aliment, without which it instantly expires.”

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“But it could not be a 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.”

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“As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.”

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“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.”

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“The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacles to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties, is the first object of government.”

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“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 …”

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“… or to persons whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have divided … mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them disposed to vex and oppress each other, than to co-operate for their common good.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“By what means in this object attainable? Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority, at the same time, must be prevented.”

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“[O]r the majority, having such co-existent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“The question resulting is, whether small or extensive republics are most favorable to the election of proper guardians of the public weal; and it is clearly decided in favor of the latter.”

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“In the extent and proper structure of the union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to the republican government.”

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“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.”

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