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Mission Statement. Corporate Governance. Stay Updated. Rights and Permissions. Email Newsletter Sign-up Page. 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, adverse 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.
Does Madison's argument contradict the premise of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal"? 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. Today, it may seem impossible to imagine the U. This was no accident. The framers of the new Constitution desperately wanted to avoid the divisions that had ripped England apart in the bloody civil wars of the 17th century.
But Thomas Jefferson , who was serving a diplomatic post in France during the Constitutional Convention, believed it was a mistake not to provide for different political parties in the new government. They want to rule and to be seen to rule rather than to serve the community anonymously and without calling attention to themselves.
You might gain a preference with quiet satisfaction, but for a partisan, nothing beats the joy of a victory celebration. In this, partisanship is indeed like, not playing, but winning a game. Justice introduces a distinction between groups that seek it and those who do not, which is the basis for a distinction between party and faction. In Federalist 10 James Madison defines a faction clearly but not quite as simply unjust.
Passion is a further embarrassment to the economic understanding of partisanship that underlies political science today. This does not mean that the two sorts are identical, or that party is necessarily faction, but both must be treated as if they were.
Zeal for the good of a free society can be as disruptive as active evil against it. This also does not mean that public spiritedness does not exist or has no effect, and that all politics is either interest or zeal; rather, politics must be as ready to deal with the passion for justice as carefully as that for injustice. To believe and write as if passion were reducible to interest, as do our political scientists, is to overlook the ideas for which partisans have zeal and to minimize the mutual animosity as well as the importance of their disputes.
It must be said, however, that Madison does not show interest in partisan ideas. Each of these has its way of speaking of justice, so that there is an oligarchic and a democratic justice, and neither grasps the whole of justice.
Oligarchic justice is inequality, and democratic justice is equality. In their partisanship they disregard the personal element and judge badly, he says; they agree that justice is equality but disagree whether it is equality for all or for equal persons. Each party goes a certain distance in defining justice but not the whole way. Each party is partial , so that party is a part of the whole. Yet each party presents itself as a whole, somehow including the part, democratic or oligarchic, that it does not favor.
Democrats give a democratic view of oligarchy, and oligarchs their view of democracy, and Aristotle in his analysis helps them to acquire recognition of the other in their own terms.
Partisans are not simply speaking of themselves in their self-love, but giving a partisan opinion of the whole, as represented in a partial opinion of justice. If the attempt could succeed, which is of course very unlikely, the result would be a harmonious, complete whole. Madison, following the modern political philosophy of John Locke particularly, assumes and begins from individuals who do not belong to a whole but must create one by consent.
Aristotle makes a point of the reasoning of parties, carrying on and developing an argument between them throughout his Politics. He admits that parties are typically factious, but rather as partially just than unconcerned with justice.
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